scovered?"

Steve's lips tightened, then he said: "_Heavy water!_"

CHAPTER IV

Project X

"Heavy water!" Hartson Brant exclaimed softly.

Rick and Scotty looked at each other blankly.

And at that moment, Barby completed the connection and called to Steve.
He strode to the phone and picked it up. "Who's this? All right. Steve
Ames here. Take down these names. Hobart Zircon. Richard Brant. Donald
Scott. You'll find full data on them in the files. Prepare travel orders
and get tickets for all three to Hong Kong via the first plane leaving
New York after 7:00 p.m. tomorrow night. Arrange for a letter of credit
in the usual amount on the National City Bank of Washington, and have
the bank make arrangements with all their Far East branches. Put all
three on the pay roll at the same grades they held before. Get passports
for them with visitor's visas for the Philippines, Hong Kong,
Indo-China, Indonesia, Siam, and China. We don't know where they'll end
up. Then put all that stuff in an envelope and get it to me here at
Spindrift by special messenger ... wait, never mind that. I'll send Mike
back right away, and he can bring it to me. Now read those instructions
back."

Steve listened for a moment. "Right. Get going. What? Oh, charge the
whole thing to a new case file. Mark it Project X."

He disconnected and turned to the group. "Now," he said grimly, "let's
talk turkey."

He nodded at Rick and Scotty. "Zircon said he could leave in the
morning, if necessary. That's rushing you a little too much. So I've
given you until tomorrow night."

Rick grinned. Once things started to move with Steve Ames, they moved
strictly jet-propelled.

"What are we supposed to do?" Scotty asked.

"Find Bradley. If you can. But don't spend too much time searching.
Getting all the dope--and I mean _all_--on that heavy water is the
reason for your going out there. If you find Bradley, he can help. Maybe
Chahda can help, too. But never forget for a minute that tracking down
that heavy water is your mission."

"If we don't find Bradley, we won't know how to get started," Rick
pointed out.

Steve grunted. "No? If I believed that, I'd have gone somewhere else for
help. I came here because I knew Spindrift could give me ingenuity as
well as scientific knowledge. And you hadn't better let me down!"

"We won't let you down," Scotty assured him.

Barby chimed in indignantly, "Of course they won't."

Steve smiled. "Don't worry.