e rockets fired only when high in the air,
where people wouldn't notice."

"Two did," Scotty reminded him. "Remember? We had two interviews where
the people saw spurts of flame."

"Sure," Rick agreed, "but they had no idea it was a rocket taking off
from a balloon. And only two out of the whole bunch even noticed flame
at all."

Steve nodded. "You've hit it, Rick. It's the only answer that makes
sense."

"Not until we know what data were collected by the rockoons," Rick said
stubbornly. "That's the whole key. Nothing will really make sense until
we know that."

"We ran the dates and times of sightings through the computer with a lot
of other dates and times for various things," Steve explained. "I had a
hunch, but the computer turned it into good comparative data."

"What data?" Scotty demanded.

"Every single sighting you collected coincided with the launching of a
research rocket from Wallops Island!"

The boys sat back, openmouthed. Rick said, "So that's why the glow from
Wallops Island in the south-eastern sky was so significant. That's what
put you on the trail!"

"Right," Steve agreed. "The yellow glow is from sodium vapor rockets
fired from Wallops. The rockets allow visual measurement of
meteorological data. People around here are used to seeing them to the
southeast, over Wallops. When I saw that sightings had been made over
Swamp Creek at the time of sodium shots, I got an idea. It wasn't much
to go on, but it was at least a good clue. The computer did the rest."

"Then Lefty Camillion and his friends have been intercepting data from
our rocket launchings at Wallops," Scotty said unbelievingly. "But why?
How could Lefty use data like that? It's all straight, unclassified
scientific and meteorological stuff. He's no scientist."

Steve grinned. "I doubt that he even knows what the data are. He and his
friends are a bunch of chuckleheads of the very worst kind. But about
what he does with the data--Joe Vitalli has been doing some
investigating along that line."

Vitalli nodded. "With the FBI. They put agents on the case and found out
Lefty had been in touch with the Soviet Embassy in Washington, through a
third secretary whose function it is to gather various kinds of
scientific intelligence. We're not absolutely certain, but it looks very
much as though Lefty plans to sell his data tapes to the Soviets."

"So that's why JANIG has moved into the case," Scotty concluded.

"On the nose," Steve agr