Ames said the Brungarian had somehow fashioned a crude weapon and overpowered the turnkey. Disguising himself in the guard's uniform, he had slipped out before his victim was discovered. "He must have had outside help within close call," Ames ended, "because he seems to have made a clean getaway. The State Police have spread a dragnet, but it doesn't look hopeful." "He'll probably duck out of the country pronto," Tom surmised. "Anyhow, this won't stop us, Harlan." By nightfall the little fleet of three undersea craft was speeding southward at periscope depth. Tom alternated at the controls with Zimby, two hours on and two hours off. Sleep came in snatches, the crewmen flopping on their bunks as the chance offered. Chow's tasty meals helped break the monotony. It was the following day when they reached the missile search area. Tom surfaced the _Sea Hound_ and reversed blade pitch, then gunned the rotor turbines for an aerial reconnaissance flight, while the jetmarine and the other seacopter stood by in the water. "Brand my guppies, it's some ocean, eh, boss?" Chow remarked in an awed voice. "Big enough, all right," Tom agreed with a grin. "And plenty of water to search in." "No sign of the Navy," Zimby said. Tom nodded. "They pulled out on schedule." "What about them Brungarian sidewinders?" put in Chow. "That's the question!" Tom swooped down to rejoin the other two craft. "We'll keep an eye out for enemy blips while we do our prospecting." Rather than lose time trying to contact Bud, Tom decided to let him find the _Sea Hound_. Accordingly, he switched off the antidetection system and ordered all ships to submerge. Arv's seacopter and Mel's jetmarine were to maintain close formation and stand guard while Tom's craft did the actual searching. Now the missile hunt began. Tom had plotted a concentric search pattern, focused on the probable position worked out by the task-force computers. After checking his fix on the automatic navigator, Tom switched on the Damonscope and steered the _Sea Hound_ on a gradually circling course. The Damonscope was mounted in a blister on the hull, its camera lens pointing toward the ocean floor. The automatic developing film would record any trace of fluorescence, and a red light would signal this result to the pilot's cabin. Minutes went by as the _Sea Hound_ nosed slowly along through the gray-green gloom, its sister craft flanking it a hundred yards on either side. They were moving only a fathom or so above the bottom. "A blip at eleven o'clock!" the sonarman called out suddenly. Tom's pulse quickened. "Moving straight toward us," the sonarman added. Tom surrendered the controls to Zimby long enough to dart over and study the sonarscope. "I've a hunch it's Bud," he told the others.