The speck emerged from the low gray clouds and grew steadily in the distance. "There it is!" shouted Chet Morton triumphantly. He pointed his arm to the north, joining hundreds of other waving arms in the crowd. Frank and Joe Hardy glanced briefly at the grin lighting up their friend's face before looking off into the distance again. The skirt of cloud had lifted in the west and the late afternoon sun bathed the advancing object in a golden light. "The LZ129, the largest zeppelin that has ever flown!" Chet could not help announcing. He never had a doubt that the airship would arrive sooner or later, though delayed by several hours because of unfavorable weather over the Atlantic, but Chet had been keen to bring his friends to the Naval air station, so that every minute of waiting had made him more anxious.
Joe Hardy, younger by a year of the two famous sleuthing Hardy brothers, was mesmerized by the sight of the gigantic airship. It was scarcely believable that something the size of an ocean liner could float through the air. It moved with a solemn steadiness as befitted the unchallenged master of its aerial realm. Joe imagined that a whale might swim through the ocean depths with the same sort of majesty. As the airship approached minute by minute, its grand scale became ever clearer. The men in the ground crew were reduced to insect-like proportions. Every detail of the airborne giant provoked a twinge of joy in the heart of the young Hardy: the sleek, streamlined shape of its hull; the silvery covering fabric; even the steady, powerful drone of the four engines.
"Don't let Iola catch you looking at another girl that way," joked Frank. The tragically doomed Iola Morton was Joe's favorite date and Chet's sister.
Joe scarcely noticed the gibe. "One of these days I'm going to take Iola for a flight in that thing," he said dreamily.
"Lucky girl!" said Chet. "It's four hundred dollars for a round-trip ticket."
"That's three months' wages for a working man," mused Frank.
If Frank had been inclined to be captivated by the airship as his brother was, one prominent feature would have broken the spell. On the zeppelin's massive upper and lower vertical fins were boldly painted black swastikas in white circles against red backgrounds. The swastikas had to be forty feet in diameter. "This is a flying billboard for the Nazi regime," Frank muttered under his breath. For a moment, he imagined the waiting crowd at the airfield as a grandiose open-air political rally.
Chet smiled to think that one of his friends had caught "zeppelin fever" as he had. "Look at those engines driving the four propellers. They're five hundred and sixty seven horsepower Daimler-Benz diesels. They drive the zeppelin to a top speed of eighty miles per hour. Imagine that!"
The LZ129 was within a few hundred feet of the mooring mast, a black, truncated version of the Eiffel Tower. The engines were turned off. Two heavy rope lines were dropped from the nose of the zeppelin to be taken up by the men of the ground crew. These were mostly uniformed Navy men but there were also civilians, eager for a bit of work in those difficult times. The airship hovered some two hundred feet above the flat sandy surface of the field. As the boys stood in the pale sunlight they watched the men heaving on the ropes, dragging down the nose of the airship. At the belly of the great vessel the boys could see the ship's officers in the control cabin.
"It was worth the fifty-mile drive to get to this airfield," Frank conceded. "I'm surprised there aren't more people here."
"Yes, well, last year there were huge crowds," replied Chet. "And you can't imagine the number of press. They were all fighting over the phones to file their stories! But this year it's just routine transportation. That's the way it should be. There's going to be a whole fleet of zeppelins like this one. They'll build terminals in all the major cities in the world. This is just the beginning of the zeppelin age! I can tell you now, it's the future of aviation in the twentieth century!"
Joe felt his chest swell with a sense of well-being. How fortunate he felt to be living at this historical moment, to bear witness to this age of technological marvels.
"All these technological marvels are great," said Frank, "but aren't we supposed to be meeting your friend?" He turned to Chet, who was a trifle embarrassed.
"He's not really a close friend. I met him through my interest in rocketry. He's a graduate engineering student at New York University. He asked me if I was interested in meeting a German scientist coming on this flight."
"Ooh, is he one of those creepy Nazi scientists with a metal hand?" said Joe breaking into a broad grin. "Is he working on some top secret weapons project?"
"Um, I don't think he has a metal hand."
"I was joking, Chet."
"He is working on rockets, though."
The brothers looked at their friend seriously. "Perhaps we shouldn't be talking about this in the open," said Frank.
There was a furrow on the brow of Chet's soft and pleasant face. "Let's go to the arrivals building." The element of secrecy and international intrigue in the matter had not occurred to him.
The building used as a waiting area for passengers was a drab structure with concrete-block walls and a steel roof. The walls were painted that glossy industrial shade of off-white familiar to generations of school children. As Chet had explained, the Naval base was a makeshift facility and would some day be replaced by a suitably luxurious zeppelin terminal. Frank was struck by the contrast to the posh crowd assembled within. The men had woolen overcoats that looked like they had just been in the drycleaner. Their hats appeared never to have been touched by a bead of rain or a mote of dust. Many of the women wore fur or fur-trimmed jackets. Frank smelled the mingled scents of perfume and eau de Cologne.
"There's Craig Shelbourne," said Chet, pointing out a small young man. He had closely-cropped red hair and small blue eyes. The boys went over and Chet made the necessary introductions. Shelbourne, in turn, introduced the two men seated beside him. The older one was short and compactly built. He was bald at the top of his head with curly graying hair on the sides. Frank thought he looked like a harried academic, with more important things to think about than the state of his dress. This was Erwin Coville, chair of the engineering department. The younger man was in his mid-thirties, a tall, lanky man with wire-rimmed glasses. His blond hair was combed over and plastered down rather severely, leaving a straight, pink line of exposed scalp. He was introduced as Professor Martin Lombard.
A trickle of passengers entered the arrivals building, having passed through U.S. Customs. The boys did not have to wait long for their expected guest, Professor Otto Heinze. A sailor was helping him with his two large suitcases. He carried his own battered, brown leather briefcase. He smiled warmly to see them and lifted his hat in greeting, revealing dark wavy hair. Joe thought that Heinze's brown eyes were very expressive. He certainly did not fit any stereotype of the sinister Nazi scientist. Joe made a mental note to himself not to read so many comic books.
"How was the trip, Otto?" asked Prof. Coville, shaking the German's hand with gruff affection.
"Beautiful! It is so smooth you cannot realize you are moving. We went through a storm front, even, with hardly any disturbance."
"The views over New York City must have been breathtaking."
"Yes, we flew very low. But I am even more delighted by the ever-changing play of light on the ocean waves. It inspires the creative imagination."
"And the food? I hear it's as good as an expensive restaurant," questioned Chet eagerly.
"Indeed! There's a fine selection of wines and liquors as well," Heinze answered, sharing Chet's enthusiasm. He grinned and Frank thought he and Lombard exchanged a look.
"What about the smoking lounge?" continued Chet, speaking rapidly. "I understand the walls are all metal and they're insulated with asbestos so there can't be a fire."
"I wouldn't know about that," Heinze laughed, putting a hand on Chet's shoulder.
"Your English is excellent, Mr. Heinze," said Joe.
"I was a student in America for some years. I did graduate studies at New York University. One of my teachers was this fine gentleman, Prof. Coville, and Martin was a classmate."
"Don't be so formal, Otto. You're not my student now. Call me Erwin." Coville gave his former student a pat on the back.
Lombard was scanning the waiting room crowd with an clinical eye. Frank followed his gaze but didn't think that anyone else in the room showed the slightest interest in them. They were all preoccupied with their own family reunions or already taking their luggage out the exit.
Lombard said cooly, "Professor, I would happier if we made a change to our plans and drove Otto all the way into the city."
"But we've already reserved tickets for the train. He's just arrived! Surely you don't expect anything to happen so soon?"
"No, but all the same…"
Professor Coville turned to Chet. "You will make it to Dr. Heinze's public lecture on Wednesday, won't you?"
"I've got it circled on my calendar! Room 109 of the engineering building on the University Heights campus, eight p.m."
"We'd better let you and your friends go then. You have a long drive ahead of you."