Sight Unseen Read Free

till the others get here.”
    Dzeloski began by saying he’d first started Northstar in 1931, when he’d been able to set up a refrigerator company cheaply
     after the Crash. For several years the company had done poorly, had almost gone under three times, until Dzeloski had managed
     to land a contract to make field refrigerators for the U.S. Army. Then the Army Air Corps needed some special parts machined
     for its newest biplanes, and one thing led to another, till now—with the addition of some bright young engineering types—Northstar
     invented and developed “devices” for the Air Corps. To keep what they did under wraps, the Air Corps had even come up with
     the money to move them into this plant out here with the potato farmers.
    “That marine guard at the gate is certainly an advertisement,” Lockwood said.
    Dzeloski grimaced. “He’s a case of too little and too late. We didn’t have anyone but our own staff till this morning, depending
     on the loneliness of this spot to keep us invisible.”
    A fast knock at the door announced a tall, nervous-looking man of thirty-five, whom Dzeloski introduced as Stanley Greer,
     “our chief engineer.” Before Lockwood could sit, an alert-looking woman in her early thirties with a mane of fiery red hair
     entered. Dr. Dzeloski introduced her as “Myra Rodman—our head of research—our own Madame Curie.”
    Myra stepped forward with her hand outstretched and surprised Lockwood with the firmness of her grip.
    “Haven’t you worn out that joke, Josef?” she asked Dzeloski, who only beamed at her.
    She was something to beam at, Lockwood told himself as he sat down. She looked intelligent, bright, crisp, and female as all
     getout. The room had taken on a snappier, more alert tone just on her entry. Lockwood felt his nostrils open with excitement
     and smiled at himself. The three men averted their eyes as Myra sat with suave grace and crossed her legs.
    “Can any of you tell me whether this missing object is animal, mineral, or vegetable?” Lockwood asked them.
    The three shot each other fast glances.
    “He doesn’t have clearance yet, does he, Myra?” asked Dzeloski.
    Before she could answer, another knock at the door, and a WAC burst in with a folder she delivered silently to Myra before
     she withdrew just as quickly. Lockwood saw his name on the folder’s cover. Myra opened it and read silently for several long
     seconds.
    “Congratulations, Mr. William Lockwood, born 1901, age thirty-seven, claims investigator at Transatlantic for five years,
     Columbia law graduate, and hero of New York’s Fighting 69th.”
    Lockwood gaped. “You’ve got all that there? This quickly?”
    “And much more,” she said in her smart bright way. “You’ve passed security. You can tell him anything you want to about the
     missing object, Josef. But not about anything else.”
    “Terrific!” said Josef. “A bombsight, Mr. Lockwood, that’s what was stolen last night.”
    “A bombsight?” Lockwood asked, amazed. “Five hundred pounds of bombsight? $75,000 worth?”
    Myra and Greer gave wry smiles, and Josef chuckled. “$106,000 worth of bombsight, my dear fellow. Over the past four years,
     we’ve developed three bombsights, each one more complex than the last. This one is for the next XB-17 Flying Fortress bomber.”
    Puzzled, Lockwood gestured feebly and asked, “But what’s so complicated?”
    Greer answered, “Mr. Lockwood, when a plane is flying at 15,00 feet at 300 miles per hour, with a bank of clouds below and
     a wind of 20 miles an hour blowing across the bomb’s path, it takes more than a tube with a couple of cross hairs to calculate
     when the bombs should be released.”
    Myra took up the explanation, “We have devices now that can put a 500-pound bomb, at night, within 2000 feet of the target.
     The bombsight that was stolen last night was a working prototype that I expected would put that same 500-pounder within 150
     feet of where we want