Danger Zone (4 page)

***

Brriing!

As Monday's early light broke through the windows Frank dreamed his dad was trying to reach him by phone. It rang and rang, but no one answered it. No matter how hard he tried, Frank couldn't move. His arms were pinned beneath him, his mouth was locked shut. . . .

Brriiing!

Frank reached out and grabbed the phone off its hook. "Hello?" he said, his voice groggy and muffled.

"Rise and shine, lazybones!" a reply came.

Frank shot up in bed. Every last ounce of sleepiness had suddenly vanished.

"Who is it, Frank?" Joe asked, sitting up, too.

"Don't you think you fellows ought to get a move on?" The voice was warbly and mechanical, exactly like the one Frank had heard the day before.

"Who are you?" Frank blurted out.

The answer sent an icy chill up Frank's spine. "Don't waste your time with foolish questions. Your mother has only ten hours left to live."

***

'A cheerful little place," Joe said, looking out the van window.

A jagged spiral of barbed wire glinted in the morning sunlight on top of a grim, ten-foot- high brick wall that stretched ahead of them for a quarter mile. Frank followed it until he came to a stop sign. There the otherwise solid wall gave way to a metal gate. Beside the gate was a Plexiglas booth with a small white-on- black sign that read "Foreman Aerospace/Authorized Personnel Only."

Frank turned into the gate, prompting the guard in the booth to lean into his desk microphone.

"Can I help you?" The guard's voice sounded distant and tinny as it squawked out over a small loudspeaker next to Frank and Joe. Next to the loudspeaker was a grating with the words Speak Here printed underneath.

"Two cheeseburgers, one large fries, a root beer, and a shake," Joe said under his breath.

"I'm sorry," the voice returned.

Frank gave his brother a sharp glance. "Uh, we're here to see Fenton Hardy. We understand he's here on a business trip."

"Who's he visiting?" the guard asked.

"I'm not sure," Frank replied. "But he came in Thursday. I'm sure his name is on the sign-in sheet."

The loudspeaker fell silent for a few seconds. "No, I'm checking all the way back to Monday now, and I don't see any Hardy. That's H - A - R - D - Y."

"Is it possible he could have gotten through another way?" Joe called out.

"No, sir. If the President of the United States came to visit, he'd have to come through this gate, just like you. I'm sorry, but I can't let you in. If there's someone inside you can call - "

"No, thanks," Frank said, cutting him off. "We'll call him at his office. I guess he hasn't left yet. But if he does show up, could you tell him to call the van immediately?"

"Just - the van, sir?"

"He'll know what it means. Thank you."

Frank backed onto the street, staring dully behind him.

"What if he's in there, Frank?" Joe said. "He could be using an alias, he could have pulled some strings ..."

Frank heaved a sigh. "Let's try our luck at the other places before we start second-guessing."

Using the map, Joe guided Frank to the Center for Experimental Research, a boxy, ten-story office building made of glass and steel. They parked at the curb of the building's small, well-kept lawn and walked inside.

A guard stood behind a gray metal desk. On his green khaki uniform was a name tag that read "R. Muldoon." He doodled with a pen in the margins of a half-finished word-hunt game. A telephone and a closed sign-in book sat at one edge of the desk.

"Excuse me," Joe said, "we're here for a meeting with Fenton Hardy. Has he come in today?"

Muldoon didn't look up from his puzzle. "You got a clearance pass?"

"Uh, I'm sure Mr. Hardy will give us clearance. Would you check?"

"No clearance, no entry."

Frank stepped forward. "Can't you at least tell us if he's here?"

'No clearance, no entry." Muldoon circled a word that went diagonally across his puzzle.

Joe casually turned the sign-in book around to face him and started flipping through.

Instantly Muldoon's arm shot out and slammed the book shut. "Hey, what do you think this is, some kind of game? I got a job to do, understand? Now get out of here before I call the authorities!"

"Hey, I wouldn't want you to do that," Joe said, looking at him levelly. "You might lose your concentration - then you'd never see the word defective running down the right side of your puzzle."

Muldoon smacked his pen again. "That does it." He lifted the phone and said, "Muldoon here. I've got a situation four at the front desk."

Within seconds a tall, trim man with a mane of silver hair emerged from a door beside the elevators. Walking briskly toward them, he gave a calm, confident smile. "Gentlemen," he called out in a booming bass voice. "What can I do for you?"

"These guys are trying to get in here without no clearance, Mr. Straeger," Muldoon said.

"Without any clearance, Robert," the older man said. "Double negatives fell into disrepute after Shakespeare's time."

Muldoon frowned and looked back at his puzzle.

"Karl Straeger, head of security," the gray-haired man said. He gestured toward a corner of the lobby. "This way, please, gentlemen."

As the three of them walked over Frank said, "Sorry to cause confusion, Mr. Straeger, but we need to talk to Fenton Hardy immediately. We have reason to believe he's in a meeting here."

Straeger mulled over Frank's request. "Hardy - Hardy - the name isn't familiar."

"If you'd just let us look at the sign-in book," Joe insisted.

"Of course," Straeger said. "But I can tell you right now, all visitors' names are logged in my office, and I make it my job to learn every one. After thirty years in this business I've learned how to remember. I assure you that the person you mention has not entered this building."

"He told us he would be in an important research meeting," Frank insisted. "I'm sure this is the place he mentioned."

Straeger smiled. "Ah. He probably said the Center for Environmental Research. Often people confuse us. You see, we're not actually a research organization, but rather a clearinghouse of sorts. We evaluate research proposals for the government."

Before Frank could reply, Straeger held up his hand. "It certainly isn't my job to make your search difficult, though. And in my advancing years my mind has been known to slip." He led them back to the desk, where he told Muldoon, "Let these two young men read the logbook."

With a wink Straeger walked back to his office.

Frank and Joe scoured the book's entries for the last week, but Straeger was right. Fenton Hardy had not signed in.

"What'd I tell you?" Muldoon grumbled as the brothers turned to walk away.

***

Next stop was Prometheus Computing, a small complex of squat brick buildings connected to one another. Over the entrance of the main building was a carving of a man chained to a rock on the top of a mountain. Above him vultures wheeled in the air, preparing to pounce. But the man was oblivious to them as he hunched over a computer and typed furiously. The word Prometheus was carved underneath him.

"The Beast would be at home here," Joe remarked.

As at Foreman Aerospace, the buildings were surrounded by a fence with a guard booth. Frank and Joe drove up to see a young uniformed guard fiddling with a laptop computer on his table.

"Checkmate!" the man shouted, punching his fist in the air.

"Uh, excuse us," Frank said.

The man's face reddened when he saw Frank and Joe. "Sorry. I just beat the machine at chess for the first time in my life!"

"Great," Frank said without enthusiasm. "Listen, we need to see a man named Fenton Hardy. Is he here today?"

The guard fell silent for a moment. His eyes darted from Frank to Joe. "May I ask why you're here?"

Joe practically lunged over to the driver's window. "He's here, isn't he?" he said, his voice charged with excitement and relief.

The man stared back warily. "Uh, just a minute. Don't go away." Keeping his eyes on Frank and Joe, he picked up a phone and mumbled something into it. He nodded twice, then hung up.

In front of them the gate swung open. "Take a right, then a left into courtyard B," the guard said.

Frank followed the instructions, coming to a solid metal gate marked B that lifted slowly. A quadrangle of grass was revealed, surrounded by four ivy-covered walls. It was completely empty.

From behind them another guard appeared as if from nowhere. "Go ahead," he urged. "Someone'll meet you inside."

Frank gave his brother an uncomfortable look. Joe shrugged back, and they drove inside.

The van jounced as it went over the grass. In the middle of the quadrangle Frank turned the engine off.

"What is this?" Joe asked, looking around. "Where's Da - "

They both spun around at a loud metallic boom behind them. The metal gate had crashed to the ground, sealing off the exit.

Then came the slapping noises. Each window in the building was being thrown open, and from the second floor up long ropes flopped to the ground.

"I think we have visitors," Frank said.

Suddenly the walls of the building came alive. Clutching the ropes, a dozen people rappeled downward. Within seconds they dropped to the ground and surrounded the van.

Frank gulped. The commando uniforms weren't very welcoming, nor were the flak vests and gas masks.

But the worst - definitely the worst - were the submachine guns pointed at their heads!