Passport to Danger (6 page)

“Whoa, there he is,” Joe said, pointing out Montie Roberts, who was coaching his team on the field.

“I'm not surprised he's here,” Frank said. “Unless I press charges for assault, that scene with him last night will be considered just a street fight.”

“You're talking about Montie, I'll bet,” Jacques said, walking up to the Hardys and following Frank's gaze. “He was bailed out last night. And he's barred from any contact with either of you guys.”

“Sounds good to me,” Frank said. His mind flashed to Montie's powerful punch.

“Plus he's restricted from leaving the city. That's got to be because of the suspicion that he had something to do with Coach Sant'Anna's assault.”

But if we're right about the message Sant'Anna left,
Frank thought,
Montie might be innocent after all
.

“When the judge told him he had to stay in Paris,” Jacques added, “Montie was his usual self. He told the judge he had no intention of leaving; he had a tournament to win!”

“Sounds like him,” Joe said, nodding his head.

Frank felt the gold walnut in his pocket.
But what about the fireworks sabotage?
he thought.
I've got to check this out.

“Oh, by the way,” Jacques said, as if reading Frank's mind. “They're going ahead with the fireworks after all.”

“They are?” Joe exclaimed. “So they must have figured out how the accident happened. Maybe it was just a fluke occurrence.”

“Hey, guys,” Jacques said. “I have a proposal for the two of you.” He hesitated a few minutes, then began again. “I didn't really know who you were until I heard the news. I'll bet you're working on both these incidents—the attack on Sant'Anna and the fireworks incident.”

“Which might be nothing,” Joe reminded him.

“Right,” Jacques said. “Well, I want to join up with you. The three of us will make a great team. And if I'm in on the case, I'll be able to beat the other reporters to the story. We solve the case, and I'll have the lead byline in every paper in Paris. And I really can help, too. I'm familiar with the local scene and have had a lot of experience as an investigative reporter. I can cut some corners for you and maybe even open some doors.”

“At this point you already know everything we do,” Frank said. “So it looks like we're already working together.”

“Is your dad in Paris?” Jacques asked. “Is he working on the case too?”

“Actually he might be coming in for the tournament,” Joe said.
If Jacques is going to be hanging around,
he thought,
he might run into Dad, so I'd better set it up so it makes sense.

“Great!” Jacques said. “But for now, it'll be just the three of us—saving Paris from the saboteurs!”

All the final walk-throughs and rehearsals went really well, and the volunteer coordinators finally declared that the crew was ready. During the dinner break, Montie Roberts definitely went out of his way to avoid getting too close to the Hardys. Several people commented to Frank about the fight, but he downplayed the whole thing.

When the specatators started filing in, Frank slipped away from the others and headed for the small compound where the Macri Magnifico employees were setting up the fireworks display. He wanted to ask Sylvio about his computer program and whether it really had been tampered with. But the area was completely roped off, and several guards were posted along the ropes. Frank had to leave without even seeing Sylvio.

Le Stade filled quickly for the opening ceremonies. The spectators had come from all over Europe and South America, and there was a large crowd from the United States to support its team too.

“I'm starting to get pumped,” Joe told his brother. They were standing on the sidelines with the rest of the equipment squad volunteers watching a marching band lead the parade of teams onto the field.

“Me too,” Frank agreed. “But I wish I'd talked to Sylvio.” He couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right. He looked around the stands, scanning the exits. All he could see were at least a hundred thousand people yelling, colorful banners waving, groups holding up signs in different languages, and uniformed guards, who were also scanning the crowd.

Down on the field the marching band stood at attention at one end, but a rock band held center stage. The spectators first cheered for their teams as they were introduced. Then they screamed and applauded for the singers, dancers, and musicians that performed. The music roared from the speakers, and a young French singer held her own over the crashing chords.

The field filled up with performers in bright costumes. The music grew louder and the beat more hypnotic. It sounded as if everyone within the walls of Le Stade were dancing and singing and cheering and yelling.

Shadows fell over the stands as the sun glided down to the horizon. Joe's whole body seemed to vibrate with the drumbeats and the rocking crowd. When he heard the first pop from the opposite end of the stadium, he jumped. “Looks like Sylvio and
the gang are getting started,” he yelled to Frank.

Although his brother was only a few yards away, he didn't seem to hear Joe. “No way he can hear me over this noise,” Joe said to himself. The voices in the crowd seemed to blend into one huge roar. Joe heard another pop and then another. Instinctively he looked up to watch for the fireworks explosion. Another noise, however, brought his attention back to Le Stade.

The crowd roar suddenly stopped. Joe's pulse seemed to stop too. For an instant all the sounds seemed muffled, as if someone had stuffed wads of cotton in Joe's ears.

Then the sound charged up again. The crowd's roaring changed to cries and shrieks, punctuated by popping and crackling and hissing. Small explosions lit up Le Stade as the lights in the suspended roof burst with shattering echoes and torrents of glass.

Joe realized he'd been holding his breath, so he gasped for air. Then he leaped into action. Security guards materialized from every exit and began shuffling people to safety.

“Now's when the safety-conscious design of this place shows its stuff,” Joe said to Frank as they pushed a couple of spectators in wheelchairs through the exit. They went back inside, joining other volunteers to help the evacuation. It went like clockwork.

Emptying the full house was a piece of cake. Joe was used to going out to the concession area of a stadium and winding back and forth along ramps and hairpin turns until he finally got down to the main-floor gates. At Le Stade, every exit—every gate—led directly outside. The spectators were
cleared out in under eighteen minutes!

“Whoa—they're still going,” Joe said, shielding his head with his arm. Another small explosion rained glass spears down on the field.

“I talked to someone in maintenance,” Frank said. “He wasn't interested in saying much about what happened. I'm guessing, though, that the lights are controlled by a computer.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Joe said. “Small explosives must have been planted somewhere up there—not enough to cause a huge explosion—but just enough to shatter the lights.”

“And when the computer program kicked in the lights, it detonated the explosives,” Frank said.

“Exactly,” Joe said.

“One of the guards said that as far as he knew, there were only minor injuries,” Joe said.

“That's good,” Frank said. “It could have been a lot worse if the evacuation hadn't gone so smoothly.”

“They're asking the volunteers to help with the cleanup,” Joe told his brother.

“Great,” Frank said. “It'll give us a chance to check out the place.”

The volunteers inspected all the equipment and put it away. Le Stade was also swarming with its own guards, Paris police, and other official-looking security types.

While everyone was busy, the Hardys were able to sneak away for some serious snooping of their
own. Frank headed back to Macri Magnifico's setup, once again trying to talk to Sylvio.

As guards moved over the stands and looked under every seat, Joe went into the locker rooms. They were also full of security people. He picked up a short stack of towels and walked through as if he were on official cleanup duty. He tried to overhear what was being found, if anything, but the conversations were all in French and so muted that he couldn't pick up much.

He wound back out and, still holding the towels, wandered out to the public parts of Le Stade. Security people poked around the shops, concession stands, and display areas. In the two restaurants, stadium guards looked under all the tables. Joe noticed something odd about one of the officers. He was dressed in the correct uniform, but his shoes stood out. They weren't the black lace-ups of the other guards; they were combat boots.

Joe followed the man as he moved out of the restaurant, through the kitchen, and into a back hall. Keeping in the shadows and ducking into doorways, Joe kept enough distance between them that the guard was clearly not aware he was being followed.

Finally they reached an unmarked door. The guard used a key—or something else—to open it; Joe couldn't tell from his vantage point. The guard disappeared behind the door, and Joe hurried to
follow. After a few seconds, Joe slipped inside.

It was a large room filled with electronic consoles and computer equipment. He could see the guard across the room studying a schematic diagram on the wall. Then the man took out a small video camera and begin filming the diagram and the consoles that filled the room. As the guard backed around, Joe kept out of view. The man circled to the door, turned off the camera, and left.

Joe raced to the wall to look at the schematic. Then he left the room and found another security guard. “I just saw someone walking away from that room with a video camera,” Joe said. “He was dressed like you, but he had on combat boots instead of plain black shoes. It looked suspicious to me, so I thought I'd better report it.”

The guard's face paled and his eyes narrowed as he looked at Joe. He scanned Joe's volunteer ID.

Joe described the man in the boots and wrote his own name and local telephone number on a sheet of paper. The guard released him, with a warning to keep quiet about what he'd seen.

When Joe returned to the field, he pulled Frank over and told him what happened. “I'm not sure because the schematic was really complex, but I think it had to do with sliding the lower bank of stands under the middle bank when they want to have a larger arena,” Joe said. “I'm thinking maybe that's the next sabotage plot. I'd hate to think what
might happen if they rolled those stands under with twenty-five thousand people still sitting in them.”

“It probably wouldn't work,” Frank said. “There's got to be back-up security that keeps the stands from moving if people are in them.”

“But the saboteur might not know that,” Joe pointed out. They agreed to tell no one else but their dad what Joe had seen—not even Jacques.

“Volunteers, listen up.” The volunteer coordinator stepped up on a bench and called them all over. Frank and Joe joined the group.

“I'm sorry to give you bad news,” the coordinator said, his expression grim. “The security force at Le Stade has determined that, at this time, continuing with the tournament presents too great a risk to the teams and the spectators.” A groan rumbled through the crowd.

“As of this moment, the games are officially postponed until further notice. Please clean out your lockers and take everything to your residences. You will all be notified when it's time to report back for duty. I'm sorry.” The coordinator hopped down from the bench and tromped off toward the locker room.

The Hardys decided to check in at the apartment, change clothes, and go out for some dinner. They cleared out their lockers and headed home. When they walked in, they found their dad watching the evening news and stirring some soup on the stove.

“Hey, there you are,” Fenton said. “Are you hungry?”

“Maybe we'll have a little soup,” Frank said. “We're probably going out later.”

“So you guys had another busy day?” Fenton asked, ladling up bowls of beef-and-onion soup. He nodded toward the television set. “I've been watching the news since I got home an hour ago. There are lots of special reports about the stadium and the lights. Someone even said there are rumors about another possible plot.”

Joe told his dad about his discovery while the three ate their soup. The television stayed on.

“Look, Frank. There's the guy we saw outside the stadium yesterday,” Joe said, watching the special report. “Auguste Bergerac, the local politician who's been thrown out of office.”

Frank watched the thin man. He was speaking into a small microphone, just as he had the day before outside Le Stade. He was dressed in a suit and tie, with perfectly combed hair. Around him stood a medium-size crowd, a little larger than the group he'd had in front of the stadium.

“So you two know about Bergerac too,” Fenton said, smiling. “The symposium thinks he's the one to watch. Listen to what he's saying.”

Fenton had tuned to the BBC London station, so everything was in English. Bergerac's speech was translated instantly.

“Do you now understand what I have been telling you?” Bergerac spoke in loud, low tones, but the translator sounded like a young woman. “Do you see how my warnings have come true?”

To each question, the crowd shouted
“Oui!”
A few raised their fists and shook them in the air.

“Since I was ousted from my former position,” the woman translated, “the beloved city of Paris has fallen into violent hands. I am no longer your trusted servant and that is an extreme error in judgment. Ejecting me from office has resulted in an increase of crime in our city, a two-day reign of sabotage at Le Stade.”