The Crowning Terror (3 page)

"So you don't have any proof that he is a traitor," Frank interrupted.

Starkey scowled. "Kids! Always a smart answer for everything." He tapped a thumb against his stomach. "In my line of work we call it a gut feeling."

I've got the same feeling that we're getting conned here, Frank thought. But he kept that to himself. "Then you want us to get close to our uncle for you," Frank said instead.

"Right," Starkey said. "Right! You are good, chum. Ever consider a career in espionage?"

"The way I see it, you've got two more problems," Frank said, ignoring him. "One, we don't know where he is. Kidnappers ran off with him, remember?"

"My people say he's on a flight to San Francisco," Starkey replied calmly. "He has a condominium there. When he checked onto the plane, he wasn't being held against his will. So he's found. What's the second problem?"

"We've only seen our uncle outside of Bayport or New York a few times. What are we supposed to do? Waltz up to him in San Francisco and tell him we decided to drop by for a visit a day after he was kidnapped? Won't that make him a bit suspicious?"

"Risk it," Starkey said. "What you have to remember is that you boys have a rep. Under the circumstances, I don't think Hugh Hunt would expect you to stop looking for him until you found him. He's probably waiting for you to show up. Your problem will be convincing him that you're willing not to pursue his kidnappers. But I have faith in you."

"Another gut feeling?" Frank quipped. "Can I speak to my brother?"

"Sure," Starkey said.

"Alone?"

"Oh." Starkey nodded and moved to the door. "Sure. Call when you need me." He turned back. "You want the blue light on?"

The cold expression on the Hardys' faces made him grin. "No? Whatever you want." He vanished through the door, and it clicked shut behind him.

For a moment Joe bristled with anger. Then he saw the small, dark mass on the ceiling, hidden in the shadow of the overhead light. It was a microphone. Starkey was off somewhere, planning to listen to every word they were going to say.

"I think Mr. Starkey has made a very convincing case," Frank said. But as he spoke, he pressed his back to the two-way mirror.

Joe leaned next to his brother. He began to sing, off-key and as loud as he could. As the raucous voice filled the room, Frank whispered in his ear, "It's a setup." Joe nodded and stopped singing.

"I guess you're right," Joe replied. "Starkey's from the government. He wouldn't lie to us, no matter how obnoxious he is." He chuckled to himself as he thought about what Starkey would be thinking right then. "I keep forgetting what the next verse of that song is."

As Frank sang it to him, Joe whispered, "What are we going to do?" But he didn't really need an answer. He knew they had only one choice, to play along with Starkey, go to San Francisco, and do what they could for their uncle.

"We owe it to our country to help bring Uncle Hugh in," Frank answered.

"You're right," Joe said. There was no more need for sign language. He hammered on the door as hard as he could. "Starkey! Get in here!"

Starkey reappeared through the door. "All set? Ready to go?"

"Put us on a plane," Frank replied.

"Not so fast," Starkey said. "I want to get a couple of things straight. You bring your father in on this and I'll tie him in with your uncle and put away both of them. I don't want you talking to the Network, either. This stays between you and me, got it?"

"Clear as a bell," Joe muttered. "When do we go?"

"You'll need a complete briefing, but we can do that on the plane. We have to get you on the first direct flight west."

"How about Air Force One?" Joe asked sweetly. "I hear the President's not using it today."

Starkey frowned. "I'd better go with you," he said. "It would be too bad if you two clowns ' screwed up."

"You can trust us," Frank said reassuringly. But he was lying.

Though they had visited the city before, San Francisco always seemed slightly alien to Frank and Joe. California was supposed to be warm, the land of sunshine, but San Francisco was always : cold and cloudy, with light fog rolling in off the bay.

The city looked strange to them, too. Skyscrapers and antique houses were juxtaposed with no apparent thought to planning. It was like walking into a time warp, and with the unsettling weather, slightly sinister. But there was also an excitement about San Francisco, a sense of magic, and Frank and Joe could easily understand its allure.

They stood on Market Street, studying a map Starkey had given them. He had flown with them to San Francisco and checked them into their hotel, an old stone fortress of a building. He said it had been a favorite of bankers and presidents in the early part of the century. After he had briefed them, he gave them the map and left.

Marked on the map was their uncle's condo. Joe hoped it was in one of the turn-of-the-century houses that dotted the street. He loved those restored homes, which evoked a calmer, simpler era.

"There it is!" Frank said, and Joe's heart sank. The building was modern, made of soulless steel and glass, all sharp edges with none of the gentle frills of the older homes.

Joe couldn't imagine his father's quiet, slightly stuffy friend living in that high-rise, but his name was beside the door next to the word Penthouse.

Frank tugged on the door. "Locked—and no doorman, which is just as well."

Joe studied the lock. It was keyless, with numbers on push buttons. "We can't jimmy this one," he said. "It will open only when you hit the right sequence of numbers."

"You're right," Frank replied. "With nine numbers to choose from, it's mathematically impossible to guess the sequence. We don't even know how many numbers we need."

"Excuse me," said a woman's voice. They turned, and Joe's heart leaped into his throat. She was a beauty, her strawberry-blond hair highlighting her fair skin and bright blue eyes. Joe tried to speak, but the words seemed to catch in his throat. No sound came out.

Joe and Frank stepped aside. The woman moved past them to the door, and then stood staring at them until they turned their backs and went out on the sidewalk. They stood a few feet away and waited until she worked the lock.

"Did you get a look at her?" Joe whispered.

"Quiet!" Frank said. The woman stepped inside, the door closing behind her. Frank sprinted for it. But the door clicked shut before he could reach it.

"Five clicks," Frank said, fingering the lock. "That means she hit five buttons, and each one made a slightly different sound except for the last one, which must have been hit twice in a row. So only four buttons were really used."

"That's why you shut me up!" Joe said. "You were listening!"

"Right," Frank said. He hit all the buttons in order, listening carefully to their sounds. "I think I've got it." Cautiously he pressed the five button. Three. Seven. One, and one again. He turned the door handle.

The door swung open. They stepped cautiously into the building. There were couches in the lobby, but no doorman or any sign of a manager. The elevator had just returned after taking the woman to her floor, and its doors silently glided open. The Hardys stepped inside.

A short ride later the doors opened and they were at their uncle's penthouse.

"Oh, great!" Joe said. He stared at the lock on Hugh's door, a lock identical to the one on the street. "How are we going to get through this one?"

"Maybe we'll get lucky, maybe Uncle Hugh doesn't lock his door," Frank replied. He tried to keep his voice light, but he didn't believe what he said. With a chuckle, Joe played along, turning the door handle.

The door swung open.

"Uncle Hugh?" Joe mumbled in almost a whisper as they stepped inside. No one answered.

"Look at this place," Frank said in awe. The condominium was decorated with simple leather couches. Expensive paintings were hung on two walls. The far walls were blocks of windows, offering vast expanses of San Francisco at a glance. "How can Uncle Hugh afford it?"

"Never mind that!" Joe said, staring out the window. "Take a look at San Francisco from twenty stories up!"

"We're not here to sightsee," Frank reminded him. "Start looking for something — anything— that will clear Uncle Hugh's name." On a coffee table he found a telephone answering machine and switched it on to listen to the messages. The first one was in Russian.

"Or we might find something to hang him with," Joe said grimly. "I don't — "

The sound of something being dragged or pushed across the floor in the next room interrupted him. Silently Joe moved to the door. With a swift kick, he knocked it open, hurling himself into his uncle's bedroom.

It had been ransacked. The clothes from the closet were tossed on the floor—as were the contents of the bureau drawers. A woman stood on the balcony and faced Joe, a sweep of reddish blond hair partially obscuring her eyes.

She was the woman who had come into the building before them.

"Who are you?" Joe asked. "What are you doing here?"

With a smile that made Joe's pulse quicken, the woman pressed back against the balcony railing. Instinctively, Joe knew what she planned. His blood froze.

"No!" he shouted, running for her. "You can't! We're too high up! It's suicide!"

She brushed her hair out of her eyes and turned to face forward. Then she jumped off the balcony into the open arms of death.

Horrified, Joe ran to the railing. He didn't want to look at the sidewalk below, didn't want to see the woman lying broken on the concrete. Why did she jump? he wondered. What was her connection to Uncle Hugh? Obviously she had been searching his home, but whose side was she on?

Forcing himself to gaze over the balcony's edge, Joe scanned the sidewalk. There was nothing there. The woman had vanished. Movement at the edge of his vision caught his attention. He turned to see the woman swinging to the roof of the next building on a nylon cord. The cord was tied to the foot of the balcony railing, Joe noticed. She must have had the cord wrapped around her hand as she fell, and used her momentum to swing her to the next roof. All in the seconds since he had entered the room.

He had been tricked, and he didn't like it.

I can still catch her, Joe thought. That building's almost as tall as this one. If I hurry, I'll reach the street at the same time she does, and then we'll find out what this is all about.

"Joe!" Frank said, standing in the bedroom door. "What happened?"

Joe pushed past his brother and bolted for the elevator. "I'll explain later," he said breathlessly. "When I get back." Before Frank could reply, Joe dashed out the front door.

The elevator was back down in the lobby, so Joe frantically ran to the stairs and down to the first floor. He got to the street just in time to see the woman strolling out of the next building. As she glanced around, he ducked back into the doorway. Without noticing him, she walked past him and headed down Market Street, blending into the crowd.

Joe followed her, using the crowd as cover. She glanced over her shoulder often. She seemed to be looking for someone, but her eyes never locked with his in recognition. Twice she looked right at him, but nothing in her face suggested she knew who he was. At last she relaxed and stopped watching her back. Joe began to close the distance between them.

At Grant Avenue the woman turned north, walking for several more blocks. Joe continued to follow, but from the other side of the street, barely aware that the architecture was changing. Slowly he noticed that the shops and doorways were closer together than they had been on the other blocks. The style of clothing was still modern, but the language spoken on the street was no longer English. Nor could Joe read all the signs. Some were still in English, but many others were in Chinese.

He was in Chinatown.

The woman looked at home there, casually ambling down the street as if she didn't have a care in the world. She stopped, looking in the window of a bakery. Was she checking in the window for his reflection? Joe wondered. Quickly he backtracked to a newsstand on the corner of the block, where he bought a paper. All the time he kept his eyes on the woman, who was still staring at the bakery window.

Opening the paper, Joe tore a slit in the back page. Casually, he leaned up against a service doorway and pretended to read. But through the slit he could watch the woman without showing his face. He wished she would move again. The longer he remained in one place, the greater his chances of being discovered.

Two Chinese men sidled out of a tearoom next to the bakery. They were large, taller than the woman, and fat. For a brief second their shapes blotted out hers.

When they passed, she was gone.

Joe crumpled the paper in rage, his abrupt movement causing several people to stop and stare at him. Sighing, he tossed the paper into a trash can and tried to push his way through the crowds. There was no point in secrecy now. The woman's disappearance meant that she had spotted him. She had chosen that single moment, when his view was blocked, to make her move.

There's one consolation, he thought. She can't move in Chinatown any faster than I can because she stands out just as much. She can't have gotten far. I'll catch up to her, and when I do, she had better have some answers.

He glanced into the bakery as he passed it and skidded to a stop. The woman was inside, buying a pastry. She and the clerk were chatting cheerfully. There was no sign that she suspected anything.

Good thing Frank wasn't here to see this, Joe thought. I'd never hear the end of it. He had allowed himself to panic and almost blown his cover. At least it hadn't been a dangerous situation where his panic could have meant the difference between life and death.

The woman came out of the bakery, eating her pastry, and almost bumped into Joe. To his relief, she stared through him as if he weren't there. Letting her get a few steps ahead, he began trailing her again.

She turned off Grant Avenue and started down an alley. Joe waited on the street. If he followed her into the alley, she would spot him for sure. Patiently, he watched until she reached the other end of the alley and turned onto the far street. The instant she turned the corner, he ran into the alley after her.