The Demolition Mission (2 page)

After Kiser and Dain had left the building, Stock turned to the three teens. “You ready to give the Saurion a test drive?” he asked.

“If you insist,” Joe said casually, trying to hide his excitement.

Frank flipped a coin to see who would sit behind
the wheel first. Joe called heads, then grinned widely when Frank shrugged and said, “You win.”

Stock handed Joe two helmets and the remote device. “There's no key and no ignition switch,” he told the younger Hardy. “Once you've fastened your safety belt, push the Start button. After that, you operate it just like you would any other high-performance sports car.”

Frank took one of the helmets and slipped into the passenger seat. “Remember, now,” he told Joe as he adjusted his helmet, “you drive it for five minutes, then it's my turn.”

“You hope,” Joe replied. Joe fastened his seat belt and pressed the Start button. He had driven a few sports cars, but none had throbbed with the horsepower he felt humming smoothly under the burnished red hood.

Cocooned in the Saurion's deep leather seat, Joe felt as though he were wearing the car, and he could feel it move with the slightest touch of the leather-wrapped steering wheel. He eased the Saurion out onto the speedway's back straightaway. After looking both ways and finding it clear, Joe put the gas pedal to the floor at the same instant he let out the clutch. The Saurion took off like a rocket.

Joe felt a chill race down his spine. He had never before felt such power. A glance at the needles and numbers on the analog dial showed him that he was already running at 127 miles per hour.

“This machine is awesome!” Joe exclaimed.

“I don't mean to sound like Aunt Gertrude,” Frank said, “but the needle just passed a hundred and thirty-five.”

As the Saurion roared out of the third turn and headed into the front straightaway, Joe took his foot off the gas.

“We're not slowing down,” Joe said with a frown. He pressed on the brake. The Saurion was still accelerating.

“Use the brakes,” Frank suggested.

“I did.” Joe tried the brakes again, pressing gently at first. When the car didn't slow, he pushed hard on the pedal.

“I can't slow it down,” Joe said, alarm in his voice. “We're pushing a hundred and fifty.”

“Can you downshift?” Frank asked urgently.

“Frank!” Joe gasped from behind the Saurion's steering wheel as the car began to fishtail. “I've lost control of this thing. It's like it's driving itself!”

Frank grabbed the remote device. Aiming it at the dashboard, he pushed the Ignition/Off button. Nothing happened.

“Stay calm,” Frank warned. “We're not the only ones on the track.”

Joe glanced out the Saurion's windshield at the racecourse ahead. A maintenance truck had pulled onto the track. It was cutting diagonally across the Saurion's path, heading slowly toward the side of the course.

Joe knew in an instant that if neither the truck nor the Saurion changed course, a horrible collision was going to occur. It was only a matter of seconds till the deathblow.

“Joe!” Frank shouted. “You've got to stop this car!”

Joe looked through the Saurion's windshield at the maintenance truck. It was heading toward a gap in the wall that led between two spectator stands. It couldn't be moving at more than fifteen miles per hour, Joe calculated, as the truck grew rapidly larger before his eyes.

“Brace yourself!” Joe shouted. He pushed the gear lever hard to the right, then rammed the lever up into reverse. In that same instant he popped the clutch. Joe cringed when he heard the transmission's wrenching crack.

When Frank heard the screeching tires and felt the Saurion jerk into a skid, he knew his brother's tactic had worked. By locking up the car's
transmission, the mangled drivetrain was serving as a substitute set of brakes.

“Missed him!” Joe exclaimed as the Saurion slid past the maintenance truck at an angle. He steered the sports car toward the outer wall around the track.

When he saw the flashing lights of a speedway tow truck approaching, Frank removed his helmet, released his seat belt, and opened the door.

“You guys all right?” Felix Stock called to them from the back of the truck. He was holding a large fire extinguisher. “When it looked like you were losing control, I thought we'd better get out here.”

Chet, leaning out the truck's passenger side window, smiled when he saw the Hardys climb out of the Saurion unhurt. “It's a good thing Aunt Gertrude didn't see that,” he said.

“We're okay,” Joe said, “but there's something wrong with this car. It accelerated even after I took my foot off the gas.”

“And Joe said the brakes stopped working,” Frank added.

“Let's tow it back to the garage,” Stock said, signaling to the driver of the wrecker, who skillfully and quickly hooked up the Saurion. The brothers and Chet rode back to Building A on the truck's back deck.

After the car was rolled into place, Stock examined it briefly. Then he led the Hardys and Chet to a small office in the back of the building.

“Let me fill you in on the problems here,” Felix Stock said as he sat behind his desk. “It started with a threatening phone call.”

“What did the caller say?” Frank asked.

“He called the Saurion a death car. He said whoever drove it would die a horrible death.”

“Did you recognize the voice?” Joe inquired.

Stock shook his head. “At first I didn't really take the threat very seriously. But two weeks ago the Saurion nearly crushed me when one of the hydraulic jacks holding up its front end gave way. When I checked out the system, I discovered the oil in the lines had been drained.”

“Couldn't it have just been a leak?” Joe asked.

“There would have been oil on the floor, or in the corner where the jacks are stored. I looked, and there wasn't any. Then someone broke into my office safe and rummaged through the plans for the Saurion. Several important wiring diagrams are missing. That's when I decided to call your father. He said you two could help me.”

“If these are the famous Hardy brothers, they probably can,” said a woman behind them. The Hardys and Chet turned and saw a young woman with blue eyes and long blond hair that was tied back with a red silk scarf. She stood just outside the doorway, smiling at Frank and Joe.

“I've read a lot about you in the newspapers. My name is Katie Bratton,” she said. “I'm Felix's test driver.”

“And she's one of the best,” Felix Stock added. “When someone wants a new racing car pushed to the limit to see what it'll do, Katie's the driver. She's been with the Saurion project since the beginning. And she'll be at the wheel on the race Saturday night.”

“Did you drive the Saurion?” Katie asked the Hardys.

“We ran it around the track a couple of times,” Joe said, smiling at Katie. She was a small woman. Joe guessed that she was about five feet, barely tall enough to see over the steering wheel.

“Did you ever have any trouble with the way it handled?” Frank asked Katie.

“The Saurion's absolutely the best tracking car on the road,” she answered. “It doesn't pull. It won't even vibrate, and we're talking at about two hundred miles an hour.” A puzzled expression came over her face. “Why, is it out of alignment or something?”

Frank told Katie about their experience on the track.

“You dropped the transmission?” Katie said, frowning at Joe.

“I probably only tore out a gear or two,” Joe admitted sheepishly.

“Actually, you tore out all six,” Felix Stock said. “It'll need a whole new transmission.”

“Are you always that hard on your cars?” Katie asked Joe.

“Of course not,” Joe replied. “Like my brother said, the Saurion was totally out of control.”

Katie nodded thoughtfully. “It's never done anything like that.” She paused for a moment, then said, “As Felix has probably told you, there have been some very strange things going on around here.” She handed Joe a folded piece of paper. “I found this in my locker when I got here today.”

Joe opened the note and saw that it was made up of letters cut from newspapers. “ ‘The faster you drive,' ” Joe read aloud, “ ‘the sooner you die!' ”

“Someone's idea of a joke,” Katie said with a shrug. Frank noticed that she didn't sound scared at all.

“That's the last straw,” Felix announced, turning to Katie. “You may think these incidents are practical jokes, but I don't. There's not going to be any race. I can't let you risk it.”

“Come on, Felix,” Katie said firmly. “You're not going to back down now, after all you've been through to get the Saurion ready.”

“I am if someone is really trying to sabotage the car,” Stock said stubbornly. “I'm going to call Mr. Ota over at Miyagi Motors and suggest we postpone the race.”

“That's exactly what the person who's behind these threats wants you to do,” Frank pointed out. “Why don't you let us do a little investigating first. This is only Thursday.”

“If you cancel now,” Joe added, “whoever is doing these things will stop. The more threats or sabotage attempts, the more likely he'll be to trip himself up.”

“I'm no detective,” Katie said, “but if I were looking for someone who might want to sabotage the Saurion, I'd choose that project engineer over at Miyagi Motors.”

“What makes you think it's him?” Frank asked.

“I've met the guy,” she replied. “His name is Takeo Ota. He sounded to me as if he was against having the race.”

“That wasn't my impression,” Felix Stock said. “He told me he was looking forward to the race.”

“I'm convinced Mr. Ota's afraid his Sata Speedster will lose,” Katie insisted. “And a loss would hurt Miyagi's sales.”

“We'll talk to him,” Joe told Katie.

“I'm not going to let an accident and a couple of dumb pranks scare me off,” Katie said to Stock.

Felix Stock pointed to the note in Joe's hand. “As far as I'm concerned, this is a death threat,” he said firmly.

“It's also a clue,” Joe pointed out. “Do you mind if I hold on to it for a while?”

Katie nodded. Then she said evenly, “Look, Felix, I drove race cars while I was in high school. I've driven for ten years. I've been in accidents and pileups, and as you can plainly see, I'm perfectly all
right. I
refuse
to let some rival car manufacturer scare me out of one of the biggest races of the year. And I don't think you should let yourself get scared off, either.”

“Okay, okay,” Stock said with a sigh. “Maybe you're right.”

“Why don't you show us around your area here at the speedway?” Frank said. “I'd like to take a look at that hydraulic jack.”

Stock got up from behind his desk and motioned for the group to follow him out of the office.

“Were these the original Gasoline Alley garages?” Frank asked as they passed the three buildings that made up the Stock Motor Car Company.

“That's right,” Stock replied. “The garages you see down this roadway were built back when the speedway was new.” He gestured toward the aging brick and wooden structures.

Frank noticed broken panes in some of the windows. Many of the wooden frames and doors needed painting.

“Ticket sales haven't been too good here at the track,” Stock told them. “If my company weren't using these three buildings, they'd just be standing idle. The speedway's newer garages are around the fourth turn and behind the starting line and viewing stands. They're much more convenient for the drivers and their mechanics. They even have their own underpasses beneath the racetrack to the pit area.”

“Do you pay Kiser for the use of the garages?” Joe asked.

“Felix doesn't pay any rent,” Katie said.

As the group approached Building C, Chet stopped and gave a low whistle. “Look at all these Saurions!”

“We use a carbon fiber body,” Felix Stock explained, leading the group into the garage. “That means the Saurion's frame is made out of a composite material rather than steel. It's ten times stronger but a lot lighter.”

“It's state of the art,” Katie said proudly.

Frank counted a dozen cars in various stages of production. All of them had complete drivetrains, and several wore their finished body panels, ready for painting.

“I have orders for all of these cars,” Stock told the Hardys and Chet. “In fact, if it didn't take so much handcrafting to build each one, I could sell ten times this many.”

“That's not the idea, though,” Katie said. “He's not making hamburgers. Felix wants quality, not quantity.”

“I see no one's working on the cars today,” Frank noted. “Are you building these by yourself?”

Stock shook his head. “I gave everyone except Marvin some time off while we got through race weekend,” Stock explained. “Marvin Tarpley's my best mechanic. He's the only one who can touch the car, except Katie, of course. He's around here
somewhere. He also works for the demolition derby.” Stock led them over to a corner of the shop. “There's the jack,” he said, pointing.

Taking a small penlight from his pocket, Joe knelt down and examined the hydraulic jack. He recognized it as an old model. The red paint on the cast-iron body had long ago chipped and faded.

“There are fresh scratches on this oil coupling,” he said. “I'd say someone disconnected the tube and bled the system.”

“How about the people who work for you?” Frank asked. “Do you trust them all?”

“I don't actually know them personally,” Stock said thoughtfully, “except for Katie here.” Katie smiled.

“Could you give us a list of your employees?” Frank asked. “We need to check them out.”