The Mystery of the Black Rhino (11 page)

The Hardy boys were surprised when Dr. Malindi called them early on the morning of the second day of touring to ask them if they would like to accompany him to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to meet the arriving flights with Americans on the passenger manifest. His plan, he explained, was to look for anyone suspicious.

Frank and Joe quickly agreed.

Once they were at the airport, they went immediately to the international arrivals area. A uniformed man handed Dr. Malindi a stack of papers.

“These are the flight manifests,” Dr. Malindi told them. “Today there are fifteen Americans arriving in Kenya. Thank goodness it's a slow day.”

“Where are they coming from?” Joe asked.

“Well, lets see,” Dr. Malindi began. “There are five arriving on a Kenya International Airways flight from New York. There are two arriving on Air France from Paris, three arriving on British Airways from London, one arriving on Olympic from Athens, one arriving on EgyptAir from Cairo, and three arriving on El Al from Tel Aviv.”

“How many of these passengers are men?” Frank asked.

“Twelve,” Dr. Malindi said.

“I think the Kenya International Airways flight is our best bet,” Joe said. “Why would he want to go through Europe?”

“Well, for one thing, the flight from New York is very long, and some people just don't like to fly that many hours at once,” Frank said. “Flying through Europe breaks up the flight, and it usually costs about the same amount of money as a direct flight.”

Dr. Malindi nodded.

“We're going to have people meeting all of the flights, looking for men who fit a certain profile,” Dr. Malindi said, “but I think you and I should stay by the flights arriving from New York and London. I have a gut feeling that our man will be on one of those.”

Unfortunately, at the end of the day, no one who disembarked even remotely fit the profile the Nairobi police were working from.

Six of the men were businessmen who were met by Kenyan representatives of their companies. Five of the men were college students from Texas Tech University. They were on their way to a biological research project in southern Kenya.

The remaining man introduced himself to the Hardys and Dr. Malindi as a retired professor of African languages. Dr. G. Cranston Douglas had come to Kenya to write a linguistics paper comparing the names of certain types of fish in the coastal Bantu languages of Swahili, Mijikenda, Segeju, Pokomo, Taita, and Taveta. He looked like a character out of an old
Tarzan
movie. He was wearing a safari jacket and had a sweat-stained pith helmet on his head. He needed a cane to help him walk. The head of the cane was the carved face of a baboon.

Dr. Douglas made his way to the stop for the shuttle to the New Stanley Hotel, only to find that
the bus had broken down. Dr. Malindi offered to drop him off at the hotel when he dropped off the Hardy boys. The professor readily accepted.

Although Frank and Joe couldn't be sure, it seemed to them that some of the authorities were less than friendly as their group made its way through the airport to Dr. Malindi's car. Even Dr. Malindi didn't have much to say on the drive back into Nairobi, although the boys thought that might have something to do with their guest, Dr. Douglas.

When they arrived at the hotel, Frank pulled Dr. Douglas's luggage out of Dr. Malindi's car and gave it to a porter. Dr. Douglas thanked them for the ride and went into the hotel to register.

Just as the Hardy boys started toward the hotel's entrance, Dr. Malindi stopped them. “I don't know what to think, boys. I really don't,” he said. “We'll keep watching Mr. Andrews for a few more days, to see if anything happens—but I'm starting to wonder if your information wasn't right. You'll only be here for a few more days. Perhaps you'd better just forget about the detective work for a while and enjoy the sights of Kenya?”

He gave them a smile and drove away.

The Hardy boys looked at each other.

“You know what?” Joe said. “I think we've just been told to mind our own business—in a very diplomatic way.”

“No kidding,” Frank agreed.

“There's no way I can give up now, though,” Joe said.

“I'm with you,” Frank said. “We're not going to let anyone kill a black rhino—or anything else!”

When the Hardy boys got to their room, they found a note from their father. He wrote that he had been invited to spend a couple of days at Mfangano Island Camp in Lake Victoria with some of the other conference participants.

“Dad has all the luck. We actually just learned about Lake Victoria in geography a couple of weeks ago,” Frank said. “I'd love to go there.”

He told Joe what he remembered from class. Lake Victoria was the second largest fresh water lake in the world. Little was known about it outside of Africa until the nineteenth century, when European explorers declared it as the source of the Nile. Three countries border the lake—Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania.

Joe was reading through a guide book that had been on their fathers bedside table. “It looks like the only way to get to the island is to take a single-engine plane from Masai Mara, fly over the escarpment to Mfangano Island, and then take one of the camps motorboats around the island to the bay that shelters Mfangano Island Camp.” Joe closed the book and put it back on the table. “Sounds cool.”

Frank yawned. “What do you want to do? It's too early to go to bed.”

Joe yawned, too. “You know, I'd kind of like to see a movie. An American one,” Joe said. “I can't believe it, but I'm feeling sort of homesick. If we were in Bayport right now, we could go to one of the multiplex theaters.”

“They're called cinemas here. Kenya mostly imports American and Indian films,” Frank said. He looked around the room and found a copy of the
Daily Nation
lying on the floor next to his father's bed. He checked the index and found the page that advertised the movies that were showing. “Joe—look!” he said. “This could be Bayport.”

Joe came over to where Frank was sitting on the floor and plopped down beside him. “Hey, that's one I missed. I thought I'd have to wait until it came out on video. Who thought I'd have a chance to see it in Kenya?”

Frank looked at the address of the theater. “That's kind of far from here—in one of the western suburbs,
I think,” he said. “I don't think we should go too far tonight.”

They scanned the rest of the listings, lingering from time to time on some of the Indian films with really interesting titles. They finally decided to go to a movie they had already seen, because it was at a theater on Kenyatta Avenue—just a block from the New Stanley Hotel.

On their way out, the boys saw Dr. Douglas and said hello to him.

“Did you get settled in?” Frank asked.

Dr. Douglas nodded. “Yes. This is a very nice hotel. I'm glad I decided to stay here. Are you two headed out for a night on the town?”

“We're going to see a movie,” Joe replied. “It's showing just down the street.”

“Well, that's a nice way to spend a few hours,” Dr. Douglas said. “I hope you enjoy it.”

“Thanks,” the Hardy boys said.

“Have a good night,” Frank added.

“Oh, I shall, I shall,” Dr. Douglas assured them.

The Hardy boys knew when they left the lobby that they'd have a police escort, but they didn't care. The officer might like the movie they were taking him to.

The theater was crowded, and Frank and Joe had to sit closer to the front of the auditorium than they preferred. There were times when Frank and Joe were the only ones in the theater laughing about
what the characters were doing. Frank soon realized that the humor would probably only make sense to an American.

When the movie was over, Frank and Joe filed out with the rest of the crowd. They reached the lobby and Joe wondered what would happen if Harry Andrews had decided to see this movie, too. It wasn't long until they spotted their police escort, who, instead of seeing the movie, had apparently just waited outside the theater for them.

Once they were back at the hotel, the boys lingered in the gift shop for a few minutes and talked about getting something to eat at the Thorn Tree Café. They decided just to go to bed; it had been a long day.

•   •   •

Frank woke up with a start. The room was full of thick smoke. He could hardly breathe.

“Joe!” he managed to shout. “We have to get out of here!”

When his brother didn't answer him, Frank rushed to Joe's side, shook him, and, when that didn't work, rolled him out of bed and onto the floor.

Finally Joe came to life—but he started wheezing. He was clearly having difficulty breathing.

“What's going on?” Joe gasped. “What's happening?”

“Fire,” Frank said. “We have to get out of here.”

Together they put on their shoes, ran to the door of
their room, and undid the chain and the safety locks. Frank tried to open the door, but it wouldn't budge.

“It's stuck!” he cried.

Joe tried pulling on the door, but it still wouldn't open.

The smoke was now so thick in the room that the boys could barely see.

“We'll have to use the windows,” Joe said.

The Hardy boys dropped to the floor to get under the smoke and started crawling toward the nearest window. Several times they got so disoriented by the smoke that they had to go back to their beds and start all over again.

Joe started to cough, and Frank was afraid that he was going to pass out. By the time they finally reached a window, though, Joe had stopped coughing.

Frank used the windowsill to pull himself up. He unlatched the window's lock—but when he tried to raise the window, it wouldn't budge. At first he thought it was just stuck—but then he noticed something that sent chills down his spine.

“Joe—somebody has nailed the window shut,” Frank managed to say. He ran his fingers over the heads of the nails. They were at random places at the bottom of the window frame. “Someone deliberately did this. We'll have to smash our way out.”

Joe had started to cough violently. Frank knew
that this time he might not be able to stop.

Frank steeled himself and stood up in the acrid smoke. He began feeling his way around the room. He needed a chair to heave through the window. It was their only way out.

Finally he found what he was looking for: the straight-back chair his father used when he was sitting at the writing desk.

Frank picked it up, stumbled once, stubbed his toe twice, and finally managed to make it to the window. He set the chair down, fell to the floor, gulped in some of the less smoky air, then stood up again.

“Cover your face, Joe!” Frank shouted. He heaved the chair at the window with all of his might.

The chair smashed through with such force that almost all of the glass was blasted out. Cool, fresh air rushed into the room. Frank felt along the floor for Joe, lifted him onto his shoulder, and set him on the window ledge.

Frank leaned out the window himself, gulped some of the air, and then followed Joe onto the ledge. For a few seconds he surveyed the scene below.

What he saw puzzled him. There was no one around.
Where are the fire trucks?
he wondered.
Wasn't the hotel on fire?

Just barely within Frank's reach were the upper limbs of a large tree that shaded their room. They'd have to climb down this tree to escape.

Frank looked over at Joe and saw that his brother
seemed to be recovering. “Do you remember how to do this?” Frank asked.

Joe grinned. “Remember? I'm the one who taught you how to climb out our bedroom window at home using that old tree.”

Frank smiled back. Joe was right. He was more agile than a monkey when it came to climbing trees.

“Then let's do it,” Frank said.

He reached out, grabbed what looked like the strongest limb near him, and swung off the ledge. The limb bent more than he thought it would and sent him plunging a few feet. His heart nearly stopped. Fortunately the limb held, and Frank managed to grab an even stronger limb and climbed to a perch from where he could help Joe.

Joe grabbed the same limb that Frank had used, went through the same bungee-cord experience that his brother had, and pulled himself onto the limb next to Frank.

Joe looked around. “Where is everybody?” he said.

“I was wondering the same thing when we were on the ledge,” Frank told him. “I don't think the whole hotel is on fire.”

“You mean the fire was confined to only our room?” Joe said.

“Actually, I don't think it was a fire,” Frank said. “There were no flames anywhere.”

“You mean . . . ,” Joe started to say.

Frank nodded. “Somebody put some sort of device in our room that would fill it with smoke. Remember that we couldn't get the door open? Somebody fixed it so we'd never get it open,” he explained. “The window had been nailed shut. We weren't supposed to escape. We were supposed to die of smoke inhalation.”

The Hardy boys climbed the rest of the way down the tree and found themselves in a small garden at the side of the hotel.

They made their way out a gate and onto a narrow service drive that led to the front of the New Stanley. It was only when they reached Kimathi Street that they realized they were still in their pajamas.

Just as they started to enter the lobby, a car pulled away from the curb.

Joe glanced in its direction as it passed under a streetlight. “Frank!” he cried. “Look at that car.”

Frank turned, but the vehicle was quickly out of sight. “What about it?”

“Andrews was driving—and I think Dr. Douglas was sitting beside him!” Joe said.

“What?” Frank cried. Suddenly it all made sense. Dr. Douglas was no professor. He was the man Harry Andrews had said would be coming to Nairobi in two days. “So Dr. Douglas was the one who put that smoke device inside our room? He
probably fixed the door so it wouldn't open and nailed the windows shut.”