Past and Present Danger

by Franklin W. Dixon

  “We’ll get ’em,” Joe said. “We always do.”

  Aunt Gertrude suddenly came out the front door and joined the boys in the driveway. “It just occurred to me,” she said cautiously. “If they could rap our home like that—”

  “It’s tap, Aunt Gertrude,” Joe corrected her.

  “That’s not important, Joseph,” she insisted. “If they can do that, couldn’t they do the same to our phones? And if they have, how do I warn Clayton?”

  “For now”—Frank rubbed his forehead in thought—“call him and say you have an idea you have to discuss with him tomorrow. Tell him it’s important. Then Joe and I will go by the hotel in the morning to clue him in before your meeting.”

  Aunt Gertrude agreed and hurried back into the house.

  “How are we going to keep in touch with everyone tomorrow if the home phone is bugged?” Joe asked.

  “I have an idea about that,” Frank said thoughtfully. He looked down the long dark street in both directions and felt a chill run through his body. “I sure wish Dad were going to be home tonight,” he said.

  Joe shrugged. “I told you, Dad said he was going to be working tonight and might not be home,” he said. “Guess we’re on our own.”

  Frank nodded. “Guess so.”

  The boys walked around the house a couple of times to make sure things were secure, then they went inside. An hour later, as they all turned in for the night, they locked doors and windows but didn’t feel the least bit secure.

  Frank and Joe rose early the next morning and found Aunt Gertrude had already prepared a breakfast of blueberry pancakes, ham, and orange juice.

  “You’ll be cycling all over creation today, and you’ll need a good meal for energy,” she told the brothers.

  Though she was doing a good job of acting normally, Joe could see the effect of the strain on his aunt. These guys better hope the police get to them before I do, he told himself.

  He and Frank played their parts well. They pretended that the trail bike ride was the only plan they had for the day. “We can work on Mr. Silvers’s case after our ride,” Joe told Frank.

  The boys ate quickly, then watched as Aunt Gertrude left in her loaner car to go visit a friend. They didn’t want her home by herself. After a few minutes they followed her on their bikes, keeping a sharp eye out for the white van or Land Rover, signs of danger.

  Once they were sure she was safe, the boys headed into downtown Bayport.

  “You think our home security system will keep those guys out?” Joe asked Frank.

  “They really have no reason to go in there now,” he replied. “But it should work. After all, security is one of Dad’s specialties.”

  They pulled up in front of the Bayport Plaza Hotel and chained their bikes to a lamppost. Walking into the lobby, the Hardys felt a strange tension in the air. Everything looked normal. The bellhops were helping guests with their luggage. The concierge was suggesting places of interest to a tourist couple. Several businessmen were chatting or reading papers.

  As he and Frank stood waiting for the elevator, Joe glanced at one of the men reading a paper. The headline declared, “Defense Committee Session Starts Today.” He vaguely remembered that one of their local politicians was somehow involved in those sessions just before the elevator doors opened up.

  “You get a creepy feeling in the lobby?” Joe asked as they took the elevator to the fifth floor.

  Frank nodded. “I thought it was just me. Weird.”

  The elevator doors opened, and Joe and Frank stepped out on the fifth floor. The corridor was carpeted, with small electric sconces hanging at intervals along the walls. It was very quiet.

  “What’s his new room number?” Frank asked.

  “He told Aunt Gertrude it’s right across from his old room,” Joe replied. “Hotel said they’d fix the window in the old one and he could move back in if he wanted to.”

  When they reached Clayton Silvers’s room, they pulled out the scanner Phil had lent them and a note they had written to Clayton. It opened with the line “Your room has been bugged” in big bold letters.Then it explained the events of the previous night.

  Joe knocked, and Silvers opened the door quickly. “Hey there, you two,” he said cheerfully. “Come on in. I was just about to shave.”

  Clayton wore a pair of beige slacks and a powder blue shirt, open at the neck. There was a bath towel draped around his shoulders, and he held an electric shaver in one hand. He noticed the devices in the boys’ hands, but before he could speak, Joe showed him the note.

  “We can’t stay,” Frank said, easing past the reporter while he read the note. Joe followed Frank in, and they began searching the room. “Aunt Gertrude just wanted us to give you a list of places she thought you should check out before you meet this afternoon,” he said.

  In seconds the boys had found one microphone behind a picture hanging on the wall and another in the light fixture, just above the bathroom medicine cabinet.

  “Well, thanks for that,” he said. His voice did not reveal the anger the boys could see on his face. “I have to shave and go keep an appointment. But I’ll be back in time to meet your aunt.”

  “Good,” Joe said, heading for the door. “We’ll call you later.”

  Clayton signaled the boys to wait outside in the hallway. He then closed the door, and the Hardys could tell he’d switched on his electric shaver. The high-pitched buzz filtered through the metal door. A moment later Clayton eased the door open, slipped out to join them, but did not let the door close completely.

  “How’s your aunt taking all of this?” he asked.

  “She’s pretty mad,” Joe replied. “But she wants these guys caught and your name cleared.”

  Clayton smiled. “That’s Spitfire, all right,” he said. “I’m sorry I’ve brought all of this down on your family. I never meant to.”

  “Don’t worry about it, sir,” Frank said. He seemed uneasy as he asked, “We were wondering, though … are the police still trying to prove you guilty?”

  Clayton sighed and leaned against the wall. “Not really,” he said. “I’m not orth the authorities’ time.”

  “Did our dad keep an eye on you last night?” Frank asked.

  “He had hotel security check on me,” Clayton replied. “But I haven’t seen him since he left here yesterday. I had the feeling things were kind of busy here last night. Didn’t see much, but I just had that feeling.”

  “We got that same feeling when we came in just now,” Joe said. “Well, thanks anyway.”

  Clayton still held the Hardys’ note in his hand. He glanced at it, then back at his room. “I agree we should leave them in place for now, but this is going to cramp our movements.”

  “Not necessarily,” Frank said. “We gave Aunt Gertrude one of our cell phones. When you two go check out those suspects, we can keep in touch that way.”

  “Your aunt worries about you two—a lot,” Clayton told them. “I think she’s afraid of losing someone close again.”

  “Wait a minute,” Joe said. “The other day Aunt Gertrude said she didn’t want to lose someone else. What was she talking about?”

  Clayton Silvers looked down at the floor, then glanced at the door to his room. “I don’t know that it’s my place to tell you that,” he said, facing the boys.

  “We love our aunt,” Frank told the reporter. “We don’t want to hurt her or make her worry. Maybe if we understood this, we could make things easier for her.”

  Clayton still hesitated.

  “We’re not children, Mr. Silvers,” Joe said, quietly. “Not anymore.”

  Clayton sighed heavily. “Your aunt was engaged once, to a really great guy.”

  The boys looked stunned but said nothing.

  “He was a businessman with a small store that was doing okay,” Clayton continued. “But it needed help. Your aunt went to work for him, which is how they met. Her savvy helped the business grow. In fact, it made a nice bit of change.” Clayton shifte
d uneasily from one foot to the other. “Two months before the wedding, he went on a business trip—and the plane crashed.”

  “He didn’t make it?” Joe asked.

  Clayton nodded his head. “Your aunt was hurting for a long time after that. It was even harder when she found out he’d left the business to her in his will.”

  “What happened to it?” Frank asked.

  “Your aunt didn’t want to be there anymore,” Clayton replied. “Too many memories. So, she sold it.” Clayton Silvers shoved his hands into his pockets with obvious irritation. “I wasn’t much help,” he said. “I was there at first, but I soon took off. I had this big career to get back to. Headlines to grab! That’s why I didn’t know where you were. Some friend.”

  “Doesn’t look like she’s holding anything against you, too much,” Frank said.

  Clayton grinned. “That’s not her style. Not Spitfire.”

  “We’d better go,” Joe said, glancing at his watch. “We still have to pick up Callie and Iola.”

  “Okay,” Clayton said. “I’ll let you know what I find out later.”

  “Be careful,” Frank told him.

  Clayton chuckled. “Funny—that’s what I was going to tell you.”

  Clayton Silvers slipped back into his room and quietly closed the door as the Hardys took the elevator down to the first floor.

  Walking across the lobby, the boys sensed a kind of tension once again.

  Joe glanced around the room. It looked the same. A couple of the tourists were still there, glancing through brochures. The businessmen were still scattered about the room, talking or reading their newspapers. Ordinary-looking people, Joe thought. One of the tourists and two of the businessmen wore glasses and hearing aids. Same activities and same—Then it hit him, but he didn’t say anything until they were out on the street.

  “Did you spot it, Frank?” he asked his brother.

  “Spot what?”

  “The setup.” Joe waited for the light to go on in Frank’s eyes. “The same guests in pretty much the same places—with hearing aids.”

  Frank snapped his fingers. “Security!” he exclaimed through clenched teeth. “Most of those guys were plainclothes security men, planted around the lobby. That’s why we felt the tension.”

  “Which means that whatever Dad is working on came in last night, and is probably still in the hotel.”

  “Darryl said someone important was coming into the airport last night,” Frank said as they unchained their bikes. “He and some reporter were rushing out to try for an interview.”

  “Do you suppose Dad’s case ties in with Clayton’s?”

  “I don’t see how,” Frank replied. “But then again, anything is possible. Let’s think about it while we ride over to Callie’s. Maybe we’ll have some answers by the time we get there.”

  But when the boys reached Callie Shaw’s home, there were only more questions waiting for them. More questions, and a great deal of fear.

  “We’re glad you’re here, Frank,” Callie said as she led the Hardys into her room. Iola Morton was sitting on the floor, staring up at the computer on the white lacquered desk. She jumped up when Joe came in.

  “Do you believe this?” Iola said, her voice shrill.

  “What’s wrong?” Joe and Frank asked in unison.

  Callie pointed to the computer screen. “Look,” she said.

  The image on the screen was the same blue and orange graphics Frank had seen hundreds of times when he signed on to get E-mail from his server. He and Callie and many of their school friends used the same server. It came with a lot of neat extras that made it fun to use.

  But this image was not fun. An E-mail had been opened, and its message had been written in bold, colorful letters.

  “Tell the boys to back off,” it read. “Or they can kiss the girls … goodbye.”

  11

  “SEARCH”

  “Kiss us goodbye!” Iola Morton shouted. Her slender hands were clenched into tight fists trembling at her sides. “What do they think we are—disposable or something?”

  “Calm down,” Joe Hardy suggested, then realized his mistake. Iola had quite a temper, and he had just said the one thing she hated most.

  “Calm down!” she exclaimed. “I’ll calm down when I’ve tied their arms and legs in knots!”

  “Iola got one of these at her house just before she came over here,” Callie explained. There was tension in her voice, and Frank knew she was as upset as Iola.

  “How’d they get our E-mail addresses?” Iola asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Frank replied. He sat down at Callie’s computer and scrolled to the bottom of the E-mail. The electronic footnotes on the bottom suggested the E-mail originated from an education source. “I doubt these guys are local college students pulling a prank,” Frank said. “So they probably routed this message through a local university server via satellite.”

  “So you think they somehow accessed our hard drive and copied our E-mail address book,” Joe suggested. “Then they routed their message through a shadow system, so we couldn’t trace it. These guys are good!”

  Frank turned away from the screen. “I’ll check on that when we get back to the house later,” he said. “The question now is, what do we do about this threat?”

  “Don’t you dare think about backing off, Frank,” Callie said firmly. “Not because of us.”

  “But—”

  “I mean it, Frank.”

  “Callie’s right!” Iola insisted. “You catch these guys so I can give them more than a piece of my mind.”

  Joe gently squeezed Iola’s hand. “We’ll get them, and you can have what’s left.”

  “Okay then.” Frank rose from the chair. “If we’re going to nail these guys, let’s get started. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”

  “Where to?” Callie asked as she grabbed her backpack.

  “A leisurely ride through the countryside … to ask some questions at Orion Electronics or Fairmont Industries. They are the two most likely places around for techno-thieves to rob,” Frank said.

  “Well, let’s get going, Frank!” Joe grabbed Iola’s backpack and rushed for the door. There was a twinkle in his eye. “We’ve got some miles to cover—and it’s going to be hard for the girls to keep up.”

  “Oh, really?” Iola snatched her bike helmet up from the floor and raced after him. “I’ll show you, Joe Hardy!”

  Frank noticed Callie staring up at him. “I didn’t say a word,” he said sheepishly.

  “A good thing, too.” Callie smiled. “Let’s go.”

  Callie picked up her backpack, jacket, and helmet, and with Frank joined the others outside. A few minutes later the four teens were riding north into the mountains that rose behind the town.

  With Joe and Iola in the lead, they took a narrow rutted road that headed east into a dense wooded area.

  The Hardys had picked this trail for two reasons. It was one of the more picturesque routes through the area. Everywhere they looked, tall cedar, pine, and maple trees reached toward the sky, and the wild-life was plentiful. And though it was the long way around, the trail would eventually bring them to the road that ran right past Orion Electronics. There was a junior executive there whom they had once helped out of a jam. They were sure she would talk to them.

  The other reason was more practical. It would be impossible for anyone to follow them in a van or truck over the rough terrain. If they used motorbikes, the sound would travel over great distances.

  Most of the ride was fun and exciting. Callie and Iola were great at trail biking. They sometimes raced the boys on a straight strip of road. Other times, they stopped to watch deer in the distance.

  The morning was filled with laughter and discovery. Only now and then did Joe or Frank check back down the trail to make sure they were not being followed.

  As he rode, Frank wondered how they could stop the thieves. He and Joe had no idea where they would strike, or how. And so far, the thieve
s had proved to be intelligent, well-equipped, and dangerous. They had the advantage of knowing all the players in the game, while he and Joe had only seen two of the men. He suspected there had to be at least one more.

  Joe replayed the attack at the hotel. Had he missed some important clue? Who dropped the broken master key? One of the thieves or Mr. Tally, the assistant manager? Was Tally part of the plot? He had been watching Clayton Silvers. Joe also wondered how his father fit into this mystery. Did he suspect Clayton was really guilty? Or was there more to it?

  Both brothers worried about the threat to Callie and Iola, though the girls never mentioned it once on the ride. With Aunt Gertrude working with Clayton, too many people they cared about were in the line of fire.

  By the time the teens reached the main road, the boys were convinced that no one would be safe until they had nailed these crooks. And they knew that that had to be soon—or it would be too late.

  Fifteen minutes on the well-paved road, and the group could see Orion Electronics in the distance. The four-story steel-and-glass structure was about a block long. The tinted glass reflected the bright noonday sun like a wall of mirrors.

  “Half the animals in this area must be blind by now,” Joe said. Even with his sunglasses on, he had to squint to see the building.

  “They’re probably smart enough not to stare at the building,” Iola teased. “Unlike some people I could name.”

  She nudged Joe playfully, then sped off on her bike. “I’ll beat you there!”

  “I don’t think so!” Joe shouted. He was off in a flash with Frank and Callie right on his tail.

  The guard at the front gate was not amused when the four teens skidded to a stop near his small booth. Their wheels kicked up a shower of gravel and dirt.

  “Sorry about that,” Frank told the man.

  The guard was a little standoffish until Frank explained whom they had come to see. After a phone call to the executive the teens were allowed to leave their bikes with the guard and go inside the complex. Ms. Waylan was pressed for time, but she spoke freely to the Hardys after they voiced their concerns. Still, by the time they left the complex, they had no more to go on than when they had arrived.