The X-Factor

by Franklin W. Dixon

  I looked over at the edge. The way the river twisted and turned to take advantage of space, it seemed possible we might be able to make it to the end of the ride on foot faster than someone on the river. Not likely—but possible.

  “Worth a try, I guess,” I said.

  A sliver of moon had appeared by now, shedding some weak light over the landscape. We managed to paddle out of the current again and beach ourselves at a less steep section of the surrounding river wall. Good thing we both have plenty of mountain-climbing experience. Even so, we each almost fell back into the river a couple of times.

  But finally we were out. “Come on!” Joe said, taking off across the top of the river wall.

  I followed, moving as fast as I dared. Even so, it seemed to take a long time before we reached the point where the ride ended. Too long. When we got there, the safety lights showed us a wet tube lying abandoned on the beach.

  “Oh, well.” I slumped against a handy pillar, trying to catch my breath. “Guess we’d better call McKenzie and tell him what happened.”

  “You think Tyrone’s new guards will be any better than that last batch he hired?” Joe asked the next morning.

  I spit out a mouthful of toothpaste and glanced up at him. “Who knows? I just wish he’d listened to our advice to delay today’s opening.”

  “Oh, come on.” Joe rolled his eyes. “Delay the opening time? That might mean making less money!”

  I snorted. The night before, we’d told McKenzie about our pursuit of the mysterious figure. He’d been concerned enough to promise extra security from now on. But he’d brushed off my suggestion that he hold off on opening the park until the place could be gone over thoroughly. The most I could get him to do was to agree to shut down Old Glory until the crew could check it out. He seemed pretty confident that Joe and I had chased off the would-be saboteur. But I wasn’t so sure.

  “He’s just playing the odds, I guess,” I murmured as I headed out into the main room of our cottage. “Never mind the danger to the public.”

  “Hey, that’s why we’re here.” Joe grabbed his VIP park pass. “Let’s get out there and sniff around before opening time.”

  Soon we were doing just that, starting with the area over near Old Glory. The more time passed without discovering anything suspicious, the more willing Joe seemed to agree with McKenzie’s opinion that we’d interrupted the saboteur before any new harm was done. But I had an anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  About ten minutes before the gates were scheduled to open, I spotted McKenzie himself striding across the open area near the entrance. We put on speed to catch up with him.

  “Excuse me, sir,” I called.

  He spun on his heel. “Oh, it’s you two,” he said. “Good work last night, boys. Let’s hope you scared off that troublemaker for good this time.”

  “I hope so,” I replied. “But I wouldn’t count on it. Are you sure you won’t reconsider delaying opening today? Just a few hours might give us enough time to—”

  “Forget it,” he cut me off, barking out a laugh. “Haven’t you looked outside? There are more people than ever out there clamoring to get in! Who knew sabotage would be so good for business?”

  I exchanged an alarmed look with Joe. “But sir—,” I began.

  “Save your breath, dude,” Joe advised as McKenzie hurried off without seeming to hear me. “Tyrone McKenzie isn’t the type of guy to change his mind if he thinks there’s money to be made.”

  A few minutes later the gates opened. Tons of people poured in, just as McKenzie had said.

  “Check it out,” Joe said, pointing. “It’s our favorite crazy Bret fan.”

  I glanced over just in time to see Zana disappear into the crowd. “Guess she’s back for more souvenirs.”

  “Or to make more trouble.” Joe waggled his eyebrows.

  “Do you really think she could be behind the mischief?”

  He shrugged. “Who knows? I mean, I doubt she was the one who made Mount McKenzie go kaboom. But she could’ve done some of the other stuff.”

  Just then the PA system clicked on. McKenzie himself announced that the Bomber Pilot ride would be making its first run soon.

  “Should we go check it out?” asked Joe eagerly.

  I shot him a look. “We’re not here to play,” I reminded him.

  He ignored me, taking off in the direction of the new ride. I sighed and followed. Why not? It wasn’t like we had any leads to take us anywhere else. We had no idea where the saboteur would strike next. Besides, if McKenzie and his family were at the ride’s grand opening, maybe we could finally talk to Nick.

  Nick wasn’t there when we arrived. But he was just about the only one. The little plaza around Bomber Pilot was packed. The only clear spot was a small roped-off area around the control hut, a tall, narrow wooden building made to look like an old-fashioned army outpost. There was a GX worker standing inside the hut. He was a sour-faced guy around thirty who was fiddling with the controls. Meanwhile McKenzie, Delfina (with baby), and Erica were standing in the roped-off area, along with Sprat and a couple of other celebrities.

  Erica spotted us and hurried over, pushing her way through the throngs of eager GX visitors jostling for the best spots in line. “Hey,” she greeted us. “Solve the case yet?”

  “Not exactly.” I felt a little weird—she was standing so close that I was afraid to move.

  “Yo, Erica, is Nick around?” Joe asked.

  She shook her head. “He’s off-island today. Went over to the mainland to hang with some friends.”

  Bummer. Still, I figured it was useful information. If something else happened today, we’d know Nick hadn’t done it. On the other hand, if things went smoothly, it made him a stronger suspect for the stuff that had already happened.

  Over by the control hut, McKenzie was calling for attention. He welcomed everyone to the grand opening of the new ride, bringing a ragged cheer from the crowd. “And we have a special guest kicking off the inaugural run,” he announced. “Sprat, come on over and get onboard!”

  Sprat raised both hands over his head as more cheers came. “Dude, this ride is going to be a blast!” he shouted. “Let me at it!”

  The GX worker had emerged from the hut by now. He stepped over and opened the door of the nearest plane-shaped car.

  Sprat wrinkled his nose. “No way, dude,” he said, brushing past the guy. “I want this one—check it out, number thirteen. Totally my lucky number!”

  He hopped into a different car without bothering to open the door. It was bright red, with the number thirteen printed on it.

  The ride worker scowled and rolled his eyes. “Thank you, Marvin,” McKenzie said, hurrying forward and sort of shoving the guy aside. “Now come on—I’d like to personally show the rest of you lucky riders to your planes!”

  Erica smirked. “Yeah, he’d better,” she murmured to us. “That guy Marvin is kind of a jerk. If Tyrone wasn’t so short staffed right now, he’d probably fire him. He’s always acting like this job is beneath him.”

  “Really?” I glanced at the guy, who was still scowling. “You mean he acts like he has something against GX?” I wondered if we might have another suspect to add to the list.

  Joe didn’t seem too interested. “You know, I bet McKenzie would let us go on the first run if we told him it was part of the investigation,” he said. “Should we go for it?”

  Erica laughed. “You totally should!” she said. Pressing up against my side, she smiled up at me. “I’d love to see you two up there flying around, being all heroic. Especially you, Frank.”

  I could feel my face going red. “Give it up, Joe,” I muttered. “We have more important things to do right now than play pilot.”

  “Really? Like what?” said Joe. “It’s not like we have tons of hot leads.”

  I didn’t bother to argue. For one thing, he kind of had a point. Besides, McKenzie had just helped a couple of kids into the last available car, making the point moot.


  “All set?” McKenzie called.

  The riders cheered. Sprat let out a loud “Whoohoo!”

  McKenzie hurried over to the control hut. He stepped inside and put his hand on the ride’s controls, peering out the doorway. “One… two… three… liftoff!” he yelled.

  The ride came to life. The central pillar started to turn, slowly and then faster. The plane-shaped cars started moving. As the ride went faster, they swung out on their heavy chains, flying around in a big circle. McKenzie stepped back outside to watch, allowing Marvin to go in and take over the controls.

  “Check it out,” Joe said, peering upward at the flying cars. “You can kind of see the laser images when they go past.”

  He was right. When I looked carefully, I could see that each car’s screen made it look as if it was flying into enemy fire. Riders could use the controls inside to make the car zigzag up and down and shoot lasers at the screen images. To them, it looked like they were in a midair dogfight. To everyone watching, who could see the lasers but not the screen images, it looked like all the cars on the ride were shooting up each other.

  “That looks pretty cool,” I admitted.

  Joe shot me a grin. “You mean we can give it a go on the next round?”

  “Dream on. Maybe when we finish this mission, okay?”

  “Aw, man. I always knew I got all the fun genes in the family, but this is ridiculous.”

  I looked at Erica, expecting her to join in on the teasing. But she didn’t seem to be paying attention to us anymore. She was staring at the rotating ride, a slight frown on her face. The ride was spinning faster than ever, the planes zipping around at top speed. The riders were whooping and hollering excitedly. Sprat’s voice was audible over all the rest as he shouted in triumph with each laser hit.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked Erica.

  She bit her lip, still staring intently at the ride. “I think something’s wrong.”

  Before I could ask what she meant, she took off, shoving her way through the crowd toward McKenzie. “What’s up with her?” asked Joe.

  “Stop the ride!” Erica shouted. “Tyrone—listen to me! You have to shut it down right now!”

  The last of her words were lost in a deafening metallic crunching and scraping sound. One of the cars overhead sort of jerked sideways.

  “No!” I shouted, though I couldn’t hear myself over the screams. I could only watch in horror as the plane-shaped car came loose from its chain and flew out over the terrified crowd. A second later it smashed into the control hut at top speed.

  Dead Serious

  “So what’s the report?” Frank asked in a hushed voice. I clicked off my cell phone and pocketed it. “The hospital wouldn’t tell me much,” I said. “Sounds like the medevac chopper just got there a few minutes ago. That Marvin guy was DOA.”

  Frank grimaced. I could tell what he was thinking—we didn’t need a doctor to tell us the GX worker hadn’t made it. That steel car had totally demolished the control hut where he was standing. He hadn’t had a chance.

  “What about the kid who was in the car?” Frank asked.

  “Sounds like he’s going to pull through. But it’ll be a while before he’s in any shape to hit the rides at GX again. Or, you know, walk.” I shook my head grimly, glancing around. Frank and I were perched on a bench across the path from Bomber Pilot. Almost an hour had passed since the accident. The local police had cordoned off the ride with their yellow tape. McKenzie had also ordered the rest of this section of the park shut down. Frank had tried to talk him into closing down GX entirely, but he wouldn’t even consider it.

  “What a nightmare,” Frank muttered. He looked over to where some police investigators swarmed around the downed car. “Wish we could check out the wreckage ourselves.”

  “Why bother? We don’t need to know how it was done. What we need is to figure out who did it.” Just then I noticed someone slumped on another bench further down the path. “Hey, is that Erica? We should go talk to her.”

  Frank nodded. “She was the one who shouted a warning. Let’s go find out what she saw.”

  We hurried toward her. She was sitting there watching as a couple of guys with video cameras interviewed people about what had happened. Most of the park-goers seemed eager to recount their versions of the disaster—even the ones who admitted they hadn’t actually seen it.

  Erica looked pale and shaken. And no wonder. It’s not every day you witness something like that. I mean, Frank and I have been trained to handle that sort of thing. And it was even pretty tough for us.

  “Hey, how are you doing?” I said sympathetically, sitting down beside her.

  She sniffled. “Okay,” she said. “I just wish I’d noticed the problem sooner.”

  “What did you see, anyway?” asked Frank.

  “It was the chains,” she said. “Each car was supposed to have three of them. They’re balanced to allow the cars plenty of up and down movement while still keeping them safely attached.”

  I nodded, impressed as always by her knowledge of all things mechanical and technical. “Supposed to?” I echoed. “Does that mean the car that crashed was missing a chain?”

  “Sort of. All three chains were there, which is probably why no one noticed the problem. But once the ride got going, I could see that one of them wasn’t attached to the car. I knew it wasn’t going to hold up to that kind of force.”

  Frank reached over and awkwardly patted her on the shoulder. “It’s not your fault. Someone should’ve caught that before the ride started.”

  “I know. But I still feel bad. I mean, Marvin wasn’t the nicest guy in the world, but still…” Erica sighed. “Anyway, I’m starting to wonder if it’s true, if this place really is cursed.”

  I noticed that one of the guys with the video cameras had turned his lens on us in time to record Erica’s comment. Yeah, McKenzie was really going to love seeing that show up online! Luckily, Erica didn’t seem to notice. She was staring at her hands, looking bummed.

  Just then Ox Oliver and a few of his workers appeared. They started shooing people away, setting up wooden barriers to close off the area.

  Seeing him reminded me of our suspect list. Who could have done this? Was it Ox? He certainly had the access—and we still hardly knew anything about him.

  There was McKenzie himself, of course. True, he’d barely missed getting taken out by that flying car. Or had he? What if he’d planned it that way to throw off suspicion? It seemed like a pretty risky stunt. We already knew that McKenzie was willing to take risks in business, or with other people’s safety. Was he okay with risking his own life—and his family’s—if the payoff was big enough?

  If not him, then who? I had no idea where Zana was or whether she’d be capable of pulling this off. And of course, Nick had an alibi. Although now that I thought about it, being off-island today didn’t necessarily let him off the hook. What if he’d set this up before leaving? Or what if leaving the island was just a cover story, and he was actually still hiding out somewhere at GX?

  A whoop came from nearby, interrupting my thoughts. I glanced over. Aha. Speaking of suspects…

  Sprat was a little way down the path, mugging for the cameras as usual. He didn’t even look particularly upset, considering he’d just barely missed being in that defective car himself. Or had he?

  “Hey,” I said to Frank. “Sprat was awfully determined to get that one particular car on the ride, wasn’t he?”

  Frank caught on right away. “Think he might have known something was up with one of the other cars?”

  Erica looked confused. “What are you talking about?”

  Before we could answer, someone shouted our names. Uh-oh. McKenzie was barreling toward us. And he didn’t look happy.

  “This is an outrage!” he bellowed, skidding to a stop in front of us. “It’s going to take some major work to get through this public relations disaster, I’ll tell you that. I thought you two were going to put a stop to this sort o
f thing! What good are you, anyway?”

  “Sir…,” Frank began.

  McKenzie rubbed his head and sighed, deflating as quickly as a balloon that had just been poked by a pin. “Listen, I didn’t mean to yell at you, son,” he told Frank, his voice cracking a little. “I’m just upset, that’s all. But listen, things are desperate—you’ve got to figure out who’s trying to ruin me. What will it take to pull in more of your ATAC agents so you guys can get on this thing twenty-four/seven? Money? Just name your price.”

  “It’s not that simple,” said Frank. “We just—”

  “Hold that thought.” McKenzie’s phone had just started ringing. He fished it out of his pocket and answered. As he listened to whoever was on the other end, all the color drained out of his face. “I’m on my way,” he snapped, then hung up.

  “What is it?” I asked. “More bad news?”

  He didn’t bother to answer. I’m not sure he even heard me. He was already striding away.

  “Come on,” Frank said. “Let’s go see what’s up.”

  Leaving Erica on the bench, we hurried after McKenzie. He headed straight for the park entrance. When we came in sight of the main gate, we spotted a couple of guards dragging someone out. Zana.

  “Looks like she managed to snag another memento,” I said, noting the chunk of wood she was clutching to her chest as she wailed tearfully at the guards. I’m guessing she was saying something about her dear departed Bret, though we were too far away to hear.

  “Yeah,” Frank said. “But why’d they bother to call McKenzie over for that?”

  I glanced at the park owner. He wasn’t even looking at Zana. His face was pinched with anger as he stared in the other direction.

  I turned, following his gaze. “I’m thinking that’s not why they called him.” I pointed. “Look.”

  Frank’s eyes widened as he glanced over and saw what I’d just seen. It was a huge banner hanging down from the nearest ride. I shook my head slowly as I read the message written in five-foot-tall letters: