Two large, flat-bottomed boats were crossing the river, propelled by loudly chugging engines. Aboard them were bearded men in jungle camouflage uniforms.
When they had reached the near bank, Dimitri turned to his men. "Load the stuff aboard."
Frank and Joe teamed up to haul crates aboard the boats. They were able to talk in whispers as they worked.
"They've sure got this place sewn up tight," muttered Frank, grunting as he bent to lift one end of a heavy crate. "Thick jungle all around, bandits hiding behind trees."
"Kind of a funny setup for the Perfect Getaway," Joe agreed as he lifted the crate's other end. "I mean, what do they need a ranch for? A couple of plastic surgeons and an acting coach ought to be enough." The two boys carefully boarded the first boat, lugging the crate between them, and set it down at the feet of a surly-looking bandit. Keeping silent until they were once again on land, they continued their conversation as they loaded several more crates.
"Something smells rotten here," Joe murmured. "And I don't think it's the river water, either."
"What has me worried is how we'll manage to get out of here," Frank answered. "The only way I can think of is to somehow get word to Dad or the Gray Man."
Joe frowned. The Gray Man was the Hardys' contact in a top-secret American intelligence operation and a hard man to get hold of. They'd helped the operation out more than once. But the only way they knew of to contact him was via modem from Frank's home computer. They were a long way from that computer now.
"Well, it's only a two-year enlistment," Joe joked lamely as they loaded the last crate onto the boat. "It'll fly before we know it."
"Yeah, sure," Frank muttered.
After the loading was finished and the boats were heading back across the river, Dimitri told Frank and Joe to climb into his jeep while he sent the other men back to the truck.
Dimitri sat in back with the Hardys and told his driver, "We're making a tour of the ranch so our new men here understand the layout. You know, the standard orientation tour."
The man said, "Yes, sir," and started the jeep back over the dirt road.
Again they passed the grazing cattle, and Dimitri explained, "That's where we get our beef. Not to mention that the chief likes to play cowboy. He rides a horse and lassos steer, brands them, that kind of stuff." Dimitri smiled, as if at a private joke. "It's one of his favorite hobbies."
The jeep turned onto another dirt road, and they drove to where the grassland turned into fields of corn and grain and vegetables.
"This is where we get the rest of our food," Dimitri explained. "The chief has made this ranch practically self-supporting."
"How many people live here?" Frank asked.
"Oh, plenty." Dimitri gazed off into the distance. "And they stay a long time."
"Is it expensive?" Joe exchanged glances with Frank. They needed information, but weren't sure how far they could push Dimitri without his getting suspicious. At the moment, he seemed not to notice how curious these two young recruits were.
"You never saw anything so expensive in your life," he bragged. "See that?" He pointed toward a large complex that had just become visible in the distance, at the edge of the surrounding jungle. "That's the ranch house. Only the truly elite can afford to stay there. A suite in the big house costs fifty thousand a month, and that's just for a room and continental breakfast, no more. You pay for extras. A good meal costs a thousand bucks. Clean sheets, five hundred. Laundry and dry cleaning, a grand a week."
"Why would anyone pay that much?" Frank asked incredulously. "How ritzy can the place be?"
"Oh, it's ritzy, all right. But that's not why people stay. See, the catch is, it costs five million dollars in cash to check out."
"Five m—" Frank started to say, but Joe stopped him with a nudge in the ribs and a gesture toward the cornfield to one side of them. There, a group of men and women chopped wearily at some weeds. A man in khakis with a rifle in the crook of his arm was overseeing them. As the jeep drew closer, Frank and Joe could see that, while most of the workers were probably locals, a few among them were middle-aged, paunchy, sunburned, and obviously not accustomed to fieldwork. All wore ragged clothing and frayed straw hats that did little to keep out the burning sun as they hacked methodically at the soil. They were clearly bone-weary.
Suddenly there was a small commotion. One of the workers had fallen to the ground and lay still, face down. The other workers gathered around him.
Dimitri told his driver to head over to the scene of the trouble so that he could check it out. When the jeep arrived, Dimitri climbed out, followed by Frank and Joe.
By now the man who had collapsed was being helped to his feet by fellow workers, while the guard looked on in a bored way.
Frank and Joe could see that the man was in late middle-age, with a stubble of beard on his hollowed-out cheeks and dark circles of fatigue under his watery blue eyes.
Something stirred in Frank's memory. He was sure he had seen that face before. But he couldn't remember where.
Dimitri, though, knew who the man was. "Hans? Causing trouble again? Won't you ever learn?"
Something inside the man seemed to snap. He straightened up, his nostrils flared with anger, his eyes ablaze. For a moment he was no longer a cowering fieldworker. His voice was the voice of someone who was used to being in command. "Stop with this 'Hans' nonsense! I am sick of these silly games you play here. Call me by my right name, at least. Karl, Karl Ross. A man who could buy and sell you a million times over!"
A shiver ran through Frank. Karl Ross. Now he remembered where he had seen that face: on the front page of the newspaper when the financier had mysteriously disappeared, just before he was to be indicted for stealing millions in the stock market.
Dimitri's voice was laced with sarcasm as he said, "Hans, maybe that was true once, but you're broke now. And the ranch is your home. Don't you like it here? Maybe you should try to escape again. Next time you get lost in the jungle, the guard might not find you and bring you back. You might get away and keep going until the jaguars or snakes or alligators finish you off. Or you could cross the river and have our friends over there nab you."
Dimitri turned to Frank and Joe. "I heard that Hans here was a real smart operator on the outside. But he's acted real dumb around here. After he went broke, he had a real nice job in the ranch kitchen washing dishes. But he gave it all up when he tried to get away. Guess he thought escaping from here would be as easy as escaping from the States."
"What do you want me to do with him, sir?" the guard asked Dimitri.
"Get him back to work," said Dimitri. "If he drops, let him lie in the dirt. He's not going anywhere—are you, Hans? And remember, if you cause any more trouble, we cut your rations in half."
The fire had faded from Karl Ross's eyes. His voice was a whimper. "But it's such a very little bit already. Maybe if I ate a little more, I could work better. Nothing much. Some extra margarine, maybe. It makes the bread taste so much better."
"Well, if you're very good, we'll see about that," said Dimitri, smiling. "We might even give you some meat on Sundays. How does that sound, Hans? You don't mind my calling you 'Hans,' do you, Hans?"
"No, no, not at all," Karl Ross said. "Please, forget my little outburst. It was the sun. Yes, a touch of sun. A little meat, you said? Maybe this Sunday? It has been so long."
Karl Ross picked up his hoe and began hacking at the weeds with as much vigor as his bent body could muster. Dimitri watched with a smirk on his face, then climbed back into the jeep. Frank and Joe, both feeling queasy, followed him, and the jeep drove off.
"Guess you've seen enough," Dimitri said. "You get the idea how we operate here."
"Yeah, we've got the idea," said Frank, masking his disgust.
"Sure do," agreed Joe.
"Anyway, you won't be working out here," said Dimitri. "You've been assigned to the ranch house staff. Easy duty. You even have your living quarters there, so you don't have to live in the ba
rracks. I'll take you there now to be briefed."
When they reached the ranch house — a rambling, two-story, colonial-style structure built around a central courtyard — Dimitri offered a few words of caution. "Like I said, it's easy duty, but there is one hitch. You're going to be working right under the chief, and sometimes he's—well, a little extreme. The guys before you made the mistake of acting surprised at some of the stuff he did—and they're out guarding the jungle now, fighting mosquitoes. So, if you know what's good for you, you'll keep your noses clean and do exactly what you're told."
Dimitri left Frank and Joe with the front door guard, who said to them, "You can pick up your gear and bedding and get settled later. The chief wants you right now. On the double."
"Where do we go?" asked Frank.
"Down that hall there and through the door at the end," said the guard. "It leads to the courtyard."
"What do you think?" asked Joe as he and Frank started down the wide, high-ceilinged hall. "Is it worth fifty thousand a month?"
"It's not bad," Frank said as the two brothers looked around at the sweeping Spanish-tiled stairways, huge oil paintings, and antique carpets. "But even that much money isn't enough to keep an organization like this going. Think about it. The house in Florida, the yacht, the private railroad, the ranch—it's got to cost more than a small country."
"The world's greatest scam for the world's biggest crooks." Joe shook his head in disbelief. "Can you imagine how Karl Ross reacted when he got here and found out what he'd laid out his money for? A prison a lot worse than the one he was escaping. Not such a Perfect Getaway."
"At least they haven't killed him," said Frank.
"Yeah — but that's the question. Why haven't they? They've gotten all they can from him." Joe paused to straighten what looked like a small but genuine Rembrandt painting.
"Lucky we got assigned to headquarters," Frank said. "This'll make it a lot easier to fill in all the blanks about what's going on here."
"There's one blank I want filled in right away," said Joe.
"What's that?" asked Frank.
"What Dimitri said, that bit about the chief acting extreme," said Joe. "What could be more extreme than what we've already seen and heard around here?"
Suddenly, through the half-open door leading to the courtyard, there came a hideous human scream.
"You know, Joe," said Frank, "I've got a hunch we're about to find out."
Chapter 11
THE ONLY INHABITANTS of the large central courtyard were half a dozen bright green parrots cackling at one another in the branches of a twenty-foot palm tree. The entire courtyard was filled with lush, tropical trees, flowers, and plants in an apparent effort to bring some of the jungle into the heart of the ranch complex. In the center of this miniature jungle, an elaborate fountain paved with hand-painted tiles sent streams of water up into the humid air.
Frank and Joe were in no mood to enjoy the scenery, though. Another horrible scream pierced the air, and this time it was clear that the sound was coming from behind a closed door at the opposite end of the courtyard.
"Come on," said Frank, and he led the way through the trees, causing the parrots to squawk indignantly overhead.
"Frank, maybe we should — " Joe said as they reached the far door.
"Ssh," Frank warned him and cracked the door open to peer inside. Just then another nerve-shattering scream washed over them.
"I told you, I don't have any!" a voice cried out. Frank hesitated. The voice was familiar. He motioned to Joe, and the two boys slipped through the door.
This section of the ranch was radically different from the main entry way, and something about it made the Hardys' skin crawl. The narrow, low-ceilinged hall was painted antiseptic white. The lighting was fluorescent. The floor was green linoleum.
"Looks like the infirmary at school," Joe whispered.
Voices came from a room at the end of the hall, where a door had been left ajar. The two voices were too low now to decipher, but they sounded familiar. Frank and Joe moved toward them and cautiously looked into the room.
Igor, his clothes torn and muddy and his face cut, was sitting in a dentist's chair. An IV plugged into his wrist fed what looked like a glucose solution into his bloodstream.
The other man was the chief. He wore his khakis and cowboy hat and was standing on the other side of the chair. Near him was a table loaded down with a lie detector, a voice-stress analyzer, and other complicated electronic equipment that even Frank had never seen before. The chief held a syringe in one hand and was adjusting his equipment with the other, while talking to Igor in a low monotone. When he saw Frank and Joe, he stopped talking.
Remembering Dimitri's warning, Frank and Joe were careful to show no surprise at the scene. Keeping their faces expressionless, they entered the room, saluted, and said in unison, "Reporting for duty as ordered, sir."
"Glad you're on board, boys," the chief said, his western accent more pronounced than ever. "I was just warming up Igor here a little bit. Seems he's a bit shy about telling me where he's stashed his cache."
"I told you, I have no cache," Igor protested, unable to take his eyes off the syringe, whose tip bubbled with an odd-looking blue liquid. "Please, you have to believe me."
"Sure I believe you, partner," said the chief, smiling. "Just like I believe all the folks who come visiting us here. All those poor, poor fellows. None of them with a red cent stashed away, except for what they brought with them. And you, you don't even have that anymore, do you?"
The chief checked the level of the IV solution. Then he held up the syringe and squeezed it until a tiny blue bubble dripped down the side. "Yep, poor old Igor here had the unfortunate idea of trying to cut out once he saw it wasn't quite the palace he'd envisioned," the chief said, reaching for Igor's free arm. "Seems he jumped the train as it was slowing down outside the ranch. The guards caught him, naturally. And if they hadn't, the snakes sure would have. The penalty for an escape attempt at Rancho Getaway is the forfeiting of all a man's available money. Sad to say, Mr. Igor here doesn't seem to have the extra savings for even one more night alive."
"I liquidated all my assets before I left the States," Igor babbled frantically, watching in horror as the chief prepared to inject him with the poisonous-looking blue chemical. "Gave it all away. I didn't think I'd need it anymore — "
"That plus a dollar will get you a cup of coffee," the chief said impatiently. "Now, this won't hurt much. You'll just feel a cold shiver up your spine. Kind of like a rattlesnake bite. Hold him down, boys, will you? He's squirming around too much."
Frank and Joe stepped forward hesitantly and placed their hands on Igor's shoulders, ignoring the desperate, mute appeal for help in his eyes. The chief brought the syringe closer to the surface of Igor's skin and lined up the needle with a vein. Joe's eyes sought out Frank's in alarm. Each knew what the other was thinking. How long could they let this go on? Igor might be a crook, but nobody deserved this.
The chief pulled back his finger to plunge the needle in. Joe tensed his legs, ready to tackle him in an instant.
"Okay, okay, you win!" Igor's voice was hoarse with fear. "I've got savings. Swiss bank accounts. You can have it all. Just get that thing away from me!"
The chief smiled and stepped back. Relieved, Frank and Joe released their hold on Igor. "I knew you'd come to your senses," the chief said, setting the syringe on the table and reaching for a pad and pencil. "If you'll just give me the account numbers, I think we might have ourselves a deal."
As Igor, half-mad with relief and fear, rattled off a string of account numbers from memory, Joe and Frank exchanged glances. "Extreme" wasn't the word for the chief. "Crazy" was closer.
Except that if the chief was crazy, it was like a fox.
A rabidly cruel fox.
"That's all?" the chief mumbled as he copied down the last of the account numbers. There were almost a dozen, all in Swiss and offshore banks, the kind that operate by number only ins
tead of by name, appearance, or proper ID. "You wouldn't be holding out on me again, I hope, Igor."
"Are you kidding? Money's not everything, you know."
The chief chuckled. "Untie him," he commanded the Hardys as he started out of the room. "We'll go inside and get these funds transferred so Igor here can relax and take a shower in his room. You two come along, to keep guard."
The chief's office was ultramodern, except for pictures of the Old West and the mounted head of a longhorn steer that jutted out of the wall behind his chrome-and-marble desk.
The chief motioned for Igor to sit down facing the desk and ordered Frank and Joe to stand guard near the door. "Make yourself comfortable," he said to Igor. "I'm going to check these little old numbers out. We've got a communications setup here that can do that in no time flat." He started to leave, then paused. "I forgot," he said to the Hardys. "You two haven't been issued weapons yet. Until that happens, you can use this."
The chief took a pearl-handled six-gun out of a cabinet near the desk and tossed it to Joe. Then he left the room.
As soon as he was gone, shutting the door behind him, Igor turned eagerly to the Hardys.
"You two have to help me escape," he said. "That money I promised you before — well, I'll triple it. Quadruple it. Anything."
"What are you going to pay us with?" said Frank, keeping up a show of suspicion. No sense in blowing his and Joe's cover.
"Yeah," Joe seconded him. "Looks like the chief has all your cash."
Despite his sorry state, Igor looked at him with contempt. "You think I gave him all my bank account numbers? Don't be a fool. With crooks like him, you've always got to keep your highest cards back, just in case he threatens you again. Those accounts I gave him were chicken feed. I've got something worth more than all of them put together. Millions, I tell you, millions."
"Millions?" Frank said, pretending to think it over. "What could be worth that much?"
"Information, my friend." Igor leaned toward him, and the Hardys again saw the look of raw desperation they'd witnessed when the chief had threatened to put him out. He was a cornered animal, they realized, and he'd fight tooth and claw before allowing himself to become someone else's prey. "Stock tips. Insider scams. Who's going to make the next takeover bid and when. I put half the people in the top five hundred where they are today. I can even do a little blackmail if I have to. Why do you think I'm on the run? Because I've got a direct line to the really big money, boys, and I know how to redirect it."
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