"Sorry, I got a tickle in my throat."
"Don't bother." White pointed to a big loop on the paper where the needle and pen had swung wildly. "You know this machine doesn't say whether you're telling the truth. It measures stress—heartbeat, breathing rate, muscle tension — even how much you sweat. I can see you had a big reaction to that question. Let me ask it again. What does your father do?"
"He's retired."
"I see. Retired from what?"
"Retired from public service. He worked for the City of New York."
White leaned forward and stared at the needle of the polygraph. He let out a stream of air as if he were disappointed.
"Mr. Hardy," he began. "Your life is hanging by the proverbial thread. It is obvious to the machine and myself that you're trying to hide something. If you won't tell me, I'll have to up the ante. You see, it's very important to me to find out what you know."
He got up and went outside. Almost instantly the door reopened, and White reentered, wheeling a gurney, and on the gurney was Frank. His mouth was taped shut, and wires from some kind of machine were attached to his stomach.
White took those wires and attached them to the polygraph. Then he turned to Joe.
"I have just added a small electrode to this machine. Your brother has a substantial amount of plastic explosive attached to his stomach. If the polygraph needle jumps to the electrode, it will detonate the plastique.
"Of course, the explosion will kill him." White turned the corners of his mouth up in a thin-lipped grimace. "Shall we begin again?"
Chapter 9
"WAIT A MINUTE!" Joe yelled.
"I would suggest that you remain as calm as possible, Mr. Hardy. I see by the needle you are getting upset."
"Upset? Of course I'm upset. You've got my brother wired up like — like a human bomb!"
"But you're the detonator. Just answer the questions honestly, Mr. Hardy, and no harm will come to your brother."
Joe could see the wide sweeps the polygraph needle was making. He tried to calm down, but he couldn't stop his heart from pounding. Forcing his eyes away from the machine, he looked over at Frank. Frank's eyes were calm.
"That's better," White said soothingly. "The more you surrender, the easier this will be."
Joe exhaled in a long hiss. If he could just stay calm and answer the questions, maybe he could figure a way out of this situation.
He remembered some of Frank's karate exercises — those to make his mind a blank. He concentrated on deep, regular breathing.
"I'll begin again," White said, drawing up a chair and placing it near the machine. "What brings you to Alaska?"
Joe stared straight ahead and spoke in a quiet voice. "We're here to find Scott and bring him home if he's in trouble."
"What makes you think this is a job for you?"
"My brother and I have done this kind of thing before." Joe felt angry that he had to spill his guts, but he forced the anger down.
"What kind of thing?" White asked, obviously pleased that he was getting somewhere.
"We've done some rescue missions and undercover work," he said.
White seemed to be amused. "For whom?"
Easy breathing — keep your mind blank, Joe told himself. He did not want to answer this question. "To help friends — "
"And?" White said, watching as the needle headed for the contact point.
"And for a government agency." Joe's words came out in a rush.
"Which agency?" White was pretending to have all the patience in the world.
"The Network. We've only worked indirectly—they'd never admit they knew us," Joe said.
"Don't worry, Mr. Hardy. I won't ask them for references."
Joe glanced over at Frank, who nodded his head slightly. His eyes seemed to say that Joe was doing the right thing.
"Tell me what you know about Trans-Yukon Mining," White continued.
"Only what our friend Doug told us."
"What did Doug tell you?"
"That they had a contract to work on the pipeline and some of the managers were taking bribes."
"Did he tell you what the bribes were for?"
"He didn't know, but maybe they were buying people jobs."
"Who was buying jobs?" White asked quickly.
"Doug didn't know," Joe responded.
"Do you know?"
"No, I don't," Joe said emphatically.
White paused. "Well ... the polygraph says you're not lying. But I'm not so sure."
The sound of human voices drifted into the room. White glanced up and moved quickly to the door, opening it a crack. Men were shouting outside. White slipped out without saying a word.
"Frank, are you okay?" Joe was trying to keep his breathing steady and his mind empty.
Frank nodded.
"Is that a real bomb?" Joe couldn't force himself to look at the lump on Frank's stomach.
Frank nodded again. Joe closed his eyes and tried to smother the panic that had risen, sour-tasting, to his mouth. How much longer could this go on? What would happen when they were done? Would White dare to let them go?
Dimly Joe and Frank heard a now - familiar sound — the whirr of a helicopter. What was going on?
After a loud crash the door flew open. The needle swerved so wildly Joe didn't dare look. But when Frank began mumbling through his gag, his eyes wide with relief, Joe turned to see Virgil and Tanook in the doorway.
"I thought I'd find you in here," Virgil said. "Are you all right?"
Frank nodded his head, which was all he could do. Joe spoke as if he were in a trance.
"We're fine, Virgil, but there's a guy who'll be back any second. Please hurry." Joe was barely whispering.
Virgil looked hard at Joe. "What's wrong with your voice? Have they given you medicine?"
Joe breathed out very loudly. "I'm wired to this machine — "
Virgil nodded. "They were asking you questions to see if you tell the truth — "
"But it's also wired to a bomb on Frank's stomach. If the needle jumps too high, the bomb will explode." Joe's voice was hardly louder than a sigh.
Virgil could barely understand what Joe was saying. "What? Frank is taking the test, too? With a bomb on his stomach?"
Joe closed his eyes. He couldn't afford to get frustrated. "It's no test. If I get upset or excited, the machine will set off his bomb. Do you understand?"
Virgil looked from the bomb to the polygraph. "That bomb—Frank—you had to tell the truth!"
Joe nodded. "Right. Now please cut these wires and get us out of here."
Virgil went to the polygraph and tore out the wires. He unstrapped Joe, who ripped the wires off his own body while Virgil removed the bomb from Frank. They both helped get the tape off Frank's face.
"I'd have been here sooner," Virgil said as he went to work on the tape, "but I had to take care of the dogs, and then round up my friends. I thought there would be more trouble—and I guessed you'd head here and straight into it."
Frank was finally free from all the tape. "Let's get out of here before that creep comes back," he exclaimed, rubbing his face with both hands.
"First we've got to look for Scott," Joe said.
"No," said Virgil. "There's no one else here. I checked. Follow me!" Virgil ran to the door and peered out. "No one."
They tore down a long corridor to the front of the building, where they heard Virgil's friends shouting at the front gate about North Slope being unfair to workers. "That drew all the guards," Virgil said. "One of my friends will bring the chopper in. Stay low."
They crouched at the side of the building, out of sight of the guards and White. Virgil pulled a small walkie-talkie from his jacket and called in the chopper. In less than two minutes it dropped in, low and fast.
When the chopper was ten feet off the ground, they sprang up and sprinted in a zigzag pattern for its open door.
The noise of the blades whipping overhead was deafening, but even it wasn't loud enough to dr
own out the sound of gunfire. They dove through the door headfirst.
Frank was the last one in, and as he landed the helicopter lurched. His kneecap felt shattered. The pain sent him rolling across the floor as the chopper tilted up into the dust-filled sky.
Virgil and Joe examined the damage to Frank's knee. His jeans were torn, and a mean-looking gash cut a line down his entire kneecap.
"It's not a bullet wound," Joe said. "You must have smacked your knee on the edge of the chopper as you dove in."
Frank held his leg. "This definitely has not been one of my better days."
"Take it easy," Joe said. "We'll have you fixed up in no time."
Virgil dressed the wound as the pilot headed for a hunting camp in the mountains. "You'll have to keep the leg straight for a couple of days, but it'll be all right," he said.
That night, after dropping off Virgil's friend, they sat around the fire after dinner to talk. Even though the night sky was light, the air was considerably cooler than in the day. The warmth of the flames soothed them.
"I think we've got to jump on this right now," Joe insisted. "Sandy White may think we represent the Network, and he may try to speed up his plans now."
"Well, I'm not going to be much help," Frank said, looking at his outstretched leg. "And you may think I'm crazy, but I don't think the North Slope compound is where the action is."
"What do you mean?" Joe asked.
"Well, for one thing, there were so few men there. My hunch is, White's got another base of operations, and I think it's north of here."
"North? There's only ocean north of here!" Joe exclaimed.
"Well, maybe his troops are on the ocean."
"But why north?"
"It's a matter of buoys," was all Frank offered. Frank shifted, trying to make his leg more comfortable. "It also seems evident to me that he's involved with Hammond at Trans-Yukon. Did you notice how he knew who Doug was?"
"Right," Joe said, remembering. "He didn't ask who Doug was when I mentioned him."
"Well, that's one thing that needs checking out at Prudhoe. I think I'll stay up here. I've got this crazy hunch about a boat or something."
"I was planning to go fishing soon," Virgil said. "Might as well go tomorrow. We can check out the immediate area, and that way Frank can stay off his leg."
"Great!" Frank said. "That's perfect."
"It's perfect, if you'll take me back to Prudhoe," Joe cut in. "There are a lot of ends to tie up there. There's the Hammond - White connection. And was that really Scott we saw? I mean, what would he be doing there? In some lab, after hours?"
"I'll take you," Virgil said. "Better go now. This way I can come back and then get a good start in the morning."
"Fine with me," Joe responded, getting up from the ground.
"Just don't get into trouble," Frank said. "We won't be around to help you out."
"What? Me? Get into trouble?" Joe smiled. "You've got to be kidding. I'm just going to do a little creative snooping, that's all."
"Right." Frank laughed. "Just don't get caught."
"You can always contact the weather pilot at the airport if you want to get in touch with us," Virgil volunteered. "He's a friend of mine, and he flies out over the ocean just about every day."
Joe nodded. "Fine. He's one of the first people I'll check in with."
"Who else do you know in Prudhoe?" Frank asked as Joe hurried to leave. "Wait a minute. Are you going to talk with Cindy?"
"That's for me to know, and you to find out." Joe grinned. "Catch you later."
He climbed into the helicopter. In a matter of minutes the chopper was a speck in the huge northern sky, and Frank was alone by the fire.
He stared into the flames, thinking. An image of buoys in some part of his mind kept insisting that this whole thing had something to do with the ocean.
Frank closed his eyes, trying to concentrate. But the fire and his rough day drugged him. Soon he was dozing. The flicker of the firelight played against his eyelids like a blinking light, like the safety buoys floating back home in Barmet Bay ....
Frank's eyes snapped open as he realized what was nagging him. He'd seen them twice. They'd found one on the plane, before they'd had to jump. Then there was the other one in the bunker at North Slope Supply.
He tried to call up an image of what they'd looked like. The one on the plane had a radio transponder. Well, that cinched it. That definitely explained why he kept thinking of the ocean. But why would anyone want or need a floating radio set?
Frank's head jerked back as he pulled himself totally awake. A floating radio could pinpoint the high-seas rendezvous for an airplane—or a submarine.
Chapter 10
VIRGIL HAD HARDLY landed the chopper before Frank ran limping up to talk about his idea.
"You could be right," Virgil said. "Some of my friends think there's submarine activity up there."
"How would they know?" Frank asked.
"When things come out of a sub, they head up to the surface — oil, that kind of stuff," Virgil answered. "We'll see tomorrow."
They slept soundly and at midmorning set off in the helicopter for Virgil's fishing camp. The dogs were still there. Apparently someone came in to feed them every day while Virgil wasn't there. The boat was still sound and seaworthy, and soon they were chugging through the white-caps of the Arctic Ocean.
Virgil laughed as Tanook jumped aboard. "This dog loves fishing," he said.
The boat was sturdy, built more for endurance than speed. The engine was mounted on the back, and Virgil stored extra fuel and supplies under the seats. It was a craft made for the icy waters of the northern seas.
Frank sat in the center, Virgil at the stern, one hand on the tiller. Tanook took his station up front. He enjoyed the wind in his face, even though he did bark when hit by spray.
As they headed north Virgil tended to business, throwing out lines and catching fish. He threw them, dive, into the large wooden box in the middle of the boat. Some he would use for bait — others for food. One he threw to Tanook, who quickly gobbled it down.
"When autumn comes, all this will be dotted with pack ice," Virgil told Frank with a grin. "All the native people know. The best time to travel is in the wintertime Frank looked out over the black water. It was hard to imagine what it would look like a couple of months from then — white and frozen in the darkness of the Arctic winter.
After an hour of fishing Virgil pointed to a shiny spot on the water where the reflections from the sun were tinted with blue and red. "See that?" he called. "Oil. Not good for fish or seals!"
Frank had seen pictures of oil slicks in news magazines, but this wasn't the same. "It doesn't look very big," he said.
"Big enough," Virgil muttered bitterly. "This had to come from a big ship — a freighter or a submarine."
They continued north, past the slick, then past still another one. Virgil scanned the horizon silently. Frank, too, fell into silence, prickling with the feeling that they were not alone. Something was out there with them. But all he heard was the droning of their engine as they plowed north.
Virgil turned off the engine without warning. The complete silence was a shock to Frank. He looked at Virgil to see if everything was all right. Virgil just held up a finger to his lips to silence him. His ear was cocked into the wind and he was gazing at nothing.
"I think I hear something," he said after a moment. "Listen."
Frank caught only the sounds of waves slapping against the side of the boat and of the wind.
"What do you think it is?" Frank whispered.
"A boat, or maybe a plane," Virgil said. He remained perfectly still. "I think it's coming up from the south."
Frank was amazed at Virgil's hearing. At the fishing camp, he'd heard the approaching choppers minutes before anyone else. Now he'd picked out the sound of a distant engine over all the wind and water.
But Frank was the first to catch the glint of sunlight on the plane's wings. "There it is!"
It showed only as a tiny speck against the white of the overcast clouds. But it became clearer as it drew nearer. "It's a seaplane," Frank said, "with pontoons."
"Not many planes come out here prepared to land on the water." Virgil cranked up the engine again, pointing the boat due north and opening the throttle. The bow rose out of the water as the propellers bit into the sea.
"How can we race a plane?" Frank asked.
"We're ahead of it already, and we can keep an eye on it for quite a while," Virgil said. "If we line up with its course, sooner or later we're bound to come across it when it lands."
They continued on in silence. Virgil no longer fished—he wrapped up all his lines and stowed them.
A thought occurred to Frank. "Do we have enough fuel?"
Virgil glanced down at the tanks. "Depends on how long we have to go. We can keep on for a couple more hours."
Frank sat back to enjoy the ride. What more could he want? His leg was feeling better, he had the smell of salt water and the wind—and maybe answers for a lot of questions.
The plane was long out of sight, but after two hours of following its course they caught up with it. There it was, bobbing on the water in the middle of nowhere.
Frank tapped Virgil's arm. "Better turn off the engine. We don't want them to think we're spying on them."
"What if we're fishing?" Virgil said with a grin. "That shouldn't be suspicious." Throwing out some fishing lines, Virgil handed Frank a parka. "Pull the hood up," he suggested. ' 'They may have binoculars." ' Looking innocent and busy, Virgil started the engine, and they trolled slowly, moving constantly toward the seaplane. There was no sign of life either in or around it. Where was the pilot? As they got closer Frank's eyes narrowed.
"Hey, Virgil, that plane isn't moving around. I think it's anchored."
Virgil steered around it in a wide circle. After several minutes they were able to see the other side of the plane and they got a glimpse into the cockpit. Two men were inside, deep in conversation. They obviously hadn't seen the little fishing boat.
Bobbing up and down in the water, next to the plane, was a sea buoy with a radio transponder on it.
Trouble in the Pipeline Page 5
