“Let me fill you in on the problems here,” Felix Stock said as he sat behind his desk. “It started with a threatening phone call.”
“What did the caller say?” Frank asked.
“He called the Saurion a death car. He said whoever drove it would die a horrible death.”
“Did you recognize the voice?” Joe inquired.
Stock shook his head. “At first I didn’t really take the threat very seriously. But two weeks ago the Saurion nearly crushed me when one of the hydraulic jacks holding up its front end gave way. When I checked out the system, I discovered the oil in the lines had been drained.”
“Couldn’t it have just been a leak?” Joe asked.
“There would have been oil on the floor, or in the corner where the jacks are stored. I looked, and there wasn’t any. Then someone broke into my office safe and rummaged through the plans for the Saurion. Several important wiring diagrams are missing. That’s when I decided to call your father. He said you two could help me.”
“If these are the famous Hardy brothers, they probably can,” said a woman behind them. The Hardys and Chet turned and saw a young woman with blue eyes and long blond hair that was tied back with a red silk scarf. She stood just outside the doorway, smiling at Frank and Joe.
“I’ve read a lot about you in the newspapers. My name is Katie Bratton,” she said. “I’m Felix’s test driver.”
“And she’s one of the best,” Felix Stock added. “When someone wants a new racing car pushed to the limit to see what it’ll do, Katie’s the driver. She’s been with the Saurion project since the beginning. And she’ll be at the wheel on the race Saturday night.”
“Did you drive the Saurion?” Katie asked the Hardys.
“We ran it around the track a couple of times,” Joe said, smiling at Katie. She was a small woman. Joe guessed that she was about five feet, barely tall enough to see over the steering wheel.
“Did you ever have any trouble with the way it handled?” Frank asked Katie.
“The Saurion’s absolutely the best tracking car on the road,” she answered. “It doesn’t pull. It won’t even vibrate, and we’re talking at about two hundred miles an hour.” A puzzled expression came over her face. “Why, is it out of alignment or something?”
Frank told Katie about their experience on the track.
“You dropped the transmission?” Katie said, frowning at Joe.
“I probably only tore out a gear or two,” Joe admitted sheepishly.
“Actually, you tore out all six,” Felix Stock said. “It’ll need a whole new transmission.”
“Are you always that hard on your cars?” Katie asked Joe.
“Of course not,” Joe replied. “Like my brother said, the Saurion was totally out of control.”
Katie nodded thoughtfully. “It’s never done anything like that.” She paused for a moment, then said, “As Felix has probably told you, there have been some very strange things going on around here.” She handed Joe a folded piece of paper. “I found this in my locker when I got here today.”
Joe opened the note and saw that it was made up of letters cut from newspapers. “ ‘The faster you drive,’ ” Joe read aloud, “ ‘the sooner you die!’ ”
“Someone’s idea of a joke,” Katie said with a shrug. Frank noticed that she didn’t sound scared at all.
“That’s the last straw,” Felix announced, turning to Katie. “You may think these incidents are practical jokes, but I don’t. There’s not going to be any race. I can’t let you risk it.”
“Come on, Felix,” Katie said firmly. “You’re not going to back down now, after all you’ve been through to get the Saurion ready.”
“I am if someone is really trying to sabotage the car,” Stock said stubbornly. “I’m going to call Mr. Ota over at Miyagi Motors and suggest we postpone the race.”
“That’s exactly what the person who’s behind these threats wants you to do,” Frank pointed out. “Why don’t you let us do a little investigating first. This is only Thursday.”
“If you cancel now,” Joe added, “whoever is doing these things will stop. The more threats or sabotage attempts, the more likely he’ll be to trip himself up.”
“I’m no detective,” Katie said, “but if I were looking for someone who might want to sabotage the Saurion, I’d choose that project engineer over at Miyagi Motors.”
“What makes you think it’s him?” Frank asked.
“I’ve met the guy,” she replied. “His name is Takeo Ota. He sounded to me as if he was against having the race.”
“That wasn’t my impression,” Felix Stock said. “He told me he was looking forward to the race.”
“I’m convinced Mr. Ota’s afraid his Sata Speedster will lose,” Katie insisted. “And a loss would hurt Miyagi’s sales.”
“We’ll talk to him,” Joe told Katie.
“I’m not going to let an accident and a couple of dumb pranks scare me off,” Katie said to Stock.
Felix Stock pointed to the note in Joe’s hand. “As far as I’m concerned, this is a death threat,” he said firmly.
“It’s also a clue,” Joe pointed out. “Do you mind if I hold on to it for a while?”
Katie nodded. Then she said evenly, “Look, Felix, I drove race cars while I was in high school. I’ve driven for ten years. I’ve been in accidents and pileups, and as you can plainly see, I’m perfectly all right. I refuse to let some rival car manufacturer scare me out of one of the biggest races of the year. And I don’t think you should let yourself get scared off, either.”
“Okay, okay,” Stock said with a sigh. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Why don’t you show us around your area here at the speedway?” Frank said. “I’d like to take a look at that hydraulic jack.”
Stock got up from behind his desk and motioned for the group to follow him out of the office.
“Were these the original Gasoline Alley garages?” Frank asked as they passed the three buildings that made up the Stock Motor Car Company.
“That’s right,” Stock replied. “The garages you see down this roadway were built back when the speedway was new.” He gestured toward the aging brick and wooden structures.
Frank noticed broken panes in some of the windows. Many of the wooden frames and doors needed painting.
“Ticket sales haven’t been too good here at the track,” Stock told them. “If my company weren’t using these three buildings, they’d just be standing idle. The speedway’s newer garages are around the fourth turn and behind the starting line and viewing stands. They’re much more convenient for the drivers and their mechanics. They even have their own underpasses beneath the racetrack to the pit area.”
“Do you pay Kiser for the use of the garages?” Joe asked.
“Felix doesn’t pay any rent,” Katie said.
As the group approached Building C, Chet stopped and gave a low whistle. “Look at all these Saurions!”
“We use a carbon fiber body,” Felix Stock explained, leading the group into the garage. “That means the Saurion’s frame is made out of a composite material rather than steel. It’s ten times stronger but a lot lighter.”
“It’s state of the art,” Katie said proudly.
Frank counted a dozen cars in various stages of production. All of them had complete drivetrains, and several wore their finished body panels, ready for painting.
“I have orders for all of these cars,” Stock told the Hardys and Chet. “In fact, if it didn’t take so much handcrafting to build each one, I could sell ten times this many.”
“That’s not the idea, though,” Katie said. “He’s not making hamburgers. Felix wants quality, not quantity.”
“I see no one’s working on the cars today,” Frank noted. “Are you building these by yourself?”
Stock shook his head. “I gave everyone except Marvin some time off while we got through race weekend,” Stock explained. “Marvin Tarpley’s my best mechanic. He’s the only on
e who can touch the car, except Katie, of course. He’s around here somewhere. He also works for the demolition derby.” Stock led them over to a corner of the shop. “There’s the jack,” he said, pointing.
Taking a small penlight from his pocket, Joe knelt down and examined the hydraulic jack. He recognized it as an old model. The red paint on the cast-iron body had long ago chipped and faded.
“There are fresh scratches on this oil coupling,” he said. “I’d say someone disconnected the tube and bled the system.”
“How about the people who work for you?” Frank asked. “Do you trust them all?”
“I don’t actually know them personally,” Stock said thoughtfully, “except for Katie here.” Katie smiled.
“Could you give us a list of your employees?” Frank asked. “We need to check them out.”
“Let’s go on back to my office, and I’ll get it for you. Then I’d better find Marvin to help me repair the prototype.”
Frank took a last look around the assembly building. Suddenly he spotted a small object lying on the floor. He picked it up and glanced at it quickly. It was made of plastic, but Frank couldn’t identify it. He slipped it into his pocket and hurried out of the garage behind his brother.
Chet and Katie were in the lead as the group approached the large overhead door leading into Building A.
“Oh, no!” Katie exclaimed as she stepped out of the sun into the dimness of the garage.
“What’s wrong now?” Felix Stock demanded.
“Everything!” Katie Bratton gasped. “The Saurion’s gone!”
3 Buried Alive
* * *
“Don’t touch anything,” Joe Hardy ordered, looking around the empty garage, where the Saurion had been parked only minutes before.
“How could this happen?” Katie said in disbelief.
“I’m finished,” Felix Stock said with a groan.
“There’s a rational explanation for this,” Frank said to Stock. “Cars don’t just disappear.”
“It couldn’t have been driven out of here,” Chet said. “We would have heard it.”
“And if someone towed it, we would have heard that noise, too. We weren’t so far away,” Joe added.
“Maybe it was pushed,” Frank said. “We left the overhead door open. Pushing it wouldn’t have made much noise.”
“But where was it pushed?” Felix Stock asked in an exasperated tone. “And how far could anyone push it?”
Joe studied the concrete floor where the Saurion had been parked. “There aren’t any tracks,” he announced, gazing around the room.
He noticed an overhead door at the back of the garage. Crates had been piled up against it. “There’s a fine coating of dust on the floor at the back and sides of the garage, and there aren’t even tracks from when we drove the Saurion in. It looks to me like the floor has been swept.”
“I’m going to call the main gate to see if the guard has seen the Saurion,” Stock announced. He headed for his office at the back of the building. Katie stayed with the Hardys and Chet.
Frank took the small plastic object out of his pocket and handed it to his brother. “I found this in Building C, back in the corner where Stock keeps his jacks,” Frank said. “Got any idea what it is?”
Turning toward the outside light, Joe studied the matchbook-size piece of black plastic. He noticed several color-coded wires coming out of one end. Joe shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine,” he said. “But let’s hold on to it. It could be a clue.”
Just then, Stock walked back over to them. “No one has entered or left the speedway grounds in the past half hour,” he announced. He handed Frank a printout that listed his current employees.
“That means the Saurion is still here somewhere, probably hidden nearby,” Frank said.
Joe held up the black plastic object Frank had found and asked Stock, “Is this a part out of the Saurion?”
Frowning, Stock studied the tiny piece of plastic. “No,” he said. “I’ve never seen it before.”
“It’s definitely not just a doodad,” Chet said, looking over Felix Stock’s shoulders. “Could be a gizmo or a widget.”
“How would we ever solve any cases without you?” Joe said with a sigh.
“Actually, we need your help right now,” Frank told Chet. “Joe and I are going to search the grounds for the Saurion. While we do that, you take the gizmo around and ask every mechanic and driver you see if they can identify it.”
“You can use my golf cart,” Felix Stock said quickly, noticing the pained look on Chet’s face. “It might take you a while to walk around the grounds.”
“If you want to find the car,” Katie Bratton said knowingly, “I’d start at Miyagi Motors.”
“That’s a serious accusation,” Joe said quietly. “Do you have any evidence?”
“If you work around auto racing,” Katie said, untying her red silk scarf and combing her hair with her fingers, “you hear things.”
“Things like what?” Frank asked.
“Just talk, mostly out at the Circuit Diner,” she said. “It’s up on Shore Road.”
“The Circuit’s a hangout for race drivers and the guys over at Kiser’s demolition derby,” Stock explained.
“A diner,” Chet said, his face brightening. “Why don’t we start our investigating over there?”
Joe ignored Chet’s suggestion. “Is there a backup car for the race?” he asked Stock.
“No prototype, no race,” Felix replied sadly. “And without that race, I’m afraid the Saurion will be a dud. I was counting on the publicity from the race to launch the car onto the market.” He rubbed his forehead slowly. “Unless Marvin, Katie, and I can prepare one of those production models,” he said.
“We can do it,” Katie insisted.
Joe handed Chet the plastic block and said, “You know what you have to do.”
“Right,” Chet said as he jogged toward a golf cart parked in front of the building.
“Okay, let’s search the area,” Frank said in a determined tone.
When they stepped outside the garage, Joe bent down and inspected the aged blacktop paving. Frank examined the small grassy area in between the buildings.
“No tracks,” Joe reported a few moments later.
“And no footprints, either,” Frank added.
“Do you think there’s anything to Katie’s idea that Miyagi Motors is behind Stock’s problems?” Joe asked. “Or behind what happened on the course this morning?”
“It’s too early to say,” Frank replied. “But when we get home, we can look for prints on the note Katie received. And when we finish here, we should check out the Circuit Diner. In the meantime, there are garages all over Gasoline Alley. And there are a lot of trailer trucks parked around here. We should check those out, too.”
“You take the trucks, and I’ll work the buildings,” Joe suggested.
Frank headed for the nearest truck, a black trailer bearing the crest of a famous Indy car racing team. The doors were locked, and there was no way of seeing inside. It would have been impossible to load the Saurion in the trailer without pushing the car across some grass, Frank figured, and there was no indication that anything or anyone had been on the unmowed grass. Frank thought the grass looked bedraggled compared with the lawn at the Hardys’ home.
He studied the grass more closely and noticed a browned-out area between buildings B and C. When he walked around B to Building A, he saw another brown patch in the space between those two buildings. The burned-out strip was about eight feet wide.
“Why would the grass on the sides of the buildings be green,” Frank muttered, “and the strips in the middle nearly dead?” He knelt down and felt the soil. It was dry. “And why is the edge along the brown area so straight?” he added to himself.
Meanwhile, Joe was looking around Building C. When Stock and Katie arrived from Stock’s office, Joe lent them a hand moving one of the partially built Saurion’s from its place in line.
<
br /> “This silver one is closest to being fully assembled,” Stock said.
“Don’t worry, Felix,” Katie said firmly. “One car or the other, I’ll win that race.”
Joe thought Felix Stock’s smile was forced, but the hug the engineer gave his driver was sincere enough.
“I hate to interrupt,” Joe said, clearing his throat, “but what’s in Building B? The door was closed when we passed it.”
“That’s our parts department,” Stock told him. “It’s a warehouse, really. I can’t imagine there would be any place to hide the prototype there, but you’re welcome to look.” He handed Joe the keys.
Joe unlocked a side entrance to Building B, then flipped the light switch inside the door. The only sound in the room came from the door clicking shut behind him. Building B contained row after row of wooden and metal shelving. Joe stared at the mass of fenders, frames, alternators, frame sections, and cardboard boxes of all sizes that filled the shelves.
Although he doubted he would find the car, Joe began a systematic search. Slowly he walked around the interior of the huge building. Finding nothing, he began to walk down the aisles between the shelves.
Suddenly Joe stopped. In the vast stillness of the warehouse, he heard something. Slowly he turned toward the sound, but detected nothing.
“Must have been a mouse,” he said to himself as he continued down the aisle.
Crack!
It wasn’t very loud, but it was the sound of a piece of glass or ceramic being crushed. Joe froze in place, and as he did, the lights went out. Joe was enveloped in blackness.
He reached silently for his penlight. As he did, from across the room came the sound of straining metal, then a resounding crash. He knew one of the long shelves weighed down by parts had been knocked against its neighbor across the aisle.
A second loud crash followed. A sickening fear came over Joe as he realized that the shelves, like a row of dominoes, were falling onto each other.
Joe turned and ran back toward the other end of the aisle he had been searching. Pointing the slim flashlight, he frantically searched for the light switch. He found it and flicked it on.
The Demolition Mission Page 2
