Not needing to steer, Joe examined the cockpit closely. The solenoids would be attached to the wheels, or steering gears, but Joe knew the devices required antennas.
“That’s it!” he cried out triumphantly. Reaching up to the windshield frame, he felt a thin wire without insulation. Pulling it loose, he discovered it went down the side post and under the dashboard. Tracing it beneath the dashboard, Joe gripped it firmly and pulled. The wire snapped. At the same time the car veered suddenly toward the outside wall. Joe grabbed the steering wheel, bringing the Saurion back under control. He caught up with the Speedster and whizzed past, missing it by inches.
Joe saw by the speedometer that he was doing 190. “That wire only controlled the steering,” he said to himself. And now that he had to steer again, he couldn’t search further in the cockpit.
Meanwhile, Frank took charge in the pits. “We’ve got to find Jason Dain and Katie Bratton. Callie, stay on the phone in case Joe comes back on. Chet and I will look for Dain and Bratton.”
Frank leapt over the pit wall and headed for the tower. He took the steep wooden stairs two at a time. “Stay close,” he instructed Chet.
Reaching the top, he quickly scanned the group of racing officials.
“Is Jason Dain here?” Frank asked.
“Over in the press box,” a man answered.
Frank and Chet scrambled back down the stairs, then headed for the concrete underpass that ran beneath the track. Leading the way, Frank bolted up the aisle toward the press box at the top of the grandstand.
Slipping quickly through the press box door, Frank made his way behind the officials to a door beyond that led into the owner’s box.
Suddenly the door burst open, and Jason Dain bolted out.
“What’s going on here?” a speedway security guard demanded.
“This man is a suspect in a case involving assault, fraud, and attempted murder,” Frank told the guard. “Chet, call Con Riley.”
“Go ahead!” Dain spat out. “It’s only a few minutes before the bomb in the Saurion explodes.” Then Dain feinted right, trying to fake his way past Frank.
Frank was quick to react. He chopped Dain first in the stomach, then hit him square on the chin. Jason Dain dropped like a rock.
Frank frisked Dain, but he did not have the remote control.
“He said there’s a bomb,” Chet said in a frightened voice.
“I heard him,” Frank said grimly. “There’s no time to lose. We’ve got to save Joe!”
15 The Winner’s Circle
* * *
Frank knew Katie Bratton was the one to find. But where was she?
Impatiently he scanned the speedway grounds. Frustration gripped him as he realized the crowd was in the hundreds. His eyes rested on a white panel truck parked in front of the demolition derby’s main garage. The area around the truck was empty.
Out of the corner of his eye, Frank glimpsed something move on the roof of a garage. He looked over and saw two figures on the roof. “Chet, let’s go,” Frank said. Frank and Chet dashed downstairs.
Callie waved and caught up to them. “Stock’s on the radio, talking to Joe,” she said.
“I’ve spotted Katie Bratton,” Frank said, pointing back toward the infield from which Callie had just come.
Frank, Callie, and Chet headed through the service tunnel that passed under the middle of the main straightaway.
Frank exited the tunnel and dashed toward the derby garage. Callie and Chet were right behind him. Chet gave him a boost, and Frank pulled himself quietly up the spouting to the roof.
Looking over, Frank could see Katie and Tarpley. Katie had the remote-control device in her hand. Marvin was leaning over the low cement-block wall that ringed the roof.
“You got him running every which way but backward,” Tarpley said.
Katie laughed gleefully. “When I activate the relays connected to the fuel injection, the Saurion will just keep picking up speed. Even I couldn’t control a car under those circumstances.”
“You’re a genius,” Tarpley said admiringly.
Frank lunged across the tar-paper roof toward Katie. In one smooth motion he turned Katie around and grabbed the remote control from her hands.
“Hey!” Tarpley protested. But before he could make a move, Frank turned and smashed him in the jaw. Tarpley slumped limply to the roof.
Katie Bratton recovered quickly enough to snatch the remote back. Frank stumbled as he reached out to stop her. Then, just as it looked as though Katie might get away, Callie appeared at the edge of the roof.
“Got her!” Callie called to Frank as she grabbed one of Katie’s legs. Frank hurried over to the struggling girls. Katie was holding the deadly remote control close to her body.
“Get your hands off me!” Katie screamed. She had the remote in her right hand. Callie gripped her right wrist. Katie was trying to press a small red button in the remote’s upper left corner.
“Drop it!” Frank ordered Katie as he grabbed her right hand and twisted her wrist. Suddenly she lashed out with her foot, kicking Callie in the side. Out of breath, Callie loosened her grip.
Finally Frank managed to rip the remote out of Katie’s hand. It clattered across the garage. Frank ran over to the remote, but not in time to stop Tarpley from snatching it up.
“So much for Joe Hardy and the Saurion!” Tarpley sneered as he straightened the antenna and checked the power switch.
Before Frank could reach the mechanic, Tarpley had pushed the red button.
Frank tensed as he waited for the sound of the bomb to go off. When nothing happened, he lunged at the mechanic, forcing Tarpley backward.
Frank and Tarpley tumbled over the edge of the roof. Frank heard Tarpley cry out. Frank felt himself falling. Then, as he hit something firm but rubbery, he heard a familiar voice.
“Put your hands up, Tarpley,” Detective Con Riley ordered. Then Riley searched Tarpley.
“Good thing you landed on that pile of old tires,” Chet said as he helped Frank to his feet.
“Callie’s still up on the roof with Katie Bratton,” Frank said breathlessly.
He looked up and saw Callie. She was holding both of Katie Bratton’s arms behind her back. The driver was standing quietly, her head down and her blond hair falling over her face.
“No problem,” Callie called down to them. “I’ve got things under control here.”
Frank helped Callie and Katie Bratton get down from the roof, and then watched Con Riley put the cuffs on Katie.
“I didn’t do anything!” Katie Bratton insisted sullenly. “It was all Marvin’s idea.”
“She planned the whole thing,” Tarpley blurted out. “She and Jason Dain.”
Katie’s eyes flashed. “Shut up, you fool!”
“I know you were making counterfeit license plates for the white panel truck,” Frank said. “I found the stamping machine in the tunnel this afternoon.”
“That was Dain,” Tarpley insisted. “He wanted you to think Miyagi Motors was doing everything.”
“It wasn’t Dain who left us to die in that tunnel fire,” Frank said. “That was you, Tarpley.”
“Hey, a guy’s got to look out for himself,” Tarpley insisted. A look of satisfaction came over his face.
“How did you get out of the warehouse after pushing the shelves on Joe?” Frank asked.
Tarpley laughed. “While you were looking at the skylights, I was slipping down a manhole into the tunnels. You never even knew where to look.” Shrugging, Tarpley said, “If the Saurion burns in a tunnel or wrecks on the track, what’s the difference? When that bomb goes off, Joe Hardy’s dead meat.”
“It’s too late for that, Tarpley,” Callie reminded him. “You pushed the red button and nothing happened.”
“That’s because all the red button does is set the timer,” he said smugly.
Frank grabbed Tarpley’s shirt. “Where is that timer?”
“Shut up, Marvin!” Katie Bratton ordered.
While Con Riley locked the cuffs on Tarpley, Frank said again, “Where is it?”
“The device is wired to the brakes,” Tarpley admitted. “It’s set to detonate at exactly seventy-seven minutes into the race.” Tarpley paused, then sneered. “If your brother doesn’t stop the Saurion, he’s going to have to set a speed record to get out of it alive.”
Callie and Chet hurried after Frank to the pit area. The infield sign indicated that two laps remained in the race.
Felix Stock’s eyes were glued to the speeding cars. “Joe’s ahead of the Speedster,” he told Frank.
“We’ve got to wave Joe in,” Frank said. “There’s a bomb wired to the brakes.”
“A bomb!” Felix Stock exclaimed. His face was frozen in shock.
“How many minutes into the race is he?” Frank demanded.
Stock checked his stop watch. “About seventy-five minutes, ten seconds,” he replied. “With just under two laps to go.”
“Give me the radio,” Frank said.
“The radio’s acting up. We’ll have to use a sign.”
Joe had found all of a sudden that the accelerator and brakes were controllable. He figured that his brother had found and stopped whoever was operating the remote. He could also see in his mirror that the Sata Speedster was trying to catch up with him. There was only one and a half laps to go.
In spite of the danger Joe wanted to win. He pressed down on the accelerator and cut diagonally toward the white line along the infield.
“Pull in!” Frank shouted as he held up the sign reading “Pit Now!”
Joe ignored it. The Saurion roared past the pit area into its final lap, its needle edging past two hundred. The crowd was on its feet, roaring its approval of the hard-run race.
Frank saw that the Speedster’s driver was doing a great job. He couldn’t be more than a couple seconds behind.
“Hold on, baby!” Joe urged the machine. Suddenly Joe heard static in his headset, then Frank’s voice. “Joe! Can you hear me? There’s a . . .” Then static broke up the signal.
“Cross your fingers!” Joe shouted into the headset. “I’m coming in for the finish.”
“Expl . . . set to—” Joe heard Frank say.
Joe saw the yellow Speedster was pulling out to pass.
Could he make it to the finish line first? “I’ve got to try,” Joe told himself. He knew he could make the car go faster. He downshifted to fourth and eased out the clutch. Joe felt himself forced back into the seat as the Saurion leapt ahead.
Joe widened the gap between his car and the Speedster, and as the two cars sped around the fourth turn into the straightaway, Joe held the shifter in fifth and pressed the accelerator full out.
Ahead, Joe could see the checkered flag. “Just a few more yards,” he said to himself.
“He’s done it!” Felix Stock yelled as the Saurion crossed the finish line a car length ahead of the Speedster. “And he set a track record.”
Suddenly a blinding flash erupted from the Saurion’s front wheel well. Frank held his breath as the sports car swerved and made a hard left toward the infield. The Speedster steered nimbly around the stricken Saurion.
Joe felt the steering go the moment the bomb exploded. He also caught sight of his left front wheel assembly flying up into the air. The front end dropped, and a shower of sparks sprayed up as the shattered suspension arms screeched across the pavement.
Fortunately, the force of the bomb blew outward, away from the engine. The powerful V-8 was still running, but Joe found that the front brakes had been destroyed in the explosion. He tried slowing the car the same way he had the first time he’d driven it. He shifted into reverse.
The car slowed so dramatically, it slammed against the side wall at the end of the straightaway. Joe felt himself thrown forward and sideways against the safety belt. He had totally lost control of the Saurion, but at least the car was slowing down.
The car rebounded off the wall, then slid to a stop in the middle of the track. Joe slipped out of his racing harness and stepped out of the smoking car.
A mechanic hurried over with a fire extinguisher and began to douse the flames.
Frank rushed up to Joe. “Are you okay?” Frank asked anxiously.
“That was some wild ride,” Chet said.
“You could have told me there was a bomb in the car,” Joe commented dryly. “Other than that,” he added with a grin, “it was a piece of cake.”
“You won!” Felix Stock exclaimed as Joe, Frank, and Chet returned to the pit area. Stock began pumping Joe’s hand.
“I dropped another transmission,” Joe admitted.
“I’ve come to expect it,” Felix Stock said, chuckling. “It’s still a great beginning for my Saurion.”
Frank turned to Felix Stock. “I read your contract while Chet drove me to the pits,” he told the designer. “The mystery’s solution was right there. Katie Bratton and Jason Dain were plotting to get control of the Saurion, particularly your PEST patent.”
“The contract would allow that?” Stock asked.
Frank nodded. “Should the Saurion fail or otherwise prove itself unprofitable within one year, everything connected with the car becomes the property of the speedway.
“But Curt Kiser owns the speedway,” Felix Stock said, looking with surprise at Kiser, who had just joined them.
“Not exactly,” Curt Kiser said with a sigh. “To get Dain to back me, I had to give him exclusive rights to any property acquired by the speedway.”
“Unfortunately,” Frank explained, “that meant the Saurion. The prototype could be destroyed, but there were the other cars you had been working on. Dain figured the Saurion would be a dead car after the destruction of the prototype. Then Dain planned to use your design and PEST system to create his own sports car and make a fortune. Tarpley was trying to make his own fortune by offering the wiring diagrams to Miyagi Motors.”
Kiser sighed. “I’m sorry, Felix. I never intended it to turn out that way.”
“Dain, Tarpley, and Bratton are on their way to police headquarters,” Con Riley told the group as he entered the pit area. “And you’ll be happy to know they were blaming each other for the threats and sabotage. It seems that Katie and Jason were originally responsible for the scheme. Then Tarpley found out, but they didn’t want to cut him in, so Katie said the deal was off.”
“That’s probably why we heard Tarpley in the diner threatening Katie’s life if she drove the car,” Frank said.
“Tarpley had the wiring plans,” Riley continued, “which he used to blackmail Dain and Bratton.”
“So if they excluded him from their plans,” Joe said, “they couldn’t stop him from trying to sell the wiring diagrams because he could have exposed them.”
“Tarpley also threatened Katie with a note,” Riley said, “but Jason Dain admitted he was the one who phoned Felix with the threat about the death car.”
“I guess Katie showed us the note so we wouldn’t consider her a suspect,” Frank said.
“That’s right,” Riley said. “Tarpley admitted to planting the stereo in Chet’s jeep, and Dain admitted installing a remote dimmer device on the new Saurion. Tarpley was following last night in a white panel truck with the control that made the windows darken.”
“That truck was part of the scheme,” Frank said. “Dain bought it because he knew Miyagi Motors had purchased ten of them. By driving the same kind of vehicle, he thought it might throw suspicion on the Speedster’s owners.”
“Did I hear someone mention the Sata Speedster?” Takeo Ota asked as he stepped into the Saurion’s pit from the Speedster’s. He shook hands warmly with Felix Stock. “Congratulations,” he said.
“Thanks,” Stock said. “But it was Joe Hardy who did the work.”
Before he left the pit, Mr. Ota said, “Good luck with your Saurion, Felix.”
“And with your Speedster, Takeo,” Stock told him, smiling. Then he sighed. “I should have paid closer attention to my busi
ness,” he said.
“That makes two of us,” Curt Kiser admitted.
“We’d better get down to the police station with Detective Riley to file our reports,” Frank said.
“That reminds me,” Con Riley said. “I’ve already seen to it that all charges against Chet Morton were dropped.”
Chet smiled broadly.
“There is one thing, though,” the detective continued, grinning at Chet. “When we were searching for that stereo, we saw that your jeep looked pretty beat-up. Before we can permit you to drive it, you need to have it inspected. That thing looks like it’s been through a demolition derby.” The group laughed and agreed.
“It’ll never pass inspection, Chet. Face it,” Joe said.
Chet groaned.
“Then you’re going to need a loaner,” Felix said. “Here’s the remote to the silver Saurion.”
“Wow!” Chet exclaimed, taking the remote and staring at it. “Thanks, Mr. Stock.”
“Be careful with it, though,” Joe said with a grin. “The transmissions on those cars are really temperamental.”
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ALADDIN
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
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www.SimonandSchuster.com
Copyright © 1992 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
ISBN: 978-0-6717-3058-1 (pbk)
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THE HARDY BOYS MYSTERY STORIES is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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