Collision Course

by Franklin W. Dixon

  Frank and Joe gave the officer their statements, and then Reed lumbered off to join his partner, who was radioing in a report to headquarters. Frank surveyed the scene again, then turned to his brother. "I don't like this."

  "Who does?" Joe responded grimly.

  "Come on," Frank said, tugging at his brother's arm, "I want to ask Martin a few questions. Something just doesn't add up."

  The Hardys approached the writer, who was standing by the edge of the cliff. He was staring Into the blue waters below. "Excuse me, Mr. Martin," Frank said quietly, "but i was wondering if I could ask you something."

  "You know," the writer began in a distracted tone, "you think you're prepared for this sort of thing. After ten years of covering the racing circuit, you think you've seen it all. Guys get killed every year. No big surprise. But somehow, you're never really ready when it happens."

  He was silent for a moment, then he said, "I'm sorry. What was it you wanted to know?"

  "Were the two of you close?" Frank asked.

  "Close?" Martin repeated. "Nobody was close to Angus McCoy. Everything was a competition tor him. He never let up, never wanted to lose the edge.

  "You know, he hated having a ghost writer, wanted to do the book himself. But his publisher saw the first couple of chapters and had the ugly task of telling Angus he couldn't write worth beans. If it weren't for the contract, he would have fired the publisher."

  "What happens to the book now? Frank pressed. "Will the publisher cancel it?'

  "Are you kidding?" Martin laughed. 'This is the kind of ending publishers dream about! I can just see the title now The Fast Life and Tragic Death of Angus McCoy! And we've got the whole thing on videotape! The publisher will love it. Pictures of the famous racing driver's last moments! It'll sell millions!"

  The writer laughed again, but both Frank and Joe could see the laughter was forced and bitter. Martin turned back toward the ocean and was silent for a while. Finally he said, "Does that answer your question?"

  "Actually, that wasn't the question I wanted to ask," Frank said apologetically. "Something just doesn't make any sense to me. McCoy knew the layout of the course, right?"

  "Sure. He'd driven it several times to get familiar with it," Martin said.

  "And he didn't really have any serious competition in this race, right?"

  "Right."

  "So why would he push so hard? And why did he drive as though he didn't know the turn was there?"

  "The answer to the first question is easy." Martin smiled. "Race drivers always push hard. They're not just racing against other drivers and the clock—they're competing against themselves.

  "Angus was getting a little old for the game," Martin went on. "There were guys who said he was all washed up, so he had something to prove. As for your second question," the writer continued after a brief pause, "I don't have an answer. Angus was a much better driver than on that last turn. And it's not like this is the only course with a hairpin turn."

  He shrugged. "Angus was a world champion. I don't understand it, either. This is the kind Of mistake a newcomer would make."

  "What about sabotage?" Frank ventured.

  The question surprised both Martin and Joe. "Who would have a motive?" Joe cut in.

  "Somebody who wants to win," Frank replied simply.

  At that moment Russell Arno joined them at the cliff's edge. He kicked at a small rock, and Joe watched it roll and bounce down the steep incline. He barely made out the tiny splash it made when it hit the water below.

  Arno turned to him and casually said, "Well, now that McCoy is out of it, it looks like your friend Scott Lavin is the new favorite."

  Chapter 3

  The next day was one of those late-summer days when the sun felt somehow cooler, even though the temperature was as hot as mid-July.

  Joe Hardy was sitting on his front porch, thinking that even the shadows cast by the sun were different at this time of year. Softer. Maybe the morning seemed special because he knew summer was almost over. But Joe was sure he could recognize this kind of day even if he were set down in the middle of it, without anyone telling him what season it was.

  Joe had been up for a while. The day before had been long, but he had slept well. Joe rarely had trouble sleeping. There wasn't any problem that wasn't easier to tackle after a good night's sleep, he thought.

  Frank Hardy emerged from the house about one o'clock, stretching and yawning. "You look like you could use a couple more hours of sack time," Joe remarked.

  "I was up most of the night doing some work on the computer," Frank explained. The Hardys had a sophisticated computer setup, complete with a telephone modem to access other computers, and they often used it to help solve cases. If information was available over a phone link-up, Frank knew how to get at it.

  "It took quite a while," Frank went on, "but I found out some interesting things. About Scott Lavin," he added.

  "Oh?" Joe said, raising his eyebrows. "Let's hear it."

  "Building and racing Formula One cars is very expensive," Frank began. "It takes a lot of money—and that means sponsors and investors. Scott got started with seed money from a few investors, but that money is almost gone now. He's been looking for sponsors — advertisers who will pay him to promote their products. But Scott doesn't have enough of a reputation on the Grand Prix circuit yet. He needs a big win to get that rep.

  "Go on." Joe fought to keep his voice cool. Scott Lavin was his friend, and he didn't like where this conversation was leading.

  "Look, Joe, I know how you feel about Scott," Frank said softly. "But right now he's the only suspect we've got. I think we should investigate."

  "Suspect? Investigate?" Joe forgot about being cool. "What are you talking about? How do you know McCoy's death wasn't an accident? And even if it wasn't, Scott wouldn't murder anyone just to win a race. Besides, he's a top-notch driver and had a shot at winning—even with McCoy in the race."

  Frank looked at his younger brother. He knew Joe was smart, but sometimes Joe's short fuse didn't allow him the logic to think things through. "You don't believe that crash was an accident any more than I do," Frank told him. "He hit that guardrail like it had a bull's-eye painted on it. Either he was struck by a sudden suicidal urge or there was something wrong with his car."

  "Like what?" Joe demanded.

  "I don't know. The brakes or the steering, probably. Take a look at this thing." Frank was holding the electronic device he had found at the crash site. "What does it look like to you? It looks like part of a radio-control setup to me. Flip a switch and zap! No more brakes."

  Frank could see doubt flicker in his brother's eyes. "There's something you're forgetting," he continued. "Scott is probably bitter about this whole race. This is his course and his hometown, and Arno and McCoy just walked in and took away the spotlight. That's got to hurt.

  "Maybe the money and the sponsorship wouldn't be enough, but throw in a little need for revenge. Maybe that pushed Scott over the edge."

  « There was an awkward silence after Frank finished talking. "You're all wrong about Scott," Joe snapped. "You could be right about the crash. It didn't look like an accident exactly, but I think we should check out some other people!"

  "Okay," Frank said. "Who?" "Well, what about this Arno character?" "The promoter? What's his motive?" "He said he had a 'financial interest' in McCoy."

  "Yeah. An interest in keeping him alive to bring in the big attendance on race day. What does he gain by McCoy's death?" "I don't know," Joe admitted with a sigh. "I guess it wouldn't hurt to start by talking to Scott."

  After eating a late lunch, the Hardys drove over to Scott Lavin's garage and parked their van outside. They walked in the open door and found - Scott and his head mechanic hunched over the engine of the yellow-and-red race car. Joe took one look at the machine, and some of the excitement of the previous day returned. Ever since he could remember, he had been in love with cars, and he couldn't help but share his enthusiasm with his brothe
r. "The wings at the front end and behind the rear tires act just like the wings on an airplane, only in reverse," Joe said. "They create negative lift, thousands of pounds of downforce to keep the car on the road in high-speed turns.

  "And see those side panels sticking out from the chassis, running the length of the car? They look like jet engines or something, but they're really upside-down airfoils. They scoop up air through intakes in the front and create an area of low pressure underneath, sucking the car to the road surface like a vacuum cleaner. It's called ground effects."

  "If you're going fast enough," Scott Lavin said, not even looking up from his work, "you can generate enough downforce to ride a track upside-down. At least, that's what the designers tell me. I've never actually tried it."

  Scott stood up, wiped his hands on a rag, and smiled at the Hardys. "Formula One racing entered the space age back in the late sixties when airplane designers started tinkering with Grand Prix cars. The old stainless steel carrot is still under there, somewhere, buried in state-of-the-art aerodynamics. Except it's not even stainless steel anymore. It's aluminum and high-tech fibers with names you can't pronounce.

  "Just about the only old-fashioned part is the open cockpit. It seems as if it would make more sense to cover it with a smooth canopy — just ar they've covered everything else."

  "Except the tires, of course. The tires are something of a technological feat themselves," Joe said.

  Frank noticed that the rear tires were larger than the front ones and almost twice as wide. "Almost no tread," he observed.

  "Touch one of them," Scott suggested. "It's a special rubber. It's sticky. At the end of a race the rubber looks like it's about ready to drip off the wheels. The tires last only about three hundred miles. One race and that's it."

  Joe pointed to the V-8 engine. "This is a little old-fashioned, too. They've eliminated turbo-charged engines."

  Scott nodded. "They were generating just too much power. Formula One racing was getting too dangerous."

  "As if it isn't dangerous now," Frank said, thinking of Angus McCoy's car at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. "It looks a lot like the cars they drive at the Indianapolis 500."

  "It is a lot like an Indy car," Scott agreed. "There's a lot of cross-breeding between Grand Prix and Indianapolis. Rear-mounted engines, wings, and ground effects were all developed in Formula One before making the jump to Indy. Indy cars outweigh Formula One cars by about three hundred pounds—even though they carry less fuel and have smaller wings."

  "Why the differences?" Frank asked.

  "Different conditions," Joe said. "There are pit stops in a two-hundred-fifty-mile Grand Prix race, so you have to start with all the fuel you're going to need. And the wings on a Formula One car have to handle a lot of different and tight turns. Indy cars go in one direction around nice, banked oval curves."

  "All of this technology must take a lot of money," Frank commented, looking at Scott.

  Scott laughed and said, "There's an old saying in racing circles 'Speed costs money. How fast do you want to go?' " He glanced from one brother to the other. "Did you guys come down here to discuss my finances?"

  "No, no," Joe replied quickly. "We just came by to see how things were going."

  "Well, they could be better," Scott said.

  "Was everybody pretty shook up about the crash yesterday?" Frank ventured.

  "I hate to sound callous," Scott responded, "but that's the least of my problems. I feel bad about McCoy, but the show goes on. This is a dangerous profession. At Indy, if there's a big accident on the course, they delay the race until they clear away the wreckage. In a Grand Prix race, they just stick in a guy with a flag to warn you that you're about to drive into a disaster area. McCoy's not the first world champion to die in his car — not even the first to die during time trials.

  "I guess if they got really concerned about the dangers, they'd stop having races on the open road. But Grand Prix racing is just starting to catch on in the U.S. now. Cities like Dallas and Detroit realized they could make money off Formula One racing without spending any money to build a track.

  " "These cars may be safer than they were twenty years ago, but fatal crashes still aren't all that unusual. A lot of drivers assume that's how they'll go."

  Scott scowled. "My problem is far more immediate and practical. One of my crew just got up and quit, and we still have a lot of work to do."

  He paused for a second, then looked at Joe.

  "Hey, Joe, you said you wanted to get your hands on one of these babies. Here's your chance. It's not driving, but it's hands-on experience. How would you like to join my crew for a few days? Just until the race is over."

  "Sure!" Joe blurted out, before his brother had a chance to say anything.

  Frank glanced at Joe out of the corner of his eye and then shifted his attention back to Scott. "Actually, we did want to ask you a few questions, Scott," he began.

  "No problem," Scott interrupted. "Maybe later. Right now Joe and I have a lot of work to do. Right, Joe?"

  Joe hesitated for a moment, torn between his brother and something he had dreamed about — the chance to be part of a Grand Prix racing team. Maybe McCoy's crash had been a simple accident, he told himself. Even if it wasn't, Scott couldn't be responsible for it. Suddenly, finding out who was responsible didn't seem so important.

  "Right!" Joe heard himself say, agreeing with Scott.

  Scott Lavin put his arm around Joe's shoulder, 1 and together they walked away without Frank.

  Chapter 4

  After checking out the garage for an hour or so, Frank left alone. He didn't know if he should be mad at Joe or worried or both. There's no hard evidence against Scott Lavin, he reminded himself. But Joe's judgment was clouded by friendship and fast cars. If Scott's setting him up for some reason, Joe won't see it coming. In fact, Scott could have offered Joe a job just to get us off the case. Scott knows our reputation.

  All these concerns ran through Frank's head as he got in the van and drove off in the direction of Phil Cohen's house. At a traffic light he opened the glove compartment and checked to make sure the electronic device was still where he'd put it before going into Scott Lavin's garage.

  Frank didn't know a lot about race cars, but he was sure this thing didn't belong on one. It looked like it had been rigged from something intended for another purpose. But what was its purpose now? Frank still didn't know.

  If anyone could find out, it was their old friend Phil Cohen. Anything Phil didn't know about electronics wasn't worth knowing. Frank parked the van in front of the Cohens' house, took the metal object out of the glove compartment, and walked toward the front door. A passing car caught his eye — a silver gray Lotus sports coupe. Not too many cars like that around Bayport, Frank thought.

  He shrugged off a nagging feeling that he had seen the car before and rang the doorbell. No one answered. He waited a minute and then tried knocking. Still no response. Frank started to walk back toward the van, and then he realized that Phil was probably out in the garage.

  Phil's passion for electronic gizmos had threatened to engulf the Cohen house. They spilled out of Phil's bedroom and into the guest room. Finally, his folks had exiled his electrical empire to the garage, which was fine with Phil. It meant he could work late at night without waking anybody up.

  Frank followed the path from the house to the door on the side of the garage. He could hear Phil singing inside. "Sounds more like a goose honking," Frank muttered. "But at least it means Phil's home."

  Frank knocked on the side door. No answer, Phil just kept singing. Frank knocked again and greeted by more loud goose noises. He tried the handle. The door was unlocked. He pushed it open and saw Phil sitting at a workbench, facing away from the door, wearing a pair of small · headphones from a portable cassette player.

  Something's strange about those headphones, frank thought. But what? He looked more closely. There were no wires leading to the cassette player lying on the workbench. But Ph
il was obviously listening to something because his head was nodding in time to a beat Frank couldn't hear.

  Frank walked over and tapped Phil on the shoulder. Phil jumped up, knocking his chair over in the process. "What — " he exclaimed. "Oh, it's you," he shouted over the music in his ears. Phil took off the headphones and handed them to Frank. "Check this out. I'm working on a set of cordless headphones. Not exactly a radical concept, except I'm trying to come up with an infrared sender-receiver small enough for a handheld portable cassette player."

  Frank noticed that the tape player on the bench was wired up to a black box with an infrared sensor. The box was larger than the tape player. "Still needs some work," Frank observed.

  "Yeah. Well, but you know me—I'll just keep hacking away until I figure it out. Then I'll patent it and retire on the royalties." Phil grinned. "Think you could figure this out?" Frank asked, handing over the piece of evidence from the fatal crash.

  Phil took it, turned it over, inspected the connections of a few of the exposed wires, set it down on the workbench, and began methodically attacking it with a screwdriver. He took off the face plate and revealed several intricate circuit boards. After fiddling with it for a few minutes he said, "I'm not sure. It could be some kind of radio receiver."

  Frank nodded. "That's what I thought. But to receive what kind of signal?"

  Phil shrugged. "I'd have to run some tests," check out a few things. What's this all about, Frank?"

  Frank told Phil everything he knew, and then something clicked in his head. "Check it out completely, Phil. Let me know what you find out."

  "It could take a while."

  "That's okay. I'll call you later. Right now there's something I have to do."

  Frank got back in the van and started driving toward the Bayport Fairgrounds, which had been temporarily transformed into makeshift garages and pits for the race. Something Phil had said about royalties reminded him of the writer, T. B. Martin. Frank was hoping he could find him at the fairgrounds.