Running on Fumes

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  Running on Fumes

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Running on Fumes

  FRANKLIN W. DIXON

  ALADDIN PAPERBACKS

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  ALADDIN PAPERBACKS

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster

  Children’s Publishing Division

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  Copyright © 2005 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  All rights reserved, including the right of

  reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  THE HARDY BOYS MYSTERY STORIES and HARDY BOYS

  UNDERCOVER BROTHERS are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  ALADDIN PAPERBACKS and colophon are trademarks of

  Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Designed by Lisa Vega

  The text of this book was set in Aldine 401BT.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Aladdin Paperbacks edition June 2005

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2004113932

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4169-0003-0

  ISBN-10: 1-4169-0003-9

  eISBN 978-1-439-11372-1

  UNDERCOVER BROTHERS ™

  #1 Extreme Danger

  #2 Running on Fumes

  Available from Simon & Schuster

  Lost—and Found

  I rooted around in my backpack and pulled out a pair of binoculars. I used them to take a better look at the vehicle.

  “It’s a Seussmobile,” I told Frank.

  “What does that mean?”

  “You know, it looks like something out of a Dr. Seuss book.” What else was it supposed to mean?

  Frank took the binoculars and checked out the van for himself. “See?” I asked. “It has all those weird metal things poking out all over it.”

  “I think they’re solar panels,” he said. “Which explains why we aren’t hearing any motor.”

  It hadn’t even registered with me how quiet the van was—but my brother was right. It was as silent as a submarine under water.

  “There’s a good chance we’ve found Arthur Stench,” Frank told me. “Or he’s about to find us.”

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  1. Crash or Burn

  2. Fatal Blow

  3. The Next Assignment

  4. Good or Evil?

  5. Blowout

  6. No Trespassing

  7. Now Entering Heaven

  8. The Famous Mr. Stench

  9. An Unplanned Mission

  10. Splash!

  11. Run!

  12. On Fire

  13. Payback!

  14. The Fuse

  15. Nowhere to Hide

  16. Surprise!

  17. Stench’s Plan

  18. Road Trip!

  Running on Fumes

  Crash or Burn

  I grabbed the closest chair and hurled it at the huge window behind the desk.

  Nothing. Not even a crack.

  “Safety glass,” I told my brother, Frank.

  “Standard in an office building. Especially on the twenty-second floor,” Frank answered. He didn’t look up from the computer. His fingers scurried over the keyboard.

  I grabbed the chair and slammed it against the glass again. Bam! Bam! Bam! I could feel the impact all the way up my arm bones to my shoulders.

  The smell of smoke was getting stronger. We had to get out of here. The floor was shut down. The elevators were off—not that you should use elevators in a fire. The doors to the stairs were locked tight.

  Somebody wanted us dead.

  “Break, you piece of rat poop! Break!” I swung the chair like it was a bat and I was trying to knock the ball out of the stadium.

  Yeah! Finally, a hairline fracture appeared in the glass. I beat on the place where the glass had weakened. The crunch of the glass under the chair was the best sound I’d ever heard.

  “Frank—we’ve got an escape hatch.”

  I stuck my head through the shattered window and my stomach shriveled into the size of a BB. It was probably a tenth of a mile to the ground. And take it from me—when it’s a tenth of a mile straight down, it’s a long, long way.

  “You’ve got the chutes, right?” I asked Frank.

  He grunted. He doesn’t appreciate my sense of humor. Maybe ’cause he has none himself!

  “Okay, so … rope. We need rope,” I muttered.

  We were going to need rope if we were going to rappel down the side of the building.

  Problem is, your average high-powered—and totally corrupt—lawyer’s office doesn’t come with rope. I scanned the room looking for a substitute. Cords off the two standing lamps, maybe? I snatched the letter opener off the massive wooden desk and started hacking away at the closest cord. Smoke was starting to creep into the room from under the door. Not much time left. Why couldn’t the office have steel doors like the stairwells did?

  “How’s it going, Frank?” I asked as I started to work on the second electrical cord.

  “This firewall is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Elegant,” my brother answered, eyes still glued to the monitor.

  “I’m more worried about the firewall on the other side of the door!” I shot back.

  “I gotta get through it.” The keys clacked under Frank’s fingers. “If I don’t—”

  He didn’t finish the sentence. But I knew what would happen if he didn’t get through that firewall to the list of witnesses.

  You worry about getting you and Frank out of here alive, I ordered myself. Let him worry about the witnesses.

  With a figure-eight knot I tied the two pieces of cord together. The combined length would get us down about a story and a half. That left nineteen and a half stories to go.

  Wait. Twenty and a half. I’d forgotten about the lobby.

  I yanked the cord out of the phone. The phone was dead anyway. Another piece of the kill-Frankand-Joe-Hardy plan. I guess it wouldn’t have done much good to trap us in a burning building if we could just call the fire department.

  I strode around the room, jerking the cord free from the little metal staples that held it to the wall. That’ll get me another few stories, I thought as I added the phone cord to my rope.

  The computer had some decent cordage I could use. But I couldn’t have it until Frank was done. And even with that, we still needed more.

  What else? What else?

  The carpet that covered a big section of the polished wood floor. Perfect! But it would take me hours to cut it into strips with a letter opener….

  Wait—I’d just busted through a window. There were shards of glass everywhere! I snagged a piece and set to work on the carpet. Good thing it was thin.

  You’d think hitting the ground would save me from the smoke—but there was no escape. In seconds my eyes were watering. Each breath was like swallowing sandpaper.

  I ripped off my shirt a
nd hoisted myself onto my feet. I’d spotted a mini-fridge in here the first time I’d visited Frank on his intern job. That was his cover—high school intern at the law firm. Mine was annoying brother of high school intern.

  I dashed to the fridge and helped myself to two bottles of water.

  “Frank! Heads up!” I tossed him one of the bottles and poured one on my shirt. I used the shirtsleeves to tie the damp cloth over my face and then got back to work.

  I tied the strips of carpet together as fast as I could. Added them to the rope.

  Still not enough.

  I added strips of the heavy drapes. The smoke was as thick as fog now. Orange-tinted fog. The flames were eating the door to the office. Any second they’d start on the ceiling.

  “I’m through!” Frank called, voice muffled by the wet shirt tied over his mouth and nose. “Just got to copy the names.” He hit a few keys, and the file started to download onto a CD.

  I tied one end of my rope to one leg of the desk. “Nothing to use as a hook in here, right?” It’s not like I could make some strong metal rings out of paper clips. “We’ll have to Dulfersitz.”

  “File’s done,” the computer announced.

  A second later Frank had the CD in his hand. I added all the computer cables to my rope. I still wasn’t sure it was long enough to get us to the ground.

  “Go, go, go!” Frank ordered.

  I didn’t have to be told twice. I wrapped the rope around my body and under my butt; the sitz part of the Dulfersitz rappelling technique means you sit on the rope.

  Then I took a deep breath, turned around, and climbed out the window.

  The breeze was strong up there, swinging me out to the left. I managed to get my feet positioned against the building and started to slide down the rope. Moving from phone cord to carpet to curtain to computer cord to …

  To nothing.

  No more rope. And my feet hadn’t hit the pavement yet. I twisted my head around, trying to see the ground.

  “Joe! Jump!” Frank shouted.

  I looked up and saw that the cloth part of the rope had started to burn above my brother’s hands. Frank needed me out of his way. Stat.

  I closed my eyes and let go.

  Fatal Blow

  “Good morning, morning glory. Time to get up.”

  I rolled over and checked my alarm clock. “I have three more minutes,” I called to Aunt Trudy. And I wanted every second of them.

  Aunt Trudy pushed open the door. “I am not letting you be late when you have finals, Frank. And that’s that.”

  I knew the progression. If I didn’t get up now, Aunt Trudy would pull off the covers. If I still didn’t get up, she’d dump a glass of water over my head.

  “Okay, I’m up. I’m up.” I sprang to my feet. Other than extreme lack of sleep and a smoke-fried throat, I felt pretty good.

  Aunt Trudy nodded her approval. “No backsieinsies,” she warned as she left my room. Sometimes Aunt Trudy thinks I’m still five years old. Although I have to admit, it was sort of tempting to crawl back into the sheets.

  Instead I pulled on my jeans and a clean shirt, then trotted down the hall. I couldn’t stop myself from cracking up when I spotted Joe halfway down the stairs. His blond hair was plastered to his head with water. Aunt Trudy got him good.

  Plus, he was limping.

  “Hey, are you all right?” I asked as I caught up to him. “As all right as possible after crash-landing onto a cement sidewalk and then having you crashland on top of me,” Joe answered.

  He was careful to keep his voice low. Aunt Trudy and our mom don’t know anything about the missions Joe and I take on for ATAC. They’ve never even heard of the American Teens Against Crime organization. Even though Dad is the one who founded it.

  ATAC is top secret. The whole reason the squad exists is because teenagers can get into certain places adults can’t, no questions asked. If everybody knew there were teen crime fighters around, that wouldn’t be true anymore.

  We grabbed our backpacks on the way out the front door and almost tripped over Mom. She had the whole veranda covered with junk.

  Well, I call it junk. Mom thinks of it as treasure.

  “Careful,” Mom said. “I just got the aluminum and the tin divided.” She pointed to two of the piles of trash.

  “You don’t have to separate those, do you?” Joe asked. “Metal is metal to the recycling plant.”

  “Yes, but the kids are going to make luminarias out of the tin cans at the library’s after-school program,” Mom explained.

  “Recycling isn’t just throwing things into the blue garbage can,” she continued. I’m saving up corks from wine bottles to make a bulletin board.” Mom nodded toward another one of her piles. “And I’m thinking of making picture frames out of those CD cases.”

  “Merry Christmas!” Playback, our parrot, called from his perch in the sun. “Ho, ho, ho!”

  “It’s June,” I told the bird. He ignored me.

  “And don’t give her any ideas,” Joe added, smiling at Playback.

  “Ho, ho, ho!” Playback said again. He sounded freakishly like Aunt Trudy. She’d spent the holidays ho-ho-ho-ing. The parrot can imitate anything. You should hear his impression of the doorbell.

  “Okay, no CD-case picture frames for Joe next Christmas,” Mom said. “How do you feel about a wastepaper basket made of egg cartons?”

  Joe groaned. Mom laughed.

  “Come on,” I told my brother. We carefully began weaving our way around the piles and headed toward the front steps.

  A squawk cut through the air—and it didn’t come from Playback.

  Aunt Trudy rushed across the porch, knocking the tin cans into the tower of used foil.

  “I can’t believe I let you two sleep so late that you don’t have time for breakfast. And on the day of your finals!” Aunt Trudy shoved sports bottles into our hands. “At least drink some water. You can’t think clearly when you’re dehydrated. I told your father that this morning. But would he listen? No!”

  “Where is Dad, anyway?” Joe asked.

  I took a swig of water so Aunt Trudy would calm down.

  “One of his breakfasts with the other retired cops,” Mom said. She started to get her piles back in order.

  “Breakfast.” Aunt Trudy snorted. “Donuts and black coffee in some diner with sticky tables. As if that counts as a decent breakfast!”

  I doubted he was there, though. Dad usually said he was meeting up with friends from the force when he had ATAC business himself. I knew he’d be disappointed that he didn’t get to hear the details of Joe’s and my mission first thing.

  “Drink! Drink!” Aunt Trudy urged.

  I took another long swallow, tasting smoke along the way. I wondered how long that would last.

  “Your Aunt Trudy is right,” Mom agreed. “The body needs water for transporting hormones, chemical messengers, and nutrients. Did you know the brain is eighty-five percent water?”

  Can you tell our mom is a research librarian?

  “With prolonged dehydration, the brain cells actually start to shrink,” she told us.

  I drained the rest of the bottle, and I heard Joe slurping down his.

  “Thanks, Aunt T,” Joe said. It came out sounding like Auntie. “Now my brain cells are nice and fat and ready to kick it on those finals!”

  Aunt Trudy beamed.

  “See you later,” I called over my shoulder.

  “Wimps! Wimps! Wimps!” Playback called in farewell. Must have been something he picked up from his previous owner. Nothing to do with me and Joe.

  I mean, do you know any wimps who ride motorcycles? Motorcycles with hydraulic clutch. Optimized suspension. Fog lamps with flint protectors. Hazard warning. Digital CD player and CB radio.

  Didn’t think so!

  Joe and I climbed on our bikes and roared off to school. Well, roared off at the speed limit. Teenage guys riding motorcycles are traffic cop bait. Just FYI.

  “I’m not liking how
that looks,” Joe said when we parked our bikes in the school lot.

  I followed his gaze. I didn’t like the scene either. Brian Conrad was talking to our friend Chet Morton.

  The thing is, guys like Brian never talk to guys like Chet. Guys like Brian insult guys like Chet. They bully guys like Chet. They punch guys like Chet.

  But talk? No.

  I hurried over to them. Joe was right behind me.

  “I think I saw you looking at my sister,” we arrived in time to hear Brian say. He was right in Chet’s face. Chet’s pale face.

  Chet’s a great guy and everything. But he hasn’t ever figured out that the way to deal with the Brians in the world is to show no fear.

  “Belinda isn’t Chet’s type,” Joe jumped in.

  Brian whipped his head toward Joe. “You’re saying my sister isn’t good enough for this dillweed?”

  Chet took the opportunity to move away from Brian—and closer to Joe and me.

  “Everyone knows Belinda is gaga over my brother here.”

  I felt heat flood up my neck. Don’t let me be blushing. That’s all I could think. Do not let me be blushing.

  I have this thing. This minor problem. I kind of turn into a moron around girls. Especially hot girls like Belinda. Even hearing Joe talk about her and me … Well, you can’t get more moronic than blushing.

  “I don’t get it myself. Everyone knows I’m the better-looking one,” Joe added.

  The bell rang.

  “I don’t want any of the three of you sniffing around Belinda.” Brian nailed each of us with a look that was supposed to be chilling. He kept his eyes on me the longest.

  Like I’d even attempt to talk to Belinda. Not because I was scared of Brian, but because I was scared of making a total fool out of myself.

  I held Brian’s stare until he turned and walked away.

  “So were you checking out Belinda?” Joe asked Chet as we headed inside.

  “Hey, she was checking me out. I was just standing there.” Chet flexed—as if he had muscles to flex.

  Yeah, right, I thought. Chet’s a good friend, but he’s kind of a dork sometimes.

  I mean, he was all attitude now that he was alone with me and Joe. But I noticed he couldn’t stop himself from looking over his shoulder. To make sure Brian hadn’t heard.