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  Operation: Survival

  FRANKLIN W. DIXON

  Lisa Vega

  ALADDIN PAPERBACKS An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020

  2005 Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  First Aladdin Paperbacks edition December 2005

  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.”

  Inside the Mind of a Criminal …

  I was sitting in the back of a police cruiser. Me. Frank Hardy. Son of Fenton Hardy, a former cop. It was just so wrong. In so many ways.

  Wait. No. Its’ not me, Frank Hardy, getting a police escort from the airport to Camp Wilderness, I reminded myself. Its Steve Neemy.

  But the weird thing was—I still felt kind of ashamed. I felt like everyone in the little town of Greenville was looking at me. Wondering what Frank Hardy had done to get himself sent to reform camp.

  I told myself to start thinking like Steve. Steve was supposed to be a hard case. A guy with attitude. A guy who had no use for Linc Saunders and his rehabilitation program.

  THE HARDY BOYS

  UNDERCOVER BROTHERS™

  #1 Extreme Danger

  #2 Running on Fumes

  #3 Boardwalk Bust

  #4 Thrill Ride

  #5 Rocky Road

  #6 Burned

  #7 Operation: Survival

  Available from Simon & Schuster

  #7 Operation: Survival

  FRANKLIN W. DIXON

  Aladdin Paperbacks

  New York London Toronto Sydney

  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.

  ALADDIN PAPERBACKS

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster

  Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  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 a 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 December 2005

  10 9 8 7 6 5

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2005930514

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4169-0067-2

  ISBN-10: 1-4169-0067-5

  eISBN 978-1-439-11277-9

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  1. Double Black Diamond

  2. Murder?

  3. Cover Stories

  4. Welcome to Camp Wilderness

  5. More Suspects

  6. Are You In?

  7. A Lesson in Pain

  8. Knocked Out

  9. Where There’s Smoke …

  10. Buried Alive

  11. You Better Make the Effort

  12. Riding the White Water

  13. Drowning

  14. Bait

  15. Go Time

  16. The Truth Comes Out

  Operation: Survival

  1 DOUBLE BLACK DIAMOND

  “All those weenies are lined up waiting for us to hit a trough and eat snow.”

  The Bear Mountain skiers are tough. They love to hang around the Outer Limits trail. You crash and burn—make that crash and freeze—and they laugh. And clap. It’s what they do for fun when they aren’t skiing themselves.

  And here my brother and I were, about to join the show. I hoped it would be a show that made people oooh and ahhh. Not ha, ha, ha.

  “You worried?” Frank asked as we swung ourselves onto the ski lift. He waved to the people lined up with their stupid hot chocolates and their stupid smiles.

  I snorted, as if I didn’t want to waste words answering such a wet-butt question. Except I was worried. Not much. A little. I’m talking teeny. Outer Limits is ranked double black diamond. That means a trail of extreme extremeness. I’d skied black diamond before. Never a DB.

  How much harder can it be? I asked myself.

  The ski lift went up. I glanced down. Yowch! A guy in a red jacket hit a mogul in a not-good way. Can I offer some advice? If you’re a bad skier, don’t wear red. It makes you way too easy to see from the lift. And after the seeing comes the finger-pointing and the snickering.

  “It’s her. She’s going for the package,” Frank told me.

  I pulled my eyes away from the red jacket and looked at the blond woman riding the chair in front of us. Yep. She’d just snatched the envelope of blackmail cash from under her seat. Now it was stowed in her little backpack.

  She wouldn’t have the money for long. Frank and I were going to get it back. Which would make a lot of kids at Markham High very happy.

  They had trusted Blondie Blackmailer. They’d made friends with her when she pretended to be just another new student at their school. Really good friends. They’d thought she was the kind of friend you could tell all your most embarrassing secrets.

  How could they know she made a career of enrolling in high schools in rich neighborhoods, sucking up all the dirt like our Aunt Trudy’s trusty Hoover, and then demanding piles of dough to keep quiet?

  They couldn’t. No one expects something like that.

  I was glad Frank and I were going to be bringing her down. She was an especially scummy scumbag, in my opinion.

  Blondie dismounted from her chair. Frank and I were right behind her. My breath felt like it started going the wrong way when I rounded the first bend.

  I knew the run was steep. But from up here, looking down, it was steep. I’m talkin’ ste-e-e-e-e-p. Twelve hundred feet of vertical in a half mile.

  After the bend you could go right—and cross under the ski lift. Or you could go left—a narrower path. Blondie went left.

  My twin tips slapped the ground like I was trying to do a drum solo on the snow as Frank and I chased after her. At least I stayed on the skis. And on the Outer Limits, that’s saying something.

  I had to give her props—she could ski. She could wear any color jacket she wanted, with no fear of the snickering and fingerpointing.

  Frank was moving up on her. I spotted a deep rut line and rode that hard, my teeth slamming together the whole way. I was neck and neck with Frank now.

  Blondie shot a look over her shoulder. Snow was splashed across her goggles. But I could see her green eyes widen. She was surprised to see us on her tail. Surprised and not happy.

  Our blackmailing friend took us over another mogul. A mogul that would be the mountain anywhere else. Then she led us right toward a trench. She swerved at the last second and managed to avoid it.

  But Frank and I didn’t end up having that option. We plunged straight down into it—and up the other side.

  You didn’t gain much with that maneuver, Blondie, I thought. My skis jittered over the crisscrossing tracks in the snow. I leaned forward, so f
ar I thought I was going to face-plant. But the maneuver gained me some speed. I pulled up alongside the blackmailer.

  Frank made his move a second later. He started to slide into position on Blondie’s other side.

  Then she did something totally unexpected. Make that totally insane. She whipped her body toward the tree line. And powered off the trail and right into the woods.

  I heard Frank give a cry of surprise. But he didn’t hesitate. He rocketed off the trail. I was right behind him—and soon found myself on a nightmare natural slalom. No flimsy little flags here. Just lots of pine trees. Running into one of them wouldn’t tickle.

  I swung to the left. To the right. To the left. A branch slapped against my goggles. Another one cut across my cheek. I’d had about enough of this. Forget skiing. It was football time.

  Arrghh! I let out a growl and pointed myself at Blondie. She was just past a nice-sized snow bump. I took it. Tried to get as much lift as I could. When I came down, I brought her with me.

  Tackle! Can I get a cheer from the cheerleaders in the short skirts?

  I ate snow as I hit the ground. Snow and a little blood from that cut on my face. Electric snowflakes bounced around in front of my eyes.

  When I managed to sit up, I saw that Frank had Blondie’s backpack in his hands.

  I reached over and snapped one of the blackmailer’s bindings loose. Then I yanked the ski free. Just as a safety precaution.

  Blondie was an amazing athlete. But even she couldn’t get far on one stick.

  “Give me that backpack!” Blondie ordered Frank. I tried to remember if I’d ever heard a girl sound so furious with my brother. Girls usually get all lovey-dovey oooey-gooey around him. Even though I’m the cute one.

  “Sure. It’s yours.” Frank tossed Blondie Blackmailer the pack—but he held on to the cash he’d removed. He waved the envelope of money at her. “This isn’t.”

  “Hey, do you think anybody would mind if the two of us snagged a couple of bucks before we return that?” I asked my brother. “I’ve gotta buy one of those T-shirts that say ‘Survived the Outer Limits.’”

  Frank frowned at me.

  My brother can never tell when I’m kidding.

  “Don’t worry,” I told him. “I know we’re the good guys.”

  2 MURDER?

  “Girls don’t like good guys,” Chet Morton complained. “They like bad boys. That’s my problem.”

  I tried not to smile. But it was a little hard. I thought our friend Chet was totally wrong about his lack of success with girls.

  It wasn’t that he wasn’t a bad-boy type. It was that he pretty much never attempted to talk to a girl of any kind.

  Not that I don’t understand that. I have a little girl phobia myself. I start blushing when I talk to them. And I hate to blush. So I don’t talk to them much.

  “You’re totally right,” Joe told Chet. “And it’s totally unfair. Why should Belinda Conrad drool over Frank all the time just because Frank’s totally e-e-e-e-evil? She should have more appreciation for the good guys like you and me.”

  Chet blew a straw wrapper at Joe. “He’s mocking me. Do you see that, Frank? Your brother sees my pain. And he mocks.”

  “It’s just that your particular kind of pain is so mockable,” Joe answered.

  I completely ignored Joe. And kind of ignored Chet. I’d just gotten to an interesting part in my bio textbook. It was all about how eye color is determined by three genes, not just two. Blue-eyed parents can actually have a child with brown eyes, and—

  Joe here. I love the wonderful world of science as much as the next guy. I do. Science has given us many wonderful things. The polio vaccine. Bubblegum tape. But I don’t think you really want to hear all this biology blabber right now. Am I right?

  Frank here. This is my part of the story. So as I was saying, I was reading up on genetics, half listening to my brother make dumb jokes and our friend Chet complain about his lack of a love life. Then Vijay Patel showed up in the caf with a pizza in one of those red pizza-warmer bags. He headed right over to our table and put the pie in front of me.

  “You ordered pizza?” Chet burst out. “You can’t order pizza here.” He turned to Joe. “Can you?”

  “The principal ordered it for him,” Vijay explained. “Some new thing where every month the top student gets a pizza for lunch. My boss is donating. One topping only. No soda.”

  Patel’s lying skills are impressive, I thought. I knew his boss hadn’t made any donation to the school. Patel didn’t even really work at a pizza place. Pizza delivery guy is just a cover for him. He’s ATAC, like me and Joe. That’s American Teens Against Crime. It’s an organization our dad created.

  See, sometimes there’s a situation where the police need someone on the inside. Someone under twenty. That’s where Joe, Vijay, and I—and the rest of the ATAC team—come in.

  Vijay hasn’t gotten the chance to do big-time undercover work yet. His job is coordinating the missions with the police. But he’s always trying to get a field assignment. And with his lying skills, I think he’d be excellent. I made a mental note to talk to Dad about that.

  “Enjoy, bestest boy in school.” Vijay gave a half salute along with a half smirk, then walked away.

  My heartbeat accelerated a little. Joe and I were about to get our next assignment. That never stops feeling exciting.

  “I need to hit the bathroom,” I told Joe.

  Joe immediately stood up. “Me too.” He grabbed the pizza box.

  “You’re takin’ the pizza?” Chet complained.

  “Sometimes there’s a line for the bathroom,” Joe answered. “And waiting makes me hungry.”

  It was a dumb-sounding excuse. But Joe and I couldn’t open that box in front of Chet. There was info on our mission in there. And ATAC is top secret. Even from friends like Chet. Even from our mom. And our mom is exceptionally cool for a mother. Even for a person.

  Joe led the way to the bad bathroom—the one with one broken toilet and two faucets that always manage to spray water on the front of your pants. It was empty as usual. I reached over and opened the pizza box.

  I grabbed the foil-wrapped package on top of the pie. Joe grabbed a slice of pepperoni. “Game player,” I instructed.

  Joe finished the slice in two bites. He pulled his portable video-game player out of his backpack. Ever since we were inducted into ATAC, we’d taken to carrying it with us. I had another player in my room.

  I unwrapped the package. “Operation: Survival,” I read off the front of the game cartridge.

  Well, it looked like a DVD, or CD. That’s the format our mission assignments come in. Part of the top-secret thing. And the disc actually changes into a normal CD after we watch it. Impressive technology.

  “Sounds like a fun one.” Joe snapped the “game” into place.

  A montage started up, backed by some rock-infused country music. Two guys rappelling down the side of a mountain. A bunch of guys white-water rafting. A canoe race. Then a wooden sign at the head of a dirt road leading into a forest: WELCOME TO CAMP WILDERNESS.

  “Looks like ATAC is sending us on vacation. Maybe it’s a reward for the kick-butt job we did last time.”

  The image on the little screen changed again—to a group of guys sitting around a campfire. Then to a close-up of one of the guys’ faces. He sort of reminded me of Chet.

  Chet usually looks like he’s about to laugh. Which is because Chet thinks almost everything is funny. Well, except the state of his love life.

  Anyway, this guy had that kind of look too.

  The color shot of the guy morphed into a black-and-white police photo. The music faded out. “Whoa,” Joe muttered.

  Exactly. The guy didn’t look like he was about to laugh anymore. He looked dead.

  Text began to scroll across the screen. Part of the article that went with the photo, I figured.

  “Zack Maguire was sent to Camp Wilderness in the Moosehead Lake region of Maine. The camp is an experimen
tal program to rehabilitate teens who have been convicted of crimes,” I read. “Maguire was two weeks from completing his sentence at the camp when he recently fell to his death while mountain climbing.”

  Zack’s photo was still in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. Now I took in the fact that one of his legs was bent at an angle that no leg should be able to go. His fall from the side of a mountain explained that.

  The text kept flowing across the screen. I had to read quickly not to miss anything. “‘Zack should never have been sentenced to the camp,’ Maguire’s mother claimed. “‘He’d never spent any time in the outdoors. He wasn’t used to hiking and climbing or camping.’”

  The article went on. “Strenuous physical challenges such as the mountain-climbing expedition are a large part of Camp Wilderness’s program. The director of the camp, Linc Saunders, believes that the challenges give the teens a sense of accomplishment and self-worth, and that these positive feelings lead to rehabilitation.”

  The photo of Zack was replaced by one of Linc Saunders. He looked kind of like a lumberjack in a cartoon.

  Big. The guy was big. Big arms. Even big teeth. And hair everywhere. Full beard. Chest hair curling out of his black and red plaid shirt.

  “‘I deeply regret what happened to Zack Maguire under my watch,’ Saunders said at a press conference. ‘But I hope that the death of one boy will not discredit all we’ve accomplished at Camp Wilderness. Ninety-nine percent of the teens who participate in my program haven’t committed another crime. They are out in the world, making real contributions to society. And they were willing to push themselves during the program. They weren’t afraid to work hard. And they found their core of steel.’”

  “That’s kinda cold.” Joe flicked Saunders’s face with his finger.

  I agreed. Saunders coughed up one sentence about Zack’s death. Then he started talking about how great his camp was. And how all the kids turned into model citizens. It was like he didn’t give a monkey’s butt about Zack.

  The color of the text turned from black to bright red. “‘Saunders briefly ran a similar camp in Montana—Camp Character,’” I read. “‘The camp was quietly closed down after a teenage girl, Samantha Previn, died there while white-water rafting.’”