Countdown to Terror Page 2

  "They've got to know we're on to them," Joe whispered. "What will they do now?"

  His answer came as four more rugged-looking types joined the three guys.

  "I don't like this," Frank said. "Come on!"

  He darted into traffic and across the street, then turned right. They were on a very busy boulevard that led up a steep hill to an open park. The seven trackers began closing in.

  Joe glanced over at his brother. "If we're going to run, it's easier downhill," he said.

  Frank nodded. "On the count of three, we cross back, and run down. One — two — "

  He waited until a bus blocked the pursuers from crossing the road, then called, "Three!"

  Frank and Joe dashed in front of the bus, then down the hill.

  The tails were caught flat-footed and couldn't pursue until after Frank and Joe had a decent lead.

  Joe glanced back, grinning at the guys behind them. "What do we do now?" he asked.

  "We stop," Frank said.

  Joe stared at his brother. "Why?"

  "We just ran out of running room," Frank answered.

  Their escape route dead-ended—right into Halifax Harbor.

  Chapter 3

  THE HARDYS HAD only two ways out of this disaster — to the right or to the left, along the water.

  To the left Joe saw quays and tourist joints. Far in the distance rose the Harbour Hotel, a possible haven that might as well be on Mars.

  "This way!" Frank was looking right—to a sign that read Ferry Passengers.

  The ferry terminal was just beyond that, and beyond that the ferry. Late commuters were boarding, and it was obvious the ship was about to leave.

  Joe didn't need to be told twice. Both Hardys darted to the right. As they entered the terminal building, they were confronted by a line of turnstiles. But Joe saw a sign by the snack bar that said Tokens. Still on the run, he slapped down the necessary fares and got two tokens.

  He and Frank were through the turnstiles and boarding just as the pursuing posse stormed into the terminal. The loading gates came up, and the ferry pulled away. Joe waved goodbye to the seven furious faces.

  "Looks like they missed the boat," he said.

  Frank nodded. "I just wonder where we're going." He dug into his jacket pocket and came out with a guidebook. Paging through, he smiled. "We're going to a town called Dartmouth, just across the harbor. And I know exactly where we're heading once we get there."

  Joe stared at him. "Where?"

  "To a phone — we've got to call Sergeant Dundee."

  Until then, they enjoyed the view of Halifax Harbor—from the middle of the water.

  When the ferry pulled into Dartmouth Terminal, Frank and Joe joined the stream of commuters onto dry land again. There was a pay phone in the terminal building, and Frank dialed Dundee's number.

  On the third ring the phone was picked up. "Dundee's line," a clipped voice on the other end answered from what was obviously a squad room.

  Frank identified himself and asked for Sergeant Dundee. He was told the policeman wasn't in at the moment, but that he'd return Frank's call if he'd leave a number. "If you mean right away, he can get us at 555-8912," Frank said, reading the number on the phone. "It's a pay phone."

  "We'll get him," the voice promised.

  The police were as good as their word. Almost as soon as Frank hung up, the phone rang. Gerry Dundee was on the other end.

  "Sergeant Dundee, Frank Hardy here," Frank said. "I've got a follow-up report for you." He went on to explain how he and Joe had been followed and how they'd escaped.

  "So now you're in the ferry terminal on the Dartmouth side, eh?" Dundee said. "Cross the rail line there, cross Windmill Road, then head up Portland Street. The first place on the right-hand side is a cops' hangout. Wait for me there and you shouldn't have any trouble. I'll be along in fifteen to twenty minutes."

  Frank hung up the phone, turned to Joe, and said, "We get to take a little walk."

  They followed Dundee's directions, found the place, and spent the next few minutes peering out the window at the street one floor below. It wasn't long before an unmarked car pulled up outside the place. Gerry Dundee stepped out.

  He was in a very good mood when he met the Hardys. "So you had to cut your dinner short over there across the water," he said. "Let's make up for it over here — my treat."

  Dundee ushered them over to a table, and moments later they were sitting in front of thick, steaming steaks. "Always a favorite of mine," he said, tucking in with the gusto of a man twenty years younger.

  He smiled at Joe's slightly surprised look. "The smart mouths in the department wonder how I can tackle these, too," he said. "In their books, old crocks like myself don't have the teeth—or the brains—for real meat or real cases."

  Spearing another hunk of medium-rare beef, he popped it into his mouth and began chewing. Then he swallowed and smiled. "They think that once you get to a certain age, you can't take it anymore."

  He tapped the side of his head. "But this old brain has more experience and data locked away than all their precious computers. I've found out some stuff — "

  Frank asked suddenly, not meaning to interrupt but impatient for news, "Anything said about our case?"

  Dundee drew himself up, his face going stiff. "What are you talking about?"

  "I mean what was the reaction from your buddies downtown. You'd think they'd show some interest when somebody involved in an attack like the one we went through gave you a call. But the guy I talked to acted as if he'd never heard of me."

  Dundee didn't reply. He just stared stonily at Frank.

  Frank leveled his gaze and returned the stare.

  "Are you investigating this case on your own?"

  Nothing. No reply.

  "If I'd wanted a one-man show on this case I'd have turned to my brother Joe and let him carry the ball. But we did the right thing, we contacted the police."

  Frank leaned across the table. "So, you're holding on to the report on our attack—hiding the facts in your head, with all that other great data. Well, I don't like it. I don't like being staked out like a sacrificial lamb while you try to breathe some life into your career."

  "Hey, Frank," Joe began, looking from his brother to Dundee as they continued to glare at each other, "I'd like to hear what he has to say."

  He turned to Dundee, but the older cop's face was still a frozen mask.

  Gerald Dundee reached into his pocket, threw enough money down on the table to cover the tab, and rose abruptly from his seat. "I don't have to justify myself to anyone, especially to a kid like you," he said. "I've put in enough time on the job to know what I'm doing."

  He stepped away from the table and headed for the stairs that led down to the street. "If you want a lift back to the Harbour Hotel, I'll give it to you. But we won't discuss the case."

  Joe wanted to discuss it, but judging from the looks on his brother's and Dundee's faces, he knew his chance for learning anything that night was blown.

  Joe looked unhappily at his half-eaten meal for the second time that night. At least the lift would get them back to their hotel quickly. Maybe the Harbour Hotel had steak on its room-service menu.

  "Uh, thanks, Sergeant," Joe said. "I'd appreciate the lift." He glanced over at Frank, giving him a look that said, "Cool it — one of us should stay friendly with this guy."

  They walked down the stairs to the restaurant exit, Joe walking with Dundee, Frank trailing behind. It felt funny for Joe to be playing the nice guy — especially when they were playing the game with a cop.

  Dundee led the way to the unmarked car, opening the doors. "I'm afraid one of you will have to ride in the back."

  Frank silently took the rear seat, usually reserved for suspects and prisoners. Joe took the shotgun seat, right in front of the car's police radio.

  Gerry Dundee stepped around the car to get behind the steering wheel. He started the engine and pulled the car away from the sidewalk.

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; "Hand me that mike, Joe," he said as they drove down the street. "I should call in and let the dispatcher know I'm back in the car."

  Joe handed over the microphone, and Dundee hit the button on the side. "Car ninety-seven to base — I'm heading back to town."

  There was a brief burst of static, then a voice came back, "What's the matter, Gerry? The steak over there too tough for you nowadays?"

  That got a flash of a grin from Dundee. Obviously he and the dispatcher were old friends. "Helen, life is tough — not the steaks."

  While Dundee and the dispatcher bantered, Frank leaned over from the back seat, listening intently.

  "What's that noise?" he asked suddenly.

  Dundee glanced over his shoulder, his face hardening again. "What noise?"

  They all could hear it now, over the open line—brief, tiny blips of interference, coming regularly.

  Frank frowned as he listened, his eyes searching the interior of the car. "Those blips are some kind of FM broadcast—and since they're not getting any softer or louder, I guess whatever's causing them is in this car."

  "So?" Dundee wanted to know.

  "So," Frank answered, "the only thing I can think of that would make that noise is a radio-controlled bomb."

  His face was grim as he turned to the others. "And I think we're riding right on top of it."

  Chapter 4

  GERRY DUNDEE LICKED his lips nervously.

  "Son," he said, "you picked a great time to tell me that."

  Frank and Joe looked up from the search they'd been making of the car to stare at what was happening around them.

  Dundee had just turned onto a busy road. They were jammed in the middle of traffic now.

  "We can't bail out here," Joe said. "Where does this road go?"

  "Straight to the bridge," Dundee said, his voice tight. "If we blow up anywhere along here, we'll take dozens of people with us."

  Frank's eyes darted right and left. "Can't we turn off and head for someplace less congested?"

  Dundee shrugged. "We can try to turn left up here—if we don't get killed by the bridge traffic."

  He was going to try for the left-hand lane, but a car screeched up beside theirs just then, cutting them off. The bridge toll stations were ahead of them now. They were stuck on the bridge, like it or not.

  Frank turned to the left and stared at the passenger in the car that cut them off. He looked familiar. Frank placed him almost immediately. He was the guy with the mustache and turban he'd seen hurrying for a phone in the airport. It was definitely the same guy.

  Now Mr. Mustache held up a small box with a whip-aerial and a button on it. The message was clear. This was the detonator for the bomb they had on board.

  "I don't think they're going to blow us up as long as we're good boys," Frank said. "That guy hasn't made a move to touch the button."

  "That wouldn't be smart, with us right beside him," Joe pointed out. "I don't think it would do the bridge much good, either."

  "I think they're just going to use it as a threat to get us to park someplace nice and quiet where they can question us, but about what I don't know."

  Frank sounded calm, but his brain was churning furiously, trying to come up with a way out of this death trap. Right then, he reasoned, they did have one slim advantage. The enemy, whoever they were, didn't want them dead — at least not yet.

  "If we let them pace us all the way, we'll never have a chance of escaping," he said. "Sergeant, can you get ahead of them?"

  "On a jam-packed bridge?" Dundee asked. But he nodded his head, realizing they might be able to use the distance. "I'll do my best."

  A tiny opening developed in the left-hand lane, ahead of their pursuers. Gerry Dundee shouldered his car into it. Then he darted back into another small open spot in the lane next to it, earning a blast on the horn from the driver he had cut off.

  They'd gained a bare car length, but the pursuit car was having a hard time catching up. Drivers who've been cut off once aren't willing to let it happen again soon.

  Dundee continued to weave through the heavy traffic. It was slow going, pulling a half a car length here, a half a car length there. But as the far end of the bridge came up, they were still within plain sight of their pursuers.

  The pursuit car pulled over to the right-hand lane to be in the same one as Dundee. The older policeman grinned.

  "Good. They think I'm going to make the right off the bridge and take the underpass to Barrington Street. Well, they're in for a surprise."

  He accelerated past the turnoff and whipped into the left lane. Then he made a wild left turn, nearly getting clipped by a horrified van driver. "Get ready to jump, boys," Dundee said as he jockeyed the wheel. "This street dead-ends into a sort of park that should be deserted now."

  Frank and Joe saw the greenery up ahead as Dundee swerved to the right side of the road. "Get while the getting's good!" he yelled, jamming on the brakes.

  The Hardys jumped. Dundee brought the car around in a screeching U-turn, pretending that he'd just discovered the road didn't go through.

  Then the pursuit car rolled up to block the open end of the street.

  Gerry Dundee was already halfway out of the car, with one foot on the pavement.

  Mr. Mustache must have hit the button, because two seconds later the unmarked car blew up.

  Frank and Joe were staggered by the blast. It tore the hood off the engine and shattered the windshield. It also tossed Gerry Dundee like a rag doll in a tornado.

  He flew across the street, arms flailing, and landed hard on the grassy ground near the Hardys.

  Joe stared at the man lying unmoving near his feet. Frank was looking at the guys in the pursuit car. Apparently they decided they'd called too much attention to themselves. With a screech of rubber, they peeled out and away from there.

  Frank turned to his brother, who was kneeling beside Dundee. "Don't try to move him," he said, putting a hand on Joe's arm to stop him. "He may have internal injuries—and we don't want to make a bad situation worse."

  Dundee had landed half on his side, half on his stomach, his arm twisted under him. His face lay in the dirt. Slowly, painfully, he turned his head around. Spotting Frank, he sucked in a shallow breath.

  At first Frank thought Dundee was just wheezing. Then he realized Dundee was trying to tell him something. "Easy, easy," he said, dropping down to his knees beside the injured man. "Don't move around."

  Gerry Dundee ignored him, trying to twist around, trying to talk. Half the man's face was bruised and beginning to swell. He winced as he coughed — it sounded more like a death rattle. Frank had horrible visions of broken ribs and vulnerable lungs as Dundee kept mouthing words at him. He had no breath to sustain an actual sound.

  To try to stop him, Frank brought his ear close to Dundee's mouth. Even then he could barely understand what the old cop was gasping out.

  "Listen ... important," Dundee said. "Found out ... where ... are." He glared at Frank, his eyes blazing for a moment as he tried to force the words out before his body betrayed him. "Find them ... Fort ... "

  The effort was too much. Gerry Dundee's eyes rolled up, and the tautness went out of his muscles. He sagged down into the grass.

  Frank and Joe stared at each other. He'd left them a world of trouble, a desperate need to get help—and half a clue.

  Chapter 5

  THE HARDYS STOOD surrounded by a sea of blue uniforms in the waiting room of the Camp Hill Hospital. They all wanted word of Gerry Dundee. Instead of a white-coated surgeon, however, a guy in a suit separated himself from the figures in police blue to talk to the boys. He didn't need to present his ID and badge. Everything about him said plainclothes cop.

  "What can we do for you, Detective Otley?" Frank asked, glancing at the man's identification. He and Joe knew only too well what was coming.

  "It's a shame about poor Gerry," Otley told them. "My father worked with him once. He was a legend on the waterfront — nothing went on there that he di
dn't know about." The police officer shook his head again. "Those days are long past now."

  Otley looked at them with about four thousand questions in his eyes. "Now, about this report you gave the uniformed officers," he went on. "You said you reported being attacked on the road from the airport. I've checked, and we have no record of any such report."

  Frank shrugged. "I was asking Sergeant Dundee about that when we realized there was a bomb in his car."

  The detective gave them a sharp glance. "That's another part of your story I'd like to hear more about. I'm sure you know that Gerry Dundee is semiretired, working only as our insurance liaison. He wasn't even investigating any large cases. So why would anyone plant a bomb in his car?"

  "Maybe he wasn't investigating anything officially," Joe said, "but something must have been up. "Take a look at the car — that damage didn't happen because he'd forgotten to change his oil filter."

  They spent another hour talking with Otley, then the news came from surgery. "Sergeant Dundee is in very critical condition," the doctor said. "We've moved him to the intensive care unit."

  "He's not conscious yet?" Otley asked.

  The doctor shook his head. "At this point, it's touch and go whether he'll ever regain consciousness."

  Otley and the Hardys decided there was nothing they could do and began to leave. Frank looked at the detective. "How about what Dundee said after the explosion?" he asked. "I could hardly make out the words, but it was something about finding someone at a fort."

  Detective Otley bit back a laugh. "Halifax was the main British base in eastern Canada. This area is crawling with forts."

  Frank and Joe were silent as Otley gave them a lift. They'd given him the name of a different hotel — the Cavalier — and all the way there, they looked back for tails.

  After registering, Frank said, "Well, if they're not going to check out the forts, I guess we will."

  The next morning found the boys buying new clothes — they had left their luggage at the first hotel. Frank spent time the night before with a map and guide to Halifax, choosing sites. "We'll work our way back," he said. "Our first stop is Fort Needham Park."