Martial Law Read online

  “Here, Mom, let me get that.” Joe reached out and took the bag Mom was dragging. He nearly fell over from the weight. “Whoa!”

  I reached down to pick up the bag that Aunt Trudy had abandoned. It was really heavy too. “How long is this conference you’re going to, Mom?” I swung the suitcase up and followed Joe to the Volvo. It sagged noticeably when we put the suitcases into the trunk.

  “Just a week.” Mom came over to make sure the bags were safe inside. “But there are all kinds of source materials I’ll need to read to keep up with the lectures.”

  “And by ‘source materials,’ you mean bowling balls and cast iron pans, right?” Joe asked as she fussed with the suitcases, tugging on the zippers to make sure they were shut.

  “Your mother is being modest,” Dad said. “She’s not just keeping up with the other lectures. She’s also presenting one of her own.”

  “That’s great, Mom,” I said. “Are you talking to them about the work you’ve done in cluster analysis improving archival search times?”

  Joe stared at me like I was speaking Elvish or something.

  “What?” I asked. “With all the information floating around in databases and on the Internet, it’s hard to find what you want when you want it. Mom is making serious headway in solving the problem.”

  Joe rolled his eyes, but Mom beamed at me. “And people say teens never listen to their parents,” she said. She gave Dad a hug and a kiss good-bye, then turned to us. “Now, since I know both of you are listening: I expect a phone call every night. Be good. And listen to your dad and Aunt Trudy.”

  “Yeah, Mom,” Joe said. “And our bedtime is seven thirty, and we shouldn’t eat junk food,” he joked.

  “Don’t worry, honey. Trudy and I will keep them in line.” Dad helpfully cut short the “be responsible” portion of the good-bye talk. “Why don’t you boys go inside? I think there’s a package waiting for you in the living room. Your mother and I have a few more things to talk about before she goes.”

  “Bye, Mom.” I kissed her on the cheek. So did Joe. Dad took Mom’s hand and walked her to the car.

  We were already speeding toward the house. “All right! Mystery package for the Hardys,” Joe exclaimed happily.

  “Yeah—inside with Aunt Trudy,” I whispered to him.

  Joe’s eyes widened. “I guess we better go ATAC it!” He elbowed me in the ribs, faking a laugh, and ran into the house.

  I rolled my eyes and followed my superlame comedian brother inside.

  On the kitchen table sat a large box wrapped in brown paper.

  “Stupid bird! Off the box! Stupid bird! Off the box!” Our parrot Playback shuffled back and forth along the edge of the package, keeping his eyes fixed on Aunt Trudy. She took a step toward the box. Playback flung out his wings, puffing the feathers out and squawking loudly. She stepped back with a cry. Joe and I chuckled. Trudy and Playback have a love/hate relationship. This didn’t seem to be a “love” day.

  “Who’s sending you boys such big packages?” Aunt Trudy demanded. The sandwiches she’d come in to make for us lay half prepared on the counter. Curiosity had obviously gotten the better of her. Thankfully Playback had been there to keep her at bay.

  “Well . . . um . . . I think probably it’s . . .” Nothing sprang to mind. I knew this package had come from ATAC. Which meant I had no idea at all what was in the box. It could be anything. And, more importantly, whatever it was shouldn’t opened in front of Aunt Trudy.

  This time Joe had more luck than me in coming up with a white lie for Aunt Trudy. “It’s just something we sent away for. We’ll open it upstairs. I’m sure you don’t want it cluttering up the kitchen.” He stepped up to the box and shooed Playback off of it. Playback flapped to the back of one of the kitchen chairs and began to chant, “Open it. Open it.”

  “Why not just open it here?” With Playback safely off the box, Aunt Trudy was bolder. “Anything two teen boys send away for should probably be opened in front of one responsible adult. Here, let me get the tape.” She pulled the kitchen shears out of a nearby drawer.

  Joe and I stood helpless as she cut through the brown tape sealing the box. We looked at each other, panicked. This was worse than nearly getting shot by E. J.

  “There you go.” Aunt Trudy stepped back, leaving us to unpack our own disaster. “Did you get what you wanted?”

  We had no choice. Slowly I reached out and opened the top flaps of the box. Please let it be something innocent looking, I thought.

  I glanced down and saw two white karate outfits with white belts.

  I don’t know what I was expecting, but not this. As I lifted the uniforms from the box, Joe reached in and pulled out a karate book and a martial-arts-themed video game. Other karate gear had been packed in under the book—exercise mats for falling and sparring gloves.

  “Yeah, Aunt Trudy, this is pretty much what we ordered. It’s, um . . . karate stuff,” I finished, hoping there would be no further inquiry.

  “I can see that. But why?” Aunt Trudy never backed down easily.

  “Actually, Trudy, this is my doing,” Dad said, coming into the kitchen just in time. “The boys mentioned they were interested in learning more about martial arts, so I ordered them this stuff online.”

  “I thought you boys said you sent away for this karate . . . paraphernalia,” Aunt Trudy said to Joe. I had to hand it to her—you couldn’t slip anything past Trudy.

  But Dad recovered quickly. “They were covering for me. I told them you might not be happy with them learning to fight.”

  “Yeah,” I said teasingly. “We didn’t want Dad to have to face the wrath of Aunt Trudy.”

  “But the martial arts are all about discipline,” Dad went on. “And you always say the boys need more of that, right?”

  Aunt Trudy crossed her arms and glared at all three of us. I could tell she felt outnumbered without Mom in the house. “Fine. Learn to fight. Just don’t do it in the house.” Shaking her head, she turned back to the sandwiches.

  Joe gave me a look. He gestured toward the box. For the first time I noticed that there was something else inside. Folded into the pages of the book was a stack of fifty-dollar bills. Joe quickly threw everything back in the box.

  “Thanks, Dad.” I gave Joe a hand with the box.

  Dad shot us a thumbs-up as we quickly left the room.

  “We’ll be back for sandwiches in a little while, Aunt Trudy,” Joe called out as we ran up the stairs to my room.

  “I think she’s getting more suspicious as she gets older,” I said to Joe as I closed my bedroom door behind us. Joe dumped the box down on my bed and immediately pawed through it to find the video game. That’s how our ATAC missions come—disguised as games. Joe flipped the disc to me.

  “I can’t wait to hear what the new mission is,” Joe said. “Anything that involves martial arts has got to be cool.” He reached in and pulled out the karate robes while I stuck the disc, labeled MARTIAL LAW, into my gaming system. Joe slipped on one of the black jackets and tied the white belt around his waist. “What do you think? Stylin’, right?”

  I ignored him and watched the monitor. Rows of guys in black uniforms appeared on the screen. In unison, they stepped forward and shot out their right fists. With one voice they cried, “Hy-yah!” An unseen male caller yelled out a command. The boys moved again, pivoting on their front foot and stepping backward with the other. They bent their back legs, moving into a low crouch.

  “Martial arts have been practiced as a form of self-discipline and self-defense for centuries,” the deep voice of one of the mysterious ATAC mission narrators droned over this scene. Onscreen, the guys shot out of their crouch into a vicious kick. “Hy-yah!” That cry was closer by. I whipped around to find Joe, with sparring gloves on, mimicking the moves from the video.

  “Joe, get serious and pay attention.” I grabbed his white belt and pulled him to sit down in front of the screen.

  “I was watching,” he protested.

>   Onscreen, the camera panned up from the boys to the grand master calling out the moves, and the voice continued: “There are many types of martial arts—tae kwon do, karate, ninpo taijutsu, kung fu. When taught and learned correctly, they can train the mind as well as the body. When taught and learned with the wrong intent”—the boys gave an extra loud “HY-YAH!” and the scene faded out to black—“they can cause great harm.” The screen filtered into an image of a man lying crumpled on the ground.

  “The Rising Phoenix Martial Arts School in Holtsville opened its doors just over one year ago.” The image of a one-story, stand-alone building appeared. The floor-to-ceiling storefront-style windows allowed a clear view of the dojo inside, where a class of teens worked on one-on-one drills. The entrance doorway had been outfitted with a giant red archway, with golden dragons sitting on either side.

  “Shouldn’t those be phoenixes?” Joe asked. “I mean, it’s not called the Rising Dragon.”

  “Phoenix is the plural of phoenix, Joe. And shhh,” I replied.

  A photograph of an Asian man in his late twenties appeared. “Paul Huang is the owner and sole proprietor of the Rising Phoenix.” Paul wore a white robe with a black belt and stood in a classic “don’t mess with me” Bruce Lee pose. “Huang teaches karate to the teens of Holtsville and the surrounding towns. Since the Rising Phoenix opened, its student body has grown quickly and now includes over one hundred part-time students of varying skill levels.”

  Joe sighed and rolled his eyes. “I feel a giant ‘so what’ coming on.”

  “Huang is ambitious. He plans to open a chain of karate studios throughout the Northeast. These plans recently got a significant boost when InSight Investments, a financing group, entered into talks with Huang. It is expected that they will agree to fund his expansion.”

  Joe faked a sneeze, masking his “So what?”

  The announcer answered. “Over the past month, two students at the Rising Phoenix school have ended up in the hospital.” The screen was filled with pictures of two boys. The one on the left was thin with acne and a mop of dark brown hair, the one on the right was a small boy with neatly cropped blond hair. “The picture on your left is of John Mangione. A student at Rising Phoenix since it opened, John collapsed last week and was clinically dead for a few moments before his heart was restarted. Russell Olwell turned up at the local emergency room badly beaten a few days ago.”

  I shot a look at Joe. He’d dropped his attitude and was paying close attention. “If kids are getting hurt because of this school, a whole chain of them could be a disaster,” I said.

  “Your mission is to look into the school. We here at ATAC believe it is more than simple coincidence that two students of this school were badly hurt. You boys have to get close to the school and find out if it is dangerous before Paul Huang succeeds in expanding it.”

  “Now these are the kind of lessons I can get into.” Joe jumped back up and into his pseudo-karate moves. I had to agree with him. Math lessons were okay and all, but karate lessons? Much cooler.

  “This mission, like every mission, is top secret,” the announcer finished. “In five seconds, this disc will be reformatted into a regular CD.”

  Five seconds later, Carl Douglas’s 1970s hit “Kung Fu Fighting” blared from the computer’s speakers.

  3

  Dis-Orientation

  “Cool bikes,” a scrawny, nerdy-looking boy called out the second we pulled up to the Rising Phoenix Martial Arts School on our motorcycles. The kid wore a backpack full of textbooks that threatened to pull him over backward. He looked to be a couple of years younger than us and was probably sixty pounds lighter.

  “Thanks,” Frank replied. “I’m Frank. This is my brother, Joe.” I gave him a little wave, since I was in the middle of locking my bike up.

  “I’m Billy Lee. That’s Billy, and then Lee. Lee’s my last name. So it’s not Bill-Lee-Lee-Lee. . . .” Billy needed to take a breath to continue, giving me the opportunity to cut in.

  “Got it. Billy. Say, who do we see about signing up for classes here?” I asked quickly.

  “Oh, that would be Finn. Mr. Campbell. He lets us call him Finn. He runs the place for Sensei Huang.” Billy walked toward the glass doors of the building, pointing. Between the golden dragons, we could see a tall desk with a man behind it.

  “Are you going inside?” Frank asked Billy.

  “Sure. Yes. I’m a student here,” Billy said proudly.

  “Cool—then you’re the guy who can give us the inside scoop,” Frank said, trying to make friends. “We’ll find you inside in a few!”

  “Okay.” Billy started walking backward, squinting at us and our bikes like we were criminals ourselves. “I’ll see you in the locker room, okay?” Only when he tripped over the curb at the edge of the parking lot and nearly fell did he turn and walk inside.

  “I think we can safely exclude Bill Lee-Lee-Lee there from our list of suspects,” I pointed out with a smile. “Nice kid, but he doesn’t seem the criminal mastermind type.”

  Frank smiled too. “No, but he does jump right up on the list of most likely to need protection, don’t you think?”

  I nodded.

  “Do you have the cash for the classes?” Frank asked quietly.

  I patted my wallet. “Right here. I’m kind of hoping they have an introductory sale so we can use the extra cash for pizza later.”

  “Yeah, that’d be nice, but fat chance. ATAC always knows precisely how much a mission will cost.” Frank nodded toward the door. “When we go in, you scope the place and I’ll do the talking.”

  “Got it.” I handed the cash over to Frank so he could pay.

  We walked between the golden dragons and under the giant red archway. That’s when I saw it. “First mystery solved,” I said. Behind the dragons, behind the archway, out of sight from the ATAC camera in the case brief we were sent, a giant golden phoenix soared over the double doorway, standing guard. At least I assumed it was a phoenix, since I’ve never actually seen one.

  “Happy now?” Frank asked, holding the door for me to enter.

  “Definitely.”

  Everything was quiet and peaceful inside the Rising Phoenix. Frank and I stepped into the tiled entryway, greeted by slightly dimmed lights and soft sitar music piped in from somewhere. Water rained down over a bamboo-encircled Buddha in a fountain to our left.

  But as muted and subdued as it was, this was still clearly a place of business. Along the right side of the entryway ran a glass case with “Rising Phoenix”–branded headbands, robes, sparring gloves, and so on. Finn Campbell, the man Billy Lee had pointed out, stood directly in front of us.

  Frank strode confidently up to Finn while I trailed a bit behind. I pretended to be looking at the “Rising Phoenix” daggers and throwing stars in the case, although I was really looking over the case through thick glass into what must be the school’s office. I noticed windows leading to the outside—to the back of the building. Those could come in handy later. You never know when you might need a quick escape.

  “Hi. We’d like to take some classes.” Frank pulled Finn away from some paperwork he was doing. He looked Frank over suspiciously, which gave me the chance to do the same to him. He was a pretty normal-looking guy in his thirties. Balding and pasty-faced, he looked more like an intellectual than a fighter.

  Apparently deciding we were okay, he switched into sales mode. “Great. You’ve come to the right place. Sensei Huang is a great teacher, and as you can see, we have all-new facilities.” Finn gestured to our left. Through an archway, we could see the dojo, a large room with a fully padded floor. In one corner, several kids worked on a hanging punching bag. In another, two pairs of guys moved through choreographed maneuvers. In the middle, a girl stretched alone.

  “We have a special introductory deal right now....” He stopped and laughed in a self-deprecating manner, which I totally didn’t buy. “But I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m Finn Campbell. Please, call me Finn.” He smiled
broadly, all teeth, and extended his hand.

  “I’m Frank Hardy. And this is my brother, Joe.” Frank shook his hand.

  I stepped up and grabbed his hand too. “Hi.” A single pump shake, and out. It was the shake of a man who prided himself on efficiency.

  “Glad to meet you both. As I was saying . . .” Finn slid a glossy pamphlet across the counter for Frank and me to look at. I peeked into the dojo and took a step inside. “Joe—make sure you don’t walk on the mat with your shoes, okay? Just stick to the tiled area for now. And I’ll need you back here for some paperwork in a minute,” Finn called after me. Without missing a beat, he turned back to Frank. “We have a ten-lesson introductory offer, with the first class being free. How does that sound?”

  “Perfect. We’ll need ten lessons each.” Frank sounded genuinely enthusiastic.

  “Now,” Finn continued in full swing, “let’s see if you need any of our genuine Rising Phoenix equipment. . . .”

  That was all I could take of the sales pitch. I stepped into the dojo, careful to avoid the mat. The tile ran along the sides to the back of the dojo, straight to two heavy wooden doors. I assumed these were the locker rooms. Walking toward them, I was surprised to find a hallway to my right. The hallway ran behind the entryway and Finn Campbell’s desk and seemed to lead to the office that I’d seen. I took a turn and headed toward the door.

  Inside the office, Paul Huang was talking with a student. I recognized him immediately from the ATAC video. I could only just see him over the student. He wasn’t a large man, but he didn’t look like someone I wanted to tangle with.

  Something about the student Paul Huang was talking to was very familiar. I could only see him from the back, so I couldn’t tell who it was.

  Before I could place him, though, Frank came up behind me. “Okay, we’re in. But we need to go change. Orientation starts in a few minutes,” he said, pulling me by the shoulder toward the locker rooms.