Survival Run Page 4

  "I'm still listening," the Gray Man said.

  "Hold on," Gina cut in. "What does any of this have to do with the two guys who killed Solomon?"

  The Gray Man's gaze shifted to Gina, and he seemed to soften. "I know you've been through a lot. If it's any comfort, I don't think Mr. Mapes was actually involved with the Assassins. He just got caught up in something that was out of his control."

  "Stavrogin's fishing rod case is the key, isn't it?" Frank prodded. "What was in it that the Assassins wanted so badly?"

  The Gray Man sighed. "I have to hand it to you boys. You certainly are persistent. I never dreamed you'd get this far." He stood up and started to pace the floor. "I guess I'll have to tell you enough to satisfy your curiosity.

  "The Russians were working on fusion reactors long before we were," he began, "and Stavrogin was one of their top fusion experts before he came to the U.S. Recently he got involved in some classified fusion research for our government. Without telling anyone, he took some very sensitive notes with him when he came up here to his fishing cabin."

  "And he hid the notes in the fishing rod case," Frank ventured.

  The Gray Man nodded.

  "But the case got sidetracked to Atlanta by the luggage theft ring," Joe added.

  "I have no idea what happened to Stavrogin's fishing rod case," the Gray Man responded with a wry chuckle. "We're still looking for it, but I doubt if we'll ever find it. It was probably snatched by somebody who liked the case or wanted a new fishing rod. We planted a fake case. That's the one the Assassins grabbed in Atlanta."

  "Hold on," Frank interrupted. "What made you think the Assassins would go to Atlanta to look for it?"

  "I assigned two Network agents to protect Stavrogin while he was in Alaska," the Gray Man replied, "and he told them about the notes as soon as he found out the fishing rod was missing. Then we got lucky and spotted two known Assassins boarding a flight from Anchorage to Atlanta, but they gave us the slip in Atlanta. A little digging uncovered the luggage theft problem at Eddings Air, and we put two and two together."

  "So you set a trap for the Assassins," Frank said.

  "We took some copies of Stavrogin's old notes," the Gray Man continued, "altered them to make the information worthless, and put the papers in the fishing rod case - along with a hidden transmitter. We hoped the two Assassins would bring the case back to Alaska and lead us to their base. But they got rid of the case before they left Atlanta."

  "By now the Assassins must know the papers they took from the case are worthless," Joe remarked.

  "Of course," the Gray Man responded. "Why do you think they went back to Stavrogin's cabin?"

  Frank juggled all these new facts in his mind and realized something was still missing. "You haven't told us everything," he said bluntly. "How did the Assassins know about the fishing rod case in the first place? And where is Dr. Stavrogin now?"

  The Gray Man sat down heavily, gazed at the ground for a moment, and cleared his throat. "We think the Assassins bugged Stavrogin's phone in Washington. And when Stavrogin called his assistant and asked for his notes to be sent to him in a fishing rod case, the Assassins knew just what to look for." The Gray Man heaved a deep sigh. "I should have assigned more men to watch Stavrogin. While I was in Atlanta, the Assassins kidnapped him up here in Alaska, and both of the Network agents guarding him were badly injured in the attack. That's why I have a small army here now. Sooner or later the Assassins will pry the information they need out of Stavrogin. We can't let that happen."

  "What can we do to help?" Joe asked.

  The Gray Man's gaze was as cold as his answer. "Go home and stay there."

  The Gray Man refused to answer any more questions and had one of his men drive the Hardys and Gina back to the motor home.

  "At least they brought my motorcycle back," Joe noted.

  Frank knelt down next to the dirt bike that had refused to start earlier. He twisted a section of rubber tubing that snaked down from the gas tank. "There was a crimp in the fuel line. It should start now."

  He got up, grabbed the handlebars, swung his right leg over the seat, and pumped the kick starter with his foot. "Want to race?" Frank challenged his brother.

  Joe looked around. "Where?"

  Frank shrugged. "We'll figure it out when we get there."

  "Are you just going to leave me here?" Gina asked as Joe jumped on the second dirt bike.

  "Don't worry," Frank called out as he sped away from the motor home. "We'll be back before dark!"

  Joe gave his brother a curious look when he caught up with him. They both knew it was only the middle of the afternoon - and the sun wouldn't set until almost midnight.

  From a clump of bushes on a high hill overlooking a shallow creek, the Hardys stared down at the stand of birch and pine concealing the Network camp.

  "This is stupid," Joe muttered. "I can't see anything but trees."

  "When they move out, we'll be able to see them," Frank assured him.

  "Move out? Where are they going? Did the Gray Man say anything about moving out?"

  "It was what he didn't say," Frank explained. "The Network agent who knocked you out was part of a surveillance team. They must have followed our buddy the suicidal cab driver back to the Assassins' secret base. I'm sure the Gray Man is getting ready to raid that base and rescue Dr. Stavrogin. All we have to do is sit and wait."

  Joe was about to ask how long they were going to wait when he heard the approaching drone of an engine. A three-wheeled all-terrain vehicle with balloon tires crested the hill and stopped twenty feet from it. Another ATV appeared behind it.

  Frank shrank back in the bushes, pulling his brother with him, and peered out through the leaves at the ATVs. Could the Network agents have fooled them again? Frank wondered. If they weren't Network operatives, then - Frank shuddered. He knew the Assassins wouldn't let them get away alive this time.

  Frank held his breath and watched as two grim-faced men got off the ATVs silently, crossed the hillside, and headed straight for where he and his brother were hiding.

  Chapter 7

  The two men stopped a few feet from the Hardys, but their eyes weren't on the bushes; they were peering down the steep hill into the Network camp.

  Joe stared at the men. Both had scraggly black hair, badly in need of a trim, and one of them had a full beard, while the other had several days of stubble on his face. Next, Joe's eyes traveled down to the men's weapons. He knew what the fat green tubes were, and he didn't think they were standard issue for federal agents.

  Assassins, Joe thought grimly.

  A shock ran through him when the large bearded man slid out his telescoping rear blast tube, flipped up the front sight, and rested the yard-long contraption on his shoulder.

  The hand-held rocket launcher, powerful enough to rip apart a tank, wasn't pointed at the Hardys. The bearded man had aimed it downhill, right at the heart of the Network base.

  Joe didn't wait for the other man to get his weapon ready. "No!" he screamed, charging out of the bushes and lunging at the bearded Assassin.

  The man whirled at the sound of Joe's voice, and Joe suddenly found himself staring at the tip of the deadly rocket packed inside the tube. He darted under the weapon, shoving it up and out of the way with one hand while he rammed his head into the Assassin's stomach.

  The man made a soft grunt, and the rocket launcher made a thunderous whoomp! Searing hot air from the backblast shriveled the grass inches from Joe's face as the big bearded man stumbled backward and the two of them tumbled to the ground. Joe grappled the rocket launcher away from the man and heaved it down the side of the steep hill.

  Frank hit the other Assassin with a flying karate kick while the man was still fumbling with the blast tube extension. His opponent was quick, snapping his head and shoulders back and only taking a glancing blow on the chest. The Assassin countered with a roundhouse kick that slammed into Frank's back, sending him sprawling on the ground.

  Joe and
Frank both scrambled to their feet as the Assassin jerked out the blast tube, whipped the weapon onto his shoulder, and squeezed the trigger. The Hardys landed on him just as the rocket was unleashed. Joe didn't hear the blast this time. He was still deaf from the last one. But he did see an orange fireball engulf the trees near the creek below.

  He didn't know if the rocket had hit the Network camp, and he didn't have much time to think about it. Frank was already on his feet, chasing the bearded man, who was making a dash for the three-wheeled ATVs. The other Assassin quickly rolled away from Joe and jumped up. Joe started to get up - but fell back down and hugged the ground when the Assassin took a swipe at him with the rocket launcher, swinging the empty tube like a baseball bat.

  The man raised the weapon over his head and brought the metal tube whistling down. Joe twisted out of the way and heard the weapon slam into the ground with a dull thud.

  Suddenly Joe realized he was at the edge of the hill, and he could feel himself slipping down the steep slope. The Assassin was glaring down at him, and Joe could see the cold fury in the man's gaze. For a second he was sure the terrorist was going to leap on top of him, sending them both tumbling down the rocky slope and probably breaking both their necks.

  Then there was a shout from the top of the hill, and the man spun around and sprinted toward the ATVs, where Frank was grappling with the bearded terrorist.

  Digging his heels into the earth and clutching clumps of grass, Joe stopped his slide and clawed back up the hill. Those few short seconds were all the Assassins needed to make their getaway.

  When Joe reached Frank, he found his brother on his knees, groaning softly and grasping his side. Joe ran over to his brother and helped him up. "Are you okay?" he asked.

  Frank grimaced and nodded. "I didn't see that second guy coming up behind me. He clobbered me with a kidney punch." Shrugging off Joe's gentle but firm grip, he dashed over to the dirt bikes. "Come on!" he shouted. "We can still catch them!"

  Frank and Joe jumped on the dirt bikes and took off after the Assassins. The ATVs were already out of sight in the dense woods, but the three wide tires left tracks that were easy to follow. Frank led the way, weaving through the trees, ducking under low-hanging branches, and glancing back frequently to make sure Joe was still with him.

  When the tracks dipped down and across a narrow creek bed, Frank gunned the engine, stood up on the foot pegs, tugged hard on the handlebars, and leaned forward as the lightweight motorcycle sailed across the small stream. Joe watched his brother's bike come down in a perfect two-point landing, back wheel first, just as he hit the air himself.

  Joe's brief flight ended with a jarring impact on the other side of the creek. His front wheel hit the ground and turned slightly to one side, and the bike wobbled and bucked, almost throwing him off. Joe grappled with the handlebars and wrestled the bike, refusing to let it crash. The rear tire swerved violently one way and then the other, but Joe stayed with it and brought the bike back under control.

  Frank caught a glimpse of one of the ATVs up ahead and pushed the dirt bike even harder. He rode in a crouch, barely touching the seat, his legs and arms taking the jarring shock as the tires bounced over the rocky, bumpy forest floor. He was gaining on the rear ATV now. He could see the twin back tires churning up the ground and spewing out a spray of dirt and leaves. The rider bobbed his head slightly as he drove between two large pines and then glanced back over his shoulder at Frank.

  Frank wondered why the Assassin had ducked, since there was plenty of headroom beneath the lowest branch of either tree. The rider glanced back at him again, and Frank had the sense that the man was waiting for something to happen.

  The answer came to Frank in a shaft of sunlight glinting off a shiny, thin strand of wire strung between the two pine trees. His eyes widened, and he heaved himself backward off the bike.

  "Trip wire!" he screamed just before he smashed into the ground with a painful thud. The motorcycle rolled under the razor-thin metal strand that would have taken Frank's head off, kept going for another fifteen feet, took a wild hop over a rock, and crashed on its side.

  Joe hit the brakes, cut the front wheel sharply to the left, and skidded to a halt. He jumped off the bike and ran over to his brother.

  Frank waved him off. "I'm all right! Don't let them get away! I'll catch up!"

  Joe didn't argue. He hopped back on the dirt bike and took off on the Assassins' trail. The tire tracks wound through the forest for another mile or so and then headed across a wide clearing.

  The ATVs were nowhere in sight - and the tracks led straight to the edge of a jagged cliff that was near Stavrogin's cabin. Joe got off the motorcycle and stood near the edge. Almost a thousand feet below was a vast canopy of green treetops that extended into the distance. The far horizon was rimmed with mountain peaks.

  He was still standing there when Frank arrived on his crippled dirt bike. The front wheel was badly bent, and Frank had a hard time controlling the bike if he tried to go faster than ten miles an hour.

  "Do you think they rode over the cliff and killed themselves?" Joe asked.

  Frank's gaze swept the trees that crowded the base of the cliff. "It's impossible to tell from here. You could hide a small city in those woods. But why would they kill themselves?"

  "To avoid being captured?" Joe ventured.

  Frank shook his head. "Unlikely. They weren't vastly outnumbered or anything like that. In fact, they probably thought their booby trap sliced me in half. Would two trained Assassins commit suicide if a lone, unarmed teenager was chasing them?"

  "Gee, thanks," Joe grumbled. "You make me sound like a first-class weenie."

  Frank grinned. "You haven't worked your way up to first class yet."

  ***

  Before going back to the motor home, the Hardys decided to stop at the Network camp. Even though the Gray Man had made it clear that the Hardys were definitely not welcome within a thousand miles of the Network operation, Frank and Joe wanted to make sure everybody was all right after the rocket attack.

  Joe was prepared for the worst. A rocket designed to blast apart thick steel tank armor could do a lot of serious damage. But he wasn't prepared for what they found.

  "It's as though the Network camp was never here," Joe said after they had combed the area for any sign of the men and gear that had been there earlier in the day. The only indication that anything other than birds and bears had touched this part of the wilderness was the ring of scorched trees and the smoldering crater left by the antitank rocket.

  "Of course," Frank muttered. "I should have thought of this. They wouldn't stay here after the rocket attack. They'd move the camp to a safer location, and hopefully one where the Assassins couldn't find them."

  "And any plans to rescue Dr. Stavrogin would have to be put on hold," Joe added.

  Frank nodded. Suddenly he felt very tired, and his body ached in a dozen places. "It's been a long day," he said wearily. "Let's get back to our own base camp, have something to eat, and go to sleep."

  "That sounds like a good plan to me," Joe agreed, climbing back on his bike.

  They soon discovered they were going to have to wait a little longer than they had anticipated. And any hopes they might have built up about Gina waiting for them with a nice, hot dinner were quickly forgotten, too.

  "What happened to the motor home?" Joe cried out when they reached the rickety bridge over the stream near Stavrogin's cabin. "It's gone!"

  Chapter 8

  "There's probably a perfectly logical explanation for this," Frank said calmly, studying the vacant spot where they had left Gina and the motor home a few hours earlier.

  "It may be logical," Joe responded, "but that doesn't mean we're going to like it."

  "Let's try to reason this out," Frank said. "Where could Gina have gone?"

  Joe sat down in the grass by the roadside. "Maybe she got tired of waiting for us to come back."

  "That's a possibility," Frank conceded. "Here's another:
Somebody scared her off or forced her to leave."

  "The Network?" Joe ventured.

  "Or the Assassins," Frank said grimly.

  Even though he was bone tired and sore all over, Joe got up and climbed back on the battered dirt bike. "We'd better start looking for her."

  Frank squinted at the sun on the horizon and shook his head. "It'll be dark soon. We'll start in the morning."

  ***

  Frank and Joe spent the night in Stavrogin's deserted cabin. In the morning there was still no sign of Gina or the motor home.

  "I'm starving," Joe complained as he helped Frank take off the bent front wheel of the dirt bike. Using some tools they had found in the cabin, they managed to work most of the wobble out of the wheel.

  Frank slipped the wheel back onto the fork, tightened the axle nuts, and reconnected the front brake line. "That should hold it until we get to Big Bear," he said.

  Joe looked at him. "Why are we going to Big Bear?"

  "To get a new wheel and something to eat," Frank replied, swinging his leg over the seat and starting the engine. "And to ask some questions," he added.

  An hour later the Hardys found themselves at the counter of the Mooseburger Café. They had just dropped Frank's bike at the gas station for repairs and been told that it would take around a week to get a new wheel. The café was deserted except for a large man in an apron who lumbered over and handed them menus. He had long blond hair tied back in a braid, and Joe counted five gold hoops piercing his left ear.

  "What'U it be?" the man asked in a deep, friendly voice, smiling down on the Hardys and flashing several gold teeth.

  "Do you really have mooseburgers?" Joe asked. He was pretty sure he didn't want one, but he had to ask.

  The big man chuckled. "Nah, that's my name. Simon Mooseburger. I own the joint. I do most of the cooking, too."

  Mooseburger took their order and came back a few minutes later with two large plates piled high with food: stacks of buttered toast, mounds of hash brown potatoes, and huge omelets bursting with steaming hot cheese. Joe wolfed his down and then attacked his brother's plate after Frank announced he was stuffed.