The Firebird Rocket Read online

  “I don’t know,” Frank mused. “Suppose his kidnappers did it to mislead us after they grabbed him? And, frankly, I have my doubts about Smoky. He found the note and the bottle. Yet, Young assured us that Jenson’s desk was searched. How do we know that Smoky didn’t plant the stuff?”

  “Aw, Frank,” Chet said impulsively, “Smoky’s a nice guy. He wouldn’t do anything like that.”

  “Frank’s right,” Joe said. “We can’t take anything for granted, not even that Smoky is a nice guy.”

  Chet sighed. “I don’t know what to think any more. I give up.”

  “Let’s call Dad before we leave and ask him to check out Smoky,” Joe said. “And we’ll call Professor Young to make sure he sent Smoky after us.”

  Some time later the trio rolled into Bayport. The Hardys dropped Chet at the Morton farm on the outskirts of town, then continued to their house, where they were welcomed by their mother and aunt.

  “I’m so glad you’re back!” Mrs. Hardy said, giving them each a hug.

  “Not for long,” Frank told her.

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’re leaving for Australia tomorrow!”

  “Australia? Hmph, next thing you’ll be taking off for Mars,” Aunt Gertrude grumbled. “Now tell us what this is all about.”

  The boys did, and Gertrude Hardy frowned. “Do you suppose this missing scientist could have been captured by headhunters?”

  “I doubt it,” said Frank, keeping a straight face. “The Australian abos aren’t headhunters, Aunty, and they don’t run wild in Sydney.”

  “I know that,” Miss Hardy snapped. “You didn’t say he disappeared in Sydney.”

  “Well, that’s where his trail ends, anyhow.” Frank grinned and turned to his brother. “I’m going to call Professor Young.”

  “Good idea,” Joe said. “I’ll come with you.”

  They called Princeton, and the professor verified what Smoky had told them. “We didn’t check that file because Dr. Jenson seldom used it,” he said. “I’m sure it was his flask, though, because he wrote his name on it, and I know his handwriting. When are you leaving?”

  “Tomorrow,” Frank said. “We’ll get in touch with you when we find a lead.”

  When Frank put the receiver back into the cradle, Joe said, “While you’re at it, would you call Mr. Ponsley? We’ll have to tell him that we can’t work for him.”

  “Sure.” Frank dialed the man’s number. “This is Frank Hardy,” he said a few seconds later. “I’m sorry we can’t take the Moran assignment, but we’re involved in our father’s case and have to leave the country.”

  Ponsley was unhappy. “That is disappointing news. I was counting on you to locate Michael,” he said. “Well, I’ll have to get another detective. I need one now more than ever, because I have a new cluel”

  CHAPTER VIII

  Danger in the Surf

  FRANK started to ask what the new clue was, but a loud click at the other end of the line told him that the man had hung up.

  “Mr. Ponsley says he has a new lead on Mike Moran,” Frank said to Joe.

  “What is it?”

  “Don’t know. He didn’t tell me. Anyhow, it doesn’t matter. We’re tied up with the Jenson investigation. Somebody else will have to find Mike, wherever he is.”

  Early next morning the boys packed their bags and were just about ready to depart for the airport, when Chet arrived in his jalopy.

  “Guess what!” he called out, bubbling over with excitement.

  “What?” Frank asked.

  “I won first prize in my category of the science competition, fifteen hundred dollars in cash!”

  “Wow, that’s great, Chet!” Joe exclaimed. “Have you decided what to do with it yet?”

  “Sure! I’ll go to Australia with you guys, of course!” Chet said. “I already called the airline. They had a vacant seat on your plane, so I packed my bags and came over here pronto!”

  “That’s terrific!” Frank said. “I’m glad you can come with us.”

  “So am I,” Joe added. “And now we’d better leave so we don’t miss our flight.”

  The boys said good-by to Mrs. Hardy and Aunt Gertrude and drove to the Bayport airfield, where they parked their car in an overnight lot. They took a plane to New York and transferred at Kennedy Airport to a jumbo jet for Sydney, Australia.

  Soon they had settled into their seats at the rear of the plane. Chet sat at the window, Frank in the middle, and Joe on the aisle. Frank took a map of the Pacific from a folder provided by the airline and began to plot their route.

  “We’ll touch down at Los Angeles and Honolulu,” he informed his companions. “From there it’s nonstop to Sydney.”

  The plane took off. Suddenly a flash of red caught Joe’s eye. A stout man was napping on the other side of the aisle, a few rows in front of the boys. The color came from a large ruby ring he wore.

  Joe stood up to see better. “That’s Ponsley!” he exclaimed.

  Frank picked up the map spread across his knees and got up, too. He looked where his brother was pointing. “It sure is, Joe. What’s he doing here?”

  “Maybe he’s tailing us,” Chet guessed.

  “Well, if he is, he’s not very good at it,” Joe replied. “He’s asleep, and that giant ruby is a dead giveaway. Let’s wake him up.”

  “Not me,” Chet said hastily. “I’ll stay in this seat until we land!”

  Leaving their friend, Frank and Joe walked up the aisle. Joe nudged their portly acquaintance with his elbow.

  Ponsley stirred, yawned, opened his eyes, and stared at the Hardys. He looked startled as he recognized them.

  “Are you following us?” Joe demanded.

  “Of course not,” Ponsley replied.

  “How come you’re on this plane, then?” Frank asked.

  “Senator Moran had a tip from a friend who just returned from abroad,” Ponsley explained. “The man said he recognized Michael in a newspaper photograph of a soccer game in Sydney. The senator didn’t give me time to find another detective. He told me to go to Australia myself, so I caught this plane and here I am.”

  “Quite a coincidence,” Frank commented.

  “That’s right,” Ponsley challenged. “What are you doing on this plane?”

  “I told you we had to leave the country,” Frank pointed out. “Our investigation led us to Sydney.”

  Ponsley beamed and gestured with his hand, causing his ruby ring to throw off rays of deep red. “Wonderful!” he exclaimed. “Both investigations will take place in Sydney. You can work on them at the same time!”

  The Hardys talked it over and concurred that they might handle the two cases while they were in Australia.

  “That’s okay,” Frank told Ponsley, “but our assignment comes first. We can’t let the search for Mike Moran get in the way of that.”

  “All right,” Ponsley said. “I’m glad you’ll help me. After all, I really am not a detective!”

  The Hardys returned to their seats and informed Chet about their conversation with Ponsley. Then they settled back for the rest of the flight to Los Angeles, where some passengers got off, others got on, and the jet became airborne again. The boys napped as it crossed the California coastline and headed out over the Pacific. Finally the Hawaiian Islands came into view, and soon they landed in Honolulu.

  The captain’s voice came over the intercom. “Please disembark. There will be a delay because of a technical problem.”

  Everybody went down the steps and into the terminal, where a stewardess informed them that the delay would last overnight. “A bus is ready to take you all to a hotel on Waikiki Beach,” she said. “We’ll continue the flight in the morning.”

  The boys and Ponsley boarded the bus with the other passengers and an hour later they had checked in at a luxurious hotel. From their window, the three Bayporters could see the broad band of white sand where the waters of the Pacific lapped ashore. White foam formed where the breakers rolled in. Su
rfboard riders tried to keep their footing on huge swells that carried them forward at express-train speeds, and most fell into the water. The rest glided triumphantly to the beach.

  “What say we try it, too?” Joe asked.

  “Affirmative,” Frank replied.

  “I’ll show you how to ride a surfboard!” Chet boasted. “Lead me to itl”

  They called Ponsley and asked him if he wanted to join them.

  “No thanks,” he replied. “I’ll take a walk instead.”

  Leaving him in the hotel, the boys went to the bathhouse, rented swim trunks, and toted surf-boards into the water. They pushed through the shallow waves and reached the point far out where breakers began to form.

  “Last one in gets the booby prize!” Chet shouted gleefully, as he climbed up and balanced himself with his arms stretched out. A breaker caught hold of his board and sent it flying toward the beach.

  Frank and Joe followed on either side. The three made long curves up and down over the ocean swells, and they leaned to one side or the other to compensate for the tilt of their boards. Sunlight gleamed off the water and the wind blew spray into their faces.

  Chet had a lead at the start, but Frank and Joe skillfully maneuvered over the turbulent breakers until they were zooming along just behind him.

  Then a wave cutting across the breakers at an angle struck Chet’s surfboard, knocking it around. The heavy impact caused him to lose his footing and he tumbled into the water. His crazily floating board whacked him on the side of the head and he sank out of sight!

  Frank dived from his own board into the water in Chet’s direction, and Joe came headlong after him. They groped underwater as long as they could hold their breaths. Forced to surface, the Hardys gulped air and looked around frantically. Chet’s head bobbed up near Joe. His eyes were closed, and his body limp. Presently he slipped below the surface againl

  “He’s out cold!” Frank yelled. “Grab him before he disappears!”

  Joe did a seal flip that took him arching from the surface down into the depths, where he spotted Chet being dragged toward the open sea by a strong undertow. Using the breaststroke and kicking his feet hard, Joe reached his friend and pushed him to the surface. Frank splashed over, crooked an elbow under Chet’s chin, and swam on his back in the direction of the shore. Joe, who surfaced beside them, gave Frank a hand with his burden. As they touched the sand in the shallow water, Chet came to. The three stumbled onto the beach and sat down, gasping for breath.

  A lifeguard jogged across the sand. “That was a great rescue,” he complimented the Hardys. “I didn’t come in because I could see you had the situation under control.” He turned to Chet. “How do you feel?”

  Chet rubbed his head. “Okay, I guess,” he mumbled. “But I sure have a powerful headache. I’m going back to the hotel. Besides, I’m nauseated from swallowing half the Pacific.”

  He got to his feet and walked off. Frank and Joe went with him. They insisted that he see the hotel doctor, whose prognosis was that Chet would be fit again after a night’s sleep. The diagnosis was correct. Chet woke up in the morning with nothing more than tenderness on the side of his head.

  After breakfast the bus took all the passengers back to the airport, and soon they were on their way again. They flew southwest across what seemed to be an endless expanse of ocean before Samoa came into view. The boys talked to Ponsley for a while, then went back to their seats to read.

  They stopped when the stewardess served their meals. Chet ravenously dug into everything that was put in front of him, looking blissful.

  “Chet, there’s nothing like chow to bring you back to normal,” Frank declared.

  “Lucky the airline doesn’t have to feed you every day,” Joe needled him. “It would go broke.”

  Chet downed the last mouthful of cherry pie. “That’ll hold me for a while,” he predicted.

  The stewardess removed the trays and the boys dozed off until the plane ran into turbulence and began to wobble.

  Chet opened his eyes, slumped in his seat, and placed a hand on his belt buckle. “I don’t feel so good,” he confessed.

  As the turbulence increased, the plane bounced up and down. Chet turned pale. His freckles stood out and his eyes bulged. “What’s happening?” he muttered fearfully.

  “We’re in the jetstream, that’s all,” Frank reassured him. “We’ll soon be out of it.”

  Suddenly the plane flew into a downdraft and dropped a number of feet.

  “We’re gonna crash!” Chet cried. Desperately he clawed the life jacket from under his seat, slipped it on, and pulled the strings, triggering the inflation mechanism. The life jacket ballooned out, pinning Chet between the seats.

  A stewardess rushed up. “Sir, what are you doing?” she demanded.

  Chet closed his eyes and gasped. “If we survive the crash, we’ll all drown!”

  CHAPTER IX

  The Porter’s Clue

  “NONSENSE!” the stewardess retorted sternly. “We are not going to crash!”

  Chet opened one eye. “We aren’t?”

  “Certainly not. Turbulence in the air is routine! You are disturbing the other passengers.”

  Frank hastily assured her that he and Joe would take care of the situation. The stewardess thanked him and moved toward the cockpit. By now the jet was flying steadily on course. Frank let the air out of the life jacket, helped Chet wriggle out of it, and stowed it under the seat.

  Chet swallowed hard and looked remorseful. “I thought we’d crash for sure,” he said.

  “Forget it,” Joe said. “No harm done.”

  “Get ready for Australia, Chet,” Frank advised.

  The freckle-faced youth regained his composure. His broad grin returned. “Kangaroos! Boomerangs! I can’t wait!”

  Finally they could see the coastline of Australia as the plane thundered down over Port Jackson, a large bay with long watery indentations into the land. Sydney Harbor came into view, spanned by a long suspension bridge.

  “When we were reading up on Australia,” Joe said, “I remember one of the books said the people in Sydney call that bridge ‘the coathanger.’ ”

  The boys could see big ocean-going ships tied up at the docks, and clusters of tall buildings. The city and its suburbs lay spread out below them in a pattern of streets, squares, and parks, illuminated by the evening sun.

  The plane landed at the airport. After getting through customs, the boys and Ponsley took a taxi to their hotel. They had booked rooms at the Australian Arms, where Dr. Jenson had also made a reservation before he disappeared.

  “May as well start our detective work right now,” Frank decided.

  As they got out of their taxi, he showed the hotel porter photos of Dr. Jenson and Mike Moran.

  “Recognize these people?” Frank queried.

  The porter studied the faces and shook his head. “I’ve never seen either of them,” he declared.

  They made the same inquiry at the hotel desk, but to no avail. During dinner, they discussed how they should proceed.

  “We ought to check with police headquarters first thing in the morning,” Frank decided. “By now they may have some news on Dr. Jenson, and they may know something about Mike Moran, too.”

  “I’m going with you,” Ponsley declared.

  “Good. We’ll meet for breakfast at eight,” Frank said; then they retired for the night.

  The following morning the Hardys got up bright and early. Chet did not feel well and decided to sleep a little longer.

  “We’ll see you when we come back,” Joe told him, then he and Frank met Ponsley in the cafeteria. They had a quick breakfast and an hour later took a taxi to police headquarters. Here they explained their mission to a sergeant on duty.

  “You’ll have to talk to Inspector Morell,” the sergeant replied. “He’s in charge of the search for that missing Yank scientist. But he’s not here right now. Should be back in half an hour.”

  “Okay, we’ll talk to h
im later.” Frank added that they were also trying to trace another missing American, named Michael Moran, whose face had been spotted in a Sydney newspaper photo.

  “Hmm.” The sergeant rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “We don’t keep tabs on all the tourists who come here—unless they get in trouble, of course. Let me just check with our Criminal Records Office.”

  He picked up the phone, dialed, and conversed for a few minutes. Then he hung up with a grin. “You’re in luck, mates. Our computer turned up his name straightaway. He’s listed as a witness to an auto accident about a month ago. Gave his address as Flynn’s Guesthouse on St. James Road.”

  The boys and Ponsley thanked the sergeant and took another cab to the guesthouse on St. James Road. They were disappointed, however, when the owner informed them that Mike Moran had departed about three weeks before, saying only that he was leaving town.

  “So Moran’s trail ends right here,” Joe said glumly.

  “And we haven’t even picked up Jenson’s yet,” Frank added.

  “What’ll we do now, go around with the photographs?” Ponsley asked.

  “Right. Let’s start here,” Joe said. He showed the owner Jenson’s picture, but the man told them he had never seen the American before. Then the group walked out into the street. The boys returned to police headquarters while Ponsley took a taxi to their hotel.

  After the Hardys had introduced themselves to Inspector Morell, he said, “I was just about to call Professor Young at the Aerospace Lab. We have traced Dr. Jenson to a shabby place on Sixteen Wallaby Drive. There was a fire there recently in the lobby that destroyed the hotel register and forced the owner to close for a while. That’s why it took so long to track Jenson down.”

  The boys noted the address and thanked Inspector Morell. Then they took a taxi to Wallaby Drive. It was in a rundown section of town and number 16 looked like a decrepit apartment building. Only a small faded sign over the door indicated that it was a hotel. The blackened woodwork around the doors and windows showed signs of a recent blaze.

  “I wonder if that fire the inspector mentioned was an arson job,” Frank mused.