Collision Course Read online

  Joe shifted his weight around to get comfortable in the half-sitting, half-lying position and Stared at the dizzying array of controls. "How come all these gauges are tilted?" he asked.

  'We rotate them," Scott pointed out, "so the feedles point straight up at optimum levels."

  'Okay." Joe nodded, scanning the dials. "I think I've got it." But something was missing. '"Hey," he said, frowning, "Where's the speedometer?"

  Scott laughed. "The only speed we worry about is the other guy's. If he's going faster than you are, then you aren't going fast enough. But today let's take it nice and slow," Scott cautioned. "These monsters aren't exactly designed for idling. If you let your RPMs drop too low, it'll stall. So you'll have to kind of roll your foot between the brake and the accelerator, braking and revving the engine at the same time, okay?"

  "Uh - huh." Joe nodded eagerly. "Here goes nothing."

  Joe pushed in the clutch with his left foot, gripped the stick shift with his right hand, and shoved it into the first-gear position. With his right foot on the gas pedal, he watched the tachometer needle jump as he revved the engine. Then he eased his left foot off the clutch, and the car lurched into gear. .

  Frank saw his brother give him a thumbs-up as he steered the race car onto the road. Scott Lavin turned to him and said, "He's pretty good. Most guys stall out the first time they get behind the wheel."

  "Joe's a fast learner," Frank replied. He started to walk away but turned back when he heard a shout rise up from the small cluster of spectators. Looking around to see what had caused the commotion, Frank saw a few people standing up, pointing down the road.

  A black cloud began to billow over the race course. The trail of acrid smoke led down to a burning vehicle, and Frank could see that it was the same color as the flames that engulfed it - yellow and red.

  Horror crept up on Frank as he realized slowly it was Scott's car and Joe was still in it!

  Chapter 10

  Joe Hardy had just been starting to get the feel of the race car when he heard a muffled explosion in the loud thrum of the engine behind him. His eyes darted from one side mirror to the other, but both showed him the same thing — billowing smoke and flame.

  Joe didn't panic. He slammed on the brakes, reached down with his right hand, and hit the fire extinguisher release switch. Within seconds, he knew, the cockpit would be sprayed with a layer of fire-retardant chemicals, giving him time to get out safely. But nothing happened.

  He hit the switch again. Still nothing. "Great," he muttered. "No protective clothes, no fire extinguisher—and no time! I've got to get out now or I'll end up the main course at a first class cookout!"

  Joe slapped the release button on the rest straps, threw the shoulder harness back over his head, and grabbed the lip of the cockpit to pull himself out. "Yarrghh!" he screamed in pain, wrenching his hands away from the searing metal.

  He was trapped! He was wedged so tightly in the tiny space that he couldn't move without using his hands and arms for leverage. "No pain, no gain." He grimaced, psyching himself up to take hold of the burning metal and pull himself free.

  Joe reached out with both hands—and felt a cool mist pour down on him.

  Frank sprinted into the nearest shed and grabbed a fire extinguisher off the wall. Then he rushed back out and started running toward the burning car. He caught up with Scott Lavin, who was headed in the same direction.

  "He'll be all right," Scott huffed, trying to keep up with Frank's desperate pace. "There's an on-board fire extinguisher."

  "I'm not taking any chances!" Frank yelled. A small knot of onlookers blocked his way. He shoved his way through the crowd, swinging the fire extinguisher to clear a path. "Out of the way!" he bellowed. "Coming through!"

  Frank emptied the fire extinguisher into the cockpit of the burning machine and tossed the canister aside. He grabbed Joe's arms, yanking out with one tremendous heave. The two brothers tumbled away from the blaze. The small crowd that had gathered at the side quickly scattered as an ambulance and fire engine rolled up. The fire fighters jumped off the truck, and within seconds the blaze was put out, leaving nothing but a cloud of smoke and a smouldering heap where a high-performance race car had been a moment before. Frank helped Joe to his feet, then looked at the burned-out hulk that had been Scott Lavin's first and only Formula One car. He glimpsed Scott Standing off to one side, staring in wide-eyed disbelief, his dream disappearing in a cloud of smoke.

  Joe turned his gaze to his brother. "We've got to find out who's behind this before anybody else gets killed," he said grimly.

  Frank and Joe showed up at Callie Shaw's house about two hours late. "You guys always seem to think that the shortest distance between two points involves two or three stops in between," she commented after hearing the story. "Does this mean you've whittled your list of suspects down to none ?"

  "Well, you have to admit," Joe said, "that Scott Lavin would have to be pretty desperate to blow up his own race car."

  "We need more facts," Frank replied. "Maybe the videotape of McCoy's crash will tell us something."

  "I still don't see why we couldn't watch it in our own VCR at home," Joe protested as he followed Callie through the house.

  "I told you," Callie said. "Mine is a professional video cassette like Arno's. It uses tape than home models. The cassette wouldn't even fit in the slot on your machine." She led the way down the basement stairs.

  "My folks let me use the den down here for my video equipment," Callie said. "I've got a professional-format VCR hooked up to the wide-screen TV." She took the videocassette over to a large, black box with an imposing set of knobs and dials on the front and a maze of wires snaking out back. She pushed the cassette through a slot in the machine. "It's show time!" she announced.

  Frank pulled over some folding directors' chairs, and they all sat down to watch. "Just fast forward to the part where McCoy goes through the tunnel," Frank said.

  Callie pressed a button and the action flew across the screen at a breakneck speed. Joe remembered how, looking down on the scene from the air, McCoy's car hadn't seemed to be going very fast. Now it was comical the way it whizzed down the course and darted around the turns. "hey, that some kind of digital clock?" he asked, pointing to a row of changing numbers at the bottom the screen.

  'Yes," Callie said. "Video master tapes have time code for editing purposes. It keeps precise record of the time down to hundredths of seconds."

  "Here it comes," Frank cut in, staring intently. The race car entered the dark mouth of the tunnel. "Slow it down now." Callie pressed another button, and the tape plowed to normal speed. The digital clock slowed, too. The Hardys watched as the car disappeared inside and the helicopter swung out over ocean to record the scene from the exit point of the tunnel.

  "Hold it right there!" Frank commanded.

  "Now play it in slow motion." They could see the low-slung profile of the race car as it gradually emerged from the tunnel. "It's hard to tell from this angle," Frank noted, "but it looks like he's moving a little."

  "Like he lost control before he hit the turn," Joe said. "And it seems like he's awfully low in the cockpit. You can barely see the top of his body. " 'Like he was unconscious and slumped over?" Frank suggested. The videotape kept rolling in slow motion, and they watched the race car push out the guardrail if it were sliding through a wall of butter.

  "I wish we had a better camera angle," Frank muttered.

  The car rolled slightly to one side as it fell toward the water. "Now you can't see him at all!" he complained.

  "Great shot of the axles, though," Joe tried to joke.

  As gruesome as it was, they replayed the seen several times, looking for anything they have missed. "Okay, Callie," Frank finally said. "You can shut it off. This isn't going to tell enough."

  "Looks like it's time to go diving," Joe said.

  "Looks that way," Frank agreed.

  They left the videocassette with Callie and headed home to pick up some equ
ipment.

  "scuba gear's loaded in the back," Joe said as he climbed into the van's passenger seat.

  "Good," Frank replied. He was already behind the wheel, and the engine was running. "Let's get going." He backed the van out of the driveway and headed down the street.

  When they got to the end of the block, Frank turned left. "Hey, this isn't the way to the marina!" Joe protested. "Aren't we going to the boat?"

  Frank smiled. "I thought we'd take the route."

  Joe glanced at Frank and knew he wasn't going to get any more information out of him. So he passed his time reading the street signs and trying to second-guess his older brother.

  After a few minutes Joe said, "Frank, I think you just made a wrong turn. This road leads to — " "I know," Frank nodded. "You want to take a look at McCoy's car, and I want to take another look at the crash site." He turned the wheel Sharply and the van swerved onto an old dirt road.

  ' They bumped along the twin ruts for a couple of miles, until they came in sight of Barmet Bay. "I'd forgotten about this old access road," Joe said as he opened the back door of the van and started to take out the scuba gear.

  "Good thing I didn't," Frank said, hoisting a coil of thick rope. "With the highway blocked off for the race, we would have had a long walk."

  Frank crouched down to look at something. "What is it?" Joe asked.

  "It looks like someone else has been here recently," Frank replied, running his hand along the ground. "Footprints."

  Joe shrugged. "Probably somebody came up for the view. Come on. Let's get moving."

  The two brothers clambered down a steep incline to the paved road that skirted the cliff. They then followed the road around the hairpin turn. Joe stopped by a pair of wooden barriers with Hashing emergency lights bolted to them. They were blocking the ragged gash in the guardrail where McCoy had crashed.

  Frank kept walking all the way to the tunnel, scanning the roadway as he went. "Just as I thought!" he shouted. "There aren't any skid marks!" He trotted back to where Joe was standing. "Do you know what that means?"

  "Yeah," Joe nodded. "Either he didn't even-hit the brakes or nothing happened when he did. He just plowed over the edge without slowing down."

  "And that means it definitely wasn't an accident," Frank added, moving around the saw-horses.

  "You'd think someone like Arno or the police would have noticed that," Joe said.

  Frank shrugged. "They had already decided it was an accident. They weren't really looking for anything else."

  He motioned to Joe. "It looks like we can climb down most of the way without using the rope."

  "Then what?" Joe asked.

  "Then you put on the scuba gear and I lower you down into the water."

  "Why don't I lower you down?" Joe suggested hopefully, slinging the bulky air tank over his shoulder. He didn't care much for the idea of rappeling down the cliff in a wet suit with that thing on his back and flippers on his feet.

  "Because that's not part of my plan," Frank insisted. "If you don't like it, you can think up the plan next time."

  They worked their way down to a rather large ledge with a single scraggly tree that grew up against the cliff. Frank lashed the rope to the tree trunk to support Joe's weight while Joe put on the scuba gear. He double-checked the pressure in the tank, ran his hand over the air hose, and tested the regulator by breathing through it to make sure he was getting air from the tank.

  "Okay, I'm ready," Joe announced when he was sure everything was in working order.

  Frank tied the other end of the rope around Joe's chest, under his armpits. Then Frank took a firm stance with his legs wide apart and his knees slightly bent. Standing with his back to the tree, he wound the rope once around each of his arms and gripped the line tightly.

  "I'll do most of the work," he explained. "I'll let out the rope slowly. The tree will be a backup to hold you. You just keep yourself away from the cliff wall."

  Joe gave a tug on the line and then leaned backward over the edge. "Everybody into the pool!" he yelled, and pushed off with both feet.

  It worked perfectly. Joe relaxed a little as he inched downward. When he was close to the water line, he gave a firm shove with both feet, pushing himself out to clear a jumble of rocks at the bottom of the cliff. But suddenly the line went slack, and he splashed into the cold Atlantic, gasping and spluttering for air.

  The force of the fall had ripped the regulator from his mouth. A few swift kicks brought him back to the surface. "Nice going, ace!" he shouted up at his brother.

  There was no response. From this angle, Joe couldn't see the tree, the ledge, or Frank. He ducked underwater for a moment to wriggle out of the rope.

  Joe popped back up again and yanked off his face mask. He looked up again. He thought he caught a glimmer of movement, but he couldn't be sure. He was just about to shout again when he saw something hurtling over the side of the ledge.

  It was Frank — his arms and legs flailing — plummeting toward the rocks!

  Chapter 11

  Frank hit the water hard, barely missing the rocks jutting out from the foot of the cliff. Stunned by the impact, he sank deeper and deeper beneath the waves into an engulfing darkness.

  At last, the cold, salty wetness woke him. At first he didn't know where he was or how he got there. I was standing on the edge of the cliff, he recalled. Then I was in the air, and now I'm underwater—with my hands tied behind my back!

  He thrashed around and discovered that his hands weren't really tied. He was just tangled up in the climbing rope. Frank unwound the rope and let it drift away from him. Then he kicked his way upward. His head broke the surface, and he greedily gulped in fresh air.

  Frank started to tread water and looked around to get his bearings. Suddenly someone else came out of the water right in front of him.

  "Take it easy! It's only me," Joe exclaimed pushing the diving mask up over his forehead. "Are you okay? That looked like a vicious fall.

  "Yeah," Frank said, wiping the hair out of his eyes. "If this were the Olympics, it would have been a perfect 0.0 dive."

  "What happened?" Joe asked. "Did the rope break?"

  "It had to have been cut back by the tree," Frank stated flatly.

  "What?"

  "I did a nosedive into the dirt on the ledge,' Frank said. "I thought the tree must have snapped or something."

  "So what changed your mind?"

  "Well, there I was, starting to get back up feeling pretty proud of myself for keeping hold of the rope—when somebody sneaked up behind me and gave me a nice, hard shove over the edge.

  "Well, whoever it was is gone now," Joe remarked, squinting up the face of the cliff.

  "I think we can get back up by climbing that rockfall," Frank said, pointing to a spot where the cliff had collapsed and a jumble of boulders sloped into the ocean. "I'll swim over and check it out."

  He started swimming but looked back over his shoulder. "You might as well dive down to the bottom and see if you can find anything."

  'You read my mind, brother." Joe smiled, and put the diving mask back down over his eyes and nose. He glanced at his diving watch and said, "See you in thirty." Then he slipped under the waves and was gone.

  It was a short, easy swim to the rock fall. Frank was just pulling himself out of the water, thinking how nice it would be to let his clothes dry ' in the sun, when he heard the faint whine of an outboard motor. He turned to see a boat approaching from the direction of the Bayport marina. Tracing a line from its wake, Frank could see that it was headed straight for the floating marker, bobbing up and down in the swells, that the police divers had attached to McCoy's sunken race car.

  Frank lay flat on his stomach and crawled around a large boulder. Whoever it was, Frank Wasn't ready to announce his own presence. He hoped his brother was alert enough to notice the oncoming motorboat—and patient enough to stay out of sight and wait for the intruder to make a move.

  Joe sighted the wreckage lying upside
down on the ocean floor, the wheels turning slowly in the deep currents. Like it doesn't know it's not going anywhere, Joe reflected as he closed in on the object, his legs pumping up and down, beating a steady rhythm through the water.

  He enjoyed the silent solitude of the sea. It gave him a chance to let his mind wander. So he was annoyed when he heard the muffled churning of a propeller disturbing the water nearby. He stopped kicking and hovered a few feet above the' bottom. Looking up, he could see the sunlight reflecting on the surface and the hull of a boat cutting a wake through the water.

  The boat stopped directly above the wreck site, and Joe watched as an anchor sank rapidly, trailing air bubbles as it fell. Instinctively, Joe held his breath so that he wouldn't leave a telltale path of air bubbles. He looked around, veered away from his original course, and glided down behind an outcropping of rock.

  A school of fish feeding on the surrounding plants stirred up the water, allowing Joe to breathe again without being detected. Then he'f waited, knowing what would come next.

  Sure enough, after a few minutes, something else splashed through the surface and descended toward the overturned race car. It was a diver. It could even be somebody I know, Joe thought. But with the wet suit and diving mask, I can't see his face or even the color of his hair!

  Joe let the current gently push him to the other side of the outcropping so he could get a better-look at the diver. He was moving slowly along the under side of the vehicle, brushing his hands over all the mechanical parts. Like he's looking for something he dropped, Joe thought. Or something he doesn't want anybody else to find.

  The diver finished his inspection of the exposed shaft and axles. But Joe didn't see him move anything. Then the man—or woman kicked under the wreck and wriggled, head first, to the cockpit. The ocean carried the sound of metal banging on metal back to Joe's ears, and the diver soon reemerged. Now Joe could clearly see that he was holding something in his left hand.