Martial Law Read online

  Hometown: Glenside, PA

  Physical description: Age 26, 6’5”, 165 lbs. Like a tall, thin string bean—made of steel. Don’t be fooled by his weight. This guy is all muscle. Has a tattoo of a Chinese dragon on his forearm.

  Occupation: Waiter at the California Diner

  Background: Spent two years in reform school for petty theft. Learned martial arts while there.

  Suspicious behavior: Provides the packages Chet Morton is bringing to Paul Huang.

  Suspected of: Being a conspirator in whatever scam Paul Huang is running at the Rising Phoenix Martial Arts School.

  Possible motive: Wants money? Being a waiter can’t pay very well, especially at a hole in the wall like the California Diner.

  We headed for Huang’s office. But the door was closed and the lights were off. “Weird,” Joe muttered. “You think he’s off today?”

  “Let’s ask Finn,” I suggested. “He’s obviously involved in this whole thing—he’s the one who was pressuring Billy for money.”

  But Finn’s office was closed too. The place wasn’t entirely deserted, though. We heard the familiar “Hy-yah!” sounds of people drilling moves in the dojo.

  I went over and peered through the window. A small group of kids I’d never seen were sparring, doing kicks and jabs that we hadn’t learned yet. “They must be from the intermediate class,” I said.

  “What are you guys doing here?”

  I turned to see Marty, the student teacher I’d worked with the other day.

  “We were looking for Sensei Huang,” I replied. “Is he here?”

  “Nope.”

  “Who’s teaching this class?” Joe asked, confused.

  “Nobody. It’s the class I’m in, the advanced students,” Marty said. “Some of us use the dojo for sparring practice on the days we don’t have class.”

  “So there’s no adult supervision?” I asked. Joe rolled his eyes. I knew he thought I sounded like an overly worried nerd or something. But in my mind, it was irresponsible for Huang to have a bunch of teens hitting each other without a teacher around.

  Marty laughed. “We’re just practicing, man.” Suddenly he dropped into a square fighting stance and did the shiko tsuki at me. Instinctively, I blocked it using the tips he’d given me the other day.

  “Nice!” Marty slapped me on the back. “You guys are gonna do well here.”

  “We want to,” Joe said. “And we heard Sensei Huang might be able to help us out. He’s got some kind of Chinese herbs that bulk you up?”

  Marty’s smile vanished. “Who told you that?” he snapped. His face flushed with anger. “Where did you hear it?”

  Whoa. I stepped away, shocked by the sudden change in attitude.

  “Um, Billy Lee,” Joe replied, his eyes wide. “He just mentioned he was taking these herbs and they helped him.”

  “We thought it sounded cool,” I added lamely.

  “He shouldn’t have said anything about it,” Marty growled. “Get out of here.”

  “Excuse me?” I asked. Was he throwing us out of our own karate school?

  “You heard me. Get out.” Marty got in my face, his fists clenched.

  “Let’s go, Frank.” Joe grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the front door. Marty stalked over behind us, making sure we left.

  Outside, I breathed a sigh of relief. “Wow. He just went ballistic in there.”

  “Yeah, it wasn’t pretty,” Joe said. “What a freak. One minute he’s Mr. Nice, and the next minute he’s throwing us out on our butts.”

  “Reminds me of John Mangione,” I said. “Remember how angry he was?”

  Joe nodded.

  We climbed onto our bikes and kicked them into gear. “What now?” Joe asked.

  “Well, we can’t get pills from Huang today,” I said. “Maybe we ought to check out where the pills came from to begin with.”

  “The diner near the train station,” Joe said.

  I nodded. “Let’s go find Chet’s source.” I pulled on my helmet and took off, Joe racing after me.

  I love riding. The speed, the motion of the bike, the feel of the road under your wheels . . . there’s nothing like it. No matter what’s going on in my life, taking a spin on the bike always calms me down.

  I was in the zone when I heard Joe’s voice over the hum of the bikes. “Frank, check it out!”

  Shaking off my motorcycle euphoria, I glanced to the right. In an alleyway about two blocks from the train station, a few guys were fighting. I slowed down to get a better look.

  That was no fight—it was a mugging!

  “It’s two on one,” I said to Joe. “We have to help.”

  Joe revved his bike and turned into the alley, speeding up. I did the same, gunning the engine so it made lots of noise to distract the muggers. We raced toward them, knowing we could stop on a dime the instant we reached them.

  The two muggers looked up, startled by our appearance. They both wore ski masks over their faces. One of them took off immediately. The other one held his ground for a second, holding his victim by the throat against the wall of a building.

  I squealed to a stop two feet away. The guy wore jeans and a black T-shirt, and I noticed a tattoo on his arm. But his face was entirely hidden by the mask.

  He let go of the guy and bolted. Joe took off after him on his bike, while I jumped off to help the mugging victim.

  The guy had dropped straight to the ground. I knew he must be unconscious.

  I ran over, turned him onto his back, and checked to make sure he was breathing.

  He wasn’t.

  I checked his wrist.

  No pulse.

  “Hang on,” I told him. I tilted his head back and started to do CPR. I heard Joe roar back up on his bike, but I couldn’t turn to him. I had to concentrate on saving this man’s life.

  “I’ll call 911,” Joe said, pulling out his cell phone.

  After a few minutes, the guy still wasn’t breathing. “There’s something wrong,” I gasped. “It’s not working at all.”

  “Let me take over,” Joe said.

  I backed off, exhausted. Joe knelt next to the guy and kept administering CPR. I glanced around the alley. The man’s briefcase had been flung against the far wall, and papers littered the ground in between. I grabbed a few and scanned them.

  The letterhead on the top read, “InSight Investments.”

  I felt a chill run through my body. That was the company that was funding Paul Huang’s karate school expansion.

  Sirens filled the air. The ambulance had arrived, followed by a police car.

  “Joe, see if there’s a business card in his jacket,” I said quickly. Joe shot his hand into the guy’s pocket and pulled out a card just as the EMTs rushed up.

  While they checked the guy out, I pulled Joe aside. “What’s the card say?”

  “Jarod Hamilton. Private Investigator,” Joe read.

  “He’s a PI?” I asked. “That’s not good.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he was working for Paul Huang’s financial backers,” I said. “The papers from his briefcase had their letterhead.”

  “You think they hired him to check out Huang?” Joe asked. “Maybe they’re suspicious too.”

  “Probably they’re just checking up on their investment,” I said. “Maybe they want to know everything about the Rising Phoenix before they sign up to fund a whole chain of Rising Phoenix schools.”

  “This guy’s had it,” the EMT said, shaking his head. He turned to us. “You boys did a good job, but he’s not coming back.”

  “You mean he’s dead?” I cried.

  The EMT nodded. “I think his windpipe was crushed.”

  A police officer walked over to us. “Did you see what the muggers did to him?”

  “Not really,” Joe said. “We were on our bikes, and we could see them swinging at the guy, but by the time we got close enough, they had stopped.”

  “One of them was holding him by the throat,” I
added.

  “Sometimes all it takes is a sharp blow to the throat,” the cop said, taking notes. “A swift kick or a jab. Can you describe the muggers?”

  “They were wearing masks,” Joe said. “I went after one of them on my bike, but he ran into the building over there, and I lost him.”

  “He had a tattoo on his forearm,” I said. “A Chinese dragon.”

  Joe’s eyebrows shot up. Clearly he hadn’t seen that.

  The cop nodded and wrote it all down, along with our phone numbers. “We’re going to need you to fill out a police report. Can you come down to the station?”

  “Sure,” I said, glancing at Joe. “We’ll have to check out the diner tomorrow instead.”

  The next day we sped to the California Diner right after school. Yesterday’s murder had fanned our suspicion that this situation with Huang was serious. We had to figure out what was going on before anyone else got hurt.

  There was a tiny parking lot in front with two beat-up cars. We put both bikes in one space and headed inside.

  It was a small place—ten tables, max. But the smell of fries hit my nose and immediately my stomach growled. Diner food is the best!

  We grabbed a booth near the front door and glanced at the menus. I always get the same thing at diners: a cheeseburger and fries. Joe always gets a grilled cheese. Who knows why we bother looking at the menu at all?

  “What can I get you boys?” the waiter asked, sounding bored.

  “Cheeseburger,” I replied. I glanced up at him—and kept right on staring. The waiter was the same tall, thin guy who’d given Chet the package the other day.

  This was going to be easier than we’d thought. “Grilled cheese on white,” Joe said. He checked out the guy’s name tag. “Duke.”

  The guy grunted.

  “You a John Wayne fan?” Joe asked. “He was the Duke, right?”

  “Right,” Duke said. “But that’s not where my nickname came from.”

  As they talked, I took a good look at the guy. He was thin, but I could see that he was pretty muscular. And on his forearm was a tattoo. A Chinese dragon tattoo.

  “Where did you get that tat?” I asked. “It’s really cool.”

  “Same place I got the nickname,” he said, finally cracking a smile. “Reform school, ten years ago. I was sixteen.”

  Joe looked impressed. “Reform school? What did you do?”

  “I stole a dirt bike,” he said. “I was stupid.”

  “What does the tattoo have to do with calling you Duke?” I asked. “It’s a Chinese dragon, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, Duke doesn’t sound very Chinese,” Joe added.

  “I was in a group there. They gave me the nickname,” he said. “And we all got tattoos together.”

  “Was it a gang?” Joe asked.

  “No, man. It was just a group of friends,” he said. “The school had this martial arts class, and we all signed up. We’ve been best friends ever since. It got us through school, got us all straight, got us all out.” He winked at me. “That’s why I have the Chinese dragon tattoo. We were all into martial arts, so we liked the idea of the dragon.”

  “That’s so weird,” I said. “We just started taking martial arts classes.”

  “Yeah, at the Rising Phoenix school,” Joe said. “Have you ever heard of it?”

  “No.” Duke snapped his waiter’s pad closed and turned away abruptly. “Food’ll be out in ten minutes,” he said over his shoulder as he disappeared into the back.

  “Geez. I thought we were getting along so well,” Joe joked.

  “We were, until you mentioned the Rising Phoenix,” I said.

  “Come on, it was the obvious next question,” Joe said.

  “It probably tipped him off that we were looking for info,” I pointed out. “At least we found out what the deal is with that tattoo. Or should I say, those tattoos.”

  “A group of friends from reform school who are still involved in something underhanded,” Joe said. “Sounds like a gang to me.”

  “So we’ve got Paul Huang, Duke, and the mugger from yesterday. All have the same tattoo,” I said.

  “Obviously Huang must’ve been in this reform school group with Duke,” Joe said. “And with the mugger.”

  “Guess we know why Duke is supplying Huang with those pills,” I said.

  When we were done eating, Joe headed up to the ancient cash register to pay. I slapped down a generous tip for Duke—maybe he’d stop being suspicious of us if we were nice to him.

  I pushed open the door and headed outside. Our class at the Rising Phoenix started in half an hour. Joe and I were hoping to convince Huang we needed his special Chinese herbs today, so we had to get there early.

  My helmet was looped over the handlebars of the bike. I grabbed it and started to pull it on.

  A fist slammed into the helmet, knocking it out of my hand.

  A split second later, the fist pounded into my face.

  11

  Undercover Agent

  I pushed open the door and stepped out into the sunshine. And the first thing I saw was some goon in a ski mask pounding on Frank.

  “Hey!” I yelled. I raced across the parking lot and jumped the guy, tackling him to the ground.

  He swung his arm sideways, hitting me in the neck with the side of his hand. I fell off him and he jumped to his feet in one move.

  Frank stepped up. His lip was bleeding, but he still looked strong enough to give the guy a decent fight.

  The guy’s head swiveled back and forth between me and Frank. Then he turned and sprinted away.

  “Guess he decided he couldn’t take us both,” Frank said, offering me a hand up.

  “Let’s go after him,” I said.

  “We don’t have to. I know who it was,” Frank told me.

  “What? How?” I asked. “He was wearing a mask. Wait, was it the same guy who killed the PI?”

  “No,” Frank said. “It was Marty.”

  I pictured the huge student teacher kicking us out of the Rising Phoenix the other day. “How do you know?”

  “I sparred with him,” Frank said. “I recognize his moves. Too bad I didn’t see it coming this time—I couldn’t block.” He bent to pick up his helmet.

  “Wow. I thought he was just a big, angry dude,” I said. “But I guess he’s worse than we thought. He must be involved with Huang and Duke.”

  “Hey, guys,” Chet said, pulling to a stop next to us on his mountain bike. “What are you doing here?”

  I wasn’t in the mood for any more confusion. I grabbed Chet’s arm and turned him around to look at his back. His backpack was empty.

  “You’re here to make a pickup from Duke, aren’t you?” I asked.

  Chet’s mouth dropped open. “Um . . .”

  “We know you’ve been acting as a courier for Huang,” Frank said. “We saw you.”

  “Oh. Well, then I guess you know.” Chet shrugged. “I’ve been a courier for Sensei Huang for about a month now.”

  I couldn’t believe it. Chet was acting as if this was no big deal.

  “After Russ quit, the sensei asked me if I wanted the job,” he went on.

  “Russ?” I repeated. “Russell Olwell?”

  “Yeah. Do you know him?”

  “We met him,” Frank said. “Are you saying that Russell Olwell used to be a courier for Huang?”

  “Yeah. Then he dropped out of his class at the Rising Phoenix,” Chet said.

  “Chet, he got mugged outside the school and ended up in the hospital,” I exploded. “He’s still walking around with a cast on his arm!”

  Chet blinked in confusion. “Are you sure? I heard he just quit.”

  “Yes, we’re sure. We saw him!” I cried. “And we’re also pretty sure that the reason he got mugged is the same reason that Marty just attacked Frank and me.”

  “And the same reason a man got mugged and killed yesterday,” Frank continued. “Paul Huang is a dangerous guy, and he’s up to something illegal.�
�

  “Chet, you’re one of our best friends. How could you be involved in this?” I demanded. “How could you be working for him?”

  “Because I’ve been investigating Huang for the past month,” Chet said proudly. “I know exactly what he’s up to!”

  SUSPECT PROFILE

  Name: Marty Cummings

  Hometown: Holtsville, NJ

  Physical description: Age 17; 5’10”, 190 lbs. As big and beefy as a slab of meat. Straight dark hair, perpetual scowl.

  Occupation: High school student; student teacher at the Rising Phoenix Martial Arts School.

  Background: Used to be a scrawny kid until Paul Huang’s karate lessons changed his life.

  Suspicious behavior: Sudden, uncontrolled rages.

  Suspected of: Being in league with Paul Huang’s illegal activity; attacking Frank and Joe Hardy in the California Diner parking lot.

  Possible motive: Loyalty to Paul Huang for turning his life around.

  12

  A New Plan of ATAC

  “You know what the pills are?” I asked. Was it possible that Chet had solved our case before we had?

  “What pills?” he said, staring at me blankly.

  Joe sighed. “Chet, have you ever even looked inside the packages you carry for Huang?”

  “No,” he said. “I just come here twice a week, get the packages from Duke, and bring them back to Huang.”

  “Haven’t you ever wondered what you’re carrying?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Not really. Huang says they’ve known each other forever. I just figured it was some old friend thing.”

  “Did he tell you how they met?” Joe asked.

  “Yeah. Ten years ago they took the same martial arts class—in reform school.” Chet watched us anxiously, expecting us to be shocked.

  “Just like we thought,” I said. Joe nodded.

  Chet looked disappointed. “But did you know they met Finn Campbell there too?” he asked.

  “No,” Joe said.