Trouble in the Pipeline Read online

  As Joe watched, the pilot grabbed a large leather bag off the floor and hopped out, leaving the engine on and the door open. Joe didn't recognize him. He walked over to Spike Hammond and shook hands. Joe tried to hear what they were saying, but the roar of the engine and the thrumming blades made it impossible.

  Hammond and the pilot talked for a minute or so, then the pilot handed Hammond the bag. Apparently Hammond wanted to check it out. He set the bag down, undoing a buckle that held it closed. Joe took a chance. Leaning farther around the boulder, he tried to get a look inside the bag. When Hammond tipped it over, Joe got a glimpse. It was filled with money.

  He decided to act.

  "Stay down. If anything happens, hide out until the weather pilot sends someone to look for us," he whispered to Cindy.

  "What are you going to do?" she asked, staring at him, eyes like saucers.

  "I've got to stop them. I can't hear what they're planning, but it can't be anything good. I've got to do something."

  Cindy grabbed his arm. "But, Joe, there's no one to help you!"

  "I can't wait." Joe's face was grim as he pulled away.

  Carrying his parachute slung over his shoulder, he ducked around the rock and sprinted for the nearest chopper. As he neared it he threw the chute up into the slowly rotating blades. The nylon caught in the rotors, fouling the engine. It sputtered to a halt, and Joe grabbed the MAC-10 inside. Then, coming around the fuselage of the chopper, he took command of the startled group.

  "On the ground, all of you!" Joe shouted, pointing the submachine gun at them. The five conspirators froze in shock.

  "Now!" Joe squeezed the trigger, sending a hail of bullets into the air just above their heads. They dove for the ground like soldiers in a drill.

  Cautiously, Joe stepped out from behind the helicopter. He kept the gun level as he moved to recover the bag. Just as he was reaching for it he caught a flicker of movement from the corner of his eye.

  Great, Joe thought. He could see a figure at the far end of the summit — a human silhouette moving against the gray of the sky.

  Joe kept moving as if he hadn't noticed a thing, his eyes flashing from his prisoners to the bag to the oncoming figure.

  His hand tightened on the grip of the MAC-10. He calculated he had about two seconds to whirl, nail the ambushers, then return to cover the men on the ground.

  Chapter 15

  "DON'T SHOOT!" A familiar voice cried out as Joe whipped around. But Joe was already triggering the submachine gun.

  At the last moment he jerked up the short barrel, and the figure flattened itself against the ground. The deadly spray of bullets flew into the blank silver sky.

  "Hold your fire, Joe! It's me, Frank!" Joe would have a hard time identifying his brother. Frank lay flat with his cheek against the moss. But his voice was unmistakable.

  "Frank, you maniac. I could've killed you!" Joe said, half-scolding, half-delighted. But this wasn't the time for a chat. As soon as his attention had been distracted from the prisoners, they had started for their revolvers.

  "Hold it right there!" Joe ripped off another round of automatic fire, tearing up some of the tufts of moss between the prone figures.

  "Don't anyone move a muscle," he ordered.

  Frank stood up and approached Joe with the revolver he'd taken from the man on the iceberg. Virgil came over the lip of the mountain with Tanook at his side. When he saw the number of men on the ground, he looked amazed.

  "How'd you get here?" Frank asked.

  "It's a long story. Hammond had a tail on Cindy. Some thug of his tried to bring us in—I got him to talk. What happened to you? I saw your boat bobbing out on the ocean."

  "That's the least of it," Frank said. "We saw lots of interesting stuff, including Sandy White on a submarine. I think you might call North Slope an offshore company."

  "I guess so, if the head office is in a submarine," Joe joked. "But it begins to explain why he was so interested when we mentioned the Network. That might make a foreign agent nervous."

  Frank nodded. "Especially if the foreign agent was spreading bribe money around and kidnapping people. But we still don't know what he's up to or how Scott fits in. Maybe we can find out from the guy who brought the payoffs."

  Joe pointed to the skinny, dark pilot with the stubbly beard who'd stepped out of the chopper. "He's the one. I fouled his rotor with my parachute and, uh, borrowed this gun from his copter. That bag over there is full of money."

  "Keep me covered," Frank said. "I'm going to ask a few questions." He took a step, limping slightly, but suddenly spun around. Something had moved behind a boulder on the edge of the summit. He dropped into a crouch, aiming his revolver.

  "Don't, Frank. It's Cindy. I forgot to tell you she was with me."

  Cindy came out from behind the boulder, looking nervously at Frank.

  "Joe, you should have told me. I almost shot her! Sorry, Cindy," he said, apologizing. She smiled weakly. "Maybe you can help us fill in some details."

  "I'll do my best," Cindy said, looking at Spike Hammond, whose face had gone beet red.

  But Frank ignored the construction boss, concentrating on the man who'd brought the money. Leaning over the guy, he asked, "Are you ready to talk?"

  The man continued to lie facedown on the ground. "I have nothing to say."

  "We'll see about that," Frank said. "What are you doing here?"

  "What does it look like? I'm giving this man some money."

  "What for?" Frank asked.

  "It's my job," the man snarled into the dirt. "I fly a chopper and make deliveries."

  "Where's Scott Sanders?"

  "Who's that?"

  "We saw him in the office building at North Slope headquarters."

  "If you saw him, why ask me where he is?"

  Frank was getting nowhere. This guy wouldn't give away anything. In fact, he didn't even look at Frank. He kept his gaze flat on the ground.

  Time to change tactics, Frank decided. "What about you, Mr. Hammond?" he asked, turning to the large, redheaded man. "Guess you can't keep pretending you don't know what's going on, can you?"

  "I'd like to know what you think you're doing," Hammond blustered, "bursting in on an innocent business meeting, hijacking — "

  "Innocent?" Frank cut in. "Do you usually hold meetings on mountaintops—with people delivering bags of money?" He looked around the bare slope. "Or maybe this is the Bank of Sawtooth, and this fellow is the head teller."

  Hammond said nothing. He was obviously feeling very uncomfortable.

  "Do you know who this guy is?" Frank prodded Hammond, pointing at the skinny bag man.

  "No, I don't," Hammond snapped back.

  "If you want to keep lying on this cold ground, that's fine with me," Frank said. "But you might try being a little more helpful. So you don't know this guy personally. How about the people he's working for? I'd guess you'd check out an organization before doing business with it — even if it's dirty business. Who are they, and what are they up to?"

  Hammond shifted his gaze warily. "I — uh, we tried, and got no—" Then his face hardened. "I don't see why I should tell you anything, just because you come along with a cock-and-bull story about a submarine."

  "A submarine that I saw Sandy White, the president of North Slope Supply, climb out of. He saw us, too, and sent a couple of thugs after me and my friend here," Frank said.

  "Well, that doesn't mean anything!" Hammond's voice was loud, but his tone was worried.

  "Come on, Hammond. White isn't using that sub to set up underwater oil wells. He's using it as a base. And if he can afford a submarine, it means there's a pretty big organization behind him—like a government. How many unfriendly governments are close to Alaska?"

  The big businessman's face went pale as this sank in.

  "So, we've got a foreign agent handing around lots of money. What does he get in return?"

  "North Slope asked if we could put some of their guys on our payroll, that's
all. We were hurting, and they gave us a cheap loan—in several installments. What's the harm in that?"

  "No harm, except to the guys you had to fire— and to the morale of the rest of your workers, who hoped for promotions," Frank said.

  "It happens all the time," Hammond said. "You have a friend whose nephew needs a job, so you help out—knowing he'll help you out on a deal down the line. That's the way it works."

  "I guess White must have quite a few nephews," Frank shot back. "You're accepting money for these guys, and you don't even know who they are!"

  "I don't need to know," Hammond replied. "They aren't hurting anybody."

  "Oh, no? They attacked and threatened a friend of ours, kidnapped another, and tried to kill us. Remember how you called White to tell him about us?"

  Hammond glared at Cindy when he heard this.

  Frank stepped in front of him. "Your pals from North Slope grabbed us and stowed us aboard a plane heading into the Arctic Ocean. It was going to drop the signal buoy for the sub's rendezvous." He stared hard at Hammond. "And you know what? They were going to drop us right along with it."

  "I — I didn't know," Hammond said, still more shaken.

  "He can't prove a thing," the bagman suddenly spoke up. "Who would listen to this wild story about submarines and spies?"

  "How about you, Hammond?" Frank asked.

  "Are you beginning to have your doubts about your friends? What jobs are you selling to them?"

  "Little stuff," Hammond finally answered, his face torn with doubt. "Cleaning, inspection, pipeline security—stuff like that."

  "These all sound like pretty menial jobs," Frank said. "Do you really believe a company would want to stick their people in them?"

  Hammond's face showed he didn't think so— now. "I didn't want to look a gift horse in the mouth," he admitted. "And we needed the money."

  Now it was the bagman's turn to glare. "If you had kept your mouth shut — "

  "No, I just kept my nose shut," Hammond said. "This whole deal stank, but my managers and I went along with it. Well, now I've got an idea where you come from — so what are you guys up to?"

  "Your guesses are still far off," the man said, his sneer taking in both Hammond and Frank. "It doesn't matter. Your greed and foolishness have allowed us to get in place for our task."

  "You dirty little — " Hammond lunged for the bagman, but Frank stopped him.

  "Okay, that's enough. Everybody up. We'll get the whole story soon enough, after we get to the authorities and — " He stopped in midsentence. The bagman was writhing in convulsions on the ground.

  "You'll never stop us!" he hissed. "And your authorities will never question me!"

  Frank dropped to his good knee. But the bagman had already stopped moving—he lay rigid. Frank pried open the man's mouth, recoiling from a sharp stink. What looked like a dental filling fell out, a big piece — the whole crown of a tooth.

  "Look at this!" Frank picked up the filling and held it up. Joe came forward cautiously, his weapon still trained on Hammond and his men.

  His eyes opened wide in disbelief. "A hollow tooth!" he whispered.

  "Obviously, it was holding a suicide pill," Frank said, his face grim.

  "More spy stuff," Joe said, shaking his head.

  But Frank Hardy's face grew grimmer. "Think for a second, Joe. What group has standing orders for its people to die rather than be captured?"

  Joe looked even more unbelieving. "You're not thinking — the Assassins?"

  They'd run into the Assassins before. In fact, this group of terrorists-for-hire had sent the Hardys on the most painful case of their career. An Assassin bomb had wiped out Iola Morton, Joe's girlfriend, in a ball of flame.

  "Assassins—in Alaska?" Joe muttered. "Hard to take. But if you're right, we've got big trouble."

  "Not just us," Frank said. "The whole country could be in for a bad time."

  "What do you mean?"

  A shiver ran down Frank's back. "Think about it. We all depend on the oil from the pipeline. And right now the whole maintenance staff— security and all—has been infiltrated by terrorists."

  Chapter 16

  SPIKE HAMMOND ROSE up on his knees, staring at the dead bagman. The businessman was obviously upset — he was terribly pale.

  "Terrorists?" he mumbled. "Attacking the pipeline?"

  Hammond looked as if someone had kicked the world out from under him. "You know, I always prided myself on being a working man, successful in business, going for the American dream. I started out as a roughneck in an oilfield, then worked my way up in the construction business. I thought I'd made it. . . ."

  His voice tightened. "Then things went bad. The company lost money, we needed cash. And this deal came along." Hammond looked down again at the lifeless terrorist and then buried his face in his hands. The rest of his men looked on in stunned silence.

  "I can't believe this," Hammond muttered through his hands. "I never thought ... "

  "That's just it," Joe said. "You never thought! Now what do you think? Do you realize the size of your mistake?"

  Hammond pushed himself up to standing. His head was still bowed and he was unable to speak.

  "And what about Scott Sanders? Where's he?" Joe asked. "We came up here to find him, and you lied to us."

  "I didn't lie — I honestly don't know what happened to him." Hammond looked over at his managers. "Carter here told me that we had a problem with some of the workers."

  One of the men in the group nodded cautiously.

  "I was told that some guys knew about the money and were beginning to make trouble. We got on the horn to North Slope, and they said they'd take care of it. That's all I knew."

  "So you don't have any idea where Scott is?" Frank asked.

  Hammond shook his head. "Maybe he's with them — probably at their main office. They used to have a big equipment depot outside of town, but they had an explosion out there, right before all this started."

  Frank leaned in when he heard the word explosion, his face grim. "I'm beginning to see why they kept Scott and let Doug go," he said. "Scott was a demolitions expert in the army."

  "I don't understand," Hammond said.

  "They got their hands on Scott right after an explosion wrecked their depot outside of town. I bet they lost more than equipment out there, I bet they lost their bomb expert in that explosion, too."

  "Bomb expert?" Then the pieces clicked together for Joe. "They're going to blow up the pipeline!"

  Frank was now face-to-face with Hammond. "How many people did you give jobs to? Where are they working?"

  "It's hard to say," Hammond responded. "We had a lot of requests. ... And I don't know exactly where they all work."

  "So they could be anywhere along the line? Anywhere?" Joe asked, as if it were impossible to imagine such a thing.

  "I'm afraid so," Hammond admitted.

  "So, as far as you know, your entire company is infiltrated by terrorists! Do you know what that means? It means that the Assassins can disrupt the entire world oil supply!" Joe said.

  "At the very least, they can upset the supply for our country," Frank said, frowning. "How much of our oil comes from the Prudhoe Bay oil fields?"

  "About fifteen percent," Hammond mumbled.

  "That's enough to cause chaos if it suddenly got cut off," Joe said.

  "And they're using Scott to help build their bombs." Frank shook his head.

  "You know what you've done, Mr. Hammond?" Cindy said. "You've sold your country down the river." She came closer to the group and stood near the men she'd worked with at Trans-Yukon.

  Hammond crossed to a large rock and sat down, burying his face in his hands again.

  "What can we do? Go to the authorities?" he asked.

  Another of his managers spoke up. "Spike, if you do that, it'll be over for all of us."

  Joe looked at the guy as if he'd just crawled out from under a rock. "It will be over, but for a different reason."

 
"Joe's right," Frank said. "Once the Assassins realize this guy isn't coming back, they'll probably push their schedule up. I've never known them to call off an operation."

  "So what should we do?" Hammond asked again.

  Frank looked at him. "We'll have to think fast, and we'll need all the help you can give us. If you and your men come through, I'm sure the authorities will be easy on you, if and when we save the pipeline."

  "You've got our help. Count on that. Right, men?" Hammond turned to his three managers, who were standing together, some distance from him. They stared at him blankly.

  "Right, men?" he asked again.

  The three looked at one another, then one of them stepped forward. He was called Carter, and he looked as if he had been elected to act as spokesman.

  But as he passed Cindy, he dodged behind her. One of his arms whipped around her neck. A gun appeared in his other hand, and he pressed it to Cindy's head.

  "Sorry, Hammond. No deal!" Carter said, holding Cindy in front of him like a shield. "Just give us the money and we'll get out of here."

  Hammond stared at Carter. "Are you out of your mind?" he shouted. "Where are you going to go? You can't walk away from this!"

  "Watch us," Carter said. "Right, guys?"

  The other two managers grouped behind Cindy and Carter as Joe raised his gun.

  "Don't try it, kid!" Carter shouted. "Just give us the money and no one will get hurt!"

  Hammond looked at Frank and Joe.

  "We've got no choice. Give them the bag," Frank said.

  Hammond stepped forward, picked up the bag, and set it down in front of his managers. One of them reached out and picked it up.

  "Don't do this!" Hammond begged. "We've got another chance. We can make up for our mistakes."

  "Hammond, you kidded yourself about how to save the company — now you're kidding yourself about this." The sneer in Carter's voice was almost like a slap in the face. "You'll rot in prison no matter what you try to do now. And we don't want to rot with you."

  "That's not true," Frank said. "They'll — "