Mrs. Hardy was elated to see her sons and to learn that their plane trip had been canceled.
Aunt Gertrude wore a self-satisfied grin. “Good thing,” she said. “Now you boys will have time for a lunch that will make up for the breakfast you raced through this morning.”
The Hardy family sat down to a meal of delicious homemade soup, followed by hamburgers, then gingerbread topped with applesauce and whipped cream. While they were eating, Frank and Joe related their conversation with Mr. Freeman, and told of their theory concerning a cavern hideout.
Mr. Hardy was interested at once. “A cave would be perfect for storing stolen merchandise,” he agreed. “Incidentally, I’ve learned that tract of land is part of an abandoned farm, but the whereabouts of the owner is not known.”
The boys discussed their plan to explore the area by helicopter. Their father approved, and suggested that they ask Randy Watson to make arrangements for hiring a craft and pilot.
Frank was about to make the call when the telephone rang. He picked it up. An eerie voice at the other end said, “Is this the Hardys’ house?”
“Hi, Chet!” Frank said with a chuckle. His friend was imitating Clint Hill’s voice.
But as the unearthly voice continued, Frank realized it was not Chet‘s! The words it spoke turned his blood cold.
“This is not Chet,” intoned the speaker. “This is the ghost of Clint Hill. Where is Lance Peter· son?”
CHAPTER XIII
The Tornado
CHILLS ran up and down Frank’s spine and he stood motionless. He was about to answer that he did not know the whereabouts of Peterson, but then his momentary fright left him and he changed his mind. Frank decided to question the mysterious caller and perhaps get a lead as to his identity.
“I’ll make a bargain with you,” the young sleuth proposed.
“What kind of bargain?” asked the voice, still in an eerie tone.
“I’ll give you some information about Peterson,” said Frank, “if you’ll tell me who you really are.”
There was a long pause.
“Forget it!” said the sepulchral voice. “I’ll find that double-crosser myself!”
“Wait!” Frank urged. “Don’t hang up!”
But a sharp clicking sound brought the conversation to an abrupt end. Disappointed, Frank shrugged, then dialed and made arrangements to rent a helicopter. In a few minutes he rejoined his family. They discussed the weird call from the “ghost.”
Mrs. Hardy looked distressed, while Aunt Gertrude expressed contempt. “These people who play tricks on the telephone!”
“You say that this person called Lance Peterson a double-crosser?” Mr. Hardy asked.
“That’s right, Dad,” Frank answered. “I wonder if our ‘ghost’ actually is in cahoots with Peterson and Lieber, and was supposed to go with them aboard the plane, then found they’d suddenly left without him.”
Father and sons continued to discuss this new development and its connection with the case, but failed to arrive at any conclusion. Presently Randy Watson telephoned and said he had made arrangements for Frank and Joe to fly in a helicopter the following morning. A minute later Mr. Allen called to tell the boys that authorities in the United States, Canada, and Mexico had been alerted to look for the missing company plane.
“As yet nothing has been reported,” he said.
The next day Frank and Joe went to Bayport Airport. As they walked onto the parking ramp of Ace Air Service, Randy met the brothers and introduced them to Mack Carney, their pilot, young and well-built. A short distance away stood a small, three-place helicopter. Its cockpit was enclosed in a fishbowl-shaped Plexiglas canopy.
As the boys walked toward the craft, they glanced at the sky and noticed that a cloud cover was developing. Conditions to the south and southwest appeared especially bad. There, the bases of some clouds were darkening to an almost bluish black.
“Looks like a storm,” Joe commented. He feared that their flight might be delayed because of weather.
“There shouldn’t be any problem,” Mack reassured him. “I’ve already checked the forecast. Ceilings and visibility are not expected to drop below visual flight rules at any time.”
He told the Hardys that scattered thunder-storms were predicted for the area, but that these could easily be avoided. By midafternoon the weather system was expected to move out to sea, with rapid clearing behind it.
Minutes later, the helicopter was aloft. The loud clapping of the whirling rotor blades, mixed with the noise of the engine’s muffler, bothered them for a few minutes. But gradually, as the craft gained height, turned and headed northwest, they ceased to think about it. The brothers settled back to enjoy the unobstructed view offered by the transparent canopy, and to watch the pilot.
“I’d like to learn to fly one of these,” Joe commented.
The flight took a bit longer than their previous trip to the area by airplane. As they flew into the sector they wanted to investigate, Frank scanned the ground below. He spotted the pasture in the aerial photograph and pointed it out to Mack. The pilot bent the helicopter into a series of turns around the field.
As he leveled the craft out on an easterly heading, Joe glanced to his right. Suddenly the boy detective sat rigid in his seat and stared from the window with an expression of disbelief.
“Look!” he shouted frantically.
The pilot spun the helicopter around to face in the direction Joe was pointing. Moving toward them was a black, funnel-shaped column of air, stemming from the base of an intensely dark cloud.
“It looks like a tornado!” Frank yelled.
“It is!” Mack exclaimed. “They generally move in a northeasterly direction, about thirty to forty miles an hour. We might be able to outrun it.”
He whirled the craft around, but was greatly alarmed to find that their route of escape was blocked by the surrounding hills. The dark cloud base moving swiftly overhead cut off the possibil ity of climbing out over the top of the higher terrain.
“The tornado’s getting closer!” Joe shouted
“What’ll we do? That tornado is getting closer!” Joe shouted.
“We’ll have to head for the ground!” the pilot replied grimly.
As the menacing funnel approached, the surrounding air became turbulent. Mack struggled with the controls as the craft was thrown about viciously. Frank and Joe braced themselves as best they could, while the pilot tried to establish a controlled descent.
Suddenly Frank and Joe looked out to see a strange phenomenon. The funnel-shaped column seemed to divide in half, as if sliced by an invisible knife. The upper half veered off in a northeasterly direction, while the lower half maintained its original path, passing close to the bobbing helicopter.
“I’m losing control!” Mack shouted. “Hang on! We must be close to the ground!”
The violent jolt of landing almost knocked the helicopter’s occupants unconscious. They sat dazed for several minutes before regaining their senses.
Then, gradually, the three became aware of a complete calm. The tornado and dark cloud had disappeared, and not even a breeze was stirring. The sky showed signs of clearing.
“Wow!” said Joe. “I hope that never happens to me again!”
“We’re lucky to have got out of this in one piece,” Mack said grimly
He got out of the helicopter, followed by the Hardys, and began to examine the craft for damage. The boys, glancing around, realized that they had landed on a corner of the pasture.
“How’s the copter?” Frank asked.
“The landing gear is sprung, and there’s some structural damage here and there,” Mack observed. “It doesn’t appear to be serious, but I’d better give the craft a thorough inspection before we attempt to fly it out of here.”
Frank and Joe decided to investigate the area while the pilot conducted his inspection. They started walking down the pasture toward the high hill situated at the far end.
“Here are those groo
ves we saw in our photos,” Frank remarked. “They go from one end of the field to the other.”
He took a tape measure from his pocket and carefully noted the width of the grooves and the distance between them. Pulling out a pencil, he jotted down the figures in his notebook for future reference.
“I still think these grooves were made by the wheels of an airplane,” said Joe.
“But how? The length of the pasture rules out the possibility that a plane could land here,” Frank objected.
The boys continued heading for the hill at the far end. Just short of the tree line they stopped and peered into the murky shadows of the woods. The hill began to slope sharply upward at this point.
“I don’t see any caves around here,” Joe observed.
The boys were about to proceed closer when suddenly a man darted out from the woods. The boys recognized him immediately as the stranger who had previously challenged them near this spot. He was now unarmed.
“What are you doing here?” he bellowed. “Get off of this land! It’s private property!”
“We were forced down by a storm,” said Joe, pointing toward the helicopter just visible in the distance.
“The storm is over!” the man retorted. “Now you’d better climb into that bird and get out of here!”
“But we don’t know if we can take off,” said Frank. “We got bounced around pretty bad in the storm. The copter was damaged—how much, we don’t know. Our pilot is inspecting it now.”
“If it won’t fly, you’ll just have to leave it!” the man growled, his face purpling with anger. “I want you to get out of here—and fast!”
Meanwhile, out of the corner of his eye, Joe glimpsed a flicker of movement in the woods. He turned his head cautiously in an effort to get a better view. What he saw caused him to grab his brother’s arm as a signal not to argue further.
Concealed behind a tree was someone with a vicious-looking hunting bow. An arrow had already been fitted to the string, and was now aimed directly at the boys!
CHAPTER XIV
Amazing Camouflage
WITHOUT further protest, the Hardys turned and started walking back toward the helicopter.
“Take a quick look to your left, Frank,” whispered Joe. “Someone’s aiming an arrow at us!”
After taking a few more steps, Frank glanced over his shoulder. At that instant the man armed with the bow and arrow darted from behind one tree to another. The boy detective’s keen eye recognized his face immediately.
“Bush Barney!” Frank said softly.
The brothers reached the helicopter just as the pilot was completing his inspection.
“There’s some minor damage,” Mack reported, “but not bad enough to prevent us from flying if we have to. You in a hurry?”
“Yes,” said Frank, “we must notify the police about two men who chased us!”
“I can’t radio from here,” Mack told him. “But as soon as we’re airborne, there won’t be any interference.”
“Afterward,” said Frank, “we can come down again and land somewhere out of sight of the pasture and walk back here to meet the officers.”
“Suits me,” said Mack. “I don’t like the sound of this motor yet and I’d just as soon come down and work on it some more.”
In a few minutes the whirling rotor blades were carrying the young detectives skyward. Frank asked Mack to radio Bayport tower.
“Our transmitter doesn’t have enough wattage to reach that far,” the pilot said. He extracted a sectional air chart from his kit and examined it. “There’s an omni radio station with voice facilities much closer to us,” he announced. “If we climb above these hills, we should be able to establish contact, and have them relay a message for you.”
Mack tuned the radio dials to a standard aviation communication frequency, then picked up the microphone and gave his identification number and approximate position. In seconds the speaker on his receiver crackled a response. Mack handed the microphone to Frank and told him to proceed with his message.
Frank requested that word be relayed to the State Police to meet the Hardys at the pasture. He estimated the pasture’s location along the secondary road, and as a double check gave its longitude and latitude coordinates from the air chart. Several minutes passed before a response came through.
“The State Police,” the station operator reported, “have been notified. Several officers are on their way to the location you indicated.”
Frank asked Mack to land them close to the pasture, but to approach the area from behind a hill so their craft would not be seen. Mack nodded and began a rapid descent between the hills. He followed a valley that led them back in the general direction of the spot where they had been forced down. Approaching from behind a hill close to the pasture, he maneuvered the helicopter to a soft landing in order not to strain the already partially damaged landing gear.
“Mack, you’d better wait for us here and guard the copter,” Frank suggested.
“Will do.”
The boys carefully picked their way among the trees and brush toward the pasture. Soon it came in sight. Frank and Joe did not speak. They communicated by sign language, which they had practiced until they could use it to perfection.
As silently as a couple of Indians, the Hardys edged their way to the hill situated at the end of the pasture. They stopped for a moment and scanned the dim shadows of the woods. Both of them listened for unusual sounds, but neither saw nor heard anything out of the ordinary.
Frank signaled his brother, indicating that they should proceed on up the slope of the hill. Suddenly he tugged at Joe’s arm and pointed directly ahead.
Joe stared before him, but could see only an unbroken mass of trees and bushes. As he stepped closer, however, the trees in the foreground gradually took on an unnatural aspect. It was difficult to tell exactly why, but there was something odd in the way the trunks and leaves reflected the light.
Approaching still closer, the Hardys were amazed to see what really confronted them. Spread across a portion of the steep slope was a huge piece of heavy canvas! Painted on its surface were trees, grass, boulders, and bits of brush. The representation was so well done that it was not detectable unless viewed from within a few feet of the canvas.
“It’s fantastic camouflage!” Joe remarked, breaking their silence for the first time.
“Sure is,” Frank agreed, gazing at the canvas almost in disbelief. “I’m willing to bet that behind this is the opening to a cave!”
The young sleuths traced the canvas to where it terminated at one side. Together, they carefully pulled it aside far enough to get a glimpse of what lay behind.
A huge opening was revealed. The Hardys peered inside. Although the interior was practically in blackness, they could see that it was the entrance to a very deep cave of immense size!
Each boy took a pocket flashlight and directed the beams into the darkness. So deep was the cave, however, that the lights appeared to fade off into nothingness.
“I don’t hear a sound,” Frank said. “It must be empty.”
“Let’s take a look around!” Joe suggested, his voice tense with excitement.
“Okay!” Frank agreed. “But we’ll have to let the police know where we are. I’ll stay here and keep an eye on the cave. You go back to the copter, tell Mack about this place, and ask him to send the police here.”
Joe started off at a sprint. Frank positioned himself behind some real brush near the camouflaged entrance. It was not long before Joe came bounding back.
“Everything’s all set,” he said.
The boys pushed their way around the edge of the canvas and stepped into the cave. As their eyes became accustomed to the dark interior, they could make out rough rocky surfaces curving into an arch high above their heads. The faint sound of their footsteps was amplified in a series of echoes that seemed to bounce back at them from all sides. Frank played his beam of light toward the floor.
“Look!” he said. “There
are wheel grooves in here, just like the ones we spotted on the pasture.”
The Hardys followed the ruts deeper into the cave. After advancing for several yards, Joe suddenly came to a stop.
“An airplane!” he exclaimed, astounded.
Frank pointed his flashlight in the same direction. The beams picked from the darkness a sleek, multiengine plane with tricycle landing gear.
“It was taxied in here!” Joe marveled.
“From the pasture,” said Frank. “The floor of this cave is about on the same level as the field, and is right in line with it. The pasture itself is too short to land on or take off from. But this cave floor serves as an extension of the runway. When a plane lands, someone on the ground merely pulls the canvas camouflage aside and—presto—a plane has several hundred feet more to roll on!”
Joe nodded. “And when it comes to rest, inside the cave, it’s automatically hidden. Very clever. Could this plane be the same one that toppled our car?”
“I can’t say for sure,” his brother responded, “but there’s a good chance it is.”
The Hardys continued exploring the cave. A little farther on they spotted a large wooden door. It was padlocked, but they noted that the hinges were not very strong. Each boy pushed hard against a section of the wood. It began to crack, then finally gave way with a resounding smash.
Frank and Joe stepped into a room formed out of the natural rock. They were astonished to see stacks of sturdy wooden boxes piled along the walls. Stamped on the side of each was: STANWIDE MINING AND EQUIPMENT COMPANY.
“Wow!” Joe exclaimed. “There must be fifty or more of these boxes here!”
“And they may contain the stolen platinum parts!” Frank said as he played his light across the stacks. “Let’s break open one of the boxes and check.”
The boys placed their flashlights on the floor and positioned the beams toward one stack of boxes. They then walked over, dragged off the box on top, and set it on the floor.
“Whew!” Joe was puffing. “It sure is heavy.”
“We’ll need something to pry open the lid,” Frank said, glancing around.
The Great Airport Mystery Page 7