No Way Out

by Franklin W. Dixon

Frank made a quick note of the location of that shot on the video. The next image was taken at a totally different location, so Joe played the film again at regular speed.

  They were able to fast-forward through some of it—close-ups of spectators, children playing, Alan giving speeches. They kept their eyes open, but neither saw any glimpses of their three targets: Blackstone, Fire-Eater, or Running Guy.

  Then finally, after an hour and twenty minutes, Joe spotted his man. “There! That’s him! That’s the guy I saw. I’m sure of it.” He zoomed in on a large, stocky man in a silver-colored armor chestplate and belted peplum, chain mail sleeves and leggings, and knee-high cuffed black boots.

  “No bow,” Frank pointed out. “No arrows. And that helmet completely shields his face.” The man walked around the back of the empty stands. The timer said it was 6:22 Friday evening.

  “Everyone else was at the maze at that time,” Joe said. “And the arrow hadn’t been shot yet.”

  The man hurried to the end of the stands, and then turned in toward the stadium and disappeared.

  The next shots were of the burning hedge. Joe switched to slow-forward and scanned every part of the screen as the images crept along. “Hold it,” he said. “Look at that.” He zoomed in on the edge of the picture. Barely visible in the surrounding darkness, a man walked forward from behind the maze.

  “It’s the fire-eater,” Frank said, almost whispering. “That must have been when he joined in to help put out the fire.”

  “Right. But what was he doing behind the maze before that? No one was supposed to be back there.”

  Frank made another note about the location of that shot on the film. They watched until the end of Friday’s shoot, went back to view a few places a second time, and then turned off the machine.

  “There’s still all of yesterday’s film to see,” Joe said, without much enthusiasm.

  “I know, and we might want to check it out eventually,” Frank said. “But if that was Blackstone talking to the fire-eater, and if the fire-eater was off-limits behind the maze …”

  “You’re right. We need to find that guy.”

  “Your woods-runner was so disguised that we can’t really tell who he might be. And if he’s out of disguise, we still won’t recognize him.”

  “Right again,” Joe said. “I have an idea, though.” He led Frank out of the screening room and found Skip. Then he gave the filmmaker the location numbers for the images they wanted.

  Skip printed still shots of the fire-eater walking from behind the maze and talking to the man behind the stadium stands. Then he blew up the shot of the other man’s profile and compared it to the mug shot Frank showed him of Blackstone.

  Skip scanned the mug shot into a computer and pulled up the two heads together on a monitor screen. “This design software is great,” he explained. “I can take your photo and the software will age it so you’ll know how you’ll look thirty years from now. Or I can change your face any way you want—different nose, different eye color.”

  He clicked the computer mouse a couple of times. “Or I can do this,” he said. He turned the straight-on face of Blackstone to a profile shot. Then he pulled the profile image of the man behind the stands around to a facing shot. All four heads belonged to the same man: Vincenzo Blackstone.

  He printed several copies of the images for the Hardys, and they thanked him and left.

  “This is real evidence,” Joe said as he revved up the SUV.

  “Computer-adjusted photos don’t hold up in all courts yet,” Frank said. “But they sure help police home in on a suspect. It looks like Blackstone not only is in the vicinity, but seems to be working with the fire-eater.”

  “That’s how he operates,” Joe reminded his brother. “He hires other people to do his dirty work.”

  “I want to talk to that talent agency in Halifax and find out more about the fire-eater,” Frank said, dialing his cell phone, “but it’s Sunday. I’ll bet they’re not open.” He listened for a few minutes, then left his name and number on the agency’s voice mail, adding that it was urgent that they call back. “Officer Chester might be able to track down the agency owner today, though,” he said, closing his phone. “And the fire-eater might even be working at EagleSpy again this evening.”

  “Let’s split up as soon as we get there,” Joe suggested. “We should each take a packet of the mug shots and the profile shots.”

  “You find Officer Chester first—tell him what we know, show him what we’ve got. Don’t forget to give him the message that Blackstone sent you. I’ll find a Horton and see if the fire-eater is working today. If he is, I’ll go after him right away.”

  Joe drove back to EagleSpy in record time. As they pulled in, one of the gatekeepers stopped them. “Hey, you’re Joe Hardy, right?” he asked.

  “I am,” Joe answered.

  “I’ve got a message for you,” the young man said, and handed Joe a note.

  Joe thanked him and read the brief message. “It’s from Shorty. He says he found something that might help identify the man who ran into the woods Friday night. Shorty’s working all day, but wants to meet me at his flat at about seven.”

  “Sounds good,” Frank said. “You’ve got about an hour and a half to find Officer Chester.”

  Joe let Frank out near the stadium and continued on to return the car to the vehicle court.

  Frank hurried inside the stadium and found Kay. “Is the fire-eater working today?” he asked.

  “Yes, later this afternoon. But I thought I saw him in the bazaar a little while ago. Why?”

  “I just want to talk to him. See you later,” Frank said, hurrying off.

  “Wait a minute,” Kay called after him. “I’m coming with you.”

  Frank and Kay wove in and out of the crowd that shuffled along in the bazaar. Occasionally, Frank would stop at a booth and ask a vendor about the fire-eater. A few recognized the photos and said they’d seen him earlier. One person had seen Blackstone and the fire-eater pass by ten minutes earlier.

  “Blackstone!” Kay yelled.

  “Keep your voice down,” Frank warned her. “We don’t want them to know we’re following them.”

  “But they have to be just ahead. Come on! We’ll lose them.” She zigzagged through the shoppers before Frank could stop her.

  “Kay, wait!” Frank yelled, racing after her. “Stop!”

  “I see his ponytail,” Kay called back. “The fire-eater’s. He just went around that booth. Hurry, Frank,” she said as she disappeared from Frank’s sight.

  Her scream felt like a lance, stabbing into Frank’s gut. Other yells and screams joined Kay’s, and Frank flew through the crowd so fast, it felt as if his feet hardly touched ground.

  He smelled the fire before he saw it. It had an oily smell that seemed to coat the inside of his nose and slither down his throat. Frank finally reached the small crowd gathering around the billowing smoke. He pushed his way through to find the source of the smoke: a ring of fire broiling up from the ground. In the center stood Kay, her eyes wide with the reflections of flames.

  10 Fly-by-Knight

  “Frank!” Kay called from inside the ring of fire. “Get me out of here!” The diameter of the circle was only about five or six feet, so Frank knew he had to act fast.

  “Stand still, Kay,” Frank yelled. His throat immediately filled with oily black smoke. “Cover your face,” he told her. Kay put her hands up to protect her face.

  Frank peeled off his jacket and slammed it down onto the flames. But the moving air just seemed to breathe more life into the fire. Some people in the crowd had drinks that they threw on the flames, but it wasn’t enough to calm the fire.

  Frank looked around. The stadium was about thirty yards away, and he remembered the big barrels of sand and sawdust sitting around the outside. Ray had told him they used them to replenish the stadium floor during the jousting matches.

  “Come on!” he ordered, motioning to a strong-looking young man. The two boys
raced to the stadium and grabbed one of the barrels. It had no lid, so they wouldn’t be able to roll it back without spilling all the contents. But they could rock and roll it around on its bottom rim without losing too much. Frank’s helper was as strong as he looked, and between them they maneuvered the heavy barrel back in just a few minutes.

  Pushing the crowd back even farther, they lowered the barrel and began rolling it around the ring of fire. The sand and sawdust cascaded out over the flames and snuffed them instantly.

  Kay jumped out of danger as Frank and the other man continued around the circle, extinguishing the whole fire. A couple of security guards arrived with fire extinguishers and made sure the job was complete.

  Frank ran back to Kay. “What happened?” he asked.

  “It was all so fast,” Kay said. “I was following the fire-eater, and then I saw Vincenzo Blackstone, too. He turned quickly and recognized me. When he ducked around the booth, I followed. And the fire-eater was waiting for me with this can of—something. He sprayed it around the ground with one hand and set fire to it with the other. The ground just burst into flames in seconds. I didn’t have a chance to get out before I was completely trapped in this awful circle.”

  “He just happened to have this fire-making stuff?” Frank asked.

  “He had a bag over his shoulder. I’ve seen him off by himself before, rehearsing his act. He probably had some of that stuff in the bag in case he wanted to practice.”

  “Only this time, he decided to practice on you,” Frank said, shaking his head. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Sure, just a little shaky. But I’m okay.” She took a glass of water someone offered her and sipped it slowly.

  “What happened to Blackstone? Did you see which way he went?” Frank asked.

  “Yes. They both headed for the woods over there,” she answered, pointing.

  “What happened?” Officer Chester asked, hurrying over to Frank. “I was talking to your brother by the stadium when I heard all the commotion over here. We could see the fire but figured it was the entertainer putting on a show. Someone just told me it wasn’t an act.”

  “The fire-eater and Blackstone went into the woods over there,” Frank said, turning on his heels. He sped across the meadow to the edge of the small forest, and heard Officer Chester and others pounding along behind him.

  When they got to the edge of the woods, they were greeted by the fire-eater, his hands high in the air. “Don’t shoot or anything,” he yelled. “Please. I’ll tell you anything you want. I never meant to hurt anyone.”

  “Well, you came way too close,” Frank said through gritted teeth. He could feel all kinds of alien things in his mouth—oily residue from the fire, grit, and sawdust. He spat out some of the gunk and turned back to the fire-eater. “Where’s Vincenzo Blackstone?” he demanded.

  “Already on the road, probably,” the fire-eater said, his hands still up in the air. “I’m supposed to be helpin’ him. I’m supposed to be his partner! Some partner. When the law starts closin’ in, he ditches me and saves his own sweet skin. He had a car hidden here in the woods. It’s already gone. But I can tell you where he might be goin’. He’s been stayin’ with my friends in a fishin’ shack the other side of the village. I’ll be happy to help you find him.”

  “Where’s Alan Horton?” Frank asked.

  “Hey, I don’t know,” the fire-eater said. “Probably in the stadium, or workin’ on the maze. That’s what I was hired for—to keep the maze from openin’. That’s all I know about.”

  “Did you shoot the flaming arrow, or did Black-stone?” Officer Chester asked.

  “I’m telling you, my only job was bringing down the maze. That Blackstone’s some kind of computer whiz, so he tripped the security system and in we went. I was in there Friday night with Blackstone, and we messed it up pretty good. I only heard about the arrow when we came back out.”

  “You mean Blackstone was with you in the maze when the arrow was shot?” Frank said.

  “He was,” the fire-eater said.

  “Well, I don’t believe that for a minute,” Officer Chester said, handcuffing his prisoner. “Come on—we’re going to find your partner.”

  “I’m going back to help Kay,” Frank told the officer. “Let me know what happens with Blackstone.”

  “We’ll keep in touch,” Officer Chester said, walking his prisoner back to the police car.

  Frank found Kay with her mother and Ray in the stadium and told them all about the arrest. It was nearly seven o’clock.

  Across the field, Joe checked his watch. It was 6:50. He looked around for Frank but didn’t see him, so he headed for the stables. The sun had already set behind the trees, and the automatic lights had clicked on outside the building.

  Joe strolled along the stalls, clicking his tongue at the horses, but no humans were around. He walked up the steps to Shorty’s apartment, knocked on the door, and called out the trainer’s name. There was no response.

  Back down in the stables, he found the two horses belonging to the Donaldsons and scrunched down onto a hay bale outside their stalls to wait.

  After a while he checked his watch again. Twenty minutes had passed, and Shorty had not shown up. “So he’s working with animals,” Joe muttered to himself. “And they’re not always on schedule.”

  Fifteen more minutes passed, and it was getting a lot darker inside the stables. Only the three outside lights were on, casting eerie shapes of light inside and across the floor. Joe walked over to the large light switch by the open door and yanked the handle up, but nothing happened. There was a click, but no light.

  Immediately, Joe felt that familiar spiky tickling across the back of his neck. His instincts told him something was awry. As if reading his mind, a few horses began moving around in their stalls, twitching their tails and bobbing their heads.

  Joe’s senses instantly rose into high alert, but he knew better than to just jump and run. If this is a trap, he asked himself, where’s the danger? Am I safer in here? He strained his eyes so he could see through the dark shadows inside the stables. Or should I make a run for it?

  Keeping his back against the wall so his body faced into the stables, he turned his head to look outside the open door next to him. Although there were patches of ground bathed in large swaths of light, there was even more darkness—plenty of places to conceal an ambush.

  Some of the horses seemed to grow more nervous—pawing the ground and sending small snorts out into the stable silence.

  Joe felt a new urgency, and he knew it was time to make a move. It was ten to eight already, so he decided to make one more try at Shorty’s apartment. “Maybe he went up from an outside door,” Joe whispered to the horses as he hurried past their stalls. “Maybe he was up there when I knocked earlier, but he was asleep and didn’t hear me. Or maybe—”

  Joe didn’t finish his thought. He didn’t want to guess what else could have happened to Shorty.

  He was more cautious this time as he climbed the flight of wooden steps next to the last stall. He reached the small landing and put his ear to Shorty’s door, but he heard nothing.

  He decided not to knock this time, and cautiously tried the doorknob. It turned easily. He waited until the shiver had finished rippling down his back. Then he slowly inched the door open. A thin bolt of moonlight cut across the room.

  There was hardly any sound at first, just a low swoooooosh. Then he heard a sudden hollow-sounding clattering. He looked up just in time to see the falcon’s talons glint in the moonlight as they shot toward his face.

  11 The Phantom Archer

  By the time he saw the falcon zooming toward him, it was too late to close the door. Joe dove facedown on the floor, covering his head with his arms. He heard a thunk from above and realized the falcon must have banged into the doorsill. He felt a thud on the back of his leg and then a pain so intense that he temporarily lost his voice and couldn’t even yell.

  He whipped around in time to s
ee the falcon shoot through the door and down into the stables. He couldn’t see his leg very clearly in the darkness. But he felt the rip in his jeans and the sticky wetness oozing from his calf.

  He rolled up to stand, and felt a new wave of pain. Limping and hopping, he went down the steps and out of the stables. He had gone only a few yards when Shorty pulled up in his golf cart.

  “Hey, what happened to you?” he yelled to Joe, who hopped over to the cart.

  “I was slashed by a peregrine,” Joe said, hoisting his leg into the passenger seat. “In your flat.”

  “What?! What do you mean, my flat? How did you … why were you … no, never mind, we’ll talk about that later,” he added, spotting the blood soaking through Joe’s jeans. “We have to get you to the hospital!”

  Shorty helped Joe over to his car, where Joe lay down in the backseat. They then sped into the village.

  “Don’t be concerned about how small our little hospital is,” Shorty assured him. “It might not be the place you’d want for a kidney transplant, but for a falcon slashing, it’s perfect.”

  “Glad to hear that,” Joe said. He was feeling a little woozy, although his leg had finally managed to stop his bleeding all over Shorty’s car.

  “So what were you doing at my place?” Shorty asked.

  “What do you mean?” Joe said. “You told me to meet you there.”

  “And exactly when was it that I said that?”

  “In the note the gatekeeper gave me,” Joe said. He fished into his jeans pocket and pulled out the folded paper. Then he lobbed it over into the front passenger seat.

  Shorty reached over and unfolded the paper. He scanned the note quickly and then got his eyes back on to the road. “Interesting,” he said. “I didn’t write that note. I never set up that meeting with you.”

  “‘Set up’ seems to be the right term,” Joe said, shaking his head. “It was a total trap. Were you scheduled for something specific at seven?”

  “Sure,” he answered. “That was the jousting semi-pros. I handle all the horses for all the matches. The games were scheduled for six to ten, and I’m booked solid the whole time.”