Evil, Inc.

by Franklin W. Dixon

  “I hope I’ve convinced you,” said Denise somewhat impatiently.

  “Yes, you have.” Paul Reynard smiled. “I am sure.”

  As he spoke, his hand came out of the desk drawer-with a gun. Then he pulled the bell rope.

  “I am sure none of you will leave this chateau alive.”

  Chapter 15

  A MINUTE AFTER Paul Reynard pulled the bell cord, his nephews ran into the room, guns drawn.

  “You can put the guns away,” Paul Reynard told them in a voice of curt command. “As you can see, I have the situation in control.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Pierre, as he and his brothers obeyed. “I have to compliment you, sir. I never would have suspected Denise of being a police spy. It was brilliant of you to have set up this final test of her loyalty before we let her know you were the real boss.”

  “One can never be too careful-and one can trust nobody. I was sure that not even the most hardened police agent would let both these young Americans and a distinguished gentleman like me die without trying to save us. Denise proved that I was right, as usual.”

  “As always, sir,” said Yves admiringly.

  “I have not survived and prospered by making mistakes,” added Paul Reynard.

  “You? The master criminal! I can’t believe it,” exclaimed Denise, shaking her head. “You have a distinguished army career. The Legion of Honor. A noble name. Why?”

  “As an intelligence officer in the Algerian War, I was ordered to break all rules in getting information from prisoners,” explained Paul Reynard bitterly. “Then, after France lost that war, I was publicly given the Legion of Honor-and privately told that my military career was over as far as future promotions were concerned-because I had obeyed my orders too well. I saw then how foolish it was to be a patriot. I decided to live as my ancestors did, for myself and by my own rules.” He paused and looked around, with a glow of triumph on his face. “I have created a kingdom where I alone rule-an international kingdom of crime.”

  As Denise and the Hardys stared at him in growing fear, he looked less like a king than an executioner.

  “How did you want to dispose of them, sir?” asked Maurice. “Shall we bury them in the dungeon or in the garden?”

  “You actually mean to kill us?” cried Denise, growing pale.

  “You, an agent of the Surete, ask me that?” replied Paul Reynard contemptuously. “I am surprised at you. But I suppose that is only to be expected when the government hires females for such work. Such soft-minded thinking will be the ruin of France. In my day, we kept women out of dangerous situations. They would only fold under pressure, as you are doing right now, my dear young lady.”

  Denise was folding. She was pale as a ghost. She rubbed her fingers over her forehead, trying to wipe clear her mind. Then her hand dropped down, her mouth dropped open, and she dropped to the floor.

  “Just like a woman to faint,” said Paul Reynard, standing over her and looking down at her limp form.

  He opened his mouth to say something else, but the words did not come out. Instead there was only a grunt, as Denise’s feet jackknifed up to kick him viciously in the gut. Taken by surprise, the Reynard brothers hesitated-just an instant too long. Denise was on her feet, dashing for the door with Frank and Joe following.

  Joe was the last out, slamming the door behind him-just in time. Bullets slammed into it. The nephews had recovered from their shock and drawn their guns.

  Denise and the Hardys burst out of the house and raced across the grass to where the helicopter was parked, clearly illuminated by a giant full moon in the cloudless night sky.

  They climbed into the chopper, Denise at the controls.

  “Good thing Reynard fell for your trick,” Frank said to Denise.

  “Ah,” said Denise. “I knew I could count on a Frenchman to believe in the weakness of women.” She paused, looking down at the control board. “That does not mean that Paul Reynard is not a smart man.” “What do you mean?” asked Joe.

  “He had the foresight to have the helicopter controls locked,” said Denise. “We cannot take off.”

  ‘We’ll have to run for it then,” said Joe, already leaping out of the chopper. He hit the ground as a bullet whistled by his ear. “We can do better than that,” said Frank, as he and Denise jumped out, too. “Follow me.”

  Keeping their bodies low, the three ran for the stables while the night was filled with echoing gunshots.

  Inside, Frank opened a stall and led out a splendid-looking stallion.

  “Pick your mounts,” said Frank. “Let’s see what kind of racehorses these babies really are.”

  A moment later, Denise was astride a handsome gray horse. “I haven’t ridden bareback in years, not since I was a little girl visiting my grandfather’s farm.” “I’ve never ridden bareback, but now’s a good time to learn,” said Frank, patting his horse’s flank as he and the other mounts moved out of the stables.

  “Come on, baby, let’s make time.” Joe gripped his horse tightly with his knees. He was bent over low with his face near the horse’s mane and his arms wrapped around the animal’s neck when the horse responded to the sound of another shot as if it were a starter’s gun.

  The horses streaked across the pasture. At the door in the wall surrounding the property, the three came to an abrupt halt.

  Frank leaped off, unbolted it, swung it open, and remounted.

  They were through it in an instant and racing down the moonlit asphalt road.

  When they reached the highway, they stopped again.

  “They must be in their car by now,” said Frank. “You can be sure Paul Reynard has a fast one.” He looked up and down the highway, surprised to see that it was empty. He glanced at his watch. It was three in the morning. “We can’t beat them in a race. We’ll have to outsmart them. They’ll be expecting us to go to Bayeux. We’ll go the other way. Come on.”

  The hoof beats of the horses were thunderously loud as they pounded down the concrete highway. Joe had to yell to make himself heard over them. “We’ve done it! We’ve shaken them!” he shouted triumphantly, looking over his shoulder at the empty highway stretching behind them. But his last words were drowned out by a loud sound, that was growing louder.

  “They’re using the helicopter!” cried Denise.

  “Of course!” Frank shouted. He urged his horse to move still faster, the hoof beats sounding like machine guns now. “I should have known! It’s the perfect way to hunt us. They’re high enough in the air to look down the road in both directions. The moon is as bright as a spotlight they’ve probably seen us already.”

  At that moment, the three of them realized that they had to make another fast decision. In front of them, the highway came to an abrupt end, running into a road that cut it at right angles. The horses hesitated, not knowing which way to-turn. The noise of the helicopter had become deafeningly close.

  Frank looked up, then to the right, then to the left. “We’ll go straight ahead!” he shouted. “Maybe we can find some cover in the countryside and lose them!”

  The horses easily leaped the highway guardrails. They galloped up a low rise of land that was barren of trees and bushes, covered only with sparse grass. Then they halted again.

  They had reached the end of a cliff. Below, lit by moonlight, was a wide white beach and then the darkness of the sea.

  “We have come to the English Channel,” said Denise. “We cannot go any farther.”

  The noise of the helicopter grew still louder. It was descending.

  “So these are the D-Day beaches,” Frank mused. “The Allies staged the biggest invasion of all time here over forty years ago.” Frank had always been a World War II buff, and the site of the Normandy landings had always filled him with fascination. For a moment he forgot the predicament he and the others were in. He sat motionless astride his horse and gazed down at the dimly lit glowing white sand as if hypnotized by its ghostly splendor, feeling the pull of the past like the pull of a tide o
ut to sea.

  “What a time for a history lesson,” cried Joe in exasperation. He could see the helicopter now as it approached the ground less than a hundred feet away. In the moonlight, it looked like some prehistoric monster, its whirling blades starting to slow.

  In seconds it would touch down. He could imagine the Reynards poised to jump out, their fingers on their triggers. “Hey, Frank! Unless we figure out what to do fast, we’ll be history. This will be our D-Day, too. Death day.”

  Chapter 16

  “WHERE CAN WE go?” Denise cried desperately as the runners of the helicopter hit the ground and its door began to open.

  “Nowhere on horseback, that’s for sure,” replied Frank. He jumped off his mount, and the others did the same.

  “Here goes nothing! Let’s hope the sand is soft,” exclaimed Joe, as he reached the very edge of the bluff and prepared to leap. Then he saw that wasn’t necessary. A path led downward. “Come on. Let’s make tracks.”

  Struggling to keep their balance, the three scrambled down the narrow path. Ten feet from the bottom, the path ended, sheared away by wind erosion.

  Without discussing the matter, all three of them jumped. They landed hard, sprawling on the sand. Almost instantly they were on their feet, brushing the sand off and looking upward.

  The sound of the helicopter told them it had taken off again and was coming after them on the beach.

  “Do you still have your gun, Denise?” Frank asked.

  “Unfortunately, no,” Denise answered. “Pierre asked me to give it to him right after you were locked in the dungeon. He claimed that Karl’s was defective and that Karl needed a gun more than I did. I can see now that was just a way to disarm me before they tested me.” “Probably Paul Reynard’s idea,” said Frank. “He seems to think of everything.”

  “We have to think of something right now,” said Joe. “That helicopter is coming down again.”

  “There is no way to climb back up the bluff,” said Denise.

  “The only thing we can do is split up and go in different directions,” said Frank. “That way at least one of us might make it out of this alive.”

  They looked at each other solemnly for a moment.

  Then Joe said to Denise, “Let me show you an American custom. We use it in basketball. It’s called giving a high five.”

  “Right,” said Frank, as he and his brother slapped each other’s palms high in the air.

  “I see!” said Denise, and the three of them did it together. “Now I will show you a French custom,” she said. Denise kissed Frank and Joe on both cheeks.

  “Good luck,” the three said at the same time.

  And as the helicopter touched down on the beach they ran for their lives in three different directions.

  Frank ran to the right, feet flying across the sand. His last sight of the others was Joe veering off to the left and Denise heading straight for the sea. None of them had any plan, which made Frank nervous. He didn’t like to take things as they came. As he ran, bullets whizzed past him. He was a moving target in the moonlight, and whoever was chasing him wouldn’t keep missing those shots forever. All he could try was to run faster, faster. Then it happened.

  His foot sank into a hollow in the sand, and he fell to the ground face first. For a second he saw stars. Then his vision cleared, and he felt the pain shooting upward from his ankle. He didn’t think it was a very bad sprain, but it was bad enough. His running speed was cut to a kind of limping hop. He was finished unless there was a miracle. And then he saw one.

  It wasn’t exactly a miracle, but it would do. A squat shape rose ahead of him-some kind of building on the beach.

  It took him only a minute to figure out what it was. He had seen pictures of structures like it in the same history books that had told him about the D-Day landing on this beach long ago.

  It was a German pillbox-a squat cylindrical concrete fortress, big enough for three men and a machine gun. It hadn’t been enough to stop the invasion, but it still stood, a monument to the odds that the invasion had overcome.

  Ignoring the pain as he pushed himself to the limit, Frank made it through the entrance of the pillbox and stopped inside, panting.

  At least he was still alive. He had bought himself about two minutes more time-until whoever was chasing him arrived at the pillbox. He knew he had been observed.

  Frank moved away from the entrance to the old fortification, down five steps into the interior. The air was as cold and damp as the dungeon from which he had just escaped, as cold and damp as a tomb. He shivered. His groping hand touched cold concrete. He had retreated as far as he could. He was trapped. Frank could only wait for his enemy to enter and finish him off like an animal penned up for slaughter.

  He smiled ironically. This must have been how the German soldiers in the pillbox felt as they crouched here, after their guns had failed to drive off the invading Allied forces. They must have waited, knowing their enemies could encircle their position and at any moment charge in, blocking all chance of escape.

  Or maybe the Germans had thought of that when they built this, Frank thought.

  They must have.

  Frantically he felt along the concrete wall until he found the opening to an emergency exit on the side.

  “I hope it’s not blocked up with sand after all these years,” he said to himself as he entered a tunnel that was just big enough for a man to crawl through. A minute later, he felt the fresh air on his face, and then saw the moon, still enormous in the sky. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

  But he did not pause to admire it. He had to move fast - as fast as he could on his hands and knees in the sand-before his pursuer realized he had gotten out. Frank didn’t plan to run away, though. His ankle hurt too much. He wouldn’t get far enough. Besides, what he really wanted to do was attack. He slipped silently around the side of the pill box and found himself looking at Pierre’s back.

  Pierre was peering into the pillbox with his gun drawn. “Come out, American,” Pierre’s taunting voice called into the darkness. “You do not have a chance. We have already caught your friends. Would you not like to see them one last time before you - ” That was as far as Pierre got. Frank delivered a powerful karate chop that scored a dead hit on a key nerve in the back of Pierre’s neck. Pierre went down without a fight.

  Frank didn’t waste time bothering to check him out. He grabbed Pierre’s gun and headed back up the beach. Maybe Pierre had been lying when he claimed that Joe and Denise had been captured. Or if it was true, maybe Frank could come to their rescue.

  At any rate, with a gun in his hand and Pierre out of the way, the odds for survival had become a whole lot better.

  The odds for survival didn’t look good for Joe as he ran down the beach away from Frank and Denise. He was moving as if he were in a broken field run during a football game. But this time there was no goal line where he could stop and be safe. And bullets were harder to dodge than any tackler who had ever come after him.

  The sand began to grow into a ridge ahead of him, sloping up more and more steeply into a respectable sand dune. Joe slogged uphill, losing speed, while his pursuer, still on level ground, drew nearer.

  Joe pushed himself harder as the dune grew steeper, pulling with his hands as well as pushing with his legs. The top of the dune was almost in reach. He grabbed a clump of coarse dune grass. He’d be over it in another second, momentarily safe. And beyond … As his head cleared the crest, he saw a shape farther along the beach. A boat?

  Behind him a shot rang out, and the clump of grass under his hand disintegrated as the bullet tore through it. A near miss-but it had killed him as surely as if it had hit him in the heart. Without a handhold, he couldn’t climb over the dune. And his handhold had just been blasted apart. Joe scrabbled desperately for another clump of grass, but his hands only caught sand as he slipped a foot, then two feet down the slope.

  Joe glanced back, and his heart sank. He was trapped on the empty dune,
like a fly on a tablecloth. Below him, at the foot of the dune, his pursuer went down on one knee, bracing himself for the final shot.

  If only I had a weapon, Joe thought, even something to throw at him, a stone. But there was nothing to throw, except his own body.

  Sliding farther down the slope, Joe got his legs under him, then sprang into the air.

  Caught by surprise, the gunman below rose to his feet, trying to bring his pistol up. By then Joe’s feet were connecting with the man’s shoulder, sending the gun flying and both of them rolling to the ground.

  Fiercely they wrestled in the sand, grunting, sweating, hunting for a winning hold. The powerful arms of his opponent closed around him in a crushing bear hug. Joe went limp. Then with sudden, violent motion of both arms, he broke free, throwing his opponent to the sand.

  Joe rose up on his knees, drawing back his fist. Before the stunned Frenchman could move, Joe delivered the knockout punch-right on the guy’s chin. It might have bruised Joe’s knuckles, but as he got to his feet, he could be sure his opponent wouldn’t be getting up for a good long time.

  Joe squinted in the moonlight, trying to see whom he had attacked. It was Yves Reynard. Then Joe turned to hunt for Yves’s gun, but before he could find it, he saw another figure running toward him. He turned, charging back to the top of the sand dune, then dashing for the only cover in sight-a large rowboat beached upside down a hundred yards away. Joe stayed low as he ran, expecting shots as soon as his pursuer cleared the dune. .

  Not a shot was fired, though. Maybe he hadn’t been spotted after all. Joe crouched behind the boat, his ears picking up the faint crunching sound of approaching footsteps in the sand.

  The footsteps drew closer and closer-and Joe leaped up, his fist already swinging in a haymaker.

  But even as he threw the punch, Joe’s target ducked and grabbed his arm. Suddenly Joe was flying through the air, to land face forward in the sand. Instantly he was on his feet, ready to swing 142

  again, when Frank said, “Hey, it’s me! I came to help you, but I see you’ve done a pretty good job by yourself, even with your primitive fighting techniques. “