A few feet away Joe had Bobby down and was twisting one of his tattooed arms behind his back.
“Let him up!”
The voice belonged to Stendahl.
Joe looked over to see Stendahl standing behind Ron Quick. He held Bobby Knapp’s knife under the scrap yard owner’s chin. Joe reluctantly let Knapp scramble to his feet.
Frank stood over DuBois, his chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath.
“Over there!” Stendahl shouted, waving the blade of the knife toward Joe.
Frank unclenched his fists and walked over to stand next to his brother.
“Where’s the rope?” Stendahl asked.
“I have it.” DuBois left the control room for a moment before returning with a long coil of rope. He tossed the coil to Knapp. “Tie them up in the tunnel,” he ordered.
Knapp gave Joe a shove. “Get on down that ladder,” he growled.
When Joe hesitated, Stendahl poked Quick in the neck, drawing a tiny bead of blood. Quick yelped in pain.
Joe scooted into the hole.
Down in the storm drain, Bobby Knapp made Frank and Joe sit back-to-back in the water. He bound their wrists and ran the rope through the bottom rung of the ladder. A few minutes later, he brought Ron Quick down and tied him up next to Frank.
The three of them sat huddled around the bottom of the ladder.
Herve DuBois called down to them. Joe looked up. The counterfeiter’s face seemed to fill the opening to the control room above.
“You’re so smart,” DuBois said. “Now guess what’s going to happen.”
Joe watched DuBois look back and make a turning motion with his hand. Then he stared down at them again.
“Stendahl is turning a few valves up here,” DuBois said. He laughed. “We’re going to flood the storm drain. In ten minutes you’ll be completely under water.”
Joe could still hear DuBois laughing even after he slammed the drain cover shut, plunging them into total darkness.
Frank felt Ron Quick shiver with fear.
“What’s that noise?” Joe asked.
“Rushing water. They’re sending water from the reservoir to the bay, and it’s going to go right over us.”
Joe struggled against the ropes. “We might not even have ten minutes,” he said. “The water’s up to my chest!”
“Be patient, Joe.”
“Patient! Are you nuts?” Joe shouted.
Ron Quick made a frightened humming noise through his gag.
“I’m with him,” Joe said. “This is serious!”
“No. I mean, give me time to work here,” Frank said. “These ropes are made of cotton. They’ll stretch when they get wet. Keep flexing your wrists under water.”
The water was up to Joe’s neck now, and he kept working his wrists back and forth. He thought he felt the rope give a little.
“I’m out!” Frank said. He stood up, shaking the rope free from his arms. He then knelt down and felt under the water until he was able to untie Joe and Ron.
“Oh, thank goodness.” Ron sighed when his gag came off. “I’ve been locked up in this place for days.”
“You’re almost home free,” Frank said.
A beam of light shot down from above.
“They’re coming back,” Frank whispered. “Sit down as if you’re still tied up.”
The drain lid opened all the way, and Stendahl descended, followed by DuBois and Knapp. They all carried big hikers’ backpacks. Frank guessed they were filled with the ingredients for counterfeiting—the plates, ink, and paper.
The Hardys and Quick sat quietly, letting the water rise slowly to their chins. They watched as Stendahl grabbed one of the wave-runners and wrestled it around so it faced the direction of the bay.
DuBois checked his watch and mumbled something about being behind schedule.
Frank leaned over and whispered in Ron’s ear. “When I give the signal, you go up the ladder as fast as you can and close the hatch.”
Ron nodded slightly.
“Cover it with something heavy,” Frank continued. “Shut off the valves, then call the police and the coast guard. I think they’re going to try to escape through the bay.”
DuBois straddled his wave-runner and cranked the engine. It burbled to life. Stendahl got on behind him, while Bobby Knapp got on the second wave-runner and turned around.
The instant DuBois started forward, the Hardys exploded out of the water. They had only seconds to act.
Frank and Joe each held one end of the rope. As Bobby Knapp’s wave-runner lurched into motion, the Hardys threw the coil of rope as far in front of it as they could. Just as he got up to speed, Bobby Knapp hit the rope and the Hardys yanked as hard as they could.
Knapp went flying off the back.
Before Knapp could recover, Joe chugged through the hip-deep water and grabbed the handle of the wave-runner. He jumped on. Frank got on behind him. They took off after DuBois just as Ron Quick made it to the top of the ladder and closed the sewer lid, leaving Bobby Knapp stranded in the drain.
Joe squeezed the throttle as far as it would go. The wave-runner blasted through the drain tunnel, chasing the faint gleam of DuBois’s headlamp. Frank hung on for dear life.
After three or four harrowing turns and long, full-speed straightaways, the headlamp in front of them started to grow brighter.
Then it grew even brighter. And brighter.
“I think we’re coming to the bay!” Frank shouted over the din of the engine.
Joe couldn’t hear. “What?” he yelled.
“I think we’re coming to the bay!”
The light was very, very bright now. Joe kept the throttle wide open.
Frank looked ahead. The tunnel ended! All he could see was bright blue sky.
They blasted out of the tunnel as if shot from a cannon. Frank looked down in terror. They were sailing through the air ten or fifteen feet above the gray, choppy water of the bay.
They hit the water with a deafening smack! Frank bounced a foot off the seat but managed to hang on.
Stendahl hadn’t been so lucky. The Hardys passed him floating in the bay, using his pack to keep his head above water.
Joe kept after DuBois, now only fifty feet ahead.
Frank pointed at a speedboat anchored in the distance. “That must be his getaway vehicle!”
Joe hunkered down to cut the wind resistance. They had to keep DuBois from getting on that boat.
Joe came up alongside the fugitive, and DuBois steered away.
Joe moved up on him again. Frank jumped. He reached out as far as he could. With his fingertips, he caught the strap of the backpack and pulled with all his strength. DuBois fell from the wave-runner. He and Frank skipped across the bay like downed water-skiers.
Then it was a race for DuBois’s wave-runner. It circled lazily in the water, waiting for a rider.
Without the heavy pack to slow him, it was a race Frank won easily.
He climbed on board as DuBois shouted angrily at him. Frank ignored him and steered his wave-runner up next to Joe’s. “These things are fun,” he said. “I wonder if we can keep them.”
A few minutes later a coast guard cutter appeared on the horizon. “Hey, fellas!” Joe shouted to DuBois and Stendahl. “Here comes your ride.”
• • •
At eight-thirty that night Frank and Joe were back at the baseball diamond, preparing for their game. The Hardys played catch next to the bench to warm up, while Biff strapped on his catcher’s pads.
“So Sylvia van Loveren wasn’t involved?” Biff asked.
“Nope,” Joe said. “Stendahl tried to set her up at the Bayport Savings heist, and then she was in the wrong place at the wrong time during the Empire Federal job.”
Frank practiced his curveball. His control was his strong point as a pitcher, and he wanted all his pitches working right. “Meredith didn’t turn out to be such a bad guy either,” he said.
A horn beeped from the parking lot.
&n
bsp; “Who’s that?” Joe asked.
Frank stopped throwing. “I don’t recognize the car, do you?”
Joe shook his head. It was a new, gold-colored sedan.
A man and a woman got out of the car. The woman waved.
“Check it out,” Joe said. “It’s Mom and Dad. And it looks like Mom has a new car.”
“Nice car, Mom!” Frank called. “When can I drive it?”
Mrs. Hardy laughed. “Never!” she shouted back. “Not after what happened last time.”
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Aladdin
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
Copyright © 1998 by Simon & Schuster Inc.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
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ISBN 978-0-671-00743-0
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THE HARDY BOYS and THE HARDY BOYS MYSTERY STORIES are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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