"You can't really blame him," Frank replied. "It won't help his reputation if we solve this case." He stopped and glanced around at the fast-food restaurants, magazine stands, and souvenir shops that turned almost every large airport into a shopping mall. "We don't start work until tomorrow morning," he said, handing Joe his uniform, "but we've been on the case since we left Bayport. Let's find out a little more about this airport." Following signs, they found the escalator that led under the terminal to the subway train that zipped back and forth among the five concourses and the main terminal. The electric train glided quietly to a stop, and the shiny metal doors slid open. The Hardys let the tide - of travelers herd them through the doors into the clean, carpeted train.
"Please move away from the doors and toward the center of the car," a robotic sounding voice said over the intercom.
The doors slid shut, and the train started to roll. "The whole train system is run by computer," Frank told his brother. "No conductors and no engineers."
"No seats, either," Joe observed. As he peered up and down the length of the car, a young woman with short honey blond curls and enormous green eyes caught his attention. She was wearing a blue Eddings Air uniform and seemed to be checking him out.
She smiled and moved closer. "Hi," she said. "How long have you been working for Eddings?"
Joe stared at her, dumbfounded. He and his brother had been in the airport less than an hour, and already a complete stranger knew they were on the case. Joe leaned toward her and whispered, "How did you know?"
She pointed at the coveralls he was carrying. "A dead giveaway," she answered in a hushed tone. "Only guys who work for Eddings Air wear outfits that color blue." Her deep green eyes flashed around the car, and then she leaned closer to Joe. "Why are we whispering?"
Joe smiled with relief. "Oh, I thought you meant—well, never mind what I thought. We just got hired as baggage handlers today."
"We start tomorrow," Frank said, joining the conversation. "I'm Frank Hardy, and this is my brother, Joe."
"I'm Gina Abend," the young woman replied. "I'm a ticket agent. I've only been working for Eddings a few weeks myself."
Her smile widened. "Hey, I've got an idea. Why don't I take you to the employee lounge? You can meet some of your coworkers. I just got off duty."
"Sounds good to me," Joe said eagerly.
Amusement glinted in Frank's eyes. Joe never could resist a pretty girl.
"You go ahead," Frank said. "I'll get our bags and then join you."
Joe stared at his brother. "What do you mean? Our luggage is — "
"Probably collecting cobwebs by now," Frank said, cutting him off pointedly. "We still have picked up our bags right after our flight landed, instead of wandering around the airport like a couple of tourists."
Joe got the message. Frank wanted to check out the baggage claim area. "Okay," he said with a slight nod. "But don't take too long. Meet us in the lounge."
Gina explained where it was located.
The automated train reached the last con - course and then headed back. When it reached the baggage claim area, they all got off. Frank waved goodbye to Joe and Gina and followed the signs to the luggage carousels that carried suitcases, boxes, and bags around in circles on conveyor belts. He made a quick stop in a rest room to slip on his blue coveralls before checking out the carousels that handled the bags from Eddings Air flights.
Only a few bags were on the carousel, and no one was standing around waiting. Frank realized that he had shown up during a lull between flights. He stood off to the side and watched several expensive-looking bags go around and around on the carousel. Nobody touched them.
A glint of silver on one of the bags caught his eye. He stepped closer. There was a diamond-shaped silver tag on the suitcase. He glanced around to make sure nobody was watching him, then picked up the suitcase to check the silver tag. It was simply marked: Hartsfield Atlanta, followed by the code: AABB45.
As Frank put the suitcase back on the carousel, he noticed that almost all the bags on the conveyor belt had similar silver tags. He stepped back and waited to see what would happen to the unclaimed baggage.
A chubby, red-haired man in Eddings Air coveralls appeared on a motorized cart. He glanced around nervously, then grabbed all the silver-tagged bags and put them in the back of the cart. As he started to drive off, Frank spotted an empty cart nearby. He sprinted over to it and flashed an ID card at the man standing next to the vehicle. "Sorry," Frank said, quickly jumping into the driver's seat. "I've got to borrow this for a minute." He took off before the man could protest.
The other cart turned into a restricted area of the terminal, where only employees were allowed, and Frank followed. He soon lost sight of the redheaded man because he wasn't familiar with the maze of corridors that confronted him.
"I was so close!" Frank said, banging his hands on the steering wheel.
Frank sighed. He decided to return the cart before heading over to meet Joe. Just then he spotted the cart with the red-haired driver coming out of a storage room. The cart was empty now!
Frank waited until the man was out of sight. Then he slipped out of his cart and raced over to the storage room. To his surprise the knob turned easily. He slipped inside.
The room was pitch-black, and Frank groped at the wall for a minute until he found the light switch. He wasn't surprised by what he saw when the bright lights blazed on overhead. The room was full of luggage. He picked up a smooth, black leather bag engraved with somebody's initials. A diamond-shaped silver tag was tied to the handle.
As Frank leaned over to take a closer look at the tag, a scuffing sound behind him made him freeze. Out of the corner of his eye Frank caught a glimpse of a shadow creeping up on him. He spun around to face the intruder and something exploded in his head. A blinding orange starburst blotted out the harsh overhead lights as the world went black.
Chapter 3
JOE WASN'T surprised that at two in the afternoon the Eddings employee lounge was nearly empty. Two young men, both in blue coveralls, were sitting at a table in the corner. They stopped talking and turned to look at Joe when he walked in with Gina.
"Hey, Gina," one of them said. "Got a new boyfriend?"
"Guys, I want you to meet Joe Hardy," Gina responded, ignoring the comment. "He'll be working with you. Joe, this is Danny Minifee."
"Glad to meet you, Joe," Danny said, standing and shaking hands with Joe.
Joe took a quick impression of the stocky, deeply tanned young man. He guessed Danny was about nineteen, only a couple of years older than Joe. He had sandy-colored curly hair, wide brown eyes, and a broad, friendly face. He spoke with a deep southern drawl, the first Joe had heard in Atlanta.
"I'm Ted Nance," the other guy said. "Welcome aboard. The hours are bad, the pay is low, and the work is tedious. Other than that, this is a great place to work."
Ted was slim, dark-haired, and about the same age as Danny. Joe wouldn't have called him aloof, but there was something in Ted's tone that made Joe feel as if there was some inside joke that only Ted knew about.
"Danny and Ted are both baggage handlers," Gina told Joe. "Maybe they can give you a few tips."
"Sure," Ted responded. "Find another job. That's the best tip I can think of."
"Don't pay any attention to him," Danny drawled. "He doesn't complain on payday."
Ted shrugged. "It's a job. If you work the morning shift like we do, you get off by two. Then you have the whole afternoon and half the night to do whatever you want."
"What about sleep?" Joe responded.
Gina laughed. "Ted usually does that at work."
Ted put his hand on Danny's shoulder. "That's because I have to party for both me and Danny. When Danny isn't hauling suitcases, he's going to college or studying. This boy is going to be a doctor someday." His voice took on a heavy, solemn tone. "And after years of selfless dedication to learning the healing arts, he'll return to the poor but honest farming community where he was
raised and tend to the needs of the sick, both human and livestock, finding a cure for cancer in his spare time."
Danny's broad face reddened, but he took the teasing with good nature. "Meanwhile Ted will stop goofing off," he said, "buckle down, and take over his father's financial empire."
"If I decide to buckle down and do anything at all," Ted replied. "For now, my father has sentenced me to hard labor while I think about what I want to do."
"The big question in my mind," Joe said, matching Ted's joking tone, "is whether we get to keep unclaimed baggage as a fringe benefit."
Danny's smile faltered.
Ted chuckled as he stood up and stretched lazily. "I'd keep that idea to myself if I were you. Management frowns on that sort of thing."
Danny got up a little stiffly. "We'd better get back to work or we'll be late."
Ted glanced at the clock on the wall and said: "I don't know why I agreed to work overtime today." He started to follow Danny out of the lounge. "Oh, now I remember," he called back over his shoulder. "We get paid time and a half for overtime."
"They're such opposite types," Joe observed after the two had walked away. "I'm surprised they're friends."
"They're not exactly friends," Gina replied, "but you know how it is when people work together eight hours a day. You either learn to live with each other and get along, or go crazy."
Joe checked the clock. "I wonder what happened to Frank. He should have been here by now."
"It's a big airport," Gina said. "Maybe he got lost."
"You're probably right," Joe responded. "I guess I'd better go look for him." He turned and stared into Gina's big green eyes. "Maybe you should come along to make sure I don't get lost."
Gina smiled but shook her head. "I'm supposed to meet somebody here."
"Too bad," Joe said. "I was hoping we could spend more time together."
"I'm sure we'll run into each other again," Gina said.
Joe grinned. "I'll make sure we do."
Joe found his way from the employee lounge to the baggage claim area without any problem. There were few people near the luggage carousels, and no sign of Frank, but Joe wasn't worried. Frank knew how to take care of himself.
Where would I go if I were Frank? Joe asked himself. Although the two brothers' minds worked in radically different ways, they somehow managed to reach the same conclusion more often than not. Joe told himself he'd probably start nosing around the security system after he got bored watching suitcases go around in circles.
So he headed back to the security chiefs office, hoping that Frank might have gone there to ask Forrester some questions.
The receptionist in the lobby of the Eddings Air office suite gave Joe a dubious glance when he asked to see the head of security. "Didn't I see you in here earlier?" she asked.
"Yes," Joe responded. "But Mr. Forrester asked me to come back here at," — Joe peeked at the woman's watch — "three this afternoon." He leaned over the counter and whispered, "I don't know what this is all about. I hope he doesn't think I had anything to do with those missing hubcaps."
The receptionist pushed her chair back, putting some distance between Joe and herself. "Hubcaps?"
Joe nodded. "All those jumbo jets. Some - guy stole all the hubcaps off the landing - "
'. "Jumbo jets don't have hubcaps," the Woman responded, annoyed. '" Joe grinned broadly. "Well, then, I guess i'm In the clear. Still, I'd better find out what tHe big guy wants."
The receptionist picked up the phone. "I'll tell Mr. Forrester that you're here," she said briskly.
A few minutes later Joe was in the security chiefs office. Forrester raised his eyes from the computer terminal on his desk long enough to frown at Joe. "What do you want now?"
Joe took one look at Forrester's scowling face and decided this was probably not the best time to reveal that he was having a hard time locating his brother. "I need some background information on standard procedures for tracking lost luggage," Joe said.
"Most bags are located within a couple of days," Forrester told him. "We store all unclaimed bags in a locked storage room next to the baggage claim area. Each item is recorded in a computerized data base that includes the claim check number, any ID tag information, and a physical description of the bag."
"So most people get their luggage back right away most of the time," Joe said.
The security chief frowned again. "Most of the time—until about six months ago."
Forrester opened a drawer on the right side of his desk, glanced down, and then tapped a few keys on the computer. He turned the monitor slightly so Joe could see. "When anybody reports a bag as missing, we record that information in the data base, too. If we don't get a match, the entry shows up in yellow. If we still haven't found the bag after a week, the entry changes to red."
Joe noticed that there was a lot of red on the computer screen.
"At first we thought it was a glitch in the system," Forrester continued. "But after we ruled that out, we realized we had a serious problem. This isn't just happening here in Atlanta. Luggage is disappearing from our flights at airports all over the country."
"Do you think any Eddings employees are involved?" Joe responded.
Forrester gave him a weary look. "Since other airlines aren't having similar problems, and since Eddings employees have easy access to the luggage, I'd say it's fairly safe to assume that some of our workers have to be involved in this operation."
Joe ignored Forrester's bitter tone. At least the man was giving him answers. "Do you do any kind of screening when you hire new people?"
"A routine background check is standard procedure, but with the large numbers of people we hire, we don't have the time or the resources to get a detailed profile on each one.
"And all that information is in the computer, too?"
Forrester nodded.
"Just as an example," Joe said offhandedly, "let's say I wanted to find out about a baggage handler I just met, Danny Minifee. What will his file tell me?"
The security chief checked the desk drawer again, where Joe guessed he kept a list of passwords, and then started typing on the computer keyboard. A few seconds later Joe was looking at the personnel file for Danny Ray Minifee.
It was short and simple. Danny was twenty years old. He had been graduated from Porterville High School with a B-plus average and was enrolled part-time at Emory College. He had started working for Eddings Air four months ago. His only previous work experience seemed to be working on the family farm.
Under the heading of "Criminal Record" there was a single word None. Joe knew that cracking this case was going to be a lot harder than checking the personnel file of the first guy he met. Still, it had been worth a shot.
Forrester twisted the computer monitor away from Joe's eyes. "You shouldn't see confidential files," he said gruffly. "I don't know what got into me, I must be putting in too many hours." He nodded toward the door. "The sooner you get out of here, the sooner I can get back to work. If I'm lucky, maybe I'll get out of here before midnight for once."
Joe couldn't think of any other questions to ask Forrester, and he wanted to find Frank. He murmured his thanks and headed back to the baggage claim area to check for his brother again.
This time there was a large crowd standing around one of the carousels. Glancing at a video display terminal on the wall that listed departures and arrivals, Joe noticed that an Eddings Air flight had just landed. The passengers jockeyed for positions close to the carousel to wait for their luggage to appear.
Joe worked his way through the crowd, searching each face for Frank's. A startled shout made Joe turn. There was some kind of commotion close to the carousel. He pushed his way through the gaping onlookers to the edge of the conveyor belt. Joe had expected to see that a suitcase had sprung open, spewing somebody's underwear on the belt, but he wasn't prepared to see a limp figure in blue coveralls sprawled on the moving carousel. His eyes widened, and his heart started to pound as the conveyor belt
carried the body closer to him. Joe instantly recognized the lanky form even though it was facedown. It was Frank!
Chapter 4
"FRANK!" JOE SHOUTED. He leapt onto the moving carousel and crouched down next to his brother. "Turn this thing off!" he yelled.
Joe was only vaguely aware of the people staring at him as the conveyor belt continued around in its endless circle. His attention was focused on his brother. The only movement from Frank was the slight rise and fall of his back. At least he was alive and breathing, Joe told himself. He was out cold, though, and Joe knew not to move him. It might be dangerous.
Joe glanced up at the strangers crowding around the luggage carousel. "Somebody turn this thing off!" he shouted urgently. "Find an emergency switch! Do something!"
Somebody finally got the message, and the carousel ground to a halt. "Get a doctor!" Joe heard a woman call out.
"Joe!" another voice cried out. "What happened?"
Joe spotted Danny Minifee crawling through the opening where the conveyor belt fed out Of the loading area.
"Who is this guy? What's wrong with him?" Danny asked, puzzled. "He's my brother, Frank," Joe told him. At the mention of his name, Frank's eyes fluttered open, and he stared up at his brother. "Joe?" He tried to get up.
"Just lie still," Joe said, putting a hand on Frank's shoulder. "A doctor or paramedic should be here soon."
Frank shook off his brother's gentle grip and struggled to sit up. "I don't need a doctor," he insisted. A sharp pain shot up his head from the base of his neck. He let out a soft groan and rubbed his sore neck with one hand. "What happened? How did I get here?" Joe looked up at Danny. Two other guys in blue coveralls had joined him. "That's a good question," Joe said, staring at Danny. "Maybe one of these guys saw something." All three of them shook their heads. Danny knelt down next to Frank and Joe.
"We were just bringing in a load of bags when we heard somebody hollering about an emergency and stopping the carousel. I hit the shut-off switch and came running."
"This is Danny Minifee," Joe told his brother. "I met him in the employee lounge earlier."
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