The Ghost at Skeleton Rock (12 page)

“Easy to see how this place got its name,” he remarked, peering ahead.

The spit of land, jutting out to sea, ended in a bulging mound. This was topped with bushy green foliage, which sprouted outward from the crown of the hill, giving the place the appearance of a huge pineapple.

“But I wonder how it ties in with the gang,” Joe said with a puzzled frown. “The place appears to be deserted.”

The boys strolled out on the tiny peninsula, and climbed the hill. Reaching the top, they poked about among the bushes and vegetation. But the thick underbrush showed no sign of having been trampled by human feet!

The Hardys were baffled. “I was sure we were on to something,” Frank said, disappointed. “Let's walk along the shore.”

They encountered several natives on the way. When questioned, none of them could recall having seen anybody lurking around the point.

“Why should a person go out there, señor?” said one old man in Spanish, shrugging his shoulders. “Without a machete to chop down brush, there is hardly even a place to sit down!”

A few moments later a plane droned overhead. Frank looked up and noted that it was flying due north. Suddenly he snapped his fingers.

“Cabezona N!” he whispered excitedly. “Say, Joe, that N might be a directional signal, meaning north of here. Maybe it leads to the gang's hideout!”

“In the middle of the ocean?” Joe questioned dubiously.

“No! It could be some island north of Puerto Rico!” Frank explained.

Joe was impressed by his brother's theory. “Maybe you've hit it,” he admitted. “Well, locating it will be our next trip, I suppose.”

Elated over the clue, the boys returned to San Juan. By the time they reached the hotel, it was seven o'clock. Tony and Chet had not returned yet.

“They must be doing some real sleuthing,” Frank commented, a little worried.

The Hardys waited a while, but finally went down to the hotel dining room. Frank and Joe, growing anxious about their friends, had little appetite for their meal. As they forced themselves to eat, they discussed the message which Abdul had flashed out to sea: “3-4-8-9-P-M-Skeleton.”

“That ‘PM' part sounds like a time signal to me,” Joe remarked.

“Sure, but a signal for what?”

Joe mulled over the problem. “Well, this is a shot in the dark,” he admitted, “but how about a rendezvous at the airport? After all, if the racket we're investigating is the theft of air-freight shipments, there might be some flight coming in that the gang is watching for.”

Frank nodded. “That makes sense.”

After finishing their supper, the two boys sat in the lobby and waited another half hour for Chet and Tony, but they failed to appear.

“I think I'll phone the police,” Frank said.

He put in a call and asked if any boat had been reported in trouble. The answer was No.

“That's a relief,” Frank told Joe. “But I'd feel better if Chet and Tony were here.”

“I'm getting the creeps waiting,” said Joe. “Suppose we go out to the airport and look over cargo flights.”

“Okay.”

After leaving a message for their friends, they took a taxi to the field. On the schedule board inside the air-freight operations office all incoming flights were posted.

Frank gave a gasp. “You hit the nail on the head, Joe!” he exclaimed. “Look there!”

According to the board, cargo flight No. 348, en route from New York to South America, would stop at the field at 9 P.M.

Joe glanced at his watch. “Almost that now. Let's go out and take a look.”

The boys strolled up and down. Soon the green and red lights of a plane came into view overhead. Moments later, a large cargo ship thundered down out of the sky and taxied to a halt.

The boys moved closer, acting like casual sightseers. They watched as an unloading ramp was wheeled out to the plane and the crew disembarked.

“No one seems to be meeting any of them,” Frank remarked. “That must mean that the message I picked up refers to the cargo.” He added excitedly, “Maybe it's on the plane and the gang is planning to steal it!”

Joe nodded. “Keep your eyes on things. I'll try to contact the airport manager, or a guard.”

“Roger!”

Left to himself, Frank strolled as close to the plane as he felt was safe, without attracting attention. Just then the pilot and copilot walked past him, heading for the flight operations office.

“I'll be glad when the run is over,” Frank heard the pilot say. “I don't like carrying this kind of top-secret cargo.”

“No,” said the copilot. “But at least it's well locked up.”

Frank wondered if the pilot could mean component parts for atomic weapons. At that moment, out of the corner of his eye, Frank noticed two men who seemed to be watching the ship closely. They were standing perfectly still in the shadow of the cargo warehouse which extended from the rear of the terminal building.

“I wonder who they are,” Frank thought. “Probably detectives!”

At that moment two cargo handlers drove a forklift to the cargo compartment door which stood open. After removing several crates and boxes, they went off, leaving the door wide open.

Frank looked for the men in the shadows. They were gone!

“Could they have been security guards assigned to watch the plane,” Frank reasoned, “or were they freight thieves?”

Frank wondered, too, if the handlers might have been bribed by the thieves not to close the cargo door! There might be a robbery of the ship's top-secret cargo at any moment!

With no help in sight, Frank decided on a bold move. He hurried toward the plane and climbed into the cargo hold, reasoning that his presence alone might balk an attempted robbery. On the other hand, if the thief tried force, Frank could put up a fight and perhaps pin the man down until Joe arrived with the airport guards.

Just forward of the cargo hatch was a metal-gated section, enclosing large steel-strapped boxes. Frank found the gate open and went forward to inspect the cargo.

Flicking on his pocket flashlight, he played the beam over the crates and boxes. Suddenly Frank was startled by a sound behind him. Looking up, he saw Joe a few feet away. In relief he said:

“I thought you'd gone for help. If those thieves are getting ready to rob this—”

Frank got no further. Too late he realized that the person was not Joe, but the smuggler who looked like him! The fellow's fist shot out, caught Frank on the jaw, and sent him sprawling.

Just before the young sleuth blacked out, he heard the door slam shut.

Frank was a prisoner!

INSIDE the cargo compartment Frank slowly revived. When he realized the plane was airborne, he was seized with terror. The ship was soaring higher and higher and the cargo hold was not pressurized! Frank shuddered at the thought of blacking out for an indefinite time through lack of enough oxygen at high altitudes. Also, there was the danger of freezing to death!

At the airport, meanwhile, Joe had managed to locate the night manager, a husky balding man named Mr. Lopez. Though somewhat doubtful about the boy's story, he promised to alert both the tower and the airport detectives for any sign of a disturbance. Joe returned to the field just in time to see the cargo plane take off. Apparently there had been no trouble.

Frank was nowhere in sight. Joe walked through the waiting room, looking up and down.

Suddenly an alarming thought struck Joe. Was Frank, by any chance, in the plane? Joe hurried back to the manager's office. Hastily he reported his brother's disappearance.

“Please call the plane back, Mr. Lopez!” he exclaimed. “I'm sure Frank's locked in the cargo compartment.”

The man looked puzzled. “Why you told me yourself your brother had climbed out of the plane and reported everything was all right.”

“Look! Are you playing a game?” snapped Mr. Lopez.

Joe turned pale. “I haven't been back here in your office since I first talked to you.”

Breathlessly Joe explained how a man they thought was a smuggler was practically his double. “That faker has already posed as me once!” Joe went on. “He did it so he could sabotage our plane before we flew here. Now he's done it again, so they could trap my brother! Mr. Lopez, you must bring that plane back!”

Though startled by what Joe had told him, Lopez hesitated.

“I can't bring back the ship just on your say-so,” he protested. “Maybe your brother is still here. I'll have him paged on the loudspeaker.”

In a moment the public-address system was blaring out Frank's name, asking him to call the manager's office at once. There was no response, but suddenly a startling bit of news was relayed to Lopez. The two detectives assigned to watch the cargo plane had been found unconscious.

Mr. Lopez needed no further convincing about Frank's plight. He called the tower. “Radio Flight 348 to return to San Juan immediately. Emergency.”

Up in the control tower, the operator barked the orders into his mike. Then he added, “Attention, all planes. An emergency landing is expected. All other ships in the air, circle the field until further notice. Repeat—circle the field.”

An ambulance with oxygen equipment was rushed out on the field. Joe found the tension almost unbearable as he waited. At last the green and red lights of the cargo craft were sighted. A few minutes later the big plane landed and taxied down the runway.

Even before the landing wheels slowed to a halt, the ambulance roared out to meet it. Doctor, stretcher-bearers, and ground crew stood ready as the door of the cargo hatch was unlocked.

Joe, forced to watch from the apron, saw a still figure being carried out onto the stretcher. Frank! Breaking away from the manager and guards, Joe raced out on the field.

“Frank! Frank!” he cried frantically.

“Take it easy, son,” said one of the ground crewmen, restraining him gently. “Doc's doing everything he can.”

The stretcher was lifted into the ambulance and Joe jumped in after it. The doctor applied an oxygen mask to Frank, then he filled a hypodermic and injected a stimulant.

Badly shaken, Joe could only watch and hope. After what seemed hours, he saw the color seeping back into his brother's cheeks. Soon Frank became conscious, but he appeared dazed.

Joe flashed an anxious look at the doctor, who nodded reassuringly. “He's all right now. But it was a mighty close call! Fortunately for him the plane had not remained at high altitudes for too long.”

A few minutes later Frank, with a rueful grin, told his story. “I sure am glad the plane was called back,” he remarked.

“Thank your brother,” said the physician. “Now, young man, I want you to rest in our infirmary for an hour.”

While Frank relaxed on a hospital bed, word came that there had been no theft of freight from the plane, but the two cargo handlers had admitted accepting money from some man to leave the cargo door open.

“I have a hunch you foiled a robbery,” Joe told Frank. “That shipment of parts for an atomic weapon will reach its destination now.”

“I hope so. But we didn't capture any of the gang. What's more, they'll probably make it tougher than ever for us.”

Joe nodded in agreement.

When the doctor discharged Frank, the boys started back to their hotel. “I sure hope Chet and Tony are there,” said Joe.

To their relief, the Hardys found that their two friends had just returned. They were sweaty and disheveled. Tony had a cut on his forehead and Chet was hobbling on one leg.

“It looks as if you'd run into trouble,” Joe remarked in alarm.

“Real trouble,” Chet confessed.

He said that after an hour of cruising, he and Tony had spotted the suspicious blue speedboat and given chase. Suddenly, though the blue craft was outrunning their own, it had turned around and deliberately sideswiped Tony's boat!

“As they went by,” Tony took up the story, “the men in the boat hid their faces.”

“You mean you didn't get a look at them?” Joe asked.

“Not a peek,” Tony replied. “And, boy, did they really let us have it!”

The collision had stove in the side of Tony's boat and disabled the propeller. Both Chet and Tony had been hurled from their seats and almost swept overboard by the speedboat's powerful wake.

“We managed to signal the harbor police by waving our shirts,” Chet said. “They towed us into shore, then went to hunt for the blue boat.”

“Any luck?” asked Frank.

“Not a bit,” Chet replied. “We hung around the dock waiting for word till it got dark, but the police couldn't find any trace of the blue speedboat.”

“I'll bet I know why,” Joe said grimly. “Instead of coming back to port, those men made for an island offshore. That's probably the reason they smashed up Tony's boat—so you couldn't find out which way they were heading.”

For the first time the four friends grinned and Frank said, “But they didn't fool us. Tomorrow we'll get another boat and head north of Cabezona.”

“And now,” said Tony, “tell Chet and me what you fellows have been doing.”

When they heard the Hardys' story, their grins faded, and Chet said woefully, “All I wanted was a ventriloquist's dummy and look what happened!”

After another hour of conversation the four boys went to bed. The next morning they felt none the worse for their previous day's experiences. After a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs, they took a taxi to the boat dock.