The Hunt for Four Brothers (13 page)

“Come on,” Joe said. Running around the perimeter of the fence, they discovered the two pet carriers hidden in the bushes on the other side of the asylum.

“It's Clem and Beau,” Joe shouted, opening the gates to the carriers. The ridgebacks raced out and took off into the woods.

“What were they doing here?” Sandy wondered. “I thought Gus Jons had them.”

Frank rubbed his lower lip. “The husky was confused over which way to go,” Frank said. “Maybe it smelled its master in two directions.”

“Meaning what?” Chet wondered.

“The dog in the asylum may have been a decoy,” Frank guessed. “Follow me.”

“Look!” Chet shouted.

Joe shined his flashlight toward the door. Prossk was sealing off the entrance with a heavy chain and lock. “It was a trap!”

Prossk spotted the Hardys and Chet and ran.

“Where are they going?” Chet asked. “The hole in the fence is on the other side.”

Racing around the perimeter, they saw Prossk duck through a newly cut hole in the barbed wire and shuffle down the sharply angled rock face beyond it.

“Where does that lead?” Frank asked Sandy as they all hurried after Prossk.

“To a narrow trail down the other side of Konawa Mountain and into Timber Gap Valley,” Sandy told him.

Frank noticed the rock gleaming in the moonlight, still slick from the rain the night before.

“Be careful, Joe,” Frank shouted as his brother's feet slipped out from under him.

Joe hit his tailbone hard on the rock and slid down the steep rock face and off the edge. His momentum carried him over the narrow trail and onto an even steeper patch of bare rock.

As he neared the edge of the second rock face, he saw the lights from a few houses in the valley thousands of feet below. He was headed for a sheer cliff! As he slid past a pine sapling growing through a crack in the rocks, Joe reached out and barely grasped it with his fingers.

The force of Joe's momentum nearly uprooted the tiny tree, but it held, leaving Joe dangling off the edge of the sheer drop.

Frank reached the trail and was starting down the steep rock face when Sandy pulled him back.

“There's nothing to brace you,” Sandy warned. “You'll go right over with your brother.”

“We've got to get to him!” Frank shouted.

“See that small pine,” Sandy said, pointing to a tree about twelve feet above where Joe was stranded. “If I anchor us there, we might be able to make a human chain.”

Frank and Chet followed Sandy, forced to move slowly for fear of slipping. Sandy wrapped one arm around the pine, then clutched Chet's forearm. Chet inched down the hill on the seat of his pants, then Frank followed, clinging to his two friends.

“Grab my arm,” Chet said.

Frank shook his head. “I won't be able to reach him. Stretch out, Chet, and I'll hold on to your foot.”

Chet lay out as flat as he could on the rock. Frank grabbed his ankle and reached out his other hand to Joe.

“We have to do this on the first try,” Joe said through clenched teeth as he strained to hold on to the pine sapling.

Frank knew what he meant. Joe was going to have to release his grip and grab Frank's hand in one motion. If he missed . . .

“Okay, Joe, on the count of three,” Frank said.

“Can't wait,” Joe said. He suddenly released the sapling and clutched Frank's wrist, nearly yanking Frank out of Chet's grip.

“Got him?” Sandy called.

“Got him!” Frank shouted back.

Sandy began slowly to pull the human chain up the rock face and to safety. Reaching the narrow trail, they paused to catch their breath.

“This trail winds down all the way to Timber Falls,” Sandy explained.

“Let's go back and get the police,” Chet suggested.

“No time, Chet. We'll be lucky if we can catch Prossk—with the big jump he has on us,” Frank said, then turned to Sandy. “I don't suppose you know of any shortcuts?”

“Only one way we'll catch him,” Sandy said. “The trail winds back and forth. If we go straight down, cutting across the trail, we can get there in half the time.”

“Okay,” Joe said.

“I'll warn you,” Sandy added, “we might kill ourselves doing it. You get going too fast and get out
of control, you could slam into a tree or run right off another ledge.”

“Are we up for it?” Joe asked his companions. Frank nodded and Chet gave him a thumbs-up.

“Spread out and try to stay parallel with each other,” Sandy instructed. “Ready? Go!”

The four friends headed straight down the mountainside, gaining speed. Chet moved out ahead of the others, hurtling out of control.

“Take a seat, Chet!” Sandy called in a whispered shout.

Chet dropped onto the seat of his pants and slowed his descent. Frank and Joe did the same.

They had crisscrossed the regular trail three times when Frank's shoulder caught a tree branch, spinning him around and sending him headfirst down the mountainside. He finally landed with a thud on the trail.

Joe, Chet, and Sandy stopped to help Frank to his feet. “Are you all right,” Joe asked. Frank nodded, wiping the mud off his face.

“Look, we caught up to him!” Chet exclaimed, pointing to the next bend in the trail. Prossk was fording a fast-moving stream, just below a two-hundred-foot waterfall.

“That's Timber Falls,” Sandy said as they ran down the trail.

Splashing into the waist-deep ice-cold water, Joe saw a mountain road beyond the stream. Waiting
there was Milo Flatts, who jumped out of a truck and waded into the water.

Prossk suddenly stumbled, and Joe jumped on his back, Chet grabbed his arm, and Sandy tackled him around the legs, bringing the huge man crashing down.

Meanwhile, Frank reached the center of the stream, which was up to his shoulders. Stepping back into shallower water, he waited for Flatts. Frank's mobility was much greater in the shallower water, and as Flatts took a swing, Frank easily dodged it and punched back, catching Flatts over his left eye.

Flatts fell back into the water. When he stood up, he had a smooth rock in his hand and swung again, narrowly missing Frank's head. Frank then lunged headfirst into Flatts's side, sending them both into a strong current that began carrying them downstream.

“Watch the cascades!” Sandy shouted, but Frank was underwater and didn't hear him.

Frank spotted a huge rock in the middle of the rapids, and at the last moment pushed off Flatts with his feet, sending Flatts to the left and over a sharp drop-off and himself to the right, where the rapids fell off more gradually.

•   •   •

Back upstream, Prossk caught Sandy with an elbow to the back of the neck that forced Sandy to
release his grip. Thrashing back and forth, Prossk threw off Chet, then toppled over with Joe still on his back.

Joe and his adversary got caught in the current and pulled downstream. As Joe popped his head above the surface, he saw what Sandy had warned Frank about. The streambed dropped at a steep angle, creating whitewater rapids that descended two hundred feet into a pool below.

Having watched his brother, Joe tried to do the same and push Prossk toward the steeper drop. Prossk caught on and fought against him. Joe made a desperate move. As Prossk tried to push him toward the steep drop, he resisted, then pulled in the same direction Prossk was pushing.

Prossk moved off balance and was driven straight into the rock, knocking him senseless. Joe tumbled headfirst over the drop and found himself being churned beneath the surface of an eddy. He tried to swim out, but churning water kept sucking him back into it. Joe then straightened out his body and lay horizontal to the surface. A moment later he was spit out of the eddy and sent sliding down the cascade and into the pool below.

•   •   •

Frank had his knee squarely on Milo Flatts's back, pinning the bruised and battered robber to the ground at the edge of the pool.

Meanwhile Joe saw Vladimir Prossk floating facedown
and dragged him to the edge of the pool. He was unconscious, but alive.

Sandy and Chet hurried down along the shore of the cascades and helped Frank subdue Flatts.

“Congratulations, boys,” Sandy said. “Looks like you're heroes.”

“I wouldn't say that,” a voice called from the other side of the pool.

Gus Jons and Tony Alvaro stood in front of Alvaro's car, which was parked in a scenic turn out off the mountain road. His rifle was trained on Frank and his Doberman stood at his side, growling.

“If you would let my friend up, we'll be moseying along,” he told Frank.

Frank had no choice and began to help Flatts to his feet.

Suddenly two red hulks came leaping over the roof of Alvaro's car. The first landed on Alvaro's back. As Jons turned, the second jumped onto his head, knocking the rifle from his hands.

“Clem and Beau!” Frank shouted.

Jons fended the dog off with one hand while he reached for his rifle with the other.

“Uh-uh,” Rob Daniels said as he rounded the back of Alvaro's car and grabbed the rifle.

“Call him off!” Alvaro whined as he huddled against the car, shielding himself from Beau. Jons pushed Clem away and went for Daniels, who
caught him square in the mouth with the butt of the rifle. Jons dropped like a rock.

“That's for stealing my dogs,” Daniels said to the unconscious lieutenant. Daniels looked sternly at Frank and Joe Hardy, and for the first time he smiled. “Good to see you boys.”

“Good to see you, Mr. Daniels,” Joe said, then looked at his brother and smiled.

•   •   •

“The four brothers,” Agent Anderson said, displaying the four gems to Chet and the Hardys back at the lobby of the inn. “Take a good look. It's the last time you'll see them outside of the Kormia National Museum.”

Outside in the parking lot, Frank saw officers placing the three handcuffed robbers and their fence into separate squad cars. “I hope we won't see them again, either,” Frank remarked.

“Joe, you're alive!” Katie Haskell shouted as she and some other staffers walked into the lobby. “And Chet and Frank, too,” she added.

“Did you solve your soap mystery?” Julia Tilford joked, nudging Phil Dietz, who laughed.

“Actually, we did,” Joe replied, smiling back at them.

“You boys did some amazing things,” Craven said, patting Chet on the shoulder. “And if you promise
not
to do any more of them, I'll let you keep your summer jobs.”

“Maybe they should start with a day off,” Sandy suggested.

“No, sir, we'll be ready to work bright and early,” Joe assured him. “Maintainence will be a walk in the park after this.”

“I think Chet's the one who deserves the day off,” Frank suggested. “He's slept only a few hours in the last two days.”

“That's okay,” chet replied. “You thought working here would be bad for my diet, but between all the running around and having no time to eat or sleep, I've dropped five pounds!”

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.

First Published as a MINSTREL PAPERBACK
Original

ALADDIN PAPERBACKS

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Copyright © 1999 by Simon & Schuster Inc.

Front cover illustration by Broeck Steadman

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ISBN: 0-671-02550-3

ISBN-13: 978-1-4424-9889-1 (eBook)

First printing March 1999

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