The Number File (4 page)

"Grab my hand!" a voice ordered as the boat pulled beside them. "Come on, son, I've got you," said one man as he grabbed Frank and pulled him up over the side of the boat. "You next, friend," another man said.

"Easy does it!" the first voice said. "You boys all right?" And before anybody could answer, he added, "Just lie there and take it easy."

Both Joe and Frank could tell from the crew's brisk, precise movements that they'd gone through this drill often. The uniforms on the crew members and the blinking blue and red light on the stern told the Hardys they were aboard a police boat. Joe spoke first. "So what happened after I took cover?"

"I tossed the bomb and then realized that the porthole was closed," said Frank. "The bomb must have exploded just before it hit the porthole — it blew the glass right out and then released its full force outside the boat."

"Yeah," Joe agreed, "that must be why the room wasn't trashed more than it was." He shook his head. "Good timing. A few seconds sooner and the bomb would have bounced off that glass right back at you. A few seconds later would have been too late."

"I took a dive for the corner just after I threw the bomb," Frank explained. "I didn't have time to get into the closet, but I was able to yank the door open. And then the lights went out."

The two had almost forgotten they were surrounded by a small group of police and Coast Guard. One of them leaned over to question the brothers. His eyes narrowed and he stared directly at Frank. "Now, why were you trying to plant a bomb on Martin Powers's boat?"

"Are you kidding?" Joe said, exasperated. "We were trying to get the bomb off the boat."

"How did you know there was a bomb on the boat?" the harbor policeman continued.

"I tripped over it," Joe confessed, before he realized how silly it sounded.

"Just what were you doing on the boat?"

But before Joe could answer, the police boat had reached the pier and the two brothers were helped onto the dock, where a few curious onlookers had gathered. Six or seven people stood around immediately in front of them, one taking pictures. Someone shouted from the back of the small group, "Arrest these two! Arrest them! They blew up my partner's boat! They've killed him!"

"Oh, no," Frank said. "Here we go again." He could see the man's fist waving above the heads of the others.

"Arrest them," the stranger kept insisting.

"No need to worry, we've got them now, and we'll take care of them," one of the officers said as he handcuffed the two brothers.

"Hold it," Joe objected, turning his head away from the blinding flashes of the photographer's camera. "We didn't do anything." But no one listened.

Then the stranger, a squat man with bushy, steel-gray eyebrows, emerged from the back of the small crowd. "Lock them up!" he yelled, staring at the two of them as he moved closer.

Joe immediately recognized the well-dressed, gray-haired man from the photos he had been looking at earlier that same day. "Kruger!" he shouted.

The sinister-looking German curled the corner of his lip into an evil smile. "Yes, Kruger — Bernhard Kruger." He let out a short laugh, and then turned and walked toward the burning boat.

"He's the one that should be arrested!" Joe yelled, pointing into the crowd. But no one was listening as he and Frank were being towed toward the waiting police car. Joe was furious. "Wait a minute!" he objected, struggling to turn around. But as he looked back, he saw that Kruger had disappeared into the curious crowd.

Joe and Frank were quickly checked by one of the medics who had arrived and then were escorted into the waiting patrol car. As they were pulling away, they turned and could still see the glow from the fire. Fifteen minutes after their ordeal the two Hardys were sitting in the St. George police station, wrapped in blankets and drinking hot tea.

Joe and Frank sipped their tea and explained to the officers who they were, what they were doing on the boat, and what their connection was with Kruger.

Within a few minutes a heavy set, dark-skinned man with short, curly hair that looked as if it had been flecked with white entered the small interrogation room. "I'm Captain Hodges," he said to the Hardys. He listened to the boys' story from his chief officer, then immediately called Chief Boulton.

"George Hodges here," the brothers heard him say. "Sorry to ring so late, but we had a little fire here on the docks. I have a couple of kids with me who claim to be friends of yours."

Joe put his face in his hands as he listened to Chief Hodges explain the situation to Chief Boulton in Hamilton. "Great!" he mumbled. "We managed to get arrested not once, but twice in less than a week."

"We haven't arrested you—yet," Captain Hodges said as he hung up the phone. This time he finished his comment with a broad smile. "You're just here for questioning. It seems your story checks out. Your identification looks legitimate. I suggest you lay these out overnight on some paper toweling," he said as he returned the Hardys' ID cards. "And I think once you fill out some papers and sign a statement, we can let you go."

"You mean we're being released?" Frank asked, still somewhat dazed.

"Yes," Hodges assured them. "But remember that even the famous Hardy brothers can be arrested for trespassing and illegal entry."

The brothers nodded, aware that he could have detained them if he wanted.

"Chief Boulton asked me to tell you to watch out for yourselves," Hodges said with a smile. Joe grinned and shifted in his seat.

"But," he said softly, his tone turning more serious, "I also have some bad news. Walt Conway, a detective from our force, wasn't so lucky. He was shot this afternoon and is in critical condition."

"Shot?" both brothers chorused.

"He was ambushed a couple of hours ago as he was getting out of his car in front of his home."

"Did they catch the guy?" Joe asked.

"All we know is that there were probably two men. An eyewitness said the shooter's car pulled away at just about the same time the shot was fired, so we assume one person drove while another handled the gun." His chest heaved as he took a long breath. "The doctors removed one slug from him — a twenty-two."

Hodges paused a second to reflect on the outbreak of violence on his usually peaceful island. "These incidents are starting to get out of hand. And if they are all related as you say—" He paused again, shaking his head in frustration. "If only we could get something on this Kruger fellow."

It was almost midnight when the boys drove up to the Montague house on their mopeds. Alicia was up, waiting at the screen door. She was standing rigid, pale and distraught. "Are you all right? I heard what happened on the news. When I called the Saint George police, they said you had already left. I thought Dad might be with you. Was he in the explosion?"

"Whoa," Frank said, interrupting her. The boys were still standing outside. "Slow down. May we come in?"

Alicia didn't realize that she was blocking the doorway. "I'm sorry. Come in, sit down." Although normally in control, Alicia was terribly excited and tense now. "I'm so worried," she confessed. "Did you see Dad? He hasn't come home. And he was supposed to have been at that boat that blew up. I'm terrified something's happened to him!"

"We didn't see him. But I'm sure he's fine." Joe tried to sound very confident. "He wasn't on the boat — I'm positive." He was worried about Alicia's father, and almost forgot that Montague might have been the one who tried to have them killed!

"Let's change our clothes," Frank suggested, still damp from their evening plunge. "And then we'll go out and see if we can find him." But he knew that with nothing to go on, their search would probably be fruitless.

"Did you call the police?" Joe asked.

"I mentioned it when I spoke with the Saint George police, but they didn't know anything. And if the Hamilton police knew something happened to Dad, they'd call me." Alicia sounded much calmer now.

"Shh!" Joe said, interrupting her. "I heard a noise outside."

The three listened in silence.

"Sounds like we have visitors," Frank said. "Maybe our friend from the boat wants a second chance."

Joe reacted quickly. "I'll go out the back and circle around."

"Go upstairs," Frank whispered to Alicia.

"But what's going on?"

"I'll explain later." He moved quietly toward the front door.

Alicia backed up the stairs as Frank positioned himself behind the front door. He could hear someone approaching the house very slowly.

Joe peered out from around the side of the house. He moved forward silently and crouched behind a low bush on the side of the driveway as he watched someone crawl along toward the front door. The person, on all fours, was moving stealthily across the front lawn.

Joe stole out from behind the bush, then sneaked around behind the prowler and moved up on him without a sound. With the accuracy of a mountain cat, he lunged forward, knocking the man flat.

"Got you!"

Frank burst through the front door, ready to help.

But the man trapped under Joe wasn't putting up a fight at all. He just lay there, motionless. Joe had lifted himself off the limp body and was flipping the man onto his back as Alicia thrust her head out an upstairs window.

She screamed. Frank looked up at her silhouette in the window, then turned back to Joe when he heard his brother gasp. Joe's prisoner was Alfred Montague!

"MONTAGUE! CAN YOU hear me?" Joe asked the semiconscious man.

Frank turned to see if Alicia was still at the upstairs window. But she was already at the front door, running toward them.

"Oh, no!" Alicia exclaimed as she saw the limp body of her father. "He's bleeding!"

Blood trickled down the side of Montague's face from a cut just above his left eye; his eye was swollen and turning black and blue. His chin was cut but had stopped bleeding. Montague's eyelids began to flutter open.

"He's coming to," Joe reported.

"Let's get him into the house." Frank took Montague by the legs while Joe carefully lifted the wounded man under the shoulders. Alicia wanted to help, so she ran ahead and propped open the front door, then cleared off the living-room sofa. "Put him right here."

They laid him down on the couch, propping his head up with one of the cushions. Alicia went to get some water and a washcloth. Besides the bruises on his face, he had a large lump on the back of his head, and a two-inch spot of his hair was matted down with dried blood.

Returning from the kitchen Alicia asked, "Is he all right?" There was a slight tremor in her voice.

"I don't think there are any broken bones," Joe announced, "and hopefully no internal injuries."

Montague lay still, moving only his eyes. Although fully conscious, he still looked dazed and bewildered. "What happened?"

"That's what we were going to ask you," said Frank. "Boy, that must have been some fight!"

"I don't remember any fight," Montague wheezed. "I just remember being hit on the head and then waking up on the front lawn with everything hurting. I don't know if someone was trying to kill me or not."

"I don't think so," Joe said. "If someone had been trying to kill you, you'd have more than a bump on the head. It looks to me as if someone wanted to teach you a lesson — "

"Or make you look bad," Frank added.

"Dad — "

"I'll be all right, honey. Now, don't you worry." Montague tried to calm Alicia. His words were clear, and they all knew he hadn't been badly hurt. He then turned his attention to Frank and Joe. "What happened to you fellows?"

"Never mind us, what happened to you?" It had been a trying day — an endless day — a day that was making even Frank impatient to find answers.

"I went out to try to help you fellows after I heard you were kidnapped."

"Heard what?" Frank and Joe said together.

"I received a phone call when we got home from our five o'clock appointment. The voice — some man's, I didn't recognize it — said the two of you had been kidnapped and that if I didn't believe him, he would send me Frank's ring—still attached to his finger. He told me to meet them at the Gibbs Hill Lighthouse, alone."

"Then?" Frank asked.

"Well, I don't remember exactly what he said, but I just assumed it would have taken more than one person to subdue both of you. Anyway, I drove out to the lighthouse without even telling Alicia, and as I was waiting, someone cracked me on the head. That's the last thing I remember until I woke up on the front lawn."

Frank hesitated a minute, unsure whether Montague was a victim or a mastermind. He brought out the credit card Joe had found. Frank knew the card had been found before Montague's abduction, but he wanted to hear his host's reaction—or excuse. "Did you lose your Bank Eurocard?" he asked, trying not to make it sound like an accusation.

"Don't know," Montague replied. "Let me check my wallet." He reached beneath him as if he were going to pull his wallet from his back pocket, but his hand returned empty. "I seem to have lost my entire wallet," he said. "I could have lost it at any time today, because I don't know when I checked it last."

Joe's mouth tightened as he listened to Montague speak. Frank could see that Joe was having difficulty believing Montague, and although Frank really liked the man, he didn't know what to think.

"We'd better call the police," Joe said after Montague had finished his story.

"No," Montague said. "There's nothing they can do now. And I'm too tired to handle any questions right now anyway."

Frank and Joe tried to convince Montague to call them, but their host insisted on leaving the police out of it. "I'm going to bed now," he announced, rising suddenly from the couch. He turned and walked toward the stairway.

Alicia jumped up and went over to her father, gently taking his arm above the elbow. "See you in the morning, boys," she said, helping her father up the stairs.

"What do you think?" Joe asked his brother.

"I don't know what to think," Frank admitted. "His bruises were real, that's for sure."

"I think it's time to check out this house. If Montague's involved in any of this, there might be a clue."