Countdown to Terror (3 page)

Dundee had just turned onto a busy road. They were jammed in the middle of traffic now.

"We can't bail out here," Joe said. "Where does this road go?"

"Straight to the bridge," Dundee said, his voice tight. "If we blow up anywhere along here, we'll take dozens of people with us."

Frank's eyes darted right and left. "Can't we turn off and head for someplace less congested?"

Dundee shrugged. "We can try to turn left up here—if we don't get killed by the bridge traffic."

He was going to try for the left-hand lane, but a car screeched up beside theirs just then, cutting them off. The bridge toll stations were ahead of them now. They were stuck on the bridge, like it or not.

Frank turned to the left and stared at the passenger in the car that cut them off. He looked familiar. Frank placed him almost immediately. He was the guy with the mustache and turban he'd seen hurrying for a phone in the airport. It was definitely the same guy.

Now Mr. Mustache held up a small box with a whip-aerial and a button on it. The message was clear. This was the detonator for the bomb they had on board.

"I don't think they're going to blow us up as long as we're good boys," Frank said. "That guy hasn't made a move to touch the button."

"That wouldn't be smart, with us right beside him," Joe pointed out. "I don't think it would do the bridge much good, either."

"I think they're just going to use it as a threat to get us to park someplace nice and quiet where they can question us, but about what I don't know."

Frank sounded calm, but his brain was churning furiously, trying to come up with a way out of this death trap. Right then, he reasoned, they did have one slim advantage. The enemy, whoever they were, didn't want them dead — at least not yet.

"If we let them pace us all the way, we'll never have a chance of escaping," he said. "Sergeant, can you get ahead of them?"

"On a jam-packed bridge?" Dundee asked. But he nodded his head, realizing they might be able to use the distance. "I'll do my best."

A tiny opening developed in the left-hand lane, ahead of their pursuers. Gerry Dundee shouldered his car into it. Then he darted back into another small open spot in the lane next to it, earning a blast on the horn from the driver he had cut off.

They'd gained a bare car length, but the pursuit car was having a hard time catching up. Drivers who've been cut off once aren't willing to let it happen again soon.

Dundee continued to weave through the heavy traffic. It was slow going, pulling a half a car length here, a half a car length there. But as the far end of the bridge came up, they were still within plain sight of their pursuers.

The pursuit car pulled over to the right-hand lane to be in the same one as Dundee. The older policeman grinned.

"Good. They think I'm going to make the right off the bridge and take the underpass to Barrington Street. Well, they're in for a surprise."

He accelerated past the turnoff and whipped into the left lane. Then he made a wild left turn, nearly getting clipped by a horrified van driver. "Get ready to jump, boys," Dundee said as he jockeyed the wheel. "This street dead-ends into a sort of park that should be deserted now."

Frank and Joe saw the greenery up ahead as Dundee swerved to the right side of the road. "Get while the getting's good!" he yelled, jamming on the brakes.

The Hardys jumped. Dundee brought the car around in a screeching U-turn, pretending that he'd just discovered the road didn't go through.

Then the pursuit car rolled up to block the open end of the street.

Gerry Dundee was already halfway out of the car, with one foot on the pavement.

Mr. Mustache must have hit the button, because two seconds later the unmarked car blew up.

Frank and Joe were staggered by the blast. It tore the hood off the engine and shattered the windshield. It also tossed Gerry Dundee like a rag doll in a tornado.

He flew across the street, arms flailing, and landed hard on the grassy ground near the Hardys.

Joe stared at the man lying unmoving near his feet. Frank was looking at the guys in the pursuit car. Apparently they decided they'd called too much attention to themselves. With a screech of rubber, they peeled out and away from there.

Frank turned to his brother, who was kneeling beside Dundee. "Don't try to move him," he said, putting a hand on Joe's arm to stop him. "He may have internal injuries—and we don't want to make a bad situation worse."

Dundee had landed half on his side, half on his stomach, his arm twisted under him. His face lay in the dirt. Slowly, painfully, he turned his head around. Spotting Frank, he sucked in a shallow breath.

At first Frank thought Dundee was just wheezing. Then he realized Dundee was trying to tell him something. "Easy, easy," he said, dropping down to his knees beside the injured man. "Don't move around."

Gerry Dundee ignored him, trying to twist around, trying to talk. Half the man's face was bruised and beginning to swell. He winced as he coughed — it sounded more like a death rattle. Frank had horrible visions of broken ribs and vulnerable lungs as Dundee kept mouthing words at him. He had no breath to sustain an actual sound.

To try to stop him, Frank brought his ear close to Dundee's mouth. Even then he could barely understand what the old cop was gasping out.

"Listen ... important," Dundee said. "Found out ... where ... are." He glared at Frank, his eyes blazing for a moment as he tried to force the words out before his body betrayed him. "Find them ... Fort ... "

The effort was too much. Gerry Dundee's eyes rolled up, and the tautness went out of his muscles. He sagged down into the grass.

Frank and Joe stared at each other. He'd left them a world of trouble, a desperate need to get help—and half a clue.

THE HARDYS STOOD surrounded by a sea of blue uniforms in the waiting room of the Camp Hill Hospital. They all wanted word of Gerry Dundee. Instead of a white-coated surgeon, however, a guy in a suit separated himself from the figures in police blue to talk to the boys. He didn't need to present his ID and badge. Everything about him said plainclothes cop.

"What can we do for you, Detective Otley?" Frank asked, glancing at the man's identification. He and Joe knew only too well what was coming.

"It's a shame about poor Gerry," Otley told them. "My father worked with him once. He was a legend on the waterfront — nothing went on there that he didn't know about." The police officer shook his head again. "Those days are long past now."

Otley looked at them with about four thousand questions in his eyes. "Now, about this report you gave the uniformed officers," he went on. "You said you reported being attacked on the road from the airport. I've checked, and we have no record of any such report."

Frank shrugged. "I was asking Sergeant Dundee about that when we realized there was a bomb in his car."

The detective gave them a sharp glance. "That's another part of your story I'd like to hear more about. I'm sure you know that Gerry Dundee is semiretired, working only as our insurance liaison. He wasn't even investigating any large cases. So why would anyone plant a bomb in his car?"

"Maybe he wasn't investigating anything officially," Joe said, "but something must have been up. "Take a look at the car — that damage didn't happen because he'd forgotten to change his oil filter."

They spent another hour talking with Otley, then the news came from surgery. "Sergeant Dundee is in very critical condition," the doctor said. "We've moved him to the intensive care unit."

"He's not conscious yet?" Otley asked.

The doctor shook his head. "At this point, it's touch and go whether he'll ever regain consciousness."

Otley and the Hardys decided there was nothing they could do and began to leave. Frank looked at the detective. "How about what Dundee said after the explosion?" he asked. "I could hardly make out the words, but it was something about finding someone at a fort."

Detective Otley bit back a laugh. "Halifax was the main British base in eastern Canada. This area is crawling with forts."

Frank and Joe were silent as Otley gave them a lift. They'd given him the name of a different hotel — the Cavalier — and all the way there, they looked back for tails.

After registering, Frank said, "Well, if they're not going to check out the forts, I guess we will."

The next morning found the boys buying new clothes — they had left their luggage at the first hotel. Frank spent time the night before with a map and guide to Halifax, choosing sites. "We'll work our way back," he said. "Our first stop is Fort Needham Park."

They found the park easily enough, perched on top of a high hill. But they didn't find a fort — just a brass plaque, indicating that a fort had once stood there.

Joe stared around. "Somehow, I don't think this is the fort Dundee meant. I'd have a hard time imagining the bad guys hanging out here," he said, gesturing to a playground.

Frank was looking at the strange monument that stood in the middle of the park, a thirty-foot-long cement wall with an arch and old-fashioned church bells hanging from it. He and Joe went over to check it out.

"It's a monument to the Imo disaster," he said, reading a plaque. "Back in World War I, a ship full of artillery shells collided with a ship, the Imo, in the harbor here." The park had a perfect view of the waterway out of the harbor.

"According to one of the guidebooks I read last night, a quarter of the city was destroyed. The whole area behind us was blown flat."

Joe looked back along the quiet streets lined with neat houses made of concrete block. "Yeah — those houses all look like they were built at the same time," he said. "That must have been quite a blast."

Frank nodded. "It was the biggest man-made explosion until the atomic bomb went off over Hiroshima." He shook his head. "They found pieces of wreckage twenty miles away."

"Well, that's interesting, but we are looking for a fort," Joe said. "Where do we go now?"

Frank told him and then led the way down Gottingen Street to central Halifax. It must once have been a bustling shopping area, but now many of the stores were boarded up, and others looked pretty seedy. Then they began climbing again, a different hill, steeper than the first. Joe read a sign that said The Citadel.

"This is the biggest of the old fortifications," Frank said. "I think we should check it out."

"But wouldn't he have said citadel instead of fort?" Joe asked.

The wound their way up a path that climbed the hill. Slowly the fortress came into view. The outside of the wall was a grassy hill, which protected the inside granite wall from cannon fire. Frank and Joe joined a stream of tourists entering through the only gate, a thin bridge across a ditch.

"Quite a place," Joe said, looking around the stone walls, which butted up to the hill.

"Complete with Hungry Guardsmen," Frank said, watching as a file of red-coated young soldiers in kilts came marching up. Another young soldier not in formation walked by just then and stopped beside them.

"You've been to the Hungry Guardsman?" he asked, smiling. "It's one of our favorite hangouts—out of uniform, that is." He glanced down at his finery. "When school's on we go there for lunch."

"School?" Joe asked.

"You didn't think we were full-time soldiers, did you?" the young corporal asked. "This is a summer job, to help pay for college." He grinned under his jaunty Scots highland bonnet. "We study the drillbooks from 1869 and our routines are completely authentic. Watch us put on our show." He pulled out an old-fashioned pocket watch. "And you should stay for the firing of the noon gun."

Another officer strolled over. "Corporal Bell, shouldn't you be at your post?"

Bell snapped to attention. "Yes, sir!" He trotted off to join the marching troops.

Lining up, the summer soldiers went through the drill of loading and firing their weapons like well-trained professionals. The crowd was firing away, too, clicking cameras like mad.

"That must take a lot of practice," Joe said, watching as the troopers reloaded and fired again. Even though they were firing blanks, the sharp crack of the volleys was pretty deafening.

"There sure is a crowd," Frank said. "I don't think the guys we're looking for would hang around — "

He bit off his words suddenly as he recognized a face and turban at the edge of the crowd. It was the guy from the airport and the pursuit car, Mr. Mustache.

Apparently, he realized he'd been spotted. As the Hardys tried to push their way to him, he was already moving across the drill grounds, heading for the ramp up to the earthen parapets of the fort. Once on top he ducked to the left, disappearing behind the roof of the powder magazine, the room where explosives were stored.

Frank and Joe ran after him, but when they reached the top of the ramp, they didn't see the white turban.

"He can't have gone far," Joe said. "But those crowds are blocking the way around to the other walls."

Frank nodded. "Looks like the noon gun is about to be setoff."

More student-soldiers had appeared, these in dark blue uniforms with pillbox caps. They were wheeling back a cannon at the far edge of the wall, preparing it to be fired.

"I don't see him in the crowd," Joe said. "So where is he?"

Frank was staring thoughtfully along the top ridge of the earthen fortification. Two holes broke the line of the wall. Apparently they were dugout rooms that burrowed down into the hillside.

Joe followed his brother's gaze. "Let's check 'em out."

The entrance to the first dugout was locked, but the door to the second one lay open. They went down a couple of steps, through a doorway, and into a cramped stone room like a cellar. There was a large sign warning troops not to smoke or carry lit matches into this ammunition room. Joe was just peering into a separate chamber beyond when the door slammed shut behind them.

Frank pounded once on the door before realizing that it opened inward. But when he pulled the latch, the door didn't open either. It had been jammed shut.

Still heaving at-the door, Frank said, "Joe, look in that other room and see if there's anything we can use for a tool."