Shadows at Predator Reef (10 page)

“You okay?” I asked my brother.

“Relatively,” he groaned.

“Then let's get out of here,” I said.

The door had slammed shut in the collision. I lifted myself up and gave it a shove. And another. And another.

“Um, Frank, I think we have a problem.”

The door wouldn't budge. Frank gave it a try. No dice.

“Okay, on three,” he said.

“One . . . two . . . three!” We both shoved against the door with everything we had. But we might as well have been trying to push over the Empire State Building for all the good it did us.

I looked around the old container. Some light, and thankfully air, seeped in through small holes in its rusted side, but that was about all there was to see. It was sealed tight, with no way in or out except for the jammed-shut metal doors. It was also getting unbearably hot.

“If we're in here for too long, we'll either suffocate or bake to death,” Frank said.

“Great,” I said. “This case is determined to do me in one way or another.”

Just then I heard the scraping of metal against metal outside the door, like someone was trying to pry it open. Frank and I exchanged a glance. Apparently our would-be killer wasn't content to wait for us to suffocate to
death. He or she was going to break into the container and finish the job.

I scoped out the space for weapons to defend ourselves with. Nada. The only things inside the big metal box were two battered investigators and a whole lot of dust.

“If he has a gun, we're in trouble,” I said. I always liked the Hardy boys' chances in a fight, but our wits and fists wouldn't do us much good if the bad guy had a weapon.

“Let's spread out,” Frank said, and I nodded.

“No reason to give him an easy target.”

Our attacker wouldn't know where we were, so he or she would have to take a second to assess the situation before launching an attack.

“And as soon as the door is opened . . . ,” Frank began.

“We charge,” I finished.

Frank and I braced ourselves, ready to rush the door like a couple of linebackers going for a quarterback sack. There was a clank followed by a clatter, and then the door swung open. A tall figure stood silhouetted in the doorway, holding what looked like a tire iron.

The first thing that registered was that he or she wasn't carrying a gun. The second was that the person appeared to be wearing a well-tailored suit. I knew it! Bishop!

I was about to charge when the figure stepped under the light. I was so surprised I stopped in my tracks. The man standing in the doorway of the container wasn't wearing a suit.

He was wearing a tuxedo.

It wasn't Bishop. It was Jonathan.

We'd been a little suspicious of Mr. V's butler, but I don't think either of us had really thought he was the criminal mastermind we were after. And, as we were about to find out, there was a good reason for that.

“If I had known I was going to have to rescue you, I would have worn a different tuxedo,” Jonathan said.

Frank and I both relaxed, abandoning our planned charge. Jonathan wasn't there to hurt us. He was there to help us. Mr. V had been right about his butler's loyalty. Jonathan was one of the good guys.

“I overheard your conversation at the construction site and thought I might be able to provide some assistance,” he said.

“It's a good thing you did, or we might have ended up rotting inside this thing like a couple of canned sardines,” I said.

“But if you weren't the one operating the crane, who was?” Frank asked.

“And more importantly,” I added, “where are they now?”

We were about to find that out too.

“Now if the young detectives will gather themselves, I think we have a turtle to find . . . ungh . . .”

Jonathan let out a moan and crumpled into a heap on the floor before he was able to finish. The tire iron clattered to the ground beside him in the doorway.

Someone standing in the shadows had just cracked Jonathan over the head with the butt of a flare gun.

I was so mad I couldn't even think straight. If Bishop had managed to get the best of us again, I was going to—

“I guess the old man knew what he was doing after all when he hired a couple of kids to find the thief,” the villain said, stepping out of the shadows and into the light.

It turned out Carter had been right about the turtle-napper having a funny accent. Only it wasn't the one we were expecting.

“It's unfaahtunate yu'aah nevaah going to get the oppaahtunity to shaah what yuh discovaahd.”

That's how Ron Burris sounded when he said it in his thick New England accent—the one that Carter had mistaken for British.

W
E'D BEEN SO QUICK TO
let our dislike for Dirk Bishop cloud our judgment that we'd automatically assumed that he was the accented kidnapper Carter had described. Two of the things our father, legendary detective Fenton Hardy, always tried to teach us about detecting are not to let your personal feelings about someone influence an investigation and never jump to conclusions without evidence. We'd done both, and now we were caught at the end of a flare gun because of it. I could only hope it wouldn't prove to be a fatal error.

If I'd taken more time to think about it, I might have realized that Carter could have mistaken the cadence of a thick New England accent for a proper English one. On the
surface they may not sound the same, but there are definite similarities in the way Englanders and New Englanders drop some of their
R
s. It is called New England, after all. So it made sense that someone with an untrained ear might mix them up, especially if the voice was filtered through a distorter.

Not that any of that did us much good now that we were staring down the barrel of Ron Burris's flare gun.

Flare guns may not contain bullets, but fired at close range, one could be just as deadly. Not only did it shoot a large gunpowder-propelled projectile, it was designed to burst into flames. If it didn't kill us on impact, it would burn us to a crisp. Either way, we were basically toast if he decided to pull the trigger.

The best thing to do when you find yourself cornered by an armed assailant is to keep them talking to buy yourself time.

“You're not going to get away with this,” I said, hoping I sounded more confident than I felt.

“Sure I am,” he said. “Who's going to stop me? A couple of kids and an unconscious butler?”

He gave Jonathan's body a kick in the side. “I never liked you anyway, by the way.”

“You want to come over here and try that on someone who can kick back?” Joe challenged.

Ron laughed. “Thanks for the offer, kid, but I'll pass. Why fight fair when you're the one holding the gun?”

I was disliking Ron Burris more and more by the minute.

“I have to say, though, I'm impressed,” he said. “You made it a lot farther than I thought you would.”

“Don't count us out yet,” I told him.

“Tough talk, but I'm the one holding the gun, and . . .” Burris looked down at his watch. “Everything is right on schedule. In a few minutes, the turtle will be setting sail, and there's not a thing you can do about it.”

“Where are you taking her?”

“To a land far away where rich people pay ridiculous sums of money for specimens as rare and interesting as our Captain Hook.”

“You can't put her on a cargo ship! She may never survive the journey!” I said, but it only got worse.

“Unfortunately, you're right, but it's a risk I'm willing to take. My profit margin will take a big hit if she doesn't make it alive, but I can still make a nice score selling what's left of her to a traditional medicine trader, so it wouldn't be a total loss.”

This was one of our worst fears: Captain Hook chopped up into parts.

“How can you even think about doing that? She's a living, breathing animal!” I shouted.

“She's also a very valuable commodity. Bradley might be happy throwing away millions and playing zookeeper, but I signed up for this job to make money, not lose it,” Burris said, his tone growing harsher when he started talking about
Mr. V. “We're supposed to be running a business, not a charity, and not a personal piggy bank to fund the boss's childish hobbies. While the great Bradley Valledor is running around building his own private Sea World, our corporate profits are taking a beating. That means my bonuses are down along with the value of my stock options.”

Burris gestured with the flare gun while he spoke.

“Which wouldn't be as bad if he treated me with some respect. I'm supposed to be a partner by now, not some underpaid, glorified gofer.”

“Aw, poor you,” Joe said. “It's still better than you deserve.”

“Not so poor anymore,” Ron shot back. “I've been looking for a chance to branch out on my own, and if Bradley isn't going to pay me what I'm worth, then I'll just have to get a little entrepreneurial.”

“What you're doing isn't entrepreneurial, it's criminal,” I said.

Burris shrugged. “You say turtle, I say turtle soup. With the money I get for this, I can kick my job to the curb and start my own PR firm. I saw an opportunity and I took it. It's just good business.”

“It's good businessmen like you who are destroying our planet,” I said.

“Not my problem, but hey, if it makes you feel better, I'll make a donation to the World Wildlife Fund in your name.”

“You're a real class act,” Joe muttered.

“I'm also about to be CEO of my own company,” Burris retorted. “It's a trade-off I can live with.”

“You're a disgrace to everything Mr. V believes in. I can't believe he would have been foolish enough to trust you with his plans,” I said to Burris.

“Trust me? I'm surprised he hasn't fired me. He's rejected just about every piece of advice I've given him for months. Well, if he doesn't appreciate my talents, fine. I may not be a famous architect, but I've been in this business long enough to know my way around a blueprint. I had a hunch something funny was going on during the exhibit's construction, so I dug a bit deeper. You boys aren't the only ones around here who can play detective.”

I really hated being compared to a scumbag like Burris. But if the guy was going to lay out his confession, I wasn't about to stop him.

“It's his own fault, really,” Burris went on talking. “I've been warning Bradley about being more careful with his online security for years. But I'm just his PR director, what do I know about these things?” He chuckled. “It didn't take me long to hack into his computer, and there it was, his whole plan laid out for me like an all-you-can-eat endangered turtle buffet. I've got to give it to him, though. For a stubborn old fool, he really is a genius. Then again, so am I. I mean, he's the one at home sobbing into his giant fish tank, while I'm about to make a killing off his precious turtle.”

I couldn't take it anymore. One more word out of Burris's smug grill and I was going to lose it. “Pretty proud of yourself, abducting a helpless animal, huh?”

“Yes, I am, thank you,” Burris said. “In fact, I've already started ordering furniture for my new office to celebrate.”

So that was the call Burris had taken outside the aquarium. He hadn't been discussing a client at all. This guy had been shameless, pretending to be concerned about Captain Hook one minute and buying office furniture with turtle blood money the next.

“Getting a little ahead of yourself, don't you think?” Joe said. “You know the saying about not counting your turtles before they hatch?”

“Clever.” Burris smiled. “But you're right. That's why I'm not leaving anything else to chance.”

He held up the flare gun to illustrate his point.

You remember what I said before about villains not confessing their plans to detectives unless they intend to permanently shut them up afterward? Well, this was the part where the bad guy tries to eliminate the witnesses—and I was pretty sure Ron wasn't going to just send us on our way. If we were going to get out of this, we were going to have to rely on ourselves.

“You'll only make things worse for yourself if you try to kill us, you know,” I reasoned with him, hoping he had enough common sense not to add a murder rap to his list of crimes.

“Kill you?” He laughed. “What kind of person do you take me for? I'm not going to kill you. I'm going to lock you in this container and ship you to the other side of the world along with our turtle friend. I don't think the captain will mind some extra cargo.”

“We'll suffocate if you leave us in here,” I told him. “It's just as good as killing us yourself.”

“Don't be silly,” Ron said. “Captain Lau isn't going to let you die. Why would he do that when he can sell you as slave labor and make a nice profit?”

J
UST WHEN YOU THINK THINGS
can't get any worse, the bad guy tries to sell you on the black market. I wasn't about to go quietly, but as long as Burris had that big old flare gun muzzle between us and the door, I didn't see how we were going to escape without being turned into fried fish.

Burris must have sensed we were thinking about trying something, because he decided not to waste any more time.

“Enjoy the trip, kids,” he said. He dragged Jonathan's unconscious body outside the container and swung the big metal door shut.

CLANG.
That was the sound of our fates being sealed.

Or was it? There was still a crack of light through the door where it should have been shut tight.

“What the—” I could hear Burris say through the other side of the door. He was trying to shove it closed, but it wouldn't budge the last couple of inches. That's because the tire iron Jonathan had been carrying was wedged in the corner. Jonathan had dropped it when Burris conked him on the head. Burris hadn't seen it. But we had.