Shadows at Predator Reef (11 page)

“Now!” I yelled. Not that Frank needed the cue. He'd already launched into motion along with me the instant he realized the tire iron was stuck in the door. Burris saw us coming and jammed the flare gun through the opening in the door to shoot. Frank and I both slammed into the door at the same time, sending him flying backward before he had a chance to pull the trigger. We barreled through the door and out of the container into freedom. I never thought fishy air could smell so sweet.

Not that I had much time to savor it. Burris was back on his feet and diving for the flare gun he'd dropped in the container's doorway. I dove for it too. Burris got there first.

He grabbed the gun and stepped back as he lifted the weapon to shoot. He wasn't paying attention to where he had been standing, though, and tripped over Jonathan's body, tumbling backward through the door and into the container.

My brother and I leaped into action. I quickly reached my foot around and kicked the tire iron outside the container as
Frank slammed the door shut and threw the bolt, locking Burris inside.

Mr. V's butler had still managed to get revenge on Burris even though he was out cold. I'd have to make sure to thank him later when he woke up.

I think it took Burris a second to realize his predicament before he started banging on the door, demanding to be let out. Yeah, right. I had to smile.

“What do you think, bro? Should we see if Captain Lau has room on his ship for some additional cargo?” I asked Frank.

“Don't ships usually try to get rid of their human waste, not pick more up?”

“Come on, guys, you know I was just kidding about the slave labor thing, right?” I could hear Burris's muffled laugh from inside the container.

“Sure, Ron,” I said back. “We were kidding too. We're turning you in to Chief Olaf, not Captain Lau.”

“Be reasonable, guys. Can't we work out a deal? We'll split the proceeds from the turtle sale. You boys will be rich.”

“Tell us where Captain Hook is, Burris,” I said.

“Sure thing, guys, no problem, soon as you let me out. . . .”

“You're not going anywhere. Now where is she?” Frank demanded.

“Wait, wait, how about this? I give you guys the turtle and we can split the reward money. That's fair, right?”

I could tell he was pressed right up against the door,
so I gave it a good whack with the tire iron to set his ears ringing.

“Ow! Okay, okay, I take that as a no. You can keep the reward money. I don't need it. You can just let me out and I'll show you where the turtle is and we'll keep this whole misunderstanding between ourselves, okay? There's no need to even mention me.”

“This isn't a negotiation. We just want the turtle,” I said.

“As long as we each have something the other wants, it's still a negotiation,” he said.

He had us there.

“You want to know where the turtle is and I want to get out of here, right?” he continued. “So I give you the turtle and you let me go free. You see, we're negotiating! Everybody wins!”

Even if we did take a chance and trust him to actually show us where Captain Hook was—which, by the way, we didn't—he still had that flare gun and was as likely as not to light us up like a couple of sparklers the second we opened the door.

“Come on, Joe,” Frank said. “We're wasting our time.”

“You're right, bro. He's not going anywhere. Let's go find—”

“Captain Hook, sirs,” another New England accented voice said from behind us. It was Jonathan. “If you'll just follow me, she's this way.”

Apparently our sneaky new butler friend had gotten up
without us noticing and done a little detecting of his own while we were dealing with Burris. We followed him to the dock, where there was a large wooden crate with airholes and the words
FRAGILE—THIS END UP
in big red letters.

Through the air holes we could see Captain Hook in the sad little tub Burris had stuck her in. She didn't look good at all.

I used the flattened end of the tire iron to pry open the crate. You could feel the heat and stench billow out as the panel tore away. Poor Captain Hook. It was like a stinky sauna in there. Burris hadn't even bothered to clean her water.

“She looks bad, Joe,” Frank said. “Sea turtles overheat really easily. They can't control their own body temperature; they need the water to be just right in order to stay cool. We have to get her back to the aquarium fast or she could die.”

Frank did a quick examination of Captain Hook to make sure she didn't have any open wounds. There weren't any cuts or scrapes to explain what we had assumed was her blood on the broken piece of coral Aly had found in the tank. But that would have to wait.

“I would offer to drive, but I'm not sure how we'd get her into the Rolls,” Jonathan said.

“The quickest way is to bring her back the way she came,” I said. “Through the tunnels.”

Unfortunately, that also happened to be the most dangerous.

“You think you can find the way?” Frank asked.

“We're about to find out,” I replied.

“What about them?” Jonathan asked, pointing to the cargo ship, which had pulled up anchor and wasn't wasting any time on its way back out to sea without its illicit reptilian cargo. Captain Lau must have gotten the hint that things weren't going according to plan when he saw a couple of teenagers and a butler liberating Captain Hook from her crate instead of Ron Burris.

“We'll let the coast guard deal with them. Right now we've got to get Captain Hook home,” Frank said.

“Will you be okay?” I asked Jonathan. He had a nasty gash on the back of his head where Ron had conked him, and I'd be surprised if he didn't have a nice concussion to go with it.

“I have a hard head,” Jonathan said. “Go on with Miss Hook. I'll keep an eye on Mr. Burris and make sure he's uncomfortable until we can summon the police.”

We wheeled Captain Hook's tub back to the cannery and inside to the utility closet leading into the tunnel.

“If I'm right, this should take us back to the main tunnel running under the aquarium,” I told Frank as I packed up the dive gear Burris had used to abduct Captain Hook from Predator Reef to take back with us.

“And if you're wrong?”

“Let's just hope I'm not.”

Not that I wasn't a little nervous about it. And not that I was going to admit that to my brother. Luckily, I didn't
have to. The tunnel under the cannery led back to the main tunnel like I suspected, and we were able to push Captain Hook, still in her tub, along the tracks back to the aquarium.

With Burris's dive gear and the gear I'd left in the tunnel, we were both able to suit up. Since I'd lost my regulator and my Octo had been damaged escaping from the shark, we were going to swim up together, with Frank using Burris's regulator and me breathing through the Octo attached to Burris's scuba tank.

As I helped Frank put on the tank, I noticed something—Burris's red scuba tank was all scuffed up and missing paint, almost as if it had scraped against a sharp object. Like, say, coral. I scraped my fingernail along the tank where it was scuffed. My finger came away smeared with a glob of dark red.

“What does that look like?” I asked Frank.

“Congealed blood,” he answered. “I think we may have just solved another piece of the mystery.”

“It would explain why Captain Hook doesn't have any open wounds,” I said. “I'm betting the red stuff on the broken coral Aly found could be paint from a close call with Burris's tank and not blood at all.”

Frank pointed to the holding tank above us. “You ready?”

“Let's do it.”

It took some finagling, but we were able to use the hydraulic lift to scooch Captain Hook from the tub into the secret holding tank, climb in behind her, and shut the trapdoor under us. It was a tight fit, but all three of us made it.

When we pulled open the second trapdoor and the salt water from the exhibit flooded in, you could see Captain Hook revive almost instantly. It's like she knew she was home.

The three of us swam up together, with Captain Hook between Frank and me so we could help support her. She was still a little sluggish, but she gained more strength as she swam. I hadn't seen her swim before. It was amazing how well she moved with the hook-shaped shark-bitten flipper that had earned the turtle her nickname.

As we made our ascent to the tank's surface, reef fish swirled around like they were welcoming us home. Given our narrow escape from Ron Burris and nick-of-time rescue of Captain Hook, it was especially glorious.

As we rose, we saw something other than marine life too. Bright lights and tons of people were visible through the water's surface above us. Something was going on.

We surfaced in the center of the tank with Predator Reef's missing turtle only to find ourselves surrounded by a mob of people and cameras.

They couldn't have been expecting us, could they? No, they weren't even paying attention to what was in the water. Everyone was looking toward the front of the exhibit, where Chief Olaf was standing by a microphone, addressing the crowd. A few people spotted us and started murmuring excitedly, but not the chief. He just cleared his throat awkwardly into the mic and went right on talking.

“I'm sorry to report that we still haven't found the missing
turtle,” Chief Olaf sheepishly admitted to the crowd—totally oblivious to the fact that the missing turtle was just a few feet away with us!

I couldn't believe it. It looked like we had arrived right in the middle of a press conference announcing the police department's lack of progress on the case. A case we had just solved!

“I want to assure Bayport's citizens that we are working overtime and expect a break in the case soon—” Chief Olaf paused, distracted by the commotion that had been stirred up now that more people had seen us.

“What's going on there? Clear aside!” he ordered, gesturing for the reporters to get out of the way so he could see what everyone was looking at. When he saw us in the water with Captain Hook, he looked completely dumbstruck.

“Who . . . Frank and Joe Hardy?”

At first no one knew what to make of us popping up unannounced in the middle of the exhibit with Captain Hook, least of all Chief Olaf. Once the crowd realized we'd solved the mystery and put the turtle back in the turtle tank, the aquarium burst into cheers and the reporters started shouting questions.

“Way to go, boys!”

“Where was she?”

“Who took her?”

“How did you find her when the police couldn't?”

The chief didn't like that one.

“I thought I told you boys not to do anything without clearing it with me first,” he bellowed.

“Sorry, Chief. Would you like us to take her back?” I asked as Frank and I treaded water with Captain Hook between us.

“No! I—of course not—but—you—I—” stuttered the chief. He looked like he didn't know whether to congratulate us or haul us in for questioning.

“Everyone clear aside,” he said once he regained his composure. “Let's get the vets down here to check on the turtle.”

When everyone turned their attention back to us, Chief Olaf sank into a nearby chair and let out a deep sigh. I'm not sure if he was happy that the case was solved or peeved because we'd been the ones to solve it instead of him . . . again.

There was another unhappy face waiting for us once we made it out of the tank. Dirk Bishop.

This time we kind of deserved the snooty look he gave us.

“It pains me to say this, but thank you,” he said in his unmistakably British accent. “For finding the turtle, that is. I would have preferred it if the two of you had gotten lost in the process, but I am grateful nonetheless.”

I winced. I guess we owed old Dirk an apology.

“Sorry, dude,” I said. “We kinda had you mixed up with someone else.”

“You most certainly did,” Bishop said as he pulled an engraved crystal plaque from his briefcase. “You inquired before about the reason for my visit?”

He held up the plaque for us to inspect. The first thing we saw was the big Bayport Aquarium logo. Under that, it said,
GOLD MEMBER AWARD—DIRK BISHOP—IN HONOR OF HIS GENEROUS CONTRIBUTIONS TOWARD THE ACQUISITION OF MARINE LIFE FOR PREDATOR REEF
.

“Oops,” Frank said.

“Oops, indeed,” Bishop said, giving us the stink face as he walked off.

Oh well, I guess even brilliant detectives get it wrong sometimes.

There was someone else in the crowd who definitely was happy to see us, though.

“I'm sorry I was such a brat to you at my uncle's,” Aly said, giving me an embarrassed smile. “I was pretty upset that he wouldn't let me help, and I guess I kinda took it out on you. I was really just worried about Captain Hook. Think you can forgive me?”

I gave Aly a big smile right back.

“It depends,” I teased. “What are you doing tomorrow after I ace the big scuba exam?”

“Hmm, I don't know,” she said. “But I wouldn't worry too much about the test. I think the instructor kind of likes you.”

This time I knew that little sparkle in her eyes really was meant for me.