Countdown to Terror (4 page)

Joe was in and out of the room in a second, his face white.

"What's the matter, old gunpowder storage areas make you nervous?" Frank kidded.

But after he spoke, he realized he was seeing some sort of blinking red glow from the other room.

"The ammunition in there is not old," Joe said. "Not unless they had digital timers back in 1869."

FRANK FORGOT ABOUT the door and rushed into the other chamber. It was a bare, chilly, whitewashed room, with empty old gunpowder barrels.

But sitting on one of the white-painted shelves was something a lot newer. At first, all Frank saw were the flashing red numbers on the timer, ticking down from the three-minute mark. Then he saw the wires leading into a small metal box. A little bit of grayish-yellow gunk that looked like clay oozed out one corner.

Frank knew it wasn't clay—it was plastic explosive.

He moved to the bomb. "This is my job," he said quickly to Joe. "You work on trying to get that door open."

Joe ran for the outer door, yelling back, "Can you disarm that thing?"

"Do my best," Frank said. "But there's not much time. Whoever set this wants us to go off with the noontime gun."

"That guy must have been hiding on the far side of this dugout, then sneaked back and pulled the door closed." Joe's voice was full of disgust as he tugged at the door. "He suckered us just fine."

Frank was busy trying to follow the wires from the timer to the plastique. Some of them didn't seem to have any purpose. He took a deep breath and wiped his sweaty palms on his pants. They had to be decoys or booby traps. Two minutes, thirty seconds left.

He quickly traced a red wire into a complicated loop, where three other wires, black, yellow, and blue, twined in. Were they spliced in or just wound around it? Frank took a deep breath. "A Fellawi loop," he muttered out loud, startling himself.

"A what?" Joe asked. He'd given up trying to pull the door open and was now on his back, attempting brute force. He was kicking at it. But the thick old panels resisted him, and the noise of preparing to fire the gun covered any other noises he made.

"Omar Fellawi is the dean of terrorist bomb makers," Frank said, gently probing at the rat's nest of wires. "If the stories about him are true, he taught himself, and doesn't follow any of the usual methods." It calmed Frank to talk—it made it seem that he had time to kill. But he only had two minutes to detonation.

"I didn't know there were rules for making bombs."

"Oh, there are, and they're very strict," Frank said. "I've seen some of the manuals, and there are rules you have to memorize. 'Blue before yellow can kill a fellow.' That's one of them. It means if you disconnect the blue wire before the yellow one, it could set the bomb off." Frank sucked air in through his teeth. A wire had come away in his hand — a blue one.

"And you're saying Fellawi doesn't care what colors he uses?" Joe had jumped to his feet again, scraping away the paint from the door hinges with his pocketknife. But it didn't seem likely that he'd loosen the hinges before time ran out.

"A lot of bomb squad people died before they figured out what he was doing," Frank said, glancing at the timer. One minute, thirty seconds. "Not only that, but he uses these big loops of wire with colors twined together. It's his signature."

"But I guess now that they know about his tricks, they know how to get around them." Joe bit back a curse as the largest blade on his pocketknife snapped when he tried to wedge it under the hinge to lift it off.

"Fellawi thought of that. He keeps changing the colors he uses." Frank stopped trying to separate the wires and called in to Joe, "Bring that knife in here, please, and use this key for attacking that hinge."

Joe traded his knife for Frank's key. But when he returned to the door, he changed tactics and probed the oversize keyhole to see if he could knock loose whatever was jamming it.

Frank delicately traced along each wire with one of the knife's smaller blades. The yellow wire went from the loop to circle around the box containing the explosive, tying it up like a Christmas present. There was no way into the box without cutting the wire. Frank looked at the timer. His vision was blurred with sweat running off his forehead. A finger cleared it. Less than a minute left. He'd have to chance it.

Heart thudding against his chest cavity and blood roaring in his ears, Frank scraped away the insulation on the yellow wire in two places. He wrapped in the piece of loose blue wire. That gave him a bypass circuit — maybe. He slipped the knife under the yellow wire, took what could be his last breath, and slowly raised the knife and snapped the wire.

He didn't even look at the timer as he slipped the box free and frantically dug his way through the plastique.

One deft probe with his fingers and an electrical lead came out of the gook. More careful digging, and a walnut-size metal ball was uncovered. "Booby trap," Frank said. "It's a mercury switch. Any attempt to move the box around would have set it—and the bomb— off."

Just then the noon gun went off far over their heads. Frank loved the quiet inside the bunker. No bomb exploded. It was disarmed. Frank smiled, slapped his brother on the back, and remembered to breathe.

"How does it feel to deface Parks Canada property?" Joe asked as they finally removed the hinges and the door.

Frank cocked an eyebrow at him.

Frank and Joe headed down the ramp, then across the drill field toward the exit. "I think an anonymous call to the cops should take care of what's left in there," he said. "And if our friends try to remove the evidence, all the better. Maybe they'll be caught in the act."

They took a different path away from the Citadel, going down a flight of stairs cut into the hillside.

"How come we're leaving the bad guys' headquarters?" Joe wanted to know as he trailed Frank.

"That's not their headquarters," Frank said. "I started to say that when we saw our friend with the turban. There's too much staff and too many tourists around for any funny business. That bomb there just confirms it."

"I don't get it," Joe said.

"Would you set off a bomb in your base of operations? An explosion would be sure to focus too much attention."

Joe frowned. "Then how come that guy— and that bomb—were there?"

"We had to be followed. They brought something up to take care of us and led us right to it." Frank struck off on a downhill street, heading back to Halifax Harbor.

"You think this guy is still tailing us?" Joe asked, glancing over his shoulder.

"I hope so—and don't try to warn him off," Frank said. "Our next stop will give us a chance to isolate him."

They came down on the far side of the ferry terminal, out onto some docks where excursion boats were moored. Frank stepped up to a wooden shack to buy two tickets as a guy with sandy blond hair came screeching up on a bike.

"You guys are lucky that I held up our departure to go to the bank."

They pocketed their tickets, then followed the man to one of the excursion boats already filled with tourists. He led them across the deck, up a staircase, onto the top sundeck, then into the deckhouse. "Ready to cast off!" he called to his two crewmen.

Joe stared. "You're the captain?"

The guy grinned back. "Of the McNab's Island Ferry.

Joe turned to Frank. "So that's where we're going."

Frank smiled at Joe. "There're a couple of forts out there." Then he turned to the captain. "Can you hold off for a few more minutes?"

"Why?" the captain wanted to know.

Frank smiled. "I think you'll be getting one more customer."

Sure enough, the turbaned guy with the mustache came tearing down to the pier. The bad news was, there were about six other guys with him. Frank and Joe recognized most of them from their marathon to the ferry the day before.

"Well, you wanted to isolate him," Joe whispered to Frank.

"Looks like I've isolated us instead." Frank asked the captain, "Mind if we stay up here? We'd like to see you work the harbor."

The captain grinned. "I'd like that. Most people are a little shy about coming up here."

Even the army of seven felt shy. They stayed down on the lower deck, glaring up at the Hardys.

Meanwhile the captain steered a course through Halifax Harbor to the island.

"You know, McNab's Island has a lot of history behind it," the captain said as they slipped into a wide cove with a single large pier. To the south, a neck of land jutted out, a lighthouse on its tip.

"That's Hangman's Beach," the captain said, nodding to the outthrust land. "They used to hang mutineers out there." He shook his head. "There're a lot of bodies — about ten thousand buried under that sand. The French sent an expedition here, and they based themselves on McNab's until storms and sickness nearly wiped them out."

"Where's the fort?" Joe asked.

"Which one?" the captain asked. "Fort Ives is at the north end, and Fort McNab is in the south." He grinned. "Fort McNab is the bigger draw."

Frank asked, "How far to McNab?"

"About a mile and a half from the pier," the captain said.

They were pulling up beside the pier now. A gravel road ran beside the beach, and Frank saw a pickup truck heading toward the pier.

Joe saw it, too. He turned to the captain. "Mind if we help tie up?"

The captain shrugged and reversed engines. Frank and Joe leapt from the sundeck to the pier, tossed the mooring ropes onto their pilings, and ran for the road.

They'd reached the beach before their pursuers had even gotten through the crowd gathered at the gangplank to the pier. Frank was already flagging the pickup down.

"Are you heading anywhere near Fort McNab?" he asked.

The driver leaned out the window. "I can take you partway," he said. "You in a hurry?"

Joe glanced at the thugs elbowing their way through people toward them — blood in their eyes.

"You could say that," he admitted.

THE PICKUP PULLED away as Frank and Joe's pursuers came tearing down the pier.

When he saw the newcomers, the driver slowed. "They want to come, too?"

Frank talked fast. "Keep going — please! It's a scavenger hunt — the first team to reach the fort wins the point."

"Okay." The driver zipped off, leaving the mob behind. So far, none of the pursuers had pulled guns, although the Hardys had noticed suspicious bulges under several of the guys' jackets.

"Looks like they've been told to take us quietly," Joe said. "No witnesses."

"Maybe," Frank said. "But where we're going, there don't seem to be many tourists." He stared over the top of the cab as they bounced along the deeply rutted gravel road. Ragged trees leaned over them, and the farther they traveled, the more deserted the island became.

About half a mile from the pier, another road branched to the left. Their driver pulled up. "I turn off here for the lighthouse. Just keep on the main path," the driver said. "Take the first branch to the right, it'll take you straight to the fort."

"Let's get going," Frank said. "Those guys aren't that far behind us."

"They're sure to see the pickup is empty now — and this is the only way to go." Joe pushed their pace to a jog.

The road skirted the lake and sank, turning downright swampy. Some sections were more mud than gravel. As they slogged along, they could hear the sounds of the tide. "Great," Joe said. "We've got a lake on one side, and what sounds like a cove on the other. All those guys have to do is hang out here and we'll never be able to get back past them."

"From the looks on their faces, I think we can bet on their coming after us. Besides," — Frank slapped at his neck — "if they stand still, the mosquitoes might carry them off."

Joe slowed down for a second. "What if they don't want to catch us?" He turned to Frank. "We came here to see if this is the fort Dundee meant. If it is, those guys could just be herding us to our slaughter."

"I was wondering about that back on the truck," Frank admitted. "But I don't think that mob was pretending to be in a sweat to catch us." He sighed. "In fact, I think we may be heading for another dead end, but we've got to check it out."

Joe gave his brother a quick look. "Maybe you could find a better way to say that."

The path began to lead uphill, then they reached the turnoff for the fort. The Hardys picked up the pace. Before their pursuers arrived, they had to investigate the fort and find a hiding place before circling back to the boat.

The path passed through a clump of trees, then opened out. A big sign read Parks Canada — Fort McNab — Danger.

"They got that right," Joe muttered as he looked around. He'd been expecting a smaller version of the Halifax Citadel—walls, defensive ditches, buildings, lots of hiding places.

Instead, the builders of Fort McNab had put up no walls at all. When Frank and Joe came out of the woods they were facing a hill, which was only broken here and there by huge, cement-walled rooms carved into its side.

"Bombproof storage," Frank said, peering through a yawning hole where doors and windows had been. "This is where they probably kept the ammunition."

"Ammunition for what?" Joe stared around. "There's nothing here." Except for the dugouts, they were in the middle of nowhere — with nowhere to hide. Except the woods or around the back of the hill. But the thugs would be in the woods by now.

The road curved to their left, around the hill. So the boys hurried on, looking for a hiding place.

Reaching the far side of the hill, they came to a large open space, with three crescent-shaped concrete walls rising about six feet high.

"Gun emplacements," Frank said, chinning his way to the top of the wall. "I can see water down there — this must have been part of the harbor defenses. They could blow away any enemy ship from up here." He looked at the distant shore. "Right now, I wish we were over there."

Behind the first two gun positions was a concrete blockhouse built into the hillside. Frank shook his head as they jogged by. "Too open — nowhere to hide."

At the end of the path there were no more buildings—just a small collection of scattered gravestones. Joe looked at his brother. "A real dead end," he said.