Street Spies (11 page)

"Well, the good news is that there're two of us against two of them," Joe said with a wry grin.

"Three of us," Tiffany corrected him firmly. "I can help, too, you know."

"Okay, okay," Joe said, with a glance at Tiffany. "Three of us. Tiffany, meet my brother, Frank Hardy."

Tiffany smiled and Frank tried to smile back. He could see why Joe was attracted to her. When she looked at Joe, her face softened and there was a light in her eyes. But there wasn't time for that right now.

"The bad news," Frank said wearily, "is that there're three of us against a nine-millimeter Browning automatic and an AK-forty-seven assault rifle."

"Spoilsport," Joe said. "What I want to know is where we are."

"I think we're in a warehouse," Tiffany said. "I got a glimpse of it outside when they opened the door. It looks like this is some kind of storage place inside a bigger building, filled with boxes and things." She looked glum. "So even if we could get out of this room we'd still have to get out of the building."

Somewhere outside the room Frank heard the sound of a big door being raised, and then the noise of a motor. "Sounds like the van," he said. "Maybe they're moving it into the warehouse to hide it."

Joe got up and began to wander restlessly around the room. "Isn't this great?" he said angrily, kicking at the back bumper of the rusty old pickup. "Here we are, in the middle of the biggest city in the country. There must be three or four patrol cars within a quarter of a mile, and we've got no way of letting them know where we are. We've got no way out of here."

"Maybe we do," Frank said, in a low voice. He rubbed his throbbing head, a plan beginning to come to him. "Have you looked under the hood of that junker you're slamming your foot into?"

Joe looked at Frank as if the blow to his head had knocked a couple of screws loose. "Sure, sure," he said sarcastically. "We all hop into this wreck, drive out that back door, and make our escape. Just like in the movies, huh?" His eyes glinted. "You want to drive, or you want me to?

Frank frowned. "Keep your voice down. Is there anything under that hood?"

Joe looked at Frank. "I believe you're serious," he said.

"Absolutely," Frank replied. "Do you want to see how it feels to be labeled Hazardous Waste?"

Without another word, Joe pushed aside a couple of cardboard boxes full of old auto parts and edged around to the front of the truck's cab. He felt under the grille and found the latch. There was a rusty squeak as he opened the hood. Then he put it down again and made his way back to Frank.

"No go," he reported regretfully. "The block's still there, but the head's gone. That old baby has driven its last mile."

"Are the spark coil and the battery still there?" Frank asked.

Joe looked at Frank, a glimmer of understanding in his eyes. "Yeah, I think so," he said. "Hey, what are you — "

Unsteadily, Frank got up. "Pull them, and as much of the wire harness as you can," he said. He looked up and began to study the roof trusses overhead. "But be quiet. We don't want our friend to crash the party."

"Come on, Tiffany," Joe said, and scrambled back to the truck. He raised the hood and began to poke around. "Why don't you see if you can find some tools?"

Tiffany climbed inside the cab and emerged a minute or two later with a smear of dust on her face. She handed Joe a pair of rusty pliers and a stubby screwdriver.

Frank began to search through the piles of junk as Joe cut loose a section of wire and worked the two ends in the front, over the battery. Then Joe looked up at Frank and shook his head, whispering something to Tiffany and motioning her toward Frank. In a moment, she was at Frank's side.

"Joe says the battery's shot," she whispered.

"He jumped the two posts and there wasn't any spark."

"I was afraid of that," Frank said. He opened another box and began to search through it.

"What are you looking for?" Tiffany asked.

"A good battery," Frank answered, without looking up. "Or a battery charger.

"What does a battery charger look like?" Tiffany asked, picking through another pile of debris.

"It's a box with a gauge on the front, with an electrical cord at the back and two electrical clamps on another cord." He made a lobster-claw gesture with his thumb and fingers. "Like this."

"You mean, like this?" Tiffany asked. She held up a clamp with a red grip in one hand and another with a black grip in the other.

Frank grabbed her and gave her a quick hug. "Good job," he exclaimed.

Joe climbed over the boxes toward them, carrying a black metal cylinder—the spark coil—and several long strands of cable were draped over his shoulder.

"Looks like we're in business," Frank told him, holding up the battery charger. "At least, we are if this thing still works."

"But we don't have time to charge the battery," Joe protested. "Anyway, there's nowhere to plug it in."

"Oh, yes, there is," Frank said, nodding toward the porcelain light fixture in the roof. "And we're not going to charge the battery — we're going to use the charger directly." He pointed to a big empty drum. "Give me a hand."

Together, they very slowly rolled the fifty-five gallon oil drum under the fixture, taking care not to make any noise.

"Cut the plug off the charger and strip the two wires down about an inch," Frank instructed Joe. "I'll tie it in up here."

"What do I do?" Tiffany asked.

"Pray," Frank told her grimly. He climbed up on the barrel and unscrewed the fixture from the junction box, leaving the bulb and the fixture dangling from one black and one white wire. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, Joe had worked the insulation off the charger's power cord. He held up the cord, showing two shiny strands of copper.

"Okay, good," Frank said. "Now connect the charger clamps to the two posts on the spark coil." Still standing on the drum, he took the pliers and stripped off a foot of insulation. He lashed the bare wire to the middle of the coil case, leaving one end dangling free. Then he cut and stripped the loose end and bent it so that it reached within a quarter-inch of the coil's pointed tip.

Tiffany watched wide-eyed. "Would you two guys mind telling me what you're up to?" she asked.

Joe grinned. "I think my brother, world-famous electronics genius, is about to create a new type of transmitter," he said.

Frank ignored Joe's teasing and measured off another piece of wire. "I think this is about the right length," he said. With a click of the pliers he cut the wire.

"Right length for what?" Tiffany persisted.

"To jam every police receiver within a quarter of a mile," he said. He forced the end of the wire into the top of the spaik coil. "This is our antenna."

Tiffany stared at him. "Isn't that against the law?" she asked curiously.

"You bet it is," Frank said emphatically. "I'm banking that as soon as we start disrupting their frequency, the dispatchers will train all their radio direction finders on us until they've plotted our position. Then they'll send about nine million cops to come looking for us."

"Marconi would be proud," Joe told him. "If it works."

"Hand me that crate," Frank said.

Joe handed him an empty wooden crate, which Frank positioned beside him on top of the drum.

"Okay. Now the charger and the coil." He put both on top of the crate and tested the length of the power cord. It easily reached the light fixture.

"Well, we're almost ready," Frank said, satisfied. He jumped down from the barrel. "But before we get this party going, let's see if we can jam our front door. We don't want any uninvited guests if we can help it."

Together, the three of them searched for odd lengths of wood. Frank found a short triangular piece which he pushed under the door, and Joe stuck a length of two-by-four under the doorknob and wedged another in front of the door.

Frank climbed back up on the barrel. "I'm going to use the bulb as a switch," he said. "So I've got to fire in the charger."

"Won't you get shocked?" Tiffany asked worriedly.

"Not if I'm careful," Frank told her. "But I'll have to do it by touch. Here go the lights." And with that, he unscrewed the bulb. The room went dark.

Tiffany pressed close to Joe. He put his arm around her shoulders.

"I've got the white wire loose and one wire of the power cord connected to it," Frank whispered. "I'm connecting the other end to the fixture now. There! That should do it."

The light flickered back on. The battery charger made a low humming noise, and there was a sharp crackle as a blue spark arced between the tip of the wire and the top of the coil.

"That's it?" Joe asked in disbelief, staring at Frank's crazy-looking rig. "Will it work?"

"It should be working right now," Frank said, with a triumphant smile. "Every police receiver in the neighborhood ought to be getting a nasty blast of static."

Tiffany looked bewildered. "But how does it work?" she asked.

Frank pointed to the light fixture. "That's the power source for the battery charger. The charger's connected to the spark coil, which generates a high voltage charge. We're discharging that high voltage to the coil case. That blue spark creates static in the antenna. And the antenna—I hope—is exactly the right length to broadcast on the police frequencies." He grinned. "Just to be sure they figure it out, we'll send them a little message."

He grabbed the bulb and began turning it in and out. The light flickered on and off three quick flashes, three slow, three quick. He repeated the sequence once, and then twice.

"What's he doing that for?" Tiffany whispered to Joe.

"That's Morse code for SOS," Joe said. "It's the international distress call."

Minutes passed. Patiently, Frank kept sending the signal, while Joe paced up and down, glancing at his wristwatch and feeling more and more apprehensive. Frank climbed down off the barrel, looking dejected.

"Well, we gave it our best shot," he said.

Joe nodded. "It was a nice try," he replied. "But what do we do now? Start sending smoke signals?"

"Wait!" Tiffany cried. "Listen!"

In the distance, they heard the wail of a police siren. It seemed to be growing louder. Then there was the sound of a second siren, coming from a different direction. Seconds later, a third, much closer.

Tiffany hugged Joe and Frank, jumping up and down. "They're coming!" she whispered.

Frank pushed them back in the corner. "The bad guys will get here first," he said. "Get ready!"

Just then they heard the sound of a key in the door lock. Somebody — Chung? — struggled with the door, pounding on it. Joe's two-by-four bent under the strain, but it held. Then there was a brief silence, broken only by the sound of running feet.

"He's coming around the back," Joe exclaimed. "The fold-up door!"

"Everybody down!" Frank shouted, diving for the floor. Joe pushed Tiffany down and flattened himself beside her.

Seconds later, there was a blast of automatic weapons fire. The thin metal door was stitched with bullets!

The burst of fire stopped. Joe's ears were ringing so loudly that he thought he'd gone deaf. He heard an empty magazine clatter onto the cement floor, then the gun bolt slam shut as a new round was chambered.

The hinges of the door groaned loudly. It lifted with a rusty screech. In the dim light of the warehouse Joe could see Chung in the doorway his assault rifle leveled on them.

Chung glared ferociously at the remains of their transmitter. With something that sounded like a muttered Chinese curse, he stalked into the room. Still keeping the rifle trained on them, he jerked the wires out of the fixture. Then he kicked over the oil drum. The crate, the coil, and the charger crashed to the floor.

"Hey," Joe said mildly. "That's a great scientific experiment you're fooling with there."

Chung's face twisted. "Out!" he screamed, motioning toward the door with the muzzle of his weapon. "Get out!"

Slowly Joe, Frank, and Tiffany raised their hands and stood up.

"Go! Go! Go quick!" Chung shouted. He grabbed Tiffany and pushed her toward the door aMid into the larger warehouse area. Joe and Frank followed.

"Looks like he's going to take us through the warehouse and down to the river," Frank whispered to Joe. "Yeah. Our last little stroll," Joe muttered. "Get ready," he heard Tiffany whisper. "Shut up! No talking!" Chung shouted. At that instant Tiffany let out a scream and started running. "Let's go!" she yelled. . Instantly Chung swung the muzzle of his gun toward Tiffany. His finger tightened on the trigger as he fired. But the burst was short and high, for at that second, a well-placed karate kick from Frank caught him in the chin and the rifle flew out of his hands.

As Chung fell backward, Joe hit him in the gut with a head-first tackle. The wind exploded from him in a loud "oomph," and they crashed to the floor. His head hit the cement with a sickening thwack, and he lay motionless.

Joe stood up, not taking his eyes off Chung. Quickly, Frank picked up the assault rifle.

Suddenly there was the pop of a silencer and the hiss of an angry bullet passing inches from Joe's head. He and Frank rolled to cover on the floor. From behind a pile of packing crates, the brothers surveyed the place. They were in a long, narrow building, dimly lit, with boxes stacked high on either side of a wide center aisle. At the far end, a big door had been slid open. Through it Joe could see the lights along an empty pier.

Overhead, Joe heard a whistling whirr. He looked up to see an old long-necked bottle sailing end-over-end across the room. It hit the far wall and shattered, raining fragments of glass behind some cardboard boxes.

"She's back there," Tiffany hissed, from the corner. "Where I threw the bottle."

A bent-over figure ducked cautiously along the wall behind the boxes. Joe noticed the cream-colored van just as the figure reached it.

"The van!" he shouted. "She's getting into the van!"

The engine roared to life. With a screech of tires, the van raced down the center aisle toward the open doors.

Joe grabbed the rifle from Frank and ran into the center aisle with the metal stock tucked under his arm, his right hand on the pistol grip, his left on the front hand guard. He aimed low, just under the fleeing van. "Let's try a warning," he muttered, squeezing the trigger.