Frank took the envelope and tore it open. It was from Reykjavik's leading newspaper, and inside was another letter. He read the message. It had come from Akureyri, a city on the north coast.
A man signing his name Rex Hallbjornsson said that he was the one they were looking for. He requested that the boys come to see him.
“That was easy,” Chet commented. “Our first swing's a home run!”
“Too easy,” Joe replied.
“I think you're right,” his brother said. “We've got to be careful about this.”
Chet scratched his head. “Always suspicious.”
“Just cautious,” Joe said.
Biff agreed with the Hardys. “After all, it's kind of fishy that the guy won't come here. If somebody offered
me
money, I wouldn't mind picking it up myself!”
It was agreed that Frank and Joe would fly to Akureyri the next day, leaving Chet and Biff at the hotel to guard their radio and decoding equipment.
“I'm going to Flugfelag Islands,” Frank announced after breakfast the next morning.
“What?” asked Chet.
Frank handed him a travel folder which he had picked up at the desk.
“Flugfelag Islands,” Chet read. “I wonder where they are.”
“Listen, dummy,” Biff Hooper said, giving Chet a mock stiff-arm, which his buddy parried with a karate chop. “Flugfelag Islands means Iceland Airlines.”
“Attaboy, Biff!” Joe grinned. “You're learning the language.”
The Hardys recalled seeing a Flugfelag office in the hotel lobby. Joe had noticed a dark-haired woman behind the desk the day before, but when the Hardys went to the office, it was empty. A few seconds later a man came in and sat down.
Frank approached him. “We'd like to take a plane to Akureyri,” he said. “Today.”
“Sorry,” the man replied with a slight accent. “There are no scheduled flights to Akureyri until tomorrow. I would suggest that if you want to go today, you take a small private planeâit is cheaper, too.”
“Will you make the arrangements?” Joe asked.
“Of course. What are your names?”
When the boys had given him all the information, the man said, “Be at the Flugfelag terminal at twelve noon. It is quite near the hotel, you know.”
“Okay,” Frank said. “Please charge it to our room.” He gave the man the number. Then the boys hastened to the elevator and went back upstairs.
Chet was sprawled on Frank's bed, while Biff sat looking out the window. “I'd like to see Akureyri, too,” he grumbled. “Can't we just leave Chet here to guard the equipment?”
“What's the big idea?” the stout boy said, rising. “I can tackle two, perhaps three guys, but no more. And they might send half a dozen here, you know!” He cleaved the air with a couple of karate strokes.
“All right, I'll stay,” said Biff. “But get back soon!”
“Sure.” Frank grinned. “And just so your job won't be too demanding, I'll put this in the safe!” He took the codebook and went down to the lobby.
At eleven-thirty Frank and Joe stood in front of the Saga, where a taxi drove up to get them. Ten minutes later they reached the airfield. As they stepped inside the terminal building, they were met by the agent.
“I thought I would be here to help,” he said. “Follow me.” He led them out onto the field, where they saw a small twin-engine plane warming up.
“The pilot does not speak very good English,” the agent explained, pulling open the cabin door against the propeller's slipstream. “But he will bring you to Akureyri in less than an hour.”
Frank and Joe climbed in, fastened their seat belts, and glanced toward the pilot's cabin. The door was shut. Outside, the agent waved to them, then the plane taxied for take-off. Soon they were airborne, and the boys looked down on the bright-colored roofs of Reykjavik.
“Well, let's find out where Akureyri is, exactly,” said Frank after a while and pulled a map of Iceland from his pocket. Both studied it, then sat back to watch the mountainous terrain unfolding before them.
Frank, who was sitting next to the window on the starboard side, glanced up at the sun.
“Hey, Joe, this is funny. We're supposed to be heading north, aren't we?”
“Sure,” Joe replied. “That's where Akureyri is.”
“But look! We're going east. See the position of the sun?”
According to the boy's reckoning, they were flying in the wrong direction. Frank's fears were confirmed when he glanced down and saw the jagged south coast of Iceland far beneath them.
“What's going on with that pilot?” Joe asked, annoyed.
“We'd better find out.”
The boys slipped from their seats and approached the cabin. Joe opened the door and cried out in alarm. The pilot was their blond enemy!
“Where are you taking us?” Joe demanded.
The man motioned the boys away. “No speak!”
“Of course you speak English!” Frank said angrily, realizing that every pilot had to be versed in that language.
Joe pulled his brother out of the cabin so they could speak without being overheard.
“Frank, what are we going to do about this guy? You know what's happeningâwe're being kidnapped.”
“We'll have to take over,” Frank replied tersely.
Both boys were skillful pilots. Although they did most of their flying in single-engine planes, they felt sure they could handle the twin-engine job.
“Where'll we land?” Joe asked.
“Once we have control of the plane, we can radio Reykjavik for instructions,” Frank stated, glancing out the window. Below, a huge glacier came into view. The boys had studied the map carefully and realized that they were over Vatnajokull, the largest and most forbidding glacier in all of Iceland.
“We'll go in and I'll drag him from behind the wheel,” Frank said. “You grab the yoke on the copilot's side. Okay?”
“Let's go!”
They approached the pilot. Frank reached forward to get a headlock on him, but the man swung a quarter way around and clipped him on the chin. As Frank staggered back, the portside engine began to sputter. Seconds later the starboard engine conked out. And all at once the pilot spoke perfect English!
“Let me handle this!” he said. “We are going to have to land on the glacier!”
CHAPTER VII
A Harrowing Blizzard
STILL groggy from the blow on the chin, Frank dropped into the copilot's seat. He grasped the wheel as Joe, his eyes flashing anger over the brazen kidnapping, swung a hard right at the pilot. The fist caught him at the side of the jaw, and the man slumped unconscious.
Wind whistled eerily over the wings as the plane glided toward the gigantic sheet of white ice beneath them.
Closer and closer it angled down toward Vatnajokull. Now the boys saw that much of the glacier was serrated with jagged knife-edged ridges. Small hills of ice and crevasses came into sharp focus.
“Frank, we'll never make it!” Joe cried out.
His brother sat grim-lipped and silent. Skillfully he guided the descent so as not to lose flying speed. His feet firmly on the rudder bar, Frank banked the plane and headed for what appeared to be a smoother spot in the sloping glacier about half a mile away.
Landing on the slope would be tricky enough for the most skilled pilot. With the wheels now inches above what proved to be bumpy ice, Frank pulled back on the yoke.
The whiteness rushed up to meet them! Their plane bounced with a terrifying crunch, lifted into the air, and settled again with tires squealing.
The aircraft slid back a few feet before finally coming to a halt. Joe felt limp. “Thanks, Frank,” was all he could say. “That was the greatest!”
Both boys felt lucky to come out of the crash landing alive, but were furiously angry with the man responsible for their dire predicament.
The pilot was now conscious. He lifted his head and looked about dazedly.
“Okay now,” Joe said, shaking him by the shoulder. “Who are you? And what's your racket?”
“Helpâwe need help,” was the weak reply.
“You know the ropes!” Frank said impatiently. “Get on the radio and call for aid!” He climbed out of the copilot's seat and looked about the plane.
Meanwhile, the man picked up the microphone and slowly transmitted their position. There was silence for a minute or two, then he signed off.
“Someone will come for us,” he reported.
“Okayâbut that doesn't explain who you are!” Frank resumed their interrogation. But the man remained mute, shaking his head as if still in a stupor.
The Hardys were both aggravated and frightened. “Here we are, wrecked on top of the world,” Joe muttered, “and this dummy won't tell us anything!”
He pulled the man from his seat and pushed him to the plane's door. Frank frisked the pilot to make sure he had no weapons.
The icy air blanketing the glacier hit them like a bucket full of cold water as they stepped onto the slippery surface. They looked the plane over. Both propellers were bent, and even if the engines could have been repaired, a take-off looked impossible.
Despite continued questioning by the Hardys, the pilot remained silent. As they were about to give up, they suddenly heard the distant sound of a helicopter.
“Wow! That chopper came pretty fast!” Joe said, shielding his eyes to watch the craft hover over the glacier.
“Good night!” Frank exclaimed. “It's only a two-seater job!”
“Well, you know who goes out firstâin hand-cuffs. Old blondie here is getting a ride to jail!”
Frank looked at their sullen kidnapper, whose shifty eyes glanced up at the rescue craft. “You'll talk when the Reykjavik police get hold of you,” he said. “They'll find out what's behind all this hocus-pocus.”
The helicopter landed close to the airplane, and a man of medium height hopped down. He had black hair, rugged features, and a long nose which looked anything but Scandinavian. He began speaking immediately in a foreign tongue.
“Can you speak English, sir?” Frank interrupted.
“A little.”
“This joker tried to kidnap us, but the engines failed. You don't happen to have a pair of hand-cuffs, do you?”
“No. But I have some rope.”
The man reached into the seat of the helicopter and produced a length of stout twine. Frank bound the wrists of their captive.
“We'll press charges when we get to Reykjavik ourselves,” Frank went on. “Please turn this man over to the police and come back for us as soon as you can.”
With a smart salute, the chopper pilot pushed the prisoner into the helicopter, then climbed into his seat and took off.
“Am I glad to get rid of blondie!” Joe said. “That guy gave me the creeps.”
“Pretty evil-looking character,” his brother agreed, then added, “Just to double-check, I'm calling Reykjavik on the radio and tell them the helicopter's coming back.”
The boys climbed back into the plane, closing the door to keep out the glacier air.
Then Frank tried to activate the radio. No luck! “Hey, Joe, look at this!”
“What's the matter?” his brother asked, coming forward along the sloping cabin.
“The radio's conked out!”
All at once a chill of realization surged over the Hardys. The pilot had sabotaged the set! Frank quickly examined it. The frequency crystal was missing.
“I don't believe he sent a rescue message at all,” Frank stated. “We've really been had, Joe!”
“You mean the helicopter was following us all the time?”
“I'm afraid so. Now we're in a real pickle!”
Perspiration stood out on Joe's forehead. “What'll we do, Frank?”
“Look for the part. Our blond Viking might have dropped it onto the ice when we weren't looking.”
The boys hopped out of the plane again and searched the icy surface, but in vain! Dark clouds sped in from the south, dropping lower and lower.
“Now we're in for it!” Joe muttered. He looked up to see snowflakes land on the disabled plane.
“Looks as if it might be a bad storm,” Frank said, and the boys climbed back inside the cabin.
Before long, the snow fell so thickly that they could not see three feet ahead. The wind rose, and by nightfall the Hardys were caught in a howling glacial blizzard. At the same time, the temperature dropped sharply.
“We didn't come dressed for anything like this,” Frank said, shivering. He glanced about for some extra clothing. Joe found a repair locker. In it were some tools and a greasy overall.
“You put that on,” Frank said.
“What about you?”
“Don't worry. We'll have to start a fire to keep us warm.”
“And burn the plane up?”
“We'll have to take that chance.”
Although the remaining fuel in the tank might have provided the much-needed heat, Frank and Joe decided against using the highly volatile gasoline. Instead, they opened the door a crack for ventilation, then tore off bits of interior woodwork with which they built a small fire on the floor of the aircraft.
The resultant warmth proved to be adequate. “At least we won't
freeze
to death now,” Joe said with a wry grin.
“We'll take turns tending this fire all night,” Frank suggested, glancing out the window. Nothing could be seen but the thick covering of snow and the crack in the door revealed only the blackness of the storm's fury.
The boys agreed to sit up in shifts, feeding the fire with whatever material they could find to burn.