The Arctic Patrol Mystery (7 page)

Near dawn, the howling winds abated, and Joe tore one of the passenger's seats apart for fuel. Suddenly he let out a cry of delight.

“Frank, I found it!”

ROUSED from a fitful sleep, Frank sat up groggily and rubbed his eyes. “What did you say, Joe? You found something?”

“Sure, look at this!” Joe held up a square-shaped metal piece about the size of a nickel. “The frequency crystal for the radio. It was thrown behind one of the seats!”

The news electrified Frank into direct action. Stepping over the glowing embers of their fire, he hastened to the front of the plane. After he had replaced the part, the radio was in perfect condition. Within seconds, Frank made contact with the radio tower at Reykjavik.

After he had told his story, the dispatcher said that an Icelandic coast guard helicopter would come to their aid.

Frank sent another message to be relayed to Chet and Biff at the Saga Hotel, saying everything was okay.

Despite the cold, the boys jumped from the plane into the deep snow. They trudged about, packing down a place for the helicopter to land. An hour later it came zooming low over the glacier.

The Hardys waved furiously to attract the pilot's attention. In minutes he had the craft on the glacier and stepped out to meet them.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

“No, we're all right,” Frank said.

“Pretty nasty accident. You were lucky to come out alive. Did you rent your plane in Reykjavik?”

Briefly Frank related what had happened, and how their kidnapper had gotten away.

“That was not one of our rescue copters,” the airman stated.

“We figured that,” Joe replied.

The pilot got into the copter, with the Hardys following.

“Can we ask you a favor?” Frank said when the craft was airborne.

“What is it?”

“Could you take us directly to Akureyri?”

The man frowned. “Why Akureyri?”

Joe explained that they were American detectives on the trail of a Rex Hallbjornsson who had answered their ad with a letter postmarked Akureyri.

The pilot grinned. “I suppose our government can do a favor for American detectives.” With that, he wheeled the craft northward.

Soon the glacier gave way to rolling meadows, with patches of green showing through the light covering of snow.

“Look sharp,” the pilot said, “and let me know if you see any polar bears.”

“Polar bears?” Frank asked. “I didn't know there were any in Iceland.”

“Usually not,” the man replied. He explained that the winter had been severe, causing a huge tongue of ice to extend from Greenland around the north coast of Iceland. It curved down along the eastern shore of the country.

“Several polar bears were carried down on the ice and they climbed onto our island. One has been caught, but some are still roaming around, as far as the west coast. They have killed sheep, and one farmer had to flee for his life.”

Frank and Joe kept looking for bears, but all they saw were several small settlements with sod huts and flocks of sheep grazing on the greening pastures.

Every now and then the boys spotted small ponies. When they questioned the pilot, he said, “Ponies used to be our chief means of transportation. We still use them a lot here. Icelandic ponies are strong and durable.”

The north coast came into view and the airman pointed to a bay that cut deep inland. “There's Akureyri!”

Shortly afterward, he landed the craft in a field not far from the center of town, and the boys got out.

“Good luck to you,” the pilot said, waving good-by. “I'll make a report to the coast guard in Reykjavik.”

First, Frank and Joe found a drugstore where they purchased shaving equipment. The next stop was a small hotel, where they registered, cleaned up, and had breakfast in their room.

Tired out from their harrowing experience, they decided to sleep for a couple of hours. But when they awakened, it was already growing dark.

Frank was annoyed with himself. “We should have had the clerk buzz us earlier,” he said.

“Well,” Joe replied, stretching luxuriously, “Rex Hallbjornsson probably works, and wouldn't have been home anyhow.”

The boys ate supper in the hotel dining room, then set out to find the elusive Icelander. His address was a small one-family house, made of aging brick and plaster, with a steep corrugated roof. It was located on a side street, across from a fish factory.

As they approached, Frank held his nose. “Phew!” he said. “They must be making fertilizer in there!”

Joe knocked and the door was opened by a middle-aged woman, who spoke fairly good English. Yes, Hallbjornsson lived there, she said, adding that another American had been looking for him, too.

“Another?” Frank asked, perplexed.

“Yes, come this way,” the landlady said, disregarding his query, and ushered the boys down the hall into a small room. Seated in a well-worn easy chair beside a small cot was a man, completely bald. His blue eyes blinked as he stared at the callers.

“We're Frank and Joe Hardy,” Frank said. “Are you Rex Hallbjornsson?”

“Ja.”
In halting English, Hallbjornsson said he was both excited and glad to see the boys. He motioned for them to sit on his cot, then made a quick phone call in a foreign tongue.

When he returned, Frank said, “We understand you're a seaman.”

“You were shipwrecked, too,” Joe added. “Pretty lucky man to be alive.”

Hallbjornsson nodded and proceeded to tell them a long story about his travels to Europe. None of the details agreed with the information their father had given them. And the man did not have the weather-beaten face of a sailor.

“I was shipwrecked in Spain,” he went on, “and hit my head on the gunwale of the rescue boat. Then I had—what do you say?—amnesia. For five years I wandered, until one day in Turkey—”

“That was when you worked for the Greek shipping company,” Joe put in, embroidering the man's false tale.

“Ja.
You know about that?”

Frank nodded and pursued Joe's tack. “Then you went to Syria, and finally back to Iceland, right?”

“Good. I am glad you know the details,” Hallbjornsson said. “That will make it easier for me to collect. How much money do I get?”

“Fifty thousand dollars,” Frank replied.

The man's eyes bulged greedily. “Do you have it with you?”

“No, we don't have any money with us,” Frank replied. “Naturally, we'll have to make a report to the insurance company first. But if you're the right man, you'll get what you're entitled to receive.”

“Ja, ja,”
the man murmured. “Make it soon. You see how I am living here in this cheap room. And I am getting old.”

The boys said good-by, stepped out into the hall, and made their way to the front of the house. They tried to find the landlady to question her about the other American, but she was nowhere in sight.

It was pitch dark when they stepped out into the street. Then there was an explosion of light, and darkness again, as Frank and Joe crumpled under blows to their heads!

They awakened to the pungent smell of fish. How much time had passed neither boy knew. Joe looked up, glassy-eyed, into the face of Biff Hooper, who was bending over them.

“Take it easy,” Biff said. “Just a bad bump on the noggin—both of you!”

Joe raised up on one elbow and winced. He had a splitting headache. Then he looked about. Both he and Frank were on a conveyor belt.

“Where—where are we?” asked Frank.

“In a fish factory. Don't you smell it?” Biff replied. “Right across the street from Rex Hallbjornsson's.”

“That faker!” Joe muttered. He swung into a sitting position and slid off the conveyor belt, rubbing his head gingerly.

Frank followed suit. “For Pete's sake,” he said, “tell us what happened, Biff! How did we get here, and where did you come from?”

“Let's get out of here first, and I'll give you the whole story,” Biff suggested. Walking the Hardys to their hotel, he explained that he had become worried about their trip to Akureyri. “I had a feeling you might be dry-gulched there. So I got a regular flight this morning and followed you.”

“You must have left before our message arrived,” Frank said. “When you didn't find us here, then what?”

Biff had gone to Hallbjornsson's address, but he was not in. “The landlady told me the guy had come there only recently,” he explained, “and she thought he was a foreigner.”

Biff said he had wandered around town, watching the fishing boats and talking to American tourists. Then he had returned to Hallbjornsson's in the evening.

“I guess we arrived before you,” Joe put in.

“Right. When I got here, I saw two men lurking in front of the house. I decided to play it by ear and stepped into an alley to see what would happen. A few minutes later you came out, and these fellows blackjacked you.”

Frank gave a low whistle. “Now I know why Hallbjornsson got on the phone as soon as we came in!”

“Then,” Biff continued, “a siren sounded, and you should have seen those fellows go to work. They dragged you into the fish factory. I was hoping it would be the police, but it was only an ambulance going past.”

“So you followed the guys?” Joe asked.

Biff said that when the men did not come out of the building, he stole in to find the Hardys lying on the conveyor belt. “They must have scrammed out a side door,” he concluded. “Now tell me, what happened to you?”

Frank gave him a brief report, and soon they reached the hotel. Frank and Joe got ice packs to apply to the lumps on their heads, and ordered a cot to be put in their room for Biff.

Next morning after breakfast the trio caught a plane back to Reykjavik. When their taxi arrived at the Saga Hotel, a strange sight greeted them. Chet was in front of the hotel, wandering about aimlessly.

“Hey, Chet!” Frank called out. The stout boy turned slowly and stood still. “Hi,” he said listlessly.

“He sure looks funny,” Frank stated. He said to Chet, “Come here!”

Chet obeyed, childlike.

Biff looked closely at him. “He isn't right. Look, Frank, his eyes are dilated.”

Chet's head lolled as if he was in a stupor.

“I'll bet he's been drugged!” Joe cried out. “Holy toledo! Maybe somebody's upstairs fooling around with our radio and decoder!”

“Biff, take Chet to the front desk and get a doctor for him,” Frank said quickly. “Joe and I will go upstairs.”

The Hardys hastened into the hotel, dashed to an elevator, and let themselves out on their floor. Tiptoeing down the carpeted hall, they came to their room.

Frank silently inserted the key in the lock, turned it, and swung the door open.

Two men, taken by surprise, whirled around—the blond pilot and his phony rescuer!

CAUGHT red-handed, the two men glared hate-fully at the Hardys before diving for the door. Frank and Joe were bowled over and a furious melee ensued. Punching and cursing, the intruders bulled their way past the two boys.

Joe made a plunge for the blond man and got a firm grip on his wavy hair. But suddenly he was holding a wig in his hand! The thug was utterly bald!

“Get him, Frank!”

The Hardys dashed along the hall, but the intruders made the elevator ahead of them.

“Down the stairway, Joe!”

The boys leaped three steps at a time in an effort to beat the elevator to the lobby. At the second floor the elevator doors opened. Out rushed the two men and raced down an adjacent corridor into a huge ballroom filled with tables and chairs.

Grabbing chairs as they ran, the thugs flung them into the path of the pursuers.

Frank hit one and fell flat. Joe stumbled over his brother. By the time they picked themselves up, the men had vanished down a back stairway and out of the building!

Disappointed, the Hardys limped upstairs. In Biff's room a doctor was examining Chet, a stethoscope to his ears.

“You say you had a cup of coffee with two strangers?” he asked as Frank and Joe walked in.

“That's right, Doc,” replied Chet, who seemed much improved.

The Hardys introduced themselves, and the physician said, “Your friend will get over it all right. He was drugged. Do you have enemies?”

“Perhaps.” Frank did not want to reveal their mission.

“Well, be careful. I am sorry such a thing had to happen to you in Iceland.”

“Thanks for coming over so soon, Doc,” said Biff. “What do we owe you?”

The doctor waved them off with a smile. “Nothing. Glad to help visitors.” He put away his stethoscope and picked up his bag. “I would advise some exercise for you, young man. How about a swim in one of our warm water pools?”

“That'd be great!” Chet said, a big smile returning to his round face. “Where?”

“I suggest Sundholl. It is indoors, and not far from here.”

The boys thanked the doctor again, and he left. Frank picked up the codebook from the safe, and they all went to the Hardys' room.

“Looks as if a cyclone hit it,” Biff stated. “Are you sure one of them was Hallbjornsson?”

“No doubt about it,” Joe replied. “First he looked for us at Keflavik Airport, then he followed us around the downtown area and finally kidnapped us in that plane.”