Edge of Destruction (5 page)

"Or else they're fast-talking us," said Frank. "Let's not be too eager to tell these guys anything. I mean, we know who we are. But how do we know who they are? Maybe they're pulling scam on us. Maybe you've told them too much already."

Joe turned to the man in the suit. "All right. Who are you guys?"

"And can you prove it?" Frank added.

"So," said the man. "Now we're stuck." He grinned. "You don't trust us, and we don't trust you."

"It's like some kind of standoff," Frank agreed. "Neither one of us will let his guard down."

"The question is, how do we end it?" said the man.

But they didn't have time to come up with an answer.

"Okay, scum, up with your hands," a voice from the doorway ordered.

Standing there was the big, bald, bearded man whom Frank and Joe had chased. Behind him was a squat man with a military crew cut. Each held a .45-big and deadly looking.

There was no arguing with those guns.

Jack, Carl, and the man in the suit raised their hands instantly. While the squat man held his gun on them, the bearded man walked over to Joe and Frank.

"Hey, kids, we meet again," he said with a nasty smile. "Congratulations. You finally caught up with me." He gave Frank, then Joe, a close-up view of his gun. “Notice that the safety is off," he said menacingly. "And let me tell you that this piece has a hair trigger. So don't make any quick movements when I unstrap you. Just keep lying there, dead like, until I tell you to get up. I'd hate to have to get those nice clean sheets all stained with blood."

With his gun in one hand, he unstrapped first Joe, then Frank. Then he stepped back a safe distance and motioned for the boys to stand up.

Frank and Joe exchanged quick glances. This guy was a pro. It was going to be hard to get his gun away from him.

In fact, it might be impossible.

"Get over there!" the bearded man ordered, motioning Joe and Frank to join Jack, Carl, and the man in the suit.

The man in the suit spoke quietly to Joe and Frank. "Allow me to introduce myself," he said. "My name is Jones. Peter Jones. At least we can trust each other now. That's one problem we don't have."

Though Jones had spoken in a low voice, the bearded man caught the last sentence.

The gunman grinned. "You guys ain't going to have any problems to worry about," he said. "You see these guns? They're going to solve all your problems forever."

"WE DO IT now, huh?" asked the man with the crew cut. His voice was eager.

"Cool it, dimwit," said the bearded gunman. "We got our orders. We take them to the dump off spot. That way, no stress, no mess." The first gunman gave him a sour look. "Okay," he said. "Let's go."

"Out into the corridor," the bearded man told his captives. "And no funny business, Or else the dum-dum bullets in this gun will splatter you all over the walls."

The Hardys, along with - Peter Jones, Jack, and Carl, were herded out of the room and down the corridor. "That's far enough," announced the bearded man.

While his sidekick held a gun on the prisoners, he lifted a trapdoor in the floor, shone his flashlight through it, and disappeared down a metal ladder.

"Okay." His voice echoed from below. "Send them down. I'll cover them when they get here."

"You heard him," said the short-haired gunman, shining his flashlight in the hole.

"Where does this go?" Joe wondered aloud as he climbed down the ladder after Frank.

Peter Jones answered from above him. "You'll find out soon enough," he said. Obviously, Jones knew the answer, and he wasn't happy with it.

Frank looked around at the huge concrete tunnel they were standing in. "Looks like an abandoned sewer," he said, turning to Jones. "Am I right?"

"No talking!" the bearded gunman said before Jones could answer. "Keep your mouths shut and your ears open. That way, you won't die ahead of schedule."

By then everyone had reached the bottom of the ladder. Without hesitating, the gunmen marched their prisoners through the sewer. The silence was disturbed only by the sound of their footsteps.

"We're almost there," the bearded man reported. "If you have any prayers or goodbyes, say them now. You've got three minutes left."

The words seemed to reverberate in the air, and Joe felt a chill run through him. Then he realized it wasn't echoes he was hearing, but a distant roaring sound that was growing louder.

The two gunmen heard it too. Puzzled looks spread across their faces. Jones and his companions did not look puzzled, though. Even in the dim glow of the flash lights, Joe could see their expressions light up with sudden hope.

A few seconds later the roaring was nearly deafening. Despite themselves, the gunmen turned around to see what was happening. At that same moment, Joe and Frank felt hands on their arms, pulling them up another ladder.

"Climb!" Jones shouted.

"Hold it or we'll - " the bearded gunman threatened, but his words-were drowned out. By that time Joe and Frank were well up the rungs of the ladder, following Jones and his friends.

The gunmen's flashlights had gone out, and the tremendous roaring filled the blackness below. But the five continued Climbing. From above, Frank and Joe heard a series of groans and then a harsh, grating sound just before a circle of dim light appeared. Water splattered down on the Hardys’ upturned faces.

Jones and his friends had managed to remove a manhole cover and were climbing, up through the opening.

Soon Joe and Frank stood beside them on a one-way city street blocked off from traffic by two huge garbage trucks - positioned at the entrance. Rain pounded their bodies while gigantic forks of lightning lit up the black afternoon sky.

"I still don't get what happened down there," Joe said to Jones after they had replaced the cover and moved onto the sidewalk. "Maybe you can fill me in."

"You were right about our being in a sewer," said Jones. "But it wasn't an abandoned one. It was a storm sewer, built to carry off rain water from the streets. It's lucky for us that this storm hit when it did. Or else we'd be in the East River, and not those goons." Jones pointed down the street. "The river is just a couple of blocks from here. They were planning to knock us off and drop us in."

"I'm glad they're gone, but now we're left with no clues. We have no idea who those men were and who their boss is, unless you know," said Frank. "I was hoping you did," Jones said.

Frank had to laugh. "Give us a break. Joe and I don't even know who you are." "That's true," Jones agreed. "I guess we're all in the dark."

By then the sun was breaking through the clouds, flooding the city with dazzling light that reflected off the puddles in the street.

"Look," Jones said suddenly. "We'd better start putting our heads together if we want to get anywhere, that is. My apartment's near here. Let's go there, dry off, and exchange information. I've got a hunch we can help one another."

"Fair enough," said Frank.

"I'll fill you in at our next meeting," Jones said to both his men. They nodded.

Jack reached into his pocket and pulled out a small tool. He inserted it into a hole in the manhole cover and heaved. The cover lifted. Jack stood for a second, tilting his head with one ear toward the hole. "The-water's only a trickle now. We can go back down in a minute." The man grinned broadly. "See you, Jonesy."

Joe and Frank exchanged glances. Go back down?

"Come on, kids, let's get going,'" Jones said before they could ask questions.

They left Jack and Carl standing by the manhole. "They're a little uncomfortable at my place," Jones explained. "It's too high up for them.”

Jones's apartment was high up by anyone's standards, on the fortieth floor of a new high-rise.

"This is a long Way up from that sewer down there," said Joe after they had dried off. He stood by a huge picture window and looked out over the city. The sun was just starting to dip below the tops of the high buildings to the west.

"Not so long-just two years long," said Jones. "But I'll tell you about myself later. First tell me about yourselves."

Frank and Joe did. They told him who they were, who their father was, and what had happened to them since the evening before.

"Your turn now," said Frank.

"Yeah," said Joe. "What did you mean about this apartment being two years away from that sewer down there?" "I meant that two years ago I was living below the surface of the city." "With Carl and Jack?" asked Frank.

"With them and with a lot of other people," said Jones. "Do you have any idea how many people live in forgotten building basements? In abandoned subway stations? In utility tunnels that are no longer used? There's practically an entire city underground."

"Why would anyone live like that?" Joe asked. "Like some kind of mole?"

"'There are as many different reasons as there are people," said Jones. "But most of them just can't afford the rents in New York. They either lost apartments when their buildings were torn down to make way for luxury apartments or when their living spaces were turned into co-op apartments and condos for the well-to-do. Others simply got in one kind of jam or another and decided to drop out. Some of the people I know prefer to lead lives outside the mainstream. As I said, there are all kinds of people down there."

"And you?" said Frank.

"Me? I was a lawyer with a great career, a wife and child I loved, and everything going for me. Then my wife and child died in an air crash, and nothing seemed worth doing. I wound up living underground with the others, sleeping on a cot in a room that once had been used for train maintenance. The only time I surfaced was to panhandle a few bucks and buy what I needed to live." "But you've surfaced now," said Joe.

"After a while the wounds healed. I got a job, and since then I've done pretty well. But I never lost my ties with the people I lived with down below," said Jones. "And when the trouble started, they came to me for help."

"The trouble?" said Frank. "You mean those two goons who almost rubbed us all out?"

Jones nodded. "They're part of it. About five months ago, thugs started appearing underground. They drove people out with threats or actual violence. And since then, they've continued expanding their turf. Don't ask me why, but they want space and privacy, and their victims haven't been able to do anything to stop them. When the goons kidnapped Ian - the poor guy you saw lying in the hospital bed-to use in some kind of medical experiment that was the last straw. There was a meeting to organize a self defense corps, with me as coordinator."

"Couldn't they go to the cops?" asked Frank, and then answered his own question. "No, I guess they couldn't. Living underground is illegal, right?"

"Right," said Jones. "There's an unspoken agreement between the underground people and the cops. The people stay out of sight and out of trouble, and the cops stay out of their hair."

"So you guys don't want the cops getting mixed up in this fight any more than we do," said Frank.

"You've got the picture. The underground people are sure that if they called the cops in, the cops would have no choice but to destroy their life below."

"That leaves us with nobody to help us but each other," said Joe. "I just wish we knew who the enemy is.”

"And what he's out to do," said Frank.

Just then the phone rang.

Jones answered it and listened a moment. Then he hung up, his face flushed with excitement. He turned to the Hardy boys.

"Come on. We finally got a break!" he said eagerly.

"What is it?" Joe asked.

"We managed to capture one of them. I want to question him." Jones hurried to the door. "I just hope we get there before they lynch him!"

"WHY ARE WE wearing these?" Joe rapped his knuckles against the blue hard hat he was wearing. Jones had produced three of them as they rushed from his apartment. "Are we supposed to blast the truth out of this guy?"

"You'll see," Jones said.

They left the building, and he led the way down a quiet side street. Halfway down the block, he stopped at a manhole cover and opened his briefcase. Out came a crowbar.

Jones wedged it in the cover, stamped down, and levered the cover out of the way.

"After I surfaced, I needed a convenient way to get back underground whenever I wanted," he explained. "I found out that if I wore a hard hat nobody would look twice when they saw me going down into a manhole." After a few minutes of walking through a storm sewer, Jones said, "This is where we get out." He shone his flashlight up a short metal ladder, which they climbed. They found themselves in a concrete cavern lit by candles. Three men in ragged clothes were guarding a man who clearly had gotten the worst of a fight. "Good work," said Jones. "And thanks for getting in touch with me so fast." "This guy made it easy, he supplied the, phone," said one of the guards. "It's tapped into a telephone cable down here. A real neat job. I should know, I used to work for the phone company before they laid me off." A thought struck Frank. "Just where in the city are we right now?" "Under the center of Lexington Avenue, between Forty-second and Forty-third streets," said the man. "That explains it," said Frank. "Explains what?" Jones looked quizzical. "The police chief's phone tracing system pin pointed a threatening phone call coming from here," said Frank. "Peterson will be happy to know that his system wasn't at fault.

But one thing I don't understand," he continued, "is how we can be under the middle of a major avenue. Maybe that's a dumb question, but - "

"Don't be hard on yourself," Jones interrupted. "You don't know how New York skyscrapers are built. First, builders have to dig huge basements to house the foundations. Those basements interlock with each other and extend under most of the city's streets."

"Well, you weren't kidding about there being a lot of empty space down here," said Joe, looking around him.

Jones's expression hardened. "There is a lot of territory down here," he said. "But not enough for us and them."

"Right," said a man wearing an old army jacket. "It's a war between the underground and the underworld, and we're going to win it."