High-Speed Showdown (6 page)

Frank made a note to look into this further.
Then he
said, “Who's next? Connie? She obviously had the opportunity to fax that
leaflet to Magnusson. She said she had them printed yesterday. And she was in the dining
room at lunchtime today, according to Batten, so she could have doctored Chuck's
food and slipped that second leaflet into Dennis's mapcase. Also, she
doesn't even bother to hide her motive. I'd like to find out what she meant
by saying that she'd make sure the big race wouldn't take place.”

“Just sounding off, if you ask me,” Joe replied. “What
about Angelo? Same motive as Connie, and he seems like a real hothead.”

“We can't place him in the dining room, though,” Frank
pointed out. “We'd better keep an eye on both of them. If they
are
involved, the chances are that they're working
together.”

“Right.” Joe flipped through the cards. “That's it
for now. How about a computer game? I'll spot you two power pills and an
invisibility spell.”

“You're on,” Frank said, with a grim smile. “In
other words, you're as good as dead!”

 • • •

The next morning Frank decided to stay home and compile some background
information on Barry, Dennis, and the others. Joe drove to the marina alone, and the
first people he saw as he parked were Dennis and Miguel. Dennis waved to him and crossed
the street.

“Are you ready for another little cruise?”
he asked, leaning in the window of the van. “Miguel and I are on our way down to
the dock right now.”

“You'd better believe I am,” Joe said, with a big grin.
“Let's go!”

Five minutes later
Adelita
was leaving the
harbor for open water. Dennis turned right and went parallel to the shoreline. As Miguel
picked up the speed, he began a series of wide, easy S-turns. Joe, in the seat just
behind Dennis, sat back and enjoyed the ride.

Suddenly he straightened up and frowned. He and Frank knew these waters
like their own backyard. The church steeple just ahead of the starboard beam told him
that they were getting close to Cooley's Ledge, a rock formation that was only
inches below the surface at low tide. Why didn't Dennis turn to port to avoid the
hazard? Didn't he see the warning buoy?

Then, as Dennis made a shallow turn toward the shore, Joe got a clear view
of the water ahead of them. The warning buoy wasn't there. Dennis was steering
right toward Cooley's Ledge, at over fifty miles an hour. He obviously
didn't realize that in less than a minute the jagged rocks were going to rip the
bottom out of his boat!

7 On the Rocks

“Dennis!” Joe shouted, trying to warn him about the onrushing danger. But the roar of the engines and the hiss of the water surging under the hull covered the sound of Joe's voice. He lunged forward, reaching out to grab Dennis's shoulder, but the safety harness held him trapped in his seat.

Frantic, Joe slapped the quick-release buckle of the harness. There was no time left to alert Dennis. They'd be wrecked on Cooley's Ledge before he could hope to explain. Instead, he flung himself forward, through the gap between Dennis's and Miguel's bucket seats. Grabbing the wheel with both hands, he jerked it to the left, throwing the boat into a hard turn to port.

As the boat heeled over sharply, Dennis fought
Joe for control of the wheel. He thrust his elbow toward Joe's face, but Joe's helmet protected him. Joe kept the wheel cranked over to port until he was sure that the bow was pointing away from the danger. Then he let go and fell back into his seat, just as Miguel throttled back the engines.

In the sudden silence, Joe heard Dennis yell, “Joe, are you out of your mind? You could have killed us!”

“I saved our lives,” Joe replied, after taking a deep breath. He felt exhausted by the strain and his effort. “Look at your chart. We were headed straight for a dangerous ledge. There's supposed to be a warning buoy, but it isn't there. I don't know why.”

Dennis narrowed his eyes at Joe. Then he took out the chart and looked back and forth between the markings there and the surroundings.

“You're right,” he said at last. “Thanks, Joe. This area is terribly dangerous. Without a marker there, someone who doesn't know these waters as well as you do could easily go aground. We'd better get back and let the authorities know about this, before somebody gets badly hurt.”

Back at the marina, Dennis went to the harbormaster's office to report the missing buoy. Joe found a pay phone and called Frank.

“I'd better come get you,” Joe said, after explaining what had happened. “I know buoys do slip their cables now and then. But we haven't had
any storms or heavy seas in the last week or two to account for it. If you ask me, somebody did it deliberately.”

“It sounds that way,” Frank replied. “We'd better track down the person responsible, and fast, before he or she causes a serious accident. I'll be waiting out front.”

 • • •

As they drove back toward the harbor, Frank said, “The first thing we need to do is find out when the buoy drifted away. Until we know that, we won't have a hope of figuring out who helped it along.”

“What are the chances that we'll find anybody who saw it go?” Joe asked skeptically. “That'd be too good to be true.”

“I know that,” Frank replied. “But we know it was gone this morning. If we can pin down the last time somebody saw it there . . . The trouble is, most of the people who are here for the meet probably don't know this part of the sound well enough to notice whether one particular buoy is there or not.”

Joe thought hard. “The charter boats!” he suddenly exclaimed, snapping his fingers. “They take fishing parties out every morning and lots of evenings, too. And the guys who work them know these waters better than we know our own backyard.”

“Great idea, Joe,” Frank said. He glanced at his
wrist. “And they should be coming in from their morning trips just about now, too.”

Joe drove past the marina and parked near the head of Commercial Pier. He and Frank walked out on the pier, stopping at each fishing boat to ask the crew if they had passed Cooley's Ledge lately. They struck out with the first three boats. All had headed east, in the opposite direction from the ledge, after leaving the harbor.

The fourth boat they came to was Captain Bill Mares's
Susie II
. Captain Bill, in wrinkled khakis and a baseball cap, listened to their question. Then he said, “Now, there's an odd thing. That buoy was definitely there yesterday around sunset. I happened to pay attention because there was one of those big inflatable outboard rigs tied up to it. You don't see that many of them around here. And now that you ask, it comes back to me that it
wasn't
there at daybreak. I noticed without really noticing, if you catch my drift.”

“So the buoy must have come loose at some time during the night,” Frank said, partly to himself.

“Well, now, that's an odd thing, too,” Captain Bill remarked. “It was pretty solidly anchored. I know, because I helped put it in place. It was attached to a big concrete block by a steel cable.”

“How strong a cable?” Joe asked.

Captain Bill took off his cap, scratched his head, and put the cap back on. “I wouldn't hazard a
guess as to its breaking strength,” he said. “But it was the sort of cable you might use to lock up your bicycle, if you liked your bicycle a lot.”

Joe looked over at Frank. They both knew how easily a bolt-cutting tool could slice through even the strongest bike cable lock.

“Isn't it unusual for a boat to be tied up to the buoy?” Frank asked.

“Not really,” Captain Bill replied. “There's pretty fair fishing around Cooley's Ledge, and it's easier to tie up your boat to the buoy than to drop an anchor. The boat itself was a little unusual, though. Must have been about a twenty-footer, with a hefty outboard on the back. Now that I think of it, I've seen it before, it or its twin. Over to the marina. One of those ecological groups takes people out in it to teach them about ecosystems or something.”

“Connie!” Joe said under his breath.

“Thanks, Captain,” Frank said. “You've been a big help.”

The Hardys hurried to the van and drove back to the marina. They checked the sidewalk in front of the inn, but there was no sign of Connie or Angelo. The guard at the marina gate looked in his directory and told them where the Earthquest boat was docked, but when they reached the slip, it was empty.

Joe looked around. There was a white cabin
cruiser moored in the next slip. A man and woman were having coffee at the small table in the cockpit.

“Ahoy,” Joe called, feeling a little silly as he said it. “Did you see the Earthquest boat this morning?”

“Sure,” the man said. “Connie and a friend of hers took it out about an hour ago. They wanted to check out the course for the races and find a good spot to watch from.”

“Thanks,” Joe called. He turned to Frank and said in a low voice, “Connie wants to stop the races. Why would she want to go looking for a spot to watch them?”

“I think we'd better ask
her
that question,” Frank replied. “The sooner the better. Good thing
Sleuth
has a full tank of gas.”

The two Hardys walked quickly to the farthest dock, where they kept their little runabout. It took only moments to get the engine started. Frank took the helm. Joe untied the dock lines, then jumped in.

“Where to?” he asked, as
Sleuth
'
s
bow turned toward the mouth of the harbor. “There's an awful lot of water out there.”

“According to her neighbor, Connie was planning to look over the course of the races,” Frank reminded him. “Why don't we simply start at the starting line and follow the marker buoys?”

“The course is about twenty-five miles,” Joe said. “It's going to take a while.”

Frank grinned. “It's laid out in a long oval, you doofus. We can keep an eye on the return leg while we're on our way out.”

The morning was mostly sunny but not too warm, perfect conditions to be out on the water. The sparkling blue surface of the bay was dappled here and there by purple cloud shadows. Joe sat back in his seat and took in a lungful of the salt-tinged breeze. He half wished that he and Frank were simply taking a ride for the fun of it. Then he reminded himself that part of what he felt was the excitement of the chase. Connie and Angelo were up to something, he was sure of that. But they hadn't counted on having Frank and Joe Hardy on their trail.

Frank broke in on his brother's thoughts, saying, “Those buoys must mark the start and finish line.” He steered between the two bright yellow markers. “Ready, set,
go!
” he added, shoving the throttle all the way.

The nimble runabout took off between twin sheets of spray. As the bow lifted, Joe sat up straighter to get a better view of where they were going. The next yellow buoy was already in sight. So was a sport fishing boat that was approaching them bow-on. Frank backed off the throttle and turned a few degrees to starboard. The fishing
boat moved to its starboard, too, following the rules of the road that allowed the two boats to pass each other safely. As soon as he was past the other boat, Frank picked up speed again.

“See anything?” he called, over the noise of the engine.

Joe shook his head. He had grabbed a pair of binoculars from the locker, but he was having trouble holding them steady with the boat under way. He scanned the area ahead of them. Good thing it was a weekday, he thought, since it meant there weren't that many pleasure boats out. Most of them he could eliminate on the basis of their profiles. Then he noticed a low, dark shape about a mile away, almost dead ahead. He studied it as the motion of the waves made it vanish and reappear. It didn't seem to be moving.

Joe tapped Frank on the shoulder and pointed. Frank nodded, then adjusted his course to pass close to the other boat. As they drew nearer and the outlines of the boat became easier to make out, Joe became more and more sure that it was their quarry. As Captain Bill had said, there weren't often that many big inflatables in the area.

“That's Connie and Angelo,” Joe announced when they were about a hundred yards away. “But what are they up to?”

He could see that Connie was kneeling in the bottom of the boat, leaning way out over the side. Angelo was crouched next to her, with something
long and narrow in his hands. As
Sleuth
drew nearer, he straightened up and glanced over his shoulder, then sprang to the controls. The engine must have been idling in neutral. Almost instantly, it roared to life. The boat surged forward.

Then, just as Frank shoved
Sleuth's
throttle all the way open, the motor on the rubber boat stalled. A passing wave slowly turned it broadside, directly in the path of the Hardys' speedboat.

Joe saw Angelo leap toward the stern of the boat and tug at the motor's manual starter, frantically trying to get his boat out of the way of the larger boat barreling toward it. Connie was thrown off balance by the sudden shift in the boat, and with a cry for help, she tumbled into the water.

“Look out, Frank!” Joe shouted, seeing Connie fall in headfirst. “Turn! We're going to hit them!”

8 Collision Course

All Frank's attention had been focused on overtaking the other boat. Now, suddenly, he had to avoid running into it—and Connie! Clenching his jaw, Frank used his left hand to turn the wheel hard to starboard, while his right hand fell to the throttle and eased it back to idle speed.
Sleuth
bucked like a startled stallion and heeled to the right. It missed the smaller boat by only a few feet.

Just then a wave rolled under the bow, catching it at an angle. For one moment Frank was sure that the boat was about to become airborne. Then the bow slapped itself down on the water. Frank felt the force of the impact in his spine and the base of his skull.