In Plane Sight (8 page)

A distant buzz drifted to his ears. He looked ahead and saw Jamal's plane circling ahead of him. Joe remembered once seeing a movie stunt, where a sky diver had landed on a moving plane. Jamal was too far away to try it, though. Despite this, the younger Hardy felt glad that his friend and his brother hadn't given up on him yet.

A shout pierced the chilly air. “Joe!”

Joe's heart raced as he turned his head and saw Frank plummeting toward him. The elder Hardy had tucked his arms to his side and was holding his legs tight and straight, making his body less
wind-resistant. He shot forward rapidly, like a hawk diving out of the sky onto its pray.

In seconds he'd closed the distance between him and Joe.

Frank floated alongside his brother, and the two clasped hands. The icy ground below them was rushing up very quickly now.

“Just like buddy diving in the school pool when we were little!” Frank hollered.

Joe nodded and twisted his body in the air. Frank came in facing his brother and clasped his arms under Joe's arms. Joe wriggled his arms through some of the chute's restraints and locked his fingers together around Frank's back, making sure not to interfere with the parachute.

“Ready!” Joe said, shouting to be heard over the howling wind.

Frank pulled the ripcord, and the parachute shot into the sky. The round patch of nylon billowed open, and the brothers jerked hard as the chute slowed them down. Joe almost lost his grip, but Frank held on tightly.

The two of them slowly spiraled down toward the big frozen lake below. Tall pine trees lined the lakeshore. Long tracks, probably from snowmobiles, crossed the far end of the lake, miles away. A bit of rusty green prefab barn shone through the trees in that direction as well.

The snow-covered ice below them looked solid
enough. “Hang on!” Frank said, and he and Joe braced themselves for touchdown.

They hit hard and tumbled onto the ice. It wasn't a controlled roll, as they'd been taught in their parachuting lessons, but it was enough to blunt the impact. A big cracking sound echoed around them, but the ice held.

Frank moaned. Joe had landed on top of him.

“Man!” Joe said. “I don't think I've ever been more glad to see you, Frank!”

“Same here, little brother,” Frank replied. “But would you mind getting off me? You weigh a ton.”

Joe laughed and untangled himself from Frank's parachute harness. He rolled to one side and lay on the ice. “I ache all over!” he said.

“It beats being
spread
all over,” Frank said.

“By a long shot,” Joe replied. “Thanks—a lot.”

“Don't mention it.”

A buzzing overhead caught their attention, and they looked up to see Jamal circling the lake. Clouds had closed in overhead, and a cold fog seemed about to swallow the tiny Cessna.

“Feel up to waving?” Joe asked. They both were still lying flat on the ice.

“I'll just call him on the cell phone,” Frank said. He dug into his jacket pocket and punched up Jamal's number, then hit the speakerphone button on the handset. “Jamal?” Frank asked.

“Boy, am I glad to hear you!” Jamal's voice blared.
There was some interference in the signal, but they could make out his words well enough. “Are you both okay?”

“Battered and bruised, but still here,” Joe replied.

“Phew!” Jamal said. “I was sure you were both goners. I'm trying to find a place to land, but I don't know that the ice will support the plane.”

“I wouldn't chance it,” Frank said. “It gave a pretty good crack when we landed.”

“I'm sure it's still patchy in spots,” Joe said. “The weather hasn't been cold enough yet to form a really thick sheet.”

“I'll keep looking,” Jamal said, “but the weather's closing in up here.” His last words were almost drowned in static.

“We're losing you,” Frank said. “I thought I saw a barn on the far side of the lake before we landed. We'll try to make for it.”

“Get back to the airport and send a search party,” Joe said. “No sense your crashing trying to save us.”

“Roger,” Jamal said. “I'll talk to you—” Static swallowed the remainder of his message.

The brothers tried for a few more moments to get him back, but with no success.

“We must be right at the edge of cell range,” Frank said.

“And the weather's cutting us off from the local relay tower,” Joe replied. “I'm glad we got Jamal,
though. The Global Positioning System in his plane will make it easier for a search party to find us.”

“Let's get off this ice,” Frank said. “I'm freezing.”

He and Joe stood slowly and gathered up their parachute. They repacked it onto Frank's back and then made their way toward the edge of the lake.

“We'll follow the lakeshore up to where I saw that rusty barn,” Frank said.

“Good plan,” Joe said. “Let's hope that whatever farmhouse the barn belongs to isn't deserted.”

Frank nodded. “It sure would be nice to get back to a warm bed tonight.”

“Or a semiwarm sleeping bag,” Joe told him.

“Hmm,” Frank said. “Maybe we should spring for a hotel room after all.”

“Let's get back to civilization first.”

They skidded across the snow-frosted ice toward a nearby pine-covered peninsula. The clouds descended further as they walked, and soon the distance became lost in a gray fog.

“The weather's caught between fall and winter,” Joe said. “I guess we should be happy it's not snowing.”

“I'll be happy—”

Frank was cut off by a large cracking sound. Suddenly the ice gave way beneath his feet, and he plunged into the dark waters below.

9 The Ghost in the Ice

“Frank!” Joe yelled. He dropped onto all fours to prevent the ice from breaking beneath him and scrambled toward the edge of the hole. When he peered into the water, though, he saw no sign of his brother.

Frank Hardy plunged into the chilly deep. The parachute on his back became waterlogged almost instantly. The heavy backpack dragged him down toward the lake's unknown depths.

Frank pulled the parachute pack from his back and let it fall to the bottom. The water felt like cold needles piercing his skin. He glanced up and saw a broken circle of light above, the hole through which he had fallen.

Then something closer by caught his eye. It was an aircraft, an airplane submerged beneath the ice, half buried in the bottom of the lake. The craft's dark red tail jutted up from the murky waters below. It seemed about the same shape and size as one of the Sullivan Brothers custom airplanes. Curiosity rose in Frank's brain, but he didn't have enough air in his lungs to take a long look.

Kicking hard, he shot toward the pale light above. He broke surface next to Joe's extended hands. The younger Hardy grabbed his brother by the arms and pulled. Frank scrambled up, and a few moments later the two lay on the ice side by side, panting.

“Glad you came up,” Joe said. “I thought for a moment that I'd have to dive in after you.”

“Me too,” Frank said.

“How long do you think it will take to crawl to shore?” Joe asked. “Or do you want to chance walking again?”

“No thanks,” Frank said. “I'll be pretty frozen by the time we get there, but I think I prefer being a Popsicle to falling in again.”

“Let's go then.”

Cautiously they crept the thirty yards from the hole in the ice to the wooded shore of the peninsula.

“How far do you think it is to that barn?” Joe asked.

“At least two or three miles,” Frank said. “We won't make it before dark.”

“We'd better dry you off then,” Joe said. “I could stand to warm up too. Next time I go parachuting, remind me to take my jumpsuit.”

“The next time I go swimming under the ice, remind me to take my wet suit,” Frank replied. “Come on, let's see if we can get a fire started.”

They cleared a bare patch on the ground at the edge of the pine forest. Fortunately there was little snow to move away, and what there was consisted mostly of light powder. They found plenty of dry pine needles in the woods to use as tinder and enough stout sticks and dead branches to make a good stack.

Utilizing their knowledge from years of scout camp, the brothers quickly got a small blaze going, which they soon built into a good-size fire. Frank dangled his clothes, piece by piece, on sticks over the fire until they were dry. Joe was soon feeling toasty as well.

“This is a little more
extreme
camping than I'd intended when I came along on this trip,” Joe said.

“This is a little more extreme
everything
than I intended when I came along,” Frank replied. “Two plane thefts, a break-in, a fistfight, a crash, and some skydiving and swimming to top it all off.”

“I'm glad I didn't join you on that last part,” Joe said, rubbing his fingers together to warm them.

“I'm glad you didn't too. One Hardy-sicle in the family is enou—” Frank stopped in midword and
slapped his palm to his forehead. “I almost forgot. . . . You won't believe what I saw down there under the ice.”

“What?”

“An airplane,” Frank said. “A maroon-tailed airplane.”

“The stolen Hawkins plane?” Joe asked.

“That's what I thought at first,” Frank replied, “but now I'm not so sure. Do you remember the serial numbers on the tail of the stolen plane?”

Joe thought a moment. “R-U-four-seven-eight . . . something. There was one more number,” he said.

“Four. That's what I remember too,” Frank said. “But those aren't the numbers on the tail of the plane I saw. It was hard to tell, since I was freezing and drowning at the time, but I think the numbers on the plane under the ice were S-T-three-eight-seven-eight.”

“Was it a Sullivan custom plane you saw?” Joe asked.

“I didn't get a very good look at it,” Frank replied. “I thought it was, though.”

“You'll excuse me if I don't go check and give you a second opinion,” Joe said, winking.

Frank nodded.

Joe ran one hand through his hair. “It doesn't make any sense. Why would there be an airplane sunk at the bottom of a lake out here in Kendall State Park? And why would that plane be the same
make and color as the plane that was stolen from Jamal last night?”

“It's a mystery, all right,” Frank said, smiling.

“We'll have some experience with sleeping on the ground if we don't get going,” Joe said, changing the subject. “If you're dry enough, we should douse this fire and head for that barn.”

“Good idea. First, let's make some torches, if we can. I forgot to bring my flashlight along on this trip, and I'm betting you did too.”

“Must have left it with my parachute,” Joe said with an ironic grin. “I've got my pocketknife, though.”

“Me too,” said Frank.

The brothers managed to pull together enough pine needles, dry twigs, and grasses to make one decent torch head. They combined these ingredients with strips torn from their undershirts and some pine pitch they tapped from a tree with their pocketknives.

It was after nightfall by the time they completed their task and finally doused the fire. The fog had crept in on them in that time, and the whole world looked like dark gray cotton when they finally set out for the distant barn.

“Some of those snowmobile tracks look like they lead to something closer,” Frank said. “Maybe we should try to follow them instead. They did head out over the lake, though.”

“Let's not get any more impromptu swimming
practice if we can avoid it,” Joe replied.

Frank nodded, and they stuck to the shore. The going was difficult. Rocks and fallen trees littered the shoreline, and tangled roots sprang suddenly out of the fog, grabbing their sneakers.

As night deepened, the fog grew thicker. It clung to the brothers' clothing, making the Hardys feel ever colder and more damp than before.

“That shortcut across the lake isn't sounding too bad right now,” Joe said, his teeth chattering.

“No,” Frank replied. “You were right. Falling in again would be about the worst thing we could do. On the shore we can make another fire if we get too cold and tired.”

Joe looked up at their makeshift torch, flickering in his hand. “If we're going to stop to make another fire, we should do it soon,” he said. “This torch may not last much longer, and it won't be easy to light a new fire in this damp fog.”

“Let's press on a little farther,” Frank said. “We ought to be getting close to that barn.”

A loud crack echoed through the woods.

“Was that the ice?” Joe asked.

Another crack, and the torch flew out of Joe's hand.

“Sniper!” Frank yelled, diving for cover.

Joe hit the snow-dappled ground and rolled behind a big pine tree. “Where is he?” the younger Hardy asked. “Can you see him?”