Hardy Boys Fan Fiction at the HDA - Brain Child

The people gathered in the observation room glanced at each other, puzzled. They looked back into the interrogation room just in time to see Edward Sexton a.k.a. Justin Stewart start to bite down on something in his mouth.

“Stop him!” Frank cried suddenly.

Agent Jacobs leapt across the table and grabbed for Sexton’s mouth. He relaxed and sat back, shaking his head to indicate that he had been too late. The man known as Edward Stewart fell to the floor, dead.

“What just happened!” the Gray Man roared.

“I think I know,” Frank said as he quickly entered the interrogation room. He knelt by the dead man’s body. He placed his face by the man’s mouth and sniffed. A look of distaste came over his face as he smelled a familiar smell.

“What is it?” the Gray Man asked as Frank stood up and reentered the observation room.

“It smells like bitter almonds,” Frank replied.

The usually calm and collected head of the Network cursed bitterly. “I thought we got rid of them all years ago.” He pointed at Frank, “You and Joe worked that case.”

“I know that better than anyone,” Frank told him. “In a way this is a break for us though. Now we know who we’re dealing with.”

“What is going on?” Brandi demanded. “What do almonds have to do with anything?”

“Assassins,” Frank replied bitterly. “The Assassins are a criminal organization that we thought we had put out of business several years ago. They specialize in posing as different people. Usually they do so with advance plastic surgery designed to make them look exactly like the target. When caught, the Assassins commit suicide with a capsule hidden in a hollow tooth. The poison contained in the capsule kills them instantly. After use, the poison smells like bitter almonds.” He suddenly turned to the Gray Man. “You need to check the other prisoners,” he told him. “We don’t want to lose them all.”

“Do it,” the Gray Man commanded, pointing at Agent Jacobs.

Agent Jacobs nodded as he ran out of the room. He returned a few minutes later. The occupants of the room looked at him expectantly. He shook his head. “They’re dead,” he told them.

“All of them?”

“Every last one,” he confirmed.

“I suspected as much,” Frank replied bitterly.

“Can anyone tell me how this was overlooked?” the Gray Man demanded.

“We haven’t searched prisoners for suicidal drugs since the Assassins were supposedly broken up,” Sage Jameson replied. “It wasn’t considered relevant.”

“Well, I suppose it’s relevant now, isn’t it?” the Gray Man remarked wryly.

“Yes, sir.”

Arthur Gray addressed Frank, “You realize what this implies, don’t you?” he asked him.

“Yes, I do,” Frank replied. “This throws a whole new light on the case.”

“You’ve got that right,” the Gray Man agreed. “Now the question is, is this man really Edward Sexton, or not?” he asked, indicating the body on the floor.

“I suspect, sir,” Frank said, “that if you run a DNA test on his blood, you will find that he is not Sexton.”

“Explain the fingerprints that prove positive for Sexton,” Arthur Gray countered.

“Give me a moment,” Frank replied. He knelt beside the dead body and looked closely at the Assassin’s hand. He produced a magnifying glass and studied the hand even closer. “Here’s the answer,” he stated. He handed the glass to the Gray Man. The Gray Man looked at the fingertips while Frank explained to the others. “If you look very closely at his fingers,” he told them, “you can see that he has had his real fingerprints replaced. The scar tissue is almost invisible, even with the magnifying glass. Whoever performed the surgery was an expert.”

“As much as it pains me to say it,” the Gray Man conceded, “Frank is right.” He turned to Sage. “Jameson, make sure the DNA test is conducted,” he ordered.

“Yes, sir,” she replied.

Arthur Gray once again addressed Frank. “What made you so readily accept this man’s allegations?” he demanded.

“It seemed too easy to me,” Frank told him. “It was a little convenient that all of these government agents suddenly went rogue. It makes more sense that the real agents were indeed killed and then impersonated.”

“I see,” the Gray Man answered.

“Mr. Gray,” Brandi spoke up, “did those agents have families?”

“I believe so,” he replied.

“They’ll be taken care of, won’t they?”

“I’ll see to it that the right people are notified,” he replied. “Edward Sexton deserves to have his name cleared and his star on the wall at Langley.”

At that moment, several lab technicians arrived, having been summoned by Agent Jameson. They moved the body to a gurney and left with Sage Jameson closely following them.

After watching them leave, Arthur Gray leaned in close to Frank and whispered, “You didn’t use fingerprints to confirm your sister’s identity, did you?”

“Good question,” Frank replied, “but we used a DNA match. I don’t think anybody has the ability to counterfeit that. At least, not yet.”

“True,” the Gray Man murmured his agreement.

“Speaking of which,” Frank said, “have you been able to look into Brandi’s disappearance at all?”

“I hate to admit failure,” the head of the Network replied, “but I have by best Agents on it, and we still can’t seem to discover anything. We found her educational records.”

“And?”

“Nothing. They confirm what she told us, but that’s about it. We found some medical records starting at the same time she started kindergarten. So from the time she disappeared until she started school, there is no trace of her.”

“What about after she started school?”

“She was an honor student. She was brilliant in all of her studies and top of her class. Her classmates say that she was pretty much a loner, so no chance of getting much useful information from them.”

“Did she have a driver’s license?” Frank asked.

“Yes, she did,” Arthur Gray replied.

“Doesn’t that require a birth certificate?” Frank countered.

“Yes, it does,” was the answer. “I have agents looking into that angle as we speak, but so far they have been unable to uncover anything.”

“What about a Social Security number?”

“She has one in the name of Brandi Kerry; we’re still trying to determine how she got it.”

Frank nodded. “There’s still the matter of the Assassins,” Frank replied. “What did they want with Brandi? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“I don’t have a definite answer to that,” the Gray Man told him, “but I know someone who might.”

“Who’s that?”

“Ask your father about the cases he was working on at that time.”

Let the author know what you think of this story

Home Library Authors Rogue's Gallery Vehicles Chums Message Board Rap Sheet Links Contact

Disclaimer

The Hardy Boys belong to Simon and Schuster and the Stratemeyer Foundation. The Hardy Boys Fan Fiction authors of the Hardy Detective Agency have just borrowed them for an adventure or two. The authors promise to put the boys back when they are done with them. The authors do claim copyright to the original characters in this story. Please do not borrow original characters without express permission of the authors.