"Joe! What’s wrong? Where are you going?" April broke off her conversation to shout after him, but the boy never looked back or responded. Hastily, she told the controller she would call back, and hurried over to the ambulance, where the medics were staring in confusion at Joe’s fleeing form.

"What happened to him? I thought he wanted to ride to the hospital with his brother?" the woman EMT said blankly.

"Something came up," April glibly replied. "Go ahead and take Frank in; we’ll catch up with you at the hospital."

She limped back to Jack’s plane and climbed aboard, settling herself in the pilot’s seat and reaching to slam the doors shut. April, my girl, you may not have been up to landing this crate right now, but you can surely taxi it! She pushed the button to start the ignition, pulled the throttle out slightly, and let off on the brakes. Slowly, the little craft began to move along the runway once more. Darn it, I have to stay on the strip, while Joe just cuts across…what could have happened, to make him take off like that? Something Roger said, or did?

Joe arrived at the Wayne’s World hangar winded and gasping. He paused briefly, leaning against the outside wall to catch his breath; then pulled open the door and entered the building quietly. The lights were on, but looking about, Joe didn’t see any sign of Roger Taylor. Had he missed him, somehow? Then sounds came from the direction of Jack’s office cubicle, and Roger emerged, carrying a briefcase. He stopped short, seeing Joe standing there.

"Joe? What are you doing here? I thought you were accompanying Frank to the hospital? Shouldn’t you be with him?"

"I had something else I had to do first." Joe snapped. "Hey, Mr. DEA-Agent, tell me something. What did you do with the first stash of coke, the one you took out of Jack’s plane last Monday?"

"What?" Taylor blinked at him, evidently taken aback. "What are you talking about? Joe, I realize you’re terribly upset right now, what with Frank so ill, and the stress of having to land that plane, but accusing me of things like that is rude, even so! You’re imagining things."

Joe shook his head. "I’m not imagining things at all. You did it, all right. You switched the bricks of cocaine with baby powder, didn’t you? And you figured on switching again, if April and Frank and I had brought them back with us. Since we didn’t, you’re heading for Toronto, to make the switch there."

"Joe, these accusations are ridiculous!" Taylor scoffed. "I work for the DEA, remember?"

"I remember," the boy answered grimly. "all too well. You wouldn’t be the first rogue agent in the history of the DEA. April saw you get on and off Jack’s plane, right before she took off in it, Mr. Taylor. She saw you were carrying a package. She thinks it had something to do with the sting operation – but I know better."

"I’m not staying here to listen to this nonsense; I have a plane to catch." the agent said, moving to brush past Joe. Joe reached out and caught his arm in a tight grip.

"You and Dad were supposedly knocked out by Deke and Ernie," Joe continued harshly. "But they deny doing it; they both say they never even saw Dad or you. You seem in pretty good health for someone who was knocked out earlier tonight; I saw what condition my father was in." He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. "You hit Dad over the head, didn’t you?….And you made the telephone call to Ernie, tipping him off."

"Joe, this has gone far enough; stop making these wild accusations!" Taylor growled, and attempted to free himself again.

"You doped Jack’s coffee, too, didn’t you? What were you figuring, that he would crash, and you could pick up the packages again? Now that that plan failed, what’s Plan B? Go to Toronto and switch the drugs – or something even worse? Were you thinking of making sure Dad and Jack had an accident on the way home, too?"

Roger yanked free of Joe’s grasp, stepped back a pace, and slid his hand inside his coat. Before Joe could react, he found himself staring into the barrel of a revolver.

"Don’t do anything stupid, Joe." Taylor gritted. "I can’t miss at this range."

Joe held still, not daring to risk movement. "Tell me why…." he whispered.

"You’re too smart for your own good." the agent said. "I always heard that it was your brother who had the brains. Maybe you have some too. You’re right, of course – I’m not the first agent to do this sort of thing. Government agencies don’t pay all that well, you know – they really should up the pay scale." He smiled thinly at his attempt at humor. "Working undercover for DEA made it very simple to pocket evidence, here and there – and there’s a very nice market for – shall we say – certain types of merchandise."

"You slimeball," Joe hissed, under his breath. Taylor eyed him grimly and raised his gun minutely, reminding the boy of its existence.

"Because of your deductions, my plans have been changed a little. I was simply heading for Toronto to pick up the evidence – and to make sure Deke and Ernie were extradited. If Fenton and Jack happened to have plane trouble on the way back to Bayport, well, that would be pure coincidence, wouldn’t it? Perhaps Wayne’s World airplanes have mechanical defects; they seem to be involved in a lot of accidents lately, don’t they? Or perhaps something is amiss with the pilots…?"

Joe clenched his fists tightly, but remained silent.

"Even if they make it back to Bayport without mishap," the agent continued smoothly, "I’m afraid it will be a sad homecoming. Poor Fenton – to arrive home and find one son in the hospital, due to ingestion of drugs – and the other a shooting victim – interrupted a robbery, possibly, or someone who knew about the cocaine scam. Hmmm, Jason Montgomery, perhaps?"

"You’ll never get away with it." Joe muttered. He shifted his weight slightly, and edged forward perhaps half an inch. If I can just get a little closer, maybe I can get the jump on him; kick the gun out of his hand….

"Oh? Who is likely to stop me?" Taylor sneered. "Frank is in the hospital, and won’t recover consciousness until too late to do anything about it. That was ironic, by the way, that he drank the coffee meant for Jack Wayne. I’d hoped Jack would go down before he ever reached whatever destination Deke and Ernie were heading to – elimination of an irritating do-gooder and some equally irritating competition, in a nice, neat package!"

"You call a plane crash ‘nice’ and ‘neat’?" Joe was horrified by the cold-bloodedness evinced by the rogue agent, but even in his horror, he managed another half-inch step toward Taylor. Just a little farther…

"What I call it doesn’t matter." the man shrugged slightly. "What does matter is that I have to leave now – I have a plane to catch. Goodbye, Joe Hardy – it was a short acquaintance, wasn’t it?" He raised the pistol and thumbed the hammer back to cock it.

At that moment, a sharp, scraping crash came from the back of the hangar. Both men jumped, and Roger Taylor instinctively turned toward the sound, his gun hand swinging to the side. Joe leaped forward, his foot arcing up into a side kick that sent the gun flying from Taylor’s hand. The weapon sailed through the air, hit the concrete floor, and skidded away, well out of reach of either of them. With a snarled curse, the agent swung his fist at Joe’s head, and managed to connect with a solid blow to the chin that rocked the boy back on his heels. In an instant, Taylor was on him, punching with one hand and reaching for Joe’s throat with the other.

Joe was no stranger to hand-to-hand combat, but he was at a disadvantage; he was exhausted, shaken, and physically ill from his harrowing flight to Bayport. Also, Roger Taylor was a trained DEA agent; he was smaller and slighter than the Hardy boy, but he had well-developed fighting skills. Most importantly, Taylor was a desperate man, and he wasn’t above fighting dirty to get away.

Joe managed to block a second blow to his head, but the agent brought his knee up sharply, and connected with Joe’s already-aching stomach. Fresh pain from the blow combined with renewed pain from the bruises inflicted by Deke’s fists, and Joe doubled over, groaning and clutching himself. Taylor aimed a kick behind the boy’s left knee, and Joe went down on his back, trying to curl into a protective ball. Before he could manage it, however, his assailant was straddling him, both hands around Joe’s throat, squeezing relentlessly.

Dark spots swam across Joe’s vision as his oxygen supply was cut off. He struggled against Taylor’s inexorable grip, but those struggles became more and more feeble. Can I fake him out…? Joe wondered dimly, and abruptly went limp, hoping his opponent would relax his hold. But Roger Taylor was wise to such tricks; he loosened one hand, true – but before Joe could move, that hand was a fist that connected with his stomach one more time.

The combination of pain and oxygen deprivation were too much for Joe. He lay unmoving, no longer able to resist. An errant thought – I love you, Vanessa – flitted through his brain as he waited helplessly for Roger to finish him off.

Joe heard a sudden thump somewhere above him – the pressure on his throat eased abruptly – and Roger Taylor collapsed across the semi-conscious boy, his weight a sodden mass. Joe forced his eyes open, trying to drag in a breath of air – and beheld April Wayne, hovering over him like an avenging angel. In her hand, rather than the sword such an angel might have carried, was a large, heavy wrench.

"April?" he croaked. "Wha—where— "

"I think I killed him," she whispered, stricken. "I didn’t think I could hit so hard with my left hand…."

Joe managed to heave Taylor’s body off his, and lay gasping on the floor, attempting to recover. "No – such – luck," he panted. A wave of nausea swept over him as he tried to lever himself up; he got as far as his knees before he knew he was in trouble. Too many rough plane flights mixed badly with too many punches to the stomach; Joe Hardy gagged once or twice, then was thoroughly and violently sick, all over Roger Taylor’s neatly pressed slacks and suede loafers.

Perhaps thirty seconds later, mortified beyond anything in his memory, Joe blinked watery eyes and looked up at April. He found that she had discreetly turned her back, and was resolutely staring at the opposite wall.

"Please – please tell me you didn’t see that." he rasped, his cheeks burning with embarrassment.

She turned to face him, smiling. "Joe, if he was responsible for anything that’s happened the last few days, I wish I could barf on him too. It’s okay anyway; I had to take care of Jack when he had the stomach flu last fall – this is nothing, compared to that." She watched Joe’s cautious attempt to get to his feet and added: "Besides, didn’t I tell you that you could be sick after we landed?"

Joe tried to laugh at that, but it came out closer to a whimper. "I’m never going to hear the end of this one, am I?"

"Don’t worry, Joe," she said gently. "No one will hear about this from me. Not ever." She set down her weapon, and reached to take his arm and support him. "The restroom is right down that hall," she advised, and gave him a little push in the indicated direction.

Joe glanced down at the unconscious DEA agent. "Find his gun," he whispered, and tottered down the hallway.

When he emerged a few minutes later, Joe was still pale, but he had splashed his face with water, and rinsed his mouth out, and he actually felt almost like his normal self, if a bit shaky. April was standing beside Roger, his gun wrapped in a cloth and held in her left hand, the barrel pointing down at his head – just in case.

"Is there a tarp around here anywhere?" Joe asked her.

"A tarp?" April elevated questioning eyebrows. "Why do you want a tarp?"

"Because we’re going to take old Roger-Dodger to the police station – on our way to the hospital – and there’s no way I’m going to pick him up and carry him like that." Joe shuddered, and April began to laugh.

"I think there are some in that storage closet." She pointed, and Joe rummaged, emerging triumphantly a few seconds later. The two of them wrapped Taylor snugly in the tarp, and secured it with a couple of bungee cords. When they were finished, Joe bent to pick up the bundled form, but paused. Instead, he turned to April, and enveloped her in a tight hug.

"You were incredible, kiddo. You got there just in time, with that wrench. I didn’t have anything left, at that point."

She smiled demurely. "That’s not the only thing I did right, either." At Joe’s questioning look, she tilted her head toward the back of the hangar. "I shoved a stack of boxes with my foot, and made the noise to distract Roger, so you could kick his gun away! I still don’t know what’s going on, but I saw him holding that gun on you, and I knew I had to do something."

"I’ll explain it all on the way to the hospital," Joe promised her. "I want to check on Frank." He bent down, picked up Taylor’s tarp-shrouded form, and heaved the agent across his shoulders. "On second thought, I have a better plan. Maybe we should just call the police from the van, and have them meet us at the hospital. You and that wrench probably gave old Roger a concussion!"