Chapter Title: Dupes  

“They’re in a dark blue car.  It looks sporty, but has a large trunk,” Ivana said, then added the license number, which she had taken care to memorize when they had stolen it.

Fritz ran out of the house and up to the squad car next to the hot rod.  Chief Clymer had just gotten out.

Fritz gasped, “Jason and Joyce got away with the poison gas device.”

Fritz repeated Ivana’s description, then added, “They’re heading for the site marked on the map that Vicky got out of Tomlin’s computer.”

“McCormick told me the location he got from Vicky.  I know the place.  Step back, Fritz.”

Chief Clymer jumped back in his car, then pulled out into the road.  Fritz was miffed that Clymer had not given him time to get in the passenger seat.

Fritz looked at the hot rod.  The mangled fender now had bullet holes in it, but the tires still held air.  Fritz bent low and looked under the car.  He did not see any leaking fluids.

Fritz shouted at the house, “Conrad, the keys!”

Conrad released his sister and pulled out his keys.  He tossed them through the glassless picture window.  Fritz caught them in midair.  Fritz then jumped behind the front wheel.  Despite the bullet damage to the vehicle, the engine started easily.  Fritz shoved the gas pedal to the floor.  The engine roared like a wild beast.  The hot rod quickly caught up to Chief Clymer’s car.  Thinking of how much his brother liked fast cars and would like to have been here, Fritz flew past Clymer.  Fritz was not worried about speeding tickets.  Despite the mangled fender and bullet holes, the hot rod ran splendidly.  Fritz knew no car could outrace a radio, but he didn’t know if any police were near where the poison gas device was supposed to be placed or if the half-dozen government agencies charged with keeping security tight at the convention would allow the Port City Police to act.

Fritz hoped he could catch the dark blue car on its way.  Fritz noticed Clymer’s squad car had gotten so far back that it had disappeared from the rearview mirror, but he could still hear the wailing of the siren.

Fritz approached the site mentioned on the map.  The dark blue car had traveled at a leisurely, law-abiding pace, so was just pulling up to the curb.  The rear trunk opened from the activation of an interior release.  Fritz could make out the poison gas device in the open trunk.   Jason got out of the driver’s door and Joyce out of the passenger’s.

Fritz slammed on the car’s brakes.

He heard Jason yelling, with some fear, “I saw that car before.  It’s Agent Snuff!”

Fritz jumped out of the car.

Joyce said, “No, that’s Fritz Hardly.  I thought I killed him.”

Holding a handgun, Dr. Ruby stepped out from an alcove.  He was close behind Joyce.  He said, “You two are under arrest.”

Joyce performed a side kick against Dr. Ruby’s wrist.  The gun fired, missing her, and sailed from his grasp.

As this happened, Jason charged at Fritz while bellowing, “Joyce failed, but I’ll kill you!”

As Jason came in, Fritz approached him too.  Fritz stopped suddenly.  He spun and delivered a devastating spinning back kick.  Fritz’s foot loudly struck Jason’s head.  With that one solid kick, Jason fell heavily to the ground, stunned.

Fritz turned to where Joyce and Dr. Ruby were exchanging blows.  Although not made unconscious, Dr. Ruby was knocked down.  Fritz ran over and kicked Joyce before she could strike the downed man a blow that would have made him unconscious or dead.  She was knocked away from Dr. Ruby, but she wasn’t injured.

She began a flurry of blows at Fritz.  Fritz blocked repeatedly and struck back.  The blows were faster and harder than any Fritz had experienced in practice.  Still, the skills he’d learned did work which was all that kept him from losing already.

Neither had gained a decisive advantage when Dr. Ruby shouted, “Stop, or I’ll blow your brains out, Joyce!  I’m too far away for you to kick the gun away this time.”

Both Fritz and Joyce turned.  Dr. Ruby had recovered his gun.

Chief Clymer pulled up in his squad car.  He went first to Jason, who was coming around already, and handcuffed the man’s hands behind his back.  Clymer then left Jason with Fritz and handcuffed Joyce, who didn’t fight back as Dr. Ruby’s aim was unwavering.  Clymer put Joyce in the back of his car, then went back for Jason, who now had his eyes open.

Dr. Ruby retrieved a briefcase he had left in the alcove.  He set it by the dark blue car’s open trunk.  When Dr. Ruby opened the briefcase, Fritz noticed it contained various screwdrivers, a needlenose pliers, a voltmeter, and a wire cutter.

Dr. Ruby left the case and peered closely at the poison gas device in the car’s trunk.

As though Fritz was a nurse and he a doctor, Dr. Ruby held out a hand, “Wire cutters.”

Fritz grabbed them and put them in his hand.

Dr. Ruby held the wire cutters against a wire, then didn’t cut.

Fritz asked, “Do we have time to transport it away from the city before messing with it?”

“This is strange.  Give me the voltmeter.”

Dr. Ruby took the voltmeter from Fritz and took a few readings, muttering, “Just as I thought.”

Fritz looked at the LCD display and said, “It looks like it is set to go off one hour after being activated, but hasn’t been activated yet.  That’s certainly better than having to figure out which wire to cut as the timer counts rapidly down to zero like in a spy movie.”

Dr. Ruby leaned back from the poison gas device and began to laugh, releasing the great tension he’d been under.

“Is it a fake?” Fritz asked.  “It certainly looks dangerous.”

“It’s very dangerous, but also very simple.  It’s much simpler than the mechanism used for the gas attack at your house and that was just taken from a garage door opener that you can buy at a mall.  Did I tell you the investigation showed the mechanism in your van was simple too?  Just a contact switch to determine when the door opened, then the bomb went off.  Gordon Snuff opened the door and it went off.  Very simple.”

Dr. Ruby deftly and confidently snipped one wire, then announced, “It’s safe now even if the activation switch were pressed.  You know some electronics.  Take a close look.”

Fritz did so, then said, “What a nasty thing to do!”

Dr. Ruby then yelled, “Chief Clymer, please bring Joyce and Jason over here.”

Clymer had been in the process of putting Jason into a squad car.  Joyce already sat inside.  However, Clymer suddenly yanked down Jason’s handcuffed hands.  He had been trying, despite his handcuffs, to get his hands to his mouth.  When Clymer yanked Jason’s shackled hands back, a pill fell out of Jason’s grasp and onto the ground.

Clymer stared down, “What is that?”

“Poison.  It’s a suicide pill,” Fritz explained as he hurried over to help.  “Joyce probably has one too.  Obliterators are so quick to use them it’s a wonder they have any agents left.”

Dr. Ruby talked to the prisoners, “Jason, you’ll want to see what I have to show you before you do something like that.  Same goes for you, Joyce.”

Dr. Ruby said, “Escort those two over here.  They really have to see this for themselves to believe it.”

Fritz brought Joyce and Chief Clymer brought Jason up to the poison gas device.

Chief Clymer muttered, “Isn’t it dangerous letting them get so close?”

Fritz replied, “Dr. Ruby has it completely deactivated.”

Dr. Ruby grasped the timer in both hands and lifted it off the poison gas device!  Some tape ripped loose and the whole mechanism simply came off.  A rat’s nest of wires was underneath the timer, but none were actually connected between the canister and the timer.

One red push-button switch remained on the poison gas device, with one pair of wires snaking out.  This was the wire Dr. Ruby had cut so the switch wouldn’t work.  With the timer removed, which had never been connected anyway, all the mechanism had was a battery, a push-button switch, and an electric valve on the tank.

“I’ve got to see that closer,” Jason demanded.

“By all means,” Dr. Ruby said, nodding to Clymer to let this happen.

With Clymer leaning over him ready to pounce despite Jason’s hands being cuffed behind him, Jason moved in, “You faked this somehow.”

“Not at all,” Dr. Ruby said, then held up the unconnected timer so Jason could see every detail.

Joyce pleaded, “Jason, explain this to me.  Please?”

Jason stared closely at the timer without replying.  Fritz stifled an urge to answer Joyce’s question, as he knew the explanation.  Dr. Ruby and Chief Clymer kept quiet too.  Jason looked back at the device again, then, finally satisfied, moved away from both canister and timer.

Jason blinked back tears, then finally spoke, “That switch is what Tomlin told us would start the timer.  We were to have one hour to get away.  He lied to us, Joyce.  The switch is connected to the poison gas device and not the timer.  The timer isn’t even connected to anything!  Push this button and the gas gets released instantly.  That’s all there is to it.  Pushing it now won’t do anything because this guy cut the wire.”

Joyce said, “Tomlin was going to sacrifice us!  We were never meant to get away!”

“Exactly!  We were dupes,” Jason agreed

Joyce complained, “That snake!”

Dr. Ruby stood in front of Joyce and extended his right hand, palm up, then queried, “Is it really worth killing yourself for these people?  Think about it.”

Joyce turned slightly since her hands were handcuffed behind her back, then dropped a pill into Dr. Ruby’s palm.

Jason looked at Joyce’s pill, then looked at his pill still lying on the ground with an expression of open revulsion.

Fritz desperately wished that Jason or Joyce would experience similar revulsion for what they had nearly done to the population of the city of Port City.  He could only hope that someday the enormity of their attempted crime would sink in.  For now, these two Obliterator agents had been captured alive.  They undoubtedly had valuable information they would trade for reduced sentences.  It would be information that could conceivably help Entangle and other government agencies protect other cities from the Obliterator’s attacks.  Fritz turned away from the two criminals and looked out at Port City.  Even from two miles away, he could see the tall building that contained the convention center.  Fritz felt anger toward morally blind people like Jason and Joyce who had been willing to murder so many people.  Fritz did not lash out or lecture the prisoners, though.  Doing that could hurt later criminal cases against them.  Dr. Ruby had certainly given the two prisoners something to think about very hard, though.

Fritz and Chief Clymer led the now quiet and submissive prisoners into the squad car.

Just after Chief Clymer had the two prisoners safely in his squad car, other police cars pulled up.  So did some vans, with one marked as SWAT, but the others unmarked.  In addition, there were many nondescript sedans full of men in business suits.  First one helicopter, then two, and then three circled overhead.  The crime scene had grown very crowded.  Fritz saw some men dressed all in black including black hoods that left only the eyes open, looking like gun-toting ninjas, arguing with some uniformed Port City police officers as the officers tried to string yellow tape.

Many men in dark gray business suits encircled Fritz.  They all wore the types of suits favored by Dr. Ruby.  Each man had what looked like a large hearing aid, but only in one ear.  A cord snaked out of each device and into each suit coat by the neckline. The men looked so much alike they might have been made by a cookie cutter.   Fritz searched the crowd for Dr. Ruby, which was hard to do with so many men with similar suits, intermingled with uniformed cops and the ninja men.  Fritz didn’t see him.

One of the suited men listened for a moment to his earpiece, then said, “Fritz Hardly, we are taking you into protective custody.”

Fritz complained, “The case is over and I don’t want that.”

“You don’t have a choice.”  

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.