Hardy Detective Agency featuring Hardy Boys Fan Fiction

Chapter Title: Home Sweet Home

Conrad and Ivana came out of the house, being careful of the broken glass from the destroyed picture window. Both had shiny cheeks from crying.

Ivana urgently whispered to Conrad, “Where’s John?”

“He couldn’t come. He was injured,” her brother explained.

She asked, “How bad?”

Conrad reassured her, “Just a couple stitches. John wanted to come here despite the injury, but Dr. Ruby persuaded him he could help more staying behind.”

The two approached Vicky and Christine, who stood next to Officer McCormick’s cruiser. Tomlin was in the back seat, his eyes now open. He glared hatefully out at everybody. Sitting on the dashboard was a large pill. Ivana had told McCormick to search for that before McCormick took the prisoner out of the house. McCormick had found the pill, just as she had said he would.

McCormick himself sat in the car’s front seat, talking on the radio.

He finally put down the mike and jumped out, a smile on his face, “I just talked with Chief Clymer. The device was stopped in time!”

Everybody expressed great relief.

McCormick added, “They’ve captured Jason and Joyce.”

Ivana asked, “Alive?”

“Yes. Vicky, the Chief told me the poison gas device was two miles from the convention center on the same intersection your map indicated. You saved the city coming up with that. The Chief said he may contact you later about hiring you to improve the security of our computer system.”

Ivana seemed to notice Vicky for the first time, “Excuse me. Vicky, is it? Who are you?”

Christine made a hasty introduction, “Vicky, this is Ivana Morrow. Conrad’s sister. I thought she was dead until yesterday. I still can’t believe she’s standing here, alive and well.”

“I know who you are, Ivana! You’re a red‑head too! That’s too much for me to handle!” Vicky said, then ran into the vacant house for some privacy.

Ivana turned to Christine and Conrad, “What’s up with her?”

Conrad looked too scared to answer.

Christine ignored the question, “It’s so good to see you! You look well too, except for that bright red hair. That’s tacky.”

Ivana ran a hand through it, “Just part of my disguise.”

Christine remarked, “I worked so hard for my speech at your memorial service. I really thought you were dead.”

Conrad said, “Christine gave a nice speech. I was in tears. So was John.”

Ivana grinned, “I hope you won’t need to dust it off and use it again for a long, long time. Neither of you answered my question. It sounds like Vicky helped saved the city. Why’s she so upset?”

Conrad cleared his throat, then said, “Sis, we all thought you were dead. It’s been a long time. Years have passed. And...well...John.”

“Oh,” Ivana said, catching on at last.

A car hurried down the road and pulled in behind McCormick’s cruiser. Dr. Ruby got out. He said a few words to McCormick, then came over to Christine, Conrad, and Ivana.

Dr. Ruby informed them, “Some more cruisers are coming. Conrad, Christine, Vicky...where’s Vicky?”

Christine said, “In the house. I’ll get her.”

Dr. Ruby said, “Hang on. I want the rest of you to stay here with McCormick while I take Ivana for a ride.”

Conrad grabbed Dr. Ruby’s coat, “You’re not taking her anywhere! I don’t trust you.”

Dr. Ruby twisted his arms in one quick motion and Conrad found he was holding only air, then Dr. Ruby said, “Relax, Mr. Morrow. Being her brother, I suppose you can come too. I’m just taking her to the hotel to pick up John.”

Conrad blushed at that. So did Ivana, but it was not because she was embarrassed by nearly fighting Dr. Ruby as her brother had been about to do. She loved her brother, but did secretly wish he was not coming along for this reunion. It had been so long since she’d seen John!

Conrad said, “We didn’t hear from John yet. Did you and Fritz?”

Christine cut in, “Hey, where is Fritz?”

Dr. Ruby said, “Still downtown. I lost track of him. I’m sure he’s fine, as Chief Clymer is still there. I haven’t heard from John either, but we’ll just drive down there and get him.”

Christine turned toward the house, “While you do that, I’ll take care of Vicky.”

She then went into the house.

Conrad, Ivana, and Dr. Ruby climbed in the car. The whole trip there, Ivana quizzed Conrad about what John had been doing these last few years. Conrad was evasive when the subject was related to Vicky.

At the hotel, Dr. Ruby led the way to the room. Suddenly, he froze. The door to the room was torn from the hinges and laying on the floor.

“John?” Ivana called loudly.

Conrad started forward, but Dr. Ruby held him back with one hand. With the other, he pulled out a handgun. Seeing that, Ivana held back too.

Dr. Ruby moved toward the room when a voice from the room, a voice definitely not John Hardly’s demanded, “Drop that gun! Right now!”

Dr. Ruby did so.

“Put your hands on your head.”

Dr. Ruby did that.

Two men dressed in black and carrying big guns came from the room. Conrad screamed while Ivana fell into a karate stance.

Dr. Ruby calmly said, “Cooperate. These are government agents, although from a different agency then the one I work for. Even with the black hood, I know I’ve encountered one of them before.”

One of the two got right in Dr. Ruby’s face, “Oh, you work for the government too, you prima donna! You could be the President himself with a fancy gray suit like that. Which agency might you work for?”

“Entangle,” Dr. Ruby stated.

“Never heard of it, but you do look familiar. Are you familiar from being on a Most Wanted list?”

The other man in black demanded the other two put their hands on their heads. Conrad and Ivana hastily complied. As that happened, the rude man shoved Dr. Ruby up to the wall, telling him now to spread his hands. Dr. Ruby did that.

Ivana politely requested, “Could you two gentlemen tell me if is John Hardly here, please?”

The man who liked being rude to Dr. Ruby snarled, “Nobody here but us chickens.”

The other man laughed and laughed, then said, “That’s too mean! He’s teasing you, Miss.”

“John’s here?” Ivana asked.

“He was, but not anymore.”

The rude man said, “We already took that Obliterator punk into custody. Now, we’re doing the same to you.”

Dr. Ruby suggested, “In my wallet is a card with a phone number on it. I highly recommend you call it.”

The rude man shoved Dr. Ruby harder against the wall while saying, “Tell it to the judge.”

Later at Port City’s Justice Center, Ivana stared across the scratched table at two men. The room smelled of both disinfectant and sweat. She guessed many people had sweated nervously in this room. The two men were from the hotel. Dr. Ruby had been right that they did work for an agency of the federal government. Dr. Ruby had been taken from the holding cells before her. She had last seen Conrad, Christine, and Vicky downstairs in their holding cells. She assumed they’d be left there until she was done, then one by one, it’d be their turns.

A large mirror was mounted behind the men on the wall, reflecting their backs and Ivana’s face. Ivana knew that was one‑way glass and others would be watching her from behind it. The men started with their questions. Five minutes into the interview and they already insisted she was really named Karen. They accused her of lying every time she said her name was Ivana Morrow.

The door to the room opened more forcefully than necessary. All three in the room to see Chief Clymer. Directly behind him was Dr. Ruby.

“I’ve got something to say to you two men,” Dr. Ruby angrily said, trying to get around Chief Clymer.

“Hold it, Dr. Ruby. This is Port City, so it’s my show,” Chief Clymer said. “We’ve got a letter you need to see.”

The Chief handed it over. The ruder of the two men took it. He frowned.

“This has to be a fake,” he claimed.

“No,” replied Clymer. “Dr. Ruby arranged it.”

Ivana couldn’t see the letter well enough to read it, so she asked, “Arranged what?”

The rude man gave an incredulous reply, “This letter states that Ivana Morrow, Conrad Morrow, Christine, and Vicky are to be interviewed only by the Port City Police department, not by any federal agencies. It’s supposedly signed by the President himself. He informs us that if we charge any of them with anything, he’ll immediately pardon them and try to find some crime to have us charged with!”

“It really is signed by the President. I watched him do it. He is in town, after all,” Dr. Ruby explained.

The rude man said, “Oh, no! I remember when I saw you before. You were talking with the President about half a year ago.”

“Correct,” Dr. Ruby said.

“I wish I’d remembered that.”

Dr. Ruby unsympathetically said, “I told you that you should have called the number from my wallet.”

Chief Clymer indicated to the two men, “Get out of here.”

The men glared at both Chief Clymer and Dr. Ruby, but hastily left.

Those left in the room heard a commotion behind the mirror. After this, Officer McCormick came into the room.

McCormick told them, “I kicked the observers out and shut off the recorders. Now that I got you all here, I’d like to hear what has been going on with Ivana for the past few years.”

Clymer looked at Dr. Ruby, who nodded that he could talk. Chief Clymer then said, “The people in on this were myself, yourself, Dr. Ruby, and Fritz and John’s father.”

Officer McCormick said, “I didn’t realize Mr. Hardly was in on it.”

Dr. Ruby told him, “A few years ago, Mr. Hardly was down in New York City working on the same case as I happened to be on. We prevented a major terrorist attack by the Obliterators. It would have taken the lives of about two thousand people. Afterward, he wanted to join the fight in future cases against them. I told him what I really needed was some young men or young women who could infiltrate the Obliterators. They like to recruit young people, not older men like ourselves. College age is okay with them, but high school age is much preferred. The Obliterators find these young people much more easy to brain wash. Mr. Hardly told me about his two sons. They’d already solved some major cases over the past six decades and gotten somewhat famous themselves, despite still being in high school. Unfortunately, being even moderately famous is a huge detriment in this trade. I told him I couldn’t use them because of their fame.”

Chief Clymer took up the story, “Dr. Ruby contacted me a few months after that. His organization had uncovered an assassination attempt to be made on a presidential candidate who was having a fund raising campaign at the mall. The same man who currently is President. I promised the Port City Police would cooperate. It was at nearly the last minute that we learned the Obliterators felt Mr. Hardly and the Hardly boys were such a threat that they should be eliminated even before they could get started on the case!”

Officer McCormick put in, “I remember that, but I didn’t know about Mr. Hardly’s part.”

Dr. Ruby said, “I contacted Mr. Hardly, and he gave his permission for my plan. If the boys appeared to die, nobody would be looking for them any more. I could then use them to infiltrate the Obliterators, provided they agreed to do it. Even if they didn’t agree, we had to get them hidden and into protective custody anyway and this was a good way to do that. We had found out about the car bomb, then got to work to have it go off in a manner that would appear to have the Hardly boys die while they’d really be safe. Unfortunately, although I had contacted Mr. Hardly, both Fritz and John were already at the mall so I couldn’t contact them in time.”

“I recall entering the car, then being yanked out the opposite door and shoved into a nearby car,” Ivana commented.

Dr. Ruby explained, “McCormick and I did that. That other car was well‑armored. Given its location, we knew it would withstand the blast of the other car. We were supposed to get John and Fritz, not you.”

Officer McCormick remarked, “I figured most of that out except Mr. Hardly being involved. As I recall, the bomb was tripped and we had to let it go off, even without Fritz and John in our custody.”

Dr. Ruby nodded, “Without that explosion, the Obliterators would know what we were up to. We couldn’t then let Ivana appear alive again.”

Officer McCormick said, “I can understand that, but the case was over in a matter of days. I expected Ivana to then reappear. She didn’t. Where was she?”

“I’d like to know that myself,” Clymer interposed.

Ivana remarked, “I convinced Dr. Ruby that I could do the job that he had planned for the Hardly boys. I always wanted to prove myself worthy to John. I’d watched how he and Fritz had solved their various cases.”

Dr. Ruby said, “I had my doubts, but Ivana convinced me. She’s been our best undercover agent in the Obliterators ever! However, her undercover role is over now that the news broadcast her picture and Jason, Joyce, and Tomlin know she is alive...as well as Ivana’s friends knowing too. Ivana, you now have a choice. As you know, most of the cases you’ve been involved with are still classified so can’t be discussed. You can stay with Entangle with new assignments or you can return to your family.”

“I’d like to go home. It has been years,” Ivana Morrow said.

Chief Clymer said, “Dr. Ruby and I arranged things at the hospital. They now claim that the body in the exploded car from a few years ago was not vaporized after all. An autopsy was performed, but it had gotten misfiled. This happened because it wasn’t your body, but that of a car thief who happened to trip the bomb. Witnesses saw you go to the car and the car exploded. A body was found in the car, so it was assumed to be yours. The misfiling occurred because it wasn’t really your body. This led to the mistaken assumption of your body being vaporized. It was a mix‑up.“

“There was no body at all,” Ivana said.

“Lots of people will look like idiots it there wasn’t,” Chief Clymer said. “I think this story will work out.”

Dr. Ruby took over, “Unknown to anybody, you were nevertheless close to the explosion and received a head injury. You had amnesia for some time and hitchhiked around the country. You ended up in Los Vegas.”

Ivana nodded at that. The Obliterators training camp was located out in the Nevada desert, about an hour drive from Los Vegas.

Dr. Ruby continued, “We want you to say you learned of the plans to use a bomb...a conventional bomb, not a poison gas device...in Port City. Hearing about Port City caused you to regain your memory. You made your way back here and contacted the police, but were kidnapped by Tomlin for your trouble. Thus, you do get a small amount credit for solving this case.”

Ivana said, “Many people will assume I never had amnesia and simply chose to run away. I wouldn’t be surprised if the newspaper reports it that way.”

Dr. Ruby shrugged, “So what if they do? This way, you can at least still go home.”

“I do want to go home. I want to see John again. I also want to see my parents and my brother.”

Dr. Ruby reached into a briefcase and pulled out an a folder, which he handed to Ivana, “This is a bank account made by Entangle in your name. It contains more than enough money to get yourself a college education, a house, or whatever else you wish to do with it. It’s your collected salary for a few years work doing hazardous duty. Oh, I also have a check for your brother to get his car fixed.”

Ivana looked down at the various figures, “This looks good, but I don’t think Conrad’s entire car is worth the amount you have down.”

Dr. Ruby said, “That’s the amount he gets anyway.”

Ivana asked, “When can I see John?”

Chief Clymer tugged at his collar, then said, “There’s a problem. Tomlin claimed John and Fritz Hardly were co‑conspirators. Clearly, they weren’t, but some federal agency folks think it is best to assume Tomlin is telling the truth!”

Ivana asked, “Why didn’t Tomlin include me, then?”

Clymer speculated, “It’d be hard to convince people of that after he’d already kidnapped you! As for Fritz and John, there are also records in the Port City Police computer system that seems to support Tomlin’s claim that they are Obliterators.”

“Oh, come on,” Dr. Ruby said. “We have proof that system was compromised by Tomlin! He planted those files.”

Clymer replied, “I know that, but various federal agencies are acting as if something was in our computer system, it must be true.”

Dr. Ruby turned toward the door, “I’ll go get the situation with Fritz and John straightened out.”

Chief Clymer told Ivana, “We still have to ask you some questions and fill out a report. We’ll try to make it as painless as possible.”

While Clymer and McCormick got Ivana ready for that, Dr. Ruby left.

Some days later, Ivana rode toward her family’s farmhouse on a boy’s single‑speed bicycle. She was sweaty from her long ride. It was Conrad’s bicycle.

On the other side of a fence, a brown horse trotted along keeping pace with her.

Still pedaling, Ivana smiled over at her horse, “Too bad I can’t ride you into town, Suzy. Port City has an ordnance against horses.”

Suzy had to stop as a fence blocked her way at the drive. Ivana pedaled up the drive, then she got off the bike and pushed it into the barn. Conrad was already in the barn, moving some hay.

Seeing her, Conrad paused in his work, “Did you find the Hardly boys?”

“I rode out to their house. Not a sign of them. The motorcycle we left is still sitting out.”

“It is? I thought they’d be released the same day we were. I wouldn’t have left the motorcycle there if I’d known they’d stay away so long.”

Ivana said, “I don’t know where they are. I tried contacting Dr. Ruby, but his number no longer works. Nobody answers the phone at the Hardly home. I saw Christine when I was in town. She claimed the Hardly boys are off on another case already.”

“Could be that’s just what they’re doing,” Conrad said. “In the past few years, they’ve disappeared for days or weeks without notice. They come back and make comments about being many places, sometimes not even in this country. They’ve been to France, Kenya, Sweden, and many other places besides.”

“I just wish they would have contacted me first! I wanted to see John!”

Conrad moved back toward the bales of hay, “I’ll let you in on something, Sis. Both Christine and Vicky have complained to me about the same thing with the Hardly boys many times. The Hardly boys will reappear in a few days or weeks. They always do. They don’t brag as much about their cases anymore. Not like they used to. I never know if they’ve recovered the crown jewels of England, stopped a robbery of Fort Knox, or whatever else. They just give casual mention about being in all sorts of exotic places. They’ll talk about a restaurant in Paris as though it was one right here in Port City, for example.”

Ivana nodded in understanding at that. She could do the same. She then asked, “How are Mom and Dad today?”

“Still upset. I suggested they let you use their car rather than that bicycle, but they wouldn’t hear of it. Dad just about took my head off for even mentioning it. He wants you to never see John Hardly again. Mom agrees. They think relationship trouble with John is why you ran away for a few years.”

Ivana insisted, “They can’t stop me from seeing who I want.”

Conrad grunted as he moved more hay, then said, “Perhaps not, but they can prevent you from using their car. You can use my hot rod whenever you want, just as soon as she comes back from the body shop. That’ll be a while yet.”

“Thanks, Conrad. I tried renting a car, which I can afford to do now, but I was told I had to be twenty‑five for that or have my parents’ co-sign. I could just buy a car, but I think I’d prefer to use the money for college”

“No chance of our parents signing for you to rent a car with the mood they’re in,” Conrad declared.

Back at the fence, Suzy neighed.

Conrad remarked, “Going to take your horse out for a ride today?”

“Yes, but it is frustrating having to stay on the farm with her. Before I went away, the farm always seemed so large, but now it feels small. I think I’ll go back to the woods with her. The woods aren’t large, but at least I can pretend to be away when the trees block my sight of the farm,” Ivana remarked.