EXTREME DANGER
by
PiperMerlyn
Chapter 8
The Chapters
Frank
We located Philadelphia Memorial Hospital in a matter of minutes but found the emergency entrance was off limits unless we were injured or related to someone already there. So we headed around to the front of the hospital.
“I’m telling you, Frank. That newspaper guy is a total freak,” Joe said. “He’d do anything to get a good story.”
We stepped through the sliding glass doors and to the front desk. I gave him a look and he shushed while I asked about Jeb Green.
The middle-aged woman frowned and checked her computer screen. “He’s not listed. He may still be in the emergency room. Are you family?”
“Friends,” I answered.
She nodded to an area full of those hard plastic chairs and I didn’t quite sigh. I started to go over and thought to ask, “Can you let us know when he’s moved to a room?”
She shrugged. “Sure. What are your names?”
“Frank Hardy, my brother Joe.”
“I’ll let you know,” she said in a voice that told me she thought we strange to want to wait who knew how long.
I steered my brother over to those plastic chairs. “It seems pretty far-fetched. He’d hurt people just to get a story?”
Joe nodded. “And he was there, for both attacks.”
I arched an eyebrow at him. “So were we.”
Joe gave me a look that told me he was fast losing patience with me. I shifted in the seat and shook my head. “I doubt a serious reporter would be that crazy to risk it all like that.”
Joe grunted. “Maybe. Maybe not.” He stood up and stretched his legs although we hadn’t been sitting ten minutes. If he didn’t stop, I’d hogtie him to the chair.
“Joe, sit down.”
He frowned but sat back down, slouching as best as he could. “These are stupid chairs.”
I didn’t answer him. Something was niggling at the back of my mind and I couldn’t quite get a grasp on it. It’s like having an awesome dream but getting jarred awake and you know it was an awesome dream but you can barely remember it.
“Frank? You really think he’s innocent?”
I forced my mind on what he’d been talking about. I heaved a sigh. “Fine. I’ll just add his name to our ever growing list of suspects,” I said. I started to list names. “Maxwell Monroe, Ollie Peterson, Eddie Mundy...and every skateboarder competing in the games. That really narrows it down.”
“There’s no reason to get nasty about it.”
I shook my head. “I hate these chairs.”
“On that, I’m in total agreement.”
The woman at the front desk peered over her counter and waved to us. I was so relieved that we wouldn’t have to wait for hours – or that I’d have to spend hours trying to keep Joe from driving me crazy pacing or complaining or...whatever – that I practically ran up there.
She nodded to the nearest bank of elevators. “You can see Jebediah Green now. They just moved him to room 418.”
I started for the elevators only to find Joe wasn’t right next to me. I turned to see him ask her something and then he hurried over to me. “Alejandro Lopez is in 422. We can visit both of ‘em.”
We caught an empty elevator and headed inside. I punched the button for the fourth floor and glanced at Joe. “Kind of ironic if Mundy’s behind it. They’re within shouting distance of each other.”
Joe grunted. “Maybe not ironic at all.”
The elevator deposited us near a nurse’s desk and we got directions to Room 418. I knocked lightly before we entered.
“Come in,” said a gravelly voice.
My brother and I entered the room. Jeb was laid up in the hospital bed with a big gauze patch taped to his chest and an IV drip in his arm. Joe sketched a wave. “We’re checking on you for Jenna.”
Jeb flashed a weak smile. “Sweet girl. Thanks, dude.”
“She wanted to come, but we told her you’d probably want her to stay and practice.”
He nodded lazily and with his other hand turned the volume down on the TV perched up by the ceiling. “Definitely. She’s good, she deserves a chance at the top prize.”
“I’m Frank Hardy,” I said, shaking his hand. “This is my brother, Joe. How are you feeling?”
“Beats me,” he said with a goofy grin. “I’ve got so many painkillers in me, I don’t feel a thing. But they tell me I’m going to live.”
Joe pulled up a chair. “My brother and I are trying to figure this out, Jeb.”
“You and half the cops in Philly,” muttered Jeb. “Those guys asked me like a zillion questions down in the emergency room.”
“Mind if we ask a few more?” I said.
“Sure. Why not? Who’s counting? But first let me tell you what I already told the cops. No, I don’t have any enemies – none that I can think of, anyway. No, I can’t think of any reason why someone would go after me, or Lopez. And no, I’m not one of the top competitors this year – so it’s pointless to take me out of the games.”
I nodded and sighed. “Thanks, Jeb. You just answered most of my questions.”
“The cops were pretty thorough. They think this might mean something really bad.”
I shared a look with Joe and then turned to Jeb. “Really bad?”
“They think that this is leading up to something like terrorism.” Jeb shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s crazy what this world’s comin’ to.”
Before I could ask about Ollie Peterson, the door swung open and in walked the tall skinny paramedic who had treated Jeb in the skate park. “Hello, Jeb,” he said, smiling. “I was told you could have visitors.” He glanced warily at Joe and me.
“No problem, dude,” said Jeb. “Join the party.”
The paramedic introduced himself. “I’m Carter Bean. You probably don’t remember me, but I’m one of the emergency medical guys who picked you up at the park.”
“Thanks, man. You saved my life,” said Jeb, shaking the man’s hand. “These are friends of mine, Frank and Joe Hardy. They’re in town for the Big Air Games.”
Joe turned to Carter. “You’re good, cool under pressure. We saw you handle both those emergencies today.”
Carter gave a small shrug. “Thanks. It’s always nice to be appreciated.” He nodded to Jeb. “Good thing the gunman must have been standing far away. If he had fired at a closer range, you’d have been DOA.”
“What’s that mean?” asked Jeb.
“Dead on arrival,” Carter explained.
I thought about it for a moment and found my eyes kept straying to Carter’s medical badge. “How far away would you say the shooter was?” I asked.
Carter scratched his head. “Well, you’d have to ask a forensic expert, but I would guess a couple of hundred feet, at least.”
I made a mental note of it as well as his badge number. The four numbers in sequential order kept bothering me. Maybe they were clues, both of them. Or maybe not.
Carter stayed a few minutes more, chatting, then said his lunch break was over. He left and I turned to Jeb. “What do you know about Ollie Peterson?”
Jeb gave me a look at the sudden subject change and then sighed. “What can I say, man? Ollie is Ollie,” Jeb explained. “Everybody knows him and everybody hates him. But he’s got the best skateboard shop in town. He really knows his stuff. Ollie was a former champ, you know. He was the hottest thing on wheels in the eighties. He had a huge career ahead of him.”
“So what happened?” Joe asked.
“Two things,” said Jeb. “First, he claims he invented the ‘ollie’ – the move you make by smacking your foot down on the back of the board. That trick was invented by Alan Gelfand. Now Rodney Mullen took it and ran with it, though. He’s a legend among skateboarders. Ollie is just a big joke, especially after he insisted everyone call him Ollie. His real name is Owen.” Jeb rolled his eyes.
“Okay,” I said. “What’s the second thing?”
“The accident,” answered Jeb. “It happened in 1990, at the peak of his career, in the FDR skate park. Ollie was really pushing himself. He flew about ten feet in the air and slammed down knee-first on the edge of the half-pipe. He’s lucky he can walk at all.”
We thanked Jeb for the information. He asked us to give Jenna a message: “Go for the gold, baby,” – and gave us the peace sign. We stopped by room 422 to see Alejandro Lopez but he wasn’t in his room. So then Joe and I exited the hospital, hopped on our motorcycles and returned to the hotel.
“Man, I need a shower!” Joe said when we got back to our room. “I’m drenched in sweat.” He peeled off his shirt and headed for the bathroom.
I glanced at the door and patted my jeans pocket to make sure I had my card key. “I’m going down to the computer room, check out a few websites,” I told him. “Be back in a little while.”
“Whatever,” he called back to me. I could already hear the shower going.
I headed back downstairs, after making sure the door was locked. Lucky for me, I found a computer not being used and sat down. I logged in, did a quick search and found the official chat rooms of the Big Air Games.
The chat rooms were packed. Everybody was typing in their theories on the skateboard assaults. Some blamed terrorists, others thought it was the work of motocross bikers. But nobody suggested anything that made any sense.
I was about to give up when something caught my eye. It was one little message, posted among all the oddball conspiracy theories. It said simply, “I told you this was going to happen. I warned you.”
It was posted by 4567TME – the same person who had posted the strange warning to ‘Xtreme sports nuts’. I knew it! That message I read yesterday had been a threat. I scanned the rest of the chat list, scrolling down to see if 4567TME had posted anything else.
Instead I found something else: There is no safe haven, no place to hide. I will glory in your ultimate destruction. I will see you all die.
I reread it twice to make sure it actually said that. I half expected it to be 4567TME but it wasn’t. The screen name was GR SK8R. A creepy feeling came over me and I wondered if maybe there was more to this than met the eye, than even ATAC had guessed at.
I continued to scroll down, searching for more postings and found another one from GR SK8R. It was nasty, threatening bodily harm to anyone who got in the way.
I found a scrap of paper and wrote both threats from GR SK8 down as well as the second posting from 4567TME. I scribbled the screen name down and stared at it. There it was again. The four numbers were in sequential order and I knew I’d seen it before. It’s not often that a screen name would have sequential numbering. Most people – even though they’re told not to – use familiar sequences of numbers. Birthdates, anniversaries, ID numbers from wherever.
I stared at the screen name 4567TME for a long moment and something compelled me to write it backwards. A cold chill swept over me. I logged off the computer and darted back to the bank of elevators. Joe had to see this.
I burst into the hotel room just as Joe stepped out of the bathroom, drying his hair with a towel. He gave me a look. “What?”
I handed him the scrap of paper and he looked it over. He read it twice. “Who’s this GR SK8R?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. Look at the bottom.”
Joe frowned. “You wrote 4567TME backwards. Why?”
“Look at the three letters.”
His frown deepened and he tossed the paper on the bed. “No way. No freaking way. No.”
“It’s a badge number, Joe.” I took a deep breath. “It’s Carter Bean’s badge number.”
“But that doesn’t mean it’s him. Maybe he’s just worried about all the athletes. Maybe he’s afraid someone would get hurt but the guys who set all this up wouldn’t listen to him.”
I took a deep breath, ready to say something when Joe tossed the towel at me. “What’s his motive, Frank?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
Joe sighed. “Heck, it could be some weird random coincidence. Ollie Peterson would be a more likely candidate than Carter Bean ever would.”
I sat down on my bed, grabbed the hotel phone on the table between the beds. I dialed 411. I asked for the number of Ollie’s Skate Shop.
Joe sat down on the other bed, folded his arms across his chest. “What are you doing?”
I shushed him, then dialed the number. It rang. “Yeah, what do you want?” Ollie’s gruff voice snarled over the line.
“What are your store hours?” I asked.
“Noon to ten.”
I felt that cold chill sweep over me and I wondered if maybe Joe was right this time. “Noon?” I said. “That seems pretty late to open a store.”
“Who asked you?” he snapped back. “It’s my store and I’ll do whatever I want.” He hung up.
I looked over at my brother. “Ollie doesn’t open his store until noon. Which means he wasn’t working this morning. He could have been at the park.”
Joe brought up another piece of evidence. “Carter said the pellet gun was fired from several hundred feet away. So it wasn’t one of the skateboarders who did it. They were all hanging around the ramps. And Carter and his partner showed up in an ambulance. You really think his partner would risk it all to cover for Carter?”
“Eddie Mundy was buying a hot dog. The vendors are several hundred feet away.”
Joe shook his head. “Eddie seemed bummed about Jeb. It’s gotta be Ollie.”
I sat there a moment. It did make sense. “He’s bitter about his career. He hates the Big Air Games. He dreams up ways to sabotage skateboards.”
“And he has a gun under his counter,” added Joe. “Ollie has to be our man.”
I looked at the scrap of paper and wondered if maybe Ollie had chosen the screen name just randomly. I thought about the other threats. “What about GR SK8R?”
“Could still be Ollie playing with everyone’s heads.” Joe picked up the paper and reread the last threat. “This guy sounds downright creepy. Wonder what the GR stands for?”
“Great, maybe? The other one is ‘skater’, right?”
“Great is usually done GR8, at least in text messaging and such,” said Joe, absently. He shook his head, stared at the paper as if he could stare the answer right out. “Initials, maybe?”
“Of who?” I asked. “How could we possibly find the one person with the initials GR?”
“Hack into the registration data base?”
I sighed. “Both letters are common. Names starting with G and R are very common. It could stand for anything, not even a name.” I got to my feet. “I think if I did hack into the data base, not saying I will, we’d get probably a dozen or more with the initials GR or RG.”
Joe shrugged and tossed the paper down. “It was worth a shot.” He looked up at me. “What?”
“I think we should pay Ollie another visit. Let’s see how he’s taking the news about the skateboard attacks.”
Joe gave a decisive nod. “Let’s go.” Five minutes later, after Joe finished dressing and had his shoes on, we left the hotel and walked the three blocks to Ollie’s street.
Joe walked ahead of me and I suspected he was looking forward to catching Ollie in the act, so to speak. I wasn’t completely sure but all the evidence we had seemed to point directly to the skate shop owner. Still, I felt we should be ready for anything.
But when we turned the corner, we definitely didn’t expect this. Joe and I stopped and stared. Ollie’s shop was surrounded by police cars and fenced off with yellow caution tape. The place was crawling with cops. Behind them an ambulance, its lights dark and siren silent, drove off down the street. A long dark car marked ‘Coroner’ was parked not far from the shop. Someone got in the driver’s seat and steered the car onto the road, following the ambulance.
Joe and I pushed our way up to the police line. “What’s going on? What happened?” Joe asked the officers.
Nobody would talk.
“I’ll tell you what happened,” said someone behind us.
Joe and I spun around.
It was Maxwell Monroe, reporter. “Ollie’s been murdered,” he said.
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The Hardy Boys belong to Simon and Schuster and the Stratemeyer Foundation. The authors 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.