For Joe in Bayport, the days without Frank and the days with no word of Frank dragged by, turning into weeks. Even the days he spent working at Jack’s cargo service dragged by. Everyone advised him to stay busy, try not to imagine what was happening to his brother. But working didn’t fill the empty void, didn’t fill the house, didn’t stop his imagination.  

Fenton put calls in to every resource and operative he had used in the last twenty-five years. Even Sam Radley made every call he could. Repeatedly, just like Fenton.  Sam Peterson, chief of police in New York City and Fenton’s old partner, pitched in as well, devoting man hours and police resources to the hunt.  

But it brought them no closer to Frank.  

This mid-July afternoon found Joe on the beach, watching a storm roll in. Alone. Laura had practically shoved him out the door and he wandered around aimlessly for over an hour before arriving at the beach.  Frank loved watching the storms roll in during the summer, even though the thunder scared him to death.  

Joe sighed, another thing that not many people knew about Franklin Simon Hardy. He’d told Joe once, in complete confidence, that the thunder reminded him of his father’s footsteps on the stairwell in their apartment building, which naturally led his thoughts to the night his mother died.  

Presently Joe felt another person sit down beside him on the large rock. He knew who it was without even looking.  

“No one understands how much I miss him, Callie.”  

Callie squeezed his hand, her eyes too on the storm. The call from Vanessa saying Frank had been kidnapped by his biological brother had been the last thing she expected to hear. And it had rocked her world to its very foundation, leaving her sure of only one thing: How much she wanted Frank Hardy to come home. Knowing how much Joe was hurting and how frustrated he would be over his own inability to stop it, she had gone straight to him once the Hardys arrived home from Russia.  

“We can’t give up, Joe,” she said softly. “He’s out there somewhere, waiting for you to charge to the rescue.”  

“How can I charge to the rescue if we can’t even find him?” He turned his head and stared at Callie’s profile. “Do you have any idea how many millions of square miles there are in Russia?”  

“6,592,771,” Callie answered quietly, meeting Joe’s gaze. “You’ve never let him down, Joe. He has no reason to think that you’ll start now.”  

Joe smiled apologetically. “Would you keep reminding me?”  

Callie smiled back. “Of course I will.” Then she stood up and began walking towards home, leaving Joe by himself again.  

Over the last six weeks, Callie had realized just what an amazing person Joe really was. Frank had every right in the world to be so devoted to him. I have been so selfish, Frank, she thought. You have to come home so I can tell you how sorry I am. And how much I love you.  

She mounted the front steps of the large Queen Anne style house the Shaw family called home and reluctantly went inside. That morning she had announced her plans to transfer to Bayport University in the fall. Her parents had immediately attempted to talk her out of it. She had run from the house to regroup, and seeing Joe had only strengthened her resolve. In her mind, she had a responsibility to Frank to look after Joe for him.  

Mrs. Shaw was waiting for her daughter to come in. “I’m sorry, honey,” she said as she hugged Callie. “It’s your decision to make, not ours.”  

Callie smiled. “You’re not going to lose me, Mom. I don’t even know if Frank will talk to me after the things I said. I just have this need to find out and I can’t do that if I’m on the other side of the country.”  

“For your sake, I hope he’s found soon.” Mrs. Shaw squeezed Callie’s hand and Callie continued up the stairs to her room, wondering the entire time what exactly her mother meant by that statement.  

She sat down on her bed and picked up the picture on her nightstand. It was of her and Frank, the first day of school their senior year. He’d dropped his bombshell about being adopted from Russia a mere 4 weeks later. “Please come home, Frank,” she whispered. “Please come home.”

***  

Joe stepped through the kitchen door just as the first raindrops fell from the leaden sky. “Who’s here?” he asked his aunt Gertrude, referring to the strange car in the driveway.  

“FBI,” she replied. “Your father was just about to come looking for you, so get in there.”  

Joe made a mad dash from the kitchen to his father’s office. Agent Mike Newhouse, an old friend of Fenton’s and director of the New York FBI office’s Organized Crime division, was sitting across from Fenton’s desk. “Anything new?” Joe asked as he sat down on the sofa next to his father.  

“As a matter of fact, yes. We have a concrete lead on part of Gregov’s operation,” Newhouse answered.  

“What about Frank?” Joe demanded. Fenton put a hand on Joe’s knee, a silent signal for him to calm down.  

“Following this lead will eventually lead us to Frank,” Newhouse said. His voice held an unspoken “I hope”.  “We know for a fact that Gregov is heavily into arms smuggling. We’ve been watching him very closely for over a year now. Over the last month, we’ve successfully planted three men inside his organization. One is actually in Russia and has had heard Frank’s name mentioned a couple of times.”  

Newhouse held his hand up as Joe started to ask a question. “All he’s been able to find out is that Frank is alive. What we’re doing is setting up a fake arms deal. My man in Russia has been instructed to keep his eyes and ears open in regards to Frank, and as soon as we have something concrete on his location, you’ll know.”  

The federal agent stood, the lost puppy look on Joe’s face making him wish he had more to say.  

Fenton escorted the agent to the door. “Thanks, Mike.”  

“I wish it was more, Fenton. I really do.”  

“He’ll be alright,” Fenton responded, knowing Mike was thinking about Joe. “They’re very close.”  

“I’ll keep you updated as much as I can.”  

Fenton watched the man leave, then leaned against the closed door with a heavy sigh. In spite of Newhouse’s information, they were no closer to finding Frank than they had been two months ago. Has it really been two months? he wondered.  

With another heavy sigh and a shake of his head, he went upstairs to check on Joe, having heard his footsteps pounding up the back stairs. As had become the norm, Joe was in Frank’s room, curled up on Frank’s bed and trying not to cry. Fenton sat down on the bed and laid a hand on Joe’s shoulder.  

“Why does it have to take so long, Dad?” he asked quietly, his voice trembling just a little.

“I don’t know, son.”  

“What if that bastard sold him?”  

Fenton heard the anger in his son’s voice. “I don’t think he did. From what little we know about him, he strikes me as the type of person who would want to watch Frank suffer. Wherever Stefan is, I’m betting Frank is close by.”  

“I hope you’re right, Dad.”  

Me too, Fenton thought. Me too.

***  

The young man barely managed to pull his shoes off before he collapsed on the bed. Closing his dark brown eyes, familiar faces flitted through his sleep-deprived consciousness. He knew these people he kept dreaming about, and he knew them very well. But he couldn’t remember how!  

Letting himself fall asleep, he prayed that maybe his dreams would give him more information.  

Stefan too was in bed, but unlike his little brother, Stefan had company. Once Irina had fallen asleep, he tucked his hands behind his head and smiled to himself. Things with Semyon were progressing just as he’d planned. It had been sheer brilliance to bring in Dr. Kambarov in. With his use of mind-altering drugs hand-in-hand with his KGB training, Semyon had almost completely forgotten the Hardys even existed.  

The brain-washing had been done slowly over the last three months, and was finished just as the mine truly began to take its toll on Semyon. Kambarov had assured Stefan that the younger man wouldn’t last much more than another six months, if that long.  

And you deserve it! he silently told his brother. Curling his body around Irina, Stefan went to sleep.  

***  

For Semyon, morning came much too early. As he dragged his exhausted body from the bed and moved through the morning routine of getting dressed as quickly as he could, his dream of the night before played through his mind.  

He was on a playground, surrounded by other boys his own age. About nine years old, he guessed. One of the boys was bigger than everyone else and wouldn’t let any of them forget it. He was blond with blue eyes and a smile that could have been nice if he’d tried. Another blond boy, smaller than the first, was standing in front of the bigger kid, hands on his hips, his own blue eyes blazing with anger.  

“Nobody calls my brother “stupid”!”  

“But that’s what he is, stupid. He can’t even talk right.”  

The smaller kid clenched his right hand into a fist and hit the bigger one square in the nose!  

The dream then jumped to a bedroom. A very nice bedroom that seemed ever so familiar. He and the smaller blond were sitting on the bed. “He won’t ever hurt you again, Frank. I promise.”  

Then the dream had ended. Why does “Frank” feel so right? he wondered. That’s not my name.  

Or was it?

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.