Tuesday, September 26 (time unknown)

       “Joe? Joe!” Frank called his younger brother’s name over and over again, hoping for any response whatever from his sibling.  “Joe, come on man, you can’t leave me now!  We have to get out of here and I need you to help me do it.”

       Frank reached back until his hand touched the wall and kept his firm grip he had on Anna Phillip’s arm.  She struggled against him but, except for his blindness there was nothing else wrong with him.  Frank nudged around with his toe and came into contact with a still body on the floor.  That one had to be Jase.  There was no way Frank could get Joe, Jase and Anna all out of the building by himself and, right now, Frank’s priority was Joe and getting Joe back to the hospital.

       “All right,” Frank told Anna as he reached out and touched her face so he knew where to address her comments.  “That fire you and Jase started is probably spreading this way by now.  If you want to get out of here alive and if you want your brother to get out of here alive, you’re going to have to help me.  You have a choice here, Anna.  You can cause me all kinds of problems and I leave you behind with Jase, or you come with me and help me as much as you can.  We should be able to get Jase out of here but I’m getting Joe out first.”

       Anna inhaled sharply and whimpered.

       “I don’t have time for you to go into hysterics!” Frank said, more cold and harsh than he meant to be.  He took a deep breath to calm himself.  “I can take off the handcuffs but you have to swear to me you will cooperate.  Will you?”

       “Y-yes,” Anna said in a small voice.  “I’ll help you.”

       Frank reached down to where his brother lay and fumbled around, first for Joe’s pockets and then for the pocket with the handcuff key.  He had Anna turn around and he put the key into the locks but didn’t turn them.

       “Remember,” he warned her, keeping his voice cold but emotionless rather than hostile.  “I’m blind, I’m not stupid and the rest of me works just fine.  You try anything on me, and I’ll follow through on my threat.”

       “I’ll help, I will, Frank, I’ll help!” Anna protested.  “Just, please, let’s get out of here, please!”

       Frank took a deep breath and turned the key in the cuffs lock.  He snapped open one cuff, then the other.  He pushed the cuffs into his pocket.  Anna had not moved.  He half expected her to try and get away in the moment Frank’s attention was taken by something else.

       “All right,” he told Anna.  “I know you’re pretty strong.  I want you to try to pick up Jase.  If you can’t pick him up, I’m going to try to get him on you in a fireman’s carry.  Do you think you can handle that?”

       “I can get him,” Anna told him.  “You worry about Joe.”

       Frank felt Anna brush past him then but she stopped near him.  He ignored her for a few moments as he bent, put his arms under Joe’s shoulders and knees and then hefted his brother up from the ground.  Joe moaned in his arms.  Frank, grateful for the sound from his brother, turned in the direction where Anna struggled with her brother’s limp, lank, form.

       “Have him?” he asked her.

       “Uh,” Anna grunted.  Frank took that as the affirmative and told Anna to take the lead and to let Frank know when they needed to turn.  He had lost the mental map that Joe had tried to make for him so he wasn’t sure if he could find his way out on his own.  He firmed his resolve a moment later.  He apologized mentally to Joe as he kept Joe’s feet brushing against the right hand wall; he was able to feel the vibrations of the light slippers against the rough wall.  He was not able to touch the wall himself and still keep a good hold on Joe.

       They passed one intersection and Frank vaguely remembered Joe telling him to take the second intersection.  He heard the roar of a fire behind him now and knew that it had escaped the room where he and Joe were supposed to die.  Part of the walls down here were concrete, part of them were wood.  He thought everything wood would start to catch quickly.  He just had no idea of any flames or smoke would be visible from outside. 

       “We go right now,” Anna prompted him and Frank was grateful that Anna was, at least, following her end of the bargain.  He took the left turn but bumped Joe’s legs against the wall he was going around.  He apologized mentally to his brother and, after changing his hold on Joe slightly, continued his perilous track out of the burning building. 

       “Left,” Anna said a moment later.  “We have to go left now.  The door is just up ahead.  Uhm, about the long-ways length of your dorm room.  Not too far.”

       Anna was being excessive in her seeming desire to follow orders but Frank didn’t have time to worry about any of her potential motives.  So far, her directions seemed to match the ones he remembered Joe giving.  He pushed against the doors leading out and flew through with Joe in his arms.

       “Anna?” he called out, uncertainly.  He had the idea now that he was in the usable area of Tagarty.  “Anna!”

       She didn’t answer him.  Frank took two more uncertain steps forward and then stumbled, falling hard to the ground, unable to use his arms to stop his fall.  He landed half on Joe, half on another body on the ground.  Both of them moaned and Frank rubbed at his head in surprise.  What was going on now?  Had Anna dropped Jase and left?  It wouldn’t surprise Frank if she did; the girl was two ice cubes shy of a tray.  Frank knelt again and found his brother.  He hefted Joe carefully up into his arms again and continued.  He would have to send someone back in to get Jase, if that’s who that was. 

       A few minutes later, as Frank’s sense of direction twisted itself into directions while he was trying to get out of the building, he heard a scream coming from somewhere behind him.

       “FRANK!”

 

*******

      

       As Connor drove the girls and himself across campus to Tagarty Hall, Mandy spent a couple of minutes assembling her ever usable collapsible half-bow, a smaller bow that held little in the way of distance but allowed her fairly decent accuracy.  None of the Hardys used guns as a rule and none of them owned one but Mandy had fallen in love with tails of Robin Hood as a child and, when she had taken archery for the first time in the sixth grade, had convinced her parents to allow her to join an archery club.  Ever since then, half of Mandy’s gifts at Christmas and Birthdays had been some new innovation for archery, with the other half being something to help her art career.  

       Mandy hoped she wouldn’t have to use her bow this time.  That time a short time ago had been the first time she had actually shot anybody with an arrow.  She was very glad she had gotten the part of the man’s body she aimed for.  Now, she put the bow together because she wanted to be prepared if she did need it.  The thought of shooting anyone again made her sick to her stomach but she would do it, to protect Joe or Frank or both.  And if she saw that Anna Phillips again… well, Anna had better not get within bowshot.

       “Step on it, Connor,” Mandy said impatiently to her boyfriend as she checked the site on her bow.  Everything was where it should be.  She just needed to get an arrow, nock and let it fly. 

       “Calm down, Mandy,” Vanessa told her friend.  “We’re almost there.  We won’t get there at all if Connor goes any faster.”

       Mandy nodded impatiently and had the door of the Blazer open, almost before Connor had it stopped.  She stepped out, running toward Tagarty Hall.  The other three were hot on her heels, racing up to the front door and into the building that should have, this time of night, been locked.  Mandy, as if led by a string, made several turns in Tagarty’s catacomb-like halls before she pulled up short and screamed,

       “Frank!”

       Her older brother stopped walking and turned slowly, a dumbfounded expression on his face.  Connor ran past Mandy then and went to take Joe from Frank’s arms, while Samantha wrapped her arms around her boyfriend and held him for a moment.  He laid his cheek on her hair for a moment before she insisted leading him out of the Hall.   

       “Wait,” Frank said.  “I think Jase is laying that way.  Anna left him.  We need to get him out and call the fire department.  They set a fire in the old section.”

       “Give Joe back,” Mandy told her boyfriend.  “I’ll need your help to find Jase.”

       Samantha flipped out her cell phone and dialed Campus Security, telling them of the fire in Tagarty while Connor and Mandy ran back the way that they had come and down past, searching each hallway they passed for signs of a body.  Finally, when they were only about ten yards from the old section, Mandy saw a body lying on the floor up ahead of them.  Connor motioned for Mandy to start back and he went and flipped Jase over his shoulder.  They heard a roar coming from the old section as they walked past the doors and suddenly, flame leapt out from the doors and into the hallway.

       “Let’s go!” Connor called out.  “Come on!”

       He started to jog and Mandy kept pace with him.  They found their way back to the doors that led out into the outdoors, where Frank, Vanessa and Samantha sat with Joe.  In the distance, they heard several sirens approaching the area and Mandy looked up, into the face of her father.

       “I guess, all things considered, it was a good thing you didn’t wait for me,” Fenton Hardy said to his daughter as he kissed her forehead.  “But next time, young lady, I expect you to do as you’re told.”

       “Yes, Dad,” Mandy said with a grin as she hugged him. 

       Fenton shook his head and knew that if the same situation came up, Mandy would react just as she did.  She often had her twin brother’s impulsiveness but it was usually tempered by Frank’s patience and calm.   Mandy knew he would say what he said but that he did not expect her to actually listen to him.

       An ambulance pulled up a couple of minutes later as Mandy sat with her twin and held tightly to one of his hands, Vanessa holding just as tightly to the other one.  Both girls exchanged frequent looks, expressing their fears more eloquently than words could express.  They allowed the ambulance driver to push them out of the way reluctantly, allowing him to get a much-needed oxygen mask on Joe’s face.  Samantha and Frank stood to one side, Samantha’s arm wrapped tightly about Frank’s upper arm.  Frank looked pale but calm.  Mandy turned her attention back to her twin, who lay so pale and still on the ground.

       “He’ll be all right,” Connor said to her in a low tone.  “You’ll see.  He’s a fighter, he won’t quit now just because of a few more bashes, bruises and near burning.  Just let the medics do their job, all right?”

       Mandy nodded, though her gaze did not leave her twin’s pale face at all.  He looked as though he were in pain but whatever bothered him before, whatever intense terror he felt, it was gone now.  Mandy finally turned to Connor and wrapped her arms around his waist and buried her face into his chest.  He held her tightly.

 

       Frank sighed as he stretched and leaned back again in the waiting room chair, a chair that should have his name on it by now for all the time Frank spent here.  Frank yawned from weariness.  Samantha resettled against him when he leaned back and he wrapped his arm about her again while she dozed.  It was quiet in the waiting room.   Frank heard the soft breathing of his family and friends and an occasional murmur between Connor and Mandy but little else broke the stillness.  His father and mother had left a few minutes before to speak to the doctor working on Joe and none of them wanted to talk about what that might mean.

       “Want some coffee?” Samantha asked a moment later, her voice as soft as usual.  “I thought I’d go to the snack machines.”

       “Coffee would be great,” Frank said and didn’t bother to add on the ‘two sugars’ to his order.  Samantha would know that without him telling her. 

       “Do you want something to eat?” Samantha stirred and pulled her arm free of his.  “A bag of pretzels?  Chips?  A Candy Bar?”

       “Chips, please,” Frank commented.  “Whatever kind they have, I’m not picky.  Get something we can share?”

       “Sure,” Samantha kissed him again and then walked away.  Frank continued to listen to the silence as they waited for his parents to return.  Mandy stirred a moment later and offered to get something for Connor and Vanessa.

       “Nothing for me, thanks,” Vanessa said in what sounded like a yawn. 

       “A gallon of Mountain Dew?” Connor asked his girlfriend and Mandy laughed.

       “You’ll stunt your grown, oh man-mountain of mine,” Mandy warned him.  “Mountain Dew doesn’t come in a decaf yet, you know.”

       “That’s all right,” Connor grinned.  “I think my system can handle one caffeinated soda.  Uh, just don’t tell coach or he may shoot me.”

       “Hmm,” Mandy sounded very coy.  “That may cost you, Mr. MacKenzie.  I think if I do this not telling thing, you’ll just have to take me to Banderos.  I’m going to need a burrito or two later on.”

       “Mmm… burritos,” Connor murmured and Frank laughed.  “Connor’s stomach would accept any and all burritos even if they were half-burnt and filled with peanut butter.

       “That’s good,” Mandy said, laughing.  Her voice disappeared as she left the waiting room.

       “Here, take,” Samantha said a moment later and she placed a cup of hot coffee in one of his hands and an open bag of chips in his other.  Frank took a grateful sip of the coffee, the fumes waking him more fully. 

       Suddenly there was movement and sound in the waiting room.

       “Mom, Dad, what’s wrong!” Mandy demanded.  “Is Joe all right?  What’s going on?”

       “It’s all right, Mandy,” Laura Hardy said, wearily.  “Joe’s going to be fine.  He developed another problem during his captivity; one of his ribs was broken and it nicked a lung.  The doctors were able to repair the damage with medication.  He’s going to be just fine.”

       “Thank God,” Mandy whispered.  “When can we see him?”

       “Not until tomorrow,” Laura answered.  “In the meantime, I think the rest of us should go to the house and get some rest.  We can come back in the morning.”

       “I have a test at eight,” Vanessa groaned.  “It’s the absolute pits.”

       “We’ll see what we can do to help you out.  In the meantime, let’s go get some sleep,” Laura suggested.  “Joe’s going to be asleep until mid-afternoon and that’s the earliest he should be awake.  They’ve heavily sedated him.  Let’s go home.”

 

*******

      

       The Hardys and their friends all gathered in Joe’s room the next evening, with Joe carefully propped up in his bed, Vanessa sitting on one side holding one of his hands and Mandy on the other, with one hand latched onto Joe’s and the other around Connor’s arm.  This many people in Joe’s room wasn’t strictly regulation but with Joe out of danger and resting comfortably, the nurse had agreed to allow it for an abbreviated period of time, as long as no one disturbed any of the other patients.

       “So what did happen?” Joe asked in a raspy voice.  The respirator had just been removed a couple of hours before and while he took shallow breaths because of the broken rib, his breathing was much easier than it had been.  “I know the part about Jase Aleman being Jason Rich and Anna Phillips being Doctor Rich’s daughter.”

       “From what we can tell,” Frank stood next to Samantha at the foot of Joe’s bed.  He once again wore his dark sunglasses and looked comfortable and composed and every inch the older brother.  “Doctor Rich has been in constant communication with both Jason and Anna since he put himself into exile.  The whole idea to come after us was Jason’s.  He came up with the idea of enrolling here under a false name and it was only luck on his part that he got put into the room next to mine and Connor’s.  He obviously knew how to contact Pankovic, Pankovic is the one that took you from your room that one night.  He recruited Anna to help him.  She was already a student here so that wasn’t hard.

       “Anyway,” Frank continued.  “They hired a couple of local gangbangers to harass you but made it seem like they were trying to harass Anna.  The whole bit about wanting us to not investigate them was a smokescreen as well.  Jase wanted us to investigate so we wouldn’t suspect that he was behind the attacks.  He wanted, as he gloated when he held us, to run us around in circles chasing our tails.  That’s pretty much what we did until you got us that lead at the police station, Mandy and Connor.”

       “And they wanted us dead so their father could come back to the states without having to worry about a trial.  If we’re gone and the authorities know that Doctor Rich is out of town, they can’t pin it on them and our testimony goes right out the window,” Joe whistled. “What about the attack on you and Sam at the restaurant?  Was that just a coincidence?”

       “I think so,” Frank said.  “Samantha and I talked about that and she agrees that she didn’t see traditional gang colors or badges on the robbers.  I’ll ask Con later but I don’t think that had anything to do with our case.”

       “So what happened to Pankovic?” Joe asked.  “I had to leave him behind.”

       “He got out,” Frank assured his brother.  “In fact, he was arrested just about six hours ago.  I spoke to Con a while ago and he said that Pankovic spilled the beans on most of it.  He went to the small airport to get the plane that he and the two kids were to fly out on only to find that the plane was gone.  It seems that Anna left him and Jase behind.  Jase and Pankovic are both in jail.”

       “What was Anna’s story?” Samantha asked.  “I thought she was after Joe the whole time.  Why did she suddenly fixate on you?”

       “She’s completely not right in the head,” Frank told Sam as he squeezed her hand.  “From what Con has told me, she’s spent several years in an institution and several seeing a series of psychiatrists.  None of them have been able to help her.  She gets fixated on things and takes complete ownership of them in her head.  Nothing could convince her that her plan to have me come with her to Libya was idiotic.  She was convinced, because she wanted it, that we could live happily ever after.”

       “You know,” Joe said, slowly.  “You do look the most like her father of all of us.  You look more like Doctor Rich than Jase does.  You don’t suppose…?”

       “We won’t ever know,” Frank shrugged.  “Or, at least, I hope we don’t ever know.  She’s already gone, heading out for Libya or wherever her father is.  Jase was not too happy about that part of things.”

       “It’s too bad we can’t get our hands on either of them,” Joe rubbed his hands together.  “I’d like another rematch with Doctor Rich.”

       “I have a feeling,” Mandy declared.  “That we haven’t heard of the last of him… or Anna.  They’ll be back, whether we want them back or not.  I don’t see a little thing like an arrest warrant stopping Doctor Rich for very long.”

       “I have to agree with you there,” Frank told his sister.  “But we’ll all watch out for each other, won’t we?”

       “Because,” Joe piped up.  “That’s what we do best!”

       “At least those of us who don’t suffer from a superior sense of macho pride,” Mandy tweaked her twin.

‘      “Hey!” Joe protested.  “I resemble that remark!”

      

THE END

The Hardy Boys belong to Simon and Schuster and the Stratemeyer Foundation. I've only borrowed them to play with for a while but I promise to return them whenever I've finished with them.  (I make no promises as to condition, that's entirely up to them).  I promise, I'm only writing for fun and I'm not making a single dime off of this (unless you count personal fulfillment).