Cult of Crime (2 page)

Holly? Frank was surprised. She was Strand’s daughter, and she and Frank had grown up together. Before he’d met Callie Shaw, he had even thought that they might fall in love one day. Apparently she was now in some kind of trouble - trouble so bad that even his father couldn’t get her out of it.

“What do you mean, protect myself?” Emmett Strand asked.

“I wish I didn’t have to bring this up,” Mr. Hardy said. “But keep in mind that Holly hasn’t simply run away from home. She has joined a cult. This man who runs it, the Rajah, demands that his followers turn over all their worldly goods to him. That’s the first step on their path to ‘enlightenment.’ “

“Hah!” Strand snorted. “If he bates worldly goods so much, why does he have a fleet of Cadillacs? He’s a con man, pure and simple.” “Maybe so, but that’s not the point.” “What is the point, Fenton?”

“The point is, Emmett,” Mr. Hardy replied, “that you’ve made millions in banking. Suppose something should happen to you. Who’d inherit the money and everything else you own?”

There was a long pause as Strand sank into a chair. Finally he replied, “Holly, of course.”

“And in her present frame of mind, I think she’d turn it all over to the Rajah,” Fenton Hardy went on. “Everything you worked for all these years would be in the Rajah’s hands. You’ve got to cut Holly out of your will, at least until she comes home.”

“I can’t!” Strand exclaimed in anguish. “She’s my only child. I can’t cut her off just like that, even though she has cut me out of her life. There must be something else we can do.”

“Face facts,” said Fenton Hardy gently. “Holly is living at the Rajah’s commune upstate. If there was a chance that you could convince her to come home, I wouldn’t have to suggest this. But I know they won’t even let you in to talk to her. I traced her up there, but I can’t go in and get her without breaking the law, and neither can the police. ” “The law! The law protects that … that thief! Doesn’t the law care about my daughter?”

Hardy patted his friend’s shoulder, trying to comfort him. “I know this is hard for you, Emmett - “

Emmett Strand stood up abruptly, shaking off the hand. “I’ve been a bad father, but I won’t abandon my daughter when she needs me most. I won’t do what you’re suggesting!” “Emmett, please!”

“I won’t, Fenton! And it doesn’t matter if you refuse to rescue Holly. I’ll find someone who will. I’ll do it myself if I have to!” With that, Emmett Strand turned on his heel and stormed out of Fenton Hardy’s office, and out of the house.

On the stairs, Frank whispered, “Let’s get back to our rooms before Dad finds out we’ve been eavesdropping.”

But Joe stood where he was, clenching his fists, his lips curled in anger. “That Rajah character is stealing Holly’s life just like the Assassins stole Iola’s. Maybe he’s not killing her like Iola was killed, but she’s lost to us just the same. I wish there was something we could do to help her.”

Frank Hardy rubbed his chin, thinking over what he had heard. “Maybe there is,” he said. “Maybe there is.”

“Are you sure you want to go through with this?” Joe asked Frank as the train carried them toward New York City. “This cult stuff gets pretty strange. Suppose you knuckle under to them, the way Holly did.”

“It won’t happen,” Frank replied. He wore old, crumpled clothes, and dirt smudged his face. “I’ve studied how cults work and how they brainwash the kids who fall into their hands. But those kids desperately want the approval the cult gives them. I don’t. As long as I keep my mind on what I’m there for, they won’t have any power over me.”

Joe frowned. “I still don’t like it. We should just bust in there and get her out.”

“We can’t. It’s illegal,” Frank said. “Besides, when I get in there to talk to her, I’m sure I can convince her to leave with me. If she leaves of her own free will, then we won’t be breaking the law.”

“If you get in, they’re going to be suspicious if you just walk up and ask to go to their commune.”

Frank smiled mischievously. “I don’t need to ask them. They’ll ask me. I know how their minds work. Once I’m in, they’ll want to get me somewhere where the only influence on me is the Rajah, where they can watch my every move and make sure I’m trying to be like them. And the only place for that is the commune.”

“I still don’t like it,” Joe said, scowling. “What if something goes wrong?”

“That’s why you’re backing me up, little brother.” What could go wrong? Frank thought. I’m wise to their tricks, and if I don’t fall for them, they’ll have no power over me.

It had seemed like such sound reasoning at the time….

“Frank!” Chandra said, shaking him. His eyes snapped open, and he was aware that the singing had stopped. Every eye in the bus was on him, demanding his attention.

“You mustn’t sleep, Frank,” she continued. Her smile turned gentle again. “It isn’t time for that. To be enlightened, we must become truly awake, and to do that we must fight ‘sleep, which is the enemy of wisdom.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and to his astonishment, he was sorry. He didn’t know the people he was with, but what they thought of him was becoming important to him. He studied their faces. There was a joy and serenity in them that he had not expected.

They couldn’t all be faking it, he thought. Maybe they do know something we don’t. Maybe they have connected with a new spirituality.

He shook himself suddenly. I’m falling for it I knew exactly what to expect and I’m still falling for it. A quiet fear began to gnaw at him. He tried to remember things like Bayport and Joe, but already those things seemed somewhat remote.

“Are you all right, Frank?” Chandra said with concern.

“I’m just feeling a little sick,” he replied. Before he could say anything more, she was calling for the driver to stop the bus. It skidded to a halt on the gravel siding of the road, and Frank was hustled off, surrounded by cultists who blocked every avenue of escape.

“Get some air,” Chandra ordered. “When you’re feeling well enough, we’ll continue.” If the truth were known, Frank felt better already.

For he had seen, a quarter of a mile or so down the road in back of them, a black van. It was the van that the Bayport Mall Merchants had presented to the Hardys after the Dead on Target case, when Frank and Joe had thwarted a terrorist bombing and assassination attempt in the heart of the mall. Now, to Frank, it was proof that Joe was really there after all, watching out for him.

As Frank watched, a small car pulled in front of the black van and stopped dead, forcing the van to stop as well. Two men hopped out of the car. They were dressed in the white tunics and slacks that the Rajah’s followers wore. But the sunlight glinted off the guns in their hands.

JOE HARDY DROVE the black van down winding mountain roads. Ever since the Rajah’s bus had left the city, it had traveled farther and farther into the hills-and he’d had more and more trouble following it inconspicuously.

The van was intended as the Hardys’ mobile base of operations. Frank had crammed it with state-of-the-art surveillance and communications equipment, a portable crime lab, and a small but powerful computer. Joe had overhauled the van itself to prepare it for tough action at high speeds.

But now the van crawled along, trying to stay within sight but just out of view of the rickety old bus ahead. Joe clenched his teeth in frustration. Make a run for it, he urged silently. Make your move! I want some action! At this leisurely pace, it was hard to remember the real danger facing Frank.

At first, Joe didn’t hear the tires grinding the road behind him. The long drive had dulled his senses. Then his eye caught sight of the car growing larger in his rear-view mirror, and his muscles tensed for action.

He glanced at the mirror on the other door. An identical car was coming around his far side. Alert, he took in every sight and sound, calculating the danger.

Something didn’t add up. Something was wrong.

Ahead, the bus had stopped, and the passengers were getting off. At that distance, he couldn’t tell which of them was Frank, but there didn’t seem to be any trouble. The Rajah’s followers milled around the bus, stretching, getting some air. But the cars were even with him now, speeding to pass him.

“Pull over!” the driver to his left shouted. It was a cultist, and the pure white of his clothes clashed sharply with the cold black metal of the Smith & Wesson Magnum .38 on the seat next to him. The driver of the other car waved an Uzi submachine gun in the air. “Pull over!” he also cried. “Get out!”

Joe smiled. A flip of the switch, and shields would cover the windows, making the black van bulletproof. Then it would be easy to run the two cars off the road. He knew they were no threat to him, as long as he stayed inside. Once he left the safety of the van, though, his chances of survival would plunge.

But there was Frank to consider. If I show these guys what I can do, it could blow Frank’s cover, Joe thought. Maybe I can bluff them.

He fingered the shield switch, and then, as the cars moved in front of him to block the road, he hit another switch instead. Gears ground, circuits clicked and whirred, and paneling slid down from the ceiling to cover the sophisticated electronics within the van. By the time Joe stopped at the side of the road, the inside of the van looked the same as any other customized van owned by half the teenagers in America.

The Rajah’s gunmen, their weapons aimed at Joe, bolted from their cars, ran to the van, and flung its doors open.

“Hey, dude:’ Joe mumbled. He smiled stupidly at the gunman. “What’s happenin’? Rad day for a ride, isn’t it? I mean, like, totally awesome.”

“Shut up,” the man with the Magnum ordered. He clamped a. hand around Joe’s neck and yanked him from the driver’s seat. Joe landed on the road-hard.

The pain maddened him. His eyes flared with anger, and, instinctively, he clenched his fists and started to rise to fight his attacker. Then he remembered Frank. Neither gunman had seen his reaction or how ready for a fight Joe was, and for his brother’s sake, he choked back his anger. But if the chance came to use it, he would gladly let it out.

The man with the Uzi poked his head into the van and looked around. “Nothing here,” he said.

“Looks like he’s just some kid, out on a joy ride.”

“I don’t believe that,” the other gunman replied grimly. Squinting his tiny, dark eyes into pinpoints, he glared at Joe. “He’s hiding something.”

He seized Joe under the arm and hauled him to his feet. Jutting his hand out sharply, he knocked Joe back against the van and lifted the Magnum so that its muzzle was an inch from Joe’s nose. “What are you hiding, kid? Why are you following the bus? You’ve got about thirty seconds to spill your guts before I do it for you.”

The other gunman looked on in horror. “You crazy, Bobby? He’s nobody! Let him go!”

“Look at him!” the one called Bobby cried.

“He’s not afraid. He’s not even sweating. This guy’s used to danger and plenty of it, and that makes him too dangerous to live.”

Joe felt his jaw tightening. The anger was welling up inside him again. He tensed his muscles, waiting for the time to make his move.

“You’re paranoid,” the other gunman said. “We kill him, and it’ll be trouble for everyone.”

“I’ve got that figured,” Bobby replied. “We get one of the kids - let’s make it a girl-to claim he tried to kidnap her. When it turns out he had a gun, the cops’ll know we had to shoot him to defend her.”

“I don’t have a gun,” Joe said calmly.

“When they find you, you will.” Bobby’s eyes bored deep into Joe’s. “Is that a bit of fear I see there? Oh, I hope so. That’s just how I want to remember you.” His finger tightened on the trigger.

“Bobby, no!” screamed the man with the Uzi. Bobby turned his head and started to growl a response.

Joe’s fist slammed up, ramming Bobby’s gun hand aside. A shot roared into the air, and before Bobby knew what was happening, Joe grabbed his wrist. He spun the gunman as he forced his arm down, then twisted behind him and locked an elbow around Bobby’s neck, pressing at his wind-pipe.

The gun was still in Bobby’s hand, but Joe’s hand was wrapped around the gunman’s, forcing his arm to point in whichever direction Joe wanted. At the moment it was pointed directly at the man with the Uzi.

“Drop it,” Joe said. “Maybe you can still get me, but you’ll have to go through your pal to do it.”

The man with the Uzi licked his lips anxiously and fingered his gun. Joe tightened his grip on Bobby, and Bobby let out a moan then collapsed unconscious in Joe’s arms.

Long seconds ticked by. No one moved. “Drop it and I’ll let youlive,” Joe said. “That’s a better deal than your pal would have given me. I’d rather not do anything we’ll both regret, but I will if I have to; and then you might not be around to regret it.

“Drop it,” he repeated softly.

The Uzi slid from the man’s fingers and dropped into the dirt.

Joe pried the Magnum from Bobby’s fingers and let him slide to the ground. Taking careful aim, he flagged the other gunman over to the van.

“You said you wouldn’t kill me,” the gunman whimpered. He glanced over first one shoulder and then the other, looking for somewhere to run, then finally staggered to the van, defeated.

“I just need you under wraps for a while,” Joe said. “It’ll be a little uncomfortable, but you’ll be all right. Oh. There’s just one other thing. “Take off your clothes.”

Frank’s eyes opened wide at the sound of the shot, and his muscles tensed. Holly and the Rajah fled from his mind, and all he could think about was his brother, alone, facing an unknown enemy.

He could see nothing of what was happening behind the black van. He started to run, and all of a sudden found a half-dozen of the Rajah’s followers blocking his path. In their midst was Chandra.

“It’s time to get back on the bus, Frank,” she said. Her voice was calm but stern, her tone indicating she was used to being obeyed.

“But something’s going on back there,” Frank said. As soon as he was finished speaking, he clamped his mouth shut. What could he say?

Rescuing his brother would blow his cover, but he had to find out what was happening. “There was a shot, wasn’t there? Someone may be hurt.”