"Frank! Wake up, we're about to land! You're going to miss the best part!" Joe Hardy exclaimed, as he repeatedly poked his older brother on the arm.
Frank opened his eyes and glared at his brother. "I AM awake," he muttered grumpily. "It's been impossible to sleep with you elbowing me in my ribcage every five minutes."
"I've been asleep for the whole flight, I haven't touched you," Joe retorted.
"Yeah well, you kept shifting in your chair and elbowing me," Frank replied. "I haven't slept for the last fifteen hours."
A guilty expression came over Joe's face. "Really? I'm sorry, I didn't even realise," he said apologetically.
Frank sighed. "I'm sorry too Joe, I shouldn't have snapped at you. It wasn't your fault. I'm just really tired from the long flight."
Joe was about to say something, but he was interrupted by the intercom.
"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. In approximately ten minutes, we're going to commence our decent into Melbourne Airport, Australia. Conditions are clear and the ground temperature is a warm twenty-seven degrees celsius. The local time is 1:15pm. Passengers are requested to fasten their seatbelts and return all trays to their upright positions. Passengers continuing on to Sydney are to remain on board, and all other passengers must disembark and proceed through customs. On behalf of all of the flight crew, I'd like to thank you for flying with QANTAS and we hope to see you again."
"At least we'll be at the hotel soon, you'll be able to get some sleep there," Joe said sympathetically. He gazed outside at the scenery, as the plane began its rapid descent. "This is so awesome, I can't wait to see what Australia is like!"
Frank found his bad mood evaporating, and he smiled at his younger brother's enthusiasm. "Yeah, me too. I've always wanted to come here. Besides, while you were sleeping, I had a chance to look over the case brief and familiarise myself with the situation."
"So what's this case all about then?" Joe asked.
"I'll tell you all about it when we get to the hotel," Frank replied. "There are too many people around right now, and some of this information is pretty sensitive."
Joe nodded. "Sure, sounds good. But tell me after we get some food, I'm starving!"
Frank smirked. "The plane food was actually pretty good, but you looked so peaceful, I didn't want to wake you up..."
Now it was Joe's turn to glare at Frank. "Thanks a lot, you know I love that orange juice that comes in the little plastic cups!"
"Have you got your passport and customs declaration?" Frank asked.
"Somewhere, I had it earlier," Joe replied, frantically searching through his carry-on bag. "Ah, victory!" he exclaimed, as he pulled out the battered looking form and his passport.
"You don't have anything to declare, do you? Australia is notoriously strict when it comes to bringing particular items into the country," explained Frank.
"Frank, I'm not a novice. How many international trips have we taken together? I know the drill," Joe said. He flipped his passport open to his picture and held it in front of Frank's face. "Besides, who wouldn't trust a face like this?"
Frank rolled his eyes. "Ok then Joe, if you're sure."
The two brothers queued to pass through the security scanner. The line was huge, and only two people were processing the incoming passengers. Joe started to fidget and he glanced around desperately. "There has to be a place where we can get some food," he whined. "I'm a growing boy!"
"Chill out Joe, it's a big line but they're working pretty quickly," Frank replied. He raised an eyebrow as a muscular man with a shaved head approached him and Joe.
The man stopped in front of Joe, and placed a solid hand on his shoulder. "Good afternoon sir, my name is Officer Daniel Night and I work the Security division of Melbourne Airport. You've been selected for a non-invasive, random explosives test. I will use a small electronic device to scan your body, searching for any concealed explosives. In the event that you do not comply, you will be taken to a private room and subjected to more invasive testing. Do you agree to comply?"
Joe gulped nervously. "Ah, sure. What do I have to do?"
"Step to the side and spread your legs," Officer Night instructed. Joe obeyed, and he ran the small scanner over his body. Frank tried not to laugh, as the officer waved the scanner between his brother's legs.
Satisfied that the scan had not uncovered anything, Officer Night turned to Joe. "Thank you for your compliance, sir. Have a pleasant afternoon." He moved on, searching the crowd for his next test-subject.
"What did I do to deserve that?" Joe exclaimed angrily.
"I told you to chill out, Joe. He probably thought you were acting suspiciously by glancing around and fidgeting so much," Frank replied.
"I hate Melbourne," Joe muttered. "This city stole my dignity."
This time, Frank couldn't contain his laughter, and even Joe started to see the funny side of the situation too.
Two hours later, Frank and Joe were eating a late lunch at small cafe nearby their hotel. Frank was eating a meat pie and Joe was working his way through a hamburger and chips.
"You should have gotten something more 'Australian', Joe. You can have hamburgers anytime back home," Frank said.
"This one is kind of different though," Joe replied. "It's got beetroot and pineapple on it! It's pretty good though." He licked one of his stained, purple fingers.
"Chet will be so jealous," Frank said.
Joe glanced around. The cafe was fairly quiet, since it was now almost four in the afternoon. "So, do you want to show me what this case is about?" he asked.
"Ok, sure." Frank pulled a case brief out of his backpack. He took out some documents and placed them on the table in front of Joe. He glanced at Joe's stained fingers and sighed, as he moved the documents further away from his brother. "On second thought, I'll just tell you about it."
Joe swallowed a huge mouthful of burger. "Go for it," he said.
"Have you ever heard of the Melbourne Cup?" Frank asked.
Joe shook his head. "Is it some kind of fancy glass? Don't tell me that we came all this way to protect a piece of glassware. Is it at least cursed or really, really expensive?"
Frank laughed. "Nope, it's much better than that. The Melbourne Cup is the richest and most prestigious two-mile horse race in the world. The total prize money available is over six million dollars. It's held on the first Tuesday of each November, which is next week."
"Six million dollars for once race?" Joe exclaimed. "That's insane!"
"Yeah, it is, so you can imagine that there's a lot at stake here," Frank continued. "We've been asked to come here by a man called Teddy McEvoy. He's the owner of several prominent racehorses, including one called Arcadia, the favourite to win the Melbourne Cup. Arcadia came second in last year's race and Teddy believes that he has improved a lot since then and is more than capable of winning this year."
"So what's the problem then?" Joe inquired.
"Teddy has become suspicious that someone is trying to injure Arcadia and put him out of contention for next week's race," Frank explained.
"What makes him think that?" asked Joe, as he put down his hamburger and listened intently to what Frank was saying.
"Well, when Teddy arrived at Arcadia's stable to check on him a week ago, he saw that Arcadia was limping. He checked one of his front feet out, and saw that the nails had come loose on his shoe. Initially, Teddy didn't think much of it and just assumed that Arcadia had thrown a shoe loose, but then he noticed that the nails on every other shoe had been loosened too. According to Teddy, the chances of that happening accidentally are very unlikely.
Joe nodded. "Yeah, you could imagine one horse shoe becoming loose, but not four at the same time."
"There's more," Frank said. "Two days after that, a stable hand was taking the horses out to hose them down, and she noticed blood on Arcadia's chest. She searched the stable and found that there were several nails hammered into the front of the stable. Arcadia must have brushed up against them during the night and cut his chest open."
"Again with the nails," Joe mused. "Maybe the person who shoes Arcadia is responsible for these incidents for some reason?"
"A good thought, Joe," replied Frank. "But the next incident had nothing to do with nails. After the second 'mishap', Teddy decided to move Arcadia to a more secure facility. The first night that he was there, there were no more dangerous occurrences. However, on the second night that he was there, our saboteur struck again. Teddy came in that morning and found traces of a white powder in Arcadia's food. Arcadia appeared lethargic, but not seriously ill. Teddy called the police and they analysed the powder, but the toxicology report couldn't determine what it was. A vet took a sample of Arcadia's blood, but there were no traces of any substances in his blood."
"This is so strange, why would anyone want to hurt an innocent horse?" Joe wondered.
"That's exactly what we need to find out," Frank said with determination.
