Joe stepped back and the man took two steps into the apartment, but that was as far as he got. Frank put his gun to "Agent Smith's" temple from his position beside the open door and in a low voice said, "I suggest you leave, now."

Agent Smith gave a smile that made him look like he was in pain and started to reholster his gun. "No," Frank corrected him, "leave it on the floor." Smith laid the gun on the floor and stepped back out the door.

After the brothers watched the two "agents" walk down the hall and out of the building, Joe closed the door and picked up the gun with a tissue to make sure he didn't damage any fingerprints. "Let's see who he really is," Joe said as he started walking towards the brothers' combination office and crime lab that they had set up in one of the spare bedrooms.

Brandi came out of the living room where she had been hiding. "That man was no FBI agent," she said, her dark eyes flashing. "He was one of my guards. I could recognize his voice."

"Well, we're about to discover his true identity," Joe said. He dusted some fingerprint powder on the handle of the gun and used a special tape to lift the fingerprints. He scanned the prints into the Hardy's state-of-the-art computer and entered it into the program that would search all of the databases to find a match. After searching for several minutes, the computer announced that a match had been found.

"Who is it?" Frank asked.

"I don't know," Joe replied. "It's restricted."

"By who?"

"The CIA," Joe stated blandly.

"The plot thickens," Frank murmured.

Before the brothers could discuss this surprising turn of events, they heard the now familiar sound of someone knocking at the door.

Joe rolled his eyes and said, "Here we go again." The boys took up their positions while Brandi and Chet hid in the office. Joe opened the door to reveal Fenton and Laura Hardy waiting to be admitted. "Hurry up and get in here," Joe said to them as he glanced nervously up and down the hall outside the front door. The boys' parents hurried inside as Joe shut and locked the door.

Slim, attractive Laura Hardy saw the gun in Frank's hand and asked, "What is going on, boys?"

"I think you had better sit down." Frank advised as he led his parents into the living room. Upon seeing that there was no danger, Brandi and Chet joined them. Fenton and Laura looked at Brandi curiously and then looked back to Frank and Joe for an explanation.

Without a word, Frank handed his dad the envelope that Brandi had shown them. With a question in his eyes, he removed the contents and read them. He paled and silently handed the papers to his wife. She gasped and her hand flew to her mouth.

"I take it from your reactions that it's true?" Frank asked.

With tears slipping down her cheeks, Laura Hardy nodded. "Yes, we never brought it up because even though she was taken three years before you were born, Frank, it was still too painful a topic."

Fenton put in, "They never found her. We finally assumed that she had been killed and the body disposed of. Now where did you boys get this?"

Frank casually said, "From Brandi."

"What?!" Fenton exclaimed.

"This is not a joking matter," Laura added, coldly.

Joe stood up, "Mom, Dad, I would like to introduce you to Brandi Kerry Hardy."

As Joe and Frank explained the situation, Mr. and Mrs. Hardy listened in disbelief.

"I find this all hard to believe," Mr. Hardy finally said. "It's all too incredible."

"I know how we can know for sure," Frank put in. "I was talking to Phil Cohen and he told me that he has some new computer equipment that allows him to match DNA. If you want, I'll give him a call."

"That's a good idea," Brandi said. "I want to know for sure as well."

Frank quickly placed a call to his friend Phil Cohen, who was attending a different college located in New York City. Phil was a whiz at everything related to computers and electronics. When Frank told Phil what he wanted, Phil agreed to bring his equipment over immediately.

While the group waited for Phil to arrive, the boys told their father about the so-called agents and the fact that "Agent Smith's" fingerprints were restricted by the CIA. Because of his world-famous investigating, Fenton Hardy had many contacts in the government. He agreed to call a few and find out who the fingerprints belonged to.

Before long there was a knock on the door and the Hardys cautiously opened it to admit Phil Cohen. "I brought everything I need," Phil told them. "Now where are the lucky victims?"

Frank told them that his parents and Brandi were the ones that needed comparing. Phil raised his eyebrows when he heard this. As he set up his equipment, Frank explained the whole story to him. When he had finished, Phil gave a low whistle and said, "That is something else." He made a few final adjustments to the equipment and said, "Ok. I'm all ready." He took several q-tips and told Fenton, Laura, and Brandi to soak them with their saliva. Once the ends of the q-tips were saturated, he inserted them into separate ports on one of the pieces of equipment that was attached to his laptop. He took several minutes to give the computer program some orders and then sat back. "Now we wait," he said.

"What's it doing?" Brandi wanted to know.

"Right now it's unraveling the DNA sequence of the different samples and then it will compare them to each other to see if they match," Phil told her. "It will take a couple of minutes."

Almost exactly three minutes later a computerized voice came from the laptop's speakers. "Analysis complete," it informed them.