J.M.J.

A/N: Thank you so much for continuing to read this story! Thank you also if you have followed and/or favorited it! Thank you especially to Candylou, max2013, Highflyer, Cherylann Rivers, ErinJordan, BMSH, Caranath, and Barb for your reviews on chapter 20 and to drogonath for your review on chapter 2! I always love to see what you think of the story!

Chapter XXI

Strategy

Everything was hot and dark and damp. Fenton felt like he was suffocating as he lay on his back, feeling sweat trickle down his temples. His hands were tied firmly above his head, and his ankles were tied equally firmly so that he couldn't have moved even if he had wanted to. He didn't want to, though. The very idea of moving made him feel nauseated between the heat and his injuries.

He didn't realize there was anyone else in the room until he felt someone prod him in the ribs with their toes. He opened his eyes a sliver, but his bleary eyesight had trouble focusing on the figure standing above him. All he could see was that the person was holding something bright in their hand which cast a dim radiance about the figure.

"Hardy." The voice was rough and was a man's. Fenton noticed that he had an accent. "Wake up, Hardy."

Fenton forced his eyes open wider and let out a small sigh. He'd already been beaten once. He hoped he wasn't in for round two.

The man stooped down, holding the bright thing in his hand out toward Fenton. Now Fenton saw that the bright thing was a cell phone. "I'm going to make a call," the man said. "I might need you to do some talking to get my point across."

Fenton groaned. His head was throbbing, and he felt like if he tried to talk, he would be sick. His captor clearly didn't care. Fenton heard him dial a number on the phone and then speak. The words made his heart sink.

"Hello, Laura Hardy?" the man said. "You know about your son and his girlfriend. You can forget about paying any ransom for them. We've gotten them safely away from the idiots who took them. If you want them back, the price now is that you must tell how to contact your other son. No need to tell me where he is – only how to contact him. I will carry out the rest of the negotiations with him."

There was a pause as he let Laura speak. Then he continued, "I thought you might say that. Even if you don't know how to contact Joe, you surely have some idea who does. It shouldn't take you long to learn how to contact him. Perhaps I can add some incentive. I will call you again in twelve hours. If you still have nothing to tell me – or you refuse to tell me what you know – I will kill your son's girlfriend. I will call another twelve hours after that. If you do not tell me then, it will be too late for the information to be of any use to me, and I will have no reason to keep Frank alive."

There was another pause before the voice that Fenton was steadily growing to hate went on, "Oh, no, it's nothing like that. I assure you, I have no desire to harm Joe. All I want is to talk with him. If anything, what I have to say to him will help to get him out of trouble." He paused again briefly. "I am very serious. If you don't believe me, perhaps you'll believe your husband."

HBHBHBHBHB

All he could taste was blood. Frank tried to spit it out, but the taste wouldn't go away. He tried to scrape the blood off his tongue with his teeth, but that only made him realize with a shock that one of his front teeth were gone and the other was loose. The loose tooth wiggled painfully, and he gagged.

"Frank, are you all right?" Callie's concerned voice came from somewhere at his side and gave him strength and courage as it always did.

Frank looked toward her and smiled faintly, although he was careful to keep his lips together. He didn't want to worry her more in case his mouth looked as bad as it felt and tasted.

They were together, at least. That was something – it was everything, in fact. Neither of them would have been able to stand it if they had known that the other was in the hands of these maniacs, alone, with who knew what being done to them. They were bound hand and foot and then chained to the wall so that they couldn't reach each other, but they could still sit so that only a few inches separated them.

When they had first been kidnapped and put into that storage room, Frank had been concerned, but at the same time, he had felt confident that they could get out of it. Then when the kidnappers themselves had appeared, swaggering idiots who were clearly out of their depth with kidnapping and ransom, Frank's confidence had only grown. He had easily convinced them to let him call his mom and drop several hints about their what he knew of where they were being held and who was holding them. Laura would have known where to go for help – if they would have even needed it. Frank had thought that he and Callie might have been able to escape on their own.

Then that plan had been shattered, along with the door to their prison. Around a dozen powerful men had broken in and grabbed Frank and Callie. Frank had tried to fight back, but there had been far too many of them. They had beaten him down easily and then carried him and Callie off. Frank didn't think he'd been knocked out – at least, he hoped he hadn't – but he knew he had been groggy until just this minute. It was the first time he had taken stock of his and Callie's new prison, which was nothing more than a damp, dirty, stinking unfinished cellar. It was also the first time he had noticed that these monsters had also hurt Callie. There was a large bruise under her eyes and more bruises on her arms and wrists, and one of her sleeves had been torn.

Frank turned his face away so that Callie couldn't see his mouth and asked, "Are you okay?" His voice sounded throaty, but at least those were words he could say without his missing tooth being too evident.

Callie nodded, giving a barely audible "Mm-hmm." She realized that this would hardly be comforting to Frank, so she forced herself to say in a stronger voice, "I'm not really hurt." She fought against asking the question for another moment, but she couldn't keep silent any longer. "Did you see who grabbed us?"

Frank wasn't sure what she meant. Of course, he'd seen them, but he wouldn't have any way of knowing who they were. There wasn't any way he could explain all of that without lisping, so he merely shook his head.

"I did." Callie's voice betrayed her fear more than she wanted it to. "They had black roses tattooed under their ears, just like those men at the airport that time with Nancy. Frank, they're Black Rose."

Frank let out a long breath through his mouth, forgetting to turn his head away so that Callie wouldn't see his injuries. Black Rose. Nancy had told him about it right after she and Callie had been held hostage by several of their terrorists at an airport a few years ago. What he'd heard had been more than enough to make him hope he would never have to deal with these people. Now, he and Callie were at their mercy.

HBHBHBHBHB

Joe lay on the bed in one of the Mortons' spare bedrooms. His eyes were closed, but he was far from being asleep. All he could do was think about Iola – Iola, an hour ago, looking at him with large, frightened eyes – Iola, a few days ago, thinking he'd betrayed her – Iola, a few years ago, alone and frightened in the hospital and wondering why he didn't come to see her. Why hadn't he gone to see her? Why hadn't he called her sooner when she'd first become angry with him? Why hadn't he explained? He could have guessed what the problem was – he should have guessed. Just now, why hadn't he said something? Why hadn't he let her know he wasn't angry with her? Even as he berated himself, he was beginning to see the answer.

He heard a car drive up. Nancy and Ned must have just gotten there. He got up to look out the window, and a surprised but delighted smile crossed his face. His mother and Aunt Gertrude were coming up the front walkway with Nancy and Ned. At once, he raced down the stairs and met them at the door. He grabbed them both in a hug. After the first shock of surprise, they showered him with kisses, both women crying freely.

"Hey," Joe said. "I thought you'd be glad to see me."

"I am." Laura hugged him tighter, almost afraid to let him go. "It's just –" She stopped.

"Just what?" Joe asked.

"Just that we need to talk," Nancy broke in. "There are more pieces to this case than any of us knew about. Come on. We'd all better sit down."

There was an urgency in her tone that none of them could ignore. Everyone took seats in the living room. As Iola went to take her seat, Joe saw her casting another worried glance at him. He might as well say something now.

"Hey." He stepped up next to her and spoke quietly. "It's really great to see you again."

A small smile flickered over the corners of Iola's mouth. "You, too."

Nonetheless, they didn't feel quite comfortable sitting next to each other. They were spared a little bit of awkwardness by Nancy and Ned taking the loveseat and Laura and Aunt Gertrude taking up most of the couch. The only other seats were single chairs, so at least they didn't look like they were purposely not sitting together.

"So, what's the scoop, Nance?" Joe asked, trying to sound as normal as possible.

Nancy looked grim. She didn't beat around the bush. "It looks like Black Rose has got their hands on your dad, Frank, and Callie."

"What?" Joe half-stood. "I thought they were after me."

"I don't think they ever were," Nancy told him. "I think your dad was their target all along."

"But what for?" Joe asked. "What did Dad ever do to them?"

"Nothing," Nancy said. "These people don't care about revenge or anything like that. They're not that personal. They have a goal, and they'll use whatever people they need to get to that goal."

"And what's this goal?" Vanessa asked.

"That part I'm not completely sure about," Nancy replied. "Probably to take over the world, even if it is a pretty big scheme. It fits with how they try to destabilize governments and all that sort of thing."

"How's targeting my dad going to destabilize the government?" Joe demanded.

"You remember the conspiracy theory about Black Rose being a covert government kill squad?" Nancy asked. When Joe nodded, she continued, "I think they're about to breathe new life into that one." She took a folded piece of paper from her purse. "Captain Olaf showed Ned and me a copy of this down at the station. I think it explains everything."

Joe took the offered piece of paper from her hand. It was a news report with the blaring headline "Famous Private Detective Takes on Corrupt Government". The brief article explained that Fenton Hardy was investigating illegal dealings in the office of the state attorney general.

Confused, Joe shook his head and looked up. "This isn't true. Dad's not working on any case like that. What even is this?"

"Probably a rumor Black Rose put out there," Nancy said. "They do put out rumors like that at times. Even if it wasn't them, they still aren't above using something like this. They could make it look like your dad was onto something that the government wanted to keep secret, and so they had him killed. Every bit of extra distrust they can plant against the government only helps their cause."

"That still doesn't explain why they've been trying so hard to get to me," Joe replied. Then a thought struck him. "Unless – That could be why their initial request to me was to get Dad and Frank to come home. It would be harder to make it look like the U.S. government had ordered a strike in Rome."

"Of course, it would be possible for the government to do something like that in Rome," Nancy continued. "That is, if it was really the government behind this. Black Rose, on the other hand, is just trying to make it look like the government is behind it, so they would no doubt prefer to have it happen on U.S. soil."

Biff whistled. "I guess you're not the only one these people are trying to frame, Joe."

"It still doesn't make sense." Joe crossed his arms as well as he could with his cast. "Why would they go to all that bother of trying to frame me to get Dad to come home when they could – I don't know – there ought to be an easier way. They could just wait till Dad came home on his own."

"What if they were trying to make it look like the government was framing you?" Ned suggested. "You know, they aren't just trying to take your dad out, but also ruin his reputation through his family. It would make it look like the government is trying to discredit anything he found on that case that he's not really working on, anyway."

Nancy nodded. "That could be. Then, when their plan didn't work out completely, they had to resort to Plan B."

"Which is?" Chet asked.

"I have a feeling they're going to tell us, or more specifically, Joe," Nancy replied.

"Why would they do that?" Joe questioned.

Nancy sighed and exchanged a glance with Laura. Ned saw her reluctance right away and stepped in to tell the most difficult part of the story.

"Laura got a call from Frank late last night," he explained. "He told her that he and Callie had been kidnapped and were being held for a very substantial ransom. Later, at about four in the morning, she got another call from someone using a scrambler to disguise their voice. This person told her that the first ransom demand was canceled and instead they just wanted to talk to you, Joe. These people also have Fenton, and they did put him on the phone without the scrambler." He hesitated. "They said that they would call back in twelve hours, so about four o'clock in the afternoon. If Laura doesn't tell them then how to contact Joe, they said they'll kill Callie and then call back in another twelve hours. They said that if Laura doesn't tell them what they want to know then, it will be too late anyway, and they'll kill Frank. They also said that if Laura cooperates, they'll let Frank and Callie go, but of course, there's no reason to believe that."

Joe was silent for close to a minute, thinking. "What about Dad? They're not going to let him go, no matter what?"

"Not if he's been the prime target all along," Nancy said. "That brings up the biggest problem with our theory. If they have Fenton and he's the one they want, why are they still going to so much trouble to get to Joe?"

"Like you said, Nance, they'll probably tell me," Joe replied. "Obviously, I'll talk to them when they call again this afternoon. We'll know a little better then what we're up against. There must be something we can do in the meantime, though."

"Absolutely," Nancy agreed. "Fortunately, Laura recorded both conversations. You still have the voice-printing software, right? I assume you have files for both your dad's and Frank's voices. We can check to make sure it was really them that Laura talked to and not just somebody who's good at doing voice impressions. We can also get ready for this afternoon with tracers and everything for the call and be ready to run some more voice-prints. It sounds to me like Frank and Callie were kidnapped by one party and then another one took them away. I'm afraid Black Rose is probably the one that has them now."

Joe nodded. "I'll need my laptop. But I dropped it that day with – If it's not broken, the police are probably holding it for evidence. Frank took his laptop with him, but he might have a spare, or else we could use Dad's desktop, but that will mean that we'll have to be in town. Even if Frank does have another laptop, he puts all these insane passwords on them. I don't know that I'd be able to guess it."

"Then we'll just have to do the desktop," Nancy said. "I'll work on that so you don't have to go into town, Joe. Vanessa, you're good with computers, right?"

Vanessa gave a small half-grin. "I know my way around one."

"Great," Nancy replied. "You'll come with me, then. If something goes wrong with the desktop, you can help me get into one of Frank's laptops. Laura and Aunt Gertrude ought to come with us so it doesn't just look like there's two strangers wandering around their house. We'll be sure to be back by four, though. The rest of you can get to work on the tracers. Maybe you can even trace the two calls that have already come through. We'll have to leave Laura's phone here for that, of course, but that won't be a problem because if any of you need to get in touch with any of us, you should call my throw-away phone, anyway."

Joe raised his eyebrow just a little in admiration for how Nancy was handling the situation. She was giving everyone a part to play so that they were all really working toward solving the case, but at the same time she was also looking out for everybody involved. Keeping Vanessa with her meant that she could keep an eye on her and talk to her and start getting an idea of how far she could trust her. Separating Laura from her phone meant that if the kidnapper called early, Laura wouldn't be the one to answer the call and either Joe or Ned could handle it. Finally, leaving Ned, Biff, and Chet behind meant that Joe wouldn't have to be alone with Iola if he didn't want to be, but if he did, Ned could keep Biff and Chet distracted with some other task.

Whether the others understood what Nancy was doing or not, they all agreed to the arrangement and prepared to get to work with a will. It was nine o'clock in the morning now. Seven more hours to the next phone call.