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CHAPTER 29

"No-no-NO! Don't do it, Frank!" Vanessa pleaded, her fingers went over her mouth and her head shook as he turned and ran back up the stairs. He pulled the door open, disappearing into the corridor beyond. None of the other four men seemed to notice he left, their attentions focused on Nancy.

"Rob's having kittens here. What's Frank doing?" Mark asked, referring to his brother, Rob, with him in England, along with Kiwi Dave.

"No idea." Vanessa stood and turned to Mrs Holliday. "Can you spot the Red-Headed Man anywhere? Why's Frank gone back? More to the point, why on his own?"

"Over confidence?"

Their eyes switched between the different views as they tried to find the psychopath, but they came up empty. There were too many blind spots and shadows. If The Red-Headed man wanted to do so, he could hide in plain sight, and Vanessa suspected he'd be clever enough.

"Maybe Young Frank's gone to hunt for Nancy's shoes?" Mrs Holliday suggested.

"Seems a dumb-ass move to me. Excuse the language."

"Never mind." Mrs Holliday waggled a finger, "It's handsome ass, but sometimes a stupid ass none-the-less!"

Vanessa giggled, her sore throat making it sound guttural which in turn made Mrs Holliday smile.

Frank reappeared in the room where Nancy had been a prisoner. He moved to the red medical bag, flipped open the lid and rummaged through it.

Vanessa sighed, patting over her heart. "Searching for my phone I think. Maybe he'll notice the cells aren't working."

Frank eventually found the phone, drew it out, pressed the home button and paused for a moment in thought. He reached for his red phone to compare the screens, then looked about until he found a security camera and stepped under it. Offering the phones up, he vehemently shook his head.

"He's noticed."

Mrs Holliday concentrated on another of the complex's CCTV screens. "There's no other way you can talk with them? They've a serious problem coming their way." She turned to Vanessa and pointed.

"What do you mean—" her face opened up in horror. "I won't need to tell them anything, they're about to find out for themselves! What are we gonna do?" She dropped into her seat again, "My God—" and returned to her keyboard, "Mark—"

"I effin' see it!"

-o0o-

Frank searched all through the bag before coming upon the phone. It had slipped down into one of the inside pockets which was why no one else discovered it. He turned the screen on and found it still charged, not even close to being out of juice, but frowned at the screen in confusion 'No Service'.

He jammed his hand in his inside pocket and pulled his own phone out. He realised his had the same problem. "Ohhh shit!" The magnitude of their phones being out of action, and Vanessa being out of communication, hit him. He looked around, spotted a camera in the corner and stepped up to it. He lifted the cells and shook his head, trusting Vanessa and Mark to see and understand his message. He put the phones in his pocket and headed for the door. As his hand rested on the handle, he paused in thought.

He had assumed things were going well because he'd not heard from Vanessa, but now…for all he knew, the psychopath could be lingering and waiting to jump him outside the door. Why had he come into the room alone? He reached and lifted his gun from its holster, readying it. He opened the door a crack to peer out. He didn't see anyone directly outside, so he stuck his head out further and looked quickly up and down. He found the corridor empty of anyone other than the woman shouting her usual threats. Frank quickly strode to the end of the corridor and pushed through onto the walkway, just as hell came a-callin'.

The row of floor to ceiling panes of glass in the front doors shattered one after another with an ear bending crash, sounding like a mortar bomb detonation. The entire structure water-falled, shards flying everywhere and bullets blasting into the room. Frank's mouth dropped open. Instinctively, he raised his gun and rested his right hand on top of his left. Simultaneously, he looked to see what happened to the other members of the team, and his girlfriend.

He watched the action play out in agonizing, slow-motion.

They turned to the noise, except for Fenton who reacted quickly, far quicker than the others. He threw himself sideways, took Nancy with him, causing them to slide over the nearest table and drop down the other side. Presumably, he pulled her into the relative safety of the hollow beneath a table, on the next bank of desks.

Joe watched his dad's move and dived in the same direction but a few desks further up the row. He also disappeared out of Frank's line-of-sight.

James crumpled, collapsed onto his back, and Con ran solidly toward him with absolutely no intention of making himself safe.

Suddenly, everything sped up again as Frank's brain caught up and accepted what was happening.

Frank aimed his Glock pistol at the door in the direction from where he thought the shots were coming. "Diversion needed for Con and Jimmy!" he bellowed and started blasting. With any luck, he'd hit something other than fresh air.

Fenton's arm appeared above the desk, Joe's a millisecond later and both began firing. Although in danger of hitting his father, Joe didn't stop, he just shifted his arm slightly.

It worked. Con safely reached James and grabbed fistfuls of his jacket. James grasped onto his Dad's arms, and Con kept on going without slowing down. He used the highly polished floor as a blowing alley, with his son as the ball. After a few steps, Con dropped, pulled James tightly to him and rolled them under the walkway, out of Frank's sight. They left behind them a smear of blood.

"They're out of danger, but James is hit!"

Fenton continued firing along with Frank, but Joe snatched his arm back. His face came up slightly and his eyes darted from one side of the room to the other before they travelled up and spotted Frank up-top. He registered intense surprise, his expression one of, 'Watcha doin' up there?'

Frank peaked a brow and shrugged. 'Don't ask!' He dropped the spent bullet magazine from his Glock onto the floor and extracted a fresh one from his belt. He slammed it home, and blasted at the door.

In the time Frank reloaded, Joe had repositioned towards the back of the room and rejoined the gun play. In an obviously advantageous position, his body language indicated he could see real targets outside, his gun hand panning from one chosen target to the next. At least now he wasn't in danger of hitting his own dad. Joe looked across at Frank, and, for a moment, they mentally connected again before Joe set his jaw and they both returned to the business at hand.

With his weapon again running on empty, Frank discarded the magazine and rammed home another. He jacked a slug into the chamber, paced forward a couple of steps, and repeat fired in the same direction as Joe. Regrettably, his movement must have put him in range, or betrayed his location, as he found himself suddenly thrust violently backward and slammed the ground hard. He stared at the ceiling high above, his gun gone, his left arm on fire up near his shoulder.

"FRANK!" Joe yelled.

Frank began to gasp for air as a solid wall of hurt cascaded down and through his body. He scrunched his eyes tight shut, bought his knees up and forced himself not to cry out. His good arm punched the ground in a vain attempt to distract his brain and deaden down the searing pain.

"Frank's down!"

"How? Where is he? I don't see him."

"Up the stairs…the walkway."

Through sheer willpower, Frank bought himself under control again and lifted his upper body. He eased his jacket to one side to inspect the injury, saw blood running freely and varnishing the inside of his sleeve. The limb hung uselessly, he couldn't lift it - it even hurt to clench his hand. Seeing the blood made him giddy. He decided not to investigate further, so he pulled his jacket back over and lay down. "Huh." He had an even greater respect for his brother, now he knew how much being shot hurt.

"FRANK?"

He had made consideration for being attacked by a psychopath, thinking, with his martial arts black belt and a Glock, he would be able to take the Red-Headed Man down - especially as the guy only seemed interested in hurting women. Unfortunately, Frank also assumed while they needed the code, no real harm would come to him at the hands of the wider Posse that they would have been ordered not to fire on him. He'd been monumentally wrong.

He watched helplessly as a line of bullets drilled along the wall near where he lay, taking out chunks of drywall and thudding across one of the doors.

"They're going for him again—"

"Try to distract them, pull their attention away!"

Another line of holes appeared on a downward arc, too close for comfort. Then they hit a metal air-conditioning unit and slugs zinged off, biting into the tiled floor and tearing apart several squares. Razor sharp shards of ceramic spit over Frank, gouging a furrow into the back of his hand as his arm came up to protect his face. Weirdly, that did make him yelp in pain.

"I can't help," Con shouted. "I'm more likely to hit you, Fen!...No…not an option…I'm NOT leaving you, James…NO!"

The Posse were trying to find Frank again. Another chain of holes peppered the wall, quickly joined by another round of staccato fire. It seemed the gunmen were in competition to try and get him, or to re-decorate the drywall. 'Why aren't I moving? Am I glued to the floor in my own blood? Why are they doing this? It makes no sense…why damage the goods?'

"Dad, nothing's working!"

Fenton bellowed frantically. "FRANK! Move yourself…MOVE DAMN IT!"

His father's panicked order sobered Frank's mind. Lucidity returned, galvanized him to act. He growled and used his legs and his good arm to scramble away. As he went into motion, hot ammo again ricocheted off the aircon unit, splicing the tiles and shattering them, just missing his retreating legs. If he hadn't shifted, he'd have been dead for sure. His clumsy clamber got him up to the guardrail, and propped up in a safer position. Exhausted, he rested for a second, and peered around for his gun but couldn't see it, it must have gone over into the bullpen below.

Joe, Nancy and Fenton shouted back and forth in the background unintelligibly.

Frank barred his teeth and leaned his head back as his world surged. The floor and walls became molten as bile shot up his throat, and burned as he swallowed and it retreated. Unable to stop, he zoned out, but kicked back to the surface at the sound of Joe's freaked, indecipherable hollers and Fenton's authoritarian, "FRANK?" He lifted his head with a start. The sudden movement made him groan.

While out of it, the gunplay had ceased. The Posse must have decided to regroup, now they couldn't get at any of them.

"FRANK?"

"I'm here." He looked at the miraculously undamaged security camera above him, and raised a shaky thumb to Vanessa, Mrs Holliday and Mark...and the Dark-Net Army.

"Joe thinks you've been hit. Have you?"

"Yu-huh."

"Badly?"

"Nah."

"You're a bad liar. Did you get yourself out of the way?"

"Yeah."

James made a low noise from below, his vocalising coming from deep inside, a guttural rasp. An alien sound Frank had never heard anyone make. Con's low voice talked softly, supportively.

"Jimmy...Pal? Con?" Frank enquired. "Jimmy, I'm sorry."

"Bud, I'm fine," James answered breathlessly, words delivered in a higher pitch, from the top of his voice box. "Give me five."

"You're as bad a liar as Frank," Fenton said.

"They took his leg out." Con sounded pissed but purposeful. "I'm putting a tourniquet round it." There followed a creak of leather and the twang of metal, presumably a belt. James grunted in pain. Con apologised and there followed a soft scuffle. "James? Son?" The disturbing, low-level noise had ceased, then the sound of the belt again. "Gotta stop this bleed…give him all the fives you like, Frank, but he's not gonna be of use to us…Blast! My hand keeps slipping."

"I'm not gonna be of help either! Crap, I'm not." Frank breaths had grown ragged and hard.

"Frank?" Nancy's single word question full of fear, and meaning.

"Sorry, Nan, I'm sorry. I love you."

"I love you too."

"Son."

"Dad?"

"Take a breath, centre your mind, concentrate, be calm. More than anything be calm. Panicking won't help. Don't let the shock take hold."

Frank did as ordered. He breathed in through his nose, contained the oxygen in his lungs for a count of ten and let it slowly out through his mouth. 'I'm so cold!' His whole body juddered, but at least his breathing felt controlled. "I'm fine."

"I'm coming up to you," Joe said.

"NO! Bro, stay there, STAY THERE, yeah? It'd be suicide."

There followed a long pause as Joe evidently battled with his conscience, but eventually, "okay, I don't like it, but okay. What's the plan, Frank? Anything?"

"Mmm…concentrating, Bro." He rubbed his eye with the heel of his hand, trying to think but finding it impossible. He grunted in frustration. His head buzzed, he started to lose himself, slipping. He watched his hand, fascinated, as it floated away from him and down to the tiled floor.

"FRANK!" Joe shouted.

He snapped back. "I'm here, Bro—" His phone started to ring. "Hang on." He reached for it and answered. "Vanessa?"

"Frank Hardy," said the robotic voice.

Frank froze and grimaced.

"Frank Hardy."

"You know it's me, what can you possibly want?"

"Frank Hardy. Give us the code or you will all die tonight. Not only Fenton Hardy and James Anderson. Every one of you will die. We will not stop. We will hunt you down. You will watch everyone die first, and then we will come for you—"

Frank's brain processed what he'd been told, his brow dropped and he laughed – maniacally. So hard it made his shoulder hurt more. "SCREW YOU, MORONS! You didn't get my Dad, you got ME. Pretty soon I'll be in no condition to give you anything. Nice try. HA! FAIL!" The Pandora Posse had disconnected the call this time rather than him, a small victory, but a victory nevertheless. Being threatened sent his adrenalin levels stratospheric, and sobered Frank's mind into thinking straight again. Even though they'd hung up, Frank continued to laugh.

It had confirmed one vital fact: The Posse hadn't meant to shoot him, they thought they'd hit his Dad. They probably saw Fenton with Nancy and jumped to the wrong conclusion. His mirth reduced to a smile, happy to have taken a bullet for his father. All was not so lost as Frank initially feared.

"Frank, did they think they shot me?" Fenton asked.

"Yes." He scrutinized his phone to attempt to put a call though to Vanessa, but the signal transferred to 'No Service' again. "Dammit. They've blocked my cell. I've lost connection to Vanessa. What about you guys?"

They checked their phones and confirmed they were in the same boat.

"We're marooned. Okay, time to get practical. Everyone, we're sticking with the plan. Nancy?"

"What do you need?"

"You're gonna kill Pandora while the others protect you. Find the PC throwing the image onto the big screen. Find it and finish her."

"You know I'd do anything for you, Frank, but I can't remember the code still."

"I've got it," Fenton said. Frank listened as his father unfolded the piece of paper he'd been carrying since they visited Doctor Cox.

"Let me see it," she said. "FRICKIN' ARTHUR GRAY! He did it, didn't he? The Network hypnotized us!" Seeing the code reawakened all of Nancy's memories. "The SNAKE! Little, little man! National security my ass, he just wanted to split us up!" A thud happened as she hit the side of the desk, and then she settled down. "Thanks Fenton, I remember it, sorry for the unprofessional outburst."

"Don't apologize," Joe said. "You should've heard what Dad said to him, and I punched him."

Frank grimaced as the pain ratcheted up a level. He trapped a groan in his throat, wishing they'd shut up so he could concentrate, and get out what he needed to say.

"I told him I'd bury him if I saw him again," Con joined in. "He ran."

"Good."

Frank spoke up, "PLEASE, please let me focus. I think if…if Pandora's destroyed they'll be no profit in killing us and they'll leave. After, the Red-Headed Man will be alone and easier to take down."

"I hope you're right, Frank." Con said.

"Con, do you have James' gun?" Frank asked and exhaled loudly.

"Sure do."

Frank felt his adrenaline level bottom out. "Can you throw it to…can you pass it to Nan?" he dropped his phone with an echoing smack. "Crap…this is BS."

Con said. "Give me a second to get at the gun, gotta roll James over. You okay, Junior?"

"I'm sorry about James. It wasn't supposed to end like this…I wanted…was going to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with you guys."

"Bro?"

"This wasn't part the plan, this is wrong!" His breaths were so quickened, they were making him hyperventilate. "This isn't right." Frank knew there would be no way of pulling him back once he blacked out this time. He was making the same type of noises James had been making earlier. He started to drift away. "Dad?"

"Son?"

"You're in charge."

"Right you are. Frank, you did a good job."

"Should've done better."

"FRANK!"

"Joe. I'm sorry. I'm done. I love you, Nan." He listened to Joe's fear-filled voice, then the clatter of James' gun hitting the tiles below, followed by another round of ear-splitting gun fire.