CHAPTER 15

Frank Hardy climbed out of his mother's car as soon as he made a hasty stop. He was now in Riverside, and according to the address that he had discovered, he guessed the warehouse across the street was the place. The warehouse looked as if it hadn't been used for years. A perfect place for any criminal activities, he thought grimly.

He jogged until he reached the front gate of the warehouse. He carefully surveyed the surroundings. There seemed to be no one in sight. There was a large blue eighteen-wheeler, and a black Ford parked in front of the building.

Even though the place was quiet, Frank couldn't help feeling uneasy in the pit of his stomach. He wondered whether it could be that he was walking into a trap, or something had happened to his brother. He hoped it was none of the above.

When he was satisfied that he was alone, he stealthily jogged to the side of the warehouse. There were some old wooden crates stacked against the side of the wall. About eight feet above him, he could see a square grimy window. The window wasn't large, but judging from its dimension, he still could manage to squeeze through it.

Without wasting anymore time, he carefully arranged the crates until he could reach the window. A moment later, he was already on top of the crate. He was relieved to see the window was slightly ajar, but he still couldn't see what was inside the building. He used the sleeve of his shirt and wiped circularly against the grime.

Frank could almost see the interior of the room. It seemed he was looking into an office, and from the looks of it, the place seemed deserted. The door that led to the room was opened. But when he surveyed the room carefully – noticing the messy desk with some papers and a PC on it, and a gray metal cabinet in one corner of the room – he could tell someone had already occupied the warehouse.

Time to check things out, Frank thought as he pushed the window inside. The window was tight and he had to use his every strength just to move an inch. It felt like forever before he finally managed to get the space that he needed to climb inside. By this time, he was already sweating heavily.

He checked his pocket to make sure the proof was still there. So far so good, he thought. As he was about to climb inside, he heard a terribly familiar scream coming through the opened doorway. Joe! A feeling of dread washed over him. Oh, no! I'm too late!

***

"No!" Duncan shouted.

"Argh!" Joe gasped. Beads of cold sweat started to form on his forehead. He clenched his teeth in pain as the knife plunged into his left thigh.

"You don't have to do that!" Duncan protested angrily. He looked horrified at the sight of Joe's blood seeping through the jeans.

The blade penetrated deeply into the flesh. Joe tried all he could to muster his will from screaming in pain. He wouldn't give these morons a satisfaction of it.

"Now, let's play 'Twist the Blade'," Lewis said with a smug grin that made Joe sick inside. "If Duncan wouldn't answer, Joe will get the golden opportunity to be the object of the game. Got it?"

Duncan looked on helplessly at Joe and nodded. "All right, all right, I'll tell you!" Duncan fibbed, his tone hardening. He started twisting against the rope.

"Oh, really?" Lewis said simply with raised eyebrows. "You're being too easy now."

At the same time, Will started twisting the blade inside the flesh, as if he was putting on a screw with a screwdriver. Joe squirmed and twisted on his chair. His breathing became uneven. The pain was unbearable. It was like having a driller moving into the flesh.

"I have the thing that you're looking for," a new voice suddenly echoed inside the large room.

Joe was relieved when he heard the familiar voice. Maybe there's a chance to escape this after all, he thought hopefully.

Frank suddenly appeared from the office that Hayworth had come from. Joe figured he must have sneaked inside through a window. He wondered where Frank had been when he noticed some dirt on his brother's shirt.

"Frank Hardy, it's nice of you to join us here," Hayworth said.

"Will, Ace, check outside. See if there're any cops out there," Lewis commanded to his henchmen.

Will looked disappointed that he couldn't continue with his current task. He reluctantly pulled the blade off Joe and walked outside of the building with Ace. Joe felt like a burden had been lifted off his shoulders.

"I'm alone," Frank told them as he approached them slowly.

"We can't be too sure of that," Lewis countered. He pointed his gun at Frank. "All right, give us the disk."

Frank stood in front of the two men. "OK," he said, reaching inside his shirt pocket. He pulled out a floppy diskette and tossed it toward Lewis in one quick motion.

Taken by surprise, Lewis frantically tried to catch the disk. Frank took the opening to whip out his leg in a karate kick. His foot landed against Lewis's throat.

"Oof!" Lewis gasped as he staggered backward, clutching his neck in pain. His gun dropped to the floor, and Frank picked it up quickly.

"Will! Ace!" Hayworth yelled. He quickly scrambled down to pick up the disk on the floor. As if realizing something, he turned to Frank in anger. "This is not the disk! What McGuire had obtained is more than two Megabytes of memory."

"Don't move," Frank warned, pointing the gun at both men.

Hayworth raised up his hands nervously. Lewis was on the floor, struggling to get up. He reached into his jacket and pulled out another gun – but Frank was too quick for him as he swiped it with his leg. The gun flew from Lewis's grip and landed across the room. Lewis was enraged. He suddenly looked helpless without both of his guns.

Still training the gun on the men, Frank quickly stepped behind Duncan and started untying the ropes around his body and legs.

"Here, Duncan, take this," Frank gave him the gun. "I want to check on Joe," he said and turned to his brother.

"No problem," Duncan replied eagerly, taking the gun from Frank.

"What took you so long? I could have lost a leg here," Joe complained with an effort to smile as Frank untied him. His face had gone pale. He clutched his wounded leg as he stood up slowly. He gingerly tested the leg. The look on his face showed enough to know that he was in pain.

"I'm very sorry about that, Joe. I tried to get here as fast as I could," Frank said looking concern over his brother. "You lost a lot of blood," he checked the wound. It was very deep. Frank immediately tore a piece of cloth from his shirt and tied it around Joe's leg.

A group of men suddenly burst through the front door. Frank and Joe tensed, but immediately relieved when they noticed Con and his men at the doorway.

"Look whom we've got here," Con said as two of the police officers held Will and Ace in their custody. "They tried to run away when we arrived."

"We've got more here," Frank said pointing to Hayworth and Lewis, who looked defeated. Con immediately signaled his men to get Hayworth and Lewis. After reading their rights, the two criminals were handcuffed.

"You finally made it," Joe said to Con.

"Are you all right?" Con asked in concern, looking at the bloodied leg. "We need a paramedic here!" he shouted to his colleagues.

"I'm fine, Con," Joe replied with a weak smile. His teeth clenched.

"I got held up at the station. Mr. Bauer came and wanted to charge Blackwell of kidnapping," Con explained. "That's why we're a bit late."

"I thought he didn't want to go to the police," Frank said in surprise.

"Am I being charged?" Duncan asked worriedly. He walked over to them.

"No, you're not. We've dropped all charges against you. Your wife was there and explained everything to me and her father," Con replied.

Duncan looked relieved. "Good old, Lyn," he said with a smile.

"I'll bet Mr. Bauer wasn't too happy when he hears that Lyn is already married to Duncan," Joe commented thoughtfully.

"You got that right," Con agreed.

"This is going to take some time for him to adjust, I guess," Duncan admitted with a wry smile. "Oh, I'd better tell Mrs. Streetman that I'm going to move out."

"She's going to miss you a lot," Joe remarked.

"Me, too. She's been helpful to me, after all the trouble I've got her into," Duncan agreed, feeling guilty. "But I've got to move on with my life."

Then Con turned to Frank. "Now, where's the evidence?" he demanded.

"Oh, right," Frank said sheepishly as he reached into his jeans. He pulled out a bunch of keys and pulled out a keyring. It was shaped like a small penknife. Frank handed it to Con.

"That's the evidence?" Joe asked incredulously, momentarily forgotten about his injury.

"It's a memory stick!" Duncan exclaimed. "It may be small but it has sixteen megabytes of memory inside it," he explained.

"I think McGuire thought about that. He decided to use something inconspicuous to hide the information," Frank theorized.

"What a genius! No wonder Hayworth and Lewis couldn't find it," Duncan said.

"Is this what you've got from Wirth?" Con asked.

"You found out who Wirth is?" Joe asked Frank at the same time.

His brother nodded. "If you recall back, McGuire liked to name his computers, and he had a new one which hasn't got a name yet," Frank told him. "And I found this plugged into the new computer in McGuire's room," Frank told them. "And I almost missed it, too."

"Of course, and how did you come about with the name?" Con asked.

"I had the idea accidentally. Actually, it happened after I looked at Phil's programming book. Wirth is the guy who designed Pascal programming language. I guess McGuire put that name on as a last-minute idea. After all he was programming with Pascal before he died," he explained quickly.

"Why didn't he use the name that's already there? That would save us the trouble," Con grumbled.

"I guess he was cautious – especially if the culprit was someone McGuire knew, might get his hand on the note or the proof," Frank told him. "Everything about the software piracy operation is in the evidence that I've found – including the address of this warehouse," he went on. "Apparently, Hayworth was also dealing the gun-running operation with a guy named W. Peterson. All of this started about five years ago – almost the same time ElectroSoft is losing money."

"Hmm, that's news to me," Con admitted. "That's also about the same time Lewis started his own gun running operation," he suddenly pointed out, thoughtfully.

"Ware Peterson a.k.a. Red Lewis," Duncan confirmed the name with a disgusted look.

Frank and Con stared at him in surprise. Duncan just gave a wry smile. "It's a long story," he replied simply.

"Now, we can go back to the station for statements. I want to hear the whole story from each of you," Con told them firmly. "But first we need to send Joe to the hospital."

"I can't thank you enough for clearing my name," Duncan told the Hardys sincerely.

"Hey, no problem. I'm glad Joe dragged me on this case. I've learned a lot of things from it," Frank said, smiling. "Joe is convinced you didn't do the murder from start."

"I told you my gut feeling is right," Joe couldn't help saying. "Duncan really came a long way to finally get where he wants to be now." He patted Duncan on his shoulder.

"Thanks for the support, Joe," Duncan said with a grateful smile. "But I'm just glad this thing with McGuire is over now," Duncan said.

"I know," Joe agreed in relief. All he wanted to do now was getting his leg fully recovered. At the moment, his leg felt like as if it would crash into pieces.

"Aside from your background, you're not that bad after all, Schwarzebrunnen," Frank added with a laugh.

"I can't believe you could figure out the name," Duncan said in surprise.

"Es ist ziemlich leicht, wenn Sie einige deutschen Wörter wissen," Frank replied.

"Nicht schlecht!" Duncan replied with a nod of approval.

"Guys, come on! Help me outta here. You can practice your Deutsch later," Joe complained. "I'm not going to wait for the paramedics."

"I'll send you there right away," Frank assured him.

"Thanks, bro," Joe replied in relief.

Frank and Duncan helped Joe, who was limping on one leg, walked toward the front door. "Can we finally have a real vacation after this?" he asked his brother.

"Sure, as long as you stay put in bed," Frank quipped. "I'm just not sure how I'm going to explain about your condition to Mom and Dad when they got back from Florida."

THE END.