Author's Note: I have no idea what the name of the air base near New York City is called but in this story it is simply the New York Air Base.
Interesting Fact: H.G Welles' last words were "Go away, I am alright."
Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN FRANK OR JOE HARDY, NANCY DREW, BESS MARVIN, ETC. However, Sweet Rodriguez and Kimberly Randle are mine.
Chapter 5
"No way," Vanessa said amazed, "You have diabetes?"
"Yup," Sweet said, "Since I was seven."
The girls were on the phone talking. Sweet was on her bed, tired from a long afternoon at the New York Air Base. Vanessa was avoiding doing her homework.
"So, does it hurt?" she paused, "Wow that sounded so stupid."
"No, it's alright."
"Anyway, where were you after school?"
"At the Air Base. My dad decided that a day of military training would be good for me."
"I almost forgot, your dad is an Air Force Colonel."
"Yeah. But it was actually kind of fun. Since I was little my dad has been dragging me to whatever base he is working at to exercise and compete against all the military men and women. I can complete one of the obstacle courses in one hour flat."
"One hour!"
"Yeah, but average time for that course is two hours and a half. Those Air Force guys are really pathetic."
"How badly did you embarrass them?"
"Well let's just say that after I finished my training, the actual military people were chewed out for being 'sad pathetic excuses for soldiers.'"
"Harsh."
"Yeah, but half of them are going to go fight in Iraq soon. They need to learn to be faster." Sweet smiled, "And you know what the best part about training is?"
"What?"
"Going up in the air in the many aircrafts owned by the Air Force!"
"They let you up there!"
"Yeah, but only cuz my dad's a Colonel. And I wasn't allowed to fly the thing myself, I was just a passenger. Still, hitting 4Gs is exciting."
"No fair, I want to try."
"I'll try to pull some strings."
* * *
Frank picked up his phone and dialed home.
"Hello?" Came Joe's confused voice.
"Joe it's me."
"Me who?"
"That's not funny."
"Alright, sheesh, you go off to college and all of a sudden you're Mister No-Sense-of-Humor."
"Joe," Frank said in a warning voice.
"Okay, I'll stop. Why are you calling?"
"Where is dad? I tried his cell but no one picked up."
"Pennsylvania."
"Why the hell is he there?"
"Don't really know, said he had some important case that he couldn't tell us about and that he couldn't be disturbed." Joe could hear cursing on the other end. "Why? What's wrong?"
"A case I'm working on."
"Tell me about it, " Joe begged, "Nothing interesting has happened here in such a long time."
Frank filled Joe in on his case.
"So? Someone is trying to kill your teacher. Sounds pretty routine to me."
"Not so. I did some research on my teacher and his family and here's the twist..."
* * *
"Can you describe them?" Nancy asked the waiter, Gage, at the diner from earlier that day. Nancy had received a fax from her father on her suspects. Unfortunately there was nothing really interesting about the men, just vague descriptions. However, her father was able to find a lot of information on Sweet Rodriguez.
Gage shrugged, "The men, not so well. One was tall, blonde hair, muscular. The other was average height, red hair, scrawny."
Exactly what the fax's descriptions say. "How about the woman?"
Gage's face brightened, "About five feet six inches. She was black, even though she has a Hispanic last name. She had amazing brown eyes, long, curly black hair..." The boy looked as if he was remembering paradise, "But she stood out a lot."
"How?"
"She was all gothic. She had on the all black, chains, skull earrings. You know the type?"
Nancy nodded.
"Well anyway, she's slender but muscular. Seemed really militant."
"Militant? Did she look old enough to be part of the military?"
"I'm not sure. The men looked like they were in their late twenties/early thirties, but the woman looked really young. It was almost as though she was still a teenager."
"Thank you Gage. This is more helpful than you could possibly know."
"You're welcome!"
Nancy took a card out of her pocket, "If you remember anything contact me at any of those numbers. The first is one to my dorm room, the second is my cell, the third is a number to my office at Headlines."
"Alright, I'll do that."
"Thank you."
Nancy left the diner with renewed hope, now all she had to do was meet with Michael so that they could research Sweet's medical files and maybe they would actually find her.
The strawberry blonde made it all the way to Michael's apartment before her cell phone rang.
"Hello?"
"Hi, it's Gage. I just remembered, the woman had a birthmark behind her left ear. it was kind of shaped like....." He tried to find a word, "Texas."
* * *
"Wow," Joe said.
"Just don't tell mom."
"Why not?"
"Sure Joe, tell mom I'm investigating a new terrorist organization that seems to be my teacher's pet project."
"What I don't get is why your teacher would get you or dad involved if he wants to start a new terrorist organization."
"Joe, I don't have all my facts yet but I'm working on answering those questions."
"So is there anything I can do?"
"Can you find information on the new terrorists for me?"
"How do you spell the name?"
"O-T-T-O, just how it sounds."
"You know, they could have at least picked a more threatening name. Who's going to take the OTTO seriously?"
"Hey there's an organization by the name of FARC down in South America."
"My brother, the walking computer of useless information."
* * *
"Vanessa this is a stupid game," Joe complained as he drove Vanessa and Biff to school.
"I happen to like the license plate game."
"But they all say New York," Biff pointed out.
"Leave me alone."
After a long silence Biff asked, "So what's up with your friend Sweet?"
"What?"
"He means, which one of us does she like more?" Joe said.
"How should I know?"
"Well you two are like best friends already," Biff said.
"Yeah, and you girls talk about everything," Joe added.
"I really don't know," Vanessa told them, "I mean she has mentioned once that you two are cute, but that's about it."
"She means me," Biff said, "She's just trying to be nice to Joe."
"No way, I will not lose this b-" Joe stopped himself.
"Are you two betting on Sweet?" Vanessa feigned shock.
"Yeah," Biff said sheepishly, "but don't tell her."
"Don't worry," Vanessa said in her best angry voice, "But only because I don't want her to feel like all she is worth here in Bayport is a few dollars."
Joe and Biff were silent out of shame for the rest of the ride to the high school. They both missed the mischievous twinkle in Vanessa's eyes.
* * *
"Sweet!" Vanessa yelled, waving her arms so Sweet would see her through the crowds of Bayport High School. Vanessa had ditched the guys in front of the school.
"Hey," Sweet said as she pushed through the crowd. "Give me the update."
"Biff and Joe accidentally let me 'find out' about their bet. However, I promised to not tell you."
"Good, step one of our plan is complete. Now let's go find a soda machine, I missed breakfast."
As Sweet turned back around to face the crowds, she brushed her hair back.
"Wow!" Vanessa exclaimed, "the birthmark on your left ear looks just like Texas."
* * *
Michael and Nancy were seated under a tree on the Wilder University campus.
Nancy finished filling Michael in on all of the information she had acquired.
Michael ran a hand through his brown hair, "That at least gets us one step closer."
"I also spent yesterday trying to get information from the local hospitals. I figured since the woman has diabetes she would have a regular doctor, or at least someone to prescribe the insulin. Unfortunately the hospitals wouldn't cooperate."
"I thought the same thing," Michael admitted, "I found out that this Sweet woman doesn't get medicine prescribed from any doctors in the area. Or if she does she is using an alternate name."
"Great, yet another twist in this case." She rested her head against Michael's shoulder.
"And we don't even know what this case is about," Michael muttered in frustration.
Nancy took a deep breath, "Let's think about this logically, why would these people be discussing their plans on a frat house roof?"
"At least one of them could be a college student. Or the boss they mentioned could live on campus."
"And how can two resourceful journalists find out where these people are now?"
"We could ask the police to track them down. With all the times we have helped them over the past school year they owe us."
"Right. So we'll do that and see where that takes us."
* * *
Later that night:
"Frank is it really necessary to be stalking your teacher?" Chet asked.
"Yeah, don't you think you're going a little overboard?" Kimberly asked.
The three of them were in Frank's car, a silver Toyota, watching Mr. Jaswall leave his classroom and get into his car.
"What would you two suggest I do, ask him if he has ties to a terrorist organization? That might just tip him off."
"If he's part of it." Kimberly pointed out.
"I can't take the chance that he is."
Chet watched in sheer boredom as the BLANK teacher placed books in his car's trunk. "How did you find out he had ties to the OTTO anyway?"
"I was looking up his family name in a government file on my computer..."
"Whoa!" Kimberly exclaimed, "A government file?"
"Yeah, I'm great at the whole hacking thing. Anyway, I noticed that his father, Jeremy Jaswall, was put in military prison. I wondered what it was he could have possible done and as it turns out he was placed in the prison for attempted treason. Apparently he and his group, the OTTO, were planning to take over many different government organizations."
"How were they planning on doing that?" asked Kimberly.
"I don't know, it didn't say."
Chet frowned, "Frank this doesn't prove that your teacher is dangerous, only that his father was."
"That's what I thought at first, but then I read something interesting. The son of Jeremy Jaswall was killed five years ago. You can see how that would make me just a little suspicious."
The trio watched as the teacher got in his car and drove off. Frank started his car's engine and followed.
"Where is he going?" Chet questioned after half an hour of silence. "There is nothing important on this side of New York."
"Maybe that's the point," Kimberly said, "Why organize in an area where you can be spotted easily." At Chet's confused look she continued, "If no one ever comes over here then they will never find out about the OTTO."
Frank noticed his girlfriend's smirk. "Thank God someone other than myself thinks that name is humorous."
As Mr. Jaswall parked his car next to a brick building Frank did the same; just far enough so that his teacher wouldn't spot him, but close enough for the trio to see what Mr. Jaswall was doing.
"What the Hell?" Kimberly muttered as the teacher climbed the buildings fire escape and crawled into the building through a third story window.
Chet shrugged, "Maybe that's one of his...hobbies."
"What kind of person crawls through windows as a hobby?" Frank asked.
"No clue."
After a few minutes the teacher crawled back out the window, holding a gold colored briefcase.
"This just keeps getting weirder and weirder..." Kimberly muttered.
They watched the teacher get into his car and drive off. Frank did not start his engine; instead he got out of his car.
"Frank," hissed Chet, "What do you think you are doing?"
"Stay there," he ordered his friend and girlfriend, "I'll be right back." However after taking three steps he heard the car doors open and shut behind him.
I should have known their stubborn natures wouldn't let them sit still.
Frank slipped into an alley on the side of the building, allowing Chet and Kimberly to follow. He looked the side of the building up and down. Every window was boarded up, the one door to the alley was boarded up as well. Frank saw that the dumpster in the alley was tipped over, empty, covered in graffiti.
"No one uses this building anymore," Kimberly observed.
"Legally anyway," Chet added.
"So what was he doing here?" Frank asked, "There is obviously no one else here, otherwise he wouldn't have climbed in through the window."
With that Frank walked to the front of the building and climbed up to the third story window. Kimberly and Chet followed out of curiosity. All three climbed in through the window.
Frank's eyes went wide as he took in what was in the room.