CHAPTER XIV
Hades
As each boat descended further and further down into the large, spiraling whirlpool, Tony in the last boat flung a rope from his boat to the boat in front of him. "Wrap it around your bow," he instructed one of the knights in Italian, "and pass your rope on to the other one! Pronto!"
The knight quickly did as he was commanded. In an efficient manner, nearly all the boats were soon chained together. Tony, at the helm of his boat, with Phil guiding the rope line, steered his boat away from the whirlpool. The weight of his boat, coupled with pilots guiding their vessels away from danger, managed to circumvent the vortex.
However, the first boat was not so lucky. It was too far into the whirlpool for the rope from the second boat to reach them. "Fellows!" Biff called in vain, the rope in his hand. But it was too late. In dismay, the others watched as Tahir, his fellow knights protecting the Shroud, and Frank, Joe and Chet descent into the foreboding tomb of the whirlpool. Even the boat disappeared into the dark pit below.
"Fellows!" Biff shouted again, with Phil and Tony repeating the axiom. But their voices only echoed in the cavern the further they got from the whirlpool. Callie and Iola embraced each other, both crying hysterically. The knights removed their fez caps in mourning. For the rest of the voyage in the underground river, nobody said a word.
What, Iola thought to herself, would we tell Mom and Dad and Mr. and Mrs. Hardy?
"Were they friends of yours?" a knight asked in broken English to the sorrowful girls. "As Tahir was to us?"
Callie answered, brokenhearted, "They were more than friends to all of us. One was a sibling to her," she said in a cracked voice nodding to Iola. "His name was Chet."
"Ah, the rotund boy," the knight replied, nodding. "Yes, I saw similarity. Except for weight." Iola continued sobbing in Callie's arm. "But do not worry!" the knight perked up. "They have only entered a new realm!"
"A new realm?" Biff asked sarcastically from another boat.
"A new realm!" the knight answered. "Hades!"
Iola and Callie responded with a new burst of wailing and lamentation.
A few short moments later, through an ingenious natural hydraulic system and the reliability of the boats' engines, the surviving caravan gradually made their way through a narrow isthmus that led to the interior of a cave. The surviving knights explained to the devastated Bayporters that just a few hundred meters away was the mouth of the cave, and thus, the Egyptian coast.
"But without the Shroud," cried Tony, "without our friends, the mission is over! We must report to the authorities what happened." A pit had grown in Tony's stomach. The others felt the same.
"In the case of Hades," the friendly knight who tried consoling Iola was saying, "We go to the Brickyard."
"What is he talking about?" Iola wailed. "What are we going to do without them?"
"Only thing we can do," Phil grimly replied as the expedition exited the cave into the dimming daylight sun. "Follow them."
The group clung the coastline as it sailed eastward. Occasionally, the knights would sound a call that resembled something like a muezzin.
"Do we know what they are doing?" Biff asked Callie in a low voice.
"I've been asking myself that since we started this journey," Callie said, emotionless and despairing.
After an hour of casual sailing and repeating the call, an aircraft appeared overhead. The Bayporters expected the craft to pass over them, but it hovered directly above the vessels. The knights waved up.
In a short time, an inlet appeared, to which the leading vessel turned onto and prepared for landing. "Should we follow them?" Tony asked nobody in particular.
"What choice do we have?" he heard someone groan. It sounded like Phil.
"The aircraft continued flying, but just as the vessels made landfall, a number of military-looking vehicles appeared out of the mirage-like sand of the Egyptian desert coast. A number of plain clothesmen jumped out, most of them wearing khakis and polos.
"Hiya, friends!" greeted one of the men as he took off his sunglasses. The man was Fenton Hardy! "Welcome to camp Brickyard!"
"Mr. Hardy!" Iola wailed, instinctively embracing the father of her longtime beau. "We have terrible news!" Callie uttered as she joined them. The other Bayporters gathered around, their faces glum.
"What's the trouble?" Mr. Hardy asked. He was joined by another middle-aged man. "By the way, folks, this is my colleague, Felix Leiter of the CIA."
"How do you do?" Leiter asked pleasantly.
Tony grumbled a sorry "How do you do?" in reply before relating the terrible misfortune of Frank, Joe, Chet, Tahir, let alone the Shroud of Turin and some knights getting sucked into the whirlpool.
At that, Mr. Hardy and Leiter let out an enormous laugh. "Hades!" they each said in unison.
"H-how did you know about Hades?" Phil stammered.
"Because we built it," Leiter replied. "Actually, MI6 really takes the credit."
"MI6?" Biff repeated. "As in British Secret Service?"
"They're really the ones in charge of the operation," Mr. Hardy answered. His eyes glimmered at the confused expressions on the faces of the Bayporters. Mr. Hardy then apologized for being facetious. "Look, they can tell you all about it!"
He let out a whistle and the familiar faces of Chet, Joe, and Frank emerged from a truck. They were eagerly greeted by the Bayporters.
"What happened?" Callie shouted.
"Hades is a brilliant piece of engineering," Frank said. "It's a manmade shuttle to an underground bunker built by the Allies during World War II. In case anyone needs to escape from the river."
"So we all could have gone down the whirlpool?" Phil asked, dumbstruck.
"That's what I was trying to get you to do," Tahir answered as he joined the group. "But you probably thought that would be weird."
"And the Shroud?" Iola asked.
"Safe," Mr. Hardy answered to wide grins. "But that doesn't mean SPECTRE is in the clear. Are you still game to take them down?"
"And how!" the Bayporters replied.
"Where did Chet go?" Biff asked, confused.
Leiter chuckled. "He met a new friend. Come on, I'll introduce you."