CHAPTER XIX

The Ultimate Boon

On the Pan Am transatlantic flight back to Bayport, Fenton Hardy continually pressed his exhausted sons on how A.H. Drollinger, the brilliant geneticist and futurist, was somehow nabbed while attempting his escape from Acheiropoieta Monastery. He just couldn't get it straight. He had never seen such babbling and overlapping of attempted storytelling from Frank and Joe since they were toddlers.

"Dad, you wouldn't believe it!" Joe was trying to say. "There was this snowmobile, okay, over here, okay? And then, then…" he struggled for the right verbiage to describe the scenario.

"But then Bond was riding one snowmobile on one ski, like this!" Frank interrupted, making a gesture with his hand.

"He essentially drove the snowmobile on its side?" Fenton asked, dumbfounded. By now, the other Bayporters, Tony, Biff, Phil, Callie, and Iola, crowded around the narrow aisle to hear the raconteurs.

"Dr. Jones was incredibly agile as well," Joe described. "He leaped onto Drollinger's snowmobile and was able to steer it with one arm!"

"And what were you two doing that whole time?!" Callie asked. The others nodded, desperately wanting to know.

Frank and Joe grinned. "Well, tell us!" Tony urged.

The two sleuths leaned back in their seats and closed their eyes, contented, if tired, smiles crossing their faces. The Bayporters exchanged glances.

"Where's Chet?" Phil finally asked, looking around the cabin.

"The boys pooled their funds and bought Chet a first class ticket," Mr. Hardy explained. "I guess he pulled some brave stunt when all seemed lost in the monastery."

The group scrambled to first class, earning a warning from a stewardess for calmness and not to linger too long in the aisle. Mr. Hardy chuckled, and turned in admiration to his sons. Yes, he admitted to himself, Blofeld escaped, in fact he never was even near Acheiropoieta Monastery, but operating from a submarine MI6 believed to be posited in the Black Sea. Such was a price to pay for the destruction of SPECTRE's radiation equipment and the decimation of their transhumanism department. Fenton knew better than most that one's archnemesis never quite goes away. Indeed, James Bond's own dangerous tango with Blofeld would continue the following year as described in an exotic and unusual story called You Only Live Twice.

"Chet! Chet!" the eager group called, shaking their friend's shoulder in the first row. A Scientific American, a National Geographic, Dr. Jones's Shroud book, a novel by an ornithologist, and an art history coffee table book were spread out across the sleeping lad's tummy.

"Chet!" Iola urgently summoned her brother with finality.

Chet immediately sputtered awake at the directive, arms flaying, eyes wide. "Evacuate! Evacuate! Lasers incoming! Lasers incoming!" he screamed.

The Bayporters each looked at the other in confused trepidation. Nearby passengers hearing the squeal quickly pressed their stewardess call button. Immediately, Chet fell back asleep, instantly snoring. "What happened to these boys?" Callie wondered in awe.

The group slowly returned back to their seats, stunned. Tony was thinking how the one enduring mysterious relic of modern times, the Shroud of Turin, was now safely back in the Shroud Chapel in Turin, the Baroque structure designed by Guarini in the 17th century to house the cloth. The following summer on a family trip to Naples to visit with his family and Brother Alberto, Tony was granted a chance to see the cloth with his family in Turin, thanks to Cardinal Geraci, eternally grateful for the restoration of the Shroud without the looming threat of SPECTRE.

Biff contemplated the architectural destruction of the 10th century monastery and became quite curious in Byzantine history. Amazingly, he and Phil Cohen developed a correspondence with A.H. Drollinger, who was taken into custody by Bond, urging the engineer to rebuild the monastery his machines destroyed. Working with a team of international bricklayers and stonemasons, Drollinger was put in charge as chief architect of the rebuilding of Acheiropoieta Monastery. He would later oversee other architectural projects throughout the world. He never returned to California's Silicon Valley.

Phil Cohen's technological interests were piqued by Drollinger's theories, maligned though they may be. He was determined to carve out some kind of vocation in a healthy promotion of technology without it becoming one's own master. He also convinced his parents on a tour of Jerusalem, including a stop at Egypt's Port of Said to explore a nearby cave that led to an underground tunnel below the Mediterranean. He was relieved that UNESCO announced its commitment to protect the passageway.

Callie was thinking of what school Frank would choose, and what the future held for their relationship. No sooner upon his return to Bayport did he receive an offer from the Dean of Marshall College he had gotten to know so well in these last few days to attend the school on scholarship. Indeed, all the Bayport chums would be granted a financial gift for higher education by the relieved exiled king, the House of Savoy's Umberto II, the rightful owner of the Shroud. At the time of the revision of this story (February 1979[1]), King Umberto is still living in Portugal, though he has essentially bequeathed ownership of the Shroud to the Roman pope. (The Shroud was publicly exhibited in September 1978 for the first time in 45 years.)

And Iola was stunned Joe was at such a loss of words describing the culminating, all-important chase sequence. She concluded that whatever transpired in that final pursuit for Drollinger, it must have been a once-in-a-lifetime experience to witness the Hardy Boys, Indiana Jones, and James Bond in a hunt to track down a mad scientist.

What does the future hold for my two sons? Fenton asked himself as his own eyelids drooped, sleep finally closing in on him after the relentless pursuit of SPECTRE. The famous detective's question would soon be answered, however, when Frank and Joe would encounter more spies and international intrigue in The Secret Agent on Flight 101.

While Chet took a liking to Bond, Frank and Joe had developed great respect for the aging archaeologist, Dr. Jones. While he was well known in certain circles, they wondered why his reputation had not yet exploded on a large scale. Yet in due course all would be revealed. At the time of this revision, a Hollywood production is underway to bring Dr. Jones's adventures to the cinema.

The greatest mystery, shrouded in subterfuge and cageyness to this writer at any rate, is why Manhattan publishers continually resist publishing this epic saga precisely as it unfolded in December 1966. Perhaps it will take many decades before executives realize such a story might bring some inherent, primal happiness to an audience. After all, isn't the business of storytelling providing some uplift, wonder, and awe to those who themselves dare to dream?

I think we owe our readers and audiences at least that much.

[1] Prepared for possible publication in 1980 per Simon & Schuster following the termination of the relationship with Grosset & Dunlap. Manuscript submitted, never received a reply. S.&S. opted to publish Night of the Werewolf in its stead. - F.W.D