"What's going on in New York City?" asked Frank, looking at Joe in excitement.
"I'm not at liberty to mention anything yet," Fenton Hardy said. "I have a phone call with NYPD and the FBI in the morning. I'll have to get the okay to tell you boys what's going on. For now, I've been sworn to secrecy." Looking at his watch, Fenton said," Well, boys, I'm going to head up to bed. It's going to be a very early phone call. I'll let you know what's going on in New York City if the FBI approves it."
"Goodnight, Dad," Joe said as his father walked upstairs.
Joe waited until he heard his parents' bedroom door close, and then asked Frank, "I wonder what that case is all about?"
"If the FBI is involved, it's something pretty significant," Frank said, raising his eyebrows. "Particularly if Dad has been sworn to secrecy. He's usually been pretty open with us on previous cases with the FBI, so I have to imagine this is significant-"
Frank was interrupted by the front door opening, with Aunt Gertrude and their mother, Laura Hardy, walking into the house.
"Significant?" Aunt Gertrude snapped. "What's significant?"
Joe smiled. "Why, your cooking skills, Aunt Gertrude! They're quite significant!"
"Hmph!" Aunt Gertrude snorted, lowering her spectacles to stare at Joe and Frank. "You're on a new case, aren't you?"
Frank looked at Joe. "No, we're not on a new case. Joe's right about your cooking, though. That strawberry-rhubarb pie was pretty significant."
Aunt Gertrude blushed. "You boys are such flatterers! Let's get you some slices of pie before bed." She headed towards the kitchen.
"How was bingo, Mom?" Joe asked as he kissed her on the cheek.
"I won fifty dollars," Laura Hardy smiled, then whispered to her sons. "Your aunt didn't win anything. But don't tell her you know. She's mad about not winning anything."
Frank and Joe smirked. "Your secret is safe with us, Mom!" Frank whispered back.
Aunt Gertrude came out of the kitchen with 2 plates loaded with large wedges of strawberry-rhubarb pie, which also happened to be Chet's favorite pie from her.
"Joe, you get the bigger piece," their aunt said, putting a plate with a very large piece of pie at his spot at the dinner table. "From my experience, dessert is the best fix for a broken heart!"
"As much dessert as you've given me in the last couple of weeks," Joe mock protested, "I'll have to go on a diet soon!"
Aunt Gertrude stared at Joe. "I don't think the extra desserts have caused you to gain any weight, Joseph! Now eat up and get a good night's sleep! Rest mends a broken heart, too!"
Aunt Gertrude and Laura said goodnight to the boys, and headed upstairs for the night while Frank and Joe ate their pie slices.
"How long do you plan to milk the 'broken heart' thing for extra dessert?" Frank teased his brother.
"Hey," Joe said with a huge chunk of strawberry in his mouth, "at least I'm benefitting in some way from Iola dumping me!"
Frank finished his plate. "Hurry up, Mr. Sadness, so we can clean these dishes and get to bed. I can't wait to hear what this case is about!"
Frank and Joe were up early the next morning, and heard hushed tones from their father's den. Frank and Joe snuck up to the door, and, looking at Joe, Frank put a finger to his lips. They listened intently at the door.
"Ted Huntley? Are you sure?" they heard their father say intensely. Fenton Hardy whistled. "I thought he was still in prison."
A minute later, they heard their father say, "Well, this certainly changes things! I would like to bring my sons into this case. You've met them before – Frank and Joe. I think they might fit into the crowd better than we would. What's that? OK, I'll bring them with me this morning. And they'll need their friend, Chet Morton, with them as well. Yeah, remember the earpieces, the radar and the trackers I bought last month? Yeah, Chet operates the gear in the van. He's a reliable kid. Ok, yeah, great. We'll see you later this morning. Good bye."
As Fenton hung up the phone, the boys decided to sneak back to their rooms. But they were quickly stopped as Fenton called out to them!
"You only heard one side of the conversation, sons! Come back and let's talk!"
Frank and Joe had that "we got caught" look on their faces, and as they turned around to face their father in the hallway, they found him chuckling and shaking his head.
Frank and Joe headed to back to their father's den, and their father motioned them to have a seat on the couch.
Closing the door behind him, Fenton said, "I may be getting old, but I heard you two sneaking outside the door. So have a seat and I'll fill you in on what's going on."
Frank looked his father. "You've filled us in on cases with the FBI before getting permission to tell us, so this one must be pretty major."
Fenton Hardy nodded. "It involves the Ball Drop in New York City for New Year's Eve."
"Someone wants to steal the ball in Times Square?" Joe asked, causing Frank to roll his eyes.
Their father shook his head, and looked at his sons intently. "There is a legitimate terrorist threat at Times Square. There is a lot of chatter about a terrorist strike in Times Square."
Frank's eyes grew wide. "Middle Eastern terrorists?"
"Even worse," Fenton said. "It's a homegrown terrorist group in our own country! Have you heard of The Loyal Patriots of the Revolution? They're also known as LPR."
Frank and Joe looked at each other, and then shook their heads. "I've never heard of them," Joe confessed.
"That's what I thought. They're relatively unknown, except to the FBI and CIA," Fenton Hardy said. Fenton walked over to his file cabinet, and then opened the safe inside the cabinet. Fenton pulled out a thin brown folder from the safe and set it on the coffee table in front of his sons.
"This is the file I've compiled on them," Fenton explained as Frank opened the folder. Frank was looking at each sheet of paper, and then handed each sheet to Joe as he finished reading them.
"I heard you mention a Ted Huntley on the phone, Dad," Frank said. "I don't see a file on him in this folder, and you have no pictures of anybody in this group."
"Huntley's not a member of LPR," Fenton started to explain. "Huntley's a guy that I put in prison when I was still with the NYPD. And incidentally, there are no known pictures of LPR members to police or us private detectives. Only the FBI and CIA have them."
Joe continued perusing the file. "So what's the story with Huntley?" he asked. "And how is he mixed up with LPR?"
"Your guess is as good as mine," Fenton said. "What you overheard on that phone call was Captain O'Rourke informing me that a confidential informant said that Huntley is out of prison and is somehow linked to LPR. The FBI has an undercover agent who is on friendly terms with the members of LPR, and that agent is not aware of Huntley being associated with them."
"You sounded shocked at Huntley being released from prison, from what we overheard," Joe said.
"He had been originally sentenced to 50 years in prison," Fenton explained. "I had testified in both the trial and at his sentencing hearing. He was convicted of the murder of Ben Simpson, an NYPD officer based in Brooklyn. I was the lead investigator in the murder case. I'm just trying to understand how Huntley is associated with LPR. He was a career criminal who murdered Simpson when Simpson wouldn't accept his bribes. But nothing in his criminal record red flagged the possibility of him being associated with terrorists. But we'll learn more today. We're going to New York City this morning to meet with Captain O'Rourke and Special Agent Culligan from the FBI. Culligan will fill us in on everything. I will need you to call Chet, though, and see if he can come with us. I've made arrangements with O'Rourke and Culligan to grant you three interim clearances to help with the investigation."
"I'll call Chet," Joe said. "So what is our role in this case?"
"We'll discuss it when we get to New York City. I have a rough idea of what it will be, but Culligan is the one who will be calling the shots on this." Fenton replied. "So go ahead and call Chet, then we'll get on the road."
Joe called Chet, who immediately agreed to go with them to New York City.
"Forget Mr. Pizza!" he exclaimed. "We'll get some genuine Brooklyn-style pizza while we're there! Good thing it's my day off work today!"
"Um, we're there to discuss a case, not to become food critics," Joe chuckled. "We'll come get you soon."
Then Joe hung up, and soon the Hardys were heading to the Morton farm. When they pulled up to the Morton house, Frank offered to get Chet, and Joe offered no resistance to that.
"No sense in having a scene if Iola was to answer the door," Frank thought to himself. "We have to get to New York soon."
Frank knocked on the door, and Chet opened the door and followed Frank to the car. Joe, in the meantime, had noticed that Iola was staring out the living room window of the Morton house, then disappeared out of view when she saw Joe in the car. Joe shook his head, annoyed.
Chet opened the rear door of Fenton Hardy's car. 'What's up, fellas?" Chet asked in an upbeat tone. "Who's ready to tackle some pizza?"
"Maybe after our meeting," Mr. Hardy smiled at Chet. "But in the meantime, let's get to New York and see what Culligan can tell us."
"Who's Culligan?" Chet asked as he accidentally elbowed Joe while putting on his seat belt.
Joe winced and rubbed his side. "He's FBI" Joe said. "And watch out for my ribs, will you?"
"Sorry, Joe," Chet apologized as he snapped his seatbelt shut. "So anyways, what's this case about?"
During the trip to New York, Fenton Hardy filled Chet in on the case.
"So you think I'll get to be the comms guy while Frank and Joe chase Huntley?" asked Chet enthusiastically.
"We'll find out soon enough," Fenton Hardy said.
A couple of hours later, they arrived in Manhattan and Fenton Hardy parked his car by the precinct ran by Captain O'Rourke. The four of them entered the precinct, and the sergeant on duty at the front desk gave them directions to Captain O'Rourke's office, which was on the third floor of the precinct building, which they reached by elevator. When they arrived outside of Captain O'Rourke's office, Fenton Hardy introduced himself to Captain O'Rourke's young attractive secretary at the desk. After paging Captain O'Rourke, he opened the door and greeted the Hardys and Chet.
"Fenton! How are you, old friend?" asked O'Rourke, an intense looking man with green eyes, a grey crew cut and well-trimmed beard. He was 6'4" and had an iron grip when he shook everyone's hands. "Come on in!" he smiled. Looking at his secretary, Captain O'Rourke said, "Sarah, hold all my phone calls until I'm done with these gentlemen."
"Yes, Captain," Sarah responded. Looking the Hardys and Chet, Sarah asked them, "Can I get coffee for any of you?"
The Hardys and Chet politely declined, and after Captain O'Rourke closed his office door, he said, "We need to meet with Agent Culligan. Culligan is sending a car to pick us up. We're meeting him at an unknown spot in order to maintain secrecy."
"How are we getting to the car?" Chet asked. "Won't your secretary know we're leaving?"
"I have my own personal elevator to the basement parking," Captain O'Rourke explained, moving aside a cabinet to reveal a small elevator door. "In my position, secrecy helps. Sarah has no idea this elevator exists. As far as she knows, I'm just meeting with some old friends in my office and I don't want to be disturbed."
Captain O'Rourke opened the elevator door with the press of a button. "Let's meet the car picking us up, shall we?"
The five of them crowded into the small elevator and the elevator directly lowered to the basement. Frank and Joe notice that there was only an up and down button, with no floor buttons. O'Rourke wasn't kidding about his own personal elevator to the basement.
The elevator door opened, and the five of them stepped out. The area around the elevator was almost like a maze of corridors.
"Follow me," Captain O'Rourke told them. They followed him through a series of hallways, and a few minutes later, at the end of the hallway was a door. Captain O'Rourke opened the door with a special key, and they stepped out to a dark, dimly lit area.
"You weren't kidding about secrecy being involved," Joe remarked as his eyes adjusted to the darkness.
"When you deal with organized crime, as we do quite often in NYPD, you have to have some tricks up your sleeve to protect yourself," Captain O'Rourke smiled.
A few minutes later, they saw a car pull into the area where they were standing. The car turned on its parking lights and pulled up to where the five of them were standing. It was a stretch limousine, and the driver stepped out of the vehicle.
After walking to the back of the limo and opening the back door, the driver said, "Please make yourself comfortable, gentlemen," the driver told them. "We'll be at our destination soon."
As Captain O'Rourke, the Hardys and Chet settled down inside the limo, the driver got inside the limo, put the limo in gear and drove off.
Suddenly, the back door on the limo locked!
"What's going on?" Chet demanded.
A chemical was sprayed into the passenger compartment of the limo from the ceiling, and within seconds, Captain O'Rourke, the Hardys and Chet fell unconscious!