Chapter 2

As soon as they got home from church that Sunday, the Hardy boys raced upstairs to change into spelunking-appropriate clothes. They kissed their mother goodbye and were almost to the door when they were accosted by Aunt Gertrude.

"Where do you two think you're going?"

"Mom said we could go over to Chet Morton's" Frank did not feel it necessary to explain the purpose of their trip.

"You wouldn't rather spend time with your Aunt Gertrude. I'm not here every day you know."

Sure as hell feels like it, both boys thought inwardly. Outwardly, Joe merely explained that they had made plans before knowing she was coming.

"Well, I suppose if your mother says it's alright, and Chester is such a nice boy." Aunt Gertrude's relationship with Chet Morton was an enduring mystery to everyone in the Hardy household. Possibly it had something to do with the fact that Chet was the only person known to genuinely like Aunt Getrude's cooking.

The Hardys made their way to the garage, packed the flashlight and sandwiches in a backpack, and rode off for Pirates' Cave.

They met Chet and Iola at the entrance to the cave. Chet had clearly gone all in on the spelunking thing and was decked out in a spectacular assortment of caving gear.

"Alright boys," he announced with a serious mien, "the first and most important aspect of spelunking is safety. Now…"

The Hardy brothers had been spelunking before. Mrs. Hardy, an investigative reporter for The Bayport Herald, had taken them with her to research an article about gang violence in Belize two summers before, and they had spent much of the trip exploring cenotes. Since then, they had explored several of the caves around Bayport, including Pirates' Cave. However, Chet had clearly invested a great deal of time in preparing his lecture, so they feigned ignorance and nodded along in agreement.

When Chet had finished the safety demonstration, the group donned helmets and proceeded into the cave. After several hundred feet, the cave came to a pitch that the group had to rappel down.

Iola was the first one down. "Hey, look at this!" she called up.

"What is it?" Chet yelled.

"I dunno, some kind of bags or something."

"We'll take a look when we get down." The boys rappelled down the pitch and shone their flashlights on the mysterious bags.

"Who would leave something like that down here?" Chet wondered.

"Someone who didn't want someone else to see it," Joe answered, "wait a second." He bent down and opened one of the bags with his pocketknife. A brown powdery substance spilled out.

Frank let out a low whistle. "It's heroin."

"You mean we've stumbled on a drug smuggling operation?" Chet asked. He was suddenly nervous.

"Looks like it."

"Then we'd better get out of here, before they come back!"

"You're right, but first, does anybody have their phones on them?"

"Uh, Frank," Iola said, "I don't think we're going to get reception down here."

"I meant to take a picture. We'll want evidence in case the smugglers get back before we do."

"I would have brought my phone," Chet said, "but I didn't want to risk it getting wet."

"Same here," Joe said.

"We'll just have to hope whoever it is doesn't come back soon."

"You can say that again!" Chet exclaimed.

"I'll go ahead and take this bag back with us," Joe said, "the cops can test it to make sure it really is heroin.

The slit bag was stuffed in the backpack and the group proceeded as quickly as possible back up the pitch. They left the cave and walked up the beach to Shore Road. Fortuitously, Officer Riley happened to be driving by at that exact moment, and Frank flagged him down.

"I guess you kids made it through the caves without needing to be rescued after all," the patrolman remarked.

"Yeah, but we aren't the only people who've been in that cave lately," Joe said, "look."

Officer Riley's eyes widened as he peered into the bag. "Is that what I think it is?"

"That's what we want the crime lab to tell us."

"Yeah, and they'll want it as soon as possible. Leave your bikes, we need to get this to the station ASAP."

The kids filed in to the squad car. Officer Riley radioed in and drove to the police station. While he took the backpack into a back office, Frank used the police station's pay-phone to call his parents.

A few minutes later, Officer Riley returned, followed by Police Chief Era Collig.

"I've got to hand it to you two," the chief remarked, "you must have inherited your father's detective genes."

"Actually Iola found this," Joe said modestly, "we were just along for the ride."

"Hmm…did you see how many more there were?"

"I didn't get an exact count, but off the top of my head I'd say 20 or 30."

"Jesus, if this does turn out to be heroin, and I don't see what else it could be, that'd be worth over a million dollars. Where'd you find it?"

"Pirates Cave."

"We were spelunking," Chet explained.

"Hmm…follow me."

The Hardys and Mortons followed Chief Collig into a back office, where he unfurled a map of Bayport's coast.

"Hmm…It doesn't look like there's any other entrances to this cave."

"Which means whoever did this doesn't expect to need an escape route. They might only be storing it there for a short time."

"Well they sure as hell aren't having a hard time selling it. The heroin problem around here's exploded in the past couple of years. We've had over 70 overdose calls since 2010. How far back in the cave was this?"

"Just past the first major pitch."

"This may sound stupid, but what exactly is a pitch?"

Chet helpfully explained the basic terminology of caving to chief Collig.

"Hmm…" the chief responded, "we don't exactly have anyone on the force who's trained in spelunking, and I don't want to send you kids down there again, since we don't know how dangerous these people are."

"Agreed," Chet responded.

The police chief thought for a moment. "The best thing to do is probably to watch the cave and nab 'em when they come back, but I don't really have the manpower to keep a stakeout running 24/7. How'd you kids like to help us? You can take over the shifts between when school lets out and whenever your curfew is.

"That definitely sounds more exciting than trying not to get carded at convenience stores," Frank said, "I'm in, and we could probably get some more of our friends to help."

"Excellent, call me tomorrow and we can work out a schedule. In the mean time, Con will take you to pick up your bikes."

"Thanks."