I've just realised that I didn't thank the guest reviewer for giving such a nice review of chapter 22. Yes, Frank DID take out one of his own, the great Nincompoop! :-D
CHAPTER 24
"GET OUT!" A female's voice shouted from the doorway and Nancy felt the Red-Headed Man's grip loosen on the cord.
His face retreated, and sighed audibly in frustration. Nancy opened her eyes and saw the woman who'd injected her. The man wasn't looking at the woman, he still, chillingly, stared malevolently at Nancy while he retained a loose grip on the twine - he hadn't removed it from her neck.
The woman didn't look happy. "You know the agreement…I use her now for the code, you get her afterwards. Stick to the plan and stop interfering."
Nancy wished he would stop looking at her but his dead-eyed gaze didn't waver.
"I want Frank Hardy and she must know where he is." His head tipped sideways as he studied her, and his fingers twitched against the skin of her neck.
"If you stick your nose in again I'll report your interference upward."
"I want Frank Hardy," he repeated, and retightened the cord.
Nancy snatched at his wrists and braced to try and prevent him contracting the cord further. Her life on a knife-edge, she needed the woman to make him go away. She tried to swallow down her fear, but it hurt.
The man smiled and his tongue flicked between his teeth, lizard like.
"If I can help you find Hardy, will you leave me to get the rest of the code out of her?"
"I will." His eyes finally left and the twine slid free of Nancy's throat. He left the room.
The woman held Nancy's change of clothes, which she tossed. Nancy caught them with one arm. "Get dressed, we've got work to do," she ordered and left.
Nancy put her hand over her neck and took a couple of deep breaths. 'Joe, that man's one scary dude!'
She took the camouflage green cargo pants and, without removing the robe, pulled them up her legs, zipped and buttoned them. Next, she turned her back to the door to drop the robe, and pulled on the black tank top. Feeling less vulnerable, she turned thoughtfully to the door and moved quietly to it. She opened up silently and took a peek through an inch gap.
To her relief, the scary guy had gone, no sign of him anywhere, and she couldn't sense his intimidating presence. The woman stood there, looking out the other door, which hung open wide. Nancy guessed what the woman had been waiting for when she heard the wheels of the gurney clatter up the corridor. The two guards were there, but as the bed on wheels slid into view, they moved to the one side to allow entry.
This is the moment!
Nancy pulled the door open, charged the woman, and drove her elbow into her ribs. With a loud whoosh of air, the woman went down.
The guards turned quickly, but were too late to prevent Nancy from using her hip and weight to shove the gurney sideways at them, putting as much strength into her attack as she could. Nancy knew what she'd done would bruise her leg, but didn't want to waste the opportunity to escape. She needed to give it her best shot…even if it meant hurting herself. The gurney hit and thrust them to the side, the force she used potent enough as to send them sprawling.
Equally as satisfying - the man who pushed the gurney didn't see her coming at all; he certainly didn't see her fist coming in to sock him in the nose. His face rocked to the side, blood sprayed, and she followed up with a knee to the groin. He folded in the middle with a groan and she used his own momentum to pull him over the gurney. He and the gurney both went down, pinning the guard to the tiles.
Nancy took off, her intention to put as good a distance between them as she could. She didn't have to look back to know what they were doing. The woman had started to shout, and the gurney scraped the floor as they moved it. She knew it wouldn't be long before footfalls would be after her - not yet though! Nancy burst through the door at the end of the passageway and almost stopped completely in her surprise. Her bare feet slid on the shiny floor, and she careened into a railing at waist height.
She caught herself against the guardrail and looked up. Pandora gazed back at Nancy from a massive screen, the star of the game Professor Hope had created - a pretty, stylized Grecian girl in a white toga with braided, long brown hair and bangles encircling her biceps. She watched Nancy with her arms folded, her fingers drumming against the top of her arm impatiently. Four text boxes waited below Pandora for the potions of the code to be entered. In the second box the letters ADBA' were keyed in. Although Nancy couldn't remember the code, she knew it had been made up of numbers, not letters…'I lied!'
Nancy pulled herself together and took off to the right. The walkway she found herself on ended with a set of stairs. She ran by four or five doors and took to the steps as the door she exited crashed open and footsteps came through in hot pursuit.
She vaulted the last few steps and ran forward into an open plan office with row upon row of metal, white desks, drawer pedestals and PCs facing the large screen, turned toward Pandora. Operators worked at three-quarters of the desks and their faces swerved at the shouts behind them, then they turned toward Nancy as someone above bawled for them to stop her. Several rose from their chairs and one moved toward her to cut her off.
'What the hell is this?' Nancy thought and took a quick, information gathering glance around to find the main doors at the far end of the bullpen. She realized the man who left the chair would be on top of her in seconds if she didn't shift, but others also got to their feet and moved to cut off the most direct route to the exit. So she ran forward, took a leap onto the closest empty workstation, and took three strides to jump across to the next desk. She slipped down onto the glossy floor and lost traction, but gathered herself and ran like a pro-sprinter for the doors.
People were getting in on the hunt, but she dodged and swerved, and eventually emerged from the jungle of office equipment and furniture. The people were a bizarre mix of individuals, unable to cope with a real life game of Pacman against an athletic woman. Whoever these computer people were, they obviously weren't trained agents - they were an unfit, disorganized bunch of what Nancy could only describe as…nerds. She realized she'd outrun, or at least outfoxed, everyone.
She went straight for the doors and made her way along them. She pulled and pushed on the handles, desperately trying to get one to open. They seemed locked down, until her hand bore fruit and a door began to swing. Unfortunately, as she stepped out, someone ran at her from the other side and tackled her heavily about the middle.
"NO!" she screamed in frustration as they both went down. Her attacker lost his grip and she slid some distance on the shiny floor, colliding into the side of a desk. She grabbed the top of it and started to lever herself up, but before she could finish the move, he grabbed her again. She wrestled desperately with him, even fought dirty by clawing and drew blood. Somehow she got the upper hand by hammer-punching him in the chin, but he ended up across her shins, and she couldn't scramble out from under him before more hands took her arms and legs and pinned her to the ground.
"Get off me!" she shouted, but she knew in her heart she'd lost the fight, especially when the woman approached with another syringe. "Damn you!" Nancy screamed, "Damn you all, COWARDS! Joe will come and he will take you down and he'll bring Frank Hardy and Frank Hardy will come for me. Frank will rescue me and Frank will come for you, ALL OF YOU!" And she knew; she knew she loved Frank Hardy and she'd somehow been duped into not being with him, and he'd been deceived too.
-o0o-
"How's it going?" Frank asked Vanessa as he entered the panic room.
Vanessa had been hard at it all morning, rallying her troops - her 'Dark-Net Army' as she'd decided to name them, those faceless individuals who would support them as they went to war with Hope Industries. She waved Frank into the room excitedly. "Frank, come here! Live Attack wants to say hello."
"Say hi back. Who's Live Attack?"
"LA for short. The friend I told you about, the one with the questionable past, but a brilliant hacker and programmer with a ton of contacts. But he thinks he knows you and is insisting you both speak. He's created a secure chat window so no one can overhear."
"Your voice sounds sore." Frank observed as Vanessa got up so he could sit in her place.
"It is. Ignore that and talk to LA, I'm curious as to how he knows you."
"I doubt he does; probably said it to make me talk to him. I'm happy to. He's doing us a massive favor. He didn't need to play games. What alias you using?"
"Blondie, but only in front of the Dark-Net Army, he knows my name's Vanessa."
"I'm playing it safe." Frank introduced his fingers to the keys and typed in the text window. "Hi, Blondie thinks you know me?"
"Frank, I bloody do know you, it's Mark Randall."
Frank paused as his brain processed this out-of-left-field coincidence. "MARK! As in…Kiwi, Rob, Alex and Helen…Mark?"
"I nearly fell off my chair when your name cropped up. I had no idea YOU were the poor sod wrapped up in this. I only twigged when Joe's name got included. This is ace!"
Vanessa broke into their conversation. "Who's Mark Randall?"
"Someone Joe and I stayed with in England a few years ago. Helped him and his friends out with a problem they were having with a stolen ring." His face dropped. "Alex got badly hurt. It wasn't a good time." He went back to talk to Mark. "Why are you operating on the other side of the law? I thought you were straight up. What happened?"
"Mate, nothing happened. It's my cover story; it helps me gain people's trust. I work with British Intelligence and track online criminal shenanigans; been doing it for a couple of years. I knew about Pandora on the periphery, but it's only now I've taken an interest. The British government knew of Vanessa's involvement, and we're acquaintances, so I've been asked to take a closer look. There's been an increase in online activity with the 'P' program. From what Vanessa told me, it sounds vicious!"
"It's had its moments."
"Tell Vanessa she should use a microphone, and some voice recognition software instead of typing, it'll be quicker."
"She can't, she's not got much of a voice or she would have otherwise."
"Why?"
Frank explained to Mark about what happened. It didn't take his friend long to understand the stickiness of their situation.
"Mate, do you want to me to send Rob and Kiwi to you? We can book them on a flight, be with you in a couple of days at most. You guys left a big impression here. Once they find out what's going down, they'll be biting at the bit to help."
"If you'd offered a couple of days ago, I would have agreed instantly, but we don't have days…Nancy doesn't have days. We need to move tonight."
"I can definitely help you. It's been easy for Vanessa and me to get this Dark-Net Army together. Folk have been happy to get on board; they've been waiting for you."
"What do you mean?"
"The second I said your name, peeps were coming out of the ether to talk. Your name, and Joe and Nancy's are well known. They know you were responsible for taking down Pandora the first time."
Frank raised a surprised eyebrow. "How?"
"Background chatter."
"How's it even possible? We've never talked about it publicly."
Vanessa jumped in, "It would've taken one loose tongue. Think about it, Frank, even Collig knew and his boys were involved, so one of them could have blabbed." Frank went quiet, so silent Vanessa spun his chair so he faced her. "What is it?"
"Do they know everything? Like…how I imploded out on the school roof?" Frank asked.
"Yeah, sorry Frank." Vanessa took his hand. "They know practically everything. Right up until you were rescued off the roof, and Nancy went after Pandora."
"Huh." Frank's shoulders sagged and a hand ran through his hair. "So much for privacy, but I guess it's worked to our advantage, so I'll suck it up."
"The dark net knew something had gone down because you went off-line and no one could find you. They were worried something had happened."
"Really?"
"Over the last few days they've been searching for you everywhere on the grid. You use the net a lot and leave a strong digital presence, so when it disappeared a few days ago, they got worried. Some thought you were dead."
"I don't die so easy." Frank turned back to the computer, seeing Mark had tried to speak to him several times. "Van told me you know what happened with Pandora the last time."
"I do, and you've got a lot of friends here who are going to help. It should hopefully shift the weight to your advantage. We can do this. It'll be like old times, Pal. From what I can gather, the last time you faced it alone? It's not happening this time. You'll have your army."
"It's great to have you on-board. I'll turn you back over to Vanessa because I need to get on with some other stuff. I'll send Joe to speak to you later."
"Be great to catch up. Joe's a sound bloke."
A cough from the PC next to Vanessa made them turn their attention to Mrs Holliday from her position of manning the other machine, in the midst of researching the facility they'd visited. The place where they believed Nancy's kidnappers were holding her against her will.
Rebel sat between her and Vanessa and Mrs Holliday's fingers played over his head as he gazed dreamily up at her. "My dears, I've found out what the building's used for, or at least what it's registered as."
"Tell us more," Frank said.
"It's registered under the company name 'Hope Industries' and is a software development company, but I think they've done the same trick you did with this place. They've registered it legitimately, but using it for another purpose. If you look at the accounts, at first glance, they seem to be doing well…but too well for a business only trading for a matter of months. The building's state of the art too."
"Is it hackable?" Vanessa asked.
Mrs Holliday tittered. "Oh yes, Child, satisfyingly hackable! A far as I can tell the whole building's fed into the online network. My best guess? It's under the control of a parent operation."
"Your best guess is good enough for me," Frank said, and gave Mrs Holliday a peck on the cheek. "Any blueprints?" He gave Vanessa the seat back so she could return to Mark, and her Dark-Net Army.
"Printing them out for you, now." Mrs Holliday headed for the copier.
"You should share those with Mark so he can give his contacts the heads up." Frank looked critically at Vanessa. "Vanessa, this isn't too much for you is it? You look like death. You're so pale!"
"Oh thanks, flatterer," she said and nudged him. "I think I'm rockin' the emo look. If being off my feet for a few days is what it takes, so be it. More ice-cream I say!"
"You're brave."
"Not brave, necessary. And no braver than you'd be."
"Having Mark on board's a great advantage. At least now we know he's trustworthy, and he can be your backup. Don't hold anything back now, tell him everything."
"Can you stop Joe from making a fuss around me? It's disruptive."
"I'll try. Did you find anything out about the 'Authority' Gray described to Joe and Con?"
Vanessa shook her head firmly. "Mark even looked for us. There's no intel…zero…zilch! I agree with Dad, I think Arthur Gray's a fantasist, but we can't take anything for granted. I think it best we assume Gray's speaking the truth so our guard remains up."
"I agree."
Mrs Holliday returned with two large sheets of paper and turned them over to the older Hardy brother.
"Thank you." Frank exited the panic room. He shook his head at the remarkable good fortune of having Mark's help, while he ran his eyes over the blueprints. He took to the stairs, jogged down and moved into the dining room. The others sat around supping coffee. "Joe."
"Yep?"
"Vanessa said to leave her alone."
Joe's hands came out wide."What did I do?"
"You've been fussing around her and its driving her mad, so back off. If she's not up to it, she'll tell us. While she's able to help, we need to allow her to choose where to direct her energy. Don't make her lock you in the John again."
Joe's mouth lifted on one corner. "I probably am hovering too much; call me a hover-boyfriend. I'll back off."
James grinned conspiratorially at Joe. "Shall I take over as a hover-brother instead?"
"Leave her alone," Con said, warningly. "She knows what she's doing."
"Sheesh, kidding, Dad."
Con winked. "I know it's coming from a good place. It's taken all my self-control not to go up there and make her go to bed. Her neck's so bruised; I can only imagine how she feels."
"I've got something else to tell you, Joe, but take a look at this first." Frank went to the dining table. He swept the map to one side and placed the sheets of paper down side-by-side.
"What you got?" Fenton stood to look.
"Plans of the complex, upper and lower floors. Useful to work out what each part of the building's used for. Pin down where we should concentrate our efforts later."
They gathered around to see the floor plan. Immediately they noted the huge, open plan office space on the first floor.
Fenton grunted. "As far as I'm concerned, the first and probably only priority is to get Nancy out. If we can work out where she's likely located, it'll be a huge weight off my mind. I don't care what happens to Pandora after. She can take over the world as far as I'm concerned, so long as Nancy's safe. I promised Carson."
"Quite," Con agreed, "Drew's one of us. Wow, there's a lot of rooms on the second floor. It's not gonna be easy finding her, no obvious prison rooms on this blueprint."
"I wouldn't worry," Frank said quietly. "They'll be begging to hand her over by the time I'm done with them."
They put their heads together and shared thoughts as they pinned down every detail as it came to them. Frank filled them in on what Vanessa had planned with her online friends, and what equipment they needed. No further questions were verbalised; it seemed simple enough, or as simple as one of Frank Hardy's plans ever got.
As the conversation reached its natural termination, Frank addressed Joe. "Go upstairs and have a chat with Vanessa's contact."
"Why? Is he flirting with her? I wouldn't blame him, she's hot-to-trot!"
"Smooth, Joe." James said.
"Doubtful he's hitting on her, Bro. It's Mark Randall."
Joe frowned. "Mark from England?"
"The same."
"But—"
"Don't worry, he's not gone rogue. Go talk."
Joe left the room, and they heard him bound up the stairs.
"You know the guy?" James asked.
"We helped him and his friends out a few years ago. It's unbelievable it's the same man. He's working in British Intelligence. Sounds like he knows what he's doing. He's trustworthy and on our side. He'll go the extra mile. I told Vanessa to use him as a backup. If she goes off her feet, he should be able to cover for her. This is the best news!"
"Whoa!"
"I know. It's great. It's given us a safety net for the weakest part of the plan."
"Don't refer to Van that way, Frank. She's not counter in your game of strategy, standing on an inconvenient square on your board," Con objected.
Frank was hurt. "Con, do you really think I meant it that way? I meant we don't have to worry so much about her now. She can rest if she needs to, doesn't have to carry so much. Mark will be able to communication with the Dark-Net Army so much better than Mrs Holliday if push comes to shove."
"Oh…sorry, my bad."
Frank looked around at everyone. "Can someone come with me to the bank? I have to withdraw some serious money and visit a pharmacy. The last thing I need is to get mugged, or, even worse, snatched off the street at this late stage in the game.
