CHAPTER 26

Joe and James laughed hysterically as the guards succumbed to whatever poison had been administered to them via their pizza pies. About half of them, so far, had taken a turn for the worse. Two were throwing up in the corner of the car lot, one unable to get up off the ground; another ran headlong into the building, presumably to the bathroom; and two further guards were unsteady to say the least. The final three were staring in consternation at their colleagues, unable to process what had happened, and what would be happening to them.

Even the always professional Con and Fenton were chortling, allowing themselves to enjoy the spectacle. Only Frank retained his stoic game face.

"This isn't gonna kill them is it?" Con asked Frank.

"No, but it'll make their nights uncomfortable in the pant's department." Frank finally smirked. "Teach 'em to drug Joe. Give it another ten minutes, and I'll give Vanessa and Mark the green light."

-o0o-

"Nancy, wake up and talk to me, okay?"

"Okay."

"We're close to the end game. Remember, if you're cooperative I won't turn you over to the Red-Headed Man, but if you're not, there will be consequences, do you understand?"

"I…yes."

"Good. Go to the Bayport Library, right where you were before I told you to have a sleep."

"I don't know…when?"

"Right after Frank texted you his portion of the code."

"Okay."

Nancy went into her pocket and pulled out the screen print of the final clue so she could take another look. She sat back thoughtfully in her chair. 'Perhaps I'm barking up the wrong tree,' she thought and pulled on her lip.

She decided to go and enquire at the front desk, see if the library staff could give her some fresh ideas. Nancy looked at the workers and decided to interrupt the oldest on the assumption age equals experience. "Excuse me."

The woman looked up. "Can I help you?"

"I'm doing some research for a college paper on Greek mythology." She paused and rolled her eyes slightly. "I've been set a little challenge by my Professor to seek out some information on a symbol, but I'm not having much luck." Nancy lifted up the print out and offered it to the lady. "Would it be something you might have come across?" Nancy pointed at the design and drew the woman's attention to it.

The woman peered at the picture for a time and smiled slightly. "Ah, now this does look familiar, but not as a piece of Greek mythology, although there is a vague relation." She lowered the paper and rolled her eyes, the same way Nancy had. "Your professor has been very naughty and sent you on a wild goose chase. A lot of planets, meteors and asteroids are named after Greek characters and I've seen emblems like these to denote asteroids."

Nancy felt herself redden and go slightly hot. "Would you have any books that I can look at?"

"Oh yes, we have a whole section, come on, I'll show you." …

"Nancy, can you move on another five minutes? And hurry up I'm losing patience, and you don't want me to get the man to beat the last section of code out of you."

"Please don't."

"Hurry up then."

"Okay."

Nancy laid a big book out on the table, a tome of massive proportions. She turned straight to the 'E' section and ran her finger down the names of the various asteroids to search for those named after Greek gods or goddesses.

About a third of the way down the fourth page she found it - a downward curve over a double-sided arrow. It denoted an asteroid known as Epimetheus (number …

"What did you say Nancy? Did you just say 'number'?"

"Yes."

"Not 'letter' or 'digit'?"

"No…I….not this time no, this one's numbers."

"Nancy, have you been lying to me this whole time?"

"No, I don't…leave me alone…Joe?"

"Consider the time you bought for yourself all spent up!"

Nancy felt her face rock to the side, but didn't know what she'd experienced was a hit.

Nancy jumped out of her seat in the library. She looked around for Joe, but he wasn't there. Something had happened, something was terribly, terribly wrong.

"Shushhh!" the librarian said loudly, but Nancy, so tightly wound, couldn't stop. She grew hotter and hotter, overheating.

"What's going on?" she asked, and staggered against the bookcase behind her. "What?" She looked at the other people who stared as she slipped sideways and dropped down to one knee.

She took hold of one of the tables and heaved herself up, coming face-to-face with a man sat there. Although she'd been aware of his presence at the desk next to hers, she'd not paid him any heed - a Red-Headed Man, athletic and tall, with scary, dead eyes. She knew him, didn't know why, but she did…and she feared him.

He reared out of the seat, grabbed, and pulled her over the table to him.

She screamed loud, and long, and couldn't stop …

-o0o-

The five men came down off the high ground and approached the gates to Hope Industries. Frank accessed his cell; speed dialled for Vanessa, and pressed the phone to his ear. "Go," he instructed and re-pocketed the phone. "Good luck everyone."

"You too, Son…Joe." Fenton muttered back.

"James?" Con asked his son.

"Don't worry about me, Dad. I'm ready."

"Luck, Flash."

"Back at ya, Zarkof. Jimmy."

"Mr H."

Joe reached, gripped his brother's forearm and Frank grasped on for an instant.

They turned their full attention to the matter in hand, unclipped their gun holsters, lifted Glocks free and held them in heavy, anticipated silence. Joe breathed out slowly, tried to let the tension go.

The floodlights blinked off and plunged the outside complex into blackness.

Joe held his breath now.

The downing of the lights threw the security detail into confusion. Now, not only were the majority of them sick, but they had an apparent electrical fault on their hands. None had apparently noticed the five men loitering at the entrance.

The gate opened, it's well oiled components ensuring silence.

Frank and his team paced through into the parking lot. "Well done, Vanessa."

Joe looked at his brother. He could tell from Frank's body language he'd allowed the darkness he stored deep within to slink up. With palpable intensity, nothing would distract Frank from their mission of rescuing his girl tonight, only death.

The extinguished lights now made them indiscernible from the security detail in their dark clothes, and put them at such an advantage they strode a good distance across the lot before anyone reacted.

One of the guards weaved in James' direction to cut them off, probably figuring, as the shortest of the group, James would prove the easiest to take out. James, however, kicked the guy's ankles out from under him. He fell and stayed down. Easy prey, considering he'd been so sick earlier.

A big man emerged from within the building this time. "Can I help you?" he asked, trying to maintain the company's illusion of respectability…until he reached them and focused on what he faced.

"I'm Frank Hardy." Frank pinned him with a shadowed, dark glare and didn't break stride. "We've come for Nancy Drew, and you won't stop us, you're not good enough."

The man's mouth opened wide, and Joe went for him. "I suggest you get massively lost, Dude, unless you want to make hay? I'm happy if you want to? Do you want to?"

The man stuttered, tried to form words, but couldn't. Presumably he didn't know how to react to an enormously pissed off Frank Hardy, three heavily armed men and a guy spoiling for a fight, as big as himself but twice as fit.

Joe lashed out and took the man down with the butt of his gun. He intended to follow his brother's instruction of 'not to hesitate'. Besides which, he felt satisfaction at doling out retribution for what had been done to Vanessa.

It seemed they all recognized the serious and unpredictable nature of their situation. Fenton demonstrated this by booting the man James had dropped as he walked by. Two guards out of action were two less to worry about. Not all the security detail had been in the mood for Italian food tonight.

Frank's phone buzzed.

He retrieved it from his pocket, and read a message. "Good," he muttered, and dropped it back into his pocket.

They reached the complex's doors and strung themselves along them. Frank and Joe pushed through, with the others only a couple of steps behind. They found the entire row unlocked, probably because of Vanessa, Mark and their Dark-Net Army overriding the Hope Industries security settings. Not only were the doors open, and the floodlights disabled, but the windows were opening and closing automatically, clicking and snapping as the locks flicked off and on, off and on. A poltergeist had taken up residence.

They stood in the entranceway and took a look at the large, open plan office area. They found the same banks of desks as Nancy earlier, with operators sitting in front of computers.

Although not taken aback at the size of the open-plan bullpen, the huge monitor with the image of Pandora looking down on them did. Underneath her image were four boxes, waiting for the code to be entered. Three portions had been keyed in with letters. Frank peaked a brow. Although Doctor Cox had buried the code in the labyrinth of his mind, he still knew the code on the screen had been keyed in incorrectly. He didn't know what they'd done to his adored Nancy to get the 'code' out of her, but they'd failed. The new Posse hadn't realized they'd been duped, and it filled him with hope.

The lights blinked out, the windows still banged.

The team raised their guns high defensively, and made their way further into the room.

The lights came back up, but not fully and flickered - Pandora's image pixilated.

From the confused way the workers in the office reacted, Vanessa and her Dark-Net Army needed to be congratulated - this wasn't the work of the new Posse or any sort of external tech support.

The operators talked excitedly to each other bemused, their attentions pulled away from their desk screens and to the strange happenings in the office. Some heads turned toward the doors, realising they had armed strangers in their midst.

The lights came up fully again, Pandora's image stabilised, and the windows stilled.

Fenton raised his gun in the air, and fired. Everyone in the room jumped clear out of their skins, spun and rose urgently from their chairs. "No one move!" Fenton warned in a clear voice, and walked further inside. "And I mean no one." Everyone froze, startled out of their wits.

"Everyone be cool, and no one gets hurt." Joe said, supporting his father. He panned his gun levelly about from person-to-person, trying not to respond to the number of Hoppy the Hamster t-shirts the operators wore.

Con moved in the opposite direction, to plug the gap Fenton had left.

The team aimed to cut everyone off from the main exits. They were aware of movement in the parking area behind them, of people fleeing and cars leaving - escaping through alternative exits from the upper floor. They didn't want it to happen here.

A sudden movement on the stairwell.

James shifted his stance and fired. Someone screamed as a metal object clattered down the stairs, rebounded off the wall and skittered into the main room - a handgun, bigger than the Glocks the team used. A man, about halfway down the steps, clutched his hand and glared reproachfully at the intruders. Although the man grasped his palm, no blood could be seen. It seemed James had shot the gun straight from his fingers.

Con stared at his son in amazement.

James snapped at the man, "He said not to move, buddy. That included aiming guns!" James bypassed Fenton, and made his way to the other end of the office until he faced the man on the stairs. He indicated with an index finger for the man to come down, and pointed to where James wanted him to stand. Then he kicked the man's weapon far under the stairwell, out of temptation's way. "You move again, I'll kneecap you."

Frank spoke up loudly, "We've come for Nancy Drew." He turned his dark glare on the man sat closest to him and strode over. "Tell me where she is." Frank lowered his weapon. "Speak. NOW!"

The man stared agog at Frank, and his mouth flapped. "She's…she's…uh—"

Nancy started to scream.

Frank's attention snapped to the right, to the upper level. He moved quickly, and tapped Joe's arm as he passed. "Clear everyone out," he told the other three. "You know what to do. If anyone gives you trouble, as James said, kneecap them." He pointed exaggeratedly at a security camera, aimed his thumb, and ran down the length of the room to the staircase with Joe sprinting behind him. The sound of Nancy's screams didn't stop or lessen in volume.

"You sicken me!" They heard Fenton shout at the people being herded to the back of the room. "How can you sit there typing, knowing that girl's up there?"

Frank and Joe hit the landing and began to open doors. As expected, they found corridors beyond with other doors leading off. They discounted the first corridor, as when Frank stuck his head in the screams receded slightly. He left it and moved to the next, while Joe took the third door.

Joe opened up. He'd found the right corridor, obvious as Nancy's yells became shriller. "HERE!" He shot through.

They moved quickly along the corridor, opening doors until Joe found the right room. He stuck his head in and took an information gathering look.

He saw Nancy in the middle of the room, strapped to a gurney, screaming in terror. Her back arched in the throes of what appeared to be an out-of-control convulsive fit. The woman who'd spiked Frank's drink stood to the side, going through a red medical bag at a table. Two other men were there, on the other side of the room, their startled faces turned in Joe's direction.

The woman seemed unaware of the drama being played out downstairs, so Joe took her by surprise. He ran in and intercepted to pull her away from the bag. He threw her up against the sink.

Frank followed, went straight to Nancy and laid a possessive hand on her. He too saw the men. "Get the HELL out!" He commanded, and aimed his gun. They ran. Frank holstered his Glock and began to try to calm Nancy down.

Joe shook the woman hotly. "What did you do to her?"

The woman stared up at him dumbfounded. "You again? Joe Hardy, always in the way!" Her eyes fell on Frank. "My associate's searching for you, the best you can do is get out of here because he'll be back soon. Leave her, she's doesn't care about you anymore. Never will."

"Shut your mouth, you evil bitch!" Joe spat, pulled her forward and pushed her into the sink again.

Frank leaned over Nancy. "Nan! NAN! Hey, sweetheart, calm down we're here." He paused, and spun at the woman. "What did you do to her face?"

"I didn't do anything, but my friend will do plenty to you, and much worse."