The Lazarus Plot (5 page)

Iola was obviously in agony over their plight. Joe ached to take her into his arms to comfort her. It hurt him that he couldn't. And what he had to do next hurt him even more... "Look, I don't want to ask you a bunch of questions to prove who you are but I have to," he said. "I mean, I know you're you. No other girl has ever made me feel the way I feel now. That kind of thing can't be faked. But I owe it to Frank to do what I said I would. You know Frank. He doesn't go by gut feelings. He needs facts, and he won't go along with me to save you from Boshevsky unless he has some."

"I understand," said Iola. "I wish now that I weren't me. Or that I had the nerve to say I wasn't or to tell you not to tell them anything even if they torture me. But I can't. I'm just too scared. You see, they made me watch Boshevsky work on somebody once. I know what he can do-and I can't face that happening to me."

She paused, and then went on. "But I don't even know what they want to get out of you. Maybe if it's important enough, I'd be able to stand up to them. "

"There's only one thing they could want to get out of Frank and me," said Joe, "and that's how to contact the Network.”

"The Network?" repeated Iola, puzzled.

"It's a government agency that fights criminals like these," said Joe. "Frank and I hooked up with them after a group that calls themselves the Assassins blew up the car and kidnapped you. We helped the Network stop the Assassins before they pulled off a political murder-Senator Walker's, as a matter of fact... The man you were campaigning for when the car exploded.

"Anyway, the Network sort of let us halfway into their confidence. They gave us a way to contact one of their agents, a guy called the Gray Man, in emergencies. Frank's double tried to fool me into telling how we contact the Network, and I bet that my double tried to fool Frank the same way. They failed, so now they're trying this."

"But why would they want to contact the Network?" wondered Iola, her brows furrowing.

"Beats me, except that it has something to do with our doubles," said Joe. "They could do a lot of damage." "So your secret is important," said Iola.

"It's important, but it isn't as important as you," said Joe, looking hard at the only girl he had ever truly, deeply loved. Then his mouth tightened. "If you are you."

"How can I prove it?" asked Iola with a helpless look in her eyes, as if she could see Boshevsky coming closer.

"Remember our first date?" said Joe suddenly. "Of course," replied Iola. "I remember how I told you I thought you were rude for showing up late, and stuck-up for thinking I'd still go out with you."

"And remember how I apologized right then and there and won you over?" said Joe.

"You did not!" said Iola indignantly. "I didn't go out with you, and it wasn't until the next day when you said how dumb you had been and how sorry you were that we started getting to be friends. But I don't see what - " Then she paused, and her puzzled face brightened. "I see now."

"That's right," said Joe, and went on with his questions. He asked about the first time they had kissed, about their first quarrel, of dream dates they had had and ones that had been absolute disasters. He asked about movies they had seen together, their favorite snacks, plans they had made. He ransacked his memory, and Iola remembered everything as well as he did.

After half an hour he said, "I'm convinced, you are you. The trouble is - " He paused, unable to finish his thought.

Iola did it for him. "I know. The trouble is you don't know whether to be happy or sad about it, because now you have to choose between me and this Network of yours."

Joe's jaw tightened. "There's no choice. You're the one I have to think about. The Network can take care of itself."

He went to the door and gave it a kick to signal the guards who were waiting outside. They opened the door and led Joe and Iola back to join the others. "What did you decide?" the speaker asked. "You win," Joe said, keeping his eyes fixed straight ahead. He didn't want to have to see the pained look on Frank's face. "What do you want me to tell you, as if I didn't know?" "Not very much, merely your procedure for contacting the Gray Man at the Network," the speaker said.

"Don't - " Frank started to say, only to receive a jarring slap of Boshevsky's ham like hand across his mouth.

Instinctively Joe started to move to his brother's aid. The guards at his side grabbed his arms instantly.

"Don't lose your head, Joe," the speaker cautioned. "Remember what will happen to Iola if you do anything foolish."

"Right, right," said Joe, and forced himself to relax his tensed muscles. "And now, the information," said the voice.

Joe spoke quickly, as if he wanted to get it all out before he had second thoughts. "We contact the Network through a special modem, which at the moment is hooked up to Frank's computer in his bedroom back home. The access code is Z slash-two-three-four-one-one-slash-M -O-slash six-six-three. The response identification code is T-I -slash-four - three-three-slash-seven-seven. Our identification code is H-A-slash-two-two two-slash-eight-six."

"I am happy you have been so sensible," the voice said. "Since you are so sensible, I need hardly inform you that if you prove to be lying, Iola will pay the consequences."

"I know," said Joe, gritting his teeth. "Good," said the speaker. "And now that you have kept your part of the bargain, I will keep mine. I promised you that you would feel no pain after you told us what we want to know, and you won't."

Joe felt the guards' hands tighten on his arms as Dr. von Heissen opened a black medical bag.

He removed a hypodermic needle and a vial filled with amber liquid. Then he filled the needle and turned to Frank, who looked defiantly at him, determined not to show any fear.

Swiftly, expertly, the doctor gave Frank an injection. Frank's eyes widened for an instant, then closed as his head dropped and his body slumped.

"Frank," said Joe, barely able to choke out his brother's name.

So this is how we meet our end, Joe thought as the doctor reloaded the hypodermic and moved toward him.

"Gute Nacht," said the doctor as he stuck the needle in Joe's arm and pressed down the plunger.

That means "Good night" was Joe's last thought before he plunged into blackness darker than any night.

THIS HAS TO be a dream, Joe thought.

It was like a dream, a dream that kept repeating itself.

Once again he was being shaken awake. Once again he was in the windowless cell. Once again he saw Frank's face above him.

But this time Frank was dressed as Joe was, in gray sweatpants and shirt.

And Frank's face wore the same slightly dazed expression that Joe's did. "It is you, isn't it?" Joe asked. "Sure is," replied Frank.

“ ... And we're not dead?" said Joe.

"If we are, this isn't my idea of heaven, and I hope we didn't foul up enough to go the other way."

54

By now Joe was fully awake, his mind functioning.

"I wonder why they didn't kill us on the spot," he said. "I can't think of any more use they might have for us.”

"They must have wanted to keep us alive but safely under control long enough to make sure that what you told them was true," said Frank.

He looked hard at Joe, and Joe had to avert his eyes as the awful events flooded back to him.

"Look, I'm sorry, but I had to do it," said Joe.

Frank tried to keep his expression rigid with disapproval, but he couldn't. His face softened. "I know you had to," he said. “I know how much Iola meant to you."

"You don't have to use the past tense," said Joe. "She's alive, remember."

"I'm still not totally convinced of - " said Frank, but when he saw Joe getting ready to argue, he dropped the subject. There were too many much more pressing matters to iron out. "I wonder how long we've been knocked out. I wonder if it's been long enough for our doubles to start doing their dirty work, whatever it is."

"I think we're about to find out," said Joe as he heard a clicking noise. "Somebody's unlocking the door."

The door opened slightly and the barrels of two hunting rifles poked inside. "Hello again, my little deers," said a voice with a strong French-Canadian accent.

"You two back up against the fat wall," said another French-Canadian voice.

The Hardy boys obeyed, and the two hunters who had nearly bagged them in the forest stepped into the cell, Henri, the bald and bearded one, and Jacques, the wiry one. Both still wore their hunting clothes.

"I guess I should be surprised to see you, but, I'm not," said Frank. "Your story sounded a little fishy."

"It was a cover story that we didn't think we'd have to use," said Jacques, shrugging. "We thought we'd knock you off right then and there, and that would be that. But we had strict instructions to be sure to eliminate both of you at the same time, or it was no go. It was vital that no one find out that you had been wiped out."

"That makes sense," said Joe. "Otherwise those doubles of ours would be worthless. Nobody would believe they were us."

"And when you failed, you fell back on your second plan," added Frank. "You put us on Iola's trail."

"Which led us into this trap." Joe finished his brother's train of thought.

"They told us you two were smart, "said Jacques, nodding.

"But not smart enough," said Henri. "Come on, let's get this over with."

"What are you going to do with us?" asked Joe.

"First, we are going to take a little walk in the garden," replied Jacques. "And after that, but we'll let you find out."

"Yes, we will make it a surprise," said Henri with a nasty smile.

Frank and Joe exchanged quick glances. They didn't need words to tell each other what they both clearly saw. Henri and Jacques were still angry at having been beaten in the forest. They were aching for revenge. Frank and Joe would have to be careful not to rub their itchy trigger fingers the wrong way.

The Hardys meekly followed orders as they were marched at gunpoint out of the cell, through the empty corridors of the clinic, and out a door into the abandoned garden. It was night, and the garden looked like a ghostly jungle under the full moon.

"You don't mind if we ask you some questions," said Frank as they walked. "I don't figure you intend to let us live long enough to tell anyone the answers."

"You figure right," replied Jacques with satisfaction. "This time you will not escape our bullets. Just do not try to make any false moves--or you will die even sooner than planned."

"Before that, I'd like to know who it is that's outsmarted us," said Frank in a resigned tone. "I bet it's the Assassins. They're your bosses, and they set this whole operation up to get revenge on us for fouling up one of their plots."

"You're right about us being members of the Assassins," said Jacques. "But you're wrong about everything else," said Henri.

"I don't get it," said Joe. "How can you be working for the Assassins, yet not working for them?"

"The Lazarus Clinic borrowed us from the Assassins to do this job," said Jacques. Joe still looked puzzled. "Borrowed you? You mean, like somebody borrows a lawnmower from a neighbor?"

"Exactly right," said Jacques. "The Lazarus Clinic wanted to cut you down, and the Assassins, had the tools to do it, us."

"Like you said, the Lazarus Clinic and the Assassins are neighbors, good neighbors," added Henri. "The clinic has helped us many times in the past. For large amounts of money, of course, and we were happy to return the favor, naturally, also for a fee. The clinic had no trouble paying it. They run a very profitable business. "You would be amazed at how many people want to change their faces and their identities, you would be even more amazed to know who some of them are. And the size of the bonus we are getting for this Job would absolutely astonish you.

"The clinic couldn't afford to haggle with us. This was too much of a rush job," said Henri.

"The Lazarus people had been shadowing you two for a long time, developing a foolproof plan to snatch you and rub you out in your hometown, with nobody being the wiser. But when they discovered you were coming so close to them, in the Maine woods, it was an opportunity to eliminate you that they could not pass up, even if it meant pushing their plans ahead of schedule and laying out big bucks for us."

"This was a golden chance to get rid of you without a trace," Jacques elaborated. "They could take care of you in the forest, and if that failed, they could lure you here. They are very careful people. They always have a back-up plan."

By then the hunters and the Hardys had reached a small clearing in the garden. The hunters told the boys to stop, raise their hands above their heads, and turn and face the hunters. In the moonlight the Hardy boys could see the rifles aimed straight at their hearts.

"So they needed two killers in a - hurry, and they got you two from the Assassins," said Frank. He kept his voice calm as he repeated what the hunters had said. He didn't want it to sound as if he was desperately playing for time as he tried to figure a way out of this jam.

"That must be why Iola looked so confused when she saw me-they hadn't had time to complete her brainwashing," said Joe. "What a smart young man you are," said Jacques with thick sarcasm. "Yes, you are right. The girl was merely supposed to pretend to run away, so that you would go get your brother and come looking for her. Then when you both came back together, she was supposed to reappear and distract you enough to make sure you were sitting ducks for us."

"Instead, she really did run away, and you were alert enough to save yourselves," said Henri. "I tell you, that failure will not look good on our records when promotion time comes around."

"Still, it did not end badly," said Jacques. "I heard the Lazarus people saying that though your coming here to the clinic presented a slight element of added risk, it also had its good side. They were able to get a very useful piece of extra information from you by capturing you alive."

"I just hope they tell that to the Assassins, so our performance rating is not hurt," said Henri.