THE INFINITY CLUE.
FRANKLIN W DIXON.
CHAPTER I.
The Trembling Ground.
Frank and Joe Hardy scanned the wide valley that appeared before them, as their yellow sports sedan rounded the crest of a hill. In the distance, a huge cylindrical tower rose from the valley floor.
"Looks like a giant barnacle," Joe remarked to his older, dark-haired brother, Frank.
Biff Hooper, a tall, muscular high school friend of the two amateur detectives, leaned forward from the backseat. "You"re looking at the cooling tower. The reactor itself is in the building next to it."
Biff"s uncle, Jerry Hooper, was a nuclear engineer at the Bayridge Nuclear Power Plant, located outside Bayport. He had invited the three boys on a private afternoon tour of the facility. The summer had just begun and the Hardy brothers were eager for new adventures.
A few minutes later, the yellow car arrived at the power plant"s front gate, where a uniformed guard checked identifications before letting the boys pa.s.s through.
"There"s Uncle Jerry," Biff said, indicating a man dressed in a white smock who stood at the entrance.
"I"m not sure you"ll find this very exciting," Mr. Hooper warned as he shook Frank"s and Joe"s hands and led them inside. "Nuclear power is produced by a fairly simple process. No wild flashing lights or bizarre sounds like in science fiction movies."
The group followed him along an elevated steel walkway through several levels of the immense structure.
"Is that the reactor?" Joe asked, having traced a huge pipe to its source.
"It"s the tip of the iceberg, so to speak," the engineer replied. "Most of the reactor is hidden."
Frank gazed at the strange device. "Isn"t a nuclear reactor like a contained nuclear bomb explosion?"
Mr. Hooper smiled. "Yes, it"s similar. But it"s in no danger of blowing up." He explained that water traveled through the pipes at temperatures of six hundred degrees, nearly three times the boiling temperature for water.
"Is that what"s making that low rumbling noise?" Biff inquired.
"Low rumble?" his uncle asked as a look of concern crossed his face.
The group stopped and listened. A dull sound seemed to come out of the earth itself, growing by the second in intensity.
"I hear it too!" Joe cried, breaking their tense silence. "It"s getting louder!"
By the time the blond youth had finished his sentence, they not only heard the rumble, but also felt the steel walkway vibrate.
Suddenly, a chorus of alarms blared warnings throughout the power plant. Fear that the whole building was about to explode gripped the young visitors, and all eyes turned to Biff"s uncle for direction.
"Follow me!" Mr. Hooper frantically ordered as he went back down the steel walkway. By the time they had descended to the next level, the plant was shaking violently. Pipes began to crack, gushing huge clouds of steam. The boys stumbled and groped their way along, trying not to lose their footing.
"Watch out!" the engineer called back as a pipe broke near him.
The scalding hot steam that shot from it made the visitors" journey along the shaking steel walkway, all the more dangerous. Finally, they arrived at the control room, where men were already at work on the problem.
"Where"s Joe?" Frank asked suddenly.
"He was behind me!" Biff exclaimed, as he, too, realized Joe wasn"t with them.
Without hesitation, both boys ran from the control room. Although the rumbling was beginning to die down, the alarms were still blaring and the hot steam cloud cut visibility almost to zero. They called Joe"s name, but the noise made by the hissing steam, the alarms, and the rumble all but drowned out their voices. To be caught by a direct spray of steam, they knew, could cook them like lobsters in a matter of seconds.
Just then, Frank stumbled over something. "Joe!" he gasped, finding his brother"s body face down on the concrete floor.
Cradling the boy"s limp form between them, Frank and Biff carried him through the plant toward safety.
By the time they reached the control room, the rumbling had stopped. Mr. Hooper and the other engineers threw switches on the control panel, activating cut-off valves to the damaged pipes.
Frank and Biff laid Joe on a couch in the adjoining lobby. Frank could see that his brother wasn"t burned, but had received a nasty lump on the head.
"Wha-what happened?" Joe asked as he slowly opened his eyes.
"You must have slipped," Frank replied, relieved that Joe was apparently all right. "Lucky for you to have landed on your thick head or you might have been hurt!"
Joe smiled thinly at Frank"s kidding, but his expression became serious as Mr. Hooper approached to take a look at him. "I meant, what happened to the plant?"
All eyes turned to the nuclear engineer. His face was pale. "I"m afraid we had a minor earthquake. It seems to be over now, however, and the situation is well under control."
Frank, noticing the ashen look on Mr. Hooper"s face, asked, "What might have happened if the quake had been worse?"
Mr. Hooper frowned. "The effect could have been disastrous. Had the reactor core cracked or the cooling system broken down, it could have contaminated the area for miles with radiation. Fortunately, nothing like this appears to have happened. But for safety"s sake, you boys had better leave the plant immediately."
He gave them special suits to guard them against possible exposure to radiation in the plant. Now able to stand, Joe put on the suit with the help of his brother, and the three left the building. Their yellow sports sedan was still in the parking lot, unharmed by the quake. Leaving the protective suits with the guard at the front gate, the trio headed back to Bayport.
"This isn"t an earthquake-p.r.o.ne area," observed Frank. "In fact, I"ve never even heard of a tremor around Bayport,"
"Neither have I," Joe agreed, and switched on the radio for a broadcast on the strange event.
The earthquake, a local station reported, had affected an area about twenty miles wide, including Bayport. It registered between two and three on the Richter scale, making it a fairly small quake. Experts were, however, perplexed. No tremors had ever been recorded in the area.
"It may have been a minor quake," Joe said, feeling the lump forming above his forehead, "but this b.u.mp is anything but small!"
A worried expression came over Biff"s face. "I hope everyone"s okay back home!"
Frank and Joe shared Biff"s concern, and they rode back to town anxious and quiet. On the way, they pa.s.sed fallen telephone poles and fences. Cattle, dazed by the event, had just begun to settle down to grazing again.
By the time they reached Bayport, it was clear that the city had received much less of a jolt than the power plant. A few windows were shattered and electricity was out. A report came over the radio that the nuclear plant had been badly shaken, but the current would be restored as soon as the engineers had cleared up minor difficulties.
After dropping Biff off, Frank and Joe headed homeward.
"It could have been a lot worse," Joe remarked.
"Don"t count your blessings yet," the older Hardy warned. "Earthquakes have aftershocks, sometimes as strong as the quakes themselves." He paused, then pointed to the side of the road. "Hey!" he exclaimed.
"Isn"t that the Mortons" car?"
A blue Ford had run off the road into a ditch. n.o.body seemed to be inside.
"Looks like it," Joe answered. "Better pull over."
Chet Morton, a chunky, longtime pal of the Hardys, had often joined them in solving mysteries. He lived on a farm just outside of town.
"Do you think Chet was on his way to our place?" Joe asked, finding the vehicle unoccupied.
"He must have known we weren"t home," Frank mused.
The brothers hopped back in their car. After driving a few blocks, they turned on Elm Street and parked outside their house. Night had fallen, and with the power off, homes and street lights were dark.
"Has Chet been here?" Joe asked Mrs. Hardy when she greeted her sons at the door, holding a candle.
Instead of answering, she smiled. "I have a surprise for you. It"s in the dining room."
Frank opened the dining room door. Seated at the table were Chet, Aunt Gertrude, Iola Morton, and Callie Shaw.
"We"ve been waiting hours for you two," Aunt Gertrude scolded. "Dinner is long cold!"
"Sorry," Frank apologized. "We got caught in the earthquake." He knew his aunt had a soft spot in her heart for her nephews, and that she tried to hide it behind her stern and authoritative manner.
Joe looked questioningly at Chet. "We found your parents" car."
"Don"t look at me!" Chet defended himself. "She was driving." He pointed at his sister.
Pretty, pixie-faced Iola, who often dated Joe, blushed. "I guess when I felt the rumbling, I panicked."
"That clears up one mystery," Frank said with a chuckle. "But it"s still a mystery to me what everyone"s doing here for dinner."
"We thought we would all like to have one last meal together before we possibly never see you again,"
Chet said offhandedly.
"Oh, stop being so melodramatic," Mrs. Hardy said with a chuckle. Then she turned to the boys. "I invited your friends to dinner when I learned about your trip to Washington, D.C."
"What trip?" Frank was dumbfounded.
His mother handed him a slip of paper. "The German amba.s.sador called this morning with a message from your father!"
CHAPTER II.
Unwelcome Visitors Frank held the message up to the candlelight, read it, then pa.s.sed it to his younger brother. It said: SMITHSONIAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY.
TUESDAY ELEVEN-THIRTY. CONTACT H. W.-.
BEWARE INFINITY.
The Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, the boys knew, was a small part of the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution, a vast enterprise of scientific research and learning located in Washington, D.C.
"I wonder how this fits in with Dad"s case," Joe mused.
Fenton Hardy, the boys" famous detective father, was presently in Germany investigating a ring of terrorists believed to be involved in the production of sophisticated weaponry. Sponsored by the German government, Mr. Hardy"s work was top secret. He couldn"t even contact his own family but had to communicate through the German amba.s.sador in Washington, Gerd Kriegler.
"The amba.s.sador said his son, Fritz, would meet you at Washington National Airport at eleven in the morning," Mrs. Hardy told her sons as they began their candlelight dinner of roast beef and mashed potatoes.
Frank stared at his plate. "Beware infinity." He mused on his father"s curious warning over the word that meant never-ending, or forever.
Joe shared his brother"s concern over the cryptic note. "I wonder why Dad didn"t send us more information on the case," he whispered to Frank. "He "must know more about the dangers behind "infinity" than he let on in the note. The message sounds like it was communicated to Kriegler hastily, as if Dad was in a tight spot at the time."
"I don"t know," Frank answered, still appearing to be lost in thought. "Maybe Amba.s.sador Kriegler will fill us in on the details when we get to Washington."
"I sure hope he does."
"There will be no whispering at the table," Aunt Gertrude spoke up sternly. "If you two have something to talk about, you can either share it with all of us or save it until we"ve finished eating."
"We were just discussing our upcoming trip to Washington, Aunty," Frank said, not wanting to spoil the party by expressing their concern over their father.
"Actually, it"s too bad you have to go," Iola spoke up. "There"s a dance at the high school this weekend, and we were hoping you"d come with us."
Joe made a face. "I hate to miss it," he admitted.
Everyone talked about the dance, and the infinity clue was momentarily forgotten.
After dinner, Iola and Callie, a vivacious blonde who was Frank"s girlfriend, offered to wash the dishes if the boys would do the drying and stacking. They all set to work.
"Why don"t you come with us?" Joe asked Chet.
"No way," answered the chunky boy as he cleaned the dessert plate by consuming the uneaten portions.
"This time you"re talking about foreign terrorists, the worst kind of bad. Anyway, I want to spend a few days studying up on earthquakes."
"Too bad," Joe said as he winked at his brother, "because we"ll be staying at the German Emba.s.sy, where I hear there"s a European chef preparing gourmet meals every day."
"Also," Frank put in, "the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution probably has an authority on seismology who would love to discuss earthquakes with you."
Chet weakened at the thought, but stood his ground. "I still say no thanks. No terrorists for me.