High-Speed Showdown by Franklin W. Dixon Page A

sprawling to the deck. His head slammed into the siderail.
    For one moment Joe imagined that he was on the football field. Someone on defense had just blindsided him. Then he remembered where he was and what he had to do. He shook his head to clear it, then crawled over the rear bench seat. The manual throttle on the big outboard was under the engine housing and hidden by a thicket of control cables. Joe groped for it, being careful not to touch the hot metal housing, and gave it a hard twist to the left. The motor coughed and died.
    Sleuth settled into the water and began to rock from the effect of its own wake. Joe straightened up and looked around. The windsurfers were now gliding past the starboard beam, near enough for him to see their frightened expressions. Some of them looked angry. That had been close.
    Joe rejoined Frank at the helm. “What happened?” he demanded. “Did the throttle cable break?”
    Frank looked up at him grimly. “No, it came unscrewed,” he replied. “Here, take a look.”
    He held up the end of the cable. Joe studied it. There were fresh scratches on the locking collar. “Somebody must have loosened it until it was just barely on,” he said.
    â€œAnd when I pushed it to full ahead, it came off,” Frank said, finishing the thought. “What would you like to bet that that call about somebodymessing with the buoys was a hoax, to lure us out onto the water?”
    â€œUh-huh. And—Frank, wait,” Joe said. He felt a thrill of excitement. “Whoever made that call had to know the number of our cellular phone. That means we can narrow it down to one of the people in the lobby this morning.”
    â€œNot quite,” Frank said, with a shake of the head. “I gave Connie our numbers, remember?”
    The thrill died down. “Oh, right,” Joe said. “I forgot. But, hey, that was right before we left her. And the call came through just five minutes or so later. Awfully fast work.”
    â€œFast, yeah, but just barely possible,” Frank replied. “If she knew how to contact Angelo, and he was already at the marina, he could have called us, then jiggered the throttle cable. I’m not saying they did it, but we can’t cross them off.”
    It took ten minutes of concentrated work to reattach the throttle cable and motor back to the dock. Joe and Frank jumped out, tied up Sleuth , and went straight to the Earthquest slip. The big rubber boat was there. So was Angelo. He had his back to them, as he rummaged through a jumbled wooden locker.
    â€œAngelo?” Frank said. “We need to talk.”
    Angelo jumped up and whirled around to face the Hardys. He reached out to close the locker door, but Joe put out an arm and stopped him. On the floor of the locker, peeping out from under apile of orange life preservers, was a compact but powerful bolt cutter—the exact tool that could have been used to sever the cables on the marker buoys.
    â€œWhat do you need that for?” Joe demanded, pointing at the bolt cutter.
    Angelo looked down, then used his heel to kick the tool farther out of sight under the life preservers. “None of your business,” he said sullenly.
    â€œSomebody messed with our boat this morning,” Frank told him. “You wouldn’t know anything about it, would you?”
    â€œNot a thing. Get lost,” Angelo retorted. He started to turn his back on them. Joe reached out to stop him. But at the first touch of Joe’s hand, Angelo spun back around and knocked Joe’s arm away.
    â€œKeep your hands off me,” he shouted.
    Joe took a step back and held up his hands, palms outward. “Okay,” he said. “Take it easy.”
    â€œAngelo, do you know anything about Barry Batten’s medallion?” Frank asked.
    Angelo scowled at him. “I know somebody ought to rip it off his neck and throw it back in the ocean where it belongs,” he