The Pentagon Spy Read Online Free PDF

are stronger than others, and I’m not taking any chances. The thieves might be using the pentagram hex too. Now follow me.”
    He led them around the barn, explaining that, because of its height, anyone climbing up to the roof would have to use a fireman’s ladder. “There’s a staircase inside. It leads to that skylight above the gutter, which is the only exit from the loft to the roof.”
    The boys craned their necks to see where he was pointing. They noticed a man glaring down at them from the skylight with a sinister expression. He pulled back when he saw them looking at him.
    â€œI wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley,” Chet muttered.
    â€œCheer up,” Joe encouraged their rotund friend. “No alleys on the farm.”
    â€œVery funny!” Chet growled.
    The group circled the barn and arrived back at the front door. “You can see how the other weather vanes vanished,” Hammerley noted. “They were left unprotected. Here, as long as somebody is in the loft, the Flashing Arrow is safe. My foreman has been sleeping in the barn for the past few nights, as I told you in Bayport.”
    Just then the man they had seen at the skylight came out of the door. Hammerley introduced him as Crow Morven, the foreman of the farm.
    â€œI was in the loft all night,” Morven reported to Hammerley. “Nothing happened. I guess the crooks aren’t thinking of stealing your weather vane.”
    â€œCould be a setup,” Chet said. “Make you forget the Flashing Arrow’s in danger, and one night—whammo—it’ll be gone.”
    â€œYou got it figured out, haven’t you, wise guy?” Morven scoffed. “The Flashing Arrow is safe as long as I’m foreman. You can bet on it.”
    â€œNobody’s betting against you, Crow,” Hammerley soothed his employee. “Now, suppose you take our visitors up to the roof and let them inspect the weather vane.”
    The farmer went back to the house, while Morven led the way into the barn. They climbed the stairs past two landings into the loft, which was a broad room with a low ceiling. A pile of hay filled one corner. The skylight window admitted the rays of the sun.
    Morven pushed open the skylight, allowing the boys to see how the roof dropped away at a steep angle toward the gutter. There was nothing beneath it but a long fall down to the ground.
    The foreman gave the boys an evil grin. “Want to follow me out there?” he challenged them.
    â€œSure,” said Frank and Joe.
    Chet poked his head out the skylight, blanched at the height, and quickly pulled back. “I think I’ll pass,” he gasped. “I’ll check out the loft instead.”
    Frank and Joe climbed through the skylight after the unfriendly foreman, pressing their feet against the gutter to get a toehold. Then, doubled over and clutching the wooden shingles with their fingers as they went, they worked their way up the steep incline of the roof.
    Although Morven was used to the barn, he fell behind Frank and Joe in the climb to the apex, where the other side of the roof dropped away in the opposite direction. Joe was in the lead. Halfway up, a shingle snapped in his hand, but he managed to steady himself.
    When they reached the apex, they stood up. They could see the surrounding area. A stream meandered through a woods, and a row of small hills rose beyond it.
    â€œTime to go back,” Morven said after they had taken in the view. “I haven’t got all day!”
    â€œWe’d like to inspect the weather vane first,” Frank replied. “Mr. Hammerley said we should.”
    â€œIs there some reason you don’t want us near it?” Joe asked suspiciously.
    â€œOf course not,” Morven snarled. “Come on.”
    The Hardys were used to heights. They had done some mountaineering, and many of their cases had forced them into death-defying feats high above the