Plot summary

This book opens with Frank, Joe & Chet being involved in a traffic accident with a Mack truck. Their car damaged, the drivers of the Mack truck offer the boys a lift to the next town. Unfortunately the truck gets hijacked by a gang and the drivers locked up in the trailer. Later Mr. Hardy tells the boys that there have been a number of hijackings against that firm, the Ortiz Trucking Company, and that he's going to Washington the following day to help the FBI investigate the hijackings.

Initially, Frank, Joe and Chet work undercover as drivers at the Ortiz Trucking Company before Joe finds himself hijacked by one of the gang. Tracking the gang down, Frank, Joe & Chet stow away on a ship named the Mary Malone and find themselves facing the gang, corrupt officials and a bomb making scientist who accidentally starts the countdown on one of his bombs......

• Publication date: 1982