The Case of the Vanishing Boy (11 page)

“It's locked,” Ginny whispered, instantly picking up his thoughts. “I found the lock, and it's closed tight. Do—do you s'pose we could dig our way under the wire somewhere?”

“We'll just have to,” he whispered back, and twisted around in the ivy so he could feel the lower part of the fence. The steel links went down into the ground. They would have to search for a low spot; then maybe, if he could locate something to dig with …

He raised up and quickly studied the area in front of him. Immediately ahead, and joined to the house by a covered walkway, was a long structure that blocked part of the lighted circle. It looked like an old coach house or stable that had been turned into a garage. Surely he could find a shovel or something inside …

“Stay here,” he ordered, “and keep the vines over you. I'm going to get a shovel.”

Before she could protest he darted forward to the nearest corner of the building and crept cautiously around the end of it away from the house. As he reached the far corner he heard the helicopter closing in somewhere behind him. He hesitated, peering around the edge, and saw that the place was indeed a garage and raced inside.

His head still hurt and it was hard to keep his thoughts straight, yet he must concentrate on finding what he needed and getting out of here before the helicopter set down. The landing lights outside clearly showed him everything in the place—three cars and a familiar white van, and an untidy workbench in the rear. There was no sign of a shovel or any sort of garden tool.

He sped to the workbench and snatched up the first thing he saw that he might possibly dig with. It was a heavy hatchet. Whirling, he ran to the door with it, then stopped abruptly and backed away.

The helicopter was coming down directly in front of him, and someone was approaching swiftly from the house.

11

CHESS

He crouched behind the van and watched the stocky pilot swing down to the ground after the rotors stopped, and speak to someone who had come out to meet him. With a cold little ripple of shock he realized that the man from the house was Bolinsky, the muscular guard he'd attacked with a lamp base.

Just why he suddenly knew Bolinsky by sight and name was beyond him, yet little fragments of memory were crowding upon him, insisting that his mind receive them. But he had no time now. He thrust them away and tried to think, for all at once it had come to him that this was like the final part of a desperate game of chess; he and Ginny were bound to lose unless he thought of all the possible moves ahead and chose exactly the right ones.

He watched Bolinsky and Clausen, the pilot, hurry toward the house, then ran to the door—only to stop in abrupt indecision. What was he planning to do? Find a low place and dig a hole under the fence with a hatchet? How long would it take? Even now Big Doc must be climbing the stairs to administer the sedatives Helga had ordered him to give. Or he could be there this very moment, furiously trying to open one of the doors from which the keys had been taken. Unless duplicate keys were handy, the doors would be broken open—and immediately the whole staff would be sent on a frantic search of the house and grounds. Could he and Ginny tunnel under a buried fence without being discovered by the searching staff?

Jan wavered; the ringing was still in his head, and it was hard to keep his thoughts together. Then he looked at the helicopter, and it suddenly came to him that there was only one good chess move he could make at this moment. The fence could wait.

Abruptly he dashed from the garage and raced as fast as he could across the lighted area to the open door of the machine. He had no memory of ever having been in a helicopter before, and he was surprised at the size of this one, but he wasted not an instant looking around. Three quick steps took him to the pilot's seat, where he began swinging the hatchet as fast and as hard as he could. In a matter of seconds he had destroyed the compass and half the instrument panel, and everything that looked important including the radio. Before he smashed it he wondered if he should try to use it and call for help, but instantly discarded the idea because he was totally unfamiliar with the instrument, and his location was still a mystery.

He was racing back to the garage when he heard the alarm go off in the house again. It was followed by the muffled but angry sound of a voice giving orders over the loudspeaker.

For a second he thought he'd been seen. Then it came to him that the locked doors had been opened and their escape discovered. Time had run out.

Even so, he did not hesitate when he reached the first car, which happened to be the van. Destroying the rear tires of the cars took longer than disabling the helicopter, though he managed it quickly enough when he learned the trick of slashing at the sidewalls with the hatchet's sharp point.

The final tire collapsed with a satisfying rush of air before he heard a door slam at the rear of the house. It was followed by voices and rapid footsteps on the gravel outside, but by now he was moving swiftly through the back of the garage, wondering how he could reach Ginny without being seen.

The problem was solved for him when he rounded the corner of the van, for he came face to face with her.

In a frightened whisper she said accusingly, “W-what on earth are you
doing?
”

Instead of answering he put a hurried finger to his lips, cautiously opened the van's rear door, and ordered her inside with a jerk of his head. He followed her in and very carefully pulled the door closed. When it clicked shut he wasn't sure whether it automatically locked or not, but at least they were safe for the time being.

He listened a moment, and when he could hear no one near, he said quietly, “I couldn't find anything but this hatchet to dig with, so I figured I'd better wreck the helicopter and do something to the cars. Now they're stuck here and can't take us away.”

“Oh—of course!” she whispered, picking up his thoughts. “Thank goodness you pulled it off! We couldn't have dug under the fence in time without being seen—they've got lights on all around the grounds. I'm so thankful they haven't got a watchdog here, or we'd be sunk.”

“Big Doc hates dogs,” he told her.

“How—how do you know that?”

“It just came back to me—like some other things. I'm still wondering how you got out of your room.”

“That was easy. They didn't take my glasses, and there was a piece of paper lining the drawer of my table. I stuck the paper under the door, punched the key out on it with the earpiece of my glasses, and pulled the key to me with the paper. I had a little trouble because of the carpet, but I fished the key under the door.” She stopped and listened a moment, then said uneasily, “What are we going to do now?”

“Can you talk to Otis?”

“Yes. I thought sure he'd fall asleep before this, but he's still wide awake.”

“Has he told you about Nat Martin?”

“Yes, and the transmitter. I told him they'd found it on you and smashed it.”

“How'd you know that?”

“Big Doc came to my room and showed it to me—in the dark. He knows all about my eyes.” In the vague light coming through the small opening in the partition behind her, he saw her clench her small fists and beat them on the padded floor. “That horrible man! He's been spying on us for months. He knows all about the Rhodes family. He—he said if I didn't behave and do as I was told, that things would go badly for me and worse for you. Oh, if I'd just been able to do like Pops, and point my finger …”

“I—I know how you feel. It got me the same way when he came to my room and told me how bad it would be for you if I didn't behave. I could have …” Jan shook his head, and asked, “Does he know you can talk to Otis?”

“I don't think so. I picked a lot of crazy things out of that snaky mind of his—things I'm still trying to put together—but not that.”

“Ask Otis if Nat Martin is still there.”

“He's there, and so's everybody else. When I was back there by the fence I told Otis we'd managed to get out of the house, but that the fence had us stumped. So they're all waiting to see how we make out. Mr. Martin wants us to tell him anything we've learned that might give him a clue to where we are—traffic sounds, planes going over, something somebody may've said …”

“Tell Otis to ask him if he's got another transmitter. If he has, I'm going back right away and get it.”

“Jan! Do—do you think you can—after all that's happened to you?”

“I've
got
to! Ask him!”

Tensely he waited while she clenched her hands and called silently to Otis again. Presently she raised her head. “Yes,” she said, in a whisper so low he could hardly hear her. “They've got another transmitter. It's a bigger one, with a much longer range.”

He was greatly relieved. “Okay. I'm on my way. I'll be back just as soon as I can.”

It was only now, when he had stretched out on the padded floor of the van and closed his eyes, that doubt rose like an impenetrable gray wall to block him. His head still hurt, and the curious ringing in his ears hadn't stopped. He'd always been strong, but after the drug and the shock and the crack on the head when he fell, he suddenly wondered if he had enough energy left for even a one-way trip, not to speak of a return. It seemed impossible.

But he'd done it before. He'd done it twice before in his memory—though never over such a distance. Still, distance shouldn't matter, not even physical strength. Wasn't it entirely of the mind? When he was very little, his father …

His father? He clenched his hands and closed his eyes tighter, trying not to think of his father. There wasn't time for that now. He had to get to the Rhodes' library, and the only way to do that was to concentrate on it until he could see it in every detail as if he were there—and to want to be there so badly that he could actually feel the blue Chinese rug under his hands …

Gradually the library sharpened in his mind. The chairs, the piano, the long shelves of books took on the reality of three dimensions. The ringing in his head became a whirling. There was a curious sharp sound as of air being displaced, and suddenly the rough texture of the van's padding softened and became something else.

He knew he was there even before he heard the exclamations and gasps of relief from those who were waiting for him.

Unsteadily he sat up on the blue rug and opened his eyes. The room seemed to tip and spin slightly as he straightened, and he heard Nat Martin whisper hoarsely, “He actually
did
it!”

“I told you he would,” said Heron Rhodes. The doctor, gray and drawn, came over quickly and knelt beside him. “Thank God!” he breathed.

Otis and Hecuba followed. Otis, hollow-eyed, asked squeakily, “Is Ginny safe in that van?”

“I think so—at least till daylight,” Jan told him. “That transmitter, where is it? I've got to get back—”

“No,” Hecuba said firmly. “Not yet. What you've done has drained you. You're white as a sheet. You couldn't return now if you tried. Bill, bring him some of those cushions and prop him up so he can relax a while. And Jackson, a little coffee won't hurt him. Bring him a cup.”

Bill Zorn made him comfortable with cushions, and the stocky lawyer brought him coffee, which he sipped gratefully. Nat Martin slipped a hand-sized transmitter into his jacket pocket and carefully buttoned it.

“Just so it'll be there when you get ready to, er, take off,” Martin said. “Now, if you can answer a couple questions while you rest, we'll be that much further ahead. I've got men ready to move as soon as we have some idea of direction. Ginny has described the building and the grounds, but it could be anywhere within a fifty-mile radius, and that covers a lot of territory. Did you happen to notice the license plate of any of the cars?”

Jan shook his head. “It was too dark in the back of the garage. Anyhow, I was moving too fast. Maybe Ginny—”

“She didn't either. Otis has already asked her, and I'd rather not have her leave the van to look. What about traffic? Did you hear any? Or any unusual sounds?”

“I did hear traffic, but it was a long way off. Nothing else.”

“What direction was it? North of the house? South?”

“I—I don't know. It was to the right when we faced the front porch.”

“You couldn't see any stars?”

“No, sir. It was black dark.”

“Eh? Had it rained?”

“No, sir, but it sure sounded like it was going to. I could hear thunder off somewhere.”

Martin suddenly looked thoughtful. “We had a thunderstorm here over an hour ago, but now the stars are out. Otis, ask your sister if it's raining there now.”

In the short interval of silence while Otis called to Ginny, the uncertainty Jan had felt about his ability to return now deepened and changed to dread. What if he couldn't make it back? What would happen to Ginny? The answer came swiftly, unbidden, but before he could voice it, Otis burst out in a reedy voice, “Ginny says it's rainin' tadpoles there! an' she can't open the van door. She just tried it, 'cause she wanted to read the license plates, but she can't budge it. It musta locked itself when it was closed.”

“Don't worry about her,” Nat Martin told him. “She ought to be safe till we get there.” Abruptly he stood up and glanced at Bill Zorn. “We'd better go, Bill.”

Bill Zorn looked startled. “Go where?”

“East,” said Martin. “That's where the weather front is moving. If it's raining where she is, that would place her roughly thirty miles to the east and maybe a bit north, give or take a few miles. If we leave now, we'll be that much closer when Jan gets back there with the transmitter. Time's important.”

“They can't get away very fast,” Bill said, rising swiftly. “Not after Jan sabotaged all their transportation.”