It dawned on Aiden: Why am I fighting in silence? He and Meg weren’t fugitives anymore. They had nothing to fear from attracting attention.
“Help!!” he bellowed at the top of his lungs. “Call the police! They’ve got my sister!”
Spider-Man reached for him with the chloroform-soaked cloth, but Aiden ducked out of the way, still howling for help.
A window opened in the condo complex, and a man shouted, “Hey!”
The van backed up and wheeled around. Aiden could see the driver, who was also wearing a mask — a caricature of golfer Tiger Woods. “Leave him!” ordered a woman’s voice.
“Give us a minute!” Spider-Man shouted over his shoulder.
“People are calling the cops, you idiot!” the driver snapped. “We’ve got the girl. Get in the truck!”
Aiden was still ducking and weaving when the two assailants piled into the van and pulled the door shut. With a screech of tires, the vehicle roared off down the street.
The attack was over. He was free.
But they had taken Meg.
Aiden flew down the road in a full sprint, chasing after the exterminators’ van that held his little sister. He tried to shout, “Call nine-one-one!” but found he had no breath for anything but speed. In the fog of his heart-pounding effort, he almost tripped over a silver Razor scooter lying on the curb in front of number 14. Barely slowing down, he snatched it up and hopped on. It wasn’t exactly a pursuit vehicle. Yet anything that could make him faster had to be tried.
He pumped madly with his right foot and was amazed at the amount of acceleration that came immediately. In the farthest reaches of his mind, he knew that the real Aiden Falconer would have been scared witless to be on this glorified roller skate. It took skill, balance, athletic ability, and confidence — all qualities he rarely thought of himself as having. But with Meg in the van, being spirited farther and farther away from him, it was worth the risk of breaking every bone in his body.
The kidnappers were pulling away, weaving in and out of the light traffic. The van blew through the stop sign at the end of the block and turned left onto the main road.
He was losing her.
The fact that the van was out of sight lent his feet wings. He kicked frantically at the pavement, amping the scooter up to incredible speed. As he approached the corner, the wind roaring in his ears, he peered down the main road, combing the town for a glimpse of the white van. There it was, passing the fire station. So intent was he on following its progress, that it didn’t occur to him until the last second —
How do you turn this crazy thing?
He twisted his midsection, hoping the scooter would respond likewise. It did, but not fast enough. He careened full tilt toward the busy intersection.
Should he jump off? It was better than being flattened by a truck.
But then Meg would be gone! So many times the Falconer siblings had risked everything for each other. No way was Aiden going to stop now.
Breathing a silent prayer, he yanked on the handlebars with all his might and leaned left. Horns blared as he barreled through the intersection in a wide turn across four lanes of traffic. With a lurch, he bumped up onto the opposite sidewalk, scattering pedestrians in all directions. With his eyes fixed on the van three blocks ahead, he never saw the movers. Two men unloaded a large padded sofa and started across the walkway to the furniture store. Aiden slammed into the brocade upholstery at thirty miles an hour. The impact stopped him cold, knocking him flat on his back to the pavement. The scooter kept on going until it made violent contact with a mailbox.
Both movers dropped the couch and went down on their hands and knees beside him. “Kid, are you okay?”
Aiden shook off the collision and scrambled to his feet, staring frantically beyond the sofa. There was no white van in sight.
“Call the police,” he replied in a reedy voice.
Meg was gone.
* * *
Agent Emmanuel Harris leaned back in his brand-new swivel chair, luxuriating in the comfort. The FBI had finally approved his requisition for extra-large office furniture. At six feet seven, he definitely counted as extra large. Now if only they could do something about the rancid coffee …
There was an electronic beep, and the computer on his desk clicked out of screen saver. He swiveled the monitor to face him. One of his keywords must have come up. The FBI system automatically scanned all crime reports from around the globe for certain terms and/or names. As the monitor came into focus, he squinted to see which of his search parameters had generated a hit.
FALCONER.
He felt his lunch rising in his stomach, a process helped along by the bad coffee. His least favorite subject — the biggest blunder of his career. He was the agent who had arrested John and Louise Falconer. He considered it entirely his fault that two innocent people had done hard time in prison and that their children had been turned into desperate fugitives.
Hammond, Md.: 3:47 P.M. Margaret Falconer, 11, abducted after disembarking from school bus. Police seeking white van marked “WILLIS EXTERMINATING,” last seen heading west. 3 suspects, 2 male, 1 female, wearing novelty masks. Victim daughter of John and Louise Falconer, recently released from …
Shock tore him away from the screen. After everything that had happened to them already, now their daughter had been kidnapped?
He strode out of his office, his long legs propelling him through the halls at impressive speed. This was not his case, not his problem. Yet he was involved as surely as if his boss had dropped the file on his desk. His mistake had brought the Falconers into the public eye, and that notoriety had made them targets.
Meg’s kidnapping was on his head.
Meg returned to awareness through a dense fog and a pounding headache.
“Aiden?”
A gruff voice, definitely not Aiden’s, ordered, “Lie still.”
She blinked and squinted.
Why can’t I see? Am I blind?
No, she could make out light, but no detail. A whiff of laundry detergent tickled her nose. There was something over her head. A sheet? A pillowcase? She tried to reach up and remove it but found that both of her wrists were bound.
Memory came flooding back: walking home from the bus, the exterminators’ truck, a burly figure in a Spider- Man mask. He had covered her face with a cloth, damp and strong smelling.
Have I been kidnapped?
The thought was terrifying — but not as terrifying as it should have been. An ordinary eleven-year-old girl would have fallen to pieces, but Meg was hardly ordinary. Her mind instantly recognized the peril and activated a hidden reserve of experience — the lessons learned during two months as a fugitive.
She took stock of herself. Her hands were tied; her legs were free. She was in a moving vehicle — the exterminators’ van?
“Who are you?” she demanded. “What do you want?”
The gruff voice again: “Behave yourself and you won’t get hurt.”
“Where are you taking me?”
Another voice, a woman’s, said, “There it is.”
Meg felt the van slow and turn. The wheels crunched on gravel and stopped. The sliding door clattered open.
“Take her legs.”
Rough hands grasped her under the arms and by the ankles, hoisting her up and out. She shook her right leg free, reared back, and slammed her sneaker into something soft. There was a loud oof as the kidnapper dropped her feet to the ground. In a single motion, she twisted her upper body free and attempted to break into a blind sprint.
Wham! She ran face-first into a cement wall. The impact was so jarring that she fell backward into her captors’ waiting hands. She struggled but could not free herself.
“Very stupid, Margaret,” the woman told her. “Tie her legs, too.”
Meg was lifted again and loaded into another vehicle — a car, she guessed. It feels like I’m lower down. I must be lying across the floor of the backseat. She could tell from the hump in the center.
Her ankles were bound, although not as tightly as her wrists. The car was started, and soon they were driving again.
Her mind raced. This was crazy! Kidnapped? By who? Why?
She didn’t have to stretch for the answer. There were plenty of Falconer haters around, from the vandal who’d thrown a brick through their window to her own middle-school principal.
She set her jaw. I didn’t get Mom and Dad out of prison so I could disappear and never see them again!
She had to escape. The question was how. The kidnappers had her trussed up like a turkey, not to mention sightless. Her nose throbbed painfully where she had connected with the wall, and she tasted blood. Another collision like that and she wouldn’t have to worry about her captors harming her. She’d be doing a pretty good job of it by herself.
There’s no way to make a run for it if I can’t see where I’m going. But by the time I fight my way out of this pillowcase, they’ll just grab me….
What could she do?
Amazingly, her thoughts turned to Mac Mulvey, the hero of Dad’s novels. Aiden was the big Mac Mulvey fan; Meg didn’t like the wild, exaggerated action. Still, she couldn’t deny that ideas from Mulvey’s adventures had saved the Falconer kids more than once during their weeks on the run.
Secretly, Meg had begun to give the novels a second chance. The stories were pure cheese, but Mulvey certainly spent plenty of time tied up by a variety of enemies.
Maybe something from the books can work for me….
When blindfolded, Mulvey relied on his keen sense of hearing. Meg listened, tuning out the engine noise of the car. Three voices — three kidnappers! They were mostly complaining about bad drivers and less traffic lights.
All at once, she remembered Diamonds Are a Wiseguy’s Best Friend. Mulvey was able to escape by using his foot to open the door of the hit man’s Cadillac. Of course, the Caddy had been doing ninety — another example of why Dad’s books were totally unbelievable. Nobody could survive a jump at that speed. But this car was on city streets with lots of stops. The fall wouldn’t hurt her.
Her ankles were bound, so she moved both feet together, probing for the door handle.
“Sit tight!” the gruff kidnapper growled from the front.
“The hump is digging into my side,” she protested.
“I’m all broken up about that.” Pure sarcasm.
“Here — I’ll help you.” This voice was also male, but younger and kinder. It must have belonged to the third captor, the one in the backseat with her. He supported her shoulders, enabling her to rotate a quarter turn onto her back. As she twisted into a more comfortable position, she felt her left sneaker lodge behind something hard. The handle!
“Thanks,” she said aloud. “That’s better.” Inside she was thinking: This is it!
She waited until the car was stopped at yet another light. Then she pulled with her toes until she felt the handle click and kicked the door open. In a single motion, she hurled herself at the door.
“Hey — !”
She wasn’t sure which kidnapper said it — possibly all three. It didn’t matter. There was no turning back now.
She was out — her feet were, anyway. Someone grabbed her tightly around the waist.
No — not when I’m so close….
She squirmed against the hold, but more arms latched onto her, and she was wrenched inside. The door slammed.
The gruff voice growled, “We’re lucky no one was around. We can’t have that happen again. Put her out.”
A moment later, the cinch of her hood loosened, and a meaty hand was reaching up at her, pushing a white cloth. She twisted to avoid the overpowering fumes, but the chloroform was forced over her nose and mouth, and consciousness was receding.
… not a hallucination … really happening …
And her last thought before everything went dark: Mom and Dad won’t be able to handle this.
Aiden peered out through the drawn curtains at what used to be his front lawn. A full-fledged media circus surrounded the Falconer house. There were reporters, camera crews, sound engineers. A fleet of TV news mobile units clogged the quiet street, satellite dishes reaching for the sky.
He could barely bring himself to accept that it was happening again. This kind of press firestorm had been unleashed on the family once before. The attention had been so intense that Aiden and Meg had been yanked from a series of foster homes and placed on an isolated juvenile prison farm just to avoid the spotlight.
This was worse, Aiden decided. Mom and Dad’s trial was awful, but at least we knew they were alive. With Meg …
No, he couldn’t think about that — his sister, under the total control of her captors. If they meant to kill her, there would be nothing anyone could do to prevent it.
Aiden couldn’t stand to see his confident father so helpless. Dad had actually allowed the local police chief to talk him into making a statement for the mob outside.
Aiden intercepted his father at the door. “Dad — don’t do it!” he whispered. “It’s a feeding frenzy! They don’t care about Meg — they just want you and Mom crying on TV!”
His father looked torn in two. “But the chief says we have to get the word out — ”
“The word is out,” Aiden insisted. “All these reporters wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t.”
Chief Aberfeldy brushed him off and took Dr. Falconer’s arm. “Come on, John. My guys have set up a microphone on the porch.”
“I’m going with you,” Aiden said determinedly. If he couldn’t prevent his father from making this mistake, at least he could supply moral support. He glanced back at his mother, who was collapsed on the couch, an expression of disbelief on her pale features. At least she wasn’t taking part in this freak show. They stepped outside.
It was twice as bad as Aiden had imagined. The pandemonium of shouted questions was an uninterrupted roar. What seemed like thousands of camera flashes made the crowd seem to sparkle. There was even some heckling and boos from the ever-present Falconer haters, who still believed Mom and Dad were traitors.
Chief Aberfeldy’s pleas for order were lost at first in the cacophony. Dad struggled to communicate his message — that the public should watch for anyone matching Meg’s description.
Amid the chaos, Aiden’s eyes fell on the figure of a very tall man bulling his way through the throng. Coffee sloshed out of his extra-large travel mug as he was jostled, but his progress was steady. There was no mistaking this new presence. It was a face straight out of the Falconer family’s darkest moments.
Agent Emmanuel Harris.
With a single sweep of his arm, he gestured Dr. Falconer, Aiden, and the chief away from the microphone, and faced the media.
He was recognized instantly. He was known to the press, and, at six feet seven, impossible to mistake.
“Agent Harris, do you have a statement from the FBI?”
“Yes,” Harris said shortly. “Get lost. Leave this yard, or I’ll have you removed.”
A babble of angry protest rose from the crowd.
“You can’t kick us off the street!” piped up somebody.
“No,” Harris agreed. “But I can kick you into the street. This yard is private property, and that will be enforced.”
To Aiden’s amazement, the media swarm began a reluctant and disorganized retreat, with the police showing them the way.
“They’ll just start using more powerful lenses,” grunted Harris, ushering Aiden and his father back inside. To Aberfeldy, he added, “That doesn’t mean we have to perform for them like trained seals.”
At the sight of the towering FBI agent, Louise Falconer leaped to her feet. “You! They assigned you to this case?”
Harris addressed himself to all three Falconers. “I’m sorry to hear what’s happened to Meg. I promise to do everything in my power to get her home in one piece.”
“You’ve done enough already,” Dad said coldly. “Do you think those kidnappers would have heard of our daughter if it weren
’t for you?”
The agent didn’t argue the point. “You don’t like me. It’s understandable, and I accept it. But we’re going to have to find a way to work together.”
“Let’s go in the kitchen,” Mom suggested. She had no great love for Emmanuel Harris, but nothing was more important to her than the safety of her family. “We can talk there.”
Aiden followed his parents and Harris through the door and froze. A strange man sat at the table, pounding the keyboard of a notebook computer.
Dad pulled up short. “Who are you?”
The newcomer looked up and beamed at them. “I’m Rufus Sehorn.” He said it as if he were a dear family friend, not an uninvited intruder.
Harris clamped a meaty hand on his shoulder. “What are you doing in this house?”
Sehorn scowled at him. “Why are you so worried about me in the house? Why would they let you in the house, after the suffering you’ve caused this family?”
“Do we know you?” asked Mom in confusion.
“Not yet, but you will.” He shook himself free of Harris and hefted a large bag. “I brought Dunkin’ Donuts.”
The FBI man was growing angry. “I don’t care if you brought a shipment of gold bars. You’re trespassing.”
“Just waiting for an invite,” Sehorn amended. “I’m the Blog Hog. That’s my Web site — bloghog.usa. News, opinions, and whatnot. The whatnot was my idea. All the blogs have news and opinions, but mine is the only one with whatnot.”
In spite of the tense situation, Aiden almost smiled. Rufus Sehorn reminded Aiden of a hobbit, minus the furry feet. The blogger was short and slight, with a fresh-faced, wide-eyed earnestness that seemed to radiate openness and honesty.
Harris was not as charmed. “The press has already been removed, and that includes you,” he said hotly. “You have no idea the kind of anguish these people are going through.”
“Don’t I?” Sehorn swiveled his laptop to face them. “Read my latest posting.”
The Falconers crowded around the small screen.
I’m sitting in the kitchen of Doctors John and Louise Falconer, who have just heard the news that their eleven-year-old daughter has been kidnapped. Once imprisoned as America’s most notorious traitors, today they are free — and also not free, thanks to a press that has cursed them with everlasting fame and everlasting suspicion. That same media besieges their comfortable home today, where John, Louise, and their teenage son, Aiden, snack on Dunkin’ Donuts, for there is no belly for cooking within such a state of fear. They eat, though they taste not a single bite, awaiting word from the kidnappers. And mostly they pray….