She bit her lip. If only Aiden were here to make fun of her.
Aiden. What was he doing right now? Sleeping? She doubted it. If Aiden had been kidnapped, she wouldn’t be sleeping. She’d be fighting tooth and nail to track him down.
No, that was fugitive thinking. In those weeks on the run, each had rescued the other countless times. But the Falconers were regular citizens again. Regular citizens didn’t take the law into their own hands. They called the police.
Were the police looking for her? Would they care about the disappearance of one of the notorious Falconers? And even if they did give it their best, how would they ever find her in this basement dungeon, lying in a pile of splintered wood, crumbled concrete and plaster, and shattered glass?
Glass? Why glass?
Then she saw the filament from the broken light-bulb.
I must have pulled the fixture clean off when I grabbed hold of the cage.
She frowned. That bulb was the only light, and it lay in shards all around her. So why wasn’t it dark in here?
Slowly and painfully, she tilted her aching head to look up at the ceiling. Sure enough, the light was coming from above. But its source was not in the basement. It was shining down from the room upstairs through a hole the size of a car tire. When she’d pulled the fixture down, a good chunk of the ceiling had come with it.
Without even knowing it, she had ripped herself the ultimate escape route! That was ground level. From there, surely she could make her way to an exit — one that wasn’t locked and guarded.
It had taken her nearly an hour to arrange the pallets so that she could reach to the window. She had everything back in place in a few minutes. Who knew how much precious time she had wasted lying unconscious?
The trick would be to get from the window to the opening in the ceiling without another disastrous fall. Careful to keep her makeshift ladder in balance, Meg climbed up the skids until she had both hands on the window ledge. The hole to freedom was about four feet away, directly behind her. Craning her neck, she searched for some sort of handhold in the concrete above. Nothing.
There was only one way to get this done, Meg told herself with a sinking heart. She would have to jump for it and hope for the best.
She swung her legs back, which only had the effect of knocking away the pallet she’d been standing on. Now she was hanging from the window ledge with no way to get down.
That’s okay, she thought determinedly. There’s no down for me anymore. Just over, up, and out.
Wishing that she hadn’t quit gymnastics after the second week, she braced both feet against the wall, focusing all her energy into the maneuver she was about to perform. With a mighty heave, she kicked off the wall, twisting her body in a midair one-eighty. She was right underneath the opening, but her upward motion was running out. Gravity was beginning to pull her down.
At the last second, both arms shot up through the jagged opening and clamped onto the floor of the room above.
Oh, no! The cement was still crumbling. She could feel it disintegrating between her fingers. Dust and pebbles rained into her face, choking her. Soon she would be holding nothing but air. Then — a twelve-foot drop. The best she could hope for would be two broken legs.
She closed her eyes and waited for the fall.
It didn’t come. Suddenly, she was holding on to something solid — a steel reinforcing rod embedded in the cement.
Meg Falconer was not one to waste a gift. Gasping and spitting, she hauled herself up and scrambled through the opening, coming to rest on a safe portion of the concrete floor above. There she lay, willing her heartbeat to slow down. She had made it this far. But she had to find a way out of the building before she would be free. The kidnappers were around here somewhere. She had to be far away before they found out she was missing.
She took quick stock of her surroundings. She was in a huge factory area, long abandoned and dotted with debris and derelict equipment. There were enormous windows on three sides, high up. All she could see outside was the bricks of neighboring buildings and the darkness of night. The exit was nowhere to be found.
Come on, there’s got to be a way out of here!
She ran to what must have been the loading bay with its heavy metal garage door. She tried the hanging control. This place clearly had electricity — the lights worked. But the button required a key. And the door was padlocked.
A faded sign caught her attention: OFFICE. Her spirits soared. Surely, the office had its own exit to the street. The secretaries and bosses wouldn’t have come in through the plant.
She threw the door open and entered a narrow hall, edging along a corridor that was piled high on both sides with stacked chairs. There seemed to be several offices. All she could do was pick one and hope for the best.
Her first choice turned out to be a large storage closet that led nowhere. She tried another door.
This room was occupied. A woman was asleep on an old threadbare couch. On the floor beside her lay a bear of a man with a dark, bushy beard, also deep in slumber. The third member of the group was a slim young man of perhaps nineteen or twenty. He was very much awake and sat watching a soccer match on a small handheld TV.
Meg was so stressed out and frazzled that it took a moment before the realization kicked in.
She was looking at her kidnappers.
The delay proved costly. The young man leaped up with a shout that woke the other two.
A detonation of pure adrenaline galvanized Meg into action. By sheer instinct, she tipped over one of the chair stacks, blocking the doorway with the resulting pileup. She ran down the hall, upending more stacks, leaving a jumble of furniture in her wake.
Angry shouts filled the corridor behind her, along with the crash of metal and plastic. The kidnappers were on her tail, struggling to bulldoze through the obstacle course.
Meg kept on going, wheeling around the corner. Dead ahead was another office, this one with a cluttered old desk and — was that a window? She could see it more clearly as she ran toward it, still scattering chairs at her heels. The glass was gone, and a sheet of corrugated cardboard was duct-taped to the frame.
She knew she was going to jump. Even if there was a bed of nails submerged in a bathtub of acid on the other side of that window, it was preferable to spending another minute in here.
She blasted through the doorway, vaulted onto the desk, and dove headfirst into the cardboard. It broke apart on impact, and she was catapulted out onto a cement sidewalk. She tucked and rolled, trying to minimize injury. In truth, she barely noticed the pain. She was out!
No sooner was she back on her feet than something tripped her up, dropping her to the pavement again. The shock of going down when she believed herself scot-free brought tears to her eyes.
What is this — some kind of booby trap? Were they expecting me to make a run for it?
She squinted in the darkness and spotted the wire that had toppled her. It was a cable extending through the transom above her escape window right to the transformer box at the edge of the sidewalk.
So that was how the kidnappers were bringing electricity to an abandoned building.
She grabbed the wire and yanked it from the box. The warehouse went dark behind her, but she didn’t wait around to see it. She was already in full flight, screaming, “Help! Help!”
How much of a head start had the stunt with the chairs and pulling the plug bought her? It was impossible to tell.
Not enough, she thought grimly.
“Help! Help me!”
She scanned the area, dismay swelling inside her. Where were the people? The houses? The cars? The streets were deserted. The only buildings were old warehouses and industrial structures. Everything was dark.
“Help me! I’ve been kidnapped! Somebody! Anybody!”
No response. Nothing. Not even the sound of distant traffic.
Where was this place? The moon?
She stopped shouting, concentrating all her energy on running. W
ho knew how far she’d have to go before she found another living soul, someone who could call the police for her?
And then she heard another living soul — in the form of running feet behind her. She risked a quick glance over her shoulder.
It was them! The bearded one and the young guy were sprinting up the street, closing the gap fast.
Meg turned on the jets, knees pumping like pistons. She was still losing ground. Athletic as she was, her legs were shorter, her lung capacity smaller.
Desperately, she searched left and right for an alley to duck down, a fence to squeeze through — anywhere she’d fit but her pursuers wouldn’t.
I didn’t come this far just to get recaptured!
Suddenly, a late-model Buick squealed around a corner and veered onto the sidewalk, cutting off her escape. The driver’s door burst open, and out jumped the woman Meg had seen asleep in the office — the third kidnapper.
I’m trapped!
She wheeled, streaking across the road. She didn’t delude herself — in the next thirty seconds, she would be caught. So this precious half-minute of freedom had to count. Meg had that much time to tell the world that she had been here.
I have to send a message, make a mark, leave a clue….
But how?
When she spotted the gas station, it almost gave her hope. But it was like every other building around here — closed and deserted. With a sinking heart, she realized that what she’d taken as a sign of life had been the sound of two flags flapping in the stiff breeze.
All at once, her brother’s words came back to her, echoing in her head: People get crazy about flags.
Could this be a way to send up an SOS? It was a long shot, but the only shot she had. With the kidnappers closing in on her, she made a beeline for the station’s twin flagpoles. Picking up a broken piece of brick, she began to hack at the cleat holding the cord that raised and lowered the first flag. It was a lot stronger than the one she had broken by accident at school. But persistent banging eventually knocked it loose. The cord sang as the Stars and Stripes dropped to the pavement.
She turned her attention to the second pole and started working on that cleat. Her pursuers were so close that she could actually feel the vibration of their footfalls.
Come on — break! Break!
The bearded man was almost upon her. “Drop it!”
Determinedly, Meg brought the brick down with deadly force. The cleat flew off, clattering across the asphalt. The flag of the Commonwealth of Virginia hit the ground a second later.
Meg wielded the brick gamely, ready to do battle despite the David-versus-Goliath odds. To her shock, she was disarmed from behind.
“Don’t even think about it, Margaret,” the woman said firmly.
Soon she was in the backseat of the car, sandwiched between the two men.
“Very stupid,” the bearded one told her.
Meg was too devastated to reply. A terrible thought occurred to her as the car headed back in the direction of the warehouse. She was no longer being held by impersonal Halloween masks. These were real people, real criminals, and these were their real faces.
She remembered a piece of wisdom from her father’s Mac Mulvey novels. When you’ve seen your kidnappers’ faces, it usually means they’re going to kill you to keep you from identifying them after your release.
Had Meg Falconer just signed her own death warrant?
“I’m not going to school! How can I go to school?”
“I know how you feel,” John Falconer told his son, “but it’s the best thing for all of us if we try to live our lives as normally as possible.”
“Dad — listen to yourself!” Aiden pleaded. “Meg’s been kidnapped! Nothing is normal till we get her back.”
“But until we do,” Mom put in, “it’s necessary to eat, sleep, and put one foot in front of the other. Bad enough that Dad and I have to sit around here wringing our hands. Who knows how long it’ll be before there’s a break in the case?”
“This isn’t a lesson for your students at the college!” Aiden ranted. “We’re talking about Meg!”
Emmanuel Harris stepped into the kitchen where the argument was taking place. “Agent Ortiz has the car out front to take Aiden to school.”
Aiden turned accusing eyes on his parents. “He’s in on this with you?”
“Of course,” his father confirmed. “You can’t go to school without an escort.”
“I can’t go to school, period!” Aiden snapped. “This is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard! Do you really think I’m going to learn anything?”
“Be grateful,” Harris advised. “You’ve got something to do. Do it.”
“You just want me out of the way,” Aiden accused bitterly.
“That, too,” the FBI man agreed. “We need to be left alone to do our job. Right now, that job is waiting. You’re too jumpy to be any help. Go to school.”
And that was that. At the most traumatic point in a life that had already seen more than its share of trauma, Aiden and his FBI escort arrived at Churchill East High School.
His appearance in the student common area created a buzz, sending dozens of hands reaching for cell phones. Meg’s kidnapping was front-page news. No one had expected to see her brother the very next day.
They probably think I don’t even care.
Agent Ortiz was a nice-enough guy. But he was bald with a bushy mustache, so he didn’t exactly blend in with the student body. He was the absolute stereotype of a bodyguard — sunglasses hiding cold eyes, unsmiling expression, the bulge of a weapon in his breast pocket. His mere presence sucked the air out of a classroom.
As uncomfortable as it was to be shadowed by an agent, Aiden was grateful that his FBI nursemaid held the other curious kids at a distance. Having to talk about Meg, answer questions, and accept sympathy would have been unbearable.
Ortiz kept everybody away — with one exception. Richie Pembleton was determined to be helpful. He tagged along after Aiden and Ortiz all morning, trying to provide aid and comfort … but driving Aiden insane.
“You’re doing the right thing, man. School’s the place for you today. You know what? By the time you get home, Meg could already be there. Maybe she’s there this minute. How about I call your house and check?”
Ortiz caught Aiden’s eye. “You want me to arrest him?”
Aiden sighed. “Listen, Rich, I appreciate all your — support. But this is a really tough spot. I need to work it out on my own.”
“Now you’re talking,” Richie enthused. “Okay, what do we do first?”
Richie simply would not get the message, nor was Aiden surprised. His friend’s stubbornness was legendary. This was a kid who chose to love a baseball team that hadn’t had a winning season since the forties, even though they played in some sub-basement minor league no one had ever heard of.
“The pro teams have millions of fans,” he’d explained time and time again. “Greenville needs me.” And he stuck by his beloved Cubs through thin and thin.
In Richie’s mind, this was the same thing. Aiden needed him.
Aiden had no choice but to lay it on the line. “Listen, Rich, no offense, but you’ve got to go away. I don’t want you near me. I don’t want anybody near me. It’s just too hard.”
Unbelievable — Meg’s life was in danger. The family was fractured again, his parents suffering even more torment. And now he had to carry the guilt for wounding Richie Pembleton.
Shouldn’t there be a limit to the number of things I’m supposed to feel bad about?
* * *
Classes were a complete waste of time. Meg never left Aiden’s mind.
The only bright spot in the day was that Agent Ortiz turned out to be skilled at macramé. But even Aiden’s first passing grade in that course was marred by what happened next.
There was a sharp rap at the door of the art room. In marched Alicia Rangel’s father. He cast a dirty look in Aiden’s direction, grabbed his daughter by the arm, and a
nnounced to the teacher that he was pulling her out of school due to “safety concerns.”
Aiden was taken aback. What safety concerns? Alicia wasn’t a Falconer. No kidnappers were targeting her.
I’m the safety concern.
If Meg’s captors came after Aiden, there could be a shoot-out, stray bullets, a hostage standoff maybe. Who would risk exposing their kid to that?
As it turned out, the Rangels’ decision was not unique. All day, a steady stream of cars clogged the circular drive — parents taking their teenagers out of harm’s way.
I’m a menace. A walking bull’s-eye.
As the afternoon wore on, Aiden gave up on classes altogether. His presence only served to make people uneasy, including the teachers. He spent most of his time in the library, checking www.bloghog.usa to see if there were any updates on Meg. The truth was that Aiden trusted Rufus Sehorn’s Web site more than the entire FBI. That was pretty crazy, considering that Meg’s life was in the Bureau’s hands. It would have been laughable if it hadn’t been so scary.
Anyway, the Blog Hog had nothing new to report — exactly because of the FBI. Emmanuel Harris was keeping a tight lid on information coming out of the Falconer house. It was all for Meg’s sake, Harris said, the best chance of getting her back safe and sound. Aiden wasn’t so sure. It was hard to accept the word of a man who had already shattered their family once. Mom and Dad had decided to trust Harris. But they were so devastated, were they even thinking straight?
The news blackout was evident in the regular media as well. The library had a television tuned to the local news, but all Aiden saw about his sister was in the scrolling updates:
NO WORD YET FROM KIDNAPPERS WHO ABDUCTED MARGARET FALCONER — FBI.
Aiden squirmed in his chair as his stomach tightened. It had been on this very monitor that he had watched his parents’ arrest by Agent Harris and a SWAT team from Homeland Security. That had been more than a year ago. It felt like yesterday.
Someone on the screen was raving about the decline of patriotism. Aiden wondered when “those Falconer traitors” would come up as an example of how not to love your country. But the man had a different target in mind.