It was Agent Harris’s second nasty shock of the past five minutes. Big guy. Bald. It could only be the mysterious shooter from the summer house in Vermont. Harris had nearly run over the man that rainy night —
Now part of him wished he had.
A feeling of uneasiness took hold in his gut, swelling until it filled the entire six-foot-seven-inch space between the top of his head and the tips of his toes.
The attack in Vermont had been no random occurrence. Someone was after Aiden and Margaret Falconer. Someone besides the FBI, Juvenile Corrections, and several hundred state and local police forces.
Someone with a much darker motive.
But who?
Duck Tours were famous in Boston. Their brightly painted vehicles had once been military landing craft, designed to be launched in the water and driven up onto beaches. It was equally common to see these “ducks” driving through city streets or cruising the Charles River, full of sightseers who were encouraged to quack loudly at all passersby.
Two members of the one o’clock trip, however, chose not to join in the fun. They looked enough like tourists, although the teenage boy’s pants were striped navy blue slacks, and on closer inspection, his dress shoes were sneakers that had been painted black. He sat with a preteen girl in the last row of the duck, poring over the motor vehicle records of one Francis X. Lindenauer.
“Aunt Jane was right,” marveled Meg. “He really was a terrible driver. Look at all those tickets. I’m amazed he didn’t lose his license.”
“He did,” said Aiden in a low voice. “See? Nine years ago. He was driving illegally the whole time he was on vacation with us.”
“This is useless,” Meg groaned. “I mean, these records tell where he lived around here. But we have no idea where he went after that. Look — this letter was returned with no forwarding address. Are you sure you got all his files?”
Aiden shook his head. “Just the violations part. There were a couple of clerks nosing around. But I’ll tell you one thing — no way are we going back to that police station to look for more.”
“I hear you,” Meg agreed. “If the cops didn’t get us, Hairless Joe would. Although,” she added, not without a note of satisfaction in her voice, “he’s probably out of commission for the next little while.”
“It’s no joke,” Aiden said seriously. “That guy’s hunting us, and he’s good at it. He’s got a fake police badge, and he must have some way to monitor their reports. How else could he know they were holding you in Brookline? We’ve got a bad enemy, and the worst part is, we don’t even know why he’s after us. Is he just some wacko who hates our parents? Or is something else going on?”
There was a scattering of quacking and applause as the duck turned off the road, angled down the embankment, and plunged into the Charles. As they hit the water, a blustery wind snatched the documents out of Aiden’s hand. The Falconers watched in horror as the vital information took flight over the safety rail and scattered across the river.
They scrambled astern, trying to rescue what they could. Aiden reached for a paper only to have it disappear a split second before he could close his fingers on it. Meg dove for a letter that was hung up on the bar. She clamped her fist around the page, crumpling it into a ball before daring to pull it from the metal.
She turned to her brother. His face — and the dozens of papers littering the Charles — said it all. That file was all they had to lead them to the one man who could save their parents.
Now it was gone, except for the mangled sheet in Meg’s hand.
Gingerly, as if handling a piece of thousand-year-old parchment, she unfolded the page. At first she thought it was a piece of windblown litter, since the logo did not match the other correspondence from the city of Brookline and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Then she read the unfamiliar letterhead:
CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF MOTOR VEHICLES NOTICE OF LICENSE TRANSFER
We acknowledge receipt of the driving record for Francis X. Lindenauer. This license has been converted to California license #6672-787-901. Mr. Lindenauer’s current address is 114 Cabrini Court, Apt. 2C, Venice Beach, CA, 90292….
Her hands were shaking, but she kept an iron grip on the letter.
Inches from disaster, and here it was — the clue they’d both been praying for.
Aiden peered over her shoulder. When he spoke, his voice was husky with emotion. He said, “California, here we come.”
“California,” she repeated. It seemed like the end of the earth. “How are we ever going to get there?”
“We’ll get there,” he said confidently.
The statement was completely illogical. How could they make it all the way to the opposite side of the continent with forty dollars, faces that were becoming more famous every day, and a maniac on the loose who wanted them dead?
Yet somehow Meg knew they would get there — just as they’d performed dozens of other miracles since beginning their lives as fugitives.
They would accomplish these things because they had to. They had no choice, if they were going to help Mom and Dad.
The duck had conveyed them to the opposite side of the Charles. A few yards away, the grassy riverbank rose into a green, wooded park. A pleasant sign with gold lettering declared WELCOME TO CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS.
She regarded her brother. “Well, it isn’t California. But at least it isn’t Boston anymore.”
Aiden nodded decisively. “On three: one … two … three!”
They heaved themselves up and over the safety rail and dropped to the knee-deep water. Meg took her brother’s hand, and together they splashed toward Cambridge, amid the bewildered stares of their fellow tourists.
By the time the confused shouts got through to the driver of the duck, the fugitives had scrambled up the embankment and disappeared into the cover of the trees.
GORDON KORMAN is the author of The Hypnotists, and six books featuring Griffin Bing and his friends: Swindle, Zoobreak, Framed, Showoff, Hideout, and Jackpot. His other books include This Can’t Be Happening at Macdonald Hall (published when he was fourteen); The Toilet Paper Tigers; Radio Fifth Grade; the trilogies Island, Everest, Dive, Kidnapped, and Titanic; and the series On the Run. He lives in New York with his family and can be found on the web at www.gordonkorman.com.
Look for more action and humor from
GORDON KORMAN
The Swindle series
Swindle
Zoobreak
Framed
Showoff
Hideout
The Titanic trilogy
The Kidnapped trilogy
The On the Run trilogy
The Dive trilogy
The Everest trilogy
The Island trilogy
Radio Fifth Grade
The Toilet Paper Tigers
The Chicken Doesn’t Skate
This Can’t Be Happening at Macdonald Hall!
Copyright © 2005 by Gordon Korman. All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
First printing, June 2005
Cover design by Tim Hall
e-ISBN 978-0-545-63204-1
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
Gordon Korman, The Fugitive Factor
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