I practically tingled with excitement, and I could see that the boys did, too. Only I didn’t know what was supposed to happen next. “What do we do now? Wait here until someone calls one of these phones? It’s probably too late, the call has already been made. That would explain why we haven’t seen any more of The Enemy. They got what they wanted, and they left the airport.” I felt relieved, yet disappointed, too.
Charlie looked thoughtfully around the open cubicles. “I don’t think so. Unless you forgot part of that message written into the puzzle, it didn’t give a time or a date or anything like that. A person wouldn’t know when to expect a call. And nobody would just sit here for hours, or days, waiting for one. No, it has to be something else.”
“Something connected with the locker,” I said slowly. The only thing I could think of that would connect with the locker was . . . “A key,” I thought aloud. “They’d need a key to get into the locker, wouldn’t they? But how would that be connected to a phone number?”
“Maybe,” Charlie said, running a hand over the top of the divider between one cubicle and the next, “it’s not the number that’s important, but the booth. Maybe this is where they left another message . . . or the key.”
“I can’t remember what that last number was!” I cried in frustration, then remembered to lower my voice, although we were sort of off the main traffic area, and there was hardly anybody close to us. “So how do we know which booth? And what good will it do us if we figure it out? Charlie, what if it’s the key—or a message—and they’ve taped it somewhere in one of the booths? What if the number of the phone is just to tell which booth to look in?”
It was in the third one we tried. I put my hand under the little shelf that gave you a place to write or rest a purse. There was old used chewing gum under there, and I almost jerked my hand away, and then I felt it.
Hard metal, small, key-shaped, and covered with Scotch tape.
“Bingo!” I said, and pulled it free.
I held it out on my palm, and Charlie nodded, grinning from ear to ear.
“Let’s see if it fits the locker. Anybody want to bet that it doesn’t?”
“No takers,” Eddie assured him, grinning, too. “It’s got the number right on it, see?”
“Why did they need the number in the coded message if it was on the key?” I wondered.
“Insurance, maybe,” Charlie guessed. “Double checking, sort of. Or to make it possible for whoever was picking up whatever’s in the locker to locate the right locker first, before he had the key on him. It would be faster that way, for a getaway. This has to be something illegal, so they’d want to pick up the merchandise, whatever it is, and take off as soon as possible.”
We had to force ourselves not to run back to the lockers. I even forgot to watch for The Enemy, I was so excited. What would we find?
My fingers were unsteady as I inserted the little key into the lock.
The door swung open, and we stared into the locker at a briefcase, one of those thick metal ones. For the first time it occurred to me that we might be doing something illegal ourselves to touch it.
I hesitated. “What if what they’re doing isn’t against the law? What if we’re interfering in a legitimate business? People must use these lockers for such things—”
“Sure. They’re the good guys, right?” Charlie said. “They knocked an old lady over the head and stole her stuff, put her in the hospital. Come on, let’s take it out and see if we can get into it.”
I just stood there, looking at the briefcase, which had to be very important—and not ours—until Charlie made a sound of disgust and shoved me aside.
“Okay. I’ve got it. Now let’s go somewhere private and see if we can find out what it is.”
“What about the key?” Eddie asked, hesitating. “Do you think maybe we should lock the locker again and stick the key back where it was? I mean, it looks like they didn’t get all the message because they didn’t know the part Gracie remembered, so they didn’t find the phone yet, or they’d have taken the key. Should we put it back where we found it?”
“We don’t have any tape or anything—” Charlie began, but I interrupted.
“We’ve got chewing gum! We’ll stick it on with that!”
So that’s what we did. By now I was so nervous I had goose bumps all over. No matter which direction I looked, I felt as if someone was staring holes in my back.
“Where is a private place to see if the case will open?” Eddie asked as soon as the key had been returned, darting wild glances up and down the concourse. “What are those blue doors that don’t say anything on them? Could we go into one of those rooms?”
“I think they’re private lounges, something like that,” Charlie said. “I’m pretty sure they’re locked, but we could try a few of them.”
It didn’t take long to find out that we couldn’t get into one of those places without a key, or pushing a button to get someone to open the door for us. I was more and more anxious to get that briefcase out of sight. “How about down at the end, in that boarding area where there isn’t anybody right now?” I’d begun to wish we hadn’t disguised ourselves, because while we looked different from the kids who’d arrived on Flight 211, we sure hadn’t made ourselves invisible.
“Okay,” Charlie accepted, and we hurried in that direction.
According to the sign, there wouldn’t be a flight leaving from this gate for an hour and a half, Flight 107 for Albuquerque. We sank into chairs, Charlie in the middle with the case on his lap.
“It’s locked,” he said.
“Naturally,” Eddie said. “Are we going to try to pick the lock?”
“Maybe,” I said uneasily, “we should take it to the security police.”
Charlie gave me an exaggeratedly charming smile. “Sure, Gracie. And tell them what? We just found it? They wouldn’t even investigate, see what’s in it. They’d leave it at the lost and found department, if they have such a thing, until someone shows up and describes it well enough so they’ll take his word for it that it belongs to him. It has initials on it—see, L.J.S. So all that would happen would be that L.J.S. produces identification with those initials and says it’s his, and they give it to him. After what we’ve been through, we’re not handing it to the cops and never finding out what this is all about.”
We’d been so engrossed in ourselves we’d forgotten to be on guard, and when the voice spoke behind me I almost collapsed in a puddle on the floor.
Chapter Fifteen
“I think it’s time we had a talk,” the voice said, and I turned slowly to look up into the face of the man in the gray suit.
I felt as if everything in me had suddenly dried up, as if my heart had stopped beating and I couldn’t get my breath.
Charlie looked startled and scared, too, but at least he could still speak. “Who’re you?” he asked.
I looked around to see if it was worthwhile to scream for help, but we’d picked this area because there weren’t any people in it right now, and there still weren’t. Oh, we could see a few travelers off in the distance, but there was no one close to us, and certainly none of the security officers I’d hoped for.
Whatever this man intended to do, nobody was likely to stop him. I gulped audibly.
The stranger who had accosted us reached inside his jacket, and I felt myself turning to mush. Was he going to shoot us, right here?
It wasn’t a gun he produced, though. Instead it looked like a black leather wallet. Only when he opened it up it wasn’t money inside. There was a silver-colored badge, very official looking, and an I.D. card with his picture on it. I was too stunned to read it all, but he told us the important part.
“Agent James Santori, Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
Eddie exhaled a tremulous breath. “You mean you’re not going to shoot us?”
For a moment the man’s face was so serious I thought Eddie might be wrong about that, and then Agent Santori’s mouth twitched a little. “No
t right this minute,” he said. “But I want to talk to you.”
Charlie’s fingers tightened on the handle of the briefcase we’d appropriated from the locker. He cleared his throat. “What about?” he asked, as if he had no idea.
“About a couple of men you may remember. One of them traveled with you on the plane down from Seattle. The other one came in shortly behind you in Portland, on a charter flight, and came on from there on your continuing flight.”
We looked at each other and nodded. I had started to breathe again. I wasn’t as scared of an F.B.I. agent as I was of The Enemy who had attacked Mrs. Basker, but I wasn’t sure what they did to you if you’d taken a briefcase that didn’t belong to you out of a locker. Had he watched us empty the locker? Did he realize it wasn’t our case? Had he heard what Charlie said just before he approached us?
“Sure,” Charlie said finally. “Mr. Upton and the guy in the Hawaiian shirt.”
“Those are the ones,” Agent Santori agreed. “What do you know about them?”
I would have just told him, but Charlie was stubborn. He said later he figured the guy would take the briefcase and we’d never know what it was about unless he resisted at least a little.
“What’s going on? Why are you investigating them?”
Eddie was braver than I was, too. “Are they drug dealers or something like that?” he wanted to know.
The F.B.I. man ignored him. He seemed to sense that Charlie was the leader and spoke directly to him. “You’re aware that these men have been following you, and that they’re dangerous.” He hesitated. “Very dangerous.”
“Sure,” Charlie admitted.
“So what do you know about them? What called your attention to them in the first place?”
I opened my mouth to reply, but Agent Santori wasn’t looking at me, and then Charlie said the most outrageous thing. My mouth was still open, only now it was sagging at Charlie’s nerve.
“What’s in it for us?” Charlie asked.
For a minute I thought the F.B.I. agent was going to put handcuffs on him and search him. He didn’t say anything and Charlie pushed harder.
“If we tell you everything and you don’t tell us anything, it’s not a very fair trade,” Charlie said. “What kind of case are we mixed up in?”
Agent Santori’s face was as scary as when I’d first noticed him watching us. “Blackmail is a criminal offense, you know.”
“I’m not asking for money,” Charlie told him brazenly, “just information. Is it a drug case? Or what?”
The man’s voice went very soft. “Are you saying you won’t cooperate by answering questions?”
“No, sir. But it’s not fair not to tell us anything, in exchange for what we know. It’s not a matter of national security, I’m pretty sure of that. They’re just crooks, right? Tell us what’s going on, and we’ll be happy to tell you what we’ve found out, right, gang?”
Even while he had me worried that he’d get us all locked up, I had to confess to a certain admiration for his effrontery. (That was one of those words I learned when Grandma was doing her puzzles.) I’d never have dared talk to him that way, and I didn’t think Eddie would have, either. My dad once referred to Charlie as “all brass and a mile wide,” and I finally saw what he meant.
Eddie did find the courage to back Charlie up, though. “Sure. We’ll tell what we’ve found out.”
Between the two of them they made it sound like we’d found out a lot, and I supposed maybe we had if the contents of the briefcase were as valuable—or as incriminating—as we guessed.
Agent Santori was regarding Charlie as if he were some loathsome variety of worm. “You kids traveling alone? No chaperones?”
“No. I’m thirteen. We don’t need a baby-sitter,” Charlie said.
“Then you’re mature enough to know that the best thing to do when a federal agent asks questions is to answer them.”
“Sure. I told you we’ll cooperate fully. So what’s the big deal about a trade of information? Just tell us what kind of a case it is. Not the names of the criminals, necessarily, but what the case is about. Besides the fact that they hit old Mrs. Basker over the head and put her in the hospital to get her bag, what’s going on?”
The state I was in, it was a miracle I could notice anything except that I was in a cold sweat of nervousness. But I was pretty sure that Charlie had just given him one bit of information he hadn’t had before. He didn’t know about Mrs. Basker.
His next words proved it. “When did they do this? Hit this old lady?”
“In Portland Airport, a few hours ago,” Eddie said, before Charlie barked, “We’re going to trade information, remember?”
The F.B.I. agent considered this for long seconds. In the silence I heard a jet taking off, far in the distance.
“All right,” Agent Santori said finally, not sounding the least bit friendly. “I’ll give you a couple of basic facts, and then you’ll answer my questions. Either here, and in full, or in my office at the Federal Building. You got that straight?”
Charlie nodded, and I let out a little of the breath I’d been holding.
“Okay. You’ve stumbled into a case involving large sums of money, taken in on stolen merchandise that has been sold across state lines and international borders, which makes the crime fall under the jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This illegally earned money is being moved around the country by couriers so that it can be put back into circulation through legitimate businesses—”
“Money laundering!” Charlie exclaimed. “Isn’t that what they call it?”
“Correct. There is considerable money involved, and the men who are doing it have a lot at stake. They are very dangerous. Nobody for a bunch of kids to get mixed up with, because they could easily get hurt.” He was back to his former point. “And that is why you are now going to sit down and tell me exactly how you got involved with these people and what you’ve learned about them.”
“Sure,” Charlie said. His eyes were glowing. I thought he was probably already wondering if he’d get his picture in the paper.
At that moment the voice on the P.A. system caught our attention: “Will Charlie Portwood come to the nearest white courtesy telephone, please? Charlie Portwood?”
“It’s for us! It’s Aunt Molly, she’s finally here!” I cried in relief. “We have to go find one of those white phones right away!” I no longer cared about the contents of the briefcase or The Enemy. I wanted to turn the whole mess over to Aunt Molly and let her deal with it, including the F.B.I. agent.
“Just a minute,” Agent Santori began, but Charlie spoke urgently. “We’ll talk to you in a minute, sir, but right now we have to answer the page. Our aunt’s expecting us, and she won’t know where we are. She’ll be worried. Besides,” Charlie added, “we should have an adult present when we answer questions anyway, shouldn’t we?”
Agent Santori gave him the kind of look my dad gave me when I mentioned wanting to have my hair dyed red. “You want your lawyer present, too?”
Charlie grinned. I suppose that he, too, felt better knowing rescue was at hand in the form of Aunt Molly. “It wouldn’t hurt,” he agreed.
“Come on,” I urged. “We’ve got to answer the page.”
Agent Santori nodded sardonically. “All right. Go ahead. As soon as your aunt joins you, we’ll talk.” He made it sound like a threat.
He came along behind us as we hurried to find one of the white phones, but he didn’t make any effort to keep up. I was eager to talk to Aunt Molly, but it was Charlie who got there first.
“Hi, Aunt Molly. Yeah, we got here all right. Is your friend okay? Good. Uh, yeah, we’re near Gate . . .”
He turned around to see what the nearest gate number was, and froze.
I turned slowly, too, and saw Eddie’s face change before my own must have.
Mr. Upton was there, and the guy in the Hawaiian shirt, but not the F.B.I. agent. I glanced around wildly for Agent Santori, who was nowhe
re in sight even though he’d only been a few yards behind us.
Mr. Upton spoke very softly. “Hang up the phone, kid.”
The gun he was pointing at Charlie’s belt buckle was quite enough to assure our cooperation.
And without a word, before he could tell Aunt Molly where we were, Charlie replaced the receiver.
Chapter Sixteen
This was real, I thought numbly. My dad’s worst fears—and my own—had come true.
Two men, one of them with a gun, were making us walk with them along one of the broad corridors. The one in the Hawaiian shirt had taken possession of the briefcase. Both of them were grim-faced, and after Mr. Upton said, “Just come along with us and don’t make any ruckus,” nobody said a word.
As Charlie said later, at least he could have added, “and nobody will get hurt.” He didn’t even give us that much assurance that things would eventually work out all right.
I saw the old lady with the dirty coat and her belongings in a couple of paper shopping bags; she grinned at us as if she remembered us, but she didn’t seem to see anything unusual in the way we were being hurried along by the two men.
We passed a security guard, who paid no attention, and dozens of other people, all bent on getting to their flight, or meeting someone else’s. No one seemed to notice what must have been three very scared young faces.
What had happened to Agent Santori? He knew what these men looked like, he’d told us they were dangerous, yet now that we were really in trouble he’d disappeared, though he had been right behind us only a few minutes ago.
What if he wasn’t really an F.B.I. agent? His badge and I.D. had looked genuine, but I supposed anything could be faked. What if he was in cahoots with The Enemy, as I’d believed in the beginning? Or had they somehow managed to put him out of action—hit him over the head the way they’d done with Mrs. Basker—or even killed him?
What Could Go Wrong? Page 11
