He pulled out a knife, a long switchblade, and flipped it open. Calmly, he began to run the tip beneath his fingernail as if he were cleaning it. Jack felt hairs rise on the back of his neck.
“But what I don’t understand is why you took the case in the first place. It troubles me. How’d you know about Smokey’s? How’d you know anything?” He leaned against the door, blocking it with his heavy body, and continued to flick the knife’s tip around his nails. “So, why’d you take it, Jack?”
“I don’t know.”
He shook his thick head. “See, I think you’re lying again. I warned you not to do that. Looking at Ashley, he asked, “What’s your name?”
“Ashley. I’m his sister.”
“Ashley, I think you need to tell brother Jack here that he’s got some explaining to do. There’s booze under Smokey’s bar. And money in the cash register. But your brother Jack goes right for the silver suitcase. Can you tell me why?”
“I—I….”
“Give me a reason, Ashley, and I won’t arrest either one of you. Tell me why he wanted the suitcase. That’s all I need—a simple explanation.”
“Ashley—don’t!” Jack cried, but it was too late. His sister’s words were already tumbling out of her mouth.
“We thought the silver case had some sonar stuff in it—there are whales dying and we thought some Navy guy named Alex was using sonar and we were trying to get the sonar so we could prove that the whales were being killed—”
“Alex?”
“I think that was his name. Anyway, we didn’t know if it was true, but we thought we could check and then put the case back—”
“How did you hear about Alex?” The man’s eyes suddenly grew charged with fury. “Tell me!” he thundered. “How did you know? It was that fat girl, wasn’t it? The one in Smokey’s last night. She must have been the one you were looking for on the pier, right, Jack? Where is she?”
“Gone,” Jack lied. Taking a deep breath, he tried to remember all the instructions Bindy had given him about acting. Look confident. Make eye contact—don’t let your glance shift away from the person’s face. “She never came back last night,” he said, staring at the man. “She’s a foster child, and she ran away before I saw you on the pier. We never found her. We looked all over the place, and then my parents reported to the police that the girl was gone.”
“Jack….”
“Ashley—shut up!”
Ashley stared at Jack, ready to say something. Then, all at once, she got it. This was no policeman standing in front of them!
“Does anyone else know about this? Does anyone else know about Alex?” he shouted.
“No one. She only told me,” Jack said, not wanting to reveal Bindy’s name, if the man didn’t remember it from the night before. “She told me right before she ran away. I—I might have mentioned a little bit to Ashley, but she doesn’t understand anything. She just heard the words, but they don’t mean anything to her. I swear!” He was shaking inside, but he prayed it didn’t show, prayed that the man would believe him. Jack, who’d hardly ever lied in his life, was making up for it now—big time! “You said if we gave you an explanation, you would let us go. We told you what happened. We’re supposed to meet our parents by the front desk. They went to buy a newspaper.”
The man laughed at this. “Well, now, Jack, looks like you and me have a lot more in common than you thought.” His eyes widened so that Jack could see tiny red veins, and when he leaned close, Jack could smell stale cigarettes on his breath. “You’re lying about where your parents are, and—guess what!
I lied, too.”
With a motion as fast as a snake, he caught Ashley, pulled her back against his chest and jerked her upward, the blade within an inch of her throat. Ashley recoiled as she tried to pull her neck away from the knife point. For one nauseating second Jack realized how small his sister was. Her legs dangled above the floor like a rag doll’s.
“Jack, I want you to listen carefully. When we walk out that door, we will be one big happy family. Understand? We will all take a stroll to the pier. Then the three of us are going on a boat ride.”
“Boat ride?” Jack asked hoarsely.
“Yeah. You messed up the pick-up arrangements, so now I have to deliver it myself, and you two are going with me. If you try anything, Jack, anything at all….”
He pulled the knife away from Ashley’s neck and set her back onto the floor. “I’m not a violent man, not unless someone makes me that way. Don’t make me hurt your little sister.” He touched her cheek with the blade of the knife, the other hand still clamped onto her shoulder. “I’d hate to have to teach you a lesson, Jack. But I would. Remember that. Now pick up the suitcase.” He waved the knife toward the door. “You go first. My little girl Ashley will be right by me—” Suddenly, he froze. “What was that?”
Jack heard it too. A scraping noise came from the balcony. Bindy! He’d half forgotten she was out there! Had she listened in? Did she know what was happening? Jack’s heart felt as if it would explode right out of his chest as the man zeroed in on the glass door. The curtains, which were half shut, hid most of the view. There was no place to hide out there. Jack could feel himself stiffen as he pictured the man finding Bindy.
“Are you still playing games with me, Jack? Is someone out there?”
“No!”
“Well, now, this will be your first test. Let’s see how well you do. If you are lying, your sister pays the price.” He narrowed his eyes at Jack. “Don’t move a muscle.” Clamping Ashley around the neck, the man dragged her toward the balcony, yanking open the glass door with the hand that held the knife. As the man’s head swiveled from side to side, Jack held his breath until the blood pounded furiously in his ears, as loud as drums. He waited for Bindy to be discovered, but a moment later, the man pulled his head back inside.
“There’s a bunch of ducks out there, that’s all you heard,” Ashley babbled. “No one’s out there. Let me go! You’re hurting me.”
“Shut up and move,” was all the man said.
Bindy had escaped! The scene flashed through Jack’s mind like a neon sign—Bindy must have climbed over the balcony into the adjoining room, the one she shared with Ashley. She would call for help, and the police would catch up to them before they had to enter the boat! Call, Bindy, call! Jack willed her. Hurry!
Herded through the door, along the front deck and down the motel stairs, he tried to buy time by pretending that the heavy suitcase slowed him down even more than it did. The man had tucked Ashley beneath his left arm, his overcoat practically swallowing her like a blanket.
His right hand, still clutching the knife, was hidden in his pocket. Anyone watching would have thought it all looked perfectly normal. A father, daughter, and son enjoying one last view of the ocean before they checked out of the motel. Jack looked around, desperate to see anyone who might help. He heard wheels clacking along a walkway, and moments later saw a mother pushing a blue stroller, her child’s round head bobbing as the woman maneuvered around a corner, disappearing without a glance in their direction.
“Go to the pier,” the man ordered. “If anyone looks your way, just smile and nod. Smile and nod.”
They followed a narrow path strewn with crushed shells and gravel all the way to the water’s edge. An elderly couple returning to the motel strolled past them on the path, close enough to touch, but they were deep in conversation and didn’t look their way even once.
The rest of the beach was empty except for the gulls. A steel-gray wave curled, then crashed onto the beach, licking the sand with foam before slipping back to the sea. It smelled like fish and damp wood here. Jack strained to listen for the sound of a siren but heard nothing save the screeching gulls. They were utterly alone.
“Now climb onto the pier. You remember the pier, don’t you Jack? It holds a special memory for me.”
Without a word of protest, Jack stumbled along the boards, followed by Ashley and the man. Shadows from the r
ailing made a pattern on the bleached wood pier, black on gray.
“Move it!” the man said, shoving Jack in the middle of his back.
The pier seemed different in late afternoon light. At its end, he saw the wooden steps—gallows steps, he thought now—and something else that hadn’t been there the night before. Tied to a wooden piling, a speedboat bobbed like a seagull in the black water, only inches from the landing.
The man hurried them down the rickety steps, gestured to the boat, and ordered Jack, “Put the suitcase in there first. Then you get in.”
Where were the police? Surely Bindy had called them by now! Jack didn’t want to climb into the boat, but when he hesitated, the man moved his arm under his overcoat, and Ashley cried out in pain.
“I’m getting in,” Jack cried. “Leave my sister alone.”
“Do exactly what you’re told. We’re going for a ride.”
Jack felt helpless—totally and completely helpless. No one could see them from where they were, no boats were in the marina, no people sauntered along the beach, no police had come to save them. There was nothing to do but obey orders. Stepping into the boat, he felt it rock beneath him. The man maneuvered himself on board with Ashley still clamped to his side. When a wave swelled, the boat thrust up and then down again.
“Sit,” the man ordered Jack. “There.” He pointed to a seat with a red cushion. Jack sat, his spine as straight as if it had been lined with steel. He looked around but saw nothing he could use as a weapon.
“Put your hand on that rail. Do it!”
The metal of the boat’s railing felt cold against Jack’s wrist as he laid his hand on it. From a pocket the man took handcuffs that he snapped first onto Jack’s wrist, then onto the railing, tethering Jack to the boat. The vessel itself was his anchor now, and there was no way out. If it sinks, he thought, I’ll drown.
Moments later, as the motor roared to life, Ashley sprawled onto the floor, sliding on her stomach toward the back of the boat. The man had secured the suitcase so it wouldn’t slide, but he didn’t care about Ashley.
As they sped into the waves, wind churned against them, making Jack’s eyes blur with tears. He could make out Ashley crawling toward him on all fours, her hair whipping into a black cloud, her shirt puffed out like a sail. The motel shrank in the distance to the size of a child’s toy, then to a dime, then to a single piece of confetti. The wake sprayed into his face, chilling him. Turning in a wide arc, the boat headed for the open sea, and the man, shielded by glass, lit a cigarette. Jack felt hate surge through him as he frantically pulled against the handcuff. The metal bit into his skin.
Ashley rocked to her knees, grabbed Jack’s waist, caught her balance, then placed her mouth as close as she could to Jack’s ear. “What are we going to do?” she cried. Her eyes looked terrified.
“You need to—”
“What?”
The noise was deafening. There was no way the man could hear them over the motor’s roar. Louder this time, Jack yelled, “Take this cushion and jump overboard. It’ll float.” The words seemed to fly back into his throat as the wind beat against him.
“No—no way. Anyway, he’d just come after me.”
They were moving so fast the nose of the boat rose above the water until it pointed to the sky. Ashley held on to Jack with a viselike grip. “I’m so scared.”
“Me too. But there’s—” Even with the noise of the motor and the wind, he didn’t want to say the name out loud, so he mouthed “Bindy.” “She’ll call the police. She heard. She knows!”
“Jack—they might not believe her!”
The thought chilled him more than the spray from the wake, slamming into him like a fist. It was true. Bindy had told so many fantastic tales in the past! He knew how unbelievable the story would sound to his parents, to the police, to anyone who would listen as Bindy tried to convince them: The three of us stole a case full of secret sonar equipment, part of the government conspiracy that hurt the whales, and a strange man in black kidnapped Jack and Ashley and made them get into a boat.
It sounded utterly preposterous. Just another one of Bindy’s lies added to the pile.
Jack closed his eyes, and in the darkness behind his lids, thought of what lay ahead. Their only hope rested on Bindy.
CHAPTER TEN
Wind cut against Jack, salt stung his cheeks, and the roar of the motor nearly deafened him. When would this ride be over? Still kneeling, Ashley clung to him, burying her face against his arm. Whenever the boat lurched, tossed by a wave, she hung on him even tighter. His left wrist, handcuffed to the rail, grew numb; his right arm, clutched by Ashley, began to ache. How much longer? And where were they being taken?
Jack squinted at the sky. In Maine in the month of May the sun didn’t set until around 8:00, he had noticed the night before. Jack tried to read his watch, but the face of it was so covered with moisture from ocean spray that he couldn’t make out the digital numbers. The sun was behind him, which meant they were heading east. He couldn’t turn around to get a look at the sun’s position because the handcuff, as well as Ashley’s clinging, trapped him into a cramped position. Taking a guess, he figured it must be somewhere around six in the evening now, a full hour since the man—whose name Jack still didn’t know—had come bursting into their room.
The roar of the motor suddenly changed pitch, dropping lower as the boat began to slow down. A thousand feet ahead of them, a much bigger boat sat at anchor—they were heading straight toward it! The pilothouse on the top deck had been painted white, but a dull red covered the walls of the cabin on the lower deck. Attached to that deck was a huge spool wound with cable, probably used to raise and lower the anchor, or maybe it had something to do with sonar.
As they got closer, Jack estimated that the boat had to be about a hundred feet long. It dwarfed the speedboat they were riding in. When they pulled alongside, the man secured the boat then jerked Ashley roughly by the arm and forced her to climb ten feet up a rope-and-wood ladder to the boat deck. Next, he hurried back down to grab the suitcase, leaving Jack behind, still handcuffed to the railing.
Scared, Jack wondered how long he was going to be left there, a captive in the speedboat. After what seemed a long time but was probably only a few minutes, the man returned for Jack. “Now you,” he said, after unlocking the handcuff. “Get up there with your sister.”
Jack quickly climbed the ladder because the man was right behind him, prodding him hard on the back. When he reached the deck, he found Ashley shivering there, all alone, looking cold and small and fragile.
Suddenly a voice assaulted them over a loudspeaker. “Scully, what the crud have you done? Where’d you get these kids? What are they doing here?”
Scully! So that was the name of the man who’d kidnapped them! Scully looked up toward the pilothouse and called back, “I’ll explain everything when you get down here, Alex.”
In seconds a door burst open above them. Descending as nimbly as a monkey, Alex clattered down a ladder and dropped to the deck, saying, “OK, Scully, start talking.” Thin, wearing black pants, a short black jacket, and a black stocking cap, Alex had a high voice for a man almost six feet tall. “Explain this to me, and it better be good if you expect to get the rest of your money.” In a gesture of angry frustration, off came the black stocking cap, revealing spiked blond hair and a smooth pale forehead. Jack noticed long, thick lashes and—he couldn’t believe his eyes! Alex was a woman! A pretty woman, who looked younger than his mother!
“Did you bring the device?” she demanded.
“It’s over there.” Scully pointed to the suitcase. “About the kids, it’s a long story, Alex. To make it short, they found out about the sonar.”
“How? How could they possibly find out?”
“Like I said, it’s a long story.”
“You!” She strode toward Scully, her finger pointing accusingly. “You screwed up big, and your timing stinks.
I don’t know what we’re going to do wit
h these kids because Hashim’s on board, demanding to witness one more test.”
“Where is he?”
“In the galley with the crew, eating supper, but he’ll be up here soon. Give me the key to the suitcase.”
Scully mumbled, “I don’t have it.”
“What! Oh, for crud—” Crouching down so that her feet stayed flat on the deck while her long legs bent completely in half, Alex yanked a screwdriver from her pocket and forced open the suitcase. “We need to do a test as soon as I install this, because a chopper will pick up Hashim in a couple of hours. We gotta prove to him that this new sonar will work in the shallow waters of the Persian Gulf.”
Jack kept his face perfectly still, trying not to react to the words “Hashim” and “Persian Gulf.” He was smart enough to know that learning names and places could be dangerous. How many times had he heard on TV, “If I tell you that, I’ll have to kill you!” And there he stood, getting an earful of what surely must be secret information.
Ashley had no such concerns—she spoke right up. “You’re not going to test that sonar again! You’ve already killed too many whales with it. You promised you wouldn’t do it again.”
Surprised, Alex asked, “Who promised?”
“You! The U.S. Navy!”
Scully guffawed, while Alex shot him a dirty look.
“Ashley,” Jack muttered, “these people aren’t part of the U.S. Navy.”
Still scowling, Alex said, “Well, I was once. I worked on sonar technology.”
“Yeah, until she got kicked out,” Scully said, still grinning. “Dishonorably discharged for conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.”
“Gentleman!” Alex spat. “That’s what’s wrong with—hey, I don’t have time to deal with garbage right now, so just shut up, Scully!” She turned her attention to the suitcase, lifting the lid.
Out of the Deep Page 9
