The Family Hitchcock

by Mark Levin

  “That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”

  The commissioner stroked his chin. “And where are they now?”

  Jules hated to admit it, but he never believed in lying, not even to cover for himself.

  “To tell the truth, I have no idea.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Benji was the first Hitchcock to stir, waking from a dreamless slumber, his face planted firmly on a hard, wood floor. He rubbed his eyes, then groaned, a sharp pain shooting through the back of his neck. Then he rolled over, blinked at a strange, barren ceiling, then finally sat up and looked at his family sprawled around him. His mother was on her back, arms splayed out from her sides, mouth open. Maddy’s body was curled in a giant C, her head on her mother’s stomach. His father was lying on his stomach across the room by a fireplace.

  Benji inhaled sharply. Was he the only survivor? Had he been left in a room with his dead family? How had they gotten here? Terrified, he scrambled from his mother to his sister to his father to make sure they were breathing. Satisfied, he finally exhaled. Then he rose shakily to his feet and tried the door. Just as he thought—locked.

  There was a slim shaft of light from the lone window. Time to see where they were. Pulling aside the frayed curtain, Benji couldn’t tell much—only that he and his family were trapped on the second floor of a small house. Outside was a beat-up green tractor and a rusty Honda. Beyond that were miles of ragged cornfields. A thin dirt road wended its way toward a nearby mountain.

  “Great,” he thought. “Kidnapped in the middle of nowhere.”

  It was all too much. A boy like him didn’t belong in some sort of weird European plot. He belonged at Camp Keys, practicing piano and reconfiguring hard drives. Staring out the window, he imagined performing the Chopin Revolutionary Etude for a captive audience, then sneaking out of his cabin at night to name constellations. But this was no time to be lost in useless fantasies. This was one of those defining life moments when heroes in books and movies found unknown reserves of courage. Benji sighed. He was no movie star, just a nerdy kid. For a moment he fought to keep his composure. Then he gave in and let the tears come.

  “Hey, wingman?”

  Benji kept on sniffling.

  “Wingman?” He felt his father’s hand on his shoulder. “You OK?”

  The boy turned slowly. A moment ago he would have been thrilled to see another family member awake. Now he was embarrassed. Whatever had been in that gas was obviously wearing off. The entire family was coming to.

  “I’m fine, Dad.”

  “You don’t look fine,” Maddy said groggily from the floor. “You’re crying.”

  “Was not,” Benji said.

  Maddy saw him wipe his face with his sleeve but kept her mouth shut. Of course he was crying. She felt like crying, too. Who wouldn’t? The last thing she remembered was the sickly sweet smell of the orange gas. Being abducted seemed a lot more romantic in the movies. In real life it was, well, terrifying. Then Maddy felt her mother stir beneath her. Rebecca took a good look at their new surroundings, then glanced pointedly at Roger.

  “I take it we aren’t in Paris anymore,” she said.

  Maddy saw her father’s face cloud over.

  “I guess not,” he said. “And I guess that calling Harry Huberman wasn’t such a great idea.”

  It was a low blow, but Maddy didn’t blame her dad for saying it. Her mother had seemed pretty enamored of the guy—and why, really? Had they trusted their lives to Harry Huberman because he wore a nice suit and had a great cleft?

  Maddy’s mom didn’t seem to think so. She stood up so fast, Maddy’s head fell from her stomach to the hard floor.

  “Excuse me?” she said to her husband. “You’re blaming this on me?”

  “Well,” Roger said. “You’re the one who wanted to call your friend from the embassy.”

  “You’re the one who wanted to do this stupid house swap in the first place.” Rebecca wheeled around, taking in the barren room. “Look where we are. Nice trip to Paris, Roger!”

  Maddy grimaced. At least Benji had the courage to admit he was frightened. But her parents? It was painful to see two adults taking their terror out on each other.

  “Just relax, OK?” Roger said. “I’m going to get us out of here.”

  Maddy rose to her feet.

  “How? We’re probably surrounded by a moat or something.”

  “Actually, just lots of corn,” Benji said.

  “Well, I’m not standing for it,” Rebecca said. “Time to get out of here.”

  Maddy knew that tone of voice. When her mother was fed up, she could morph into something truly scary, capable of getting pretty much whatever she wanted. She watched her mother stride purposefully across the room—all traces of the sprained ankle were gone—and shake the doorknob with two fists.

  “Let us out! We’re American citizens! That’s the United States! You wanna have the CIA breathing down your throats?”

  “Sorry, Mom,” Maddy said. “Getting out of here may not be quite as easy as talking your way onto a direct flight to Paris from Miami.”

  Rebecca shot her daughter a “don’t mess with me” look, then faced Roger. “You know what? Next time you want to go on one of these stupid family vacations, go yourself!”

  “Nice, Mom,” Maddy said. “That’s real helpful.”

  “Watch your tone, young lady.”

  “Come on, sweetie,” Roger said. “Maddy’s right. That’s not helping, is it?”

  Maddy knew that being helpful was no longer an option. When her mother didn’t get something she had screamed for, what generally followed was a total breakdown.

  “Not helping? I’ll tell you what isn’t helping! I’m sick of being hauled around the world like a sack of . . . of volleyballs!”

  Maddy saw her father blink. Her mother had hit below the belt: She had impugned the tradition of the family vacation.

  “Oh yeah?” her father said. “Well, I’m sick of you acting like a volleyball all the time.”

  Maddy shot her brother a glance. Benji looked stunned, as though he were watching Charles Darwin speak out against his theory of evolution.

  “What?” Rebecca said. “Are you calling me a volley-ball?”

  Roger didn’t back down. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I am! You, my dear, are a volleyball!”

  If her father’s words weren’t laced with such anger and fear, they would have been comical. As for Maddy, she was stunned, too, for once stripped bare of any sort of tart rejoinder or comment. But just like that, the argument was cut off at the knees. A deathly wail filled the room. Maddy had heard it before, the last time when Benji’s Lego Death Star had been blown onto the floor by a windstorm.

  “Shut up!” her brother cried. “Shut up!” He turned to their mother. “Stop being mean to Daddy!”

  This time the tears came so hard there was no stopping them. Maddy saw her parents exchange a guilty glance. Rebecca went instantly to Benji.

  “I’m not being mean to Daddy,” she said, wrapping an arm around him. She looked desperately at Roger, then back at Benji. “Uh, we’re discussing, dear. This is how grown-ups discuss.”

  Rebecca’s explanation only served to make Benji cry even harder. He pushed his mother away.

  “Well, stop discussing!” he slobbered. “I’m scared!”

  “Hey, we’re all scared,” Maddy said. “But we have to keep it together, right?”

  “Oh, thanks,” Benji said. “Who told you that? Noah Willis?”

  Now it was Maddy’s turn to be shocked.

  “Hey, shut up.”

  “You shut up! I’m really, really scared!”

  Maddy grimaced. Just what they needed now. Another fear-induced argument. No doubt about it: Her brother was good for solving equations but lousy in a crisis.

  “Come on,” she said. “Pull it together, OK?”

  Benji sank to his knees.

  “I want to go home!”

  “We will, honey,” Rebe
cca said. “Just as soon as we get out of here.”

  “You’ll be tickling Chopin on the old ivories before you know it, sport.”

  Benji jumped up and down like a three-year-old having a tantrum.

  “No! I want to go home now!”

  Maddy had heard enough. If ever a situation called for an intervention, this was it. Though she and Benji had been on bad terms for the school year, she had never hit him. But now it was her turn to act on her fears. Before she knew what she was doing, she cocked her arm and slapped him hard on the cheek. For a spilt second, the family was silent, trying to take in what had just happened.

  “Ow!” Benji said finally, eyes wide. “You . . . you hit me!”

  Maddy felt terrible.

  “Oh, God, Benji.”

  Before she could finish, he flung himself at her, grabbed her around the waist, and tackled her hard against the floor. Maddy was so surprised it took her a few moments to fight back. Her brother was a wimp—a giant brain coated in a thin layer of pale skin and glasses. She doubted that he even knew how to make a fist. Still, he had done it. And now she had to take matters in hand.

  “OK, I hit you!” Maddy cried. “Because you needed it.”

  She flipped him onto his back easily and pinned him to the floor.

  “Stop fighting!” Rebecca called. “Both of you!”

  Benji landed a punch in Maddy’s gut. It hurt more than she ever would have expected.

  “You’ll pay for that!”

  “Break it up!” Roger said.

  By that point, Maddy had Benji in a half nelson. Maddy felt her father lift her up and shake Benji loose. Then he deposited her on the floor on the other side of the room.

  “You know our family rules,” Rebecca said. “No fighting!”

  “We weren’t fighting,” Benji said. His shirt was untucked and his eyes were red. His hair stuck out in too many directions to count.

  “Yeah, Mom,” Maddy said with a wry grin. “We were discussing!”

  Her mother’s eyes went wide. It took Maddy a moment to realize that she was looking beyond her toward the door. Framed in the doorway stood a squat older woman. Turning to face her, Maddy thought she had never seen a human being who was so wide and wrinkled.

  “Madame!” Roger said. “We are the Hitchcocks of Chicago. And we demand to know where we are.” He forced himself to take another step closer. “Comprendez-vous?”

  “We have rights guaranteed by the Geneva Convention!” Rebecca said. She looked at her husband. “Maybe she’s Sofia.” She turned back to the woman. “Are you Sofia?”

  It was then that Maddy noticed the tray. On it were four bowls filled with a grayish substance she assumed was some sort of food. With a dismissive grunt in a language Maddy didn’t understand—it certainly wasn’t English or French—the woman laid the tray on the floor.

  As the woman turned for the door, Maddy exchanged a glance with her parents. Somehow, she knew that their only hope for escape lay in delaying her. Clearly, Benji was thinking the same thing.

  “Wait!” Benji cried. All eyes turned his way. He paused. What should he say?

  The woman replied in a voice that sounded like a bark.

  Maddy held her breath.

  “I—I gotta pee!”

  The woman frowned. “Pee?” she said in twisted English.

  “Yes! Yes!” Maddy said. “He has to go. You know, go pee. Urinate.”

  “It’s a basic human right!” Roger declared.

  “Where do you expect us to do it?” Rebecca said. She glanced over her shoulder at the fireplace. “In there?”

  The woman looked at the fireplace as if considering whether or not it could, in fact, be used as a bathroom. Finally, she scowled at Benji and nodded, then waved him to the door.

  “Me?” Benji squeaked.

  “He can’t go alone,” Rebecca said. “I’ll go with him.”

  When his mother grabbed the door, the woman pushed her hard to the floor.

  “No,” the woman said.

  Maddy saw the woman grab her brother by the collar and shove him out of the room. The door slammed shut.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Benji Hitchcock was many things. He was smart, that was for certain. He knew a lot about gadgets and computers. He had an unstoppable memory and played a mean piano. His report cards were filled with phrases such as “sweetly intelligent,” “remarkably insightful,” and “a joy to teach.” But like many intelligent boys, there were other ways he would have preferred to have been described. “Courageous,” for one. Or “daring.” Maybe even “studly and dangerous.”

  But maybe, just maybe, he was more studly and dangerous than he thought. Hadn’t he pushed a man down a flight of stairs, then run for his life across a Parisian rooftop? Hadn’t he been kidnapped? Most important of all, hadn’t he just body slammed his sister? In truth, Maddy had quickly wrestled him to the ground, but with that one act, Benji had showed himself that he was quickly morphing from the little boy who slept at the foot of his parents’ bed into a more confident young man who could rise to the occasion. Following the old lady down a dimly lit hallway to a steep stairway, he was determined to do whatever it took to free his family.

  But how?

  Since their arrival in Paris, bad luck had followed the Hitchcocks around like a hungry dog begging for scraps at a feast. As Benji stepped into a small kitchen–living room area, the family finally caught a break. The old woman gestured down the hall and grunted.

  Quickly, Benji surveyed the scene. Leaning back in a ripped lounge chair with a shotgun in his lap sat an old man watching a soccer game on a black-and-white TV. Worse, there was the small matter of the dog—a German shepherd, Benji guessed—tied by a rope to a small chair, lying right in front of the kitchen counter, growling, and chomping furiously on a bone.

  That was the bad luck. The good luck was what lay on the kitchen counter. There, next to an upside-down coffeepot, lay a set of keys. And not just any keys. Even from a distance, Benji could tell that they were too long and narrow to be to a house.

  He glanced out the window. In the driveway stood the old Honda. Did it have gas? Could they use it to escape?

  Again the woman pointed down the hall.

  Benji drew in a deep breath. The path to the facilities took him directly past the dog. To make clear who controlled the territory, the animal instantly flew to the end of his leash, barking wildly. Panicked, Benji pressed himself against the wall.

  “Down, boy,” Benji stammered.

  The man looked over his shoulder and yelled at the dog. Then an old boot flew across the room, catching the dog in the snout. With a whimper, the animal slunk back to the counter.

  With the path cleared, Benji all but ran down the hall and shut the bathroom door. For a second he considered staying inside forever. Or else breaking out the small window over the toilet and running for help. But where? No, the only way out was in the car. And for that he needed the keys. It had already occurred to him what he had to do to get them. But did he have the guts? Even the little Corgi who lived next door in Chicago terrified him—and this dog was much bigger and meaner than that.

  Benji washed his hands twice, then stared himself down in the mirror. Yes, he was the most unlikely hero on the planet, every inch a standard-issue American geek. But what was the fury of a crazed dog compared with his family’s well-being? And so Benji dug deep—no, he wasn’t an action hero from the movies or a book, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t do what had to be done. To hesitate was to chicken out. . . .

  Benji kicked open the bathroom door. Marching down the hall like an army commando on a raid, he reached the living room, then immediately pretended to slip, making sure to cuff the dog firmly on the chin. As expected, the animal exploded in a fury of barks and yelps. As the old man lumbered over from his chair, waving another shoe and screaming for quiet, Benji struggled to his feet, slipped his hand onto the counter, and took the car keys. The woman grabbed him by the back of the shirt.r />
  As the man dragged the dog back to his place by the counter, the woman pulled Benji by the scruff of his neck up the stairs. She opened the door to the Hitchcocks’ room and shoved him inside. Benji hadn’t seen his mother look so distraught since he had placed second in the statewide math competition. Her face was bone white.

  “Oh my God! We heard the dog. What happened? Are you all right?”

  “You OK, sport?” his father asked.

  “We thought he had ripped you to shreds,” Maddy said.

  By that time Benji was smiling.

  “No such luck, Sis.”

  Then his smile turned into a full-out grin.

  His mother eyed him warily. “What’s so funny?”

  Benji opened his right fist, revealing the car keys.

  “Who wants to take a ride?”

  Benji couldn’t believe where he was. It was one thing to provoke a vicious dog in order to steal a set of car keys. It was quite another to find himself standing atop his sister’s shoulders halfway up a chimney. Of course, Benji knew that he had no one to blame but himself. When he stole the keys, he had had no clue as to how he and his family might actually break out of the room and get to the driveway. Someone will think of something, he thought. That someone was his father.

  Now he was covered in soot, reaching desperately for the roof.

  “Push me higher!” Benji called down.

  “Yeah,” Maddy said. “Hurry!”

  Benji’s foot slipped off his sister’s shoulders and accidentally whacked her in the mouth.

  “Hey, watch it!”

  “Sorry!” Benji said. “I’m trying to stand still.”

  “Try harder!”

  “OK!” Benji heard his mother call up. “Hold on.”

  Benji steadied himself on his sister’s shoulders and looked up to the thin patch of daylight ten or so feet overhead. At the sound of a loud scuffling below, he looked down. He couldn’t see much but knew that his mom was ducking into the fireplace, just like he and Maddy had done. Now it was her turn to put Maddy on her shoulders, thereby lifting Benji closer to the roof.

  “All right,” Benji heard. “One, two, three!”

  Benji didn’t move. He heard a crash, then a short scream, followed by his father hissing. “Quiet. Try again.” A series of grunts later, Benji braced himself for the second attempt.