Harris flashed his FBI identification. “What’s going on? Where do we stand?”
The lieutenant on the scene was one of a group of officers standing around the Corvette. “Near as we can tell, the kids ran out of gas on the Harley and ditched it. We don’t know who was driving the ’vette, but he must have a head like a cannonball if he walked away from this collision.”
Harris nodded. “A big bald head. He’s trying to kill those kids.”
“Maybe we can lift his prints off the gun,” the lieutenant said hopefully. “That’s all we’ve got, except a dented urn full of ashes. We think the kids might have fought him off with it.”
Harris was agitated. “Why’d you stop the search? They were here twenty minutes ago!”
“They’re miles away.”
“How can you be so sure?” Harris insisted. “This is a huge cemetery, with lots of places to hide.”
In answer, the lieutenant reached down and clicked on the car radio.
“This is what it’s all about, people!” the Mouth was shouting. “Talk may be cheap, but nobody can say we weren’t ready to step up to the plate today! Thanks to our Denver listeners, Aiden and Meg Falconer are free right now! Good luck, you guys — we’re all cheering for you! That’s how I see it! You got a problem with that?”
Agent Emmanuel Harris had a problem with that.
* * *
Aiden and Meg had been on the move for several hours, with six different drivers in six different cars. The exchanges had been random and completely unexpected, taking place under bridges, in tunnels, and in covered parking lots, just in case they were being tracked by helicopter. It was meticulously orchestrated by the Mouth and his staff from two thousand miles away in New York. Suddenly, a cell phone would be handed over the seat, and the shock jock would say, “Red Nissan Pathfinder — go!”
And like magic, there the car would be, parked and waiting for them.
It was getting dark. They were a couple of hours outside the city, in a white Ford Taurus driven by a tough-looking middle-aged woman who worked nights repossessing cars.
By this time, it was clear that the “extraction” was a success. No one was following them, and the Denver dragnet was a hundred miles or more in the Taurus’s rearview mirror. Yet the feeling of relief was far from joyous. They still had no place to go, no money, and no clear way to help Mom and Dad. This wasn’t victory — it was squeaking through, battered and bloody, staving off the end of the world for one more day.
So why was Aiden feeling so absurdly happy? It was as if a huge burden had been lifted from his shoulders, and he was floating, lighter than air. He felt like singing.
But all the burdens were still in place, heavier than ever.
Am I losing my mind? I have nothing to celebrate!
He did, though, and it was this: Unlike Meg, he had always been racked by doubt. What if Mom and Dad really were traitors? Now they knew that Frank Lindenauer and Hairless Joe were one and the same. That simple fact blew away the fog that had been surrounding the truth. The man who had framed their parents was eliminating all possible witnesses to cover up his own terrible crimes.
Mom and Dad had committed no crimes at all.
Of course, Aiden had always believed that — always wanted to believe it. But knowing it for certain made his heart soar.
“What are you grinning about?” Meg grumbled. “Mac Mulvey didn’t extract us, the Mouth did.”
The shock jock’s voice rang out over the Taurus’s radio. Their savior was still on the air, hours after his scheduled program had ended. Thousands of phone calls, pro and con, had been pouring in all day, and the Mouth had pledged to stick around to listen to every single opinion.
The current caller had Aiden and Meg hanging on his every word. It was Agent Emmanuel Harris, and he was red-hot steaming mad over what the Mouth had done.
“It’s not a public service, it’s a federal crime! Freedom of the press doesn’t cover aiding and abetting fugitives! If you don’t identify your accomplices and help us bring in those kids, I can have you prosecuted to the full extent of the law!”
The Mouth was defiant. “Is that the kind of justice you were practicing when you dumped them on a prison farm after your kangaroo court convicted their parents?”
That obviously stung. “I’ve reopened the Falconers’ case. The files are on my desk, and I’d be reviewing them this minute if some misguided fool wasn’t moving heaven and earth to keep those children out on their own, in harm’s way!”
In the back of the Taurus, Aiden and Meg exchanged a look of wonder. Could that be true? Was the FBI really reconsidering their parents’ conviction?
No words passed between them, but both arrived at exactly the same conclusion. Anything that came out of Agent Harris’s mouth wasn’t worth the air it took to carry the sound waves. It was just another trick to get them to turn themselves in.
The Mouth thought so, too. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Harris. We can all sleep soundly knowing our government is protecting us by hounding two defenseless kids. Get off my radio show! Go beat up a baby or something!” He pulled the plug on the FBI agent and cut to a commercial.
A few seconds later, the cell phone rang. The woman put it on speaker.
“How are you doing, guys? Everything okay?” The Mouth didn’t wait for an answer. “You’re about to be dropped off at a small-town bus station. Your driver’s going to give you some money. Buy your tickets from the machine, not the counter. And don’t let anybody know where you’re going — not your driver, not even me. Got it?”
Meg spoke up. “If we ever get our lives straightened out, we’ll make this up to you. We’ll tell the world what you did for us. And we’ll come on your show and give you a big exclusive.”
“And we’ll pay you back every cent,” Aiden put in.
“I may be a little hard to track down for the foreseeable future,” the shock jock said in an odd voice. “I think I’m going to be arrested pretty soon.”
“Sorry,” mumbled Meg.
“We’ll never forget how you stuck your neck out for us,” added Aiden.
“Don’t worry about me,” the shock jock shrugged it off. “I get thrown in jail every time the wind blows. It’s good PR for the show. I should be thanking you guys. The problem with talk radio — it’s just talk. But every now and then something comes along that reminds you what’s really important. You kids are so busy staying alive that you probably don’t even notice. The way you’re fighting for your family — it makes me proud to be human! That’s how I see it. You got a problem with that?”
“No problem at all,” Meg said hoarsely. But the connection was already broken.
A few minutes later, they were let off at a general store that also served as a bus depot. The driver pressed two hundred dollars into Aiden’s hand, ordered him to look after his little sister, and sped off in the direction they’d come from.
Standing at the side of the road, watching the Taurus disappear, Meg heaved a world-weary sigh. “What now, bro? We’ve got bus ticket money, but nowhere to go.”
“We’re not going anywhere,” he replied. “We’ve been looking for Frank Lindenauer. Well, today we found him.”
“We found him a long time ago,” his sister pointed out. “Today was the day we put a name to the ugly face.”
“We can’t go back to Denver just yet,” Aiden went on. “Not till things cool off. But that’s where he is, so that’s where we have to be.”
She was dismayed. “It’s a little more complicated than that, Aiden. He may be our target, but we’re his targets, too! He’s trying to kill us. We can’t run toward him and away from him at the same time!”
“That’s why we have to set a trap.”
She was skeptical. “Using what as bait?”
Aiden squared his jaw. The plan had been forming in his mind ever since it had become clear that their escape from the cemetery was going to be successful. It would be tricky and lethally dangerous.
But the time had come to risk everything for a chance to save the Falconer family.
“We’re the bait.”
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, December 2005
Cover design by Tim Hall
e-ISBN 978-0-545-63207-2
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.
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