“Obviously he doesn’t want you to order salad.”
Croc positioned himself against her legs and each time she tried to reach the phone, he interfered with her in some way. Always gently, but still preventing her from using the telephone. Finally Angela couldn’t take it anymore and grabbed his collar. She walked him into my room and shut the adjoining door. Croc scratched at the door and whined.
“Hey! I have to sleep in there tonight! Do you know how stinky it’s going to be?”
She ignored me.
“That is weird. I’ve never seen him act like that before,” Angela said. She sat back down on the bed and picked up the phone and placed the order.
A few minutes later, while Croc scratched and whined, it came over me.
The itch.
I’d been doing a one-handed cut of the deck and it just hit me. The itch is a feeling I get every once in a while. It’s not exactly precognition or anything like that. I can’t tell what’s going to happen, only that something is going to happen.
The last time it happened to me, Croc had been there. And he’d been acting all strange then, too, barking at the truck Malak and Bethany were riding in when I thought he had just gone nuts. Now he was weirding out again and I had the itch. There are no coincidences. But like I said, I never know exactly what to do with the itch and it doesn’t necessarily mean something bad is going to happen. Not true. Something bad almost always happens. Otherwise I’d probably never notice.
A few minutes later, with Croc still scratching and whining from the next room, there was a knock on Angela’s door. When she opened it, a room-service waiter was there with the food on a cart covered by a floor-length tablecloth.
The waiter pushed the cart into the room.
Before the door could swing shut, a woman with the most bleached-blond hair I’d ever seen, followed by a guy with a gun, stepped inside the room. Both of them were wearing press credentials and had cameras around their necks. The hotel was crawling with media types so it was probably a pretty good cover.
“Well, aren’t you two just as cute as little bluebonnets. I’m pleased to meet you both. My name is Ruby Spencer.”
Taken for a Ride
Everything happened fast. The waiter who was not a waiter pulled a gun out of his waistband and pointed it at me. Now all of them had guns. And he was big. Like juiced-out-on-steroids, crush-your-skull-like-a-walnut big.
With both of us covered, Miss Ruby smiled and dropped her pistol into a purse hanging from her arm. The purse was roughly the size of Delaware and bedazzled with bright red rubies. With her rings, jeweled purse, blond hair, and all that mascara and rouge she looked like a big, blond, sneering devil.
“Over-accessorize much?” Angela said.
Miss Ruby ignored her insult.
“Well now, sweetie pies … let’s just everybody stay calm and friendly like,” Miss Ruby said.
It didn’t take Angela long to get her back up. “What do you want? Who are you?” she demanded. The “I’m about to go all tae kwon do on you” look was in her eyes. I’d seen her take out Eben in Philadelphia with a kick. She had a black belt. But these guys had guns. Guns that were in their hands and pointed at us.
“Angela,” I said calmly. There was no way she could do anything now. A room-service cart was standing between the bad guys and us. Not to mention it was really close quarters. Any move she tried was probably going to get her shot. And me. Which would really impair my ability to do card tricks.
“What do you want?” she demanded again. Angela. Only she would get bossy with armed terrorists.
“What I want right now, sugar, is for y’all to calm down. There isn’t a need for anybody to get hurt. Now Miss Ruby’s going to take your li’l brother here on a nice ride is all. And y’all going to stay here with Marco and behave like the fine young lady I know you are,” Miss Ruby said.
“You’re not taking Q anywhere,” Angela said. Yay, Angela. Hold that thought.
“Darlin’, I’m afraid you don’t have a choice,” Ruby said.
“Over my dead body,” Angela said.
“Honey, that can be arranged,” Miss Ruby said.
The men took silencers out of their pockets and screwed them onto the muzzles of each gun. It was like it was happening in slow motion. And the effect was chilling. I felt like my body weighed ten thousand pounds and I couldn’t move.
Fake Waiter produced some plastic flex-cuffs and waved me toward him with his gun. I so wanted to shuffle my deck of cards right then because I was unbelievably nervous. Reaching for them was probably not a good idea. He motioned again for me to move. Finally, I was able to get my legs working and took a step toward him.
“Don’t move, Q!” Angela said.
“Honey, if you don’t keep your voice down I’m afraid we’ll keep it down for you. Now, Q, you be a good boy and get on over here. Nobody is going to hurt you. Move it,” Ruby said to me. This last sentence was more a command than a suggestion.
They had the guns so I did what they said. Crossing the few feet of the hotel room felt like it took hours. The next thing I knew, flex-cuffs were slipped over my wrists and pulled tight.
Miss Ruby was behind me. I was trying to look at Angela to make sure she was okay and that she wasn’t going to do anything that might get us both killed, when I felt something sharp poke me in the neck. I tried twisting and struggling to get away, but Fake Waiter yanked on my cuffs and held me in place. A kind of burning feeling crawled under the skin on my neck, then traveled across my chest. Seconds later my head felt weird, like it was full of cotton or something. I was suddenly dizzy and just wanted to lie down.
Ruby tossed a syringe into the trash can.
“What did you do to him?” Angela shrieked. Her voice sounded like it came from far away.
“He’s going to be fine. Just a little something to relax him. Now, Q, you be an angel and crawl underneath this tablecloth,” she said. She was holding the tablecloth up, showing a metal shelf beneath the cart. I knew I shouldn’t, but it was like I didn’t have control over my own body. When I sat on the bottom shelf of the cart and the tablecloth dropped into place, I should have been angry or thinking about escaping or whatever. But I just couldn’t make my limbs work. No matter how hard I tried.
“Q! Wait! What did you give him?” Angela shouted again. The only thing I could focus on was that the tablecloth was a really ugly shade of yellow. Then I heard the door open and the cart started to move.
Under the Gun
Angela stared at the man with the gun. He removed the camera and press credential from around his neck and tossed them onto the bed closest to the door. Her eyes were like laser beams burning a hole in him but he didn’t seem to care. He was a little over six feet tall, with black hair, dark eyes. He was pretty buff, Angela noticed, and looked like he knew how to handle himself. Despite her best efforts, giving him the stink eye had no effect.
He waved his gun toward the chair in the corner next to the TV. “Sit down,” he ordered.
“No.” She crossed her arms.
He raised the gun and pointed it directly at her. “Now.”
She figured she’d better do what he said, and slumped into the chair. There wasn’t any time to waste. If she couldn’t think of a way to get rid of this guy, Q was probably dead. Ruby had said Q was going to be fine. If the cell had tracked them or was watching them somehow, why did they take Q away and leave her here?
“Got a phone?” the guy asked her.
She shook her head. “My dad won’t let me have one. Thinks they are the harbinger of the complete collapse of our civilization,” Angela said.
“Wow. That’s too bad,” he said. Raising the pistol, he pointed it at her again. “Don’t lie to me. Where is it?”
She pointed to the desk where she’d been working on her homework. The phone lay next to the computer. If he walked past her to pick it up, she might be able to … but he wasn’t falling for that.
“Get up slowly. Drop it
on the ground and stomp on it.”
Angela tried very hard to show no reaction. But Q was getting farther away by the second. She had to think of something quick.
Angela retrieved the cell, dropped it to the carpeted floor and stepped on it, cracking the glass screen. She moved back to sit down, but the guy was not convinced.
“No,” he said. “In pieces. Smash it up real good.”
There was no way out of it, and she did as he requested.
The man sneered at her. “Now sit back down,” he said. He leaned up against the door leading to Q’s adjoining room. Angela remembered Croc was still in there. And she recalled how Croc had reacted when Speed Paulsen had surprised them on the coach.
Her momentary lift in spirits was dampened when she realized she was thinking a tired old dog could save her. Besides, she’d never get the door open. Boone and Croc could do some weird stuff but she was going to have to get herself out of this. And she didn’t have much time. She’d have to get free and find Boone somehow.
Minutes went by and the tension was almost more than she could bear. The gunman stood like a statue. The cell members were well trained. He stayed perfectly still but was always watching her, and she could tell he was ready to react in an instant if she tried anything. There had to be a way out of this. She started thinking about her mother, Malak, and how she had infiltrated the ghost cell by making everyone believe she was her own sister, aka Anmar, the Leopard. Angela knew that no matter what, she couldn’t give up.
She nearly jumped when someone knocked on the hallway door to the adjoining room.
“Housekeeping! Turn-down service,” the voice said.
The gunman straightened. He looked at Angela and put his finger to his lips in warning. As if to emphasize his point, he pointed the gun directly at her. He backed up and put the chain lock on the entry door to her room.
Angela could hear the housekeeper moving about in Q’s room. She wondered what the person thought when they spotted Croc, probably stretched out on the bed snoring and smelling up the place.
A few more minutes went by. Angela heard the hallway door to Q’s room shut and a few seconds later came the knock at the door to her room.
“Housekeeping! Turn-down service,” the voice said.
The gunman put his finger back to his lips again. Angela wanted to shout but the barrel of the gun was only a few feet away. The guy would never miss at this range. A few more knocks, then she heard the beep of the master keycard being inserted in the lock.
The door came open a crack before it caught on the chain.
“Oops! Sorry!” The door clicked shut and Angela could hear the housekeeper move on to the next room. The gunman resumed his stance and stared at her like a snake.
“How long are we going to stay here?” Angela asked. If she could get the guy talking maybe she could get under his skin and needle him into making a mistake. Or at least get information out of him.
The guy didn’t answer.
“Why did you take Q and not me?”
“Shut up,” the gunman said.
“Did they leave you behind because all you can handle is teenage girls? Haven’t worked your way up to adults or old people on walkers yet?”
The guy didn’t respond but Angela detected a brief glint of anger in his eye.
“Yep. You guys are like the bravest terrorists ever. Setting off car bombs in shopping malls or parks so you can kill a bunch of innocent people. You appear to be really talented at kidnapping thirteen-year-old-kids like Q. I’d love to see you go up against someone who could actually fight back, like … oh, I don’t know … a circus clown or a—”
“I told you to shut up,” he said, gritting his teeth and pointing the gun at her again.
Angela took a breath. She hadn’t figured out yet what he was waiting for. The cell had snatched them both before, but now just Q. Was he waiting for instructions?
It was the slight movement that drew her eye, otherwise she might not have seen it. The patterns and colors on the bedspreads nearly camouflaged him. Sticking out from underneath the bed closest to the door and farthest away from her, but shielded from the gunman’s vision, was a dog’s muzzle.
Croc.
What’s Happening to Me?
There is a trick to getting out of flex-cuffs or any kind of restraint. Actually it’s two tricks. I happen to know both. You don’t need to dislocate your shoulder or anything fancy. Or keep the key or a paper clip under your tongue or up your sleeve like you would for regular handcuffs. Though it would be helpful if flex-cuffs used keys. Or a knife. It would be faster at least. Actually, I don’t know if a knife or key would be faster. The knife probably. But possibly the key.
Whoa. Whatever they injected me with was … wait a minute. At first, I’d felt all woozy and dizzy when they’d given me the shot. Now whatever drug they used had my brain working even faster than it did when I was nervous. Miss Ruby said it was supposed to calm me down and make me sleepy. Instead I was wide awake. And hyped up. My heart felt like it was going at about two hundred beats a minute and my thoughts were flying through my head so fast I couldn’t keep track of them all. Something was wrong with my senses. I thought the drug should dull them, but instead they were magnified somehow. Noises were louder. Lights were brighter. Maybe I was allergic or she had missed a vein or it didn’t …
It wasn’t working right.
I wasn’t calm or sleepy like she planned. It was doing exactly the opposite, acting more like a stimulant. What if I did have some kind of allergy or something? I know I had a reaction once to penicillin when I had tonsillitis. It gave me a really itchy rash and it didn’t cure me, so the doctor had to give me something else. What if I was having a weird response to this drug and it wasn’t affecting me like it was supposed to? I really needed a deck of cards to shuffle so I could figure this out, but my hands were otherwise engaged behind my back.
Once we had gotten off the elevator in the parking garage, they pulled me out of the bottom of the cart. There was a big black SUV close to the elevator door and they dragged me along to it. Then it occurred to me—the fact the drug wasn’t working like it should was a good thing. But Miss Ruby and her minions should probably remain ignorant of that fact. So I shouldn’t tell them. In fact, I should pretend like it was working, I decided.
They shoved me into the backseat. I was told to keep quiet and not to try anything smart. No problem. Even though my brain didn’t feel sleepy or tired, my arms and legs felt kind of rubbery.
I landed in a heap on the backseat but instead of complaining, I giggled.
“Don’t worry,” Fake Waiter said to Miss Ruby. “Whatever you gave him has really hit him. He’s totally out of it.”
Excellent. I’m a magician, I kept telling myself. A magician practices deception.
As the car pulled out of the parking garage, it turned left. When Angela and I had been passing time on the coach, she told me some of the things her mother taught her about being a Secret Service agent. Angela called these things “tradecraft,” sort of an umbrella term used to describe the methods an agent used in the field. Tactics such as how to blend into a crowd, how to properly conduct countersurveillance, and also things you could do if you were ever abducted.
One thing was to try and look for passing landmarks. Even if you were in an unfamiliar place, you could look for unusual buildings or anything that would allow you to mark the direction your kidnappers were taking you. But I couldn’t really see anything lying as I was on the backseat. I tried counting the number of seconds between turns, but that didn’t work either because the SUV went slower on the surface streets, and then we must have gotten on the freeway because it really picked up speed and went a long way without turning and I lost count. Besides, I figured Angela would eventually get word to Boone. Or at least I hoped she would.
I was pretty sure we were headed out of the city and probably to Miss Ruby’s ranch. Miss Ruby didn’t know Boone knew where she lived. Once Angela got to him
, he’d come and get me. Right now, I had to concentrate on making them think I was helpless.
I guessed we’d driven for about a half hour and then slowed, made a turn, and rolled to a stop. A few seconds later Fake Waiter opened the back door, then yanked me off the backseat and onto my feet. It kind of hurt, but the drug was supposed to be making me not feel stuff, so I didn’t wince.
Instead, I giggled. “Waiter, did you exer give me myze hamburger? Because I’m shtill hungry,” I said slurring my words and smiling at him like a dope.
He shoved me hard in the back toward the front door of a big house. It was dark outside now and off in the distance I could hear cows mooing and assumed this must be the ranch.
“Hey, doan be sho mean,” I said. “I just … do I smell cows?”
Neither of them answered me, but Fake Waiter shoved me again.
“Where are we?” I said, weaving around like my knees might buckle at any moment. “And hey … you didn’t bring myze dinner! I’m hungrys and …”
“Shut up if you don’t want another shot,” the guy said and gave me a third shove in the back. This time I pretended to get my feet tangled up and fell down on the ground. It was hard to fall gracefully with my hands behind my back and I skinned my knee a little bit.
“Ows! Thaz’s harsh, dude,” I said. I had been around Speed Paulsen enough in my life to know what somebody sounds like when they’re stoned. I thought I was doing a good job.
“Take it easy, Sean,” Miss Ruby said. “We’re not supposed to hurt him.”
Fake Waiter’s name was Sean.
The jolt of pain when I fell to the ground kind of brought me closer to normal from the effect of the drug. I could think a little more clearly now. Not supposed to hurt me? Why? I wondered. Ransom? Probably not. The cell didn’t do things for money. And if they wanted ransom they would have taken Angela too.
It was weird. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what they wanted or even how they knew where we were staying. I knew Boone was worried about Malak’s real identity being uncovered by the cell. If her cover were blown it would put Angela in danger. But it didn’t seem like they’d figured out Malak’s connection to us yet. If they had, they probably would have just killed her already. And if they had discovered her deception, and even if they’d tortured her to learn what she knew … well … I’d met Malak up close a couple of times in the past few days. And I didn’t think she could ever be tortured into revealing her identity, if for no other reason than to protect Angela. She would die first. I suppose that they could have found out about her some other way. And maybe they’d taken Angela to some other location to keep us separated. That way they could sit back and wait to see who came after us and discover who was tracking them.