The Stowaway Solution

Bergeron thought it over. “Belay that search, and start a new one.”

  The crewman’s voice was confused. “Mr. B?”

  “I want this ship torn apart rivet by rivet,” the first mate ordered. “I think we might have a couple of hitchhikers.”

  * * *

  By two o’clock that afternoon, the sea had grown no calmer. The pitch and roll of the Samantha D’s starboard lifeboat had settled into a stomach-churning carnival ride.

  If anything, Aiden was even more seasick than Meg. I feel like I’m going to die, and I’m afraid I won’t, he reflected, struggling to keep his spirits up and his lunch down.

  Meg turned over listlessly and checked her brother’s watch for at least the thirtieth time. “Two-forty-nine,” she reported. “Nine hours and eleven minutes till midnight.” Midnight was when they’d agreed it would be safe to sneak back to their hiding place amid the cargo drums in the hold.

  “I can’t promise it’ll be much better down there,” Aiden cautioned her. “When the sea is rough, it counts for the whole ship.”

  “Yeah, but at least we won’t be swinging,” she groaned. “I mean, what could be worse than this?”

  The words were barely out of her mouth when a loud, repeating Klaxon cut the air and an amplified voice crackled, “All hands on deck. All hands.”

  The Falconers lay frozen with shock. What was going on?

  “We’ve got to get out of here!” Meg whispered urgently. “We’re sinking!”

  Aiden was no calmer, but at least he was logical. “If we’re sinking, we’re in exactly the right place. But they didn’t say ‘abandon ship.’” He raised the tarpaulin and peered through the gap.

  The deck below the conning tower swarmed with sailors in shiny yellow rain gear. A man who appeared to be in charge barked a few orders, and the crew scattered.

  Aiden squinted to get a better view through the driving downpour. “What are they doing?” he mumbled aloud. From his pocket, he pulled out a dainty pair of mother-of-pearl opera glasses that had once belonged to none other than Frank Lindenauer. Aiden had first taken them as a possible clue to the traitor’s whereabouts. But they came in handy as mini-binoculars, too.

  Now he trained them on the crew of the Samantha D, hoping to discover their purpose, fearing that he already knew it.

  “They’re abandoning ship, right?” Meg demanded.

  “Worse.” Aiden watched a moment longer. The sailors were opening hatches, peering down companionways, riffling through equipment bins. “They’re searching. For us.”

  Meg went rigid with fear. “But how did they find out we’re on board?”

  “It doesn’t matter how they found out. They know. And this lifeboat is one of the first places they’ll check.” He reached under the duffel of supplies and pulled out two rain ponchos.

  She gawked. “We’re about to get caught, and you’re worried about a little rain?”

  “The whole crew’s wearing yellow slickers just like these,” he explained rapidly. “In this visibility, they’re not going to see faces; they’ll just see another couple of raincoats walking by.”

  “Yeah, but walking to where?”

  “To where they’ve already searched. That’s the safest place right now.” He fitted the poncho over her head and put his own on. “Quick — before they work their way around to this side.”

  They jumped down to the heaving deck, which was slick with rain and spray. Of all the wild schemes they’d hatched over these weeks on the run, this seemed the most foolhardy — to march directly through the ranks of the very people who are looking for you.

  Yet it seemed to be working! They brushed right behind two sailors who were rummaging through an equipment locker, and they scooted straight through the center of activity on the main deck. The crew was so concerned with investigating every nook and cranny that they had no eyes for two figures in plain sight.

  The deck lurched, and Aiden nearly lost his footing. Meg caught his arm and steadied him, even as she tried to stand taller in her squall gear.

  This whole illusion disappears the instant we attract attention, Aiden reminded himself. And then we’re dead.

  He looked around, panic-stricken. Yellow slickers were everywhere. There was no place that seemed free of them, no safe haven beckoning. Except —

  The steel conning tower loomed over them against the rain-streaked sky. Had it been searched yet? It was impossible to know. But another argument tugged at him: All hands on deck meant a minimum crew on the bridge — maybe even just one sailor at the wheel.

  He hustled Meg ahead of him through the hatch to the ship’s main superstructure. The place reminded Aiden of the inside of a submarine the family had once visited at a naval museum — cramped space, low ceiling, and everything battleship gray. It was deserted — their gamble had paid off. But the clatter of heavy footsteps on metal surfaces rang all around them. They had to disappear, and right now.

  Companionways led in several different directions, but Aiden’s eyes fell on the hatch marked TANK ACCESS.

  His heart quickened. If that meant what he thought it did, they had found a hiding place where no one would ever think to look for them.

  A narrow ladder led up a claustrophobic tube that rose a full forty steps into the guts of the tower. At the top, a domed surface appeared before them, stretching ten feet across and made of heavy-grade reinforced steel.

  Meg was mystified. “The gas tank?”

  Aiden shook his head. “Water. An oceangoing vessel has to carry its own fresh water.” He reached out onto the gently rounded surface to the circular rubber-sealed hatch in front of him. The hatch-lock wheel was well oiled and turned easily. Aiden threw open the cover and looked down.

  About five feet of water sloshed with the motion of the ship in a tank that was seven feet deep — enough to meet the drinking, cooking, and bathing needs of a crew of twenty-eight on a short voyage. Ladder rungs, similar to those in the hold, ran down the curve of the wall to the bottom.

  Gritting his teeth, Aiden swung himself over the edge and climbed down into the tank. The water felt clammy as his jeans soaked it up and like slush as it filled his shoes.

  He shuffled over on the rungs, making room for his sister. She grimaced as her lower body was submerged.

  “Aw, man, this is nasty!” was her whispered complaint.

  Soon they were both hanging on to the top rung, their heads and shoulders above water level, the rest of them under. Aiden reached up and pulled the hatch closed over them.

  The darkness was suffocating.

  Meg took a slosh in the face. “This is him, isn’t it?” she sputtered accusingly. “Mac Mulvey — this is how he stowed away.”

  “I know it’s awful,” Aiden admitted, “but they’ll never find us here.”

  It was the one argument that put an end to all others. Comfort was nice, but freedom was mandatory. It was the only way to keep hope alive for Mom and Dad.

  Whatever it took.

  Aiden and Meg had known many hardships since their escape from Sunnydale Farm in Nebraska. But never had they suffered such exquisite torture as they now experienced in the water tank of the Samantha D.

  It might have been day; it might have been night. It might have lasted a minute, an hour, a week. The Falconers hung there in abject misery, deprived of all sensation save the ache in their arms and the chill in their bones.

  The water had seemed cold to Meg at first contact. Now, a few hours later, she might as well have been standing with a family of penguins in Antarctica.

  “I can’t feel my feet,” she said plaintively. In the crushing silence of the tank, her words were echoing bomb blasts.

  Aiden’s teeth were chattering. “I know. I’m freezing, too.”

  “No,” she insisted, her voice growing shrill. “I honestly can’t feel them. Like my legs fade out at the knees.”

  “Shhh,” he soothed, reaching out his own leg to try to massage some life back into hers. “You’re fine, Meg. I think you
lost a shoe, but that’s it.”

  She was relieved, embarrassed, and terrified at the same time. “I’m starting to go nuts, Aiden. There’s no way I can last all the way to Seattle in here.”

  She had never before heard defeat in her own voice, and that distressed her more than this horrible tank or the angry sea outside.

  He drew her into his arms, and they clung together. There was no body heat left for them to share, but at least they could feed off each other’s strength.

  * * *

  Captain McNicholl ran the Samantha D with a no-nonsense style and expected the same from the officers under his command.

  “Well, are they on the ship or aren’t they?”

  “Definitely aboard, skipper,” Bergeron told him. “They were into the provisions in the starboard lifeboat. But darned if we can find them.”

  The captain frowned. “They can’t be illegal aliens — they were already in the country when they boarded. Who would hop a domestic freighter?”

  The first mate shrugged. “Thrill seekers?”

  McNicholl didn’t buy it. “We do twenty knots with a tailwind. You’d find more thrills on a city bus.”

  The ship’s cook, Frenchie, stepped up the companionway to the bridge. The only thing French about him was his name, Al French. But the crew of the Samantha D liked to be able to say that their meals were prepared by a French chef. “Got a minute, Captain?”

  “Not now, Frenchie.”

  “You’ll want to hear this,” the cook insisted. “The water’s down to a trickle in the galley — ”

  “This isn’t the time for another one of your plumbing stories,” Bergeron said impatiently.

  “So I opened up the main pipe,” Frenchie went on, “and pulled out this.” He held up a waterlogged Keds sneaker, size four.

  McNicholl and Bergeron exchanged a look of pure shock. “The water tank!”

  Thirty seconds later, they were climbing the narrow ladder in the access tube. Bergeron threw the hatch cover wide, and the captain and first mate stared in naked disbelief down into the opening.

  Two shivering kids clung together in the churning water. Their lips were blue, their faces chalk white.

  * * *

  Like most places aboard the Samantha D, the storage compartment was cramped and uncomfortable. It was doubly so for Aiden and Meg, who huddled in thick blankets in the gloomy clutter. The only light came from a small porthole that peeked out just a few inches above deck level. With the worsening weather and the onset of night, soon they were in total darkness. Although the air was stuffy, they felt as if they’d never be warm again.

  All this was minor compared with the reality of what had happened.

  “I guess this proves that even the great Mac Mulvey isn’t perfect,” Meg mumbled in a hollow tone.

  Aiden shook his head miserably. “I can’t believe they caught us. It’s crazy — I mean, we always knew this plan was a long shot. But — ”

  Meg nodded. “We beat the odds so many times, we figured we could keep on doing it.”

  “We were stupid. Everybody runs out of miracles sooner or later.”

  “Not necessarily,” his sister said hopefully. “Maybe the crew won’t figure out who we are.”

  There was a click as the hatch was unlocked. A blinding beam shone in their faces. They shielded their eyes from the sudden painful light.

  “So,” came the unpleasant voice of Rod Bergeron, “how does it feel to be the children of traitors?”

  The chill of the water tank was suddenly toasty compared with the liquid nitrogen that flooded Aiden’s gut. What was worse than being found? Being found out.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t play me,” the sailor snarled. “How many fugitives are your age, and running from LA? You made quite an impression back there. They had half the police force out looking for you. It’ll be a big family reunion for you and your rotten parents — behind bars.”

  Aiden bit his lip, but Meg was not as restrained. “Our parents are more patriotic than you’ll ever be!”

  Bergeron’s scowl got even uglier. “You’re talking to someone who wore the uniform of this country! Who saw action in the First Gulf War! Anybody lucky enough to be born here who betrays America should be strung up, and their delinquent kids with them!”

  “You’ll eat those words when we prove they’re innocent!” Meg raged.

  But her promise was empty, and both Falconers knew it. The quest to exonerate their parents had come to an abrupt end. It was another juvenile detention facility for Aiden and Meg — one with bars instead of barns this time.

  The first mate tossed their dried clothes and an oversize Ziploc bag down on a coil of heavy mooring line. That clear pouch contained all their possessions in the world, in varying degrees of water damage. The opera glasses seemed unhurt, but the faxes from Staples were little more than pulp. There was also a leaflet from a charity connected to HORUS Global. It had fared slightly better — faded, but still readable. Most important was Aiden’s nine-year-old vacation snapshot of “Uncle Frank” himself — their first, and still their best, clue in the search for the man who had framed their parents. It was crinkled and soggy, but the image was intact.

  Missing from the collection was about eighty dollars. Aiden could only assume it had been stolen, probably by Bergeron himself. He found it very hard to worry about a little money at this awful moment, with the future of the Falconer family evaporating before their eyes.

  Besides, he reminded himself, more than half the cash was counterfeit, anyway. That phony fifty was a souvenir of their brief association with an LA street gang.

  The first mate sneered at the Ziploc. “The famous Falconers, mucking around the cargo, bribing the rats with a bagful of junk. Is that what your parents sold out their country for? You disgust me!”

  For a moment, Aiden thought he might actually spit at them. Instead, Bergeron set the flashlight down on the coil of rope. “The captain says to leave you this. He doesn’t want the baby terrorists to be afraid of the dark.” He stepped out of the compartment and then wheeled to face them once more. “You’ll be happy to know that the FBI was very interested to learn we’ve got you on board. They’re sending an agent to meet you at the dock in Seattle. An old friend of yours, they say. Guy named Harris.”

  The hatch slammed shut. They heard the key turn.

  “J. Edgar Giraffe,” Meg groaned, using their nickname for the six-foot-seven Emmanuel Harris. “Why does it have to be him?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Aiden said glumly. “Caught is caught.”

  After unfolding a tarpaulin to use as a privacy curtain, they got dressed. Their meager possessions, lightened by theft, disappeared easily into their pockets. Most of the fax was ruined, but Meg saved the pages that were still readable.

  We’ll be trading it all for Juvie jumpsuits tomorrow, Aiden reflected despondently.

  As he crumpled up the spoiled papers, he frowned at the rectangular object he and Meg were using as a makeshift table. It resembled a suitcase except for its color — nobody made luggage in fluorescent orange, did they?

  Then his eyes fell on the plastic packaging: PORTABLE LIFE RAFT — PULL TAB TO INFLATE.

  Meg read it, too, her jaw setting into a profile of grim determination. “We are so out of here, bro!”

  Aiden stared at her. “What — in this?”

  “It’s a boat.”

  “It’s a rubber raft,” he amended. “That’s open ocean out there — in the middle of a storm!”

  “If you’ve got a better plan, let’s hear it,” Meg challenged. “In fourteen hours we chug into Seattle, where J. Edgar Giraffe will be waiting on the dock.”

  Aiden swallowed hard. Neither of them knew anything about sailing or navigation. And here they were, ready to take on a full gale in a souped-up kiddie pool. It was so typical of his sister: impractical, impossible, crazy — and yet totally necessary. Once in FBI custody, their chance of escape
would dwindle to absolute zero. They had to get away now.

  “You’re right,” he told her. “But in case you haven’t noticed, we’re in a locked storeroom. We’ve got to get out of here before we can use the life raft.”

  She favored him with a slight grin. Good old Meg — no spot was ever so tight that she couldn’t come up with a smile. He both loved and hated that about her.

  “Bro,” she said, “that’s the easy part.”

  He grimaced. Compared to what lay ahead, almost anything would be the easy part.

  Seaman Lopez stepped gingerly down the companionway to the storage compartment where the stowaways were being held. It took all his sea legs to keep from spilling the dinner tray Frenchie had prepared for the two young prisoners. The deck twisted and bucked beneath his feet. Even for an experienced sailor, this was an awful night to be aboard ship.

  Balancing the tray on one hand — quite a feat in these seas — he fiddled for the key, unlocked the hatch, and stepped inside. This whole affair made him uneasy. The Samantha D was a freighter, not a prison barge. Arrests at sea, holding cells, captives — they were just kids, for heaven’s sake!

  The tarpaulin came out of nowhere, straight down over his head. Suddenly, he was lost in what seemed like acres of fabric. “Hey — ”

  “Now!” Meg cried.

  Aiden stretched out a foot and tripped the figure under the canvas. Lopez went down in a mess of upended chicken and mashed potatoes. Meg was on top of him like a shot, wrapping flailing arms and legs with duct tape. Aiden joined the fray, pressing his full weight down on the struggling sailor.

  “Nothing personal, mister,” grunted Meg, tying her quarry up tight. “We’re actually nice people, but we’ve got to get out of here.”

  “But where can you go?” the sailor’s muffled voice protested.

  “Trust me,” Aiden said feelingly, “you don’t want to know.”

  Lopez read their intentions from the dread in Aiden’s voice. “Overboard?” He stopped fighting. “In these conditions? You don’t have a prayer!”

  “We don’t have a prayer if the FBI gets us,” Meg snapped.