Clive Cussler (4 page)

They quickly wrapped Casey and Lacey in blankets and carried them struggling onto the black boat. The children were too shocked to know where they were being taken. Their cries for help were muted by the blankets.

"No sense you brats yelling," the Boss growled. "Nobody is around to hear you."

"Yeah, nobody will hear you," hissed the Beard.

"Can't nobody hear you," echoed the henchman with the wrinkled face.

"I said that," the Beard came back.

"You guys shut up," snapped the Boss at his henchmen, "before the guards get wise."

"Okay, Boss."

"Yeah, Boss."

"Where is the dumb dog?" the Boss snarled. "I want that dumb dog!"

"He ain't on the boat," Wrinkled Face answered through yellow teeth.

"Must be up on the dock somewhere," said the Beard, his whiskers streaked with food stains.

Floopy finally woke up and heard familiar voices. With a dog's good memory he remembered the harsh tone of the Boss, who he had bitten only a few months before. His frantic barks broke the silence.

"Get him!" cried the Boss.

The henchmen climbed onto the dock, but Floopy was too fast for them. He took off running toward two security guards who were checking the boats farther down the dock. The evil henchmen couldn't catch him; he was fast for a short-legged, chubby dog.

The Boss shouted, "Get back on the boat before the dog alerts the security guards. We'll come back for him. Let's get out of here."

In less than a minute the sinister boat had vanished into the darkness, taking Casey and Lacey with it.

Floopy ran down the dock to the security guards, yapped and ran back toward the boat.

The guards merely stared at him, more amused than suspicious. Floopy ran back and forth several more times, barking and trying as only a dog can to alert them of the twins' abduction. Nothing worked.

The guards, tired of his antics, began to walk away.

One guard, fat and jolly with his belly hanging over his belt, grinned. "I wonder what's the matter with him."

"Probably those two kids who own him," said the other guard, skinny in a uniform two sizes too big. "They must have taken off for home and forgot him."

"We'll call the dogcatcher in the morning."

"Yeah," replied Skinny. "They'll know what to do with him."

Saddened, his droopy eyes drooping more than ever, Floopy returned to the empty boat at the dock and howled into the night. If dogs could cry, he would have shed a river of tears. He had no idea what to do or where to go. In sorrow, he curled up in the coil of rope in the hope that Casey and Lacey would return.

Floopy lay there, feeling lonely and abandoned. Then his sensitive ears heard something. He lifted his muzzle and cocked his head. A faint ramble seemed to come from the water below the dock. He rose to his four paws and peered over the side. All he saw under the dim light along the dock was the outline of Hotsy Totsy. The boat looked dark and empty. Then he spotted blinking lights on the instrument panel and realized the soft rumble came from the big twelve- cylinder Wright engine. Hotsy Totsy had magically started the Wright, which was idling softly.

The engine revved several times ever so quietly as if trying to tell Floopy something. He tilted his head as if in thought. He stiffened as he came to realize what Hotsy Totsy was trying to tell him.

The speedboat wanted to go after the twins but was secured to the dock.

Floopy ran to the cleat where the bowline was tied. He attacked the cleat with his teeth, pulling it around and around until it came loose and dropped into the water. Then he raced to the bowline and gripped it in his teeth, pulling it from the cleat until it also fell into the water.

Hotsy Totsy revved her engine but didn't shift into gear. She was waiting for Floopy, who was measuring the jump from the dock into the boat. He hesitated a long minute before closing his eyes and leaping through the air. Dropping like the basset hound that he was, his legs came down on the soft leather seats followed by his fat, round body. There was a great thud when he landed, and the boat rocked in the water. Slightly stunned but finding himself all in one piece, Floopy immediately ran to the stern and pulled in the mooring line. Then he rushed to the bow and pulled that line in as well.

No sooner had he jumped down into the cockpit than Hotsy Totsy moved away from the dock and over the dark waters of the bay in the direction the phantom boat had vanished.

When the black boat came toward the shore of Alcatraz Island, the boss's henchmen opened the doors to the old ferry boathouse. After the boat was moored against the dock inside, the doors were closed and it was as if the phantom craft had never been.

Once they were on the dock, the henchmen removed the blankets from around the children. Casey and Lacey knew it was hopeless to struggle; it had been a tiring day and they had to fight to keep from falling asleep. They stumbled as they were pushed by the Boss and his henchmen out of the ferry boathouse and under the catwalks and guard towers.

Lacey turned and saw a full moon setting beyond the Golden Gate Bridge across the bay. A light breeze moved the waves, and she could hear the bell on a buoy somewhere on the black water. She wondered what would become of Floopy and Hotsy Totsy if she and Casey never returned.

"Where are you taking us?" demanded Casey, coming back on track.

"To the main cell house. I've got a nice little cell all picked out for you," snarled the Boss. "Plenty of rust and grime. Plenty of old rot. Plenty of rats. A famous gangster by the name of Al Capone used to live in it."

"Who was Al Capone?" asked Casey.

"A very bad man who was the crime lord of Chicago many years ago." The Boss paused to snicker evilly. "You'll soon be wishing you was back in your beds at home. Oh, and I almost forgot. There are no meals here."

"You want us to starve?" asked Lacey, growing angry.

"Yes, and I'll enjoy every minute of it."

"But why?"

"For getting me and my gang thrown in jail when you flew that old ratty airplane into Gold City, Nevada. I had a good thing going there, forcing the townspeople to mine gold, but you brats had to interfere and call in the cavalry, who arrested us and threw us in a jail in the middle of the desert. And then there was my brother, the Chief, and his gang of bandits, who you brats and that stupid dog also got thrown in jail. You're all going to pay for that."

Casey stood tall and looked the Boss in the eye. "What if we escape?"

The Boss smiled like a fox. "No one ever escaped from Alcatraz and lived to tell about it."

"How did you escape from jail?"

"My henchmen and I carved fake guns out of wood and coated them with black shoe polish. We fooled the guards, who surrendered, locked them in our cells and made off in the warden's fast car."

"Why are you here?" asked Casey. "The police will look for you on the island."

"Alcatraz is deserted. The government closed it down for restoration, which hasn't begun yet. There's no one on the island but us."

"At least Floopy got away," Lacey said testily.

The Boss rubbed his hands and grinned fiendishly. "I'll catch him tomorrow."

"You'll never find Floopy, much less catch him," Lacey said defiantly.

"I'll get him," snarled the Boss. "Just you wait and see."

"What will you do with him?" Casey demanded.

The Boss laughed wickedly. "Just you wait and see."

The Boss had kept his word. Casey and Lacey were locked in a smelly and dirty cell. There was a moldy bunk with a mattress, but they kicked it on the floor rather than lie on it and sat on the rusty springs. This was an event the twins never thought would happen in their wildest imaginations. They had assumed the Boss and his henchmen were still in jail, along with his brother, the Chief, and his bandits.

"This place is awful," said Lacey as she pulled her sweater over her shoulders and shivered. "It's cold and it's damp in here. It was a big mistake to leave home and try to enter some dumb old race."

"It seemed like a good idea at the time," Casey argued. "We might have won."

"Is that all you can think about?"

"There are other things," Casey fumed.

"I'm not as worried about us as I am about what will happen if that terrible Boss gets his hands on Floopy," said Lacey mournfully.

"He won't if Hotsy Totsy carries him away."

"But our speedboat is tied to the dock. She can't move."

"Then we've got to get out of here," Casey said in a determined voice.

Lacey looked doubtful. "You heard what the Boss said. No one ever escaped from Alcatraz and lived to tell about it."

Casey didn't answer as he studied the bars facing the interior of the cell block.

Lacey leaned an arm and shoulder between the bars. "We're a lot smaller than Al Capone must have been. If we could bend or remove one bar, we could squeeze through."

Casey kicked at the bar. It was old and not as stout as it once was. Rust flakes flew off and settled on the cell floor. "It looks weakened with age. If we had a saw, we could cut through it."

"But we don't have a saw," Lacey reminded him.

"Yes," said Casey sadly. "I guess we'll never get out of here. What will our poor mother and father do when we never come home?"

"I'll bet I can make a saw."

Casey looked at his sister. "You can what?"

"Make a saw. Do you still have your Swiss army knife?"

He reached in his pocket, pulled out the knife and held it up.

"Now take it and scrape the blade against a concrete block in the wall. Use that old newspaper on the floor to collect the concrete dust."

Casey didn't question his sister and did as he was told. He knew she was smart, smarter than him, especially in school. He began scraping the concrete dust into the newspaper.

Lacey looked into her backpack and pulled out a tube of glue she always carried and some string. She wiped the glue onto the string and then rolled the string in the concrete dust falling on the newspaper until it was covered from tip to tip.

"Very clever of you, sis. I see now that you want to make a string saw."

She nodded. "As soon as the glue dries, we wrap the string around the bar and begin sawing away while the concrete dust acts as an abrasive."

"We'll need more than one before we're finished," said Casey. "While I cut the bar, you make more string saws."

Unknown to Casey and Lacey, Hotsy Totsy, with Floopy sitting on the bow, had cruised across the bay and stopped at the ferry house. Floopy managed to grip the latch in his teeth and very quietly opened the doors. Next he jumped out onto the dock with a line in his mouth and wrapped it around a cleat. Then, using his very sensitive dog nose, he sniffed the familiar smells of Casey and Lacey and began running up the road toward the big cell house, following their scent.

Floopy ran up the concrete stairs onto the parade field, then around the road past the warden's mansion, where the Boss and his henchmen were hiding out. Through an open window, he saw men moving. He stopped for a moment, sniffing. Detecting the familiar scent of the Boss, Floopy remembered sinking his teeth into the evil villain's behind and wagged his tail. Padding softly, with only his nails clicking on the ground, he turned and nosed up the walkway that led to the porch of the mansion. When he reached the front door, he crept around up to the open window and stared inside.

The Boss and his henchmen were sitting around eating a leftover Chinese takeout dinner and watching a cartoon on television. After a few minutes, the Boss turned off the picture and held up a map.

"Here's how we make our getaway," he explained. "We wait until dark tomorrow night. Then we take our boat and move without lights under the Golden Gate Bridge. Once outside the bay, we head south to Mexico. After we cross the border, the police will never catch us."

"What about the kids?" asked the Beard.

"Who cares," the Boss barked. "By the time they're found, we'll be long gone."

"What about the dog?" asked Wrinkle Face.

"He'll be lost without those brats and will probably end up begging on the streets."

Floopy couldn't understand English or read, but he knew the Boss was saying something unpleasant about Casey and Lacey and he growled.

The Boss tensed. "Did you hear something?" he asked his henchmen.

"Sounded like the wind," said the Beard.

"No," came back Wrinkle Face. "It was a boat horn."

"Wind."

"Horn."

"Shut up, both of you," snapped the Boss. "It was a dog. I'd know that growl anywhere. It was that dog with the helmet and goggles that bit me in Nevada. He's here on the island. You two, quick, go out and catch him."

The henchmen looked at the Boss and then at each other, not sure they had heard him right.

"Don't stand there like a pair of goony birds! Get going!"

The Beard and Wrinkle Face took off out the door and across the porch where Floopy was lying. They both tripped over him and spilled down the stairs in a heap of arms and legs, grunting like mad bears. The Boss dashed through the door to see what happened. Just as he reached the top of the stairs, Floopy leaped up and bit him on the seat of his pants. The Boss yelled in pain.

"Oh no, not again!"

But before he could kick Floopy, the dog had sprung from the porch and scurried into the night.

The Boss held his hands to his torn pants and glared down at his henchmen. "Go after him! He can't get far!"

"Maybe he's going for the kids," said the Beard.

"Won't do him any good," said the Boss. "No way a dog can open doors and get into the cell house, much less open the brats' locked cell door."

"What'll we do, Boss?" asked Wrinkle Face.

"Get flashlights, then split up and search the grounds. There's no place he can hide."

Following the twins' scent, Floopy ran up to the entrance of the cell house. It was a big steel door that looked impossible for a dog to open. He stood on his hind legs and pushed with his front paws. There came a soft creak from the hinges. He moved back and looked up with his head tilted in puzzlement. He wondered why the big steel door creaked. Standing there, he tried to think like a human. Then it came to him. If the door creaked, it must be unlocked.