License to Thrill (22 page)

Mrs. McDonald gasped. She never knew what had happened to her sister, Judy, after she disappeared.

“That was an accident!” Pep shouted up from the roadway. “She set our RV on fire!”

“Too many accidents!” Dr. Warsaw hollered angrily. “Don't tell me you kids are innocent. I've chased you two all the way across the country and back. You've evaded me long enough. Remember what I told you? Sometimes you can't fix things. You have to replace them. Well, this is one of those times. They're going to have to replace everything, starting with this bridge.
This
won't be an accident.”

He started fiddling with some buttons near the handle of his briefcase.

“Now, Pep!” Coke shouted.

Pep steadied herself, got into position, and took careful aim. Then she reared back and flung her Frisbee up at Dr. Warsaw. It hit him squarely on the back of his right wrist.

“Owww!” he yelled as he released his grasp. “What the—”

He flailed at it, but his reflexes were too slow. The briefcase dropped from his hand and fell over the side of the bridge. Four seconds later, it landed with a splash in the choppy water below.

“Nice toss, Pep!” Coke shouted.

Dr. Warsaw looked around, realizing he had lost his bargaining chip. Below, the cops raised their guns again and trained them on him.

“Now it's just you and me, Warsaw,” Coke said.

“I'll kill you with my bare hands if I have to,” Dr. Warsaw replied, enraged. “You're no match for me.”

“Ready . . . ,” shouted the lead policeman, “aim . . .”

Dr. Warsaw rushed at Coke and grabbed him at the shoulders.

“Don't shoot!” a policeman shouted. “They're too close together! You might hit the boy!”

Coke and Dr. Warsaw grabbed hold of each other and started wrestling on the cable. One slip, they both knew, and one or both of them would fall to their death.

“Watch out!” Pep shouted.

“Be careful, Coke!” hollered Mrs. McDonald.

“I'm warning you,” Coke told Dr. Warsaw. “I studied karate for five years. I have a brown belt.”

“Oh, so you flunked your black belt test, eh?” Dr. Warsaw said, taunting the boy.

In fact, Coke
had
flunked his black belt test. Twice. And he wasn't happy about it. Angered, he shoved Dr. Warsaw away to give himself a couple of feet of space.

“Meet the Inflictor!” Coke shouted.

Then he spun around, swept his right leg sideways, and kicked Dr. Warsaw's legs out from under him. The older man screamed as his butt slammed against the main cable. He reached out and grabbed for something to hold on to, but the surface of the cable was smooth.

“Nooooooooo!”
he screamed as he slid off and dropped out of sight.

Dr. Warsaw was gone.

They never heard the splash. By the time everyone had rushed to the railing and peered down into the murky water, it was too late. Dr. Warsaw's body did not come back to the surface. They never found it. It may have washed out to sea or been eaten by sharks.

Some people on the bridge that day cried. Those were the people who didn't know Dr. Warsaw and all the evil things he had done. Those who
did
know him just felt a sense of relief. It was better this way. A quick but painful death had to be preferable to spending the rest of his life in prison.

Nobody felt more relieved than Coke and Pep. Their summer-long cross-country nightmare was finally over. When Coke climbed down off the cable, there was no applause or cheering from the crowd. A man had died. Pep embraced Coke and their parents held on to the two of them like they would never let go. When they finally did, Mya and
Bones came over for a group hug.

“It's over,” Mya said quietly. “Dr. Warsaw will never bother you again.”

“We're sorry about all the things you kids went through this summer,” said Bones. “We tried our best to protect you.”

“I know,” Pep said. “We wouldn't be alive right now if it weren't for you.”

“We'll never forget you,” Coke said, sniffling.

The twins were about to walk away when another group of people approached—Mrs. Higgins, John Pain, and the bowler dudes. Instinctively, Coke and Pep backed away and prepared to make a run for it. But instead of attacking, the bowler dudes threw their arms around them.

“We'll miss you kids,” said the clean-shaven bowler dude, tears running down his cheeks.

“In a strange way,” Coke replied, “I'm going to miss you, too.”

“It was fun trying to kill you,” said the mustachioed bowler dude.

Mrs. Higgins moved in for a hug and told the twins she would see them when school started in September. They thanked her for saving their lives in Death Valley, and driving them back to San Francisco.

“Let's blow this pop stand,” Coke told his sister.

They would have to give a statement to the police, of course. And there was still the matter of getting home and returning to a normal, teenage life after all they had been through. That might take some getting used to. But The Genius Files program was over. With Dr. Warsaw out of the picture, Coke and Pep would never again have to worry about lunatics chasing them around and trying to kill them at any opportunity.

“You two were
amazing
!” Mrs. McDonald said, still reluctant to let go of her children.

“Now let me get this straight,” said Dr. McDonald. “That Warsaw guy has been chasing you ever since we left home?”

“Yes!” Pep said. “That's what we've been trying to tell you all along!”

“We just thought you were putting us on,” Mrs. McDonald said. “You know, the way teenagers do.”

“It was all real, Mom,” Coke explained. “At first we didn't want to worry you. Then, when we decided to tell you the truth, you wouldn't believe us. But we've been almost frozen to death, boiled in oil, pushed into a sand pit—”

“Thrown into a vat of Spam, kidnapped, blasted with loud music—” added Pep.

“—swarmed by bats, abducted by aliens, sprayed
with poison gas, had stuff dropped on our heads . . . ,” said Coke.

“And all of these things actually happened?” asked Dr. McDonald. “You didn't make
any
of it up?”

“Yes, it all happened!” Pep shouted at him. “And a lot of other stuff, too. You could fill a—”

“Book!” Dr. McDonald said, his eyes suddenly wide. “This is it! This is the idea I've been searching for! I can write a novel about two kids who travel cross-country while some bad guys are trying to kill them the whole time! And their parents don't know a thing about it! It can't miss! This could be my bestseller!”

“That's a
great
idea, Dad!” said Pep. “We'll tell you exactly what happened.”

“Ben, I don't know if it's a good idea to put your name on that book,” said Mrs. McDonald. “How will the university feel if one of their respected professors publishes a crazy novel like that? You could lose your job.”

“You may be right, Bridge.”

“What if you used a pen name, Dad?” Pep suggested. “Then nobody would know it was you.”

After some discussion, Dr. McDonald came up with a pen name. Coke and Pep told their father everything that had happened to them since they started the trip.
There was so much information that he was able to make it into a five-book series, which he called the Genius Files. And guess what happened after the first book was published?

Most of the photographs in this book were taken by Dan Gutman, or created by Nina Wallace (Dan's wife). But for three photos, we must give credit where credit is due. The photos of the earth
here
and the moon
here
are from NASA. The image of radio telescopes
here
is courtesy of NRAO/AUI.

Photo by Howard Wolf

DAN GUTMAN
is the author of the Baseball Card Adventure series, which has sold more than 1.5 million copies, and the My
Weird School series, which has sold more than 8 million copies!

Thanks to his many fans who voted in their classrooms, he has received nineteen state book awards and ninety-two state book award nominations. Dan Gutman lives in Haddonfield, New Jersey, with his wife, Nina, and their two children, Sam and Emma.

You can visit him online at
www.dangutman.com
.

Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at
hc.com
.

Cover art © 2015 by Tim Jessell

Cover design by Sarah Nichole Kaufman

Series design by Erin Fitzsimmons

THE GENIUS FILES #5: LICENSE TO THRILL
. Copyright © 2015 by Dan Gutman. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text 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 hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.