The Case of the Vanishing Boy (10 page)

Three quick steps took him to it. His hand was just closing over it when a small, dull metallic sound made him freeze. Someone had unlocked the door.

He stared at the door, and his eyes widened as he saw the knob begin to turn, slowly and stealthily.

10

VENTURE

Jan stood motionless, watching, holding his breath as the door moved slightly. It moved a little more, a fraction of an inch more, making no sound. Who could be on the other side at this hour, using such care not to attract attention? Surely not Big Doc.

Suddenly for the first time, he thought of the unknown guard he'd escaped from days ago. The unremembered guard whose money and knife he'd taken, and whom he must have attacked and knocked unconscious. How he had managed it he had no idea, but there rose in his mind the vague features of a heavy-jawed man who might be the one he'd fought with. They were not pleasant features, and now it came to him that such a person could be unforgiving and vengeful.

He flattened against the wall, determined to dart into the corridor and run for it if his visitor turned out to be the guard. From his position he could not see the circle of glass in the upper part of the door, so he watched the widening crack as the door very slowly opened.

Then he gasped as a small pale head appeared in the space he was watching. The eyes were hidden behind a large and very familiar pair of curving dark glasses.

“Ginny!” he whispered. “What—how—”

“Oh, thank goodness!” Her small hands were icy as he clutched them, but he could feel her determination rising above her fear. “Otis told me you'd be here,” she whispered hurriedly. “I was locked in a room down the hall—I got out by using a trick I'd—but I'll tell you about it later. Come—we've got to get away from this awful place now!” She tugged him into the hall. “Lock your door and take your key with you.”

Very carefully he closed the door and locked it, and slipped the key into his pocket. She led the way, her hand clinging to his.

The narrow hall, dim with only a tiny night light near the floor, was carpeted like his room, and their feet made little sound as they tiptoed to some steps leading down. The stairway surprised Jan, for he had assumed they were in the wing of a one-story building.

Ginny came to a halt at the head of the stairs and whispered, “You'd better go first. I have no depth perception, and they left my cane behind.”

He remembered she'd mentioned something about depth perception on the train, though he was still vague about what it meant. Firmly holding her hand, he started carefully downward to an even greater surprise. The stairs ended in a small recess in the corner of a great spacious hallway that he realized was the second floor of an old mansion. Paneled in dark wood, it was vaguely lighted by an Oriental lamp on a table between two ornate chairs. Facing it, a broad stairway spiraled down to what must be the main floor.

Jan hesitated, studying the hall while he listened. He wondered how much time they had till daylight, and was rewarded by Ginny whispering, “I heard a clock somewhere below us strike three just before I found your room.”

He hadn't heard the clock with his door closed. In fact, in a closed place without windows he hadn't heard much of anything but the soft flow of air from a ceiling vent. If it was only a little after three, he couldn't have been unconscious quite as long as he'd thought.

The house was quiet save for a faint snore coming from the other side of the nearest door on their right. There probably was a back stairway somewhere, and he wondered whether to risk hunting for it or to go straight on down and out the front way. The thought of the front entrance made him uneasy, but he decided on it anyway. It would be the quickest route to the street and safety—if there was a street.

The thick carpeting of the hall deadened their footsteps. The great stairway, however, presented an unexpected problem. It squeaked.

It made no difference how carefully and cautiously they proceeded downward, the heavily padded steps squeaked anyway. Then, within a few feet of the broad foyer, lighted by a single wall sconce, a telephone rang in the open reception room diagonally across from them.

From where they crouched Jan could just see past the high arched doorway into the room's interior. Someone must have been sitting by the phone, waiting for the call, for it was answered immediately. The voice was the same one that had phoned instructions to Heron Rhodes four and a half hours ago, and later given him orders at Midway Plaza. Only now the voice spoke in a foreign language that sounded like German.

The person was still talking when a door opened suddenly on the right of the stairway and the bulky, white-jacketed figure of Big Doc strode with a sort of deliberate slowness across the foyer to the arched opening. Jan's heart leaped violently at this unexpected turn, and he could feel Ginny's fingers digging sharply into his arm. Big Doc had only to turn his head and glance in their direction, and they could hardly escape being seen. Yet to attempt flight back up the squeaky stairs would surely attract immediate attention.

The speaker finished talking over the phone. Big Doc grunted and said softly, “Well, Helga?”

“We are to leave,” came the voice of Helga. “We must pack immediately.”

“But that is stupid, my dear! I warned you about calling them. I knew they would panic.”

“It is not panic, Leopold. It is common sense. The boy alone was no worry until he escaped. No one knew about him. But the girl is a complication. Remember, we had not planned to take her till later; then she was to be flown directly to Kiev by way of Havana. But now we have the two together, and we must not endanger the project by remaining here an hour longer than necessary.”

“Oh, nonsense!” the doctor protested, shaking his head. “I see little cause for alarm. We know the boy was unable to give the Rhodes bunch any information—Matilda took care of that. So how can they trace the girl? This is the perfect place for my work, and your people are completely upsetting it! They have no conception of the preparatory procedures and the time—”

“Leopold!”

“Yes, my dear?”

The tall, mannish figure of Helga strode out of the room's shadow and confronted the doctor in the doorway. She was a stern-faced woman with iron-gray hair, wearing a tailored pants suit.

“Leopold,” she repeated coldly, “I am in charge on this side of the Atlantic. Let us have no arguments. I will inform the staff that they must pack immediately. As soon as you are ready, the patients must be sedated for travel. Then—”

“But—but what of Matilda? How—”

“That depends. Clausen has already been alerted that he is to have the helicopter ready, and the fueling stops arranged for. I will call him now and order him to bring it immediately. We will take Matilda if there is room on board. If not, possibly Jenna can have it shipped to us later. Anyway, your first model is still in Kiev.”

Big Doc threw up his hands and turned away, muttering to himself. Jan gripped the step where he had crouched and concentrated on Big Doc, praying that the man would not look up or turn his head. Miraculously the doctor, still muttering to himself, passed within six feet of them without becoming aware of their presence. The stern-faced woman remained standing in the doorway a moment, frowning, then turned quickly and disappeared into the reception room.

Jan rose and caught Ginny's hand. “Let's go!” he whispered. “The front door!”

His foot had hardly touched the thick carpet of the foyer when he was jolted by the abrupt ringing of an alarm in the hall upstairs. For an instant he froze, uncertain, but all at once realized they had only seconds to escape and raced to the door, dragging Ginny with him.

The alarm was still ringing when his trembling hand began fumbling with the unfamiliar lock. Ginny thrust him aside and in the next breath had the huge door unlocked and was tugging it open.

Even as they slipped through and drew it shut, Jan was all too aware that they had passed the open reception room in full view of the stern Helga, and he expected momentarily to hear shouts and signs of pursuit. Yet as they raced across the large old-fashioned porch and down to a driveway, he heard nothing but the muted ringing of the alarm for a brief moment before it stopped. In its place there came the vague sound of a voice that seemed to be making an announcement over a loudspeaker.

It flashed through Jan's mind that the alarm had been rung to awaken the staff, and that Helga was now giving orders for the evacuation. She must have been too engrossed in her task to notice that an escape was taking place under her nose.

He could hardly believe their luck. In another minute or two they would be on a street or a road somewhere and could start looking for help or a telephone.

Glancing back, he saw lights snapping on in the house, though the place was nearly hidden by the foliage lining the curving drive. Ahead the drive was lost in blackness, and Ginny was forced to lead the way.

She had gone only a few yards when she stopped abruptly before the almost indiscernible outlines of what seemed to be a great wrought-iron gate. After tugging at the latch she whispered despairingly, “Oh, Jan, it—it's locked!”

The blackness of the night, the locked gate, and the absence of street lights or any sound of traffic sent his hopes tumbling. No stars shone through the canopy of leaves overhead, and the low rumbling of thunder warned him of approaching trouble. With the discovery of weeds underfoot he realized this entrance had not been used in a long time.

He tugged at the gate and muttered, “We ought to be able to climb it.”

“It's too tall,” she said. “There's an arch above it. We can't get through.”

Feeling his way, he found a stone wall, stood on his toes reaching upward and asked, “How much higher is it?”

“Maybe about a foot. But there are wires running along the top. Barbed wires. I—I don't think we'd better try to climb it.”

“We've
got
to climb it,” he said, wondering how she could possibly see in the dark. “If I can get on top, I can put my jacket over the wires and pull you up, then drop you on the other side.”

He leaped upward, caught the edge of the wall, damp with dew, and easily drew himself to the top. But when his bare hand touched one of the wires he was given a powerful shock that sent him flying backward. His head struck something and he fell into nothingness.

There was a roaring in his ears when he regained consciousness. His head hurt, and his mind was full of confused pictures of Big Doc and Matilda. Then he became aware of a frightened Ginny fussing over him, rubbing his hands and shaking him. 118

“Oh, Jan! Jan! Say something! Are you all right?”

He struggled up on an elbow, and rubbed his head slowly. It still hurt, and the roaring was still in his ears, but Big Doc was fading. “I—I'm all right,” he muttered. “At least nothing seems to be broken. That—that's a live wire up there!”

“Those awful people!” she whispered angrily.

“How long was I out?”

“Not long. Maybe a minute. Do you feel like walking now?”

He didn't, but he wobbled to his feet anyway. “You'll have to lead me—I can't see a thing. We've got to find the other entrance. It must be at the back of the house.”

“I'll follow the fence,” she told him. “There's a corner just ahead.”

“How in the world can you tell?”

“It—it's sort of like radar,” she murmured, as she drew him carefully along the wall. “I mean, I can see exactly what's there—the outlines and all. But it's hard to make out how far away it is, and I never know about holes and things. That's why I miss my cane.”

She stopped and whispered, “We're at the corner. The wall ends, but a high steel fence goes to the left, past the house. We can't climb it—it sticks out at the top, with barbed wire on it.”

Caution held them to silence as they crept nearer the house. When they were opposite it, the light from an upper window gleamed through the trees and edged a section of the barbed wire topping the fence. Seeing it, he knew it would be impossible to help Ginny over it, even if it weren't electrified, and he wondered how he'd managed to get over it himself the first time he'd escaped. Or had he gotten out by some other means?

In a sudden astonishing flash of memory it came to him that he hadn't climbed the fence at all. He'd
wished
himself on the other side, just as he'd wished himself out of the van and back in the Rhodes' library after his capture. He'd picked a distant spot on a hill he'd glimpsed from some upper window in the house, and—early in the morning of the day he'd wound up at the Glendale station—he'd smacked Bolinsky, his guard, with the base of a table lamp and wished himself to the hill. It had been an awful day, and he'd been so afraid he wouldn't reach the Glendale station in time …

In time for what? …

The urgent tugging of Ginny's hand drew him back to the present. Then he heard it, somewhere in the distance—the distinctive chopping sound of an approaching helicopter.

They began hurrying along the fence, trying to make their way quietly through shrubbery and tangles of vines and weeds, yet knowing that the time left to them to make good their escape was rapidly running out. Just as they reached a second gate, a high steel one like the fence, they were startled by a sudden blaze of lights that disclosed a broad space of lawn behind the house. It also lit up the rear driveway and the corner of the gate where the two of them were standing.

Jan's first reaction was to give Ginny's hand a jerk and drop down beside her in the tangle of ivy at the edge of the fence. For an unpleasant moment he thought their absence had been discovered and that the lights meant the beginning of a search. Then he realized they had been turned on to guide the helicopter's landing.

He looked hopefully up at the gate and made out the short length of chain securing it to the fence. If it wasn't locked …