The Case of the Vanishing Boy (13 page)

Ginny said words to him merely by opening her mouth and closing it. Big Doc turned from Helga and confronted him, slowly flexing his plump hands as if he wanted to strangle someone.

Then, speaking as softly as Jan had ever heard him, Big Doc said, “So you were in your room. I thought they'd find you there. And did you bring back another little tattletale?”

“He brought one,” said Bolinsky. “Before I could grab it he tossed it down the shaft in his john. George has gone to the basement to get it.”

“Pray he gets it quickly,” Big Doc's voice added, ever so softly. “And if it is where he cannot get it, then pray it is not still running after falling so far.” The cold little eyes bored into Jan. “You have been bad. Very bad. You have caused us great trouble. For that you must be punished. I will not tolerate—”

“Leopold!” the stern Helga interrupted. “What are you up to?”

“The boy is too smart for his own good, and much too troublesome. It is time I took some of that out of him.”

“No! You are not to do anything that will hurt his ability. Besides, there isn't time—”

“I will not hurt his ability. But the rest of his mentality must be reduced. A good servant is a moron who does exactly as he is told. I intend to make a good servant out of him. As for time—”

“Leopold, if that transmitter he threw down the shaft is still working, and George cannot get to it, we haven't a minute to waste here. Harry's trying to get at least one car in shape by trying the spares from the others, but if they don't fit we'd better start walking.”

“Why don't you call Jenna to send us another car?”

“At this hour? Where could she get one?”

“Her station wagon—”

“Her station wagon is here in our garage—with two flats! And I'll not ask her to call a cab. Cabs are out, even if she could find one now.” She swung suddenly to Bolinsky. “When you found him, how long had the boy been back from his trip? Any idea?”

“Five minutes at the most. George had just checked his room when the doctor decided we'd better go back there and wait.”

“I see. Even two minutes is two minutes too long. It would give them direction. Then all they'd have to do would be to fly over the area till they spotted a large helicopter behind an old house.”

Big Doc sniffed. “Oh, nonsense, Helga. It would take hours before the authorities around here could get together and start an air search. Clausen tells me he'll have the helicopter out of here and back to the hangar in a little while.”

“I thought it couldn't fly!”

“He's fixing it so it can. He hasn't any instruments, but at least he can get it back to the hangar and out of sight. Now, what I want to know is what arrangements are being made—” The big flabby man paused, eyes sharpening on the doorway. “Well, George?”

“I got it!” George announced, entering and holding out the transmitter in his broad palm. “Found it at the bottom of the shaft. And it was dead. Cracked on the concrete. I gave it another crack to make sure.”

Jan's hopes drained away and a terrible coldness began to harden in his middle. He began looking covertly, desperately, around the room, searching for some object he could use as a weapon. The most difficult thing would be to break away from Bolinsky. The man had a steely grip on his arm.

Then, just to the right of Ginny, he noticed the old-fashioned fireplace. A coal grate it was, with poker, tongs and shovel in a holder on one side. The poker wasn't large, but it would do if he could get to it.

If he could think of some trick to break away from Bolinsky.…

He heard George say something about going to help Harry and add over his shoulder as he went out that two cars would soon be ready to roll.

“
Two
cars?” Helga questioned, to which Bolinsky answered, “That's right. All the wheels happen to be the same size.” Then the guard said to the doctor, “Are you ready for your patient, sir?”

“I'm ready,” the big man replied, very softly, and added in a whisper, “Put him in Matilda!”

“Just a moment,” Helga ordered. “Remember, Leopold, we haven't much time. A half hour at the most.”

“Fifteen minutes is all I need, my dear. I intend to compress ten treatments into one. It will seem like many days to our rebellious young man here, but when it is over he will no longer be rebellious. He will ride like a lamb to Kiev with us instead of fighting us all the way.”

The big man turned, stepped to a curtain stretched over a frame and flung it aside.

At the sight of the black coffin-like box upended at an angle in the midst of an incomprehensible puzzle of dials, tubes and gauges, Jan forgot everything but his horror of the object in front of him. His staring eyes riveted upon the padded interior, the straps whose function was to hold him powerless inside, the gleaming steel bands that would be clamped about his forehead and wrists and would carry the knifing power to attack the inner fibers of his mind and being.

Until this moment he had been able to recall little more than his terrible fear of Matilda. She did her work well. But now with the sudden sight of her he knew again the writhing blackness she could send shrieking through his brain, the inescapable icy-burning blackness that could go twisting through every mental channel forever and forever and forever …

“No!” he cried. “No! No! No!”

“Strap him in!” Big Doc commanded.

Jan heard Ginny scream out in protest. The scream seemed to release a new force inside of him, for abruptly his fear converted to fury. In spite of what he had been through, there arose in him reserves of strength he had not known he possessed. He lashed out, fighting with everything he had, kicking, biting, using fist and knee and elbow with even greater effect than when he had used them days ago in the Rhodes' hallway. Bolinsky clung to him, but panted hoarsely, “For God's sake give 'im a hypo—the kid's gone wild!”

It was Helga who came quickly with a hypodermic. He saw her approaching while Bolinsky struggled to hold him still. Suddenly remembering what he could do, he concentrated instantly on the needle. He must have been generating far more force than he realized, for it stopped Helga in her tracks—and the needle exploded.

In the second of shock that followed, Bolinsky gasped and relaxed his grip, and Jan squirmed eel-like away and leaped for the fireplace. When he whirled back to face the hated three opposing him, he had the poker in one hand and the tongs in the other.

Big Doc, showing fear for the first time, scrambled out of his way, but not fast enough to escape a vicious swing that laid open his cheek and brought a spurt of blood. Bolinsky dove for him, and succeeded only in getting himself knocked cold with the tongs.

Now Matilda was at his mercy. Jan attacked her savagely.

In seconds he had smashed every important tube and gauge, yet he continued his mad swings with the poker and tongs even after he had totally wrecked the hated thing that had destroyed so much of himself and was slated to destroy Ginny, too.

He saw Helga approaching him warily out of the corner of his eye, and he spun about in time to face her. But he knew nothing of Judo and was totally unprepared when her foot shot forth and knocked the poker from his hand. He tried to swing the tongs, but suddenly she had his free hand and he was flung to the floor with such force that the breath was knocked out of him.

A moment later she was upon him, her strong thumb pressing with instant precision against the nerve in his neck.

Everything faded and he fell into blackness.

13

ESCAPE

Jan awoke slowly in what he thought at first was a darkened room, then gradually he came to realize that the room was moving and that he was not alone in it.

“Jan!” came Ginny's whisper. “Are—are you all right?”

He started to sit up, but the room lurched and threw him to one side; he decided it was better to lie on his back, a position that made him less aware of his aches. Every part of him, including his head, seemed to ache, and the ringing was still in his ears.

“I … think … I'm … all … right,” he managed finally. “I … where—where … are … we?”

“In the van.”

“Oh!” He started to ask where they were going, and at the same time he wondered why it was so dark, but she picked both questions from his mind before he could voice the first one.

“We're going to Jenna's,” she said. “Wherever that is. But it can't be far away. Jenna seems to be a sort of go-between. I mean, all calls come through her place, and she makes arrangements and things. And the van's dark because that toughie of a Helga fastened a piece of cardboard over the grill, so we can't see out.” Ginny's whisper sank lower as she added, “I can think of only one reason why she'd do that—and I did catch her wondering about it. She's afraid I'm a telepath, and might tell somebody where we are.”

“Oh.” He thought about Helga a moment, and asked, “What—what did she do to me?”

“She put you out with a Judo trick. She's an expert. But she's afraid of you now. They're all afraid of you.”

“Huh? Afraid of
me?
Why?”

“Because of what you can do.” Ginny was silent for a moment, then said, “Jan, I never
dreamed
anyone could put up such a fight. But it wasn't anything to what you did at the last.”

He sighed. “Whatever I did sure wasn't good enough. They won't fry our brains in Matilda—at least not in that one. But they've still got us.”

Again she was silent for a moment, then: “Jan, don't you
realize
what you're able to do?”

“You mean about stopping the hypo?”

“Jan,” she said slowly, “you not only stopped the hypo, but you blew it up and stopped Helga.”

“Huh? Well, I suppose I did bust the thing—but it was just an accident. I mean, I was so fired up and mad it would have been a wonder if the thing hadn't broken.”

“It didn't just break, or even explode, really. It—it suddenly disintegrated. I mean, you destroyed it—just the way Pops destroyed that other one when those men came for you the first time. Only, you did more than Pops did. You stopped Helga. She couldn't move. I was watching. Jan, if—if you'd been looking at her instead of the hypo, and all that force had gone into her …”

“Good grief!”

He was shocked. It was a profound shock that held him silent for long seconds while the van made uneasy progress along a bumpy and very winding road. “Why?” he asked miserably. “Why did I have to be born with something like
that
to worry about?”

“That's no way to look at it,” she said quickly. “My goodness, if Pops learned to live with it, so can you. Just be thankful you have it! Especially now. Don't you see? If you use it right, it ought to help us get away from these awful people!”

“Oh.” He hadn't thought of it that way, though at the moment it didn't seem possible that he could ever find the strength to call upon that power again. He was so tired. He was hungry, too, but mainly he was used up. He was so used up he knew he had only to close his eyes and he would fall instantly to sleep here in the jolting van. Then it occurred to him that everyone else, from Big Doc to Ginny, must feel much the same way.

“Yes,” said Ginny, answering his thoughts. “They do. Only I'm so on edge I couldn't sleep now if I tried—though I know I must if I have the chance. But Big Doc's ready to collapse, and so is Helga. You've wrecked all their plans. They've got to get us out of the country fast, but there's no way they can do it till tonight. I don't know how they plan to do it—that seems to be mostly Jenna's problem. In the meantime all they can do is hide us—and hole up somewhere themselves.”

“How about Otis? Are you still able to get through to him?”

“Not since you got back. He must have fallen asleep. After all, he's been up all night too, and he—he's only five.”

Her small hand found his in the dark, and clung to it. “Jan, I—I can't help being scared, but it's not half as bad as it would be if I were alone. As long as you're with me, I—I sort of feel we've got a chance—in spite of what happened to the transmitters. I mean, we're really a pair of dillies, and with what the two of us can do …”

“It's a stalemate now, but we'll beat 'em yet,” he said, trying to put more confidence into his words than he felt. Then he added, “If they're afraid of me, I wonder why they didn't tie me up or something?”

“I'm sure it's because they don't quite realize how dangerous you can be. It just hasn't hit them yet. I'm sure it will later when they're rested and have had more time to think about it. But right now it gives us an edge. Jan—”

“Yes?”

“I've got an idea. When they stop and take us out—and I think they're turning in at Jenna's now—act real beat. I mean, you were unconscious when they put us in here, so be real dazed when they haul us out.”

“I get you. Hey—what's that under my foot? I keep feeling something …”

“It's the hatchet,” she whispered. “I put it in the corner when you left, and they didn't notice it when they found me.”

“Give it to me.”

He reached forth in the dark and she placed the handle of it in his hand. “What—what are you going to do with it?”

“I don't know yet.”

The van was slowing. Quickly he slid the hatchet's handle down in his jeans, leaving the blade to protrude above his belt buckle. After giving his shirt a twitch to partially cover the blade, he buttoned his jacket over it. It was going to be pretty awkward, but he figured if he kept his hand on his stomach and walked with a stoop, he might get by with it.

Just what he was going to do with the hatchet he hadn't the slightest idea, though as the van stopped it suddenly occurred to him that it might be a good tool for prying open a locked door. Anyway, it was a weapon, and somehow he had vastly more confidence in it than in a curious and highly unpleasant possession that Heron Rhodes probably would call the evil eye, which couldn't chop through or pry open anything.