The Project (14 page)

“He’s looking at the jet. Jumbo’s coming down the stairs. They’re talking, I think.”

They were arguing, but it was all in German, so Luke had no idea what they were saying.

“Mumbo’s giving Jumbo the car keys,” Tommy said. “It seems like a sort of changing of the guard.”

Changing of the guard meant there was something
to guard
, didn’t it?

“Mumbo’s going into the lower office, and Jumbo’s heading out, back to the car, I think.… Okay, you’re clear. No, wait—I can see Mumbo moving around. Stay where you are.”

There was a muffled noise from above. Luke looked up sharply at the underbelly of the plane that was hiding him.

Keeping on the side of the craft that was away from the offices, he rolled out from beneath the jet and stood up. Luke pushed the periscope up the side of the plane to one of the oval windows. The cabin appeared to be empty. He moved forward as far as he could, but the wing was blocking his way, so he crept closer to the front of the plane and stretched the periscope out to one of the other windows.

He put his eye back to the lens and couldn’t see anything for a moment. Something was blocking his vision. He thought it might be the shade and tried to move the periscope for a better look, but the thing suddenly moved, twisting around toward him.

It was a person.

For a fraction of a second, his mind wanted to tell him that it was Mueller, staring straight at him. But it wasn’t.

Mueller didn’t have wild blond hair.

Mueller didn’t wear black eyeliner. Mueller didn’t have a silver stud in the side of his nose.

It was Ms. Sheck.

“Ms. Sheck’s here,” Luke whispered. “She’s in the jet.”

She didn’t seem to notice the narrow tube of the periscope outside the window.

“You’re kidding,” Tommy said.

“No, bro, I just looked right at her.”

“What the heck is going on?” Tommy asked. He broke off and came back with “Jumbo is driving away, and Mumbo is coming out of the office. Stay frosty, over.”

Luke stayed as still as he could. He had an idea. He took his cell phone and held its camera lens to the eyepiece of the periscope. He pressed the camera button two or three times, not knowing if it would work.

“He’s going upstairs. He’s in the office. Door’s open, but I think you’re okay.”

Luke put the periscope away in the backpack and started toward the hangar door.

He almost made it, too.

L
uke heard the guttural shout behind him just as Tommy yelled in his ear, “He’s seen you! Run!”

A flick of his head, and he saw Mumbo leaping down the stairs from the second-floor office.

Luke ran. He had a small head start but not much. He ran from the hangar as fast as he had ever run in his life. His backpack bounced up and down, the straps cutting into his shoulders. The sunglasses flew from his T-shirt and disappeared somewhere behind him.

“He’s at the bottom of the stairs!” Tommy informed him.

The edge of the building flashed past, and he ducked into the gap between the two hangars. The smaller fence around the hangar area would be easier to climb than the larger mesh fence by the terminal building.

“He’s out of the hangar!” Tommy yelled.

Luke didn’t look back.

He could feel each throb of his heart within the wall of
his chest. His ears drummed with each heartbeat. He cut close to the far corner of the first hangar and hurtled toward the fence. The jagged spikes on top looked vicious. There was a D-shaped hole in the gate where the lock was.

“He’s right behind you!” Tommy screamed.

Luke flipped off his backpack as he sprang at the fence, throwing it up on top of the spikes. His foot found the D in the gate, and he launched himself up, scrabbling over the spikes, protected by his backpack. A hand brushed at his ankle, but he was over.

He landed in another paratrooper’s roll.

The backpack was caught on the jagged barbs. He left it there.

Tommy was running down the stairs from the walkway and heading for the exit road.

“The bikes!” Luke yelled.

Behind him, Mumbo was fumbling with a key at the gate.

Tommy and Luke darted around the side of the terminal to where they had put the bikes.

They jumped on and raced onto the looping road toward the exit.

Mumbo was through the gate now and running across the grassy center of the road, trying to cut them off. He was going to make it, too. They had too much distance to cover.

“Keep going!” Luke urged Tommy. “Get out of here.”

Luke changed direction and bumped up over the curb onto the hard grass circle in the center of the road, heading straight for Mumbo.

Mumbo stopped, confused. If nothing else, that would give Tommy a chance to get away.

He was a big man and solid across the chest, a wrestler or a boxer, maybe. Definitely a thug. He turned to meet Luke, who was speeding straight at him over the bumps in the grass. His big gorilla hands came up to grab the bike as Luke closed in for the head-on collision.

The world seemed to slow. Mumbo’s teeth clenched in a grimace as he braced himself for the impact, and a flock of birds rose in unison from the trees behind his head.

Then the unexpected.

Luke gave a sharp twist on the handlebars just as Mumbo got within reach. The bike was no longer upright but was dropping, sliding horizontally right at Mumbo, taking Luke with it. The rear wheel whacked into Mumbo’s leg with a crunch that would have broken the ankle of a smaller, weaker man. His legs flipped out from under him, and he fell heavily, landing face-first on the field.

Luke jumped back up and stood on his pedals. His bike shot off the grassy area and back onto the road. He glanced back to see Mumbo get to his feet and start running, only to stop as his ankle collapsed beneath him.

Mumbo reached into a pocket, brought out a cell phone, and pressed it to his ear.

Tommy looked around as Luke turned onto the highway and slowed to let him catch up. “What happened?” he asked, the words coming in gasps.

“He fell over.” Luke managed a grin, sucking in the air.

A huge truck thundered past, moving to the left to give
them room. The driver glared at them through the windshield, two kids on bikes going the wrong way down a main road.

“We need to split up,” Luke yelled.

“Why?”

“We need to get to the police and tell them about Ms. Sheck. But Mumbo had a cell, so they’re going to come looking for us. If we split up, there’s a better chance that one of us will get through.”

Tommy nodded without looking around. “You take the river path, the way we came. I’ll take the back road. I know the roads around here better than you.”

“Okay.”

Tommy split off at the intersection with the main highway.

Luke didn’t wait for the traffic lights to change but just caught a break in the traffic and quickly pedaled through the intersection. He could see the McDonald’s on the river side of the road. That marked the first bridge, he remembered, and he cut across the road toward it, bouncing up onto the sidewalk as he crossed over the bridge.

His tires left black marks on the pavement as he scudded around the corner onto South Capitol Street. There was a campus police station by the Old Capitol Town Center, which was much closer than the main station at city hall. He was close now. Close to safety. The black shadow of the railroad overpass slid across him, and he pumped the pedals furiously, beads of sweat breaking from his face and flicking away behind him.

Once he got to the police station, everything would be
okay. They would rescue Ms. Sheck and arrest Mueller, and life would return to normal.

He made it as far as Burlington Street.

At first he didn’t realize anything was amiss. He didn’t recognize the car, and the windows were tinted, so he couldn’t see inside. He should have been suspicious when it passed him and then slowed, even though there was no intersection looming or traffic to give way to.

The car slowed further, and Luke, still pedaling frantically, caught up just as it swerved across his path. A low concrete wall to his right gave him nowhere to go. He yelled and slammed down on his brakes, skidding, sliding, then crunching into the side of the car with a bruising thud.

He tried to get up quickly, but the ground was swaying underneath him and it was hard to balance. Then Jumbo was standing over him.

It might have been the adrenaline, but his strength and his balance came back in a rush, and he rolled away from the man. He sprang to his feet and started to run, until a rough hand on the collar of his shirt jerked him backward and sat him down hard on the sidewalk.

Luke leaped back up and spun around, hands raised, but a huge fist was already coming toward his face. It connected. His head rocked back, and he fell to the ground. He sat up and saw that sledgehammer fist drawing back again. He shut his eyes.

“Hey!” A voice cut through the pain in his face. A voice he recognized, although through the fog in his head he could not place it. “Hey, what are you doing? Leave that boy alone.”

The hand on his collar came loose, and the fog over him lifted as his attacker faced the new threat. Luke turned his head to see his savior and his heart sank.

Mr. Kerr, the jelly-doughnut vice principal of his school, was advancing on Jumbo, a set of car keys in one hand and a Taco Bell bag in the other. He caught a glimpse of Luke’s face. “Luke? What the hell is go—”

Mr. Kerr didn’t get a chance to say another word as he came within range of Jumbo’s massive reach.

Jumbo spun up at him, his fist swinging around in a blow that would surely knock Mr. Kerr’s fat head clean off his shoulders.

Except that Mr. Kerr’s right hand, the one holding the car keys, jerked upward in a block, forcing the punch to the side. In what looked like a reflex action, his other hand shot out in a hard left jab that connected with Jumbo’s nose, snapping his head back.

Once upon a time, in some former life, Mr. Kerr had known karate.

The jab alone would hardly have been more than a bee sting to a thickheaded thug like Jumbo, except the hand doing the jabbing was the hand holding the Taco Bell bag, which split, and a container of volcanic chili sauce exploded over Jumbo’s face.

Jumbo yelled and wiped at his eyes. He thrust out with a low, double-fisted punch, most of which got absorbed by the rolls of fat on Mr. Kerr’s chest, but there was still enough force in it to knock Mr. Kerr over.

Jumbo yelled again, in agony, still pawing at his eyes.
Luke jumped up and began to run, straight past the stunned Mr. Kerr, toward the town center, screaming at the top of his lungs. He glanced back to see Jumbo, back in the car, careering off down Madison Street, swerving from side to side, nearly smashing into a power pole before correcting and driving around the far corner.

Luke’s legs gave out and dumped him back on the ground as blue and red lights swept over him. In confusion, he watched the colors paint the sidewalk around him for a moment; then he looked up to see a Johnson County sheriff’s car. An immense weight lifted off his shoulders. It was the county sheriffs’ department. They were the serious police. The Iowa City police were really just there to keep order on the campus. But the Johnson County sheriffs were the real deal.

Now they’d have to listen.

Luke managed to stand and moved toward the car, but the officer got out and motioned with a hand for him to stay where he was on the sidewalk.

The officer approached. Luke started to talk, but the officer cut him off. “Are you Luke McKay?” he asked.

Luke nodded, wondering how the officer knew his name. He glanced down the road at Mr. Kerr, who was slowly getting to his feet.

Of all the unlikely rescuers.

“Are you Luke McKay?” the officer repeated, and stated Luke’s address.

“Yes,” Luke said, looking back and nodding urgently, “and I know where Ms. Sheck is being—”

He cut Luke off again. “Luke McKay, you have been implicated in the looting of the Iowa University Library, and I am hereby taking you into custody as a juvenile suspect.”

“I know,” Luke said. “But that’s not important anymore—”

“Sir, I am going to have to ask you to go ahead and be quiet while I inform you of the rights that you have as a juvenile suspect in a crime,” the officer said.

“Listen to me!” Luke cried. “My teacher was kidnapped and—”

“Sir, I am going to ask you
again
to remain silent while I inform you of your rights. If you do not comply with this request, I will be forced to restrain you.”

“You’re going to cuff me?” Luke shouted. “But—”

“Last chance, kid,” he said, pulling the handcuffs from his belt.

H
is name was Detective Dinning, but he told Luke that he could call him Glenn.

He was the good cop
and
the bad cop.

He’d talk kindly and gently, gaining Luke’s trust, and the next second, without warning, he’d slam his fist onto the table and his voice would go from a chatty tone to a shout.

Maybe they can’t afford the good cop
, Luke thought. Budgets must have been a bit tight at the Johnson County sheriff’s office.

Glenn looked at the blurred image on Luke’s cell phone and turned it back to him. “And this is Laetitia Sheck, you say?” (Good cop.)

Luke didn’t know her name was Laetitia but nodded anyway.

It could have been anyone. It might not even have been a person. The image was so blurred that it was useless. Luke
had taken three photos, but they were all the same. Blurred. Unrecognizable.

“It doesn’t matter if you believe me or not. How long would it take you to send a car out to the airport and check in the windows of the jet?” Luke asked.

Glenn made a small movement with his head as he shrugged. “Not long. But it’s private property, so technically we’d need a search warrant.”

Luke sucked in a deep breath. He wanted to scream at this man but knew that would only make matters worse. Why wouldn’t he listen to reason?

“Glenn, if you waste time on a search warrant and Mueller takes off in his plane with Ms. Sheck, you might never find her. Send out a car. Just have a quick look. It’ll prove that everything I am saying is true.”