Authors: Donna Andrews
“Oh, my,” Phinny murmured.
“Do you keep a lot of kerosene here?” I whispered.
“Several cans,” he said. “I run a space heater on really cold days.”
Hamish finished and came to stand where we could see him through the cell window. He was holding the files we’d found in one hand, and a pocket lighter in the other.
“Shall I?”
Phinny closed his eyes and stifled a whimper.
“I wouldn’t,” I said. “At least not until I was sure I didn’t need them.”
Hamish looked puzzled, and then a look of cunning spread over his face.
“You’re right,” he said. “Properly used, these could be worth a lot of money. Thank you. In gratitude, I’ll give you a choice: smoke inhalation, or a bullet.”
He cocked his head as if waiting for an answer.
“Still thinking about it? Well, you have a little bit of time.”
He chuckled mirthlessly and disappeared again, this time in the direction of the barricade.
“If he’s thinking of going out that way, he’s in for a disappointment,” Phinny said.
We heard a creak. Then another creak.
“He’s opening the plywood privacy doors,” Phinny said.
And then a clink.
“And throwing the cell door key outside,” I said. “Pretty pointless.”
“I think it’s intended as a gesture,” he said. “To unnerve us.”
Hamish was whistling, rather off-key, as he passed by the cell door on his way to some other part of the basement.
The idea of waiting until Hamish finished his preparations and set the basement on fire didn’t appeal. I studied the old lock.
“Do you have a screwdriver?” I asked.
“A screwdriver?”
“Or anything like a screwdriver. Something I can use to pick the lock.”
His face looked blank for a second.
“I don’t have a screwdriver unless—well, I do have this.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a Swiss army knife. One of the really large, complicated ones with at least a dozen various implements on it.
“Fantastic.” I knelt in front of the door and began testing all the knife’s attachments.
“Are you a skilled lock picker?” he asked.
“I’ve had lessons,” I said.
I didn’t look up to see if he found that explanation reassuring. I suspected he didn’t. If I hadn’t been trying to concentrate so hard on the lock, I’d have told him about the long-ago summer when Dad had become obsessed with lock picking, and I’d been the only one of his three children who really put my heart into what Mother called “your father’s little burgling project.”
I’d been the star pupil—better than Dad, even. But while my skill had proven useful a few times since, when I’d lost my keys, my successes had been on the cheap locks of rental apartments in my salad days. Who knew if the ancient cell door lock was harder or easier?
Hamish reappeared with an axe. He glared at us, and I was suddenly very glad we had a locked door between us.
He whirled and smashed Phinny’s computer with a few savage whacks. Phinny flinched with each blow.
He picked up the telephone, and I was expecting him to throw it on the floor and give it the same treatment, but instead he dialed a number.
“It’s me,” he said. “Don’t give me that. You’re the one who really knows all this explosive stuff.”
Explosive stuff? I looked at all the kerosene glistening on the papers. I’d been starting to worry about the effect a match could have on the paper-packed basement. If someone was planning to set off explosives …
“Besides,” Hamish went on, “I’ve been doing something even better—I’ve got the paper and Denton. Yeah, it was him running around in the gorilla suit all day, not the policeman. I was hiding in my uncle’s office and overheard that they were going to take him over to the basement to hunt for the paper, and I found a chance to jump him and steal the suit.”
He’d probably done it when I’d made my quick trip to the bathroom. Too bad we hadn’t thought to search that locked inner office.
“And you’ll never guess where I’m calling from,” Hamish went on. “Bingo … And I’ve doused the whole place with kerosene. It’ll burn like a grill with too much lighter fluid on it when we blow up the rest of the courthouse.”
Maybe it was that phrase “blow up the rest of the courthouse” that gave me new energy. Suddenly, I felt the tumblers inside the lock moving, and—
Click!
“You did it!” Phinny whispered.
I tried to look blasé about my accomplishment, as if I organized jailbreaks on a regular basis.
Of course, now all we had to do was overpower a man with a gun.
“I’ve taken down the plywood,” Hamish was saying. “So those bombs you put just outside the barricade will do as much damage as possible. Yes, I saw them just now, and laid a trail of kerosene from there back into the room. So I’m taking off in a few minutes, and I can just lay the paper on top of … well, yeah, if you like. And we can burn it together.”
He removed the contents of the thicker of the two folders—the one that contained not only the real contract but also the forged one. He folded up the papers and stuck them inside the jacket of his track suit, and then stuck the other copy of the real contract in his pants pocket.
“See if you can call him over,” I whispered into Phinny’s ear. “And we’ll knock him down with the door.”
He nodded.
“Listen,” Hamish was saying, “Denton’s in the janitor’s closet on the third floor. I whacked him on the head and tied him up. Might be a good idea to leave him somewhere near one of your bombs, so there’s no chance he survives to tell tales.”
I felt a surge of relief that Denton was alive. At least for the moment.
“How long till
The 1812 Overture
?… Well, what’s playing now?… Hold up the phone, then … That’s the
New World Symphony
. We’ve got the rest of that and then the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and then boom! No, I’m coming out now. Meet me in the tent by the bandstand—the tunnel’s in the crawl space under the bandstand, and you get there through the tent.”
The tent. Surely someone would notice him when he came out. Unless, of course—
“I’ll be the one in the gorilla suit,” he said. “And remember—nothing goes boom till I’m safely out of here. Or you’ll never be sure I didn’t leave this incriminating little piece of paper behind in the fireproof safe.… How do you know there isn’t?… About fifteen minutes. Right.”
He hung up. He whacked the phone to bits and disappeared from our field of vision.
“Maybe we should just run out,” Phinny said.
But Hamish reappared almost immediately, carrying the gorilla suit.
I gestured to Phinny to wait.
A few moments later, Hamish had to put the gun down to wriggle into the suit.
“Go!” I said.
We slammed open the cell door and both launched ourselves at Hamish. My flying tackle was better, but Phinny’s wasn’t bad. We went down in a tangle of fur and loose papers. Hamish was facedown, half in and half out of the gorilla suit. I managed to pull both of his arms behind him.
“Get the gun,” I said. “And then find something we can use to tie him up with.”
Phinny scrambled to follow orders. Once we had Hamish’s arms and legs trussed up with heavy-duty packing tape—with a strip over his mouth to block out the foul insults he was hurling our way—Phinny and I stood up and took a deep breath.
“Of course we can’t just leave him here,” I said. “I’ll go out the tunnel first. Then you can put him on the cart and I’ll haul him—”
“I’ll take care of him, and myself,” Phinny said. “Just take these and go. Warn them. Save the courthouse.”
He reached into Hamish’s pockets, pulled out the various papers, and thrust them toward me.
I hesitated for a few moments, then nodded. It made sense. I shoved the papers into my pockets, grabbed Hamish by one foot, and began dragging him toward the tunnel.
“I said leave him,” he said.
“I will,” I said. “But I can at least leave him close to the exit. Up to you if you want to bring him out—”
“Or send him out,” Phinny said. “I keep a lot of fire extinguishers here. I’m going to gather them all, close the plywood doors, and maybe I can prevent any fire. Or contain it.”
I thought it was a crazy idea, but I didn’t think I should take the time to argue with him. I kept seeing all those people sitting on the steps of the courthouse. The deputies guarding it. Denton.
And if the courthouse really blew, how far would the destruction go? As far as the audience gathered around the bandstand?
As far as the roof of Muriel’s restaurant, where Michael and the boys would be waiting for the fireworks?
“Your decision,” I said. I had dragged Hamish with me into the cell that contained the tunnel entrance. I shoved him into a corner where he would be convenient for dragging farther, but not in my way.
“Wish me luck.”
“Most fervently,” he said. Then he dashed back into the main part of the basement.
Hamish wiggled a little, and tried to say something through the packing tape. I took a deep breath and got down on my hands and knees, ready to enter the tunnel.
“Let’s hope your friend really does wait for you to arrive before he sets off his explosion,” I said to Hamish. He squirmed slightly.
I climbed into the cart and set out.
“Slow and steady,” I told myself. Easier said than done. My arms ached by the time I arrived at the junction. I was about to send the cart back, so it would be there if Phinny changed his mind, when I heard the faint squeaking of the pulley wheels.
Someone was coming through the other tunnel toward me.
Chapter 43
I told myself that the person riding toward me on the cart didn’t have to be Hamish’s fellow thug. It was probably someone else. One of the Shiffleys, checking on some small detail of the construction. The chief, coming in person to find the documents. Rob, intent on talking Phinny into sneaking out to watch the fireworks.
But if it was a bad guy, the junction wasn’t the place to meet him. Especially since I’d left the gun with Phinny. I hopped back on the cart and pulled myself as fast as I could back to the cell.
Maybe not such a smart idea. If I could hear the wheels, he could, too. I stood by the opening of the tunnel, waiting either to greet a friend or to ambush a foe.
No squeaking.
“Hamish?” Someone was calling from inside the tunnel. The sound was slightly muffled, and I couldn’t identify the voice.
Hamish made some noises through the duct tape. I made a gun with my forefinger and mimed shooting him. He shut up.
Phinny came back in.
“Meg, what—”
“Shhh!”
He stopped immediately. I mimed the gun again, this time pointing my finger in the air. Phinny handed the real gun to me, looking anxiously between me and Hamish.
“Hamish?” The voice from the tunnel again. “We’re running out of time.”
Phinny and I waited in silence.
Then I heard the faint squeaking. But the pulleys on our end weren’t moving.
“He’s going away,” Phinny whispered.
“To blow up the courthouse,” I said.
I launched myself into the tunnel—just me, not riding the cart, so whoever it was wouldn’t hear the squeaking. Trying to crawl quickly and quietly through the tunnel made me really appreciate the cart. The rails dug into my body as I crawled, and the ground under them was alternately muddy or pocked with small sharp stones. I tried to keep my breathing regular instead of panting noisily.
About ten feet into the crawl, I heard a small explosion ahead, followed by the muffled sound of dirt falling.
“He blew the tunnel,” I muttered.
I kept crawling until I reached a place where my way was blocked with dirt. I turned my headlight on. Blocked solid.
Curious how calm I felt now that what I’d been dreading so long had actually happened. Oh, I could feel the impulse to panic, scream, claw the walls, and curl up into a little ball. But it was surprisingly easy to push those thoughts to the back of my mind and focus on the practical. I’d break down later when I got out. When—not if.
I dug with my hands until I encountered a splintered bit of wood. One of the side supports. Not good. Should I keep digging? Or go back and see if Phinny and I could remove the barriers?
I remembered those huge landscaping logs, bolted to the wall.
I grabbed the splintered board and dug with that.
At first it felt like bailing a bathtub with a thimble. Then I realized that I could see something other than dirt ahead.
A stretch of intact board ceiling on the other side.
I dug with new frenzy, and while I was far from clearing the tunnel, I was opening up a space near the ceiling. After what seemed like forever, I finally got the hole large enough to crawl through.
“I’m not doing this again,” I muttered. “Phinny will have to come out and visit me.”
I resumed my crawl. I had no idea how long I’d been digging. Five minutes? Five hours?
Not five hours. I could hear music ahead. The concert was still going on.
Not
The 1812 Overture
, though. Which must mean they were still playing Dvorak’s
New World Symphony
. Not a piece of music I knew well enough that I could tell how far along they were. But the music was fast, loud, and dramatic. Damn. Probably meant they were working up to the grand finale.
I stopped long enough to pull the gun out of my pocket and hold it in one hand for the final ten feet of the crawl.
But the junction was empty.
And the pulley at the mouth of the other leg of the tunnel was still softly squeaking.
I studied the rope system. We’d mounted it on the wall rather than the ground, on the theory that it wouldn’t be as easily covered up by any dirt that fell. Which meant if I was careful, I might be able to crawl through the tunnel without pressing on the rope.
At least I hoped so. Because whoever was creaking along in the cart—rather slower than I’d have been going—would probably be alert for any signs that he’d failed to block the tunnel.
I crawled. Beside me the ropes slid slowly along.
Then they stopped. I kept crawling, but more slowly, so I could listen.