Fool's Gold (7 page)

“All part of the plan.”

That was my idea. I figured if they only had a few hours to get here, they wouldn't have enough time to plan something. All they could do was react to what we told them to do.

“They might have had trouble getting the raft,” Jack suggested.

“Maybe. Speaking of the raft, we have to be sure to put ashore before we get to the waterfall,” I said.

The creek had a sudden six-foot drop about half a mile past the trestle.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that part of my plan,” Jack said. “We're going over the waterfall.”

“What!” I exclaimed.

“Yeah. I figure if we go over the waterfall we'll all end up in the drink, and that would be good.”

“How would that be good?” I asked.

“Because both of those guys are going to be packing heat, and I read that guns that get wet don't work,” he explained.

“They don't?”

“Nope. I read that someplace. We want to get the gold out but we don't want them to kill anybody.”

“That makes sense. I'm just not looking forward to going over those falls again.”

The first time we'd gone down that way—while drifting on inflated inner tubes—we hadn't known about the waterfall. We'd gone flying over, plunging beneath the water in the pool at the bottom before breaking the surface and dragging ourselves to shore. That was one of the scariest moments of my life … up until then, anyway. There had been lots worse since, and I had a nasty feeling there were lots more still to come.

“The other reason I want to travel by raft is so that we can see if we're being followed,” Jack said.

“Followed by who?”

“By some more mobsters. It's important to know how many of them we're dealing with. I figure we
stop before we hit the trestle, maybe hide under the branches of that big willow tree, just float there. We can tell them we have to wait to see if there are any guards watching from the trestle.”

“I've never seen a guard on the trestle before,” I said.

“Neither have I, but they don't know that. Then if somebody is following us they'll drift right into us. Does that make sense?”

“That's good thinking.”

“Somebody's got to use their head for more than just holding a hat. I only wish I had all the rest of it worked out.”

“I've been thinking about the rest of it too.”

“And?”

“Well, even if this all works, what's to stop them from simply taking the gold and killing us and Mom?”

“I thought about that. That's not going to happen.”

“But won't they be worried about us telling somebody what happened, you know, turning them in?”

“They probably figure that everybody is like them and we'll take the money and just shut up. They don't think that we'd squeal on them, because it would get us in hot water.”

“I don't know,” I said. “They have to be thinking about just keeping all the gold and getting rid of the witnesses.”
Jack shook his head slowly. “You could be right. Maybe I can come up with another way—there's always another way.”

I let out a big sigh. “Even if this all works, even if we do walk away with our mother and a lot of money, it's still wrong.”

“You think I don't know that?” Jack snapped. “But what choice do we have?”

I shook my head. “None. We have to help them get the gold and get our mom back. We have no choice about that. Not now. But we
do
have a choice later on.”

“Go on,” Jack said.

“After we're all free, then we could go to Bill and tell him what happened.”

Jack didn't answer.

“We could tell them about stealing the gold and how we really didn't have any choice, it was like a gun was being held to our heads—our mother's head—and then we could give him whatever information we have about the criminals and they could catch them.”

“They could, but they'd already have half the gang. Us.”

“Us?”

“It won't matter why we did what we did. We still did it. We still violated the Official Secrets Act. We still betrayed our country. They could still put us in jail or shoot us.”

“And if they did, could you blame them? We're putting our lives above our country.”

“Not
our
lives. Our
mother's
life.”

“Makes no difference why you betray your country. We'd be punished, that's for sure.”

“Are you saying we shouldn't tell Bill, that if we get away with it we should just stay quiet?” I asked.

Jack shook his head. “I was thinking about what Dad would want us to do.”

“I know what he'd want us to do,” I said.

“Me too. We'll contact Bill. We're doing something wrong so we have to take our punishment like men. We'll do what we have to do … and then, they'll do what they have to do to us.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

“
WHAT TIME IS IT NOW
?” I asked Jack.

“About two minutes later than the last time you asked.”

That made it about twenty-five after seven. Twenty-five minutes later than the time they should have been there.

“What do you think is keeping them?”

“What do I look like, a fortune teller?”

“Do you think they're going to come?”

“Of course. They want that gold, and they can't get it unless they do what we told them to do.”

He was right. There was no reason to believe they weren't going to show up. They'd probably just had some trouble finding the raft, or maybe they'd got lost or—

“Look,” I said.

A car had just come into view. It was big and black and looked a little like the car the mobsters had been driving. As it closed in I could see it was a beat-up old black sedan, not as fancy as theirs. It hit the bridge and kept going. I watched until it reached
the bend in the road and disappeared.

“There's another one!” I exclaimed. “No … wait … it's just a truck.”

A grey panel truck came lumbering along the road. Its gears made a grinding sound as it shifted and started to slow down. I heard the sound of gravel under its wheels at the same instant it started to pull off to the side of the road. It came to a stop just beside the bridge—just to the east side of the bridge.

“Do you think?” Jack asked.

In answer to his question the passenger door opened and a man—a big man—wearing a big, dressy overcoat and a fedora climbed out. Yeah, it was them.

“Is that his idea of how fishermen dress?” Jack asked.

“I guess it depends on what you're fishing for.”

“You wait here and I'll go and talk to them.” Jack started to get up.

I grabbed his arm. “No, it should be me who goes.”

“No way. I'm the one who needs to talk to them in case they try something fishy.”

“That's why it should be me,” I argued. “If they try anything, we need you free to do something about it … right?”

He didn't answer right away, which meant he was actually thinking about what I'd said. “I don't like it, but I guess you're right. I'll cover you from here.”

“That would mean a lot more if you had a gun.”

“It would. And go that way,” he said, pointing away from the van. “We don't want them to know where you came from or where I'm hiding. Come at them from the other side of the road.”

On all fours I crawled away, keeping my head below the bushes. The land dropped away and I was hidden from view. Cautiously, I moved along the edge of the creek. They were parked far enough from the bridge that they couldn't see me. I crept along the banks, moving slowly and quietly. Finally, sheltered by the abutment, I scurried under the bridge. It was instantly cooler, and I couldn't help but think how cold it was going to be when we went over the waterfall and got soaking wet. I picked out my steps carefully, moving from rock to rock to avoid getting a soaker.

I cleared the bridge and then came up the bank. I used a line of bushes to shelter me as I moved away from the creek. I stopped. Standing there, I was completely hidden from their view. Safe. If I just stayed there they'd never see me. I couldn't help but think about how tempting that was, and that this was probably the last time I was going to be safe for a long time. I didn't want to move but I knew I had to. I took a couple of deep breaths to steady myself, to calm down and try to stop my knees from shaking. I was going to act scared but I didn't want to let them know I was really terrified. Okay, it was time. I
looked up and down the road. There were no other vehicles in sight.

I came out of the bushes, waving my hands. “Hey!”

They circled to the front of the van.

“Get in and follow me!” I yelled.

I started jogging down the road. I didn't look back but I heard the truck starting up. I raced along, running as fast as I could, hoping to reach the spot where I'd get off the road before anybody else could drive by. I was moving so fast I almost overran it. I turned around and waved for the truck. It was almost on top of me. It slowed down and edged off the road onto the little path, rocking over the bumps. I kept motioning for them to come forward. The path didn't go far but it would get them off the road and hopefully out of sight.

“Stop right there,” I said, holding up my hands. Any farther and they might not be able to get back out.

The panel truck came to a stop and the two men climbed out.

“Where's your brother, kid?” the little guy asked.

“Not far. He's keeping watch.”

“Keeping watch for what?”

“For whatever might get in our way. You're late,” I said, trying to change the subject.

“We made a couple of wrong turns. Important thing is we're here,” he said.

“Yeah. Grab some branches.” I reached down and took a big branch that was lying just beside the path.

Jack and I had cut them earlier. I stood the branch up and leaned it against the back of the vehicle. The two men started to do the same. Branch after branch piled up until the back end was hidden from view, even though I stood only a couple of feet from it.

“You got the raft?” I asked.

“In the truck.”

“Get it out and we'd better get going … you're late.”

“You mentioned that, kid.”

“Yeah, but we have this thing timed and we only have so much light and—”

“Look, kid, you're not my mother or my wife so just stop with the attitude, okay?”

I guessed that even scum like him had a mother. “Sure … yeah … but you were supposed to dress like you were going fishing.”

“Oh, yeah, that's right.” He unbuttoned his coat, as did the big guy. Underneath their expensive overcoats they were dressed in flannel shirts and dungarees. They took off their coats, folded them and carefully placed them on the front seat. Next they removed their fedoras and placed them on top of their coats. It looked like they had more respect for their clothes than they did for people.

“Is that better?” he asked.

“Much. Come on.”

The big guy opened the doors at the side of the van and took hold of a large, inflated rubber raft. As he
pulled it out I peered inside the vehicle—there was nobody else there. The second man grabbed four fishing rods and a bright-red tackle box.

“Now we just look like four guys going fishing … if we had the fourth guy. Where's your brother?” This time there was a serious tone in his voice and a threatening look in his eyes.

“We're going to him right now. Just stay here for a second.”

I walked up the slope of the path and stopped just before the shelter of the bushes ended. I edged forward and looked up and then down the road. I couldn't see anything, but I knew Jack could see me. I gave him the signal—thumbs up—to let him know everything was okay.

I turned back around. “It's clear!” I yelled. “Come on!”

The two men came waddling along, the raft bouncing up and down between them, the fishing rods peeking over the edge. I scanned the road again. It was still empty.

Up ahead Jack came out of the trees and I quickly joined him.

“Nobody else in the van,” I said quietly. “Did you see anything else?”

“Nothing. I think it's just the four of us.”

The two men came up beside us. They were both panting and puffing and looked red in the face. This
was probably the most physical work they'd done in a while. Maybe that was a good thing—maybe it wasn't. I guessed it depended on whether we were all running from somebody or Jack and I were running from them.

“Come through this way,” Jack said.

He brought us down the little path that led to a small, flat clearing right beside the creek. That was the spot where we'd sunned ourselves back in the summer before we'd gone into the creek with our inner tubes. Hard to believe that so much had happened to us in just a few months.

Jack stopped and the two men put the raft down on the sand.

“So far so good,” Jack said. “I was just wondering, what do we call you guys?”

“You don't need to know our names,” the little guy—who now seemed to be the one in charge—said.

“We need to call you something,” Jack explained. “We have to work like a team, and we can't do that if we don't even know your names. What if we need to call out to you to get your attention? Are we supposed to just yell, ‘Hey you'?”

The little guy shrugged. “You can call me Red.”

What little hair he had certainly didn't look very red.

“It's from when I was a kid and I used to have red hair,” he explained.

“And your friend?”

“This is Moose. Say hello, Moose.”

“Hello,” he said, in a deep baritone voice that matched his size. He reached out and took my hand and shook it. My hand just disappeared in that mighty mitt of his. Despite how big he was, his grip was gentle. He did the same with Jack.