The Astro Outlaw (3 page)

“Hey, come here,” Mike called out to Kate. “It’s a box full of coal. The steam trains like the one on the outfield wall used to run on it.
You can reach in and touch the coal pieces!”

Mike dipped his hand through a round opening at the top of the box. The shiny black chunks of coal were smooth. But some had jagged edges. “Try it,” he said.

Kate stuck her hand in. “Feels cold,” she said. “But we came down here to see Commander Rice, not a train display. Let’s ask that security guard if he knows anything.”

Mike followed Kate over to the guard behind the table. He had just put down his walkie-talkie. The name tag on his shirt read
LUIS
.

“Excuse me,” Kate said. “We’re friends of Commander Rice. Do you know when he’s coming?”

Luis shook his head. “He was upstairs about an hour ago for a party,” he said. He pointed to a nearby stairway. “But Commander Rice didn’t show up for the first pitch
like he was supposed to. They had to start the game without him. We’ve been looking but haven’t found him yet.”

“Thanks,” Kate said. “We’ll check back later.”

Kate and Mike took the stairway up to the next level. It wasn’t very busy. Mike could see a few fans farther down the hallway.

Mike nodded to a sign on the door in front of them. It read
COMMANDER RICE PARTY
. “Maybe someone in there knows what happened to him.” He pulled the door open and stepped inside.

Kate slipped in, too. She expected the room to be full of businesspeople. But it was empty, except for a few round tables. Half-filled cups and plates of leftovers sat on the tables around the room.

“I guess the party’s over,” Mike said.
“Everyone must have gone to their seats when the game started.”

“I’m not sure we should be here,” Kate said. She glanced over her shoulder to the door. “What if someone finds us?”

Mike shrugged. “We’ll just tell them exactly what we’re doing. We’re looking for Commander Rice. No one said to keep out.”

For the next five minutes, Kate and Mike searched the room. All they found were a few business cards and some Astros stickers.

“There’s no sign of Commander Rice,” Mike said. Just then, the crowd roared. There must have been a big play. “Let’s go. We’re missing the game!”

Mike and Kate left the party room. Mike was halfway down the stairs when he heard Kate call him.

“Mike! Stop!” Kate said.

Mike turned around. Kate stood at the top of the stairs. Her head was tilted like she was listening for something.

“Why?” Mike asked. “What—”

Kate put her finger up to her lips. “Shh …,”
she said. She pointed at a door marked
EMPLOYEES ONLY
. “I hear something.”

Kate put her ear against the door. Her eyes grew wide. “Something is scratching on the other side!”

Mike bounded up the steps. When he reached Kate, he leaned over and pressed his ear against the door, too. Silence. But then they both heard it. A few seconds of soft scratching, like sandpaper on a piece of wood.

Mike straightened up. “It sounds like mice,” he said.

“No,” Kate said. “Someone’s there. I heard tapping. Like a signal.”

Kate rapped the door hard three times with her knuckles.
KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK
.
She motioned for Mike to lean against the door again. But there was no response.

Mike shook his head. “See, it’s probably just a mouse.” He turned to go. Kate stepped back to study the wall.

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK
.

Mike whirled around. “That’s no mouse!”

Mike twisted the door handle and pulled. The door moved slightly, but then stuck fast. Kate reached over. She helped Mike give it another tug. The door sprang open. Someone was huddled on the floor behind it.

It was Commander Rice!

He wore a blue zip-up flight suit, and his hands and feet were bound with tape. A strip of cloth was tied around his head. It covered his mouth. Mike knelt down and untied it. When it fell away, Commander Rice gasped for air.

“Thank you!” he said as Kate worked on the tape around his feet and hands. The commander winced.

“Are you okay?” Kate asked.

“I think so,” Commander Rice replied. “Someone knocked me out.” He touched the back of his head. “Wow. I didn’t see that coming! Did I miss the first pitch?”

Kate looked at her phone. “It’s about eight o’clock,” she said. “You missed the start of the game. That’s why we came looking for you. What happened?”

Commander Rice stood up and rubbed the marks on his wrists. He stretched for a moment while he was thinking. “I’m not sure. I was at the party. It was for local businesspeople, including some from the tour this morning, like Sam and Tex and Manuel.” He ran his fingers through his blond hair. “I left about twenty minutes before the game to get ready.”

“Someone must have been watching you and waiting for you to leave!” Kate said.

“I didn’t see anyone suspicious,” Commander Rice said. “They must have been waiting for me in the hall.” He scanned the hallway as he tried to remember what happened.

Mike studied the hallway, too. He pulled out his baseball and tried to roll it from one hand to the other, but the ball dropped onto the floor. Mike scrambled to pick it up before it rolled down the stairs.

Commander Rice snapped his fingers. “That’s it. I saw a ten-dollar bill right there.” He pointed to the floor in front of the door, where Mike’s ball had bounced. “I bent down to pick it up, and someone put something over my face. It smelled a little like straw. They dragged me into this room and knocked me out.”

Commander Rice’s hand went to the back of his head again. “It still hurts. I faded in
and out for a while, but I remember hearing deep voices,” he said. “The next thing I knew, I woke up all tied up. I started trying to get the ropes off. Then I heard you knocking.”

He frowned, trying to remember more. “They said something about meeting at a gas station near the hill, deep in the heart of Texas,” Commander Rice said. He shook his head to clear it.

“I’ll bet they were talking about their hideout!” Mike said.

“Houston’s near the bottom of the state,” Kate said. “If they’re meeting in the heart of Texas, it’s probably far away from here. There’s a lot of space in Texas.”

Commander Rice gasped. His face went pale. “Space!” He looked around the room wildly. “It’s gone!” he said.

“What’s gone?” Mike asked.

“My briefcase,” Commander Rice said. He pulled the pockets of his flight suit inside out. They were empty except for some blue fuzz.

“The key is missing, too!” he said. “It was in my pocket.”

Mike snorted. “At least it was only work stuff,” he said. “I wouldn’t mind it if someone stole my homework!”

“No, Mike. They didn’t steal work papers,” Commander Rice said. “They stole the moon rock!”

“The moon rock is gone?” Kate gasped.

“I had it when I left the party, and it’s not here now,” Commander Rice said. “That must be why they mugged me. The moon rocks brought back by the Apollo missions are worth a huge amount of money!”

“Like, how much?” Mike asked.

“A lot,” Commander Rice said. “Back in 1998, a thief tried to sell a moon rock from
Apollo Seventeen
for five million dollars!”

“Wow,” Mike said. “That would buy a lot
of baseball tickets! Whoever stole your moon rock must be a real outlaw!”

“You mean an
Astro
Outlaw,” Kate said.

Mike laughed. “The Astro Outlaw. I like it! Let’s search the room. Maybe the Astro Outlaw left some clues!”

The room was only about ten feet long and ten feet wide. The floor was dark gray concrete, and the walls were made of cinder block. A light hung from the ceiling. On the far wall was a second door. A sign on it read
TRACKS. EMPLOYEES ONLY
.

Mike elbowed Kate in the ribs. “Look, maybe the Outlaw left some tracks!” he said.

Kate groaned at Mike’s bad joke. But Commander Rice smiled for the first time since Kate and Mike had found him. He cracked the door open a few inches. Right away, the sound of the baseball game grew
louder. He pulled the door open completely.

“The thieves didn’t leave
these
tracks, Mike,” Kate said. In front of them stretched the railroad tracks for the stadium’s train. They could see the train engine’s big red cowcatcher, large light, and black smokestack. To their right were the outfield and third base. A walkway ran next to the train tracks.

“This must be how the engineer gets to the train,” Mike said. “Cool!”

“Well, the Outlaw wouldn’t have hidden the moon rock out here,” Commander Rice said. “I bet whoever stole the rock has already taken it out of the stadium. Or he’s hidden it somewhere.”

Just as Commander Rice was closing the door, Mike called, “Wait!” He pointed to the tracks. Something black lay between the rails about ten feet away. “What’s that?” he asked.

“My briefcase!” Commander Rice said. He picked it up. The black case had a blue and red NASA sticker on the side. “It’s unlocked!”

Commander Rice’s hands shook as he popped open the cover. The briefcase was fitted with gray foam inside. In the middle was a hollow space for the moon rock. The commander’s shoulders slumped. “Empty,” he said.