The Battle of Bayport (12 page)

Even in sneakers, my footsteps echoed off the wood floor in the empty ship a lot louder than I would have liked. Moonlight crept through the portals, giving me enough light to see, but made the ship look downright spooky. Tiptoeing through the gun deck, I was half-sure Bernie was going to leap out from the shadows and grab me.

The armory door was open, and I couldn't hear anything inside. I crept cautiously up to the door and sneaked a peek inside. Empty. Just cases filled with guns and sabers and other weapons. If I was going to confront Bernie again, this time I planned to be armed. A display containing an
assortment of weapons worn by officers was unlocked—which, like the main gate, it shouldn't have been. I pulled a short cutlass-looking saber from the case and felt the weight of it in my hand. I was contemplating borrowing something more intimidating as well when I heard a muffled crashing noise from the back of the ship. I sprinted toward the sound, clutching the cutlass in my hand, praying I wasn't too late.

W
HEN I CAME TO, I
was slung over Bernie's shoulder with my hands tied behind my back. I tried to scream, but all that came out was a muffled moan. That's when I realized the muscle-bound jerk had gagged me as well. Man, was I angry at myself for getting snuck up on like that. I had been so focused on finding out what was in those bags, I'd let myself get ambushed. I was starting to think Frank had probably been right about not splitting up.

Bernie gave me a hard jab to the ribs with his elbow.

“Quiet,” he snapped, then added, “Not that anyone can hear you anyway.”

Well, that was encouraging. It wasn't going to stop me
from trying, though. I'd just have to be more clever about it. Which was going to prove tough while gagged and bound. It's a good thing I like a challenge.

I tried to get my bearings. We were deep below deck of the
Resolve
and going deeper. I recognized the big yellow
DANGER
sign in the corridor ahead. Bernie was headed for the dark no-man's-land in the construction zone at the back of the ship, where Frank and I had hidden from the cops the day before. Just great. Bernie might as well be taking me to an underground cave. No one was going to be able to find me there, definitely not before the morning, when and if the police returned to the ship to continue their investigation. I figured I'd better come up with a plan quick or no one would ever see me again. Not alive, at least. With my hands tied behind my back, I didn't have a lot of options, but an idea came to me. It was a stretch—literally—and I only had a split second to try it.

As soon as Bernie stepped past the caution tape into the construction zone, I stretched my hands away from my back as far as I could and tried to use the rope Bernie had wound around my wrists to snag the edge of the
CONSTRUCTION ZONE—HARD HAT REQUIRED
sign. The rope caught! Bernie's forward momentum yanked the sign down and sent it clattering to the floor. Yes! The sound echoed through the empty ship. It wasn't much of an emergency alarm, but it would have to do. I just hoped someone was within earshot to hear it.

I paid for my plan with another hard elbow to the ribs.
I gasped for breath and nearly choked on the gag in my mouth.

“Enough,” Bernie warned. “I don't want to hurt you more than I have to.”

Again, very reassuring. I wasn't about to stop trying to escape, though. It just didn't look like I was going to have the chance. It was pitch black in the construction zone, and Bernie didn't bother with lights. He navigated the darkness with no problem and barely made a sound on the creaky floor as he went. It was like he really was a ninja commando. It wasn't until I felt us descending a ladder that I realized where we were: the gaping jagged hole leading down to the cargo hold deep inside the ship.

This was where Frank said Mr. Lakin had found the crates full of artifacts. Here, even Bernie's ninja stealth couldn't stop the rotted wood floor from creaking under his feet. I'd been worried about falling through the floor when Frank and I were in the construction zone. Now, beneath Bernie's and my combined weight, I was about sure we were going to crash right through the bottom straight into the bay.

Bernie descended another even more rickety ladder before lugging me off his shoulder and tying me to a chair. A few seconds later, flickering orange light put an end to the darkness. Bernie had lit an old oil lantern, filling the chamber with a fiery glow.

“I'll take the gag off, but if you yell, I'll knock your teeth out before putting it back on,” he declared.

“Mmmrkkyy,” I replied affirmatively. I like my teeth. I didn't suffer through years of braces just to have them knocked out.

Bernie removed the gag, and I sucked in a deep breath of salty, musty air. I looked around at the crumbling ship walls and rotting floorboards. From down here, it seemed like a miracle the ship even stayed afloat at all. We were on the lower level of a dusty, empty storeroom that looked close to collapse. This must have been the old cargo hold Frank had been so eager to explore. Not that there was much left to see, really, just some empty crates and a frayed, rusty rope-and-pulley system that must have once been used to hoist heavy cargo up past the ladder Bernie had carried me down to the storage loft above. The notion of pulling myself up one of the ropes to safety crossed my mind and went
poof
instantly. That escape route was no good, not with my hands tied behind my back and Bernie between me and the rope.

Bernie was one of the bad guys, that much was clear, but I was still trying to figure out where he fit in with Don Sterling's murder, Mr. Lakin's disappearance, and Dirk Bishop's visit. Well, I wasn't going to get a better time to try and find out. It's not like I had anything else to do.

“So I guess now you get to finish what you started yesterday in the armory,” I said. It probably wasn't smart to antagonize him, but I was itching for answers, and Frank is supposed to be the smart one anyway. Bernie grunted in
response and gave me a funny look, like he didn't know what I was talking about.

“Frank was right about you,” I went on. “The only reason you let him go yesterday was you realized I was there to witness you attacking him, and getting rid of two bodies would've been a lot harder than just one. What I don't get is why.”

“That was an accident. I didn't mean to hurt your brother yesterday when he surprised me, and I don't want to hurt you,” Bernie said, sounding oddly sincere. “You may not believe this, but I really am sorry about all this. I like you boys. You have guts. You just have a bad habit of being in the wrong place at the right time. It's too bad. You would have made good soldiers.”

I didn't like Bernie's use of the past tense.

“You could still let me go, you know. Things will go a lot easier for you when you get caught if you don't harm a kid,” I tried to reason with him.

“Let you go?” Bernie laughed. “Harming you is what is going to make it easier for me not to get caught. You've given me the perfect way to complete my cover.”

That's when he pulled out one of the antique flintlock pistols he and Mr. Lakin had been carrying at the reenactment and aimed it at my heart.

I
'D FOLLOWED THE CRASHING NOISE
to the back of the ship past the King's Pride exhibit, where the renovations were still being finished. The
CONSTRUCTION ZONE
sign stared up at me from the floor like a big, bright, yellow bread crumb. Joe hadn't only left me a sign, he'd left me an actual sign! With a pun like that, I really was convinced it was my brother I'd seen carried across the deck of the ship.

I turned on my mobile flashlight and ducked past the caution tape into the dark, hoping I'd get lucky and stumble on Joe and his abductor before they stumbled on me. I just wasn't sure what I was going to do when I found them. I stopped when I reached the hole in the floor leading down to the cargo hold where Mr. Lakin had made
his discovery, not really sure which direction to go from there. I had just started to head down the corridor where we'd found Mr. Lakin's old office when I thought I heard murmuring behind me. I stopped and listened. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but someone was definitely down there.

Yesterday I had been itching to go down and explore the cargo hold. Now that I had my chance, it seemed a lot less welcoming. I gathered myself and started down the ladder. When I reached the bottom, I quickly flipped off my light. The voices were louder, and there was a faint flicker of light coming from somewhere below.

The cargo hold was actually two stories, and I was in the loft overhanging the main hold. I crept cautiously to the edge, peeked out from behind an empty wooden crate, and looked down. From my hiding place I could see Joe with his hands tied behind him. There was a loud clicking noise, and my brother's eyes went as wide as ship portals. A few feet away stood the last person I wanted to see. Bernie Blank. And he had one of the big old black powder pistols in his hand, with the hammer half-cocked and ready to load.

I didn't have much time. Bernie could have the pistol loaded and ready to fire in under a minute. I had to act fast to save Joe. I just didn't have a clue how I was going to do it. I looked down at the short saber in my hand. Little good it would do me from up here. That's when the
ropes caught my eye. They were hooked to the crate I was hiding behind and ran all the way up to the ancient iron pulley attached to the ceiling beam over Bernie's head. A plan started to form.
Keep him talking a little longer, Joe,
I thought.
Please keep him talking.

J
UST KEEP HIM TALKING
, I
thought as I stared down the barrel of the antique gun. There was a .75 caliber ball of 250-year-old hot lead coming my way if I didn't. Bernie had pulled out a powder horn and started loading the pistol with methodical precision. I didn't have much time. I don't know what I was stalling for, but I wasn't ready to bite the big one. Even if it meant just a few minutes between now and the Big Zero, as Frank called it, I was going to take it.

“We were onto you, you know. My brother and the police aren't going to let you get away with this,” I bluffed.

“Sorry to disappoint you, but by the time anyone finds you, I'll be long gone,” Bernie said calmly. “They won't even
suspect me, and if they do, there won't be any proof. Or I guess I should say, there will be plenty of proof. It just won't point to me.”

Bernie continued to load the pistol. I noticed for the first time that he was wearing gloves, and things started to click into place.

“Because the fingerprints on the gun aren't yours,” I said, realization dawning.

Bernie looked up from the pistol. “Affirmative, private.”

I studied the pistol in Bernie's hands. It was identical to the one Mr. Lakin had used—in fact, I realized, the chances were good that it was the very gun that had been fired by Mr. Lakin at the reenactment and that still had his fingerprints on it. And that same gun was aimed at me now.

One gun, two murders. Bernie would have pulled the trigger only once, but if his plan succeeded, no one would know that he had ever even held the gun at all. There would only be one set of fingerprints on it. My Second Man theory had just gotten a lot clearer. I had been right about there being a second person involved in Don Sterling's murder. I just hadn't been right about the shooter. Mikey had nothing to do with it.

“The gun isn't yours either, is it?” I asked. Bernie just grunted and withdrew the ramrod. “But this isn't the first time you loaded it with a musket ball.”

“Good work, private. Not that it will do you much good.” Bernie blew off the excess powder from the muzzle of the gun.

He might be right, but if I was going to go, I at least wanted to go solving the crime.

“The police are right about Mr. Lakin shooting Don Sterling,” I told him.

Bernie smirked. “Even Chief Olaf gets something right every once in a while.”

“They just don't know that Mr. Lakin's not the one who loaded the gun.” I added the crucial piece of information. “Mr. Lakin shot the Don, but you're the one who put the musket ball down the barrel. The question is, did he know about it beforehand? Was Mr. Lakin your accomplice, or did you frame him for the Don's murder like you plan to frame him for mine?”

“Accomplice?” Bernie laughed. “The old man was clueless. He was a convenient patsy. Lakin was a cop and I was a soldier. We shared war stories. I knew he could shoot, and I knew he'd planned that little stunt with the horse to show up Sterling. Everybody knew they hated each other. He would be the obvious suspect if anything happened to the Don. He made it easy for me.”

I rewound the scene from the battlefield in my mind. The people playing British and American officers hadn't loaded their pistols during the actual battle reenactment like the infantry had. They'd loaded them before the shooting started, like the real officers would have before heading into battle with their troops. So Mr. Lakin would have started out with his pistol safely loaded with only a blank charge.
I thought about the video Aunt Trudy shot of the reenactment, how Mr. Lakin had stood side by side with Bernie while they handed out the muskets. The camera had panned away while they were still standing there, so we didn't get to see what happened next. Not that we would have anyway. Bernie had quick hands.

“So you picked his pocket and swapped the gun he was wearing with yours, the one you'd secretly already loaded with a real musket ball.” I broke down what I now knew had happened next. “Mr. Lakin executed the Don for you without even knowing it.”