Survival Run Page 2

  Denise shook her head. "He has a cabin in the middle of nowhere, and there's no phone. He told me he'd call in once a week when he went to town to pick up supplies, but he hasn't called yet. I'm starting to get a little worried."

  Frank studied Denise closely for a moment and decided to take a chance. "What I'm about to tell you may sound unbelievable, but please try to believe it. Dr. Stavrogin's life may depend on it."

  When Frank finished telling Denise about the Network and the Assassins and the leather case, she only stared at him silently.

  "Do you have any idea what these terrorists might want with Dr. Stavrogin?" Frank asked.

  "I'm afraid I do," Denise Wallner replied in a measured tone that reflected her concern. "But I'm not at liberty to discuss it."

  "We know Dr. Stavrogin went to Fairbanks," Joe said. "Could you tell us where his cabin is?"

  "It's about an hour north of Fairbanks," she said. "Outside a small town called Big Bear."

  Joe turned to Frank. "I hear Alaska is beautiful this time of year."

  "I guess we'll have to go to find out for ourselves," Frank said, smiling at Denise. "Thanks for the address."

  They left the building and started across the campus. "We'll probably have to leave the campus to find a cab," Frank remarked.

  "No, we won't," Joe responded, breaking into a jog and waving a hand in the air. "Taxi!" he shouted.

  "We're going to the airport," Joe told the driver as he and Frank got in.

  The driver grunted, and the cab lurched away from the curb.

  "I guess we lucked out," Frank said to the driver. "I didn't think we'd find a cab on campus. Did you just drop somebody off?"

  The driver's only reply was to reach behind him and slide the Plexiglas window shut between the front seat and backseat.

  "Not very friendly, is he?" Joe remarked.

  "At least he's not a talker," Frank said. From the backseat he couldn't get a very good look at the driver, except for his curly black hair.

  Frank's eyes shifted to the license on the dashboard. He studied the driver again and leaned over to his brother. "Is it my imagination, or is the guy in the picture a lot fatter than the guy behind the wheel?"

  "Maybe he lost weight," Joe suggested.

  "You're probably right," Frank said uneasily as the cab sped across the Francis Scott Key bridge and onto the George Washington Memorial Parkway.

  That was when Frank realized what was bothering him. "Hey!" he shouted, rapping on the Plexiglas window. "Don't you want to know which airport we're going to?"

  Joe frowned. "Is there more than one?"

  "Yes!" Frank responded frantically, pounding on the plastic barrier that separated them from the driver. "Washington National and Dulles. How did he know which one we were going to?"

  The cab swerved onto an exit ramp, and the tires screamed into a tight turn.

  "Maybe he's new in town," Joe offered lamely. "Maybe he didn't know."

  "Maybe he doesn't read English, either," Frank said as the cab smashed through a wooden barrier with a sign that announced Bridge Closed for Repairs.

  Joe's hands pawed at the seat cushions.

  "What are you doing?" Frank snapped.

  "Looking for the seat belts," Joe snapped back.

  A cluster of construction workers scattered as the cab whisked past them. Joe's hands stopped moving and dug into the seat cushion as the cab plowed through another barrier and rocketed toward a wide gap in the guardrail. A workman with a blowtorch dived out of the way as the cab soared up through the breach.

  "We're in trouble!" Frank yelled to his brother, grabbing his arm.

  Joe didn't have a chance to answer. His stomach jumped into his throat as the bridge fell away and the dark blue Potomac rushed UP to meet them.

  Chapter 3

  The cab hit the water with a violent jolt, pitching Joe out of his seat. His head smacked into the Plexiglas divider, and the world started to go gray. Sheer willpower kept him from blacking out. He knew the cab would be his coffin if he passed out right then, They weren't underwater yet, but they were getting there fast. He shook his head to try to clear it and checked for his brother.

  "Get off me!" Frank groaned.

  Joe saw then that he was sprawled on top of Frank. "We've got to get out of here," he said as he untangled himself from his brother. Water was rushing in around the edges of the door frames. It was already ankle deep, and it was cold. Joe tried to open one door, but it was jammed shut. He put his shoulder against it and started to shove.

  "Don't do that!" Frank snapped, grabbing Joe's arm and jerking him away from the door. "You probably couldn't open it anyway because of the water pressure. But if you could, we'd get trapped by a wall of incoming water, and the cab would sink like a rock with us still in it."

  "We're sinking now!" Joe shot back, eyeing the rising water level in the cab.

  "I know," Frank said. "We have to wait until the water comes in almost all the way to the top. Then we take a deep breath from the last bit of air and roll down the window or open the door.

  "Wait a minute," Joe said, pointing to the driver slumped over the steering wheel. "What about him?" He tried to open the sliding divider, but it was locked or jammed. He Pounded his fist against the hard, clear plastic barrier. "Hey! Wake up in there!"

  "That's no good," Frank said. "He's out cold."

  "He sure picked a great time to take a nap," Joe muttered, leaning back in the seat. He swung his feet up and smashed his shoes into the Plexiglas. The bottom of the divider popped loose.

  Working together, the Hardys pried the divider up enough for Frank to haul the unconscious driver out over the back of the seat. When the water reached the proper level, Joe rolled down the window and swam out. Treading water, he took the driver's limp body from his brother. Finally Frank scrambled out of the sinking wreck, too.

  The river continued to fill the cab as it slid to the bottom of the Potomac. The gurgling noise of the rushing water sounded like a grim chuckle as the dark river claimed the doomed cab. A few strong, steady strokes took Frank away from the swirling vortex.

  "What now?" Joe panted, struggling to keep his head and the inert cab driver's above water.

  Frank reached out to help his brother with the heavy burden and felt something slap against the side of his face. As he started to brush it away, he saw it was a rope. Looking up, he saw several construction workers in orange hard hats peering down from the bridge that arced overhead.

  "Grab the line!" one of them shouted. "We'll pull you up!"

  Frank and Joe tied the rope around the cab-driver's chest, and the workers pulled him up and out of the river. When the line came back down, Frank insisted that Joe go next.

  Two pairs of strong hands grasped Joe as he clambered onto the bridge. A brawny, bearded guy tried to lead him away from the edge, but Joe wouldn't budge. He shook himself free, got down on his hands and knees, and watched intently as the construction workers threw the line down to Frank. When Frank reached the bridge, the first pair of hands to pull him to safety belonged to Joe.

  Frank gave his brother a weak smile, which quickly faded. "Where's the cab driver?" he asked, alarmed. He grabbed one of the construction workers. "What happened to the guy with the dark, curly hair? He was unconscious when you pulled him out of the water."

  "Your friend woke up and took off," another worker answered. He leaned over, rubbing his knee. "He was acting kind of crazy. I told him he should wait for the ambulance so the paramedics could check him out. I even tried to hold him. I figured he was a little delirious. He gave me a kick in the leg that I didn't see coming, and then he was gone."

  A siren wailed nearby, and an ambulance nimbled onto the bridge, followed by a police car.

  A paramedic jumped out of the ambulance and put a bandage on Joe's forehead while Frank spoke to the two police officers. Frank was convinced the missing driver was an Assassin but didn't mention that to the police. Instead, he stuck to the details of the dea
dly cab ride.

  By the time the officers had finished their questioning, the Hardys' clothes were much dryer. The paramedic said the bump on Joe's head wasn't serious, so the boys decided to head for the airport. One of the construction workers offered to give them a ride.

  When they were finally alone in the airport, Frank and Joe talked about the things that had been left unsaid in their conversation with the police.

  "That was no accident," Joe muttered as they waited in the ticket line. "That cab driver wanted to kill us. I'll bet he was an Assassin."

  Frank nodded. He knew it was more than possible that an Assassin would sacrifice his own life to complete a murder mission. The terrorists were hardcore fanatics, loyal to the death. "We must be close to something big."

  "Brilliant deduction. The only question is, what?"

  "There's only one way to find out," Frank said. He stepped up to the ticket counter and handed the clerk a credit card. "Two tickets to Fairbanks, Alaska, please."

  ***

  The last leg of the flight to Fairbanks was a condensed course in Alaskan history and geography. Frank absorbed every word of the talkative pilot's friendly lecture over the intercom. As they passed over the Alaska Range in the vast wilderness of Denali National Park, the pilot pointed out Mount McKinley off to the west. Even from a great distance the whitecapped peak was stunning, rising almost four miles into the crystal-clear air.

  For Joe the highlight of the trip came after the plane was on the ground and they were inside the airport terminal. "Look at that!" he marveled, pointing to an old biplane hanging from the ceiling. "How would you like to tour Alaska from the cockpit of one of those?"

  "We'll have to settle for a cheap rental car," Frank said.

  But they ran into their first obstacle when they tried to rent a car.

  "There isn't anything on four wheels available within a two-hundred-mile radius," Frank said as he trudged back from the car-rental booths.

  "Let's take a cab into town," Joe suggested. "Maybe we can buy a cheap used car."

  Frank stared at his brother. "Buy a car?"

  "It would have to be a really cheap one," Joe responded. "It's worth a try."

  "Okay," Frank relented. "The Assassins are up to something, and a college professor has vanished. What choice do we have?"

  They walked out of the terminal to find a cab. Joe saw one in the distance and stepped off the curb to flag it down. But as the cab pulled up, a large motor home rumbled past and suddenly swerved in front of the cab, bearing down on Joe with its horn blaring.

  Joe leapt back onto the curb, and the motor home screeched to a halt. The side door swung open, and Joe heard a familiar voice.

  "Get in," the voice ordered.

  Frank and Joe glanced at each other.

  "What are you waiting for?" the voice demanded. "If you don't get in right now, you're going to be sorry you ever came to Alaska."

  Chapter 4

  Frank glanced inside the motor home, then over at his brother and smiled. "I think we'd better do what she says."

  "I agree. She sounds tough," Joe responded as he and Frank got in.

  "Hold on," the driver said as the motor home lurched forward. "I haven't got the hang of this yet."

  "And just what are you doing here, Gina?" Joe asked.

  Gina gave him a quick smile.

  "I think we know the answer to that," Frank called out over the rumble of the engine and the chorus of rattles and clanks. The motor home might have resembled a small house inside, but it sounded like a truck full of loose bowling pins. "But how did you find us?"

  "Simple," Gina replied. "A friend of mine works in reservations at Eddings Air. Most airlines are tied into a central computerized reservation system. She just told the computer to search for your names, and then she gave me a call when you popped up with reservations to Anchorage and Fairbanks."

  "That doesn't explain how you managed to be here waiting for us," Frank pointed out.

  Gina laughed. "I figured I'd check for you in town first."

  "What if we hadn't been here?" Frank asked her.

  Deadly serious now, Gina replied, "Then I would have gone after Solomon's killers by myself."

  Joe wandered back to the galley and opened the refrigerator. "We could use some food," he said glumly, staring at the empty shelves.

  "You're right," Frank replied. "We need supplies - and not just food. We need clothes, too."

  Joe slapped his forehead. "That's right! Our luggage is in New York by now."

  "The kind of stuff we need here isn't in our suitcases, anyway," Frank said. "We packed for Atlanta, not Alaska." He paused to make a mental checklist. "We need coats, hats, blankets, maybe gloves."

  "Gloves?" Joe responded. "It's the middle of summer!"

  "And this is Fairbanks, Alaska," Frank retorted. "We're only a hundred miles from the Arctic Circle. The nights may be short this time of year, but they can get very cold."

  Something outside caught Joe's eye. "Hey, look!" he exclaimed. "Used dirt bikes!" He pointed to a sign in front of a motorcycle dealership. "Let's find out how much they cost."

  Frank groaned. "Whatever they cost, we can't afford them."

  Joe pulled his wallet out and flashed his credit card. "We can't afford to be caught unprepared," he insisted. "If we have to travel in this dinosaur, we need an emergency escape plan."

  ***

  Two dirt bikes and several mini-malls later, the motor home lumbered out of Fairbanks north on the Steese Highway. Joe was driving, Frank was navigating from the passenger seat, and Gina was resting in back.

  "We turn off here to get to Big Bear," Frank said, his eyes moving from a road sign to the map in his lap and back again. "We go north on the Elliot Highway."

  "Some highway," Joe grumbled when the pavement gave way to gravel a few miles up the road.

  "Get used to it," Frank told him. "Half the roads in Alaska aren't paved, and they're all called highways. Even if the road isn't the greatest, the view sure is."

  For the first fifty miles or so, huge southbound semitrailers roared by every few minutes, kicking up clouds of dust, but closer to Big Bear most of the traffic disappeared.

  Frank studied the map again as they rolled to a stop at an intersection with another gravel road. There was a gas station on one corner, a cafe on another, a general store on the third, and a For Sale sign on the fourth.

  "We should be close to Big Bear," he said.

  "I think this is Big Bear," Gina replied from the couch, pointing out the window at a weathered wooden sign above the general store.

  Joe grinned when he saw the sign. "Somebody around here has a great sense of humor."

  "Big Bear Mini-Mall," Frank read out loud. "Let's see if anybody in the mall can tell us how to find Dr. Stavrogin's cabin."

  The only person in the old wood frame building was a gray-haired woman who came out from behind the counter to greet them. "Howdy," she said cheerfully. "I'm Beth Truman. Welcome to Big Bear. What can I sell you folks today?"

  "Actually," Joe said, "we don't want to buy anything. We're looking for somebody."

  Beth's bright smile remained, but her eyes narrowed as they focused on Joe. "Who might that be?"

  "Dr. Nikolai Stavrogin," Joe answered. "He's supposed to have a cabin near here."

  "And who wants to know?" Beth responded, dropping the smile completely.

  "You'll have to excuse my friend," Gina said quickly. "We've been on the road a long time, and he's a little tired." She shot a look at Joe that told him to shut up. "Dr. Stavrogin is my - uncle. Maybe he's mentioned me when he's been in the store. My name is Gina. We're very close. I think I recall your name from one of his letters."

  The smile slowly returned to the gray-haired woman's face. "You're related to that old Russian bear? You should have said so in the first place. When he gets bored, he comes down here and we play chess." Her smile faded again. "Why did you come here looking for him? Is something wrong?"

&nbs
p; "I hope nothing's wrong," Gina responded. "His assistant at the university called me because he hadn't checked in since he left Washington. That's not like him."

  "Now that you mention it," Beth said, "I haven't seen him since he opened his cabin for the summer. He got some supplies and a new fishing rod because his old fly rod got lost on the way up here. He didn't buy enough food to last more than a week, and that was almost two weeks ago. I hope he's okay."

  "It's probably nothing," Gina assured her. "But I'd like to go out to the cabin and make sure he's all right."

  "Sounds like a good idea," Beth said. "This can be pretty wild country." She wrote the directions to the cabin on a piece of paper and handed it to Gina. "I hope nothing has happened to Nikolai. I'm fond of him."

  Gina smiled. "I know."

  Joe kept his mouth shut until they were back on the road. "That was pretty slick," he said to Gina. "How did you know that she and Stavrogin were friends?"

  Gina shrugged. "Call it woman's intuition. Something in her eyes and her tone of voice. I don't know. It seemed pretty obvious to me."

  The map that Beth Truman had drawn led them to a dirt road that meandered up and down hills for a few miles and eventually to a gurgling stream with a rickety plank bridge. Frank, who had taken over the driving, stopped the motor home, got out, and inspected the structure.

  "I don't think that bridge and this vehicle were meant for each other," he announced and climbed back into the driver's seat. He pulled the motor home off on the shoulder, parked, and hopped out again.

  "Where are you going?" Joe asked.

  Frank pointed to a log cabin on a small rise on the far side of the stream. "If the map is right, that's Stavrogin's cabin."

  Joe and Gina climbed out and followed Frank across the bridge. "It looks as if somebody's home," Joe noted as they got closer. "There's a car."

  Frank didn't wait for the others to catch up. As soon as he reached the cabin, he climbed the steps to the porch and knocked on the front door. "Hello?" he called out. "Dr. Stavrogin? Hello?"