Royal Ransom (20 page)

“Because I'm not going anywhere.”

“That's where you're wrong. We shall soon be breaking camp and you will be accompanying us.”

“That's where
you
are wrong,” he said. “I refuse to move, and I don't believe that you'll be able carry me far.”

He was right. Even in pairs we couldn't very well carry him on the portage. Maybe Albert could have made a good attempt at that a few days ago, but now he could barely carry his own weight.

“I have a gun,” Albert said as he took the weapon from my hands. “You will co-operate or I will be forced to shoot you.”

The man looked at the gun, and then up at Albert. “Go ahead.”

Albert clicked off the safety and brought the gun up, aiming it squarely at the man's chest. Was he really going to shoot him?

“You're bluffing, and we both know it,” the man said calmly. “You won't shoot me.”

Slowly Albert lowered the gun.

“You are too
civilized,
too
moral,
too
proper
to shoot a man lying on the ground. It would go against all your training as a member of the
famous
British Secret Service.” The man laughed again.

“Maybe it goes against his training, but not against mine!” Ray said as he appeared from behind me. “Here, give me the gun and I'll shoot him!”

I grabbed Ray by the arm as he came by me. I was shocked when I not only stopped him dead in his tracks, but also practically pulled him off his feet. I had to use both hands to steady him.

“You can't do that, Ray.”

Ray just glared. It was beginning to look like a standoff.

“You're all too weak!” the man scoffed. “You're all too weak to shoot me, and that's the difference between us. I would not hesitate. None of you has the guts to do the job!”

What was with this guy, did he want to get somebody mad enough to shoot him?

“I am a man and you are all nothing but a bunch of little schoolgirls!”

“Schoolgirls? You mean, like her?” I asked, pointing at Victoria.

“Exactly!”

“That's real nice of you to compliment us like that. That schoolgirl outwitted your three friends and then came back here and captured you, armed with only a piece of wood when you had an assault weapon. Quite a schoolgirl, eh?” I asked.

“That's right!” Ray exclaimed. “He was captured by the person he was trying to capture! He was outwitted, out-manoeuvred and overpowered by a thirteen-year-old
princess
!”

Albert started to laugh.

“No wonder he doesn't want to come back with us. He'd be the laughingstock of the criminal world! I can just see the headlines, ‘Kidnapper Knocked Unconscious by Princess!'”

“Shut up!” the man screamed.

“Aw, what's wrong with the poor baby?” Ray taunted him. “Be good or we'll have the little Princess deal with you again. Are you afraid of her?”

“I am not afraid of any of you, least of all Torie!”

Torie! The laughter died in my throat. He'd called her Torie. The only place she was known as Torie was on the Internet!

“His name is Leslie,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “Or at least that's the name he uses in the chat rooms.”

“Oh my goodness,” Victoria gasped. “You … you think …? No, that cannot be.”

The man's face broke into a satisfied smirk. “Would Torie like to talk about clothes, or her favourite pop music group, or perhaps her horses or television?”

“What is he babbling on about?” Albert asked.

Victoria didn't answer, and I wouldn't answer for her.

“Didn't you wonder how we arrived when we did? I've been talking to our little Torie on the Internet for months. Talking, gathering information, gaining her trust. Me knowing exactly who she was, but her thinking that I was a thirteen-year-old girl!” He started to laugh again.

“Who do you work for?” Albert demanded.

“I work for myself,” he answered, “and nobody else.”

“Then why were you trying to kidnap the Prince and Princess?” Albert asked.

He shrugged. “It had nothing to do with politics, I can assure you.”

“Then what?” I asked.

“It was about money,” he said.

Albert scoffed. “Did you really think that you could kidnap them, demand a ransom and hope to escape afterward?”

“No. Our plan was not to ransom them back to their family. We were going to sell them to the highest bidder. Whichever extremist group wanted them the most had only to provide the highest bid.”

“Bid … like an auction?” I asked.

“There was going to be an auction for a very select group of organizations … on the Internet.”

“Why are you telling us all of this?” Victoria asked.

“Why not?” he answered.

“We have to leave!” Albert exclaimed, jumping to his feet.

“Are you giving up so easily?” the man asked. “There is so much information I have that you need to know. Information you will never get once you leave this camp.”

“Everybody. We have to leave immediately!” Albert snapped.

“Can't we have breakfast first?”

“No! This man has been giving us information in an effort to distract us, to keep us here. He knows that the others are returning, and soon!”

Those words froze me to the spot. I had a sudden vision in my head of the three of them, weapons ready, creeping through the bushes, surrounding us as we stood there in the clearing.

“What do you want us to do?” I asked.

“Victoria, wake up your brother, and then the two of you must gather all the food you can find and put it into two backpacks. Ray, check to make sure our prisoner remains well bound. Jamie, break down two tents and gather just the essential equipment.”

“Right, sure. Let's go!” I said.

We all scrambled around the campsite. I ripped the pegs out of the ground, grabbed the tent and dumped the contents onto the ground. I balled the tent up and stuffed it into its carrying bag. Next I stuffed that into a pack. I went to grab a sleeping bag and then stopped. It would be better to travel light, even if it meant sleeping without
the bags. Next I grabbed the hammer and the axe and went to put them in the pack.

“Leave the hatchet out!” Albert called.

“We should bring it with us,” I argued.

“Perhaps, but you have to use it before we go.”

“You want me to cut up more wood for him?” I asked in amazement.

Albert shook his head. “They arrived in two canoes. They are just over there, hidden in the bushes. I want you to take the axe and destroy them.”

“Destroy them!”

“Yes. I don't want to give them any opportunity to come after us.”

“Speaking of canoes,” Ray said, “where's my third canoe?”

I was still dreading telling him what had happened. I hesitated.

“It's in a secure place,” Victoria said. “We can't get to it right now, but neither can anybody else.”

She certainly wasn't lying about that. Nobody was going to be using that canoe for a long time, if ever.

“That leaves us two canoes. That's probably better anyway,” Ray said. “We can all fit, and that'll make it easier to portage around the rapids. Jamie, you go and destroy those canoes and I'll finish up here. Better for me to decide what needs to come with us.”

I started toward the canoes, and then I came across a sight that took my breath away. Something was wrapped in a blue canvas that stuck out of the ground—something the size of a man's body. It was Nigel.

“What's the matter, Jamie?” Ray asked.

Luckily, the others were distracted. I walked right beside Ray. “It's … it's Nigel,” I whispered. Ray shook his head. “Just leave him, Jamie. We'll send somebody back for the body once we get back home.”

I
STUMBLED AND DROPPED
my end of the canoe. It fell noisily to the ground. Normally I would have braced myself for Ray yelling at me if I'd dropped one of his precious canoes. This time I knew I had nothing to fear. Both canoes had been dropped a half dozen times—sometimes by Ray himself. Thank goodness we were almost there. I could see the lake just ahead.

This had been the worst portage of my life. Everything—the canoes, the packs, even my own legs— seemed incredibly heavy. Ray, who could normally carry both a canoe and his pack on his back, had barely been able to carry a thing. Albert hadn't been any better. He had staggered and tripped repeatedly. At least the path had been downhill. I don't think we could have managed if we'd been going up instead.

“I think we'd better rest here,” Ray said.

“You rest. I'll move the canoe to the water's edge and come back and help.”

“You're going to do that by yourself?” Ray asked.

“I'll help too,” Victoria offered.

“Are you sure you're able?” Albert wondered.

“I'm fine, Albert,” she said. “I am far more worried about you.”

He smiled, ever so slightly, and nodded.

“You stay here and we'll be back soon.”

I grabbed the canoe and heaved it up right onto my back. I was surprised by just how heavy it seemed, but proud I'd done it anyway.

“Walk beside me,” I said to Victoria, “and steady it if it looks like I'm going to fall.”

She came up beside me and we started down the path.

“Have you thought about how we are going to travel?” she asked.

“Ray's going to be in the same canoe as you and Andrew. I'll keep Albert with me.”

“I imagine that's the only way that makes sense, although I would have liked to share the ride with you. I have so much enjoyed our conversations.”

I felt myself blushing. “Me too. But I guess we'll have time to talk when we get back to safety.”

“Probably not,” she said. “They will whisk me away almost immediately.”

“Oh … yeah … I guess they'll want to make sure you're okay.”

“But that doesn't mean that we can't speak. Perhaps we could make phone calls, or even chat on the Inter …” She let the sentence trail off. “I would imagine that I will not be having many conversations on the Internet now.”

“You didn't know,” I said. “You didn't know who he was, and you certainly didn't know that he knew who you were. It's not your fault.”

“I have already spent a great deal of time, in my mind, trying to convince myself of that. So far I have not been successful.”

I didn't know what to say to that. “Here we are,” I said instead. I flipped the canoe off my shoulders with some
help from Victoria and dropped it down, easing it into the water. “Let's go back and get the other canoe.”

The three of them were still sitting when we arrived. Albert got to his feet. He had the gun slung over his shoulder.

“I'll take the second canoe and the rest of you carry the bags.”

No one argued with me. I wasn't sure if I was happy about that or not. I'd had the idea that once we freed Ray and Albert, they'd be in charge. But they still didn't seem like themselves. Great, now instead of being responsible for two people I was responsible for four.

I heaved the second canoe up onto my shoulders and started to walk. Victoria walked along beside me, steadying the canoe. I tried to focus on the path under my feet but instead my mind started to think about how I really would have liked to spend the day with her in my canoe. We could have talked. I guessed that we'd have some time that night at the campsite. But when we finally reached my village, it would probably be like Victoria had said and she'd be gone quickly. I wondered if I'd ever see her again.

Somehow it seemed easier carrying the second canoe than the first. Maybe it was because we were getting closer to the end. Once I put this one in the water all we'd have to do was paddle to safety.

I put the canoe down into the water alongside the first.

“Put the packs in the middle of this one,” I said, pointing. “Albert, you're going in the front of it and I'm going in the back.”

He nodded.

“And, Ray, I want you in the middle. Andrew is going up front and Victoria will be in the stern.”

“I can take the stern,” Ray said.

“You can take the stern later if you're feeling better. For now, I want Victoria there. Okay?”

I had expected Ray to put up a fight, but he just nodded weakly in agreement. We stowed the packs in my canoe. Next I helped Andrew and Ray and Victoria climb into the other canoe. I waded into the water and pushed them out. Finally Albert sat down in the bow of our canoe. He placed the rifle on the bottom beside him. I pushed our canoe out and leaped in. I sat down, picked up the paddle and dipped it into the water. It felt good to be on the water again. Somehow it felt safe, leaving those men behind us somewhere in the woods. There was no way they could catch us now.

Chapter Twenty-One

I
DIPPED THE PADDLE IN DEEP
and we glided forward. I was surprised how much power my arms still held. A couple of good meals and some rest had really made a difference. Of course, I'd only gone a few hundred metres. We still had two full days of paddling to look forward to. I'd have to wait and see how my arms felt by then. On the bright side, maybe what Victoria had said was true, and when we didn't return by nightfall they'd send somebody out to find us.

I looked over my shoulder. The other canoe was trailing close behind. Victoria and Andrew weren't doing badly. Certainly a lot better than I would ever have expected from them just a few short days ago. Wow … a few days ago was when this had all started. It seemed like years had passed since we'd first set out.

“Jamie!” Victoria called out. I turned around.

“In the bay!” she yelled, pointing off to the side.

I looked into the distance. There, protected from the open water, sitting in a little bay, was a float plane, gently bobbing up and down on the waves. With everything that had happened I'd forgotten about it. That was how they'd flown in. That was how they were going to make their escape. Then another thought hit me right between the
eyes. That was also how they could come after us. Paddling across the lake, we'd be completely exposed to anybody flying above us. Even if they didn't leave until tomorrow afternoon they could still catch us long before we reached my village. If they spotted us in open water we'd be sitting ducks. They could land practically on top of us, or even just shoot us from the air.