Strategic Moves (4 page)

"The ancient and dark Thames River runs through the center of Oxford and has helped to shape the city's history since the first Celtic warriors settled on its fertile banks fifteen hundred years ago.

"The inhabitants have always been fiercely independent people, and Oxford was a hotbed of dissent during many of England's internal wars. The people have exercised their independence in regard to the mighty Thames as well. During its short course through Oxford, the Thames is called the Isis, named for the Egyptian goddess who gave birth to the other gods."

Joe wondered why the instructor was droning on about the history of the river when all Joe wanted was to learn to be a better sculler.

The sculling instructor was a thin, pale man whose voice was more annoying than commanding. He came only to Joe's chin. His hair was dark and shiny from the hair cream that kept it flat against his head. His name was Mr. Lewis, and Joe wondered if the anemic-looking man could even lift an oar, let alone row a boat.

And it was chilly. Joe and the other students, numbering an even twelve in all, were wearing white shorts, light blue T-shirts, and deck shoes. A slight breeze off the river also clothed them with a layer of goose bumps.

Real smart, Hardy, Joe thought. You stand out here shivering your bones while Frank's inside a warm gym with the prettiest girl on campus.

"You there, young man," Mr. Lewis was saying.

Joe had been staring at the coffee-colored Thames, his eyelids growing heavy from the hypnotic effect the slow-moving and steady river had on him. The Thames was peaceful and calming. Joe shook his head and looked up. Lewis stared back, his lips white from being pressed tightly together.

"Yes, you, young man," Lewis said, pointing a bony finger at Joe.

"Yes, sir," Joe said.

"Are you interested in learning to scull or merely sleeping the day away?"

The other students snickered.

"Mr. Lewis," Joe said clearly, "I'm interested in learning to scull the Isis, not write a history paper on it."

Several students, including Ziggy, laughed out loud.

"That will be quite enough!" The students stopped abruptly. Mr. Lewis walked up to Joe. "So you would like to scull, Mr., uh ... "

"Hardy," Joe said.

"An American," Lewis replied. Joe didn't like the accusatory tone in the man's voice.

Joe stared down at the man. "Yes, sir. And I'd like to scull very much."

"Then scull you shall."

The instructor walked past Joe to a two-man boat bumping up against the dock. The boat was ten feet long, pointed at both ends, and narrow, just large enough to hold two people. Sculling was named for the oars - sculls - used in the sport. The object was to follow a course, and the first to cross the finish line was declared the winner.

"I believe you have made him angry," Ziggy whispered as they walked to the scull.

"Don't worry. I can handle anything he dishes out," Joe said with confidence.

Lewis was sitting patiently in the boat. As Joe stepped into the boat, it rocked to the right. Joe lost his balance and fell into the chilly Isis.

He surfaced a second later, choking and spitting out water.

"Wow! This is freezing!" Joe shouted.

The students on the dock erupted in laughter.

"You must learn to get into the scull before you can properly handle one," Mr. Lewis said, his voice and face lacking emotion.

Joe swam to the dock and pulled himself up. He wasn't sure, but Joe suspected Lewis had purposely tipped the boat.

Joe kept his eye on Lewis as he slowly climbed into the bow. Mr. Lewis sat in the stern.

They rowed out to the middle of the river.

"We will take the short course, since you are a beginner," Mr. Lewis said.

"I've rowed before," Joe replied, frowning.

"If you insist. The advanced course it is, then," Mr. Lewis said calmly. "I will call cadence. That means I will keep time."

"I know what it means," Joe said through clenched teeth. He was freezing, and he had to force himself not to shiver, at least not in front of Lewis.

They approached the starting line at full oar-full speed. Joe counted and synchronized his breathing with every third stroke.

"Stroke ... stroke. Stroke ... stroke," Lewis called out in a steady rhythm.

Joe's arms began to burn. This is crazy, he thought, we must be rowing one stroke every two seconds. Joe hadn't stretched, and his muscles were resisting his commands for more power and more speed.

Lewis increased the tempo. "Stroke, stroke, stroke."

Joe pushed and pulled faster. Sweat fell from his brow and stung his eyes. He lost count of his breathing and began to gasp.

Joe couldn't believe his ears when Lewis increased the speed again.

Joe's head began to ache. Breakfast hadn't been very filling, the morning was chilly, he was soaked to the skin, and a mouse of a man was putting Joe through a mean workout.

"Faster, Mr. Hardy," Lewis said steadily, as though he wasn't even breathing hard. "Port!"

Joe eased up on his port oar and pulled harder with his starboard oar. The scull smoothly turned and glided around a small buoy. They were halfway through the course.

Lewis kept up the insane cadence. "Stroke, stroke, stroke."

Joe's muscles began to tighten. He regained control of his breathing. He strained at the oars, calling up reserve energy. His heart beat madly, and the sound echoed in his ears.

Just when he thought he could go no farther, Lewis yelled, "Oars up!"

Joe lifted his oars, straining to keep them erect.

They glided to the dock. The students were laughing and clapping and pointing at Joe.

Lewis hopped from the boat. Joe pulled himself up and stepped onto the dock, small cramps gripping the muscles in his legs.

"You did quite well, Mr. Hardy. For an American." Lewis was beaming with a broad, thin-lipped smile.

Joe was annoyed by the continuing laughter of some of the students.

"What's wrong?" he asked no one in particular.

"You were rowing by yourself," one student answered in a Spanish accent.

"What?" Joe turned to Lewis, shaking with anger.

Lewis just stood there with his thin smile and oil-slicked hair, beaming triumphantly at Joe.

Joe sighed and turned to find Ziggy. But Ziggy was not in the crowd of students.

"Have you seen Ziggy?" Joe asked the Spanish student.

"Who?"

"Pyotr," Joe said.

"He is talking to a man," the student said. He pointed behind him. "Over there."

Joe looked past the student. Ziggy was talking to Aleksandr behind a light blue Ford sedan about thirty yards away. Ziggy kept shaking his head and waving his hands in a negative manner.

Joe pushed his way through the students and walked slowly toward Ziggy and Aleksandr. He didn't like the way Aleksandr was pointing at Ziggy in short, jerky jabs, and as Joe got closer, he could hear Aleksandr speaking in an angry voice.

Joe also noticed that the blue sedan was not empty. Two men sat in the car, one behind the steering wheel, the other in the rear, his back to Joe.

The driver was facing Joe, his arm resting on the back of the seat. As Joe walked nearer, the driver got out of the car. He was an older man, tall with white hair and a hard look on his face. The driver reached into his jacket and pulled something out. Joe immediately recognized the object the driver held at his side. It was a 9-mm Beretta automatic pistol.

The man in the backseat waved at the driver, and the driver holstered his gun and got back inside the car.

Joe suddenly realized that this was the same car Frank had seen near the alley last night. Joe began to trot over to the car.

Aleksandr turned and spotted Joe. Then he grabbed Ziggy, pushing him toward the car. Ziggy resisted and tried to pull away.

"Hey!" Joe shouted, and began an all-out sprint.

Aleksandr twisted Ziggy's arm behind his back and shoved him into the backseat. He then jumped in and slammed the door shut. Ziggy was now between Aleksandr and the other man in the back. A man in a gray suit.

The car lurched forward as Joe reached it.

"Hey!" Joe shouted again and pounded on the trunk lid of the blue sedan.

Ziggy continued to struggle with Aleksandr and the other man in the back.

The car pulled away from Joe. Joe jumped and landed on the trunk. He gripped the sides of the car to keep from falling off.

"You!" Joe shouted.

The man who had remained in the backseat of the car suddenly turned around. Joe gasped as he recognized the ordinary features of the Gray Man.

The car turned sharply to the right, and Joe flew off the trunk and rolled several times across the brick road.

Petra gasped and began coughing.

Frank raised his head. When he noticed that Petra wasn't breathing, Frank had begun mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Petra opened her eyes. "What happened?" she asked weakly.

"You got a little jolt," Frank said. "How do you feel?"

"I feel as if I have been kicked by a horse."

Frank helped Petra sit up slowly. She rubbed the back of her neck.

"Will you be all right?" Fitzhugh asked.

"Yes. Thank you," Petra replied, still weak.

Frank helped her to stand.

"Very good." Fitzhugh turned to the other students. "Find a partner and work on drills for the time being." He turned to Frank. "That was quick and accurate thinking, Mr. - "

"Frank Hardy," Frank said. He looked among the students and suddenly realized that Chris had conveniently disappeared.

"Ah, yes, from the United States."

"Right." Then Frank said to Petra, "You'd better sit down." He helped her over to the bleachers.

"Thank you," Petra said. "What happened?" she asked again.

"This young man saved your life," Fitzhugh replied. He held up Petra's fencing mask. The wire around the right cheek area was charred and melted. "In another second or two this would have burned through to your skin."

"I do not understand," Petra said.

"I think I do," Frank said. He walked over to the transformer Chris's foil was plugged into. He yanked the plug from the wall, picked up the transformer, and returned to Petra and Fitzhugh. "The juice on the foil was turned up all the way."

"Goodness," Fitzhugh blurted, his eyes wide circles of concern. "That's never happened before! What an accident!"

Petra gasped.

"I hope the young man wasn't harmed," Fitzhugh said. "I wonder where he's gotten off to." Fitzhugh headed for the locker room.

Frank waited until Fitzhugh had left the area. Then he turned to Petra and said, "I don't think this was an accident."

"What?" Petra asked. Frank could tell that the bravery she had shown in fencing was replaced with the fear she had displayed the previous night.

Frank sat next to Petra, the transformer in his hands. "These things don't turn themselves up. I think Chris turned up the power all the way."

"Why?"

Frank smiled. "I think you embarrassed him with that first hit."

"I had no intention of embarrassing him. I was only doing my best."

"I know," Frank said, smiling. He stood. "I suggest we find Chris and explain to him about the need to display good sportsmanship."

"No violence," Petra said, standing.

"No," Frank replied. "Just a little persuasion."

Frank didn't want to say anything else to frighten Petra, but he didn't like the coincidence of the attempted kidnapping the night before and the attempt to hurt Petra that morning.

Chris was nowhere to be found in the gymnasium, so Frank and Petra changed back into their street clothes and left.

Petra wanted to rest, so Frank walked her back to her room and then headed for the docks. He wanted to check up on Joe and Ziggy. He hopped down the stairs and ran into Joe, who looked as if he had been ran through a blender on high speed.

"What happened? Where's Ziggy?" Frank asked when he noticed that Ziggy was not with Joe.

"That's what I'm going to find out after I wash up and change," Joe said heatedly as he headed for his room. "We were right all the time: the Gray Man is involved in trying to kidnap Ziggy."

"How do you know?" Frank followed Joe up the stairs and down the hallway to their rooms.

"Because I saw the Gray Man, Aleksandr, and another man kidnap Ziggy!"

Joe quickly explained about the sculling lesson. Then he told Frank how he had watched helplessly as Ziggy was abducted.

"Aleksandr may be a double agent," Joe spit out. He fumbled for the room key in his pocket.

"Well, stay tuned, buddy," Frank announced. "Petra had a close call, too."

Joe turned to look at his brother, his blue eyes flashing anger.

Frank calmly explained about the fencing "accident."

"Petra's okay," Frank concluded. "She's resting in her room."

Joe unlocked the door and threw it open.

"What the - " Joe gasped.

Frank looked into the room. He'd seen beaches after a hurricane that looked better than Joe's dorm room. Joe's clothes and other belongings had been thrown around the room. All the drawers had been pulled out and tossed about.

"Someone's been searching the room," Joe said as he stepped around the debris.

"More like destroying the room," Frank replied.

"His things are gone," Joe announced.

"What?"

"Chris's things are gone. This is all my stuff."

"That kind of narrows down the suspects, doesn't it?" Frank said. "We've got to call the authorities."

"Who? The Gray Man has the Network behind him," Joe fired back. "He's got enough resources to fight off an army."

"How about the Soviet embassy," Frank suggested. Then he spotted an oblong object on the floor and picked it up. It was a cigarette lighter. He began to read the inscription.

"Excuse me." A voice came from behind Frank and Joe.

They spun around. Frank shoved the lighter into his front pocket. Aleksandr stood in the doorway.

"You!" Joe shouted, lunging at the Soviet attaché.

Aleksandr gasped as Joe jerked him into the room and kicked the door shut with his heel. He held Aleksandr by the lapels of his jacket.