The Ghost at Camp David (5 page)

Marshall gulped. “I’ll go,” he said. “What if I bump into Anna or her husband?”

“Try to stay hidden,” KC said. “But you have to hurry! Anna might come over here looking for us!”

In the bedroom, Florence was sitting up on the bed.

Marshall raised his bedroom window. He and KC looked outside. All they saw were bushes.

Marshall squeezed through the window. He dropped quietly to the ground outside the cabin. He quickly snuck between two bushes and disappeared.

“Good luck,” KC whispered. She closed the window and pulled down the shade.

Florence was watching her. “Gus is a
good man,” she said. “He will know what to do.”

“I wish I could call my stepdad,” KC said. She sat on the bed. “But there’s no phone in here.”

“Where is he?” asked Florence. “I thought he was here, with you.”

“He was, but this morning he had to go back to the White House,” KC said. “Anna told us at breakfast. He left me a note saying he’d be back this afternoon.”

Florence took KC’s hand. “Try not to worry,” she said.

KC stared at the window through which Marshall had left. If she stared hard enough, maybe she’d see his face, with Gus right behind him.

She looked at the trapdoor. Things were beginning to make sense. Anna’s husband
was digging a tunnel under this cabin. The dirt she’d seen near Nancy’s Walk had been the same red color—had he carried it there? He had to get rid of it somewhere.

Just then KC heard the window being raised. A hand reached in and tugged on the shade, making it roll up.

“Marsh?” KC said.

But the face that suddenly appeared in the window did not belong to her friend. This face had dark eyes rimmed with red. The jaw was covered with black hair. The man wore a hat low on his forehead.

Florence screamed. “It’s Casper!” she cried.

Casper looked into the room. When he saw Florence and KC, he turned and ran.

KC raced to the window. She was in time to see two marines tackle Casper to the ground. One of the men sat on Casper’s back. Then KC saw Gus and Marshall run up to the others.

“It’s all over, Casper,” Gus said.

Marshall looked toward the cabin and saw KC watching from the window. “Cool, huh?” he said with a big grin on his face.

The president dropped a marshmallow into his hot chocolate. “Gee, I go away for a few hours, and you two break up a ring of thieves,” he said. “Your moms will never let me bring you here again.”

KC stirred her hot chocolate. “We were just minding our own business,” she said. “If Marshall hadn’t heard Florence knocking on the pipes, we never would have found her.”

“Yeah, and if the phones hadn’t gone out, Anna would have been able to warn her husband. And he wouldn’t have come into our cabin and scared the heck out of KC,” Marshall added.

“We think he kept old clothes and work boots in that little trunk,” KC said. “He didn’t know Marsh and I were sleeping there, so he came in to do some more digging.”

“And I’ll bet Anna opened our windows last night,” Marshall said. “She hoped bats would fly in and we’d get scared and run over here to Aspen. That way her husband, Casper, could go in and dig.”

“It’s amazing that he had been digging for over a week and never got caught,” the president said. “The FBI discovered that he’d been sleeping in that white laundry van. At night, he’d sneak over to your cabin and dig. Then he’d use a linen cart to haul away the dirt he’d dug up and dump it in the woods.”

KC remembered the running figure
she’d seen from the helicopter. That must have been Casper. “So he really did work for the laundry company?” KC asked.

The president nodded. “Yes, and Anna was on the cleaning staff. But when she told him about the silver, Casper got greedy,” the president said. “Somehow, she learned that there was a tunnel under Aspen. That’s what gave them the idea to dig a new tunnel to remove the silver. By working at night, the security guards would never see them.”

“But first they had to get rid of Florence,” Marshall added.

“Yes, poor Florence. She would have been in the way when the robbery took place,” the president said. “So they hid her in the tunnel under your cabin, thinking no one would ever go there. And Casper
could keep an eye on her while he dug.”

“Gus said he took her to the hospital,” KC said. “I hope she’s all right.”

“Her ankle had a bad sprain,” the president said. “Her family told me she’s coming home tomorrow.”

“When are we going home?” KC asked her stepfather.

“I thought we’d stay one more night,” the president said. “What do you kids think?”

“Great!” KC said. “Gus still needs to show us the beaver pond. And I want to do more exploring!”

“I’ll stay only if we can bunk here in Aspen,” Marshall said. “I’m not sleeping where people are digging tunnels under my bed!”

The president winked at KC. “Marshall, did I ever tell you the story about the mole people who live in the sewers under Washington, D.C.?” he asked. “It seems that these giant moles …”

Marshall jumped up from the table. He grabbed the bag of marshmallows and ran from the dining room.