The Princess Trap (17 page)

I
n the moonlight,
the wheels of the moped whirred across the blacktop, cutting through the shadows from the trees that lay like beams across the road.

They heard a vehicle approaching. In the silence of the night, it sounded at first like the buzz of a bumblebee. Perry switched off the headlight. By the time the car finally passed them, they had already hidden both themselves and the moped in a dip behind a blackberry bush.

“Phew!” said Perry, heaving the moped over the soft earth of the forest floor to get it back on the road. “Near miss.”

“They’re going in our direction,” said Jenna, coughing.

“What do you mean?” asked Perry, and waited for her to sit on the passenger seat. “They’re going in the opposite direction!”

“I mean where we’ve come from,” said Jenna. “The navigator’s house.”

Perry shook his head. The moped jerked forward. “Only if they turn off,” he said. “Otherwise they could be going anywhere. This road leads to all kinds of places, depending on where you turn off. They might be heading for the north – south beltway.”

Jenna didn’t answer. The moon was now so high that they could almost have managed without the headlight. When they came to a junction, where the road met a broad and rutted gravel track, Perry did indeed turn off the light and the motor. “It’s still quite far off,” he whispered, “but you’ve heard for yourself how sound carries in the night. We’ll go the rest of the way on foot.”

Jenna nodded. She didn’t want to ask any more questions. They could hear the noise of engines, squealing brakes, someone shouting. It seemed pretty close, but who could tell just how far voices might carry? She’d see for herself soon enough.

The carpet of pine needles beneath their feet was soft, and muffled every sound. Ahead of them was a cold white light quite high in the sky, suggesting floodlights illuminating a large square. Jenna waited in suspense.

When they reached the edge of the trees, she held her breath. There in front of her were several hangars, as tall as five-story houses, around a huge yard lit by streetlamps. The doors were wide open, and outside them long lines of trucks stood waiting, with the drivers standing and talking beside them.

“What is it?” whispered Jenna.

Perry shrugged his shoulders. He put a finger to his lips and gestured to Jenna that she should follow him to where they could get a view of the whole scene.

“I don’t know, either,” he whispered, “but I’ve got a pretty good idea. Why have they come secretly in the night? Why not during the day?”

“Stolen goods?” whispered Jenna. The shudder that ran down her spine was almost pleasant. This was exciting! Like one of the mysteries she used to enjoy reading.

“No!” whispered Perry. “Think! It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

Now they could see several figures, bathed in the ghostly glow of the streetlights, hurrying silently back and forth, carrying boxes into the hangars. A smaller van reversed out through one of the gates.

“Isn’t it?” hissed Perry.

Jenna pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. She’d have to be quick, so that she couldn’t be located by its signal. She switched on the video. Now they had proof. Who knew whether or when it might be useful?

“Turn it off!” Perry insisted in a whisper.

Jenna did so. At that moment, she felt a tickling in her nose. Last night’s storm and her thin dress! Why did she have to go and catch a cold? She pinched her nostrils, but it didn’t help. Oh no, not now! Not when it was so important to keep quiet!

Ridiculously loud, her sneeze echoed all around the stockyard, and the men stopped dead in their tracks.

They had taken a single car. Three men would be enough. The driver had only needed brief directions. He knew the way to Saarstad, and from there it was only a few miles to the navigator’s house.

In the darkness they’d almost missed the sandy track that led from the main road to the sea. The driver swung the car around just in time.

“Headlights off?” he asked.

“Not yet,” said the high-ranking security officer next to him. “If he’s right and she’s there, she’ll be asleep now, anyway. We’ll approach on foot.”

The navigator’s house lay ahead of them in the darkness. It was just a black silhouette against the dark gray backdrop of the sea, where the ever-moving waves reflected the moonlight in crests and streaks. There was no light in the windows, and no sound that they could hear.

“Shh!” said the leader, and gestured to his men to stand still. “Now, you go right, and you left. And be careful! There might be someone else in the house — not just the girl.”

But all was still. “The door’s locked,” whispered the youngest man. He was eager to prove himself. “But let’s see …” He ran his fingers over the top of the doorframe. “Here’s the key!”

The second they cautiously stepped into the little hall, they knew they wouldn’t find anybody. The silence was total. They went quickly into all the rooms, shining their flashlights into every corner.

“Nothing!” said the driver. “He was wrong. Just because he’s her father …”

“But she was here!” said the young man. “Definitely!” He pointed to the bunch of flowers. “Or at least some girl was. See? Freshly picked.”

“Well, she’s gone again now,” said the driver.

The young man shook his head and picked up a plastic bag from the veranda.

“Potatoes and a couple of carrots. She’s coming back,” he said. “She wouldn’t leave her food here otherwise. And she wouldn’t have picked a bunch of flowers if she wasn’t planning to stay.”

The officer nodded. “Good thinking,” he said. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. “Unfortunately, sir, the subject is out at the moment,” he said. “But we presume that she’ll be back soon. There are enough indications … Precisely. Then we’ll bring her in.”

He put the phone back in his pocket. “I’ll give you the signal,” he said. “And men, be very gentle. We’re not dealing with a criminal here. This is our princess, and she’s not being accused of anything worse than mental instability.”

“And overeating,” murmured the driver.

“That’s no reason to use excessive force,” said the officer. “So let’s not get excited. Now, each of you find your own hiding place.”

The sneeze was so loud that for a moment the whole yard seemed to freeze. A forklift screeched to a stop, and something fell to the ground. Jenna only caught a glimpse of the sudden standstill before they were up and away. Every head had turned toward the place where she and Perry had been hiding behind the trees.

Jenna was grateful for all the hours she’d spent running round the campus at Morgard.
Proof!
she said to herself.
Everything has its purpose.
Behind her she could hear Perry already beginning to pant.

“Hurry!” cried Jenna. There was no point in keeping quiet now, or in trying to hide. The men’s shouts were echoing behind them “You can do it, Perry! We’re almost there!”

Even before Perry reached the moped, she had pulled it up and turned on the ignition. As soon as he jumped onto the seat in front of her, breathing heavily and trembling all over, the machine leaped forward onto the road.

“Go, go, go!” cried Jenna. “Faster, Perry, faster! They’re on foot — they can’t catch us!”

Perry accelerated, and the moped raced along the road as the angry shouts behind them faded away. Soon, there was nothing to be heard except the noise of the moped and their own heavy breathing. They had escaped.

Jenna felt light-headed. It really
was
like one of those thrillers! All they had to do now was convict the gangsters.

“Can’t you hear?” Perry cried, breaking into her fantasies. “They’re coming after us in their trucks! Hold on tight, Jenna. If they catch us …” He turned the throttle, but they were already traveling as fast as the little moped could go.

The noise of engines behind them was getting louder. “Faster, Perry, faster!” Jenna urged again. In stories, the heroes never got caught.

The moped gave a great howl, as if trying to summon up all its strength; then the engine spluttered and died.

“Perry!” cried Jenna. Why had the engine cut out? “What happened?” She realized, panic-stricken, that they were slowing down.

Perry turned the ignition again and again, but the motor remained silent.

“Gas!” he whispered in despair. “We’re out of gas! I didn’t fill it up earlier. I wanted to save money, and I didn’t think we’d be …”

He made a sudden decision, and steered the moped between the trees. It began to skid, but he straightened it up. The uneven ground slowed them still more, but for a little while they continued to freewheel through the moonlit night.

“That’s it,” said Perry, and got off. “At least they won’t be able to see us from the road now.”

He crouched behind the trunk of a pine tree. The ground between the trees was covered with low-growing blueberry bushes. It was absurd: Just a few hours ago, Jenna would have been delighted. Berries meant food. But now she would have given anything for some tall cover, with or without berries.

The sound of the trucks seemed to be drawing threateningly close.

“But they’ll see our tracks in the sand!” said Jenna desperately. “If they just look at the side of the road, they’ll see exactly where we turned off into the woods.”

At that moment, the moon disappeared behind a cloud.

Perry gazed at Jenna. She saw that there was a smile on his face. “Shh!” he whispered, as if someone in the passing trucks might hear them. There was a drone of engines, a whole convoy of them. And then the sound faded away into the distance.

For a few seconds, Jenna did not dare move. Her heart was beating as hard as if she had just run her first marathon.

“But why?” she asked. “Are they blind?” The moon came out again from behind the cloud. Its light suddenly seemed as friendly as a fairy tale.
Hansel and Gretel
, she thought. “Why didn’t they see our tracks?”

Perry pointed up at the sky. “Because of that!” he said softly. “Now let’s get out of here! If they come back and start searching for us again, and the moon’s still shining …” He shrugged his shoulders. “Then we’re done for. And believe me, I
still
don’t want to go to the military academy.”

“But where to?” asked Jenna. “Where can we go?”

“Home!” said Perry. “To the navigator’s house. They’ll stop looking for us soon. And they don’t know where we came from. They must be scared of the police, too. They’re probably rushing to empty their warehouses.” He had started walking.

“So you think they’re criminals?” asked Jenna. Her heart was beating more normally now. Perry had called the navigator’s house
home
. She had shaken out the carpets and picked flowers.

“I don’t know who they are,” said Perry. “But whatever they’re up to, it can’t be legal. Those hangars? Otherwise they wouldn’t be unloading all that stuff in the middle of the night!”

Jenna agreed.

“But I’ve got my suspicions,” said Perry. “It could also be …” He glanced across at her. “… the rebels. All the shortages? Maybe the rebels take all the food, all the supplies, to this depot to hide them. That’s what they keep saying in the papers. Maybe they’re right.”

“But where would the rebels get it all from to begin with?” asked Jenna. “The food and everything? And all those trucks? Here on South Island. Think about it, Perry.”

They walked faster. “How should I know?” said Perry. “But it sure seems like there’s some connection, doesn’t it?”

He stopped and made another sudden decision. “I’m going to call my father,” he said. “We have to tell him exactly what’s going on. Then he can tell the police, and they can find out what it all means.”

Jenna looked at him. She knew that they could be traced as soon as they used a cell phone. And yet she understood that he had to do it. The criminals had chased them, and as long as they were still at large, she and Perry might not be safe.

“Why don’t you call the police yourself, directly?” she asked.

Perry hesitated. “Don’t laugh at me,” he said, “but my father … As far as he’s concerned, I’m just a loser. The biggest disappointment of his life. But if I uncover something like this now …”