“Get ready, Frank,” Joe called down to him. “We’re going to have company.”

  7 Escape

  The man who looked like a prizefighter was the first to arrive.

  “FBI!” he shouted to Frank. “Get your hands up!”

  Frank did as he was told—and exchanged a puzzled glance with Joe in the net trap above.

  FBI? Joe thought.

  The second man entered the clearing. His gun was pointed at Frank too, but he was looking at Joe swinging from the branch above him.

  “What’s going on here?” the second man asked.

  “How do I know you’re FBI agents?” Frank said, ignoring the second man’s question. “You should have some identification to prove it.”

  Both men gave Frank a look that told him they really didn’t want to prove anything to this teenager standing in front of them, but they both withdrew IDs from their pockets, flipped them open so Frank could see them, then put them back.

  “Satisfied?” the prizefighter said. “I’m Agent Sims and this is my partner, Agent Martin.”

  “Yeah, I’m satisfied,” Frank said. “My brother and I thought you might be …”

  “We’re not really interested in what your brother and you thought about us,” Agent Martin interrupted. “We want to know what’s going on with you two. What were you doing in the Wilkersons’ cabin back there in Hudson’s Hope?”

  “What have you done with them?” Agent Sims said.

  “Hey!” Joe called. “Remember me?”

  “We need to get my brother down first,” Frank said, “and then we can talk about this.”

  The two FBI agents looked back up at Joe, but neither one of them moved.

  Frank took off his backpack, removed a hunting knife from a side pocket, and said, “Joe, if you can keep pulling yourself up to that limb, I’ll be there to cut you free.”

  “Okay,” Joe shouted down.

  As Joe inched his way up to the branch that held the top of the net trap, Frank began climbing up the tree toward him. When Frank finally reached the branch, he edged his way out onto it until he was just above where Joe was hanging.

  Frank grabbed the top of the net and helped pull Joe the rest of the way onto the branch.

  “Those FBI guys aren’t much help, are they?” Joe whispered.

  “Not really,” Frank whispered back as he began slicing through the net with his hunting knife, “but maybe they don’t teach this stuff at Quantico.”

  “I guess not,” Joe agreed.

  Finally Joe was free of the net. He pulled himself up onto the branch and straddled it beside Frank.

  “Are you okay? Any broken bones?” Frank asked. “That must have been a shock to your body.”

  “I’m okay, but I’ll probably feel sore in the morning,” Joe said. “I was mostly thinking about any poor animal who gets caught in one of these. They’re no fun at all.”

  “Take off that backpack, Joe,” Frank said. “I have an idea.”

  With Frank’s help, Joe was able to remove the heavy backpack. “Wow!” he said. “What a relief!”

  Frank cut the rest of the net from the branch and tied it around Joe’s backpack, then he lowered it to the ground.

  With that accomplished, the boys began edging their way back toward the trunk of the tree.

  “You guys all right up there?” Agent Martin called. “Do you need any help?”

  “We’re fine,” Frank shouted down to them. “Thanks, anyway.”

  When Frank and Joe were finally back down on the ground, Agent Martin said, “Now we need to have a little talk.”

  Joe shrugged. “Sure,” he said. It kind of irritated him that neither agent seem all that interested in what he had just gone through.

  “What do you want to know?” Frank asked.

  “To start with,” Agent Sims said, “what were you two doing at the Wilkersons’ cabin?”

  “They’re friends of ours from Bayport,” Joe said. “That’s where we’re from.”

  Frank glanced questioningly at his brother, but in a way that the two agents wouldn’t notice. He could tell that Joe was about to give them an account that might not be entirely truthful—and he decided just to follow his brother’s lead.

  “We came up here because we’ve decided to leave home,” Joe continued. “We wanted to hook up with them because they seem like free spirits who move around a lot.”

  “That kind of life appeals to us,” Frank said. “We’re tired of living such a dull existence in Bayport.”

  “That’s interesting,” Agent Martin said. “Did the Wilkersons tell you where they were coming after they left Bayport?”

  “They mentioned British Columbia before they left,” Joe said. “After they got here, Darren contacted us by shortwave radio and told us they were in Hudson’s Hope.”

  The two agents were nodding as though they were trying to digest everything they were hearing.

  Okay, Frank thought. Joe’s giving them just enough honest information so it’s going to be hard for them not to believe us—but the rest of it he’s just making up. I’m not quite sure what’s going on here, Frank decided, but Joe must have latched onto something that isn’t quite adding up.

  Meanwhile, Joe was having his own internal conversation. Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned the shortwave radio, Joe thought suddenly. Now they’ll probably ask me about that. I didn’t see one in Darren’s house. He must have met some kid in Hudson’s Hope who let him use his. There are probably a lot of people in this part of the world who have shortwave radios.

  Agents Martin and Sims looked at each other and shrugged.

  “Well, you guys seem honest,” Agent Martin said, “so we’re going to let you in on our little problem.”

  “Problem?” Frank said.

  Agent Sims nodded. “It’s very important that we find the Wilkersons because they’re in danger—so if you know anything more about them than what you’re telling us now, then you need to keep talking.”

  “What kind of danger?” Joe asked.

  “Well, we can’t tell you …,” Agent Sims started, but Agent Martin cut in. “Oh, I think we can trust these two guys to keep a secret. After all, they’re friends of the Wilkersons, and they wouldn’t want anything to happen to them.” He stopped and looked at both Frank and Joe. “Would you?”

  “Of course not,” Frank said.

  Agent Sims shrugged. “The Wilkersons have been in the government’s Witness Protection Program,” he said. “Mr. Wilkerson worked for a man who he didn’t know was a gangster. When he found out, Mr. Wilkerson turned him in—but then he had to go into hiding because there were threats against him and his family.”

  Frank and Joe looked at each other.

  “That makes sense,” Joe said.

  “What do you mean?” Agent Martin asked.

  Frank was starting to be puzzled by these two agents. For one thing, they didn’t seem as bright as most FBI agents. He guessed that maybe the kinds of assignments they were given—like running through the wilderness in places like British Columbia—didn’t call for suits or degrees in accounting. Still…

  “I just mean that it makes sense to go into hiding if people are trying to kill you, that’s all,” Joe said.

  “The trouble is, the regular Witness Protection Program wasn’t good enough,” Agent Sims said. “The people who were after the Wilkersons kept finding them.”

  “Does that happen?” Frank asked.

  “Of course it happens,” Agent Martin said. “Some of these crooks are as smart as FBI guys.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” Joe said. “I think most crooks are really dumb.”

  “Yeah?” Agent Sims said. “What do you know about it?”

  “My brother and I have seen crooks before in Bayport,” Joe continued. “None of them were very bright.”

  Frank was sure that Agent Sims was getting angry about this conversation, but he couldn’t figure out why—unless he felt that Joe was questioning his expertise in the area of criminology.

  “That’s just my brother’s opinion,” Frank said. “We’ve just seen some crooks before—but we’ve never had anything to do with them.” He looked at Joe. “Isn’t that right?” he asked. “We don’t really know anybody who’s in law enforcement. We’ve just mostly seen a lot of this stuff on television.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Agent Sims said. He had a smug look on his face. “Well, I’m telling you that I know what I’m talking about, and some of these “crooks,’ as you call them, can outsmart any police officer or FBI agent in the country.”

  “Shut up!” Agent Martin said to him. “You talk too much.”

  Agent Sims’ eyes flashed angrily.

  Frank knew this whole thing was about to get out of hand, and he didn’t like where it was all headed.

  “Well, I believe you, sir,” Frank said to Agent Sims. “You seem to know exactly what you’re talking about.” He looked around. “It’s obvious to me that the FBI wants to help our friends the Wilkersons—and so do we. So what can we do to make sure they’re okay?”

  “Agent Sims and I were supposed to meet up with the Wilkersons in Hudson’s Hope and take them to their new home,” Agent Martin said. “It’s a super secret place where nobody will ever find them. Only a few people in the government are even aware that it exists.”

  “Are you sure the Wilkersons didn’t mention this to you?” Agent Sims asked.

  “Positive,” Frank said. “They didn’t say a word about it.”

  “We didn’t even know they were in the regular Witness Protection Program,” Joe said. “Where exactly is this place, anyway?”

  “Somewhere here in northern British Columbia,” Agent Martin said.

  “Do you have any idea where the Wilkersons are now?” Agent Sims asked. “From the looks of their house, they just got up and left.”

  Frank was thinking as fast as he could, trying to digest everything that was happening here. There was something about this whole episode that was making him very uncomfortable. He couldn’t exactly put his finger on it, but it was there just the same. Two men who had identified themselves as FBI agents were looking for their friends the Wilkersons. Frank actually believed what the men were saying, because he had thought all along that there was something about the Wilkersons that didn’t quite add up—and now everything made sense. What puzzled Frank the most now was that he felt guilty every time he gave Agents Martin and Sims details about the Wilkersons. Why? Frank could see in Joe’s eyes that he felt the same way.

  “Darren left us a note,” Joe said. He was trying frantically to think of some way to convey that they knew the Wilkersons were probably headed this way, without giving away that Detective Kitimat was nearby.

  “Where is it?” Agent Sims asked excitedly.

  “It’s back at their house,” Joe said. “We had just found it when you guys came.”

  “We hid because we didn’t know who you were,” Frank added. “The note’s somewhere at the bottom of Darren’s closet.”

  “What did it say?” Agent Martin asked.

  “Well, it was written in a hurry, in a secret code that the three of us worked out in Bayport,” Joe said, “but it said that his father had just received a coded message on his cell phone that the people who were after them had reached Hudson’s Hope and that they needed to leave right away. Darren said they were headed west, through the forest just beyond their house, and were going to a place where nobody would find them.”

  “That’s why we ran this way,” Frank said. “We were hoping that we could find their tracks.”

  Agent Sims looked up at what sky could be seen between the branches of the trees and said, “Well, what are we waiting for? We still have about an hour of light to see by.”

  Joe picked up his backpack and Frank helped him put it on.

  The two FBI agents were dressed for the wilderness, but now Frank realized for the first time that they didn’t have anything else with them.

  Agent Martin seemed to anticipate what Frank was thinking. “We’ll have to share your stuff,” he said, “because we left our backpacks back at the Wilkersons’ cabin.”

  “Yeah, we didn’t think we’d be chasing you guys so far,” Agent Sims added. “We don’t have time to go back and get them. We have to find the Wilkersons.”

  “That’s okay. We can share,” Joe said. “No problem.”

  “I could use a swig of water,” Agent Martin said. Frank removed his canteen and handed it to him.

  Agent Martin unscrewed the cap, took a big drink, wiped the mouth, put the cap back on, and returned the canteen to Frank. “Thanks,” he said.

  Frank nodded. He offered the canteen to Agent Sims but he waved it away.

  With less light now penetrating to the forest floor, it was getting harder for them to make their way—but Frank’s keen eye had once again picked up the tracks of three people, and Frank was sure it was the Wilkersons. “They’re headed in this direction,” he said.

  Several times they came to rushing streams, made full by the recent rains. Frank knew that the streams had had even more water in them earlier, because the banks were now slick with mud, but they also had deeper tracks of the Wilkersons, which continued to confirm to Frank that they were headed in the right direction.

  Occasionally Joe would edge his way next to Frank, asking him as loud as he could to reshift the backpack for him. This also gave Joe a chance to whisper what he was thinking at the moment to Frank.

  “For some reason these guys make me nervous,” Joe said.

  “Me too,” Frank agreed with him. “They just took our word that we were friends of the Wilkersons. Wouldn’t real agents have asked for our IDs, too?”

  Joe nodded. “We need to watch our backs. When I can, I’m going to turn on the walkie-talkie so Detective Kitimat can listen to what’s going on.”

  “Good idea,” Frank said.

  “Everything all right up there?” Agent Sims called out.

  Frank and Joe could tell that the two agents were getting winded. They were keeping up, but barely.

  “Yeah—I just needed my pack shifted,” Joe called back. “Thanks!”

  “What about it, guys?” Agent Martin called. “Are we catching up with the Wilkersons?”

  “We sure are,” Frank called back. He stopped. “I’ll show you.” He purposely moved back toward the men and waited for them to catch up.

  When the two agents got to where the boys were standing, Frank pointed up ahead and said, “Those are their tracks.”

  Agent Martin and Agent Sims look carefully at the ground.

  “Well, let’s don’t just stand here,” Agent Sims said. “Let’s keep going as long as we can still see.”

  Frank and Joe got back in the lead and started down the trail.

  “What was that all about?” Joe whispered.

  “Just a little experiment,” Frank whispered back. “Those were my tracks.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Joe said. “For a minute, I thought you’d lost your mind.”

  “Not at all, Joe,” Frank said. “We have a big problem here, I think.”

  “Actually, we have several problems here, Frank,” Joe said. “The walkie-talkie must have fallen out of my backpack when that net trap sprung.”

  “You’re kidding me,” Frank said.

  “I wish I were,” Joe said. “But I have an idea.”

  “Go for it,” Frank said.

  In his loudest voice, Joe said, “Well, Frank, these tracks are getting hard to see. I hope we don’t lose the Wilkersons.”

  “Hey!” Agent Sims called. “Are you trying to wake the dead?”

  Still in a loud voice, Joe shouted, “What? I can’t hear you too well. I think I’m allergic to something around here. My ears are all stopped up.”

  Both FBI agents ran up to them. “Just keep it down,” Agent Martin said. “If there’s somebody else around besides the Wilkersons, we don’t want to let them know we’re here.”

  “Okay!” Joe shouted. “But you’ll have to talk really loud if you want me to hear what you’re saying.”

  Agent Martin turned to Frank. “Can’t you use sign language with him or something?” he said. “That shouting is getting on my nerves.”

  Frank nodded. “I think we need to make camp,” he said. “Joe’s right. It’s getting hard to see anything, and if we keep going, we might lose their tracks and never find them again.” He waited for a response, but neither agent said anything. “I’m sure the Wilkersons are making camp too,” he added, “because they won’t be able to see anything either—and I doubt they’re using flashlights or anything like that.”

  “Okay,” Agent Martin said.

  “Which one of your guys has the tent?” Agent Sims asked.

  “Tent?” Joe said. “We were just planning to sleep on the ground.”

  “No thanks,” Agent Martin said. “I’d rather stand.”

  “Suit yourself,” Frank said. He looked around. “Why don’t you just lean up against that tree over there?” he said. “It looks pretty comfortable.”

  Incredibly, the two FBI agents did exactly that, but Frank and Joe spread a couple of branches underneath a tree on the other side of the opening and tried to make themselves as comfortable as possible.

  “I don’t think our friends are really FBI agents,” Frank whispered.

  “I agree,” Joe said.

  “That was a great idea, shouting like you did,” Frank said. “Do you think Detective Kitimat heard you?”

  Joe shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “I keep hoping that he’s out there somewhere, just waiting for the right moment to take those two guys down.”

  “I think we need to give him a little help, Joe,” Frank said.

  “How?” Joe asked.

  “We should try to escape tomorrow,” Frank said.

  8 Surrounded

  In the morning Joe awoke with a start.

  Frank was still asleep, so Joe decided not to disturb him for a couple of minutes. He wanted to think some more about their situation, so that when Frank did finally wake up, he might have a solution to the mess they were in.