The Complete Screech Owls, Volume 2 Read online

  The men opened the rear doors of the van and roughly shoved their captives inside. Travis struck his head again, this time on Nish’s knee.

  He felt sick to his stomach. The van smelled of bad cigarettes. He could smell Nish’s hair.

  Sarah was shoved in on top of him, then Slava and Dmitri. Travis managed to sit up and caught sight of Slava.

  He was white as a ghost.

  “Move it!” the man with the gold tooth shouted in Russian.

  The van wheels spun in the light snow, the rear end fishtailing as it turned on the quiet road and sped away in the opposite direction. The Russians were abandoning the car at the far end of the bridge, where it was still blocking the roadway.

  Gold Tooth turned and swatted at them.

  “Get down!” he shouted.

  “Duck down!” Dmitri translated. He pushed Slava and Sarah down over the other two.

  A heavy blanket flew over from the front seat, covering them.

  The blinding flashes in Travis’s head gave way to darkness.

  Muck and Mr. Dillinger were waiting for the elevator in the lobby of the Master Johan, but when the doors slid open, they were almost trampled by the CSKA coach and the two bodyguards coming out. The coach looked furious, the bodyguards upset. They didn’t even nod hello.

  Mr. Dillinger, his eyes wide, turned to Muck.

  “What’s got into them, I wonder?”

  But before Muck could answer, there was more activity. The doors leading from the lobby to the street swung open and Mr. Johanssen hurried in with a concerned look on his face. The sound of a police siren outside filled the lobby momentarily.

  “There’s been a shot!” Mr. Johanssen called out to the man at the front desk as he walked, fast, towards the elevators.

  “What’s going on?” Mr. Dillinger called to Mr. Johanssen.

  “There’s been a report of a gun fired behind the hotel.”

  Muck turned back towards the elevators. “I better check on the team.”

  Travis thought he could hear a dog bark. There were also sirens in the distance. Sirens were different in Sweden–almost as if they were breathing in and out quickly–but they were definitely sirens. Police, he hoped. Someone must have heard the gun go off.

  Travis couldn’t tell how long they’d been gone. An hour? Two? Muck would be wondering where they were. And the Russians would have panicked once they found out Slava had given them the slip. Even Data would have wondered what was taking so long with his fries.

  Travis had no idea where he was. He had been unable to see anything from the back of the van, and the men had kept the blanket over their heads as they pushed and shoved them into wherever they were now. He could smell smoke, something burning. He was lying on his side and could barely see. His right eye was swollen almost shut.

  The floor was very hard. Harder even than wood. And cold. There was a smell in the air, almost musty, something like the backyard in spring when the snow melts away and his mother would turn over the garden. The air felt cool, and damp, and cellar-like.

  Travis wanted to roll over, but he couldn’t. His hands were tied behind his back. He shook off the blanket that had been tossed over him and blinked in the darkness. There was a light somewhere behind him, a light flickering on the wall. He thought he could make out the patterns of stone. A stone wall. He was cold, and shivering.

  He painfully sat upright. He could see Sarah sitting the same way, but with her back to the stone wall. Dmitri and Slava were also sitting with their hands tied behind them, and he caught Dmitri’s eye. Dmitri was silently urging him to stay quiet; he jerked his head slightly, indicating something behind Travis.

  Slowly, Travis twisted around. He saw Nish against the wall. He had his eyes closed and was shaking, but whether he was crying quietly or shivering from the cold, Travis couldn’t tell.

  He was able to turn his head far enough to see what Dmitri was signalling. Two of their captors–one of them the man with the gold tooth–were in the room with them. They were both smoking, but that wasn’t what Travis had smelled. They were huddled close to a small naphtha heater. It was a camping heater, like Travis’s father had. It was giving off some warmth, but not nearly enough to take the chill out of the room. The heater was what he had smelled.

  The two men were speaking, very low, in Russian. One seemed angry, and also anxious.

  Travis was surprised to hear Dmitri whisper, “Keep it low. Those two don’t understand English.”

  Travis turned back. “Do you think they’re really the mob?”

  “I guess so. We knew they wanted Slava–they just didn’t expect to end up with us, too.”

  Nish was now looking up. His whisper was a hiss, a bit too loud, and filled with fear. “Where are we?”

  One of the men yelled at him to shut up.

  The men were talking very fast now, their anger rising. Dmitri and Slava watched and listened, and Travis watched Dmitri, trying to read his expression. As Dmitri listened he seemed to grow more and more worried.

  Travis decided to risk a whisper: “What are they fighting about?”

  Dmitri blinked: “Us.”

  “Whatdya mean?” Nish hissed.

  “Shhhhhh…”

  Gold Tooth stood up from the small heater and kicked angrily at a blanket that caught his foot. He turned and glared at the kids. Travis had never seen such hatred in anyone’s eyes. He shivered–and not, this time, from the cold.

  Gold Tooth then suddenly stormed out, lifting a solid wooden plank that was blocking the old door, and slamming it as he left.

  The second man looked up sharply at the slam and then went back to eating the bread and cheese that he had pulled out of a sack. He also had beer, and when he opened one of the bottles the smell of it drifted across the dank room.

  For a long time no one dared say anything. The man ate and grumbled to himself and threw a blanket around his shoulders. He opened another beer, then filled the little heater with naphtha and lighted it again, turning it up high.

  Dmitri suddenly spoke up in Russian: “Can you please hang one of these blankets over that window? We’re freezing!”

  “Shut up!” the man snapped. He fiddled some more with the heater, then looked back at Dmitri with an evil smile. Dmitri had given him an idea.

  The man gathered several of the old blankets. One he strung across the window, catching it on a nail on either side.

  “Thank God,” whispered Sarah.

  But the man was thinking only of himself. He pulled his heater over into a corner of the room and assembled a sort of rough tent out of blankets strung across a chair and a stool and an old storage box. He moved the heater inside, then his beer. With one more sly smile at the shivering kids, he ducked down into his private, cosy little shelter.

  “Thanks a lot!” Nish hissed with great sarcasm.

  “I’m freezing!” said Sarah.

  “No!” said Travis. “We want this!”

  “We want to freeze to death?” Nish asked.

  Travis hurried to explain. “My dad says never take one of those heaters inside a tent.”

  “Why not?” Dmitri asked.

  “It gives off carbon monoxide gas.”

  “So?” Nish said.

  “So–he’ll kill himself, if he doesn’t kill us first.”

  “We’re being poisoned?” Sarah asked.

  “Not us,” said Travis. “There’s too much fresh air getting in here through the cracks. But he’s blocking himself off.”

  “What was the big fight over?” Lars asked Dmitri.

  Dmitri didn’t seem to want to say. “They were just arguing.”

  “What did they say?”

  “Nothing.”

  Travis knew Dmitri was keeping something from them. “You’d better tell us,” he said.

  Dmitri swallowed hard and looked at Slava. His cousin couldn’t understand much English, but Slava seemed to know what they were discussing anyway. He looked scared.

  “The guy who
left doesn’t want the rest of us around,” Dmitri said finally.

  Nish brightened up. “They’re going to let us go?”

  “I’m not sure that’s what he had in mind.”

  Dmitri would say no more, but Travis’s imagination filled the rest in: they would be shot, or they would be left here to starve…

  Travis’s head and eye began to throb, badly.

  Panic was setting in at the Master Johan. The parents and coaches and the rest of the Screech Owls were gathered in the lobby, but instead of calming each other down, the players were feeding off each other’s fears. They were imagining every possible disaster that could befall their missing friends–even murder.

  “The police are searching the city,” Mr. Johanssen told them after a man in uniform had come in and talked to him. “There’s no way anyone could get out of Malmö with all those youngsters and not get caught. They put up roadblocks immediately.

  “Has there been a call?” asked Muck.

  “One. Just to say they have Slava.”

  “What about the Screech Owls?”

  Mr. Johanssen swallowed hard. “We have to presume,” he said, “that they’re with Slava.”

  Muck got up and walked to the window, staring out at a city he didn’t know. He had never felt so helpless in his life.

  The captives had no idea where Gold Tooth had gone. Probably he was making a call about the ransom.

  “I’m so hungry I could eat blood pudding,” Nish said.

  Travis couldn’t help himself: he giggled.

  Another empty beer bottle dropped and rolled along the floor, and Travis heard the man burp. His breathing was becoming loud and uneven. The man was falling asleep. All that beer and the carbon monoxide was getting to him.

  “He’s passing out!” Travis whispered to the others.

  Sarah strained to see past the hanging blankets, but could hardly move with her hands and feet tied.

  “Shhhhhh,” she said. “Wait!”

  They waited. The man’s breathing continued to grow ever slower, deeper. Finally he began to snore.

  Sarah twisted over onto her side. In the poor light, Travis could see her twisting and pulling at her bonds. He heard her stifle a cry once. It was no use; she was just hurting herself.

  “Nish!” Sarah said quickly. “Get over here!”

  Nish blinked. “What for?”

  “Just do it! Quick–Gold Tooth could come back any minute!”

  Nish groaned but did as he was told. He fell over onto his side and then rolled across the room until he was close to Sarah.

  “I feel like a worm!” he complained.

  “You are a worm!” Sarah said. “Now twist your stupid head around here so I can get at it!”

  “What?”

  “Just do as you’re told! And hurry!”

  As soon as Nish was within reach, Sarah turned her back to him and began rubbing her bound hands back and forth over his hair.

  “You’re hurting me!” Nish complained.

  “Just shut up, Nish!” Sarah said. “I need your grease!”

  So that was it! Travis watched as Sarah very deliberately rubbed her wrists back and forth over Nish’s heavily greased hair, working in the mousse and gel so the ropes would slide. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth over Nish’s magnificent hairdo.

  Nish whimpered almost in silence: “Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow…”

  Sarah worked a little longer, then stopped and caught her breath. “I’m going to try it,” she said.

  She took a deep breath and pulled as hard as she could. Nothing. She took another deep breath and yanked harder–and her right hand came out!

  “I’m free!”

  The Malmö police had come to the Master Johan with police dogs. They let them sniff some of the Screech Owls’ hockey equipment, but the dogs had been unable to pick up any trail as the police worked them around the nearby streets.

  Muck was beside himself. It was all his fault, he told anyone who would listen. He should never have let them wander about on their own…He should never have let them leave the hotel without informing him…He should have known that Dmitri would try to get together with his cousin Slava…

  Muck clenched his hands into tight fists and chewed fiercely on his lower lip.

  “Muck?”

  The small voice behind him caught Muck off guard. It was Data, and he was trembling.

  “I think I might have an idea…”

  Sarah worked quickly. She untied her own feet, and then moved to untie Travis. He could hear her breathing. It seemed like she was fighting back tears, and in the dim light Travis could see that one of her wrists was bleeding.

  No one said a word. They scrambled to untie the others and then all moved quietly towards the tent made of blankets.

  When Travis lifted one corner, he could smell the naphtha and feel the heat inside against his face. The Russian was lying on his back, breathing deep and long and very, very slow. His throat rattled with each long-drawn breath.

  “He’s out cold!” Lars said.

  Travis moved to turn off the heater.

  “Leave it!” Nish said. “We haven’t time!”

  “He could die if we don’t get some fresh air to him,” Travis said. He turned off the heater and ripped down the blankets so the air from outside would get in.

  Sarah was already at work, trussing the man’s hands and feet with rope. He never even stirred.

  Lars tried the door. It gave a bit. He pulled and it creaked loudly.

  “Shhhhhhhhhh!” Dmitri hissed.

  “What should we do?” Travis asked.

  “Run for it!” said Nish.

  “What if Gold Tooth’s coming back?” Sarah asked. “He’s the one who wants to kill us.”

  Lars yanked the door the rest of the way open. “I thought so,” he said.

  “Thought what?” said Nish.

  “It’s the castle!”

  Travis looked around. The castle? Where they’d come with Lars’s father?

  “This is the old prison part,” Lars said. He seemed very sure of himself, excited. “The courtyard is just across there.”

  The courtyard: where the two murderers stabbed the warden, and where they lost their heads, for a haircut. Travis couldn’t help but think of the dead warden, bleeding to death on the stones.

  “There was that armour exhibition,” Travis said, not quite so sure. This didn’t seem at all the same.

  “This is the really old part,” said Lars. “The exhibition should be…,” he turned in the dark, searching, “…up this way.”

  “Won’t they find us?” Sarah asked.

  “It’s Sunday–I th-think,” said Lars, slowly. “It will be closed.”

  “We’ve got to head for the courtyard,” said Travis.

  “You’re right,” Lars said. “If we get there, we know how to get out.”

  “Which way?” called Nish.

  “This way,” Lars said, heading down the darkened corridor. “I think.”

  “You better be sure,” said Nish. He sounded scared.

  It was dark, but not quite pitch black. There was light leaking in through the occasional window or crack in the walls. Lights from cars passing, perhaps. Or searchlights, Travis hoped. He thought he heard another dog bark. Once, he thought he heard Nish’s stupid call.

  Then he knew he had heard it: “Eeee-awww-keee!” faint and distant.

  “That’s Annika!” Nish hissed.

  They stopped and listened. Again the call.

  “Hoist me up!” Nish said.

  There was a window, with a crack between the sill and frame. Lars and Dmitri and Slava grabbed onto Nish’s legs and lifted. He grasped the sill and pulled. When he reached as close as he could, he shouted out.

  “EEEE-AWWW-KEEE!”

  From the distance, faintly, the call came back. “Eeee-awww-keee!”

  “I think she heard!” Nish said.

  He was about to call again when they heard a mighty creak and
clatter of metal from far down the corridor.

  “Shhhhh!” Lars said. The boys let Nish back down, quickly and quietly.

  They could hear footsteps. Heavy shoes. A man, moving quickly.

  “It’s Gold Tooth!” Travis said.

  They listened. There were more steps. And then two voices. Russian voices. And angry.

  “There’s two of them!” Nish hissed.

  “Who’s the other?” Sarah gasped.

  Dmitri listened to the hurried, angry talk. “It sounds like Gold Tooth’s boss. He’s really upset. They can’t get through to the Russian team. There’s police all around the hotel. He’s blaming Gold Tooth for involving us in it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Dmitri paused. “The new guy wants to shoot us and try to get Slava out of here.”

  “Why us?” Nish squealed. “We’re not going to the NHL.”

  “We’ve seen them,” Dmitri explained. “We know what they look like.”

  Nish was silent. He was beginning to realize just how much danger they were in.

  “What’ll we do?” Sarah asked.

  It was Lars who answered. “If they’re talking like that, they didn’t hear Nish’s call. They don’t know we’re out. We’ve got surprise on our side.”

  “Whatdya mean?” Nish asked.

  Lars seemed very thoughtful, very thorough. “Look, they’re going to come through that doorway ahead. Maybe we can latch it shut and cut them off.”

  “They’ll know we did it,” cautioned Travis.

  “Maybe. Or maybe they’ll just think it swung closed. What’s it matter anyway? We have to stop them. Gold Tooth’s got a gun, remember?”

  A sound came out of Nish. Not quite a whimper. More animal than human.

  “C’mon!” Lars called to Travis. The two boys hurried ahead to the big door. They pulled together, and with a creak the door gave and swung shut. Travis hoped the men were still talking and wouldn’t hear it. Lars set the latch.

  “What now?” Sarah asked.

  “I don’t know,” Lars said. He sounded scared. “The door will only block them for a minute.”

  What could they do? Travis’s head was hurting from more than just the blow from Gold Tooth’s boot. He was trying to think as fast as he could.