Camp X (13 page)

“And you want us to break in?” I asked hesitantly.

“Certainly not,” Bill said. “Breaking in could be quite dangerous. Their guards are well armed.”

“But . . . but didn't you say you wanted us to deliver it?”

“Yes, but you're not going to break in. We want you two to walk right in the front gate. Let me explain.”

I watched the panel truck travel down the road and get smaller and smaller until it disappeared. Up ahead was the hulking form of the D.I.L. plant. It was big and grey and topped by smokestacks billowing up clouds of dark smoke. All around the plant was a high metal fence, topped by strands of barbed wire. And all along the fence at regular
intervals there were poles with lights on top. At night, when the lights were turned on, the grounds were as bright as day, and we could see the glow in the sky from our house, almost five miles away. I couldn't imagine how anybody could ever break in there without being seen.

We walked cautiously along the fence. Jack carried the paper bag tucked under his arm. At the driveway leading to the main gate there was a big guardhouse and a gate with a long striped arm blocking our way.

“I'll do the talking,” Jack muttered to me as the guard stepped out of the guardhouse.

“Hello, boys, what can I do for you?”

“Our mom forgot her lunch this morning,” Jack said, holding the bag up. “She called at break and asked us to bring it to her.”

“Who's your mom?” he asked.

“Betty Braun.”

“We came as fast as we could, but it's a long way to walk,” I threw in. My brother shot me a murderous glance.

“How far did you come?” the guard asked.

“All the way from Whitby,” Jack told him.

“My goodness, that was mighty nice of you boys to come all this way.”

“Can we give it to her?” I asked innocently. “It's almost lunchtime and we have to walk all the way home again.”

“Maybe I can make arrangements for you to get a ride on one of the trucks leaving here,” he said. “They're not supposed to pick up people, but maybe I can convince one of the drivers to bend the rules a little.”

“That would be great!” Jack said.

“I'll see what I can arrange while you boys go and deliver your mother her lunch. Do you know which section she works?”

“She works in J section.”

“That's close. You go straight through the front door and take the corridor on your left. Look for the signs. You'll pass by sections N, M, L and—”

“That's okay, we know exactly where we're going,” Jack said, cutting him off.

“Hurry right back, I think there's a truck getting ready to leave in thirty minutes.”

“Thanks, we will,” Jack said as we scurried around the big bar and walked toward the building.

Once we were out of sight Jack slugged me on the shoulder. “You were supposed to keep your mouth shut!”

“Yeah, but it worked, just like Bill said it would,” I said under my breath, wincing a little.

“He didn't even look in the bag,” Jack agreed.

“But what if he had?”

“Then we would have done what Bill said and told him to call the head of security and have him call Bill.”

Jack held open the big door at the front. The foyer was empty. Off to the left was the corridor leading to where our mother was working. We turned to the right. There was a set of stairs and we started to climb, just as Bill had told us to do. We circled around and around and around, climbing to the top—four storeys up. There was a door there, and on the glass in large letters was the word “SECURITY.”
Jack knocked loudly. The sound echoed down the stairwell. He knocked again.

“Hold on!” called out a voice.

I took a deep breath.

The door opened and a large man, dressed in a suit, stood there. He looked surprised to see us.

“Are you Mr. Granger?” Jack asked.

“Yes I am. And who are you two?”

“We've got a delivery for you,” Jack said.

He went to take the bag from Jack, but Jack pulled it away. “First you have to read this.” He handed the man a letter.

After he'd opened the envelope, he looked at us wide-eyed. He held the letter on an angle and I could see that written on it was one word in large print. It simply said “KABOOM!”

“I don't understand . . .” He looked up in confusion. “Is this some sort of a joke?”

“Bill said you'd understand,” Jack said as he finally handed him the bag.

“Bill from the . . . Bill sent you?”

“Us and the bag.”

He opened up the bag and slowly shook his head. “Clay.”

“But it could have been something else,” Jack pointed out.

“And you were able to sneak in here with this?”

“Not really sneak. We just walked in the front gate. We told the guard that we were bringing our mother her lunch because she forgot it.”

“Your mother works here?” Mr. Granger asked.

I nodded.

“I didn't see this one coming . . . kids bringing in a fake bomb. I have to hand it to Bill. Nobody is more creative in figuring out how to destroy this place. The man is a genius! Thank goodness he trains agents for
our
side! Thanks to him, and the efforts of the other agents he's trained, I've been able to tighten up security in more than a dozen ways.” He paused. “Do you think you two could do me a favour?”

“It depends,” Jack said, turning and giving me a wink.

“Depends on what?” Mr. Granger asked.

“What the favour is,” Jack explained.

“It's not difficult. I was just hoping you could deliver something to Bill.”

“It depends on what it is,” I said. It was my turn to wink at Jack.

Mr. Granger walked over to a filing cabinet and opened the bottom drawer. He pulled out a box. “These.”

“What's in the box?” Jack asked.

I wondered if it was another fake bomb.

“Open it up and have a look,” he said.

Jack removed the lid. It was a box of cigars.

“These are Bill's favourites, and he and I had a bet on whether or not he could infiltrate the plant this week. I lost. Again.”

The phone on Mr. Granger's desk rang and he reached over and grabbed it.

“Hello? . . . I was wondering how long it would be until I heard from you.”
Mr. Granger moved the phone away from his face and mouthed, “It's Bill.”

“Yes, they are very nice young men, and I'll make sure that nobody here at the plant discovers the role they played. As far as the guard is concerned, they were only here to deliver a meal to their mother.”

Mr. Granger listened as Bill spoke.

“Don't rub it in. I've already given the cigars to the boys to deliver to you.”

Again he listened, nodded his head and then turned to us. “Bill will pick you up on the highway on the way back to Whitby.”

“We already have a ride,” I said.

“You do?”

“The guard is arranging for us to get a lift with a truck heading out of the plant,” Jack explained.

Mr. Granger laughed out loud and then picked up the phone again. “Apparently your two agents have not only successfully blown up the plant, they've convinced one of our guards to break regulations and provide a get-away vehicle to escape the scene of the crime. These are definitely two of the best agents you've sent my way. I think they could easily break into your camp!”

Again Mr. Granger listened while Bill spoke. Then he laughed.

“I'll take that bet, double or nothing. Why don't you tell them?”

Mr. Granger passed the phone over to me.

“Hello, Bill, this is George.”

“Hello, and congratulations to both you and your brother. You did an excellent job . . . first class.”

“Thanks. We just did what you said.”

“The best agents are often those who listen to their instructors the most closely. I was hoping that you could follow one more instruction. Could you bring me the cigars?”

“We already have a ride home, but maybe—”

“It doesn't have to be today. Anytime within the next few days would be fine. I'd like you and your brother to deliver them right here to the camp.”

“Is there a front gate we should go to, like here at the plant?” I asked.

“There is a front gate, but if you go there you'll never get in.”

“Why won't we?”

“Because nobody is allowed through the front gate without official clearance.”

“But . . . but you want us to come.”

“I want you to
try
to come. That's the subject of a little bet that Mr. Granger and I have just made. He believes that you and your brother could break into the camp. If you can successfully deliver these cigars to the main house then he will win. Are you interested in trying?”

“I need to ask, Jack,” I said. I put the phone down to my side and turned to my brother. “Bill wants us to try to break into the camp. Do you want to do it?”

“Go on, give it a shot,” Mr. Granger urged. “They try to
break into their own camp even more often than they try to break in here. It can only help security.”

“When?” Jack asked.

“Anytime in the next few days,” I said.

“Tell him we'll do it,” Jack said, “if he has a soda waiting for both of us when we get there.”

I smiled and picked up the phone. “Jack said that—”

“I heard him.” Bill laughed. “Two sodas will be waiting at the officers' residence. Take care, and good luck!”

“Thanks,” I said, and I returned the telephone to the cradle.

“Thank you for taking up the challenge, boys,” Mr. Granger said. “Now all you need is an advantage.”

“What do you mean?” Jack asked.

“Surprise is the advantage you need. He's expecting you in the next few days. How about if you try to sneak into the camp in the next few minutes? I'm proposing that we leave, climb into my car, and I can have you at the edge of the camp within fifteen minutes. What do you think?”

“I think that might work,” Jack said. “But could you drive us to our house first? We have to pick up a couple of inner tubes.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

THE WATER FELT AWFULLY
good. I would have liked to have just soaked and swum, but there was no time. We had less than three hours before Mom got home. I sat on my inner tube, paddling frantically with both hands. Jack floated behind his, kicking with his feet. On top of his tube, held in place with twine, was a canvas sack, oiled to make it waterproof, that contained the box of cigars. We hoped it could withstand a dunking without water seeping through and destroying the contents.

I wasn't so sure that three hours would give us long enough to get in and back before Mom arrived home from work, but Jack said that was plenty of time. Either we'd be caught and it would be over, or we'd get in quickly and perhaps somebody would drive us home. And even if we were an hour or so late we could just tell Mom we were out playing and lost track of time.

“I'm not so sure this will work,” I told him. “Won't they be
expecting us to come in this way because we did it before?”

“First off we have the element of surprise. Second, we're going in a
different
way.”

“How do you figure that?”

“We'll keep floating down the creek until we hit the lake.”

“What good will that do? Won't they be able to see us bobbing up and down on the water?”

“Don't you remember anything that Mr. Granger told us in the car?”

“Some things.”

Jack shook his head. He said there's a marsh at the end of the creek and then high cliffs along part of the lake. First we'll be hidden by the reeds and then by the cliffs.”

“But if there are cliffs, how do we get up to the buildings?”

“We climb.”

“Up the cliffs?”

“We'll just look for the right spot. It won't be that hard . . . at least I don't think it will. Then again, maybe we should try to come in through the marsh. We'll just sort of play it by ear.”

That wasn't the reassurance I was looking for. I'd hoped he had some sort of master plan in mind.

The creek cut through a grove of trees, and the branches on both sides reached above the water and formed a canopy over our heads. I stopped paddling and looked up. Little bits of blue and stripes of sunshine broke through. I liked it there. I felt protected and secret, as if it was a little hiding spot instead of out in the open. It would have been so nice to have just stayed there.

“Hurry up!” Jack yelled back over his shoulder.

I dug in my hands and started paddling again.

We rounded a bend in the creek. Up ahead I could see the big willow, and then the trestle beyond that. I paddled harder with my left hand to push the tube out more into the centre of the stream. I wanted to go through the middle span of the trestle again.

I looked up at the bridge. There was nothing there— nobody. Then I scanned the bank of the creek as far along as I could see. Again, nothing that I could see, but there were hundreds of places somebody could have been sitting, watching us. We were completely exposed. It would have been different if we'd come at night . . . but there was no way I was ever coming here at night, so that didn't matter.

I tilted my head back as I neared the trestle. It looked higher and higher the closer I got. Finally I bent my head right back and watched the bridge float by above my head, until I popped out the other side. First Jack and then I passed by the spot where we'd brought the tubes in before. Everything from there on was new.

The creek cut sharply to the left and then almost immediately to the right. I anxiously scanned the banks of the creek, first one side and then the other. I couldn't see anybody.

I looked up ahead. Jack was almost out of sight. I began to paddle furiously to try to close the gap. Despite my efforts it seemed as if Jack was pulling away, picking up speed. I dug in deeper to try to get closer. He was moving fast . . . we were both moving fast. The banks of the creek seemed to be closing
in and the current was picking up speed. Suddenly the stream dipped down and I felt myself being thrown forward. I grabbed on tight . . . then it dipped again, but this time I was ready. Stretching ahead were a series of dips, and rocks, and white water. I had a rush of fear that matched the rush of the water around me. I wanted to try to get to the side of the creek, get out of the flow, but I couldn't let Jack get away. He was at the very end of a long straight section, being towed behind his tube. As long as I could keep him in sight I'd be— he disappeared from view! Had the creek cut to the side? Or . . . had he? Oh my God!