The telephone rang in the boys’ room at the Master Johan. Nish, who had been trying, once again, to unscramble the television so they could watch free adult movies–“Sweden invented sex!” he’d shouted–threw down the loose wires in disgust and rolled across the bed to scoop up the phone.
“What?” he demanded. His rewiring was not working out. He was getting frustrated.
Nish held the phone out towards Travis.
“It’s for you.”
“Who is it?”
“Whatdya think I am, your secretary?”
It was Dmitri. He wanted to meet Travis immediately by the elevator on the fifth floor. He couldn’t explain. He wanted Travis to bring Nish and Lars but wouldn’t say why.
Nish agreed to go only reluctantly. He was close, he said, to cracking the problem. Travis looked at the back of the television. Loose wires were everywhere. He only hoped Nish would be able to put it all back together again.
Dmitri was waiting for them at the elevator. “Slava called me,” he said. “He wants to go out with us.”
“Fine,” said Travis. “Where are we going?”
“To McDonald’s–he just wants to get away.”
“So why the secret meeting?” Nish demanded.
“They won’t let him go anywhere. Those two bodyguards watch him like a hawk.”
“I thought there were three,” said Travis.
Dmitri blinked at Travis. “He says two.”
“But I’ve seen a third,” Travis said, thinking of the man with the gold tooth.
“Two, three, whatever. He just wants to hang out. He wants us to bring along Sarah, if we can.”
“I’ve got a date with Annika,” Nish said.
“A date?” Lars asked.
“Okay, I’m supposed to get together with her.”
“Where?”
“Same place–McDonald’s. A little later.”
“So we’ll all be there together,” said Dmitri.
“Call Slava,” Travis said.
“It’s not that simple,” Dmitri said. “We have to break him out of here.”
“What?”
“They won’t let him go. He’s got no life apart from playing hockey.”
“Hockey is life,” said Nish.
“He just wants to be a kid,” said Dmitri. “Lars, you’ve got to phone and get one of the bodyguards to go down to the front desk. Slava says he can give the other the slip.”
“Won’t he get in trouble?” Lars asked.
“Muck would sit one of us out if we did anything like that,” Travis said.
Dmitri shook his head. “You don’t understand. Slava is the best player in Russia. He won’t get in any trouble. They will.”
“Who will?”
“The guys guarding him.”
Lars went to one of the house phones and Dmitri dialled the number and handed the receiver over to him. The boys heard a click, then a man’s muffed voice. Lars spoke quickly, in Swedish. The man obviously understood. Lars had lowered his voice, and though the boys couldn’t understand what he was saying, he sounded very authoritative. The man seemed to be shouting back, angrily. Lars spoke again, very calmly, and hung up.
“Did it work?” Dmitri asked.
“I think so. He should be headed down to the front desk.”
“What did you tell him?” Travis asked.
“Nish gave me the idea,” Lars smiled. “I told him his players had been fooling with the television sets. I said he was going to be charged 340 krona for the movies they had watched. He got mad and I told him if he wished to discuss the matter he’d have to meet with the manager.”
“Brilliant!” Dmitri said, snapping his fingers.
They called Sarah’s room next. She was delighted to be asked along. They ran into Data and tried to get him to come, too, but he said he thought he was getting a bad cold and didn’t want to go out.
“Gimme a second!” Nish shouted at the last moment. He raced up to his room, reappearing a couple of minutes later at the elevator doors. His hair was freshly moussed and gelled and shining, smelling like room refreshener.
They met Sarah in the lobby and all went outside, skirting around to the street behind the Master Johan, where they had arranged to wait for Slava. Several minutes passed, and they had all but lost hope, when the rear door to the hotel opened and a slim young man in a red jacket slipped out, his cap pulled down tight over his eyes.
It was Slava. He ran over, shouting to Dmitri as he reached his new friends.
Dmitri laughed. “He locked the other guy in the washroom by jamming a hockey stick under the handle!”
Slava was now shaking hands with Sarah–very formal for a bunch of kids from North America. Sarah giggled; yet she seemed flattered, charmed by Slava’s old-world ways.
“Let’s get going!” Nish said.
They headed up towards McDonald’s. It was a dull early-spring day, the clouds so low they spread like a thick grey blanket over the city.
At the first corner there were streetlights and a small bridge over a narrow canal which led towards the park where the old castle stood. It was quiet, with little traffc, and they began to relax a bit as they headed over the bridge.
“EEEE-AWWW-KEEE!” Nish shouted. There was no response. Annika wasn’t within range.
Travis didn’t feel quite right, but the others seemed at ease. Slava and Sarah were walking together, but saying nothing. Nish was calling out constantly. If he was this bad now, what would he be like when they got to McDonald’s?
Travis began to feel something was really wrong. At the far end of the bridge, a car had come to a stop. It must have slid on some ice, for it had swung sideways and was blocking their path. Two men were getting out.
Travis looked back to see if any traffc was coming towards them from the other end of the bridge. A dark van had slid the same way on that side, too! Another man was getting out.
It was the man with the gold tooth!
“Watch out!” Travis shouted.
But already it was too late. The others had noticed as well, and were ready to run–but they were trapped. The car blocked one end of the bridge; the van the other.
The quickest way off the bridge was to head back and take their chances with the man with the gold tooth, but as Lars and Travis started to move that way, they saw the man reach into his coat.
He had a gun!
“Run for it!” said Dmitri. “It’s them!”
No one had to explain who. The Russian mob was making its move!
The five friends turned, scrambling frantically, not knowing which way to run. Travis caught sight of Nish’s face: beet red, terrified.
The other two men were now running towards them.
“They’re after Slava!” shouted Dmitri. “We can’t let him go!”
“Grab onto him!” shouted Sarah.
She threw her arms around Slava just as the first two men reached them. One of the men roughly grabbed Slava by the arm and yanked–but now Dmitri also had a hold of his cousin and was desperately hanging on. The man yanked again, harder.
Travis had to do something! He was afraid, but he had to act. He dived for Slava’s legs and caught him in a perfect tackle.
“HANG ON!” Dmitri screamed.
A boot lashed out and caught Travis on the side of the head. He saw a blinding flash of light, almost as if lightning had struck from inside his head. The pain was incredible, but still he held on. He was not going to chicken out!
Travis felt a huge weight come down on him. Out of his uninjured eye he could see it was Nish. His friend had leapt into action, too, but instead of going for Slava’s legs, he had tackled the foot that had kicked Travis! It was the man with the gold tooth! The man went down hard on the roadway of the bridge, his gun spilling away.
KA-BOOOOOOM!
The stunning crack of the gun was followed by instant, eerie silence. Everyone lay still a moment. No one moved.
Travis looked up. The man with the gold tooth had hold of his gun again and was pointing it at them and shaking it. He was very upset.
“Get up!” he barked out in Russian.
“Everybody just get up slowly!” Dmitri translated.
The Owls rose slowly. Travis’s head was screaming. He thought he was going to be sick. Was he going to be shot? Were they going to kill Slava?
“Move!”
“We’re all to get in the van,” Dmitri said.
Everybody? Why everybody? Travis wondered. But he also knew this was no time for him to raise his hand to ask a question. This wasn’t a classroom.
The men hurried the friends towards the van at the near end of the bridge. Travis listened for police sirens. Someone must have heard the shot.
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.