G. H. Stone: Fatal Error

“It’s the package!” Bob said. “The plastic reflected the streetlight!”

Pete hit the brakes and raced backward to the beginning of the hedge. As the Subaru squealed away into the night, Pete turned the Aries and zoomed beneath a stone archway onto the grounds of the girls’ school. Maybe now they’d find Norton Rome!

Still without lights, the Aries sped along a dark, cobbled drive. The two Investigators scanned the moonlit night.

“Rome’s got to be waiting here somewhere!” Bob said as he studied the shadows.

To the right stood a large Mediterranean-style mansion with dark windows. Part of the drive circled in front of it and back out onto the street. But they followed a straight stretch that ran far ahead. On their left was the long, tall hedge over which Ek had thrown his parcel.

Suddenly the sound of a big, powerful engine shattered the silence.

“ Look ,” Pete said. “Maybe it’s Rome’s wheels!”

A large black mass wavered under dark, overhanging trees on the driveway ahead. Red taillights and the cones of white headlights flashed on.

“It is his pickup!” said Bob, recognizing the truck as it sped off with dazzling speed.

The Aries burned rubber after the pickup. “He must’ve grabbed the dough before we got here,” Pete said grimly as the pickup vanished at the end of the lane.

“Where’d he go?” Bob peered ahead into the night.

Pete screeched the Aries through an exit and into the center of a deserted five-street intersection. The guys studied each street. Rome’s speedy black pickup was nowhere to be seen.

“He’s disappeared!” Pete griped. “That guy’s got to have twelve cylinders under his hood. At least!”

“Major bummer.” Bob pressed a button on the walkie-talkie and reported the bad news to Jupe and Branson.

“You’ve lost Rome?” Jupe repeated, horrified. “How could you lose him?” He had visions of Norton Rome’s next stop being some tropical island where the creep would live in luxury forever.

Bob’s voice crackled over the distance. “The dude knew what he was doing. He set it up so he had exits on both ends of the drop, and one of them was perfect — five streets to get lost on.”

“Those turbocharged wheels could’ve outrun us anyway,” Pete’s voice added.

“You better believe it,” Bob agreed over the walkie-talkie. “We were lucky Pete outsmarted him yesterday. We never could’ve outrun him.”

“But we can’t let him get away with this,” Branson insisted.

“Hey, it’s not like we have a choice,” Bob said from the other end. “He’s gone!”

“You shouldn’t have lost him in the first place,” Jupe snapped. “Go find him!”

“Are you kidding?” Pete said. But he pressed the accelerator, and the Aries roared off down one of the streets.

“We don’t have a crystal ball!” Bob grumbled into the walkie-talkie as he and Pete scanned the side streets.

“One thing for sure — if you don’t look you won’t find him ! ” Jupe signed off.

Branson stood up on the roof deck at Oracle. “Maybe we should drive around too,” he said restlessly. “Check out Rome’s apartment or something.”

“He’d be crazy to go back there,” Jupe said.

“Yeah. I guess you’re right.” Slowly Branson sat down again.

“How’s Oracle supposed to get the antidote? Maybe that’ll give us a clue about where he’s headed,” Jupe reasoned.

“Nort’s got to phone Silas with it at exactly fifteen minutes after midnight,” Branson recalled. “Silas insisted he get the antidote pronto. See, if Nort doesn’t come through, all bets are off. Silas will call the cops, cover the airports, and go after Nort with everything he’s got.”

Jupe checked his watch. “It’s eleven thirty. Forty-five minutes before Rome delivers. But what’s to stop Ek from going after Rome then?”

Branson grinned. “Nothing. And knowing Silas, he probably will. But my guess is Nort has some sure-fire scheme to slip past Silas as soon as he gives up the antidote.”

“One more reason to find Rome ASAP!”

Branson nodded. “You know, now that I think about it… Nort’s been getting weirder and weirder. His brain seems sharp as ever, but his personality’s got out of whack somehow.”

“When he came after us on the bridge with his pickup,” Jupe remembered, “he had a strange look. Really intense and staring, but somehow not all there.”

“Know what you mean. I noticed that, too, the last week or so. And he was really keyed up. All the time.”

Just then the growl of an engine sounded in the distance. At first Jupe paid no attention to it. Then he spotted car lights bouncing across the plowed field on the other side of Oracle’s back fence.

“What do you suppose that is?” Jupe stood up and stared.

“Whatever it is, it’s coming toward Oracle.”

“You have a back gate?”

“No.”

Jupe and Branson ran down the stairs. As the two guys raced toward the back fence, the engine grew louder.

“That’s some heavy-duty motor!” Jupe said, remembering the engines he’d heard in Pete’s grease pit.

“It couldn’t be Nort’s pickup,” Branson said in a disbelieving voice. “Could it? I remember Nort had some kind of superpowerful engine installed in his pickup. But still… ”

“What’s he doing at Oracle? ” Jupe wondered.

“Delivering the antidote? No. He’s supposed to phone Silas with that.”

The pair stopped at the back fence. “Does anyone ever come back here?” Jupe wondered. Lumber, old cars, building blocks, and large assorted junk formed a dark, hilly landscape.

“Not very often. It’s long-term storage.”

The engine grew louder and the headlights fixed on the back fence.

“It’s headed straight at us,” Branson said. “But how’s it going to get inside?”

“We’d better get out of the way in case he comes through the fence!”

Jupe and Branson raced back behind a tarpaulin-covered mound of what looked like fake marble slabs. Just then the vehicle stopped, its motor still running. Slowly a section of the fence swung open, the barbed wire with it. Jupe caught a glimpse of the driver as he was climbing back into his pickup.

“Amazing,” Jupe whispered. “It is Rome!”

“Looks like Nort’s built himself a secret gate! You can’t see this area from the front of the complex where most of us work. Just goes to show how smart he is!”

“That gate’s got to be how Rome came and went yesterday without being spotted,” Jupe reported to Pete and Bob on the walkie-talkie.

“Way to go!” Bob exclaimed. “You found him!”

“I can’t wait to nail the creep!” Pete said.

“Hey, don’t start anything until we get there.”

“And don’t forget, the guy’s got a gun!” Pete added.

As Jupe signed off, Rome’s pickup rolled through the gate and parked behind a long storage shed. Rome got out and closed the gate. It clicked into place so perfectly that you couldn’t tell it was there in the fence. Rome took a small black parcel from the front seat and stuffed it in his jacket.

“There’s the money!” Jupe said in a husky whisper.

Now Rome tossed a tarp over the pickup. Rome was about five foot nine and weighed a good two hundred pounds. His soft, pudgy face and overbright eyes glistened in the moonlight.

“He looks like a crazed Pillsbury Doughboy,” Jupe whispered.

“He’s fat because of all the junk food and the years behind a computer,” Branson whispered back. “I tried to get him to work out with me or go to karate class, but he wouldn’t. He claims to be a lot tougher than he looks.”