The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner's Dilemma Page 25
Halfway down the corridor, they passed a set of double doors that opened onto the building’s interior courtyard. Through windows in the doors they caught a glimpse of the desk they had tied Crawlings to, now a broken pile of wood and metal, with a frayed length of Kate’s rope still attached to one leg. Kate and the boys exchanged glances. Under the circumstances, it was hard to feel more than a flicker of pride at having set such a good trap—but they did, at least, feel a flicker, and it bolstered their courage as they stalked on.
At the next corner Milligan bade them stop. He sniffed the air and frowned. “McCracken,” he muttered. “Him I’d rather avoid. We’d better turn around.”
“I thought we shouldn’t backtrack!” Kate whispered.
“We’ll cut across that courtyard to a different wing,” Milligan said. “When the time comes to face McCracken, I don’t want you anywhere near.”
“I agree with Milligan!” Sticky whispered.
Milligan winked at him and quickly ushered the children back to the double doors. Nostrils flaring, he stared out through the windows in the doors for several seconds before nodding and leading them into the courtyard.
Out in the open air, they could hear more distinctly the faraway sounds of conflict—screeches, bangs, and mysterious squawking noises reverberating off distant walls. The sounds were unnerving, and Reynie cringed at every one. But at least they proved the Ten Men hadn’t won yet, he told himself as he hurried past the smashed jumble of desk; silence might have disturbed him even more.
Reynie was about to ask Milligan how long it would take the other sentries to arrive when a door in the opposite wing burst open—the very door they’d been heading for—and a madly grinning Sharpe leaped into the courtyard, both hands bristling with clusters of pencils.
His every nerve jangling with alarm, Reynie was still drawing breath to cry out when he found himself tossed to the ground on the far side of the broken desk. A half-second later Sticky crashed on top of him, and as they desperately disentangled themselves they discovered Kate already crouched beside them and Constance huddled at her feet. With hearts in their throats they peeked over the top of the desk.
The air positively swarmed with pencils. They were everywhere, a deadly horizontal rain. Indeed, as Milligan deflected them with Garrotte’s briefcase, they made a rattling sound not very different from that of rain on a tin roof. And then the storm was over, and Milligan was still on his feet, although he had been forced to retreat several paces under the onslaught.
Sharpe regarded him cagily, no doubt expecting a return salvo of tranquilizer darts. Like Milligan he was crouching and holding his briefcase before him like a shield. When no darts appeared, however, Sharpe straightened, smiled, and casually adjusted his spectacles, as if he had all the time in the world. He reached into his briefcase again.
Milligan whipped something from inside his jacket and flung it hard across the courtyard. Sharpe saw the sudden movement and looked up, ready to shield himself, but whatever Milligan had thrown sailed off far to the right—a brown blur that missed him by at least twenty feet.
Sharpe hooted with delight as he reached into his briefcase again. “You’re losing your touch, Milligan! What was that, anyway? Some kind of stick?”
“You could call it that,” Milligan said, just as the boomerang—having arced around the rear of the courtyard—collided with the back of Sharpe’s head.
Sharpe fell on his face.
The children jumped to their feet, cheering. But it wasn’t over yet. Sharpe had popped right back up again, so fast it was as if he had rebounded into a standing position. His spectacles had been knocked off, his nose was bleeding from his fall, and he was wobbling unsteadily, utterly disoriented by the blow—but in his hand was a laser pointer, and he was aiming it at Milligan.
Everyone froze.
Sharpe’s eyes wandered away from Milligan in a dazed, addled way, then wandered back again. With his empty hand he touched his bloody nose, winced, then frowned at the blood on his fingertips. He seemed to have no idea what had happened or where he was. Reynie saw Milligan’s knees bend ever so slightly and knew that he was gathering himself for a spring. He had an awful lot of ground to cover, though, and Reynie’s heart was hammering in fearful anticipation when—much to his amazement—Sticky cleared his throat and said, “Um, excuse me.”
All eyes swiveled to focus on Sticky, including Sharpe’s. Trembling with fright, Sticky nonetheless smiled in a friendly, helpful way, and then—moving slowly—he drew his polishing cloth from his shirt pocket and held it to his nose. Then he gestured toward the handkerchief poking out of Sharpe’s breast pocket and nodded encouragingly, saying in a small voice, “You… you have one… right there… you can use to… um, to stop the bleeding…”
The confused Ten Man frowned again and looked down at his breast pocket. Seeing the handkerchief, he brightened with comprehension—a very muddled comprehension—and tugged it out and held it to his bloody nose.
This time he fell on his back.
“That… was… AMAZING!” Reynie said, throwing his arms around Sticky, and Kate, not to be left out, threw her arms around both of them.
“You’d better let go before I collapse,” Sticky wheezed, but he was grinning ear to ear.
“Nice work,” Milligan said, tucking his boomerang back inside his jacket. “Now let’s move. I’m afraid your cheers may have drawn attention. Not that I didn’t appreciate them.”
Kate and Reynie let go of Sticky, upon which his knees wobbled a bit and his grin began to fade. (The reality of what he’d just done was beginning to sink in, and the effect was like blood rushing violently to his head.) He staggered to the side, and Kate shot out a hand to steady him.
“Um, Milligan?” Sticky said in a tremulous voice. “Are you absolutely sure we can’t just hide somewhere until the other sentries arrive? Surely there’s some place, right? Sorry, I just don’t know how much more of this…” He trailed off, looking embarrassed.
Milligan regarded him seriously. “No,” he said after a moment, “I’m the one who should be sorry. You’ve been so brave—all of you have—I forget what a toll this must be taking on you. But I’m still afraid we’d be tracked down and surrounded if we attempted to hide. I really am sorry, Sticky. You know I’d bustle you out the gate this instant if I could, but I simply can’t risk getting you so close to that fight—not without knowing how it’s going first.”
“Milligan, what if we went to the roof?” Reynie suggested. “From up there we could see everything without getting in harm’s way.”
“Hey, that’s true!” Kate said. “We know where the elevator is, Milligan.”
“Sixty feet from the room where I found you,” Milligan said. “I remember.” He shaded his eyes and looked up toward the roof. “Well, I suppose we could cut through an adjoining wing, come at the elevator from the other direction…” He glanced sidelong at Sticky, whose face had lit up with an expression of intense hopefulness. “All right, that’s not a bad idea. We’ll go to the roof, I can see how Hardy and Gristle are faring, and if there’s a clear path we’ll make a break for the gate. How’s that?”
“Great!” Sticky said, and Kate and Reynie nodded.
“If it looks too dangerous, though,” Milligan warned, “we’ll just have to come back down and keep moving.” He stooped to lift Constance, who was still lying limp on the ground, and set her gently onto Kate’s back again. “We can’t dawdle up there or we might get trapped. Agreed?”
The children, who did rather prefer not to get trapped, agreed.
And so the group of fugitives made their way to the elevator, taking the route that Milligan had settled on. More than once they caught a whiff of expensive cologne, and each time Milligan would stiffen and narrow his eyes—and the children’s hairs would stand on end—but they encountered no more Ten Men. And as the children crowded into the elevator with Milligan and felt themselves begin to rise, they felt their hopes begin to rise, too.
“Stay in the elevator!” Milligan said, needlessly throwing out his arm to keep them back. Beyond him they could see McCracken engaged in a ferocious struggle with two other powerful figures who were striving to keep his arms pinned.
“Moocho!” Kate cried.
“Ms. Plugg!” cried the boys.
Milligan hesitated in the elevator doorway, gritting his teeth. He could not leave the children unprotected, but neither could he just walk away. Moocho Brazos and Ms. Plugg, strong and determined though they might be, were no match for the immensely powerful and treacherous McCracken. Their faces were strained and glistening with perspiration—indeed Ms. Plugg’s was apple-red—whereas McCracken, however temporarily inconvenienced, had not even mussed his feathered brown hair. Already he was breaking free of their grip and grinning with expectation. He looked over at the children and laughed.
“Apparently we’ve all had the same idea!” McCracken called. “The roof’s getting much too crowded, don’t you think?”
Milligan was trying to think what to do when he felt himself shoved hard from behind. Stumbling forward, he caught his balance and spun to see the elevator doors sliding closed. “I made it easy for you!” Kate called, her tone bright and eager though her face was clouded with worry. “We’ll be fine! Now go get him, Milligan!”
Then the doors were closed, and Kate let out a cry of anguish and covered her face.
“You were right to do it,” Reynie said after a silence. “He was in an impossible situation. We couldn’t just leave them. There was no telling what McCracken would do to them.”
“Yes, but what about Milligan?” Kate cried. “His tranquilizer gun is jammed, and… and… oh, what have I done?”
“Milligan can take care of himself,” Sticky said, trying to sound convincing. “The question is what do we do now? Should we… should we hide, or keep moving…?”
But Kate could think of nothing except Milligan now. When the doors opened she leaped from the elevator, Constance bobbling wildly on her back. Heedless of the route, entirely forgetting the possibility of running into another Ten Man, Kate dashed down the corridor to the nearest double doors and burst out into the courtyard again. There she ran back and forth, craning her neck as she tried to see what was happening on the roof. Twice she almost stumbled over Sharpe’s motionless body, but she paid him no mind whatsoever.
“Kate, you shouldn’t be out here—it’s too exposed!” said Reynie when he and Sticky had caught up to her.
Kate only shook her head and continued to run back and forth, staring toward the rooftop and grimacing with worry.
“What if Sharpe wakes up?” Sticky said. “We don’t want to be here if that happens, Kate.”
Kate glanced at the Ten Man, nodded, and putting Constance down she rapidly bound Sharpe’s ankles and wrists with the fishing twine from her bucket. For good measure she rubbed his nose with his handkerchief again, then stood and backed away, squinting up toward the roof. It was all she could do not to hurry back up there and try to help. But her presence would only distract Milligan, and she knew it.
“Oh, but I can’t bear to stand here doing nothing!” Kate cried aloud. She jumped up and down, staring and staring.
Constance laid her head on the ground and moaned. The boys began whispering urgently, trying to decide what to do. It seemed just as dangerous to go anywhere without Milligan as it was to stand here and wait—hope—for his return. They still could hear the distant skirmishes from somewhere out beyond the building, and who knew where Mr. Curtain was now? And where was the Whisperer? What if he’d moved it to a window or guard tower from which he could peer down and focus on anyone he chose? At the moment, any one place seemed as potentially dangerous as any other—except for the roof, where they knew things were bad.
“I see Madge,” Kate said, almost absently. The boys looked up to see the falcon’s familiar shape circling high above the roof. “She must have seen me getting into the van and followed it here. Oh, Madge, I wish I could see what you can see right now!” She was reaching into her bucket for her whistle when a whirling brown blur streaked out from the edge of the roof, arced, then streaked back out of view.
“Milligan’s boomerang!” Sticky said, his voice tinged with hope.
But almost immediately the boomerang sailed out again, its arc much lower this time, and on its return trip it smacked against the edge of the roof and dropped down into the courtyard. It spun erratically and listlessly as it fell, clacking against the wall like a weird wooden bird. The children stared at it lying in the dead grass, the huge crack in it visible even from several paces away.
Kate turned and looked pleadingly at the boys.
“It’s up to you,” Reynie said after a heavy pause. “I really don’t know what’s best.”
“Remember Constance, though,” said Sticky in a low voice. “Reynie and I are too slow if we’re carrying her. We need you to do that. We…” He trailed off, feeling guilty and helpless. There was Constance to think about, of course, but there was also their friends—and Kate’s father—on the roof. “Listen, just do what you think’s right, and we’ll support it.”
Kate’s lips were pressed together, and her anguished eyes were fixed on the roof again, but she acknowledged his words with a tight nod. “Two minutes then,” she said. “Give me two minutes, and no matter what, I’ll come back to carry Constance.”
“Go,” said the boys.
And Kate went.
It had been a terribly difficult fight for Milligan. No sooner had the elevator doors closed than McCracken had slipped from the grasp of Ms. Plugg and Moocho Brazos—who had suddenly found themselves clinging to each other instead of the Ten Man—and then in one swift motion had ripped his handkerchief in two and put the separate halves to their noses. Moocho and Ms. Plugg had sagged to the rooftop. Just like that, it was down to McCracken and Milligan.
Only it had not been that simple, for Milligan had also needed to protect his fallen friends—no small task on that exposed rooftop, with a ruthless opponent willing to do whatever necessary to win. In just the first minute of the fight, Milligan had narrowly escaped being struck by a razor-sharp pencil; a spinning clipboard that shrieked like a whistle as it sailed past his ear; and a tiny white projectile—flicked toward his eyes—that appeared to be a tooth.
But Milligan was not without defenses. He still had Garrotte’s briefcase, which he used to deflect some of McCracken’s projectiles. And he had taken out his tranquilizer gun, which McCracken didn’t know was jammed. At the sight of it the Ten Man had sprinted to take cover behind an air-conditioning unit, one of several scattered over the rooftop, and Milligan had kept him pinned behind it as he painstakingly dragged his friends to the elevator.
He had yet to fire a single dart, however, a fact not lost on McCracken, who called out, “You’re being unusually stingy, Milligan! Don’t tell me you’re down to your last dart already!”
“Don’t tell you?” Milligan grunted, keeping his broken weapon leveled at the air-conditioning unit. “But I thought we weren’t keeping secrets from each other anymore.”
“It’s true we’ve grown quite close,” said McCracken, peeking out in time to see Milligan leaping free of the elevator, into which he had successfully dragged Moocho and Ms. Plugg. The doors were sliding closed, and Milligan was tucking a utility tool into his pocket.
“Aren’t you going with them?” McCracken called, ducking as Milligan raised the tranquilizer gun again. “You’ll be joining them soon, anyway, you know.”
“I hate elevators,” Milligan said. “People are always getting stuck in them.” As he spoke there came a clanging, screeching sound from behind the elevator doors.
“Ah, you’ve jammed it! To protect them, I assume? Surely you realize I can get the doors open.”
“You won’t waste time on that,” Milligan said, reaching into his jacket. “You have
other orders.”
“Indeed I do,” McCracken laughed, rising with his briefcase at the ready. “And now you’ve forced me to take the stairs! How wicked of you, Milligan! Such punishment! What will you do next—insist I eat broccoli?”
“Try this instead!” Milligan said, flinging the boomerang.
McCracken was far cleverer than Sharpe was. He knew a boomerang when he saw it, even one thrown at such a high speed, and gracefully ducked Milligan’s as he moved to get into a better position. Worse, he had sniffed out the truth about the tranquilizer gun and was moving now with much greater freedom and speed.
Milligan caught the boomerang and prepared to throw it again. He knew he would never hit McCracken with it. He had known it the first time, in fact. But he also knew that McCracken would never let him reach the stairs, that the Ten Man was gathering himself for a furious attack, and that the only advantage left to him was surprise.
Milligan threw the boomerang again, this time much lower, and the throw seemed so obviously errant that McCracken glanced around to see if Milligan had been aiming at something else—something explosive, perhaps. Seeing nothing, he looked back to find Milligan bearing down on him with startling speed.
McCracken had no time to reach into his briefcase. Indeed, it was all he could do to retain possession of it, for Milligan came after him with such astonishing swiftness and agility—sometimes swinging Garrotte’s briefcase, sometimes flying out with his hands and feet—that McCracken was hard-pressed to defend himself. He was not a Ten Man for nothing, however, and backing away from Milligan he parried and countered with his own briefcase. And in this way, in close and furious combat, the two men moved rapidly across the rooftop, away from the courtyard, with Milligan constantly on the attack and McCracken struggling to keep his balance.