Chapter 27: Captured!

Test car 4900 skittered over the rails, its 68 seats empty—except for 6.  These were filled with members of the auto gang, drunk early in the evening, singing some rock song as they skittered along the tracks.  The driver put his hand on the controls, trying to bring the thing to a stop at the Broadway and 1^st Station, but almost missing the platform.  Little did he notice, as he pulled in, the sullen figure standing on it waiting for them.

His cohorts did, though.  “Hey, it’s Garrett!” one of them yelled.  “Three cheers for Garrett!  Hip, hip, hooray!  Hip, hip, hooray!  Hip, hip, hooray!”

If Garrett was amused, he did a good job not showing it.  “Anyone heard from Mugs?” he barked, staring down at the figures who had gotten out (most of whom were shorter than his six-foot-two frame).  “Did he report?”

“He ain’t called since this afternoon,” one of the crooks belched.  “I think he was going to the city for something.”

“He should have called us long ago,” Garrett commented, as another man stepped out on the platform.  “What do you think, Vince?”

The outlaw who’d tussled with the Andersons shrugged his shoulders.  “Sounds like he might have gotten captured.”

“A shame,” said Garrett, his deep-set dark eyes glinting fiercely in his chubby, sour face.  “He was a good worker.  However, no matter.  Men like him are easily replaced.  Glad he never got a look at me.”  He addressed the other workers, who were joking with each other as they awaited his instructions.

“Alright!” he barked.  “Listen up!  Jerry’s getting back with the truck at eleven tonight.  He wants to deliver six cars to Ralph’s Auto Imports in Del City.  These’ll all be foreign makes.  I know we had four ready, but do you think we can have another two ready by tonight?”

The man who’d been driving the subway saluted.  “Got a BMW and a Mercedes almost ready to go.”

“Good—make that the priority,” said Garrett.  “Then, you boys get the rest of the night off.”

Cheering, the men piled back into their subway car.  “Hip, hip, hooray!  Hip, hip, hooray!  Hip, hip, hooray!” they shouted again.

Garrett watched sullenly as they rode off.  “Look at ‘em, Vince.  They look like schoolkids.  Ordinary, dumb schoolkids.  The type that’ll never do anything great in life.”

“Their only aspiration is their next buck,” said Vince.  “Give it to them, and they’ll be happy.”

“True, and they are quite convenient to me for that reason.  But me?  Me?  I’ve developed the world’s most foolproof car theft system!  Steal cars from all over the state.  Hack the police’s computers so we’ll know to avoid their decoys.  Ship our catches in with those color-changing moving vans, so no one will be able to follow.  Completely redesign the cars, so no one will recognize them.  Have them delivered to car dealerships who don’t know where the stuff is coming from.  Who could ask for a better plan than that?”

“It hasn’t been perfect, lately,” Vince wryly commented.  “Those kids are giving us trouble—”

“Not much trouble, though,” said Garrett.  “We’ve lost a couple car dealerships—so what?  Every navy’s lost some ships on the way to victory—that’s how to win a war!  One day, Vince, they won’t make a car in the U.S. that doesn’t come through this place at some point.  We’ll start raiding Texas, then Kansas, then Arkansas!  I’ll dominate the world car market!  They won’t sell a car without my permission!”

Vince looked skeptical.  “Bob was good riddance, and so was the other dealership, but no navy’s ever achieved world domination—”

“If I was a member, they would’ve,” said Garrett.  “I don’t like to brag, Vince, but I’m the smartest man in the world.  Who else would have come all the way to Anadarko and spent five years making sure I had undisputed claim to the property we’re standing in?  No one!  The great part about it is, almost no one knows it’s even here!  No one will ever stumble across our scheme—no one, no one, no one!”

The subway coach rattled back into the station, and the driver hopped out again.  This time, he didn’t look nearly so pleased.

“Hey, boss,” he said.  “We caught these two girls wandering around in the tunnel.  What do you want me to do with them?”

In the dim, orange lights that burned overhead, Nancy and Ashley appeared quite pale.  They stared in horror at Vince, who they recognized, but it was Garrett who had the more interesting expression.  He gaped at the girls, not believing that his secret hideout had been discovered.

“Hey, boss!” said Vince.  “It’s a couple of those kids!  Mugsy told me the boy had sisters.  This must be them—”

“So!!!” shouted Garrett.  “You try to come in here and mess with my plans?  Shame on you!  You shall soon feel the wrath of Paul Garrett!  No one messes with him and gets away with it!”

Running for their lives, Nancy and Ashley had barely made it to a sloping tunnel that ran down to the east-west line.  This tunnel had tracks, but the switch wasn’t set for it—Nancy and Ashley knew the train would miss them.  By that time, the headlight had shown Nancy that the switch wasn’t set for it, which meant the girls would be safe there.  They’d just clambered out and started back up the tracks when the subway car had started back.  This time, they had nowhere to hide.  The driver had seen them and stopped, but the men had immediately hopped out and trained their guns at the girls.  Both had gone down without a fight.

“I told you what you should’ve done,” complained Vince.  “Put up a few dead bodies, and no one else will dare—”

“No!” said Garrett.  “We will not have a murder charge.  I do not need to murder to perform my plans to the utmost.  I am Paul Garrett the great, Paul Garrett the awesome, Paul Garrett the brilliant!  I can overcome the law—and I certainly shall, without giving these girls a chance to talk the police.”

“No crook’s invincible,” Nancy tried weakly to bargain.  “You’d better give yourself up Garrett.  It’ll go easier on you that way.”

The man laughed uproariously, his voice echoing against the smoke-scarred walls of the empty cement station platform.  “Ha, ha, ha!  You ask me to give myself up—when you two are my prisoners!  Not on your life!  I must win—and you must lose!  That’s the way this game works!”

“There will be others, Garrett,” Nancy said.  “We found your hiding place easily enough.  We tracked you to the 1^st Street station and Broadway station, didn’t we—”

“You are in no position to bargain!” snarled Garrett.  “Not you, or your friend, or those two other girls—”

“Stephanie?” Ashley gasped.  “What’ve you done with her?”

Vince studied the girl.  “You know something, boss, I’ll bet that’s her sister!  She looks kind of like her, in the face.”

Garrett grinned evilly.  “She’s fine, for now—as is her friend—but they’re never coming out of here again.  Nor are you, for that matter.”

“Garrett, that’s ridiculous,” Vince said.  “We can’t keep them prisoners indefinitely.  One’s bound to get out sometime, and then they’ll talk.  I say we just finish them off—”

“For the last time, Vince, we are not going to—”  Garrett stopped and thought.  “Say, wait a minute!” he said, an evil grin spreading across his face.  “That might work—that just might—yes, I think I’ve got it!”

“What?” Vince asked.

“I have it—I have it—yes, it’s the bestest, most beautifulest plan in all the world, and the best part is, there’s no way the law can touch us—you want to see your sister again, don’t you?” he asked Ashley, his voice taking on that fake kindness tone that suggests evil far more than it implies sympathy.

The Dale girl wisely kept her mouth shut.

“Well, you will—along with your friend.  Tie ‘em up fellers, and send car 5005 here at once.”

“5005—oh, I see!”  Vince grinned wickedly.  “That’ll be a pleasure,” he said, walking over to an old-fashioned computer at one side of the station platform.  “I think I know what you’ve got up your sleeve, boss.”

As Nancy and Ashley were bound, Garrett explained his scheme.  “You were wondering where your friends were—well, I’ll tell you.  Directly below us, there’s a track that runs east-to-west.  On the eastern side, it ends in a wall.  Your friends are tied up against that wall, unable to escape.

“Meanwhile, subway car 5005 was Boeing’s—er, problem child.  It was a new design they were trying to develop—lightweight, flexible, and capable of going at faster speeds than its predecessors.  All these things it achieved, but it had one problem—collision safety.  No matter what Boeing did to it, they couldn’t get it to pass a collision test.  Four attempts failed, and they built it a fifth time before they finally abandoned the project.  You see where I’m going with this?”

Ashley didn’t, but Nancy cringed.  Garrett grinned at her.

“Yes, yes, I can see it in your face.  I’ll tell you the rest of it, just so there’s no misunderstanding.  The east-west track has a loop at the west end, so a car can run down it, turn around, then speed head-on into the east wall for the crash tests.  You two will be seated in the front of the car, so you’ll get to see your friends—one last time—before the car slams into the wall, you four are killed instantly, and any investigators chalk off the incident as an accident!  Not that there will ever be any investigators, because then, no one besides us will know this place exists.  What do you think?  Brilliant plan, huh?”

Ashley stared coldly at Garrett.  “You want me to scream, but I won’t,” she said, in a cool, even voice.  “I’ll simply remind you that you’ll never get away with this.  God knows what’s happening—”

“There is no God!” spat out Garrett.  “No greater power than the ablest human being—and I seem to be filling that category right now.  Don’t worry, missy.  You’ll scream once that wall comes running up at you, and you see your sister’s face frozen with fear.  Load ‘em in, men!” he yelled, as another coach with a Boeing scheme came rolling up.  “This one runs on remote control, so even if you get untied, there’s nothing you can do to stop it.  Good luck trying, though.  Hah, hah-hah, hah-hah-hah-hah!”

His laugh was still echoing through the tunnel as the subway coach pulled out of the station—destined for the end of the line.

Chapter 26: The Anadarko Subway

However, the trip to Anadarko didn’t happen right away.  The kids didn’t know when their next chance to eat would be, and Frank figured another hour or so wouldn’t hurt anything, so Zach drove around until he found the Chickasha Braum’s.  Everyone enjoyed burgers for dinner, but only Frank got an ice cream cone.  He was so excited, he didn’t finish.

“I’ve never seen you get full at this restaurant,” Nancy told her brother.

“It’s just—it’s exactly like the day of the big game,” Frank told his sister.  “In baseball, you have the playoff game—the chance to be the champion of whatever league you’re in.  You don’t get to that game without hard work, though—hard work that you’re successful at.  It’s the same sort of thing here.  After all the twists and turns, all the false leads, all the near misses, we’ve finally tracked down the gang!”

“Hopefully.”  Auburn took a sip of her root beer.  “Keep in mind, we still haven’t found them yet.  We don’t even know for sure that they’re—”

“Don’t say it!” said Ashley.  “I don’t even want to think about that possibility.”

“We’ll know soon enough,” Zach commented wryly.

“Also, there’s only five of us,” Ashley brought up.  “Who knows how many of them there are?  They might have four times as many people down there.  Plus, they’re all adults, so they’re going to be bigger and stronger than we are.”

“That’s why we’ll try to avoid running into them,” said Frank.  “Size and strength aren’t the only advantages, though.  God’s only on one side in this conflict, and you don’t really think it’s theirs, do you?”

In spite of the situation, Frank’s comment brought a smile from everybody, Ashley included.  She turned around in the booth, eyed a trash can about six feet away, and made a perfect throw to get rid of her burger wrapper.

“What are we waiting for?” she said.  “Let’s go!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This time, Frank gave Ashley the benefit of the front seat.  He joined Nancy and Auburn in the back, where the three started making preparations.

“There’s your walkie-talkie,” he said, handing one to Ashley.

“How many of those do you have in your closet?” Nancy looked up from some papers she was holding.

“I’m not sure,” her brother replied.  “At least ten.  One of these days, I’ll be able to start a walkie-talkie museum.”

Nancy laughed.  “You think anyone will come see it?”

“I’m sure people will,” Ashley spoke up.  “Keep in mind, people actually go see that art museum in Norman—and you’ve seen some of the stuff they have in there.”

“That’s a good point, Ashley…I would rather see Frank’s walkie-talkies, any day!”

“The only question is, where would I put it?” Frank mused.  “I suppose I’ll take over some abandoned building in Norman—perhaps the Justin-Credible Auto Care store, or that chapel that’s part of the abandoned mental hospital—”

“Didn’t you say we weren’t supposed to use them unless it was an emergency?” Auburn asked

“That’s right,” said Frank, “and—if at all possible—DO NOT let the crooks know we have them.  We’re going to split up, and if any of us are discovered, we need them to think they found everyone.  Walkie-talkies just imply that there are more people hanging around.”  He glanced over at the Blackwell girl.  “Got your voice recorder?”

Grinning, Auburn held it up.  “Fresh batteries!”

“Good.  Don’t use it unless it’s absolutely necessary, though.  Our job is to rescue Brittany and Stephanie; then, the police can do the rest of the work.  And speaking of getting down there—Nancy, let’s take a look at the map.”

His sister had made five copies of it in the library, which she’d then distributed to everyone in the car.  Zach had to keep his eyes on the road, but the other four studied it intently.

“Looks like there are pretty much two lines,” Nancy said.  “There’s one that starts up by Kansas Avenue, heads south down 1^st Street, circles west around Oklahoma Avenue, then runs north up 2^nd Street until it loops back over to 1^st at Kansas Street.  In the middle, there’s a line that runs east-west along Broadway Street, from 3^rd on the east to a loop around a park.”

“Got it,” said Frank.  “Question is, how do we get in?”

Nancy continued.  “The factory should be located here,” she said.  “North of the regular train station, by NE 2^nd and Market Streets.  On that spot is the yard where the subway trains were stored when not in use—”

“—and where a lot of the cars are probably stored,” said Frank.  “That’s probably one of the entrances.  Any others listed?”

“I’m not seeing any,” said Nancy.  “However, the stations are all on the map.  There’s 1^st and Broadway, Methodist, and Miller—”

“Sounds like street names,” said Frank.  “I’ll bet there’s an entrance at each of those sites.  Particularly if they were training rescue crews.  After all, a lot of train accidents happen at the stations.  They had to have some way of getting the crew in to help with trouble.”

“Which ones will we use?” said Nancy, “and how exactly are we going in?”

Frank held up his copy of the map.  “I think Zach ought to stay with the car,” he said.  “In the event of an emergency, we may need someone to go for help, and Zach’s the only one of us who can legally drive.”

“I’d love to go in with you,” Zach said, “but you’ve got a good point there.  Alright, I’ll stay, but the rest of you had better be careful.”

Auburn gave him a sarcastic grin.  “Did you expect us to be otherwise?”

“Cut the jokes,” Frank said.  “We’re getting closer.  Alright, now.  There should be an entrance right around the old plant, so some of us should go in there.  If Zach’s waiting outside, that leaves four of us, and I don’t want anyone going in alone.  However, I don’t think we should all go in together.  Two groups can find Brittany and Stephanie faster than any one group would.”

“I see,” said Nancy.  “Alright, who’s going in at the plant?”

“You know,” said Ashley, looking at her map, “I wouldn’t be surprised if Brittany’s hidden there.  I mean, if they’re just using the tunnels as a place to hide cars, the whole system’s probably not in use.  It makes sense that they’d keep her where they could get to her easily.  I’d kind of like to go in through the plant.”

“Alright,” said Nancy.  “I’ll go with you.  Frank, you and Auburn can slip in somewhere else—if that’s alright with Auburn.”

“Suits me fine,” said the girl.  “Which one will we go in by?”

“Let’s find Miller Station and go in there,” said Frank.  “Auburn and I will search the western half of the system—you girls will search the eastern half until we find some sign of our friends.”

Nancy was still looking at the map. “That Broadway extension looks funny.  I wonder why they only put a loop on one end of that line.”

“Beats me,” said Frank.  “Once the gang’s arrested, we can explore the tunnels to our hearts’ content.  Until then—let’s be careful.  The last thing we want is for any of them to catch us…”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The sun was still up when the Andersons reached Anadarko, but clouds covered the sky as they had all day.  This produced really strange lighting, with the sides of certain buildings standing out more brilliantly than usual while everything not in the line of the sun looked dull and gray.  On another night, Nancy might have tried for a photo—but this wasn’t another night.

Anadarko itself was nothing much to look at.  It was a small town, barely more than a mile across.  Like most Oklahoma towns, it had its downtown—crumbling, brick buildings that dated back to either statehood or the rebuild after the great fire (as in Ardmore’s case)—and its more modern section, where most of today’s commerce took place.  Its downtown, though, seemed to have more than its fair share of out-of-business stores.  Less than fifty percent of the buildings seemed to be operating, though the Andersons didn’t get much of a look at them.  They were too busy trying to find the corner of NE 2^nd and Market Streets.

“I love how straight these streets are,” Zach said, as he navigated the hot rod past some empty buildings.  “Too bad they’re not wider.  Ah, there’s Market,” he said, turning left.  “We should be seeing the plant any minute now.”

“It’s probably kind of a big building,” said Frank.  “Funny, I don’t see anything that looks like—”

“Wait a minute,” said Auburn.  “Look at that vacant lot—with the gravel on it.  See how big it is?  I’ll bet that’s where the building used to be.”

“It’s gone?” said Nancy.  “That’s not good.”

“Well, it’s not bad,” said Frank.  “That’s just the above-ground portion.  If that’s where it was, then the entrance must be somewhere—”

“Hey, look!” Ashley pointed at a nondescript stone building on the left.  Small and rectangular, the structure had lost all its paint, along with the glass in the windows.  Ashley noticed something else about it, though.

“See those blue smudges on that block up at the top?  That’s the Boeing logo!”

Frank focused on it.  “Goodness, you’re right!” he said.  “Stop the car, Zach!”

Nancy was already opening her door.  “I guess we’ll know soon whether this is the way in or not.”

Ashley led the way, darting towards the building like she was just going to burst inside.  She knew better, though.  Pausing at the door, she glanced in, then slipped inside.  Nancy followed close behind.

Once inside, things got a lot darker, and both girls hastily switched on their flashlights.  The interior was just as much of a ruin as the exterior.  Insulate was pouring out of the walls, tiles were falling off the ceiling, and debris covered the floor, as evidenced by Ashley’s flashlight beam—

“Look!” she suddenly exclaimed.  “A path!”

Nancy trained her light in the direction of her friend’s.  Sure enough, there was a little trail through the debris, where feet had obviously moved back and forth several times recently.  The girls shone their beams up the path, until they found a rusty, steel door in the wall.  Originally, it had possessed no handle, but a makeshift wooden one had been bolted on.

Cautiously, the two advanced forward, until they’d reached it.  Nancy placed her hand on it, then looked at her friend.  “Say a little prayer,” she told Ashley.  “Alright, here goes!”

Jerking it open, she shone her beam into the abyss.

“Whoa, cool!” said Ashley.  “A spiral staircase!”

“Rusty,” commented Nancy, shining her light on the handle.  “I wouldn’t want to slide down that one.”

“I would—”

“That’s not a good idea, Ashley.  We’d better just walk.”  Nancy led the way, going slowly so as to keep creaks to a minimum.  Her voice echoed weirdly in the hollow chamber.

“I’m glad there aren’t any lights on,” she continued, whispering.  “If someone were down here, they probably wouldn’t be in the dark.  We should have this place all to ourselves, for now.”

The descent seemed interminably long, though it was less than a minute before Nancy reached the bottom.  Ashley was right behind her.  The girls gave each other a look, then boldly swung their lights ahead—

“Oh, my goodness!” Nancy explained.  Hastily, she pulled out her walkie-talkie.  “Frank, this is it!” she radioed.

“You found the subway?” he asked back.

“Did we ever?” Ashley shouted, before her friend shushed her.

“There’s like six subway trains parked down here!” Nancy whispered excitedly.  “You’d love it.  They look kind of like those ones in Boston—two cars, sort of, with a rubbery connector in between.  Big wheels, headlights towards the bottom on front, and antennae connected to cables on the ceiling.  Only, all of them look a little different from each other—different models, I guess.”

“Can’t wait to see them!” said Frank.  “What colors are they?”

“Different ones!” said Nancy.  “Three of them are mostly white, with a blue stripe going under the windows.  They say Boeing in the middle of the stripe—must be a test scheme.  A couple others have the Boston scheme—completely green under the windows, only with that circle around the T on the white background.  The final one looks like it those San Francisco subway cars—mostly white, but with that red stripe underneath the windows.  They look in nice shape, too.  Someone’s kept them up.”

“Great!” said Frank.  “Any sign of Brittany or Stephanie?”

“Not yet,” whispered Nancy, “but there’s more.  The subways are all parked on the second and fourth tracks of the five that lead across.  The middle one has a large, hydraulic metal system in the middle of it, connected to a large rectangle on the ceiling with a hinge.  Looks more than big enough for a truck to go down a ramp, when it’s lowered.”

“That’s how they deliver the cars, then,” Frank said.  “Seen any of those yet?”

“Seen any?” said Ashley.  “This place is packed with them!”

“They’re all over the tracks on the loop that leads around, and some others are on the cement platforms in between,” said Nancy.  “Several of the ones on this side have been worked on.  There are a lot of car parts stacked against the wall, and there’s a BMW in front of me that’s missing its upholstery.”

“The back of it’s a Mercedes,” noted Ashley.

“Not really,” said Frank.  “It’s one—or the other—in real life.  Well, sounds like you girls found the place alright.  I’m going to have Zach take me and Auburn to Miller Station.”

“Alright,” said Nancy.  “If you can’t find an entrance…”  She quickly explained how she and Ashley had gone in.  “See you later!”

“Bye.”

The girls clicked off their walkie-talkies temporarily, then shone their flashlights around.  “Let’s walk around this room,” said Nancy.  “Just make sure that the girls aren’t hidden in here!”

They searched the room from top to bottom—a complicated process that took a good twenty minutes.  At the end of that time, though, they had to conclude that Brittany and Stephanie were nowhere to be found.  There wasn’t even a trace of the girls.

“They must be somewhere else,” Nancy said, consulting the map.  “There are the tunnels to the main tracks.  See?  They form a Y, so engines can get in and out from either direction.”

“It’s kind of fun walking through a subway tunnel when it’s not in use,” Ashley said.  “You don’t have to worry about a train coming, you don’t have to worry about not being supposed to be there—although, we should be careful about the third rail.  It’d be terrible if we got electrocuted.”

“That won’t happen,” Nancy pointed out.  “This line runs on overhead power.  That’s why the cars have antennae.”

“Oh,” Ashley smiled wryly.  “I guess you’d know more about that, having lived in Chicago for so long—”

“Those weren’t overheads, though,” Nancy pointed out.  “Chicago has an elevated railway, and I think the power there came through the third rail.  However, we’ve been to Boston a few times, so we’ve seen the MBTA ones in use.  You’ll notice there are only two rails here.”

“Isn’t it funny?” Ashley said, as they reached the main part of the tunnel and turned south.  “To imagine all the trains that must have come through?  I’ve been in the DC Metro before, but that’s about it, and I’ve always been inside.  Out here, you probably start to see a light—oh, and then the rails probably sing a bit, as the vibrations get closer.  I can almost imagine it.”

“So can I,” said Nancy.  “It does seem to be getting brighter up ahead.  I can almost start to make out my shadow—”

Suddenly, cold chills came over the Anderson girl.  She stopped dead in her tracks, and cast a glance over her shoulder.  What she saw nearly froze the blood in her veins.

“A-a-ashley!” she said.  “Don’t panic, don’t get scared, but THERE’S A SUBWAY TRAIN COMING STRAIGHT AT US!!!!!”

Chapter 25: What Nancy Found Out

Nancy didn’t have to turn around to know that Mugs Barnette was holding a gun on her.  She was only too familiar with him, after their run-in up in the city.  His words on that occasion came back to her, like an unwanted houseguest that wouldn’t leave.

“Next time, some of these girls get hurt too.”

“Keep your hands where they are,” Barnette said.  “Now, get up and walk out of the library with me, staying just ahead.  Don’t try any tricks, because I won’t hesitate to shoot.  We’ll look like a nice father-daughter duo as we wander out.  If you try to signal for help, all you’ll do is give a death sentence to whoever notices.”

“Oh, really?” said Nancy.  “The boss wouldn’t like it.”

“The boss isn’t here.”

That was a good argument, and Nancy rose up and left her chair.  To anyone who didn’t know the two, it did look like just a father and daughter were walking out.  Barnette cracked a smile, thumped the girl on the shoulder a couple times with his right hand, even told a joke on the way out.  He didn’t look like a tough mug to everyone around—but Nancy knew better.

Her worried eyes flicked to the librarian who’d helped her out, but she received no help from that angle.  The woman was busy talking to a high schooler who was attempting a report on World War II.  They were too engrossed in the computer catalog to notice what was going on.

Nancy knew if it were the Norman Public Library, there’d be a police officer on duty.  But it wasn’t the Norman Public Library.  It was the Chickasha Public Library, and criminal activity was rare there.  Particularly abductions at gunpoint.  No one there would recognize one if they saw one—which is exactly what everyone did see if they were paying any attention.

“Good job,” Barnette spat out sarcastically, as they walked down the front steps.  “My car’s the silver one, across the street.  You’ll get in first, and—”

“Excuse me,” said a girl, who’d just come running up, “but aren’t you Coach Grayson—”

“No!” spat Barnette, who prodded Nancy onward.

“Oh, but you must be,” said the girl, hurrying up in front of him.  “You coached my sister on the women’s golf team last year at high school.  I couldn’t forget what you looked like.”

Barnette stopped in his tracks and regarded the girl with a look of disdain.  “Missy, if I look like your sister’s golf coach, he must be extremely good-looking.  I, however, am not him.  Now, go find someone else to—”

He wasn’t able to get the last word out before a tire iron conked him over the head.  Nancy whirled around, in time to see—

“Frank!”

Her brother grinned at her.  “We were just parking when you two walked out.  I figured you didn’t just decide to go on a ride with Barnette, so I grabbed the tire iron out of the trunk.”

“Did he hurt you at all?” Auburn asked.

“No, but he might’ve, if you hadn’t come up with that story,” said Nancy.  “Only, women’s golf?  Who in the world has a women’s golf coach?”

“You’d be surprised,” said Auburn.  “It’s big at some schools.  I don’t know anything about it, myself—it just happened to be the first thing that popped into my head.”

Zach and Ashley came running up at that moment.  “Everything alright?” Zach asked.

Nancy nodded gratefully.

“I’ll go call the police,” said Ashley, darting inside the library.

“We’ll make sure Barnette’s safely behind bars,” Frank said.  “Then, it’s off to Lawton, I guess—”

“No!” exclaimed Nancy.

“Huh?” Frank looked at her.  “Don’t you want to find the cars?”

“They’re not in Lawton,” said Nancy.  “I know exactly where they are!”

Ashley was inside, but the other three all gave her startled looks.  “You do?” they cried.  “How?”

Nancy held up the book.  “We’ve had it wrong the whole time!  Take a look at Chapter 13,” she said, flipping the book open.  Soon, three pairs of eyes were reading over her shoulder.

“Forgotten, but Not Gone,” Auburn read a heading aloud.  “‘The Strange Cases of Cincinnati, Rochester, and An—Ana—Anadarko?’  Where in the world is that?” she asked.

“Anadarko?” said Frank.  “That’s only twenty miles from here!  What does the book have to say about it—”

“I’ll show you,” said Nancy, flipping to the correct page.  “‘Perhaps the most surprising one is in Anadarko, Oklahoma,” she read.  “Unlike Cincinnati, it was fully built, but unlike Rochester, passengers never rode it.  In the late 1960s—early 1970s, Boeing entered the mass transit market when they were asked to build systems for the cities of Boston and San Francisco.  As they had no prior experience building mass transit cars, they wanted a test facility where they could experiment with their equipment.  Anadarko, Oklahoma, was chosen as the location, and a fully-functioning system was built completely underground, running all over the town and complete with three actual stations.  Unlike the similar experiment in Morgantown, West Virginia, Boeing never opened the Anadarko lines up for revenue service.  Instead, they used the network of tunnels for crash simulations, testing their products for safety and training rescue crews on how to respond.  The location remained open through 1979, at which point Boeing, having left the mass transit market, no longer needed to run tests there.  Though abandoned ever since, the tracks and tunnels still remain.  Only five thousand people live in Anadarko, but they are all set should they ever decide they need a subway.”

Nancy closed the book and turned around.  Her friends were speechless with amazement.  Frank was the first to break the silence.

“A subway in Anadarko,” he said.  “And not the food kind.  Who would’ve thought of that?”

“Car thieves,” replied Auburn.  “And kidnappers.  I guess we know where we’re going next!”

“You got that right!” said Frank.  “It’s the end of the line for them now!  We’ll show this gang a thing or two!”

Chapter 24: The Breakthrough...Too Late!

After updating Zach on their findings, Frank and his friends searched the rest of the area around the Subway.  The salvage yard behind it was abandoned, and they snuck under the fence to it—only to find the building unoccupied and bare.  An O’Reilly Auto Parts store was across the street, but there were no cars hidden in this building either.  Finally, the three were forced to conclude that the secret base wasn’t here.

“Well, there’s one more Subway,” Frank said, as they drove back onto Route 277.  “Looks like it should be just a few hundred feet ahead.”

“I guess it’d be in that shopping center on the left,” said Zach.  “Funny, I don’t see any building that looks like a Subway—”

“Wait a minute!” said Auburn.  “I see it—it’s not its own building!  It’s in the Walmart!”

“Oh, that explains it,” said Ashley.  Some Walmarts had their own restaurants in them—often McDonald’s.  This one had Subway.  The familiar yellow and green sign hung unobtrusively on the side of the building, under the much larger logo for the supercenter.

“This is kind of the edge of town,” Zach said, glancing about as he took a left onto Grand Avenue.  “Besides these shopping centers, there’s not a whole lot else around, except for trees and farms.  Nowhere you could hide cars.”

“Forget the farms and stuff,” Ashley noted.  “It’s Walmart!  There’s nothing around it except the parking lot.”

Frank swiveled around.  “Wait a minute!  Say that again, Ashley!”

“Huh?” Ashley looked surprised.  “What—”

“Say what you just said!” Frank told her.

“It’s Walmart,” Ashley repeated, confusedly.  “There’s nothing around but the parking lot…”

“Exactly,” said Frank.  “Look at that parking lot!  It’s full of cars!”

“Well, sure it is,” said Auburn.  “Walmart gets a lot of business pretty much all day—except overnight, and even then, there are still some cars there.”

“I know,” said Frank, “but if there’s always cars there, then no one would notice if a few happened to remain there a few days or something.  Plus, Walmart has an Auto Center.  If they needed to do any work on the cars, the garage would be the perfect place for it—”

Ashley realized what he was saying.  “You think the Walmart itself is the base?”

“It’d be a good cover,” said Frank.  “There’s nothing suspicious about Walmart.”

Auburn was skeptical.  “Why would they have referred to the base as being a Subway if it was really at Walmart?  Wouldn’t they have just called it a Walmart, then?”

Frank thought about it for a moment.  “Probably…unless they were joking!  Bob had obviously never been himself before—he might have gotten their meaning wrong.  The base could be around a Subway—at the Walmart that’s around Subway.”

Zach pulled into the parking lot.  “You might be right!” he said, intrigued.  “If they’re hiding the cars here—boy, is that clever!  How are we going to find out?”

“Well, there’s an easy way to test it,” said Frank.  “Let’s park here for a couple hours and see which cars go in and out.  At the end of that time, one of us will go through the lot and record the license numbers of all cars that have been here over that time.  Then, I’ll call Dad at the police station and find out from him if any of those were stolen.  As long as they’re not missing in Chickasha, they could be hidden in plain sight.”

“If the thieves were smart, they’d take the stolen plates off,” Auburn pointed out.

“That’s possible, too,” said Frank.  “If you see a lot of cars with no plate—on the back—write down their descriptions.  That’ll be pretty damaging as well.”

“So we’re staking out the parking lot?” said Zach.  “Sounds good to me.  Anywhere special you want me to park?”

“Towards the middle,” said Frank, “but not too close to the store.  Somewhere that we can spot most of the cars.  In fact, before we begin—” he pointed at a gas station across the road—“let’s call Nancy and tell her what we’re doing.  From there.  I don’t want anyone in Walmart to hear what’s going on.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The plan went off without a hitch.  Over the next two hours, the four sat in the car and kept an eye on the traffic patterns.  Early on, Ashley got out and wandered inside, grabbing a cart from behind the Auto Center and then walking inside to ask how much an oil change cost.  She came back reporting that she hadn’t seen any paint cans or new upholstery, but Frank wasn’t dissuaded.

“The Auto Center’s not open 24 hours,” he said.  “They probably do most of their work overnight.  If anyone asks about it, they can say that they’re doing a private rebuild, or a project for a friend.”

At the end of two hours, most of the cars in the parking lot were different from the ones which had been there before.  However, about fifteen hadn’t changed since.  The kids hopped out and wandered around the lot, checking the vehicle records.

“876 ABC,” he said, hopping back in the car.  “Sounds mighty suspicious.”

Zach laughed.  “That’s my car,” he said.  “I thought you were just checking others.”

“You can never be too careful,” Frank grinned smugly back at him.  “Find out anything, Auburn?”

“Six cars that were still here, all with license plates.  Oh, and you can cross off the green Sonata that was in your part of the parking lot.  It’s heading out that exit as we speak.”

“Check,” said Frank.  “Down to fourteen cars.  Ashley?”

“Four on my side,” she said.  “What now?”

Frank took the lists from them.  “We go back to that gas station,” he said.  “Then, I make a phone call.”

Because of all the traffic on Highway 81, it took about five minutes to cross the road.  Soon enough, though, Frank had gone inside.  He spent about ten minutes in there, the three waiting eagerly in the parking lot.

“There he comes now,” said Ashley.  “What a scheme that would be, if he’s right!”

“He looks disappointed,” Auburn suggested.  “Well, what’d you find out?”

Climbing back in the front seat, Frank shook his head.  “No luck, guys.  None of those cars were stolen.  Furthermore, the plates are all with the cars they’re registered for.  Looks like we hit a dead end.”

Zach shrugged.  “Well, the road to Chickasha doesn’t end here.  Maybe the cars are at a Subway in Lawton!  Want to try that next?”

“Might as well,” said Frank.  “First, though, let’s pick up Nancy.  I just called her to tell her we were coming.  We’d never hear the end of it if we forgot!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hanging up the phone at the receptionist desk, Nancy thanked the librarian, then wandered back to the table she’d been reading at.  A moment later, she was up again, looking for something else to read.  In the time she’d been waiting, she’d read completely through The Hidden Staircase (book 2 in the Nancy Drew series) as well as The Pizza Mystery (book 33 in the Boxcar Children series).

That one was nice, she thought, as she put the book back on the shelf.  Not the most exciting ending, though.  I would have preferred a little more danger.  Suddenly, she laughed to herself.  To read about, of course!  Not to experience.  Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny sure had it easy.  Even if the author misspells Jessie’s name in Book 24.

She surveyed the shelf, looking for another title to read.  For whatever reason, another children’s title suddenly popped into her head.  Hmm, I wonder if they have Jasper Dash and the Flame Pits of Delaware.  Imagine, flame pits in Delaware.  Whoever wrote that book certainly has a vivid imagination.  No wonder someone was trying to steal it—

Suddenly, Nancy thought of something.  She straightened from her pose and glanced around, then marked back to the reception desk.

“Yes, what can I help you with?” the friendly librarian asked.  “Another phone call?”

“Not this time,” Nancy said.  “I was wondering if you had either Life of Thomas Edison by Jay Gibbons or Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: A Guide to Transportation by Jesse Orosco checked in.”

“I can find out,” said the librarian, consulting her computer.  “Let’s see—we have no books by Jay Gibbons.  I’ll try Orosco—oh!”

Nancy couldn’t tell what oh meant.  “What?”

“It’s available!  Hold on a second!”  Pulling an index card out of her desk, the librarian quickly scribbled the call number down.  Handing it to the girl, she said, “It’s in those shelves over on your right!”

“Thanks!” said Nancy.  Heart pounding, she wandered over to the shelves.

It didn’t take her long to find the volume she sought.  Planes, Trains, and Automobiles had a bright red cover, with old-style gold lettering whimsically flowing up and down the spine.  By the chipped finish on the cover and the creases in the center, Nancy could tell this was a book that got a lot of use.  Eagerly, she pulled it off the shelf, then returned to her seat.

No one else was at the table as she sat down, opened the book, and found the table of contents.  It was divided into three parts—Planes (Part I), Trains (Part II), and Automobiles (Part III).  Each of these was further divided into chapters, all of whose names were included in the listings.  Most of the sections were about these specific objects, though at the end of each, there was usually a chapter or two about something that didn’t quite fall into any of these categories but was closely linked.  For example, there was a chapter on helicopters at the end of the plane section.

Looks fascinating, Nancy thought to herself, running her finger down the list.  I’ll bet Frank would enjoy—

Her hand stopped in the train section, as a word jumped out at her!  Two words, in fact!  She stared at the chapter title for a full minute, not believing what she was seeing.  Then, she flipped over to the one in question.  Getting there, she turned almost all the way to the back of it until she found what she was looking for.

Oh, my goodness! she thought to herself.  This must be why the book got stolen!

So entranced was she in her discovery, she didn’t notice the other library patron walking by—until, all at once, she felt a cold piece of metal at the back of her neck.

“So, you found it,” snarled a familiar voice.  “Looks like it’s time for you to disappear, as well.”