Perfect Getaway Read Online Free Page B

of the water hitting the aqua-colored plastic shower stall filled the bathroom.
    Frank put his mouth close to Joe's ear. "Whisper. I don't think any bugs they might have in here could pick us up."
    "This looks bad for Marcie's dad," Joe whispered back. "This operation sure seems to be set up to help crooks skip out."
    "Right—and maybe it does even more than that," Frank answered. "It looks too elaborate for just an escape outfit. But we can worry about that later. Right now we have to worry about ourselves. We're in these people's hands, and unless we convince them we're their kind of guys, they're going to start squeezing really hard."
    "Yeah, we've got to get our story together," whispered Joe. "I bet that's why they put us in here before the interview, so that if we tried to come up with some story, their bug would pick it up."
    "You just figured that out?" whispered Frank.
    "Okay, okay," Joe said with more than a trace of annoyance in his whisper. "If you're so smart, how do we explain how a couple of teens like us are loaded with cash and on the run from the law?"
    "They were expecting Marcie's dad," whispered Frank. "So I think we should tell them that we were in on his embezzlement scheme."
    "Sure, we really look like corporate types," Joe hissed sarcastically.
    "Come on, Joe, the answer was sitting right there on Sally's desk."
    Joe sat patiently, waiting for his brother to get to the punch line of what he was sure was a joke.
    "I'm not kidding. We can claim that we were hackers for hire," Frank told him. "We can say we helped Mr. Miller rig his company's computers so he could get the money out of the country."
    "And that when the cops grabbed him, we grabbed our share of the money—" Joe exclaimed.
    "And ran," said Frank, finishing his brother's sentence.
    Frank turned off the shower and opened the bathroom door. "Hey, that was great, Joe," he shouted into the other room. "You want to take one?"
    Joe left the bathroom, then called back toward Frank, "Nah. You took too long. We're going to have our interview in a few minutes. Hope it doesn't drag on — I want to clear out of here fast. I can practically feel Uncle Sam breathing down my neck."
    "What could they want to find out?" Frank asked as he came out of the bathroom. "The color of our money should have been enough."
    "You can't blame them for checking us out," answered Joe. "In an operation like this, you have to be extra careful."
    A minute later Bob opened their door without bothering to knock and beckoned to them to follow.
    "Wait a sec," said Frank, and went to pick up the attache case. "We'd better keep this with us."
    Bob shrugged and said impatiently, "Let's go."
    He led them down a hall to another room and opened the door. "Here are the two you wanted to see, sir," he said and gestured with his M-16 for the Hardys to go inside.
    As they stepped into the room, they heard Bob leave and close the door behind them.
    In front of them was a short, squat, balding man with a mustache. He, too, was wearing unmarked fatigues, but his whole presence indicated that he was an officer in whatever kind of force this was. He wasn't sitting behind his desk, but on top of it. One gleaming boot was tapping against the desk front as he looked the Hardys up and down.
    "So you are Frank and Joe," he said. It was not a statement but a challenge.
    "Right," said Frank.
    "And who are you?" asked Joe.
    The man smiled. "You can call me Alex."
    "Glad to meet you, Alex," said Joe, extending his hand. "Now, how soon can you get us out of here?"
    "Ah, you young people, always in such a hurry," Alex said with a sigh, ignoring Joe's outstretched hand. "In fact, you seem quite young to want to take one of our vacations, much less be able to afford it."
    Frank had decided that the best way to weather this confrontation was to get this guy on the defensive, so he started talking fast and loud. "Look, I don't see why we have to go through this third-degree. The lady on the phone said