Clive Cussler Read Online Free PDF Page B

shoulders and shivered. "It's cold and it's damp in here. It was a big mistake to leave home and try to enter some dumb old race."
    "It seemed like a good idea at the time," Casey argued. "We might have won."
    "Is that all you can think about?"
    "There are other things," Casey fumed.
    "I'm not as worried about us as I am about what will happen if that terrible Boss gets his hands on Floopy," said Lacey mournfully.
    "He won't if Hotsy Totsy carries him away."
    "But our speedboat is tied to the dock. She can't move."
    "Then we've got to get out of here," Casey said in a determined voice.
    Lacey looked doubtful. "You heard what the Boss said. No one ever escaped from Alcatraz and lived to tell about it."
    Casey didn't answer as he studied the bars facing the interior of the cell block.
    Lacey leaned an arm and shoulder between the bars. "We're a lot smaller than Al Capone must have been. If we could bend or remove one bar, we could squeeze through."
    Casey kicked at the bar. It was old and not as stout as it once was. Rust flakes flew off and settled on the cell floor. "It looks weakened with age. If we had a saw, we could cut through it."
    "But we don't have a saw," Lacey reminded him.
    "Yes," said Casey sadly. "I guess we'll never get out of here. What will our poor mother and father do when we never come home?"
    "I'll bet I can make a saw."
    Casey looked at his sister. "You can what?"
    "Make a saw. Do you still have your Swiss army knife?"
    He reached in his pocket, pulled out the knife and held it up.
    "Now take it and scrape the blade against a concrete block in the wall. Use that old newspaper on the floor to collect the concrete dust."
    Casey didn't question his sister and did as he was told. He knew she was smart, smarter than him, especially in school. He began scraping the concrete dust into the newspaper.
    Lacey looked into her backpack and pulled out a tube of glue she always carried and some string. She wiped the glue onto the string and then rolled the string in the concrete dust falling on the newspaper until it was covered from tip to tip.
    "Very clever of you, sis. I see now that you want to make a string saw."
    She nodded. "As soon as the glue dries, we wrap the string around the bar and begin sawing away while the concrete dust acts as an abrasive."
    "We'll need more than one before we're finished," said Casey. "While I cut the bar, you make more string saws."
    Unknown to Casey and Lacey, Hotsy Totsy, with Floopy sitting on the bow, had cruised across the bay and stopped at the ferry house. Floopy managed to grip the latch in his teeth and very quietly opened the doors. Next he jumped out onto the dock with a line in his mouth and wrapped it around a cleat. Then, using his very sensitive dog nose, he sniffed the familiar smells of Casey and Lacey and began running up the road toward the big cell house, following their scent.
    Floopy ran up the concrete stairs onto the parade field, then around the road past the warden's mansion, where the Boss and his henchmen were hiding out. Through an open window, he saw men moving. He stopped for a moment, sniffing. Detecting the familiar scent of the Boss, Floopy remembered sinking his teeth into the evil villain's behind and wagged his tail. Padding softly, with only his nails clicking on the ground, he turned and nosed up the walkway that led to the porch of the mansion. When he reached the front door, he crept around up to the open window and stared inside.
    The Boss and his henchmen were sitting around eating a leftover Chinese takeout dinner and watching a cartoon on television. After a few minutes, the Boss turned off the picture and held up a map.
    "Here's how we make our getaway," he explained. "We wait until dark tomorrow night. Then we take our boat and move without lights under the Golden Gate Bridge. Once outside the bay, we head south to Mexico. After we cross the border, the police will never catch us."
    "What about the kids?" asked the Beard.
    "Who cares,"