White House White-Out Read Online Free PDF Page B

asleep. You grab the girl, since you know what she looks like. I’ll tie up the others.”
    “Where will we hide her?” the woman asked. “We can’t put her in your cabin. By morning, there will be cops and FBI and who knows what else searching all over this valley.”
    Dink felt himself shivering. His teeth chattered so loud he was sure the two kidnappers would hear him. He was freezing, but he couldn’t move.
    “That old hunting shack by the pond behind my cabin,” the man said. “No one knows it’s there. It’s in some trees. Can’t even see it from my windows. A perfect place for the kid.”
    “What about the other four?” the woman asked.
    “I don’t know,” the man said. “Let’s just get the president’s kid and worry about the other brats later.”
    “Ace, I don’t like this plan,” Jo Payne said.
    “You got a better idea?” Ace asked.

    “Yes,” she said. “We go to your cabin and get your truck. We drive it back here, take the president’s kid, blindfold the others. After we lock the girl in the shack, I’ll stay there. You drive the other four back to Maple Crossing—it’s only a couple of miles. There are phones there. They’ll deliver our message to the president: two million for the kid. That’s one million for each of us.”
    “Okay, I guess that makes sense,” Ace said. “Then I’ll bury the van in the snow with my plow. It’ll be six months before anyone finds it.” He laughed, coughed, and spit into the snow. “By then, we’ll be far away and rich. Different names, maybe even different faces. Good-bye, Virginia. Hello, Mexico!”
    The man flipped his cigarette. It landed two feet in front of Dink’s face.
    “Come on,” the man said. “We got stuff to do.”
    Dink raised his head a few inches and watched the couple walk away.
    Dink scuttled out of his hiding place. He found the half-smoked cigarette and put it in his pocket. Maybe Jo Payne’s fingerprints would get wiped off the van, but Dink had the man’s prints in his pocket!

CHAPTER 7
    Dink plunged down the bank toward the van, tripping and falling every few feet. He leaped over the smoldering fire like an Olympic hurdler. He ripped the van doors open.
    “Guys, wake up!” he yelled inside.
    The lumps under the blankets moved.
    “We have to get out of here!” Dink said as moonlight shone on four sleepy faces. “They’re coming to get us!”
    “I was dreaming about cheeseburgers,” Josh said, blinking at Dink.
    “Dream later!” Dink said. Then he told them about seeing Jo Payne and some guya few minutes earlier. “She did take Natasha with her, but your dog chewed the rope, KC.” He left out the part about coyotes prowling in the woods.
    “Natasha got away?” KC said.
    “Yeah,” Dink said. “But now they want you! They’re going to lock you in some shack and ask the president for two million dollars! We have to hide. They’re coming back pretty soon!”
    “Hide where?” Marshall asked.
    “I don’t know, anywhere,” Dink said. “In the woods. Then after they bury the van, we can sneak back and dig our way into it.”
    “I have a better idea,” KC said. “Let them put me in that shack. You four will get away, and you can tell the president where I am.”
    “No way!” Josh said. “We stick together.”
    “Josh is right,” Ruth Rose said.“Those people sound desperate. If we stay together, it’s five against two.”

    “We’re not leaving you,” Dink said.
    KC was outvoted. No way were her friends going to let her be stuck in a cold shack while they went home to hot chocolate and cookies.
    “He said he’s bringing his plow,” Dink said. “When we hear it coming, we’ll slip into the woods. Bring the blankets.”
    “But won’t they just follow our footsteps in the snow and come after us?” Marshall asked.
    “Not if we trick them,” Dink said. “Let’s all go out and make a lot of tracks going in five different directions. Really trample the snow up, all around the