Chapter 4: You Again!
On Friday morning, everyone was in their starting positions by 9:20 am. From where they were, Lee and Amanda couldn't see any of the others. They stood next to a park bench, holding their bikes and wearing the cycling clothes provided by the Agency.
Actually, the clothes weren't too bad, Lee thought. They were all mostly black with brightly-colored accents in different colors for each of them. Porter's outfit had neon green, and Lang's had bright orange. In keeping with his promise to give Francine a feminine outfit, Billy had made sure that she ended up with hot pink. She had given them all a dirty look before grudgingly accepting it. Fred Fielder's outfit had accents in an eye-searing yellow, which no one could look at for very long. Only Lee and Amanda had matching outfits since they were going to stay together as a couple during their part of the ride. Their color was blue.
Lee had to admit that Amanda looked pretty good in her cycling clothes. The outfit accentuated her slim figure, and he could easily believe that she was a regular cyclist. When Francine had seen them in their outfits, she'd remarked that they made a darling couple. Knowing that she was probably still bitter about the hot pink outfit, Lee ignored her.
Since the cycling outfits were nearly skin tight, the agents each carried their guns, handcuffs, and walkie-talkies in specially-designed packs attached to their bikes. Amanda had a walkie-talkie in case she got separated from Lee, but Lee wasn't sure what else she was carrying. Probably stuff from her regular purse, he guessed. Apart from those things, all any of the rest of them had was a water bottle in a holder that clipped onto their bike frames.
While they waited for Sandra Westing to ride by, both Lee and Amanda kept their eyes open for trouble. Because they were early, they had plenty of time. As far as Lee could tell, no one in the area was behaving suspiciously. There were no suspicious loiterers and no sign of the trench-coated creep. Lee was hoping that they'd seen the last of him. Or, at least, that he'd seen the last of him, since Amanda still hadn't seen him at all. Luckily.
Before they'd left the Agency that morning, Lee reminded Amanda that their mission was to watch Sandra Westing, no matter what happened. Therefore, even if the flasher showed up, she was to ignore him completely and keep her attention on Sandra. Amanda rather indignantly told him that she understood the mission completely and wouldn't allow herself to become distracted.
At 10:20 am precisely, Sandra Westing rode past, followed closely by Lang. Lee nodded to Amanda, and they both started riding after Sandra. After a moment, Lang drifted away from the cyclists, letting Lee and Amanda continue.
"So far, so good," thought Lee.
Keeping pace with Sandra wasn't easy, but he and Amanda were managing it. About 20 minutes later, Francine joined them. She wobbled slightly on her bike, and Lee started to wonder if he and Amanda should keep riding with her until Fred joined them. It would only be a few more minutes. Lee dropped back slightly so that he could ride just behind Francine and keep an eye on her progress.
Amanda seemed to be doing fine. She was a couple of bike lengths behind Sandra, and all of her attention seemed focused on her. She was so focused that Lee didn't know whether or not she'd stop at their planned location if he didn't signal to her. As long as she wasn't too tired, she could continue until Fielder joined them.
Suddenly, Sandra Westing stopped short. Startled, Francine also tried to stop quickly and ended up falling. Lee had to swerve to avoid hitting her. Sandra had stopped to stare at something, and Lee turned to see what she was looking at.
"What? Oh, no," Lee said. "No, not again!"
Wearing his traditional trench coat and nothing else but a smile, the flasher was making his usual grand appearance. Or, was he? Lee paused. He could have sworn that the flasher he chased the other day was blond, and this one had brown hair.
A guy in a red and blue cycling outfit ran past Lee. As he passed, he glanced in Lee's direction, and Lee experienced a flash of recognition.
"Hey, you!" Lee shouted.
Recognizing Lee as the man who'd chased him the day before, the guy in the cycling outfit ran faster. Unfortunately, he ran right into Francine, who was just getting up off the ground. As they collided, both of them fell down, and the man dropped the purse he was carrying. Wait, purse?
"Francine, stop him! He's the purse-snatcher!" Lee cried.
The guy tried to get up and run away, but Francine managed to pull him back down to the ground and pin him there. Lee looked back over at the flasher, but the flasher had already disappeared. Well, now that they'd gotten his partner in crime, he shouldn't be too hard to catch. He hoped that Amanda was enjoying the show. She wanted so badly to get a glimpse of this creep, and she should have gotten a pretty good look while Sandra stopped to gawk.
Lee wanted to check what Amanda's reaction was, but when he turned to look, she wasn't where he had seen her stop. In fact, both she and Sandra Westing were gone.
Quickly, Lee contacted Fred Fielder on his walkie-talkie to ask if he'd seen them.
"No, Scarecrow," Fred said. "You guys are running late. Is there a problem?"
"Sort of," Lee groaned. "Come down the path toward us. Francine could use a hand with something. If you see either Sandra or Amanda on the way, contact me immediately."
With a brief word to Francine to let her know that Fred was coming and that he was moving on, Lee got on his bicycle and started off down the path. Maybe Sandra had just started riding again when the flasher disappeared. Maybe they weren't too far ahead. Lee pedaled as hard as he could, hoping to catch up with them.
To his relief, it wasn't long before he saw them. They were the only two cyclists on the path at the moment, since most of the others had stopped to watch the scene with the flasher and the purse-snatcher. Amanda was still doggedly following Sandra, and they both seemed fine. However, Lee's relief was short-lived.
As he struggled to catch up with them, he saw two cyclists who had been waiting beside the path start toward Sandra. The two men were wearing all black with matching helmets. Moving fast, they took up positions on either side of Sandra and started to try to force her off the path. Lee was already going as fast as he could, but he saw Amanda speed up as soon as she realized there was trouble.
"Hey!" Sandra cried. "What are you doing?"
Instead of going off the path, Sandra quickly squeezed her hand brakes and came to a full stop. Amanda, who had been able to stop just fine before, had a harder time now that she was going faster. Lee thought he heard her brakes squeal just before she plowed into the back of one of the men. His bike tipped over, and he went sprawling. Amanda almost fell too, but managed to right herself at the last second.
The other man in black tried to grab hold of Sandra and pull her off her bike. Sandra screamed and tried to shove him away. Lee was still too far away to help.
"Look! A flasher!" Amanda yelled, pointing dramatically away from the path.
Three heads turned automatically to look where Amanda was pointing. Even Lee almost turned to look, but nothing was more important than helping Sandra and Amanda. He couldn't take his eyes off of them for anything.
Their distraction lasted only a second or two, but it gave Lee a chance to close the distance between himself and the people struggling in the middle of the bike path. Taking a hint from Amanda, Lee rammed his bike into the man holding onto Sandra, knocking him to the ground. Lee leapt off of his bike and pinned the man in place, pulling his arms behind him so that he could put cuffs on him.
As Lee snapped the cuffs in place, he looked over to see what the other man was doing. Amanda had taken off her helmet and was whacking him with it. The man took the helmet away from her and tried to grab hold of Amanda. Lee jumped up to help her, but Amanda was already fighting back. She grabbed the water bottle off of her bike and gave it a squeeze, squirting the man in the eyes. Giving up, the man grabbed his own bike and tried to ride away.
Meanwhile, Fred Fielder was approaching on his own bike.
"Take care of that guy!" Lee yelled to Fred, pointing at the man on the ground. "Amanda, you stay here with them. Take care of Sandra. Francine's going to need some help, too. Call Porter and Lang. I'll go after this guy."
As Lee got back on his bike, he heard Amanda asking Sandra if she was alright.
Leaving them behind, Lee rode off after the man who had just fled. The man had taken off down the bike path, hoping to lose Lee among the other riders. Then, suddenly, he veered off the path, taking a route through the trees.
Lee had been pushing himself hard and was starting to tire. For a moment, Lee thought that the guy might actually lose him when suddenly something large fell out of a tree, landing right on top of the rider in black. The rider screamed as he was knocked off his bike. Lee skidded to a halt, staring unbelievingly at the two men lying on the ground next to the bike. The one that had just fallen out of the tree was wearing a trench coat . . . and nothing else.
"You again!" Lee said, gleefully this time.
He pulled his gun out of his pack and pointed it at the two men. It was hard to say whether the attempted kidnapper was more shocked at the sight of Lee's gun or the nearly naked man who had fallen out of the tree.
"You two just keep sitting there," Lee said as he reached for his walkie-talkie to call for back-up. "I know some people who are going to want to see you."
And one person I hope won't see you at all, he added silently.
