J.M.J.

Thank you so much for continuing to read and review! Thank you also for your patience since I'm a little late getting this chapter out. God bless!

Chapter 12

George would have felt much more sure of herself if she had been sneaking up to the power station in the dark. It would have been reasonable, then to hope that she might not be seen, but she couldn't wait for it to get dark now, and so that meant that her main hope of remaining unseen rested on Bess and Ned being seen. She had been skeptical of Ned's plan, but she hadn't argued very hard. After all, she couldn't think of anything better, and she knew Ned well enough to realize that his idea would probably work. It was simple enough not to have too many moving parts that could get hung up, but it was complex enough that it wouldn't necessarily be seen through at first glance, and that should get them enough time. If there was a way of buying any more time, they could have had a more sensible plan, by going out after dark, but they couldn't afford to wait that long. Their hiding place in the farmhouse was too predictable, and there was too much chance of them being caught if they stayed there much longer. Worse still, it was hard to say what Delvere might have planned for Nancy and the others who were in his clutches. They had already attempted one assassination; it didn't make sense to assume that they would hesitate to remove any obstacles to their plans.

So that was why George found herself crawling through the tall grass surrounding the power station. It looked deserted, but there didn't have to be anyone there for her to get caught. All there had to be was a camera that would pick her up before she had time to find the power switch and turn it off. There were probably cameras, and George couldn't see them from here. She hadn't expected that she could, and so she wasn't actually looking for the cameras. Instead, she was trying to spot the control switch. She realized that there was probably a generator in the manufacturing plant, but it would take it a few seconds to come on, and hopefully that would be all she would need to send a message out.

Not seeing the switch from this angle, George crept around to another side. The station was surrounded by a chain link fence, which made it difficult to see inside clearly. That would have been even harder in the dark, George conceded, and it might have made her mission completely impossible, so maybe in the end, this was the only choice they had. That didn't make her feel much more confident about her chances.

She made her way around to the third side of the station, still without seeing anything that was obviously the switch. Discouraged, she was starting to realize that she was going to have to climb that fence blind and then try to find the switch after the cameras had spotted her. She could only hope that Bess and Ned would play their part well enough that no one would be paying attention to the camera feed.

NDHBNDHBND

"How many people do you think are actually in this town?" Bess asked Ned ask they made their way down one of the back streets as they attempted to reach the police station. That was their best guess as to where Nancy and the others might be. There wasn't much chance that they would be able to rescue them, but they wanted to make it look like they were trying to. As part of the plan, Ned had put on the jacket and hat of the man whom Bess and George had captured. He didn't really think that he could fool Delvere or Meyers or any of the others that way, but if it looked like he was trying to, it would help convince them that he and Bess were really attempting a poorly planned rescue mission.

"There probably aren't too many in the town, really," Ned commented quietly, glancing around him. "I haven't seen a single person on the streets other than the security detail, and Meyers pretty well confirmed that there are only four pretending to be police officers and six more who are out patrolling with dogs. That makes ten total, but you already captured one and another has apparently defected, judging from what Meyers said. There are probably quite a few workers in the plant, though."

"I wonder who's watching the cameras," Bess commented.

Ned shrugged. "I would guess that they probably feed to Meyers' cell phone and he keeps checking it throughout the day, but with the signal blocker running, I don't think that would work. If they have someone watching the cameras all the time, they must have spotted us by now."

"Comforting thought," Bess replied dryly.

They had reached the back of the police station by now without seeing a single person. Ned carefully scanned the area for cameras, trying not to make it too obvious what he was doing. He spotted one to the left of the door and whispered this information to Bess.

She tried not to look, which took a lot of self-control. "What do we do about that?"

"Nothing," Ned whispered back. "The point of this is to get their attention. We should have done that by now."

Bess sighed unhappily as Ned tried the back door. As they both expected, it was locked. Ned took a step back and glanced at Bess.

"Nancy has taught you how to pick a lock, hasn't she?"

"You want me to pick the lock?" Bess asked in disbelief. "What if they have it rigged up to give anyone who tries to pick it an electric shock? Or it might set off an alarm"

"I doubt it's electrically charged," Ned assured her. "If it malfunctioned, their own people would get electrocuted when they try to unlock the door, and that's a lot more likely than intruders getting in."

"Yeah, just like how one of their guys got killed with that electric barrier."

Ned still doubted that the lock was electrified, but he offered, "All right, I'll give it a try, but I don't have anything to use."

"Oh, I'll do it," Bess reluctantly agreed, pulling a couple of bobby pins from her already mussed hair. "My shoes have rubber soles, so I guess it will be okay. Probably. Is it true that rubber soles will keep you from getting electrocuted? I mean, as long as…" She took hold of the door handle just as she was saying this, and just out of curiosity, she turned it. This time it opened. "It's not locked after all."

"I was sure it was a second ago." Ned almost glanced at the camera out of instinct, but he didn't want to give away that he knew it was there. "They must want us to come in."

"Then maybe we shouldn't," Bess objected. "I don't like walking straight into a trap."

"We're already in a trap," Ned pointed out to her, "and our only chance of getting out is making a distraction for George."

"They already know we're here, so they're probably distracted," Bess pointed out.

"You do have a point there," Ned agreed. "Okay, let's double back."

They started back along the alley, expecting any moment to be intercepted, but they were able to cross the street and circle around to the front of the station, albeit still on the other side of the street, without anyone catching them.

"I don't like this," Bess complained as they crouched behind a planter in front of what had apparently once been a restaurant. It still looked like it was open, but there was no one around. "I feel like they're playing some kind of game with us."

"They're definitely playing games with us," Ned replied. "I just can't figure out what they're trying to do."

Further speculation was cut short by the front door of the police station men came out, two dressed like police officers and two in jackets and caps similar to the ones that Ned had confiscated from the prisoner. They were also accompanied by a large German shepherd. They glanced around nervously, but they didn't say a word before they all climbed into a police car that was parked out front. Then the car pulled away from the curb.

"I wonder what that's about," Bess commented.

"I don't know." Ned did some mental calculations. If there were ten in the security detail to start with, and they were down two already, these four leaving meant there were no more than four more inside the police station. It might even be fewer, if the guards on the road were part of the security detail. That might bring it down to one or two guards in the station. If that was the case, there might be a vague chance of actually pulling off a real rescue.

However, Bess's thoughts were on a different track, and as soon as she said them aloud, Ned's hopes were dashed again. "What if those guys are heading to the power station to get George?"

"Then we'd better get their attention before it's too late," Ned replied resignedly.

At the same moment, he jumped from behind the planter and acted as if he was going to run down the street. The car, which was heading in the opposite direction, never even slowed its pace. A moment later, it was out of sight. Bess and Ned stared after it in bewilderment for a second or two.

Seeing that nothing else happened when Ned put in an appearance, Bess had no hesitation in standing up herself. "What are we going to do now?"

"Well, if those four are any indication, we can go right into the police station and have our rescue," Ned replied. "Even if there's someone in there, if they're anything like them, then they'll probably just hand us the keys without saying a word."

Bess was still a bit timid and uncertain about that plan, but Ned was determined to make a distraction almost no matter what it took at this point. He went right to the door, opened it, and looked inside. No one was in the lobby of the building. He beckoned for Bess to follow and then he stepped inside.

It was a small station, and so it didn't take long for him and Bess to find the control room, where the feeds from all the various cameras around town were displayed on a large screen taking up most of one wall. Several of the feeds in the center of the screen were larger, and all of these were the ones of most interest. Apparently, the feeds that detected movement were flagged and placed so that they were easiest to see. One showed George climbing over the chain link fence of the power station. Another showed Carson and Meyers walking down some kind of hallway. A third had Delvere talking animatedly to a small group of people whom neither Bess nor Ned had seen before. Judging from these people's clothes, they must have worked in the plant. The rest all showed more people whom they didn't recognize engaged in various activities at the plant.

Ned folded his arms. "This doesn't make any sense. Why would they leave this here unguarded?"

Bess shrugged. "Who knows? The thing I don't understand is why there are cameras showing almost every inch of this town, but I don't see Nancy anywhere. Or Mr. Hardy or that police detective you said came with you or Tom Swift, for that matter."

"I don't either," Ned agreed. "But look. That one looks like it's the hallway of a cell block, but there are no cameras showing the inside of the cells. Maybe they're in there. I'll go and look. You stay here and watch those cameras."

"I won't be able to warn you if I see anything," Bess reminded him.

"No, but it would still be just as well for someone to have an eye on things. I'll be back in a few minutes."

Now that he could see that there was no one in the police station, unless they were in a pocket without a camera, Ned felt much more confident about walking around openly, but he wasn't any more consoled about what was going on around this place. It was either the most shoddily-run operation he had ever heard or Delvere had everything worked out beyond what he could imagine.

Pushing that aside for the moment, it only took him a few minutes to find the door to the cell block. At least, he assumed it was. It was locked with a keypad.

If this place really was run as badly as it seemed, there was a chance that the code was written down somewhere. He began to search for it, but before he had gotten far, Bess came running into the room.

"What's the matter?" Ned asked her.

"Two of those security guys are headed in here right now, and besides that…"

Footsteps on the other side of the door which Bess had just entered interrupted her, and Ned darted to the side of the door to wait for whoever was coming in. The door handle started to turn, but at that same moment the overhead light went out. It didn't make much difference in the daylight, but both Ned and Bess knew its significance: George had succeeded in cutting the power.

NDHBNDHBND

One fortunate thing about being imprisoned in a storage room was that there was no shortage of tools to use to escape. A brief search yielded a screwdriver to Nancy, and with Roscoe's help, she was able to use it to take the hinges from the door. They looked up and down the hallway and saw that no one was in sight.

"As long as they didn't move Tom, I'll be able to find him without any trouble," Roscoe asserted. "Come on."

They had only taken a dozen steps or so when two men rounded the corner right in front of them. Roscoe grasped Nancy's arm, whether to protect her or two restrain her, Nancy wasn't sure. Whichever it was, it added to her fright, especially since one of the men was Meyers. The other she almost thought she vaguely recognized, but she couldn't be sure. One thing she did know was that she didn't trust anyone who was walking about openly with Meyers.

"Nancy!" this other man said, taking a step toward her.

Nancy took a step back, noting the surprise and even a flicker of pain in the man's face.

"Now, look," Meyers said. "This isn't what it looks like. I've had it with Delvere. I'm splitting with him."

"Don't believe him, Nancy," Roscoe said, squeezing Nancy's arm. "He'll say anything to get what he wants. Come on!"

He tugged at Nancy's arm, and in the split second in which she had to think, she decided she had a better chance with him than with these other two men. She turned with him and they started running down the hallway. The others called for them to stop. Footsteps pounded behind them, but they were able to dodge into an elevator before they could catch up to them. For a tense second, Nancy worried that they would keep the doors from closing, but they were too far behind. Nancy took a deep breath and leaned against the side of the elevator.

"I wish I would have found this earlier," she said.

"It wouldn't have done you much good," Roscoe said grimly. "There're too many cameras in this place. They would have…"

He was cut off as the elevator came to a sudden, jolting halt and the lights turned off.

"Did they just turn the power off?" Nancy asked in surprise.

"Apparently. And now we're trapped."