Horse Spy (13 page)

Carole proceeded even more slowly, the other riders clustering close behind.

She could see that the object of everyone’s attention was in the middle of the field, but it was not yet visible to the young riders behind the trees on the pathway. It was terrifying and fascinating at once. Carole continued to move forward. She had to know the face of the terrorist, the kidnapper,
the evil person who was threatening her new friend’s well-being.

Carole could see the circle of men in the field—the security agents whom they had seen before, as well as the men who had dropped down from the helicopter—tightening. Once spaced ten feet apart, the men were now only five feet apart, closing in on their prey.

The helicopter pulled up and away. Once again the riders could hear the voices of the security men delivering orders to their prisoner.

“There is no escape for you!” shouted one man as each moved unrelentingly to the center of the field.

And then Carole heard a familiar voice in a familiar tone uttering a familiar phrase.

“Do you know who my father is?”

Carole, Lisa, and Stevie all looked at one another. There was only one person in the world who would utter such a ridiculous question when surrounded by two dozen counterterrorists.

“What’s
she
doing here?” Lisa asked, stunned.

Without further ado, the riders urged their horses forward, into the open field. There, standing beside her horse, Danny, surrounded by an entire platoon of security guards, held at gunpoint by two men in ninja black who’d just dropped down out of a helicopter, was none other than Veronica diAngelo.

I
T TOOK A WHILE
to persuade the men to put their guns down, and it didn’t help that Veronica refused to raise her arms. She just kept sputtering that these men hadn’t heard the last of her. For their part, they kept insisting that she was going to spend the rest of her life in a desert prison. There was, in fact, a major communication gap.

It wasn’t easy to explain Veronica to Karya. As everybody who knew Veronica said, she defied explanation. Veronica bristled furiously when Stevie used words like
snob
and
spoiled rich girl
.

“Aha,” said Karya, finally getting it. “I think I understand.”

“Well, see, her father is the president of the bank in town, and I suspect she thinks that means that you and she have a lot in common,” Lisa said.

“Yes, I definitely understand,” said Karya. “But you’re sure she’s harmless?”

“
Harmless
is the last word I would ever use about Veronica,” Stevie said. “She’s snobby, mean, vindictive, a liar and a cheat. And much as I would love to have her spend the rest of her natural days in a sweltering desert prison—that’s what the man said, isn’t it?—it would have to be for something she actually did. She’s no kidnapper, and she’d never hang around with terrorists, because they just don’t come from the right families.”

“Yes, I definitely understand now,” said Karya.

She rode Barq forward and summoned the captain of the security men. She spoke with him earnestly for a few minutes, making gestures that were unmistakably Veronica, with her eyebrows arched, looking down her nose.

Finally the captain began nodding in understanding. He signaled his men to step back and lower their weapons and waved to the helicopter to leave the area. The men opened a hole in the circle and allowed Veronica, leading Danny, to pass.

Veronica kept her eyes straight ahead. She did not acknowledge the presence of The Saddle Club, though she did offer a teeny-tiny bow of thanks to Karya for intervening on her behalf. Karya waved at her. Slowly and deliberately, Veronica and Danny walked out of the circle and toward the path that would take them back to the stable.

As she left, another horse and rider approached.

“What now?” Stevie asked, trying to identify the rider from a distance. “Agent Double-oh-seven?”

“Nope,” said Lisa. “It’s Double-oh-Max!”

Max looked utterly baffled by what greeted him in the
clearing, and as Carole thought about what he was seeing, she could understand why. Two dozen heavily armed men were standing in a ragged circle, looking distraught. Three of Max’s riders and their VIP guest were on horseback, with Carole leading a fifth horse.

“What the …,” Max said, recognizing Polaris.

“It was Frieda!” Stevie said.

“I don’t …”

“We didn’t, either,” said Carole.

“But we knew she was up to no good and we trailed her!” said Karya.

“Is that why …?”

“Yep!” said Stevie.

“But how …?”

“Well, it’s a long story,” Stevie began.

“And I’ve got a lot of time to hear it,” said Max.

“Not yet,” Carole said. “First we’ve got to see if someone can catch Frieda.”

“I think I can help with that now that my guards aren’t tracking down the infamous Veronica,” said Karya.

Again she summoned the captain, who seemed very eager to please her. She spoke in rapid Arabic. He snapped orders into the walkie-talkie. The helicopter quickly returned, hovered over the field with ropes dangling, and seemed to suck up the troopers whom it had so recently lowered into the field. Then off it sped.

“If she’s there, they’ll catch her,” Karya said.

“Well, they certainly have proved this afternoon that they can track down evildoers!” Stevie said.

“What are you talking about?” Max asked.

“Like I said, it’s a long story,” said Stevie.

“Then let’s just get back to Pine Hollow and you can amuse me with details on the way.”

“Whatever you want, Max,” Stevie said.

The four girls, Max, and the championship horse returned to the stable, followed by a dozen foot soldiers and four guards on horseback. It was quite a parade by any measure.

I
T TOOK ANOTHER
forty-five minutes to explain the whole situation to Max and to tell him the complete story of Polaris’s rescue—well, the
nearly
complete story. Once they could stop being worried about real kidnappers and terrorists in the woods around Pine Hollow, they all agreed, without further conversation, that Max really didn’t need to know they’d been playing games with the security men.

The security men, on the other hand, knew exactly what had been going on. Alek, the secretary, was designated by the men in black to have a brief conversation with Karya about following the orders of the men whose job it was to protect her. She had to apologize to them. She didn’t mind that, though, because they, in turn, had to apologize to Veronica diAngelo, whose father had called the State Department in less time than it took to give Polaris a decent ration of oats. But The Saddle Club’s favorite part was when Veronica was required to apologize to the security men for not obeying them.

“She takes humiliation so well,” Stevie observed as Veronica
stomped out of the stable and flounced into her mother’s Mercedes, slamming the door. Mrs. diAngelo then nearly ran into Judy Barker’s truck as Judy, Pine Hollow’s vet, arrived to check Polaris’s foot to see if there was any residual damage from the stone.

“Fit as can be,” Judy announced a few minutes later. “He’s going to be fine to compete on Saturday!”

Finally the girls got to put their own horses back in their own stalls, groom them, water them, and feed them.

Barq’s stall was next to Prancer’s and across from Starlight’s and Belle’s.

“This has been a wonderful day,” said Carole.

“The only problem is that we didn’t get to visit enough,” said Karya.

“Well, we’ve definitely got to go to school tomorrow, but we’re planning a sleepover at Stevie’s on Saturday night. Could you come, or would that mean missing a chance at the embassy dinner for retired—”

“You bet I’ll come,” Karya said. “And the retired dam workers can have their embassy dinner without me. But aren’t you going to go to the horse show and watch these guys perform?” she asked, pointing down the aisle to where Polaris and Blue were gazing out of their stalls.

“Can’t get tickets,” Stevie said. “The thing’s been sold out for months.”

“You know,” said Karya, reaching for her cell phone, “being the daughter of the president of a small country can be a nuisance a lot of the time, like when you have to do absolutely everything your security guards tell you to do. But it does have
some
benefits.” She punched in some numbers and
spoke in her rapid-fire Arabic. She smiled, said, “Okay,” then hung up.

“Four tickets. Ringside. Is that okay?”

“That’s okay!” Stevie told her.

“Yahoo!” Carole agreed.

“T
HAT WAS
wonderful
!” Carole declared.

Lisa, Stevie, and Karya didn’t have to ask her what she meant. They all agreed completely.

It was Saturday night. The girls were having their sleepover at Stevie’s. They had had a wonderful time at the horse show, enjoying every single minute of the afternoon. Not only had their seats been ringside, but also they’d been in the VIP area, and the four had been waited on all afternoon by a staff eager to please them. Stevie had been pleased to oblige them by taking a soda every time anyone offered to get her something.

“I don’t think I could ever drink another soda,” Stevie said now.

“Well, if you eat any more of that popcorn you brought home, you’re going to need lots more soda,” said Lisa.

“No, I’m just trying to catch up,” Stevie told her.

Karya laughed. “Are you three always this silly?”

“Except when we’re sillier,” said Carole. “And when everything works out as well as this adventure did, we’ve definitely earned the right to be silly!”

“It’s okay with me,” said Karya. “So pass me the popcorn and let’s talk again about how perfect the horse show was. My favorite part was when Polaris came in third. He’s as wonderful in the ring as he is on the Rocky Trail!”

“What competition there was!” Stevie said. “I thought it was a miracle that he got a ribbon at all!”

“It was all those suppling exercises,” Lisa declared.

“And that must be why Blue got a yellow in jumping!” said Carole. “Did you see the way she took those fences. Man, I thought she was flying!”

“Like Pegasus,” said Karya.

“Exactly,” Carole agreed.

“I’ll tell you what my very favorite part was, though,” said Stevie.

“What?” Lisa asked.

“Seeing the empty seat in the Walkers’ box where Mrs. Walker was supposed to be,” said Stevie.

“I guess a woman who’s been arrested for conspiring to kidnap a horse just doesn’t dare to show her face at the show!” said Lisa.

“Well, I felt sorry for Ellen,” said Carole. “She knew what her mother had tried to do and she still had the courage to ride in the show.”

“And get a ribbon!” said Karya. “That took guts.”

“And skill.”

“So what’s going to happen to Mrs. Walker and Frieda?” Karya asked.

The girls turned to Stevie because her parents were attorneys and they always expected her to have the answer to a legal question.

“Beats me,” she said. “I doubt there’ll be a trial. When Karya’s guards captured Frieda, she was driving a van rented by Mrs. Walker. It’s pretty obvious they’re guilty as can be.”

“You know what I wonder?” said Lisa.

“What?” Carole asked.

“I wonder what Mrs. Walker would have done if she’d known there were all those other horses that were going to do better than Ellen and Blue.”

“I don’t wonder because I don’t want to think about it,” said Karya. “She’s a dreadful woman!”

There was a knock at the door of Stevie’s room.

“Come on in,” Stevie said.

The door opened a crack. “Please?” said a quiet male voice. “Ms. Karya?”

“Come in,” Karya told the man. It was the bodyguard assigned to stay at the Lakes’ that night and look after her welfare.

“Mrs. Lake sent these to you.…”

He stepped into the room, carrying a tray with freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, a pitcher of milk, and four glasses.

Stevie made space on her desktop for the tray and then offered a cookie to the guard.

He shook his head politely. “Not while I’m on the job, thank you,” he said, smiling at his joke.