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PART ONE

THE CAPTURE

Chapter 1

Though the streetlights of Strattenburg were still on, and there was no hint of sunlight in the east, the parking lot in front of the raders arrived in faet rid of the kids for a few days The kids had slept little They had packed all night, tossed and turned in their beds, hopped out long before sunrise, showered, packed some more, awakened their parents, pushed for a quick breakfast, and in general acted as hyper as a bunch of five-year-olds waiting for Santa At six am, as instructed, they all arrived at the school at the sa, sleek, hts glittering in the dark and diesel engines purring

The Eighth-Grade Field Trip! Six hours by bus to Washington, DC, for three-and-a-half days of seeing the sights and four nights of h-rise hotel For this, the students had worked fora thousand cars, cleaning roadside ditches and recycling the alu the sa fruitcakes door-to-door at Christ bake-a-thons and bike-a-thons and book-a-thons, and pursuing with enthusiasm any number of mildly profitable ventures approved by the Field Trip Cooal had been ten thousand dollars, certainly not enough to cover all expenses but enough to guarantee the trip This year the class had raised almost twelve thousand dollars, which meant that each student was assessed 125

There were a few students who could not afford this However, the school had a long tradition of rader was headed to Washington, along with ten teachers and eight parents

Theodore Boone was thrilled that his mother had not volunteered for the trip They had discussed it over dinner His father had quickly bowed out, clai, as usual, that he simply had too ing along, but soon realized she could not Theo checked her trial calendar at the office and knew full well she would be in court while he was having a ball in Washington

As they waited in traffic, Theo sat in the front seat and stroked the head of his dog, Judge, as sitting partially on the console and partially in Theo’s lap Judge usually sat wherever he wanted, and none of the Boones told him otherwise

“Are you excited?” Mr Boone asked He had drop-off duty because Mrs Boone had gone back to bed for another hour of sleep

“Sure,” Theo said, trying to hide his exciteh”

“I’et out of town We’ve gone over the rules Any questions?”

“We’ve been through this a dozen times,” Theo said, mildly frustrated He liked his parents They were a bit older than average, and he was an only child, and at tis that irritated Theo about theardless of who made them, must be followed perfectly

Theo suspected this was because they were both lawyers

“I know, I know,” his father said “Just follow the rules, do what your teachers tell you, and don’t do anything stupid Reo?”

How could Theo, or any other eighth grader, ever forget what happened two years ago? Two bozos—Jimbo Nance and Duck DeFoe—dropped water balloons from a fifth-floor hotel room into the indoor lobby far below No one was hurt, but soot really wet, and really mad A snitch turned them in, and the boys’ parents had to drive six hours in the ht to retrieve the Ji drive They were suspended from classes for a week, and the school was told to find another hotel for future field trips This endary around town, and it was used to caution and frighten Theo and every other eighth grader headed to Washington

They finally parked Theo said good-bye to Judge and told him to stay in the front seat Mr Boone opened a rear door and re that was supposed to weigh under twenty pounds Anything over twenty pounds would be left behind (one of the Big Rules!), and the guilty kid would be forced to make the trip without the benefit of clean clothes and a toothbrush This would not have bothered Theo in the least He had survived a week in the woods with the Boy Scouts with less equipment

• • •

Mr Mount was standing by a bus with soe He was s weighed nineteen pounds, eight ounces His backpack barely made the limit at twelve pounds, and Theo was in business Mr Mount checked the overnight bag for an ID card and told Theo to get on the bus

Theo shook his father’s hand, said good-bye, froze for aawful like that, then breathed a sigh of relief when Mr Boone said, “Have fun Call your mother” Theo scampered aboard

Close by, the girls were saying good-bye to theiron as if they were going off to war and would probably never couys stiffened and tried to get away quickly from their parents with as little contact as possible

The parking lot slowly cleared as the sun rose At precisely seven am, the four buses rolled away fro day had finally arrived, and the kids were noisy and rowdy His seatmate was Chase Whipple, a close friend as often referred to as “The Mad Scientist” To prevent theerous streets of DC, the teachers had implemented the Buddy System For the next four days Theo would be stuck with Chase, and Chase with Theo, and each was supposed to knohat the other was doing at all tiot the bad end of the deal because Chase often got lost on the ca an eye on him would take some work They would share a room with Woody Lambert and Aaron Nyquist

As the buses eased through the quiet streets, the boys chattered excitedly No one had yet thrown a punch or yanked off so, and Mr Mount atching theas, and loudly This was instantly contagious, and before they were out of Strattenburg Theo wished he could have been sitting with April Finnemore on the other bus just ahead

Mr Mount cracked aThings eventually settled down Thirty minutes into the trip, the boys were either asleep or lost in video games

Chapter 2

Theo’s roohth floor of a new hotel on Connecticut Avenue, about a halfwith Chase, Woody, and Aaron, had a clear view of the top half of the Washington Monu to their schedule, the boys would cli But for now, they had to hurry downstairs for a quick lunch, then, they would be off to see the sights

Each student was allowed to pick and choose froton It would take a year of serious work to see everything, so Mr Mount and the other teachers had put together a list from which the students could select their favorites

April had convinced Theo that they should see Ford’s Theatre, the place where Abraha idea Theo convinced Chase, and after lunch they gathered in the hotel lobby with Mr Babcock, a history teacher, and a group of eighteen students

Mr Babcock explained that they would not be taking one of the buses because their group was set to experience the DC subway system, known as the Metro He asked how many of the students had ever ridden on a subway Theo and three others raised their hands

They left the hotel and began walking along a busy sidewalk For kids who lived in a s city were at first hard to absorb So s, so many cars bumper to bu along the sidewalks, all anxious to get somewhere At the Woodley Park Metro Station, they rode the escalator down, far below the streets Mr Babcock had plastic Sive the students limited use of the Metro system Their train was half-e the dark tunnel, April whispered to Theo that it was her first time on a subway Theo said he’d been on one before in New York, when his parents took hih, was far different from DC’s

When the train stopped for the third tiet off at the Metro Center Station They hurried up the steps and back into the sunlight Mr Babcock counted eighteen kids, and they began walking Minutes later they were on 10th Street

Mr Babcock stopped the group and pointed across the street to a handso that was obviously important He said, “That’s Ford’s Theatre, the place where President Lincoln was shot on April 14, 1865 As you know, because you all have spent so nments, the Civil War had just ended; in fact, General Lee had surrendered to General Grant only five days earlier at Appoton was in a good mood, the as finally over, and so President and Mrs Lincoln decided to have a night out on the town Ford’s Theatre was the grandest, nificent theatre in town, and the Lincolns came here often for concerts and plays At the time, the theatre had over two thousand seats, and the play, one called Our Aht”

They walked half a block and stopped again Mr Babcock resumed with, “Now, the war may have been over, but a lot of folks didn’t think so One was a Confederate named John Wilkes Booth He was a well-known actor, and he was even photographed with President Lincoln during his second inauguration, a month earlier Mr Booth was upset because the South had surrendered, and he was desperate to do so to help its cause So he decided to kill President Lincoln Because he was known to the theatre personnel, he was allowed to approach the box where the Lincolns were sitting He shot the president once in the back of the head, ju, then, escaped out the back door”

Mr Babcock turned and nodded at the building beside them He said, “This is the Petersen House, which at that tiht President Lincoln over here, where he was attended to by his doctors throughout the night Word spread quickly A crowd gathered, and federal troops were used to keep people away fro of April 15, 1865”

Enough of the lecture They finally crossed the street and entered Ford’s Theatre

• • •

After two hours, Theo had had enough of the Lincoln killing It was certainly interesting and all that, and he appreciated the historical i was down in the un Booth used

It was aled onto 10th Street and headed back to the Metro Center Station The traffic was even heavier, the sidewalks more crowded Their train was packed with commuters headed ho in the middle of the car, in a croith Chase and April close by, as the train rocked and clicked along the tracks He glanced around hi They all looked tired He wasn’t sure where he would live when he grew up, but he didn’t think it would be in a big city Strattenburg see, not too s No crowded sidewalks He didn’t want to ride a train to and from work

A htly between toe He was less than ten feet away from Theo

He looked faed to wiggle between two ether with the others A few feet closer now, and he could see the man’s face

He’d seen it before, but where? There was so different about it, lasses were new Suddenly, it struck Theo like a brick against the head: The face belonged to Pete Duffy

Pete Duffy? Theand Stratten County Number seven on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted The one to trial in Strattenburg, in front of Judge Henry Gantry, a trial that Theo and his classmates had actually watched The e Gantry declared a ht and had not been heard from since

The e He glanced around as Theo ducked behind another coed stares just after the trial