Olympus: It's Not Just a Game

Chapter 44

Mrs. Morrison stared hopelessly at the floor. Behind the big, plexiglass window, Mr. Huber was still in shock. He had hoped she would be bringing him news that she had gotten bail. Instead, she had related how her ex-husband had seized Simon, right in the police station.

"What will we do?" she whispered.

"I don't know," Mr. Huber answered. "I can't think straight. We need help!" He drummed his heavy fingers on the drab walls of the visiting room. "Avery. We need to talk to Mark Avery."

Mrs. Morrison looked up. "I don't know if it will do any good. What can he do?"

"Think!" Mr. Huber replied. "That boy can think. Right now, we could use some brain power."

Mrs. Morrison found her way to the nearest telephone, and dialed a string of numbers. "Collect call for Mark Avery from Sheila Morrison," the operator purred.

April Avery loved answering the phone. "Hi, my name's April. Do you want my dad?"

"Collect call for Mark Avery from Sheila Morrison," the operator repeated in a sing-song voice. "Will you accept charges?"

"It depends," April answered cautiously. "Are charges good things or bad things?"

Mr. Avery came down into the kitchen. "Here, April, let me take that." He grabbed the phone. "Hello this is Mark Avery."

"Collect call for Mark Avery from Sheila Morrison," the operator recited, sarcastically. "Am I to presume that there is an adult on the phone?"

"Yes, this is Mark Avery. I'll accept charges."

"I guess charges are good," April muttered to herself, as she perched on a school, staring at her father.

"Mark, we're in terrible trouble," Mrs. Morrison gasped. "They took Simon and Dan's in jail and we couldn't find Karl!"

Mr. Avery almost dropped the phone. "Hold on!" he exploded. "Who took Simon? Why is Dan in jail ? And what happened when you went looking for Karl?"

It took awhile for Mr. Avery to make sense of her story, and when he did, he was still confused. "Why would they grab Wheeler?"

"To get at me, maybe," she suggested faintly. Then her voice broke. "Or to get him! Simon is so – so naïve! He worships his father. Ray could always make him do anything he wanted, just like a trained seal."

Mr. Avery hesitated. "Are you saying Wheeler might actually side with his father in all this?"

"He'd crawl across fire – if he could crawl – to earn his approval."

"That's bad," Mr. Avery groaned. "Your ex may be evil, but he isn't dumb – if he grabbed Wheeler, he had a reason for it."

Mrs. Morrison sighed bitterly. "I guess you're right," she answered. "But what can we do?"

"Nothing for Wheeler, at least not now," Mr. Avery answered. "This is too big for the two of us. Can we get Dan out on bail?"

"I was working on that when they came and took Simon," Sheila answered. "They said something about filing a property lien on his house."

"They'll probably need some information on the property to do that," Mr. Avery observed. "Go back to the clerk and find out what they need. I'll head over to the Hubers to get it. Call me there." He hung up and jumped into his minivan. When Mr. Avery had installed the Huber's new computer, he had seen that Mr. Huber was fanatic about filing, and it only took him minutes to locate a manila folder labeled "12148 Comello Court: Deeds, Etc."

The phone rang. It was Mrs. Morrison, with the clerk's list of documents. He flipped on the Executive Battle-Station and typed in the clerk's fax number. Then he started feeding documents into the scanner. "Okay, they all went through," he said. "Is that all you need?"

"I think so," she quavered. "But don't go anywhere."

"I'll be right here," he answered. "How long do you think this will take?"

"I don't know," she replied. "I hope you brought a good book."

Mr. Avery grimaced. Dan Huber's taste in books ran mostly to machine tool catalogs. He said down in the comfortable office armchair and fiddled with a pencil, then a paper clip. He fired up a solitaire game on the computer, and got stuck three times in a row. He shook his head in disgust. Something caught his eye – the bold gold lettering on a business card that Mr. Huber had tucked under one edge of his computer monitor.

Atlantis GameWorks

Peter Antipas, President

There was a facemail address. Mr. Avery stared at it. Should he? No, of course not. What could – or would – Antipas do? Still, the card was just lying there, teasing him. Why not call? What did he have to lose?

He brought up the communications menu, and launched the face mail application. He typed in the address. An icon of a ringing telephone appeared, and then was replaced by a smiling picture of Peter Antipas.

"Hello, you have reached my office but I'm not available. Leave a short message, and I or one of my dedicated staff will get right back to you!" The image smiled cordially, and then froze.

"Mr. Antipas, this is Mark Avery," he said, somewhat self-consciously, staring at the tiny camera above the screen. "We went to investigate the missing person case we told you about, but something big is afoot. We suspect that Olympus, Inc. is directly involved in kidnapping. Get back to me."

The image of Lord Peter vanished, and Mr. Avery stared sourly at the empty screen. The solitaire game mocked him.

The phone rang. It was Mrs. Morrison. All the paperwork was in order, and Mr. Huber would be released presently. "What next?" Mr. Avery asked.

"I don't know," she groaned. She sounded very weary. "It's gotten so bad, I started praying."

"As bad as that?" he asked bitterly.

She didn't hear the sarcasm in his voice. "Laugh if you want. Prayer changes things!"

Suddenly, his computer screen came to life. An icon appeared, and expanded to fill a quarter of the window. An electronic voice announced, "Incoming message!" Then Peter Antipas' face appeared.

Mr. Avery scrambled to respond. He clicked the box that said "Communicate Now," and called out, "Mr. Antipas!"

In Lord Peter's office, Mr. Avery's face appeared on a similar screen. Peter leaned back in his leather chair and said, "You pique my curiosity, Avery. What do you mean, 'Something big is afoot?'"