"DeBaptiste, Mike - Rick Raider 01 - Danger on the Gold Trail" - читать интересную книгу автора (DeBaptiste Mike)

"Come on in," Rick invited. "Aunt Bea was brewing up some soup earlier. Should be ready by now."
"Sounds yummy," Sally said as they jumped off the Snowcats. "Homemade soup is the perfect treat on a cold winter day."
"Right," Charlie agreed. "And Aunt Bea’s is the best in town!"
Rick’s aunt was his dad’s sister. She’d been living with them since the death of Rick’s mother when he was a little boy. A spinster, she had devoted her life to taking care of her brother and Rick, and -as Charlie put it - ‘feeding them until it came out of their ears’.
They were brushing off the snow from their jackets and jeans as they hurried into the hall through the side door.
"Mmmmmm." Sally sniffed the air as she pulled off her boots.
Charlie grinned. "Do I smell chicken soup or what?"
"You sure do, bud." Rick hung his jacket and ski cap on the hall rack. He winked at Sally. "And you’d better eat some, Charlie. Aunt Bea’s feelings will be hurt if you don’t."
Charlie snorted. "When have I ever been known to refuse food in this or any other house?"
"Never!" It was Sally who answered. "At least not to our knowledge."
The three friends were chuckling as they walked up the stairs to the kitchen, but their laughter died instantly when they saw Aunt Bea. She was hanging up the receiver on the wall phone across the room, a frightened look on her usually smiling face.
A line creased Rick’s brow. "Aunt Bea, what’s wrong?"
The woman stared at them, her hands trembling. She opened her mouth but no words came out. She looked at Charlie and then at Sally, as if she couldn’t talk in front of them. But then she went ahead anyway and blurted, "Oh, Rick! There’s bad news. Your father is missing!"
"What? Dad’s missing?"
Aunt Bea fingered her apron nervously, her face tense with worry. She looked at Charlie and Sally again, but then shrugged her shoulders and went on. "I just had a call from InterTell. Your dad has not reported in the allotted time. He’s classified as missing-in-action."
Rick plopped down on one of the chairs at the kitchen table. His father, Randolph Raider, was an agent for InterTell, a government secret service organization.
"Missing-in-action?" he repeated, letting out a nervous groan. "Jeez! Guess I never thought anything could ever happen to Dad."
"None of us did," Charlie agreed, looking at Rick worriedly. He and Sally knew about Mr. Raider’s work, but only because of events in the very recent past that had made them part of the secret.
Aunt Bea shook her head, sighing wearily. "I always dreaded the worst would happen someday. Why does he have to have such a dangerous job? A secret agent! He could own a Burger King or something!"
Sally’s face was pale as she sat down on the stool by the phone. She feared the very worst. Her own father, Professor Anderson, a member of the faculty at Lake University where she, Rick and Charlie were students, had accompanied a scientific expedition to the Yukon Territory in northwestern Canada a few months ago. Some time later, when no word had been received from the expedition, InterTell had sent Mr. Raider in search of it.
She looked at the others, her pretty features drawn and tense. "I can’t believe this! First my father and the entire expedition disappear, and now Mr. Raider is gone too. What’s happened to them all?"
"That’s what I want to know!" Aunt Bea sat down at the table and drummed her fingertips on its shiny top. "But InterTell won’t tell you a thing. What are we going to do?"
Rick sighed, running his fingers through his dark wavy hair. "First thing is that we keep cool. Working up a panic won’t do us any good. And they’ve got to be sending more agents to check it out."
Aunt Bea nodded. "Yes, I was told the investigation would continue. Agents are most probably on their way right now."
Charlie wasn’t too confident about their success. "I hope they don’t vanish into thin air too!"
"It wouldn’t be much of a surprise at this point," Sally said. She made a hopeless gesture, looking close to tears. "It’s all so mysterious. We don’t know why my dad went to the Yukon in the first place. What’s going on up there? What was the purpose of the expedition? And what happened to them all?"
She shook her head and added, "And I’m so worried about Dad. He’s a college professor, not an adventurer. Oh, I know he’s in great shape but Yukon winters are treacherous. It probably gets down to a hundred below zero. I’m afraid something terrible has happened to him."
Charlie joined Rick and Aunt Bea at the table. "Yow! Talk about a frustrating situation. I wish there was something we could do."
Rick was watching Sally and he couldn’t bear to see her so upset. He looked thoughtfully at his aunt and Charlie and a determined look came to his face. He knew he could not just sit still and stay quiet any longer with his own dad and Sally’s dad in what could be mortal danger.
"There definitely is something we can do," he said to the others. "It’s semester break. Charlie and I have nothing of importance to do. We can go up to the Yukon ourselves and search for Dad and Professor Anderson."
Charlie shot him a surprised look. Then his eyes lit up. "Duuuuude! Now you’re talkin’!"
Aunt Bea was astounded. "You’ll do no such thing! The Yukon is thousands of miles away. What do you boys know about the far north and how to survive in it? Especially in winter!"
"I know quite a bit about the Yukon," Rick answered her patiently. "We studied the territory in high school and I wrote a paper about the Gold Rush of 1898. And Charlie and I love winter. We ski and snowshoe and have gone hunting and winter camping dozens of times. There’s no reason we can’t go to the Yukon."
Charlie pushed back his chair. "Tell her about it! I’m going home right now and let my folks know. We’ll make like Indiana Jones and find that lost expedition pronto!"
"Now just a minute!" Aunt Bea’s voice was such a screech that Charlie sat right back down. "What’ll you do when you get there? You don’t know anything about the expedition or to what part of that vast territory it was headed. It’s all classified information. Sally and her mother don’t even know."
"That’s right," Sally agreed. "Dad couldn’t tell us anything about it."
Rick sat back and folded his arms across his chest. The others were looking at him and he knew it was time to level with them. For a moment he wondered if he should’ve done it before.
"I know all about the expedition," he told them, "and all about my dad’s assignment to investigate its disappearance."
The others looked at him with opened mouths.
"You do?" Sally asked in disbelieving tones.
"What do you mean?" Aunt Bea asked. "That’s secret government information."
A muscle quivered at Rick's jaw. "I’ve worked with Dad as a research assistant on several of his recent assignments," he told them. "I’m a member of a work/study program InterTell is conducting with a few students throughout the country, grooming them for the agency. I got on the program because Dad’s a top gun there, and my academic record in high school and at the University helped. Plus, I have access to it’s library. Lake University’s library is one of the most extensive research collections in the world."
The others gaped at him for a moment. Then Charlie blurted, "Are you serious?" He looked angry enough to punch Rick. "You work for InterTell? That’s why you put in all that time at the library? And I thought you were studying."
Sally looked at Rick accusingly. "So did I. Why didn’t you tell us?"
Rick was exasperated. "I’m not supposed to! The only reason you found out about my dad, Sally, is because your father was missing. The agency knew our families were close friends and to help comfort your mom they allowed the information that my dad would be on the case." Rick glanced at Charlie. "And then we had to let Bozo here in on it too, he was so suspicious."
"Darn right I was!" Charlie was glaring at them. "Everybody being so secretive. Here, my best friend’s dad was James Bond and I didn’t even know about it. I believed that stupid story you tell everyone that he’s a traveling salesman."
Rick couldn't help laughing at that, and it helped to ease the tension amongst them. Once Sally knew that Rick’s dad was a secret agent, they knew they had to tell Charlie. He was suspicious and would not leave them alone until they leveled with him. They knew that the strong bonds of their friendship would keep the secret intact.
"It’s not funny," Charlie growled. "And now you tell me you’re James Bond Junior, and I didn’t know a thing about it!"
Aunt Bea sighed. "Goodness! I guess there goes the national security."
Charlie pounded a fist on the table. "I’ll never tell a soul!"