Read Clive Cussler for Free Online

the Boss barked. "By the time they're found, we'll be long gone."
    "What about the dog?" asked Wrinkle Face.
    "He'll be lost without those brats and will probably end up begging on the streets."
    Floopy couldn't understand English or read, but he knew the Boss was saying something unpleasant about Casey and Lacey and he growled.
    The Boss tensed. "Did you hear something?" he asked his henchmen.
    "Sounded like the wind," said the Beard.
    "No," came back Wrinkle Face. "It was a boat horn."
    "Wind."
    "Horn."
    "Shut up, both of you," snapped the Boss. "It was a dog. I'd know that growl anywhere. It was that dog with the helmet and goggles that bit me in Nevada. He's here on the island. You two, quick, go out and catch him."
    The henchmen looked at the Boss and then at each other, not sure they had heard him right.
    "Don't stand there like a pair of goony birds! Get going!"
    The Beard and Wrinkle Face took off out the door and across the porch where Floopy was lying. They both tripped over him and spilled down the stairs in a heap of arms and legs, grunting like mad bears. The Boss dashed through the door to see what happened. Just as he reached the top of the stairs, Floopy leaped up and bit him on the seat of his pants. The Boss yelled in pain.
    "Oh no, not again!"
    But before he could kick Floopy, the dog had sprung from the porch and scurried into the night.
    The Boss held his hands to his torn pants and glared down at his henchmen. "Go after him! He can't get far!"
    "Maybe he's going for the kids," said the Beard.
    "Won't do him any good," said the Boss. "No way a dog can open doors and get into the cell house, much less open the brats' locked cell door."
    "What'll we do, Boss?" asked Wrinkle Face.
    "Get flashlights, then split up and search the grounds. There's no place he can hide."

8 Escape from Alcatraz

    Following the twins' scent, Floopy ran up to the entrance of the cell house. It was a big steel door that looked impossible for a dog to open. He stood on his hind legs and pushed with his front paws. There came a soft creak from the hinges. He moved back and looked up with his head tilted in puzzlement. He wondered why the big steel door creaked. Standing there, he tried to think like a human. Then it came to him. If the door creaked, it must be unlocked.
    Floopy stood again and pushed with all his might. This time the creak came louder and the door moved an inch. Not knowing about such things, Floopy didn't realize that the bolt hadn't gone into the catch when the Boss's henchmen thought they locked the door. Again he pushed against the door, using all the strength he had. Slowly the big steel door's creak turned into a big squeak and it moved open another six inches, making an opening of seven inches. Although Floopy was hefty for a dog so close to the ground, seven inches was all he needed to squeeze between the opening and wiggle into the cell house.
    Casey and Lacey set to work, taking turns at furiously pulling the ends of their string saws back and forth around one of the bars. The plan was working. The concrete powder glued to the strings cut into the old, rusty bar. But it was slow work, very slow work, and they went through each string saw after only a few minutes.
    "How are we doing?" asked Lacey, making another string saw while Casey pulled the ends of the string one way and then the other.
    "We're cutting a groove, but we have a ways to go," he answered between breaths.
    Just then they heard barking down below on the bottom floor of the cell house.
    "Floopy!" Lacey burst out. "That can only be Floopy!"
    It was true—Floopy had a very distinctive woof, low and almost musical.
    "Here, Floopy!" Casey shouted. "Up here!"
    "Hurry, Floopy!" cried Lacey.
    Floopy's tail began wagging wildly at the sound of his beloved friends' voices. He sniffed their trail up the stairs and down the catwalk to their cell. He arrived, his tongue hanging out and panting from his run through the prison yard.
    "Oh, Floopy," cried