Page 97 of Diagnosis Attraction

Maybe that’s good. Maybe we can take at least one of them out.

He thought of a plan, telling Elizabeth what he had in mind.

He could feel her uncertainty but also her determination.

He took a position behind a tree, and she moved into a patch of low bushes.

“Matt, she called out. Matt, I’m stuck. Help me.”

Two of the men were too far away to hear her. The other stopped at once, reversing direction and moving cautiously toward the spot where she was standing.

Matt tensed, waiting for the guy to get closer.

“All right,” the thug called out. “I see you. Come out with your hands up.”

Elizabeth moaned. “My foot’s stuck.”

The man took a few careful steps closer, and Matt struck, sending out a bolt that hit him squarely in the center of the chest. He went down, and they both crouched over him.

Matt removed the football helmet and inspected the inside. There was some kind of heavy foil lining, and he laughed out loud.

“What?”

“You know some paranoid mental patients think aluminum foil will protect them from outside influences probing their brains? Apparently, it works—at least when we do the probing.”

The man was stirring. When he reached up and found that his helmet was gone, he gasped.

“Who are you? Why are you after us?” Matt asked.

“Following orders.”

“Who wants us? And why?”

“I’m just doing a job,” he said, repeating what the other guy had said.

“And why are you wearing a helmet.”

“The boss said to.”

“Why?”

He looked away. “He said you had some kind of mind control rays.”

Oh great.

Too bad we can’t read minds,Elizabeth said.

Too bad he doesn’t have more information. But we can’t waste a lot of time on him. The others could come back.He bent to the man.Stop looking for us. Go back to your car. Drive away.

The thug looked confused.

Go on. Get out of here before the man and woman do something worse to you.

The thug gave them a panicked look. Pushing himself up, he began running back the way he’d come like the devil was after him.

When he was out of sight, Matt and Elizabeth moved farther into the swamp. Ahead of them, Matt saw one of the bayous that cut through the area. They could run along the edge, or they could plunge in—which might or might not be a good idea, depending on whether an alligator was waiting to scoop them up.

In the distance, he saw a dock sticking out into the brown water and a couple of boats moored.

---