ALSO BY RIDLEY PEARSON
Kingdom Keepers—Disney After Dark
Kingdom Keepers II—Disney at Dawn
Kingdom Keepers III—Disney in Shadow
Steel Trapp—The Academy
WITH DAVE BARRY
Blood Tide
Cave of the Dark Wind
Escape from the Carnivale
Peter and the Sword of Mercy
Peter and the Secret of Rundoon
Peter and the Shadow Thieves
Peter and the Starcatchers
Science Fair
www.ridleypearson.com
For Paige and Storey and their paternal grandfather, “Bop-Pop” Robert G. Pearson, who made reading a pleasure instead of a requirement
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to my editor at Disney, Wendy Lefkon; my Disney publicist, Jennifer Levine; Amy Berkower at Writers House, who is instrumental in all my publishing; Nancy Litzinger, who keeps the office running; Laurel and David Walters, who scour the manuscripts; and to Eric Robertson (retired) of the US Marshals Office, Department of Justice (Seattle), who shared the often secret world of witness protection and helped to create the character of Roland Larson. And special thanks to Dave Barry for reminding me to always keep it simple and make it fun—words to live by.
Copyright © 2008 Page One, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Published by Disney • Hyperion Book, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney • Hyperion Book, 114 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10011-5690.
Printed in the United States of America
First Edition
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN: 978-1-4231-4114-3
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Visit www.disneybooks.com
www.ridleypearson.com
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Page
Prologue
Chapter 1.
Chapter 2.
Chapter 3.
Chapter 4.
Chapter 5.
Chapter 6.
Chapter 7.
Chapter 8.
Chapter 9.
Chapter 10.
Chapter 11.
Chapter 12.
Chapter 13.
Chapter 14.
Chapter 15.
Chapter 16.
Chapter 17.
Chapter 18.
Chapter 19.
Chapter 20.
Chapter 21.
Chapter 22.
Chapter 23.
Chapter 24.
Chapter 25.
Chapter 26.
Chapter 27.
Chapter 28.
Chapter 29.
Chapter 30.
Chapter 31.
Chapter 32.
Chapter 33.
Chapter 34.
Chapter 35.
Chapter 36.
Chapter 37.
Chapter 38.
Chapter 39.
Chapter 40.
Chapter 41.
Chapter 42.
Chapter 43.
Chapter 44.
Chapter 45.
Chapter 46.
Chapter 47.
Chapter 48.
Chapter 49.
Chapter 50.
Chapter 51.
Chapter 52.
Chapter 53.
Chapter 54.
Chapter 55.
Chapter 56.
Chapter 57.
Chapter 58.
Chapter 59.
Chapter 60.
Chapter 61.
Chapter 62.
Chapter 63.
Chapter 64.
Chapter 65.
Chapter 66.
Chapter 67.
Chapter 68.
Chapter 69.
Chapter 70.
Chapter 71.
Chapter 72.
Chapter 73.
Chapter 74.
Chapter 75.
Chapter 76.
Chapter 77.
Chapter 78.
PROLOGUE:
MAY 31
OPENING DAY,
THE NATIONAL SCIENCE CHALLENGE
WASHINGTON, D. C.
His heart stopped.…It had nothing to do with nerves.
The bleachers surrounding the science challenge’s demonstration area teemed with parents and family members, all jostling for better views. In the front rows, reporters had their laptops out, while their colleagues manned TV cameras at the back of the hall, their black lenses staring up at the stage like giant eyeballs.
Exhibition Room B of the Grand Hyatt’s convention center had been converted into a kind of basketball arena with a raised stage at one end, bleachers on both sides, and a cordoned-off media area at the opposite end. Prior to introductions—which were to be done alphabetically, making Steven “Steel” Trapp one of the last names to be called—the previous year’s winner was to demonstrate his blue-ribbon invention.
Steel shielded his eyes from the bright lights that played down onto him and the other contestants, searching for his mother among the hundreds of guests in the audience. His breath caught, and he gasped aloud as he thought he recognized a face out there.
The foreign woman from the train… Spanish or Mexican, with dark hair and brooding, worried, eyes.
The stupid lights from the TV cameras blinded him, and though he did everything he could to block them—short of standing up and leaving the stage—he couldn’t be certain that it was her.
The cameras all followed a robot that came out onto the floor—it looked like an emergency cone with a retractable arm—and tried to pick up a glass full of water, but dropped it. The glass broke, the water spilled, and the audience let out a sigh of disappointment.
But quickly, a second robot zoomed out, bounced off a chair, vacuumed up the broken glass, and mopped up the water.
The crowd applauded—the broken glass had been part of the demonstration.
Steel held his hand up to the lights once again: empty! Her seat was empty now. He scanned the faces in the crowd, wishing he weren’t part of this.
Initially, he had been thrilled to have earned a spot in the National Science Challenge. He’d come here to demonstrate and explain his remote-controlled electronic sniffer. But the events of the past few days had changed all that; he had much more serious concerns now. A human life hung in the balance. Playing with robots seemed foolish.
As the introductions began, he searched the crowd again. He spotted Kaileigh and wondered at the injustice of her being in the bleachers. She belonged onstage with him and the others. Like all girls his age, she looked older than Steel. She had brownish-red hair, green eyes, and some freckles at her cheekbones. But beneath her good looks she was just another geek, and not ashamed to admit it. He was angry about the circumstances that now prevented her from participating.
He finally caught sight of his mother—near the aisle in the second row on his left—her full attention fixed on him. She glanced away quickly when caught, then slowly looked back and met his eyes. Her expression begged him not to be mad at her for staring. But he wasn’t mad at her. It was his father who had ticked him off. A week earlier his dad had extended a business trip at the last minute. He was supposed to be the one in the bleachers, not Steel’s mom. His dad had bailed on him—bailed on a project he’d helped Steel create. His dad absolutely should have been here. His dad belonged here. His dad was a jerk for missing this. Worse, Steel had had a bad feeling about his da
d just before his mom had told him he wasn’t going to make it home in time for the trip. A very bad feeling. More than anything, he just wanted to see his dad in person, to talk to him. It felt almost as if…but he pushed that horrible thought away, as he had so often this past week.
Steel looked for the mystery woman again, and still there was a gap in the bleachers where she’d been sitting.
One by one, the contestants were introduced. The next kid up to the microphone wore a Hawaiian shirt, a vain attempt to be someone he was not. A nerd is a nerd. Get used to it.
One of the cameras moved at the back of the room. Steel looked in that direction. But it wasn’t the camera he saw. Instead, he caught sight of two men, two faces he knew only too well.
The federal agents from Union Station. He could hardly think.
Oddly enough, they weren’t looking at him, but instead, into the crowd. He followed their gaze.
There!
She’d switched seats. The woman with the dark eyes. The woman with the foreign accent from the train platform in Chicago. The woman who’d started all the trouble with the briefcase in the first place.
He had no doubts now: it was her, sitting only a few rows behind Steel’s mother.
To his horror, he watched as his mother also spotted the agents. She got up from her seat in a hurry and worked her way down the aisle and—steaming mad, there was no mistaking that look of hers—marched toward the taller agent. Steel had to stop her.
He stood up.
An older kid next to him pushed him down and said, “Stay in your seat, Einstein. It’s not your turn, unless your name is Annie Delmer.”
Steel’s belly twisted into an unforgiving knot.
There was only one explanation for the woman’s being here: she was looking for the briefcase.
FRIDAY, MAY 13,
TWO WEEKS BEFORE
THE CHALLENGE
Kyle Trapp’s heart soared. He loved flying, and he was currently piloting a single-engine Cessna five thousand feet above Lake Michigan. The sky shone blue above lake water of cinnamon gray. Kyle possessed information vital to the investigation, a secret so sensitive that he couldn’t trust telephones or e-mail; he could deliver it only in person. He checked his watch: another two hours.
The smell hit him first: a nasty, bitter taste at the back of his throat. It took him just seconds to realize it was electrical. The plane’s avionics—the flight instruments—all went dark simultaneously. He tapped the various dials. Nothing. Without electronics, he couldn’t set the plane to fly itself, so he steadied the yoke and double-checked the fuses by running his hand over them, feeling for one that might be sticking out. Again, nothing.
The motor coughed and sputtered, then caught back to life.
He stayed calm, as he’d been trained, and tried to determine the cause, and therefore the solution. He pulled his laminated checklists out of the door’s side pocket, flipped through the pages, and tried some circuit breakers, to no effect.
Every electrical instrument on the plane’s console was dead. Only the vacuum-assisted devices still worked: the altitude indicator and the compass.
He pulled a backup radio out of his flight bag, switched it on, and tuned to an emergency frequency.
A new smell: burning oil.
The motor was on fire.
Coughing, he set the radio down on the copilot seat and twisted open the small vent, letting in much-needed fresh air.
The altitude indicator informed him the plane was slipping to the right. Seeing this, he jerked the wheel too strongly, an amateur mistake. The radio slipped off the seat and banged out of sight.
A haze filled the cockpit, despite the vent. He coughed and gagged as it grew thicker.
He reached under his seat for the fire extinguisher—but where to aim? He couldn’t see any fire, only smell it.
With a fire raging on the other side of the console, he couldn’t use the supplemental oxygen without risk of causing an explosion.
The fuselage began to shudder. The plane picked up speed, now in a steep dive.
Gagging and coughing, he pulled on the yoke, worked the rudder, but everything felt wrong. It wasn’t just a dive, it was a spiral. The plane sank faster and faster, the whine of the wind in the side vent now a scream. What to do?
He knew how to pull out of a “dead man’s spiral”—he’d not only studied it during his training, he’d practiced it—so why couldn’t he remember now? Then he realized why: his head was faint. He wasn’t thinking clearly. He was on the verge of passing out.
The motor coughed once more, and died.
His head swooned. He couldn’t see, couldn’t stop coughing, couldn’t think. And yet he pulled the plane out of the spiral. He leveled off and spotted a tiny island up ahead. Or was that the shore?
Holding the yoke one-handed, he unfastened his harness and lunged across the passenger seat, his right hand frantically searching for the fallen handheld radio. He felt something…but no, that wasn’t it. Again his fingers touched cold metal—but this was some part of the seat. Not the radio.
One last try: he had it.
He depressed the button on the side of the radio, raised it to his dry lips, and managed to get out one word, over and over like a prayer:
“Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!…”
He forced his door open, battling the air pressure holding it shut. For a moment, the cockpit cleared, and he could see.
Sand…flat sand…
He set the flaps and gripped the yoke with both hands.
1.
THURSDAY, MAY 29,
TWO DAYS BEFORE
THE NATIONAL
SCIENCE CHALLENGE
“FIDOE stands for Fully Integrated Digital Odor Evaluator. It is to robots what a bloodhound is to the world of dogs. I recycled parts from the MITZ-AI-5, capitalizing on momentum components to conserve battery power.” Steel’s voice faltered and cracked above the steady hum of the train car’s ventilation system. The train stood at platform seven in Chicago’s Union Station, awaiting its scheduled departure.
“I’m not saying I understand it the way your father does, but you delivered it well,” Judy Trapp said to her son.
“I can’t do this.”
“Of course you can. You read that very well. You’ll do fine. Read some more.”
“Later,” he said. “If that’s all right.”
“Later is okay,” she said, “as long as we rehearse the whole talk. It’s going to be different with an audience. The more you practice, the easier it will be when the time comes.”
He knew she wouldn’t push him—his mother was in awe of his brain power. She was always defending him to his more demanding father. She pretty much gave him whatever he wanted whenever he wanted it. He didn’t overuse this power—or tried not to—but he knew she was there when he needed her.
“Can I go check on Cairo?” Steel asked. It seemed unfair that their dog had to ride in the baggage compartment.
“Ste…ven!” She used his given name rarely, but when she did, it was typically in a tone of voice that informed him he was on dangerous ground. The nickname, Steel, had been the work of his first-grade teacher, who, astonished by his photographic memory, had said in front of all his friends that he had “a mind like a steel trap”—making a play on words with his last name. But the nickname had been picked up by his classmates and had stuck, eventually finding its way into his home.
The scolding had a bit of his father in the sound of it, and for a moment it took Steel aback. Truth was, his mother was out of her element taking him to the National Science Challenge.
She didn’t belong here; she never paid any attention to his science projects. So why now? It occurred to him that she was there in place of his father because his parents were having problems. He wasn’t blind. He’d seen plenty of families self-destruct. But his own? It seemed inconceivable. Still…the way she was acting…
“Ah, come on, Mom. Please?”
“You can visit Cairo on
ly if the conductor is free to help you. He has to unlock the baggage car. You heard him. It wasn’t my idea.”
She used that excuse whenever handy: it was always somebody else’s idea if it amounted to denying him something.
He let his dark bangs fall over his eyes and brushed them away in time to give her the Steel look: a hint of childish sincerity, a touch of playfulness. Cairo gave him the same look when she wanted to go outside and play with her rope toy.
His mother didn’t respond in her usual way, so he sneaked a look at himself in the reflection off the window glass: his ears stuck out a little far; his new glasses looked too big—he hated them. His mouth looked small and his nose too big, all because of those stupid glasses. His mother claimed his face was “growing into itself,” whatever that meant. But combined with his stringy long legs and straw-thin arms, there wasn’t much to grow into. Sadly, he thought he looked like the geek he was. He was the walking stereotype of the human nerd, and there wasn’t anything he could do about it. If he got zits on top of it all, he was going to go live on an uninhabited island.
“Seventy-eight,” he said.
“Seventy-eight what?” she asked. She always got suckered into these tricks of his, and he felt bad for messing with her, but he wanted to visit Cairo; if she wasn’t going to let him, then he was going to mess with her.
“The train car,” he said, “seats seventy-eight passengers. There’s space for two wheelchairs.” She looked at him like he was speaking a foreign language. He went on to recite every statistic about the train that he’d read off an Internet site two weeks earlier. He loved to impress her.
“Wow! You are truly amazing,” she said. So proud. So very proud. She couldn’t help herself.
“I read it on the Internet.” Steel had a photographic memory and total recall. He needed to read something only once, and even a year later he could recite it by heart. That was his secret: it wasn’t that he was so smart, he just never forgot anything. People assumed the two things were the same—but he knew differently. Smart was knowing everything and possessing the creativity to see beyond what you knew. His father was like that. His father had the gift.
The Challenge Page 1
