Mission Hindenburg

by C. Alexander London

  “So this competition is for the highest subspace orbit of a passenger airship,” Amy said, reading from one of the articles. “The teams are all trying to launch airships that can cross the Karman Line.”

  “I still don’t get why anyone would want to,” Ham said.

  “It’d be awesome if one of these airships could pull off getting there,” Dan told him, his face lighting up. “See, it’s easy to launch into subspace, but it’s not easy to go fast enough to stay there. It takes huge amounts of energy to reach the speed of eight kilometers per second that you need to orbit the earth. Gravity in subspace is almost as strong as gravity on the surface of the earth, so in order to orbit, you have to basically fall sideways around the curve of the world faster than it’s spinning. To get that kind of speed takes all kinds of fuels and booster engines and heat shields … but an airship uses gas mixtures, right? So if someone could invent one that just kind of drifts into orbit from the ground, it would make spaceflight safer and cheaper than anyone ever imagined. You wouldn’t need such crazy speed to stay up, and by flying at the edge of space you could cover huge distances fast. In subspace orbit it only takes about an hour and a half to go around the world, so it would take just a few minutes to fly to Europe. You could go to China for lunch, Australia for a jog, and be back home for dinner.”

  Dan took a breath. The others stared open-mouthed at him.

  “I didn’t know you were into space travel,” Amy said.

  Dan shrugged like it was no big deal.

  Amy marveled at her brother. He wasn’t reading this from anywhere. She’d seen his photographic memory at work countless times but never seen him geek out on something like space before. Geeking out was usually her thing.

  “It is amazing,” Amy agreed. “Air travel causes huge carbon emissions, a major contributor to global warming. These airships could almost totally eliminate the carbon footprint of air travel. Just think about it. How much carbon do the Cahills alone pump into the atmosphere? We practically live on airplanes.”

  “If you don’t like it, you can get out and walk,” Jonah joked. A bump of turbulence wiped the grin off his face almost instantly.

  “There’d be almost no turbulence on an airship.” Cara grinned at Ian. “You’d never spill soda on your fancy pants again.”

  “I do not wear ‘fancy pants,’ ” said Ian. “I wear sensible slacks that fit properly, and I will not apologize for taking pride in my appearance.”

  “Wow, defensive,” Cara said. “I meant it as a compliment. I like your fancy pants.”

  “Oh, well …” Ian blushed. “Then thank you.”

  “So, guys, not to interrupt this fascinating conversation about Ian’s pants,” Dan piped in, “but there are six airships in this competition and we don’t know which one is going to go all Hindenburg and explode.”

  “What’d the Outcast say?” Cara wondered. “ ‘He who flies closest to the sun will surely fall burning to the earth’?”

  Dan nodded. “And ‘the Karman Line will be crossed.’ ”

  “Has an airship ever risen that high before?” Amy asked.

  Dan shook his head no.

  “Then that must be it, right?” Cara asserted. “Whichever ship gets to that line sixty-two miles up is the one he’s going to target. The one that flies closest to the sun.”

  “But how would the Outcast know which ship that will be?” Amy wondered.

  Ian leaned forward and tapped the article on his phone screen. “With my father and the Lucian leadership involved, you can be sure it won’t be left to chance. They’ll have chosen the target and rigged the competition.”

  “So,” said Amy, who understood what Ian was suggesting about his father’s plan. “We’re not looking for the airship that’s been sabotaged.”

  Ian nodded. “We’re looking for the only one that hasn’t.”

  Athens, Greece

  Jonah’s plane taxied to a stop on a private airstrip in the early morning. Mist shrouded the hangar and cast the limo idling by the runway in a ghostly silhouette. The suited men standing around the limo gave Ian pause.

  “Relax, yo.” Jonah patted Ian on the shoulder. “Those are just the local security guys the studio hires to keep the paparazzi away.”

  “How would the paparazzi even know you were here?” Dan wondered. “We didn’t even know we’d be here ten hours ago.”

  “They always know where Jonah is,” said Hamilton. “They’re better than any spy agency in the world. That’s why I, as his bodyguard, have to be better than they are.”

  “Right on!” Jonah gave Ham a fist bump, and they both opened their hands and made explosion sounds.

  “It is perhaps in very bad taste for you two to ‘blow it up’ right now,” Ian said.

  “Ian’s right,” said Cara, which made Ian’s chest swell a bit. She had her laptop open and was looking at the Airship X Prize page. “We’ve got to stay focused on the problem here. Today all six airships are doing a demonstration flight. None of them will try for the Karman Line until tomorrow, so this is our chance to figure out which of the six ships he’s targeting.”

  “Five,” corrected Ian. “If Omnia Industries is behind one of them, then we know that one won’t be the target. My father made it very clear whose side he was on when he joined the Outcast. You can bet he’s running this plot from that ship, which leaves us twenty-four hours and five potential targets.”

  “You’re thinking we should split up?” Amy asked him.

  “It is the most efficient use of our time,” said Ian. “While you investigate each of the airships to determine which they will allow to go the highest, I will board the Lucian airship to see what I can find out from my father’s people.”

  “I’m not sure splitting up is the best idea,” Amy argued. “Someone is going to end up on board a flying bomb and you’ll be going into enemy territory alone.”

  Ian bit the inside of his cheek. Why must Amy question him all the time?

  “I am in charge now!” he yelled. “It’s my turn! Why can’t you just follow orders? Why must you peck at me all the time? Peck, peck, peck!”

  “Kabra, chill.” Jonah tried to calm him.

  Cara just stared at him and Amy looked at the floor, obviously embarrassed, but not for herself. She had the nerve now to pity him for making a spectacle of himself.

  But he couldn’t stop.

  “I have made my decision!” He sat back down, crossing his arms. “Anyway, a Lucian airship is not ‘enemy territory.’ I am their rightful leader and they are my family. I know how to handle them better than anyone here ever could! Ever!”

  “My only question, sir,” Amy added in mock formality, “is how do we even get on these airships? There’s a huge prize at stake. They’re not going to just let some kids stroll on board. And, family or not, the Lucians will certainly know you’re not supposed to be there, Ian.”

  Ian clenched his jaw. Trying to give Amy Cahill an order was like trying to flap his arms and fly: exhausting and ineffective.

  She’d never blindly follow his leadership, and the others continued to look to her for guidance. Now he’d made it obvious he couldn’t control her. He would have to try a different strategy to get Amy to do as he wished, something he found rather loathsome: He’d have to explain himself.

  “One person is easier to hide than five or six,” Ian explained. “And we do not have time for all of us to inspect each ship together. There is less danger of being discovered. There is a chance our presence will force the Outcast to detonate his target early. If we split up and one of them does explode while we are still investigating —”

  “Not all of us will die,” Dan finished Ian’s thought. A grim silence fell over the cabin of the plane. Ian had to say something to break the mood of foreboding.

  “I believe every one of you is capable of inspecting an airship safely on your own. I have absolute confidence in you.”

  He stared at Amy and she stared back at him. Splitting up really wa
s the only option he could think of. It wasn’t ideal, but she was not offering a better solution.

  All eyes looked from Ian to Amy.

  “That still doesn’t answer how we’ll actually board each of these ships,” Amy said.

  All eyes went back to Ian.

  “Well …” Ian explained. “That is where we’ll need Jonah’s assistance.”

  “I can get myself on board the airship sponsored by Galactica Toys,” Jonah said. “They’re the European distributor for the RoboGangsta action figures and baby kitchen sets.”

  “Perfect,” said Ian. “So you’ll board that ship and assess its chances of winning, but first we’ll need to use some of that Wizard magic to get the others on board their respective airships.”

  “You want me to cause a distraction?” Jonah asked.

  “As only a celebrity of your inexplicable renown can do,” said Ian.

  “You know, sometimes I feel like the only contribution you want from me is my fame,” Jonah said. “Like, I’ve got more to offer than just making my fans riot.”

  “Yes, yes, of course you do, Jonah,” Ian dismissed him. “Perhaps you can hold a press conference to tell everyone all about your new artistic endeavors in RoboGangsta 2.”

  “Yo, Kabra, I told you I’m making Silent Song next,” Jonah said. “The one about the mime.”

  “Wonderful. Your fans will be dying to hear about it,” said Ian. “And while they are enraptured by Jonah’s discussion of his place in the history of cinema and the under-appreciated art of mime, we will use the distraction to slip on board our respective airships. After the demonstration, we’ll coordinate our findings to establish which airship will be the Outcast’s most likely target at the Karman Line.”

  “And then what?” Amy asked.

  Ian clenched his jaw so tight a rigid line of muscle swelled along the side of his face. “And then we will figure out how to stop it from exploding!” he said. “This is my plan. I don’t hear another one, so if you don’t mind, we’ve got an aerial disaster of historic proportions to prevent.”

  Everyone waited for Amy to give a slight nod, as if her approval was needed, even Cara. It felt like an ice pick had stabbed Ian in the back, but he kept his face locked in what he hoped was a confident expression. Leadership was not nearly as pleasurable as he had imagined it would be. He had assumed that as leader, his commands would be followed without question or delay. He had never expected so much … doubt. He wished the others would look to him the way they looked to Amy or even better, the way they had looked to Grace. She was someone who did not abide doubt.

  “Let’s get to it,” he snapped.

  Jonah made a phone call back to LA so that he could arrange his press conference, and Cara and Amy looked over the descriptions for each of the experimental airships, while Dan fidgeted and looked up at the sky. Ian could swear the boy had a smile forming on his lips.

  Ian felt far from smiling. As they stepped from the plane and piled into the limousine, he quietly feared he had just ordered at least one of them to step on board a flying bomb. If things went wrong, the death of one of his only friends would be on his hands. This is how a general must feel before a battle.

  Why, he wondered, would anyone want to be a general?

  The weight of his last name hung around his neck.

  Would he really be able to outfox his father, the criminal who had disowned him, disgraced him, and joined a coup against him, the man who had taught Ian everything he knew about ruthlessness?

  He also wondered: If it came down to it, would his father really let him fall from the edge of space, as Daedalus let his son, Icarus, fall into the sea?

  Moscow, Russia

  “Try to blend into the crowd,” Nellie Gomez suggested to Sammy Mourad as they strolled among the tourists outside the candy-colored spires of the Kremlin. Bright redbrick walls ringed the massive square, and the cool autumn sunshine glinted off the gold Byzantine domes that capped the roofs of the famous towers. Green-clad ceremonial guards marched in formation through the plaza as camera flashes clicked.

  “I don’t think I’m the one who needs to worry about blending in,” Sammy replied as he lifted Nellie’s hoodie up to cover the bright streaks in her hair.

  “Let me take a picture of you,” she told him. “It will make us look like we belong.”

  She lifted her phone up and Sammy struck a touristy pose, trying to smile. Nellie tapped the focus on her camera to the background. She wanted to assess the situation at the entrance to the Lucian stronghold beneath the Kremlin. The only way in was through the State Kremlin Palace, a monolithic theater of glass and white marble constructed during the Soviet era. While the grand and colorful towers of the Kremlin’s famous buildings were built by the tsars in order to showcase their wealth and taste, the State Kremlin Palace was erected by the Soviet Union, the empire that came after them, in order to showcase its power.

  People had lined up outside it for guided tours, and police stood by the main doors to keep anyone unauthorized outside.

  “You know how to get inside?” Sammy seemed doubtful of the whole course of their investigation.

  “Amy and Dan snuck into the Lucian base here during the Clue hunt,” she explained. “We’ll get in the same way they did.”

  “And what do we do then?”

  “We dig into the secret files to see what we can find out about an Outcast with KGB connections,” she told him.

  “Remember what Beatrice said to us before she went to Florida?” Sammy asked. “That Grace made a lot of her enemies into outcasts … even her own husband. She said Grace had him assassinated, right here in Moscow.”

  “That was just a vicious rumor,” said Nellie.

  “But what if it is true?” said Sammy.

  “Look,” Nellie said at last. “We’re not here to investigate Grace Cahill’s past. We’re here to investigate the Outcast’s. What Grace did or didn’t do has nothing to do with it.”

  “I hope you’re right,” said Sammy.

  Nellie guided Sammy through the crowd, beneath the spires and domes of the Kremlin, and they joined a line of tourists waiting to enter the State Kremlin Palace. The building loomed over them, the glass catching the sunlight and glistening like ice. Tall as it was, most of the structure was actually underground. Inside there was a world-class theater where world-class acts performed.

  Tonight’s show was the Tohashi Hibachi Brothers, a trio of Japanese brothers who cooked elaborate meals on stage, juggling shrimp and sushi, tossing knives and spices, to the ooohs and aaahs of the crowd. Nellie had always wanted to see them, but she knew this would not be her chance. With any luck, she and Sammy would slip inside, find what they were after, and be on a plane to meet the kiddos in Athens by evening.

  She checked her watch. The tour wouldn’t take them in for another ten minutes. Once they were inside, they’d leave the group and sneak into the Lucian base through Balcony Box 4, Row 3. She’d typed the trick to open the door into her phone so she wouldn’t forget it.

  Suddenly, Sammy pulled her from the group.

  “We have to go,” he whispered as he tugged her away.

  “What? Why?” Nellie freed her arm.

  “Turn here.” Sammy pulled her to the left, away from the ticket booth. “We’re being watched.”

  Nellie glanced around her hoodie and the hair on her neck prickled at what she saw. There was a man trailing them through the crowd. He wore a loose-fitting wool overcoat and wool watch cap pulled over his head, but his face was clear. His cold blue eyes locked with hers. Then she saw a small steel rod drop from his sleeve and begin twirling around his finger, faster and faster, a blur of metal.

  Alek Spasky, ex-KGB assassin, Irina Spasky’s brother, and the Outcast’s merciless button man, had warned them that the next time he saw them, they’d get one of his steel rods in the back.

  When Nellie’s eyes met his again, he winked.

  And the steel rod flew from his fingertips.


  Nellie dove, knocking Sammy to the ground. The rod whizzed past them and sparked off a marble column, leaving a gash in the grand monument to Soviet architecture. Nellie popped up to her feet and pulled Sammy back up to his.

  “Vandal!” Nellie shouted, pointing at the damaged pillar and at the man with the steel rod, another of which was already twirling on his finger. She hoped the word vandal sounded enough like the Russian word for vandal to get the attention of the surrounding tourists.

  Almost immediately, people began to call out for the police. The crowd swarmed the mysterious man, shouting at him. He began to knock them off, weaving and chasing after Nellie and Sammy through the crowd, but he was overwhelmed by angry Muscovites grabbing at his sleeves. The police began to make their way over.

  “I guess he did us a favor,” said Nellie as Alek’s face disappeared into the swarming crowd.

  “If you call trying to kill us a favor,” Sammy replied.

  “No,” said Nellie. “But look.”

  She pointed to the door into the building. The guards were distracted by the commotion out front, and the police were busy trying to peel angry citizens off the vandal. Nellie and Sammy slipped inside the building that housed the Lucian stronghold without anyone noticing.

  They raced through the lobby and followed the signs for the balcony. As they ran, Nellie pulled out her phone and found the place she’d noted with the code. The theater walls were all blond wood, the seats a deep blue. It wasn’t like one of the grand theaters of Europe or even Broadway in New York City. It was huge and severe and unsettling, built to awe the audience as much as provide a venue for performances.

  “There’s an order we have to sit in these seats,” she told Sammy. “45231. Do it!”

  Sammy sat in seat 4, then seat 5, then 2, then 3, then 1. There was a small clicking sound behind the curtain at the far end of the box. Nellie rushed over and pushed open a secret panel door. They slipped through and pulled it shut behind them.