Unable to even speak, Shelley nodded in agreement.
“There’s the window,” Jonathan said as they reached the top of the stairs.
“Wait! We’re supposed to crawl across that?” Shelley said, looking out the window at the narrow sliver of roof, no more than six feet wide.
“You’ll be fine,” Jonathan reassured Shelley.
“Not if I roll off! There’s nothing to break my fall but the cold hard ground!”
“Shells, we have a job to do. We can’t let our fears take over.”
“You’re right,” Shelley conceded as she followed Jonathan out the window.
“Just don’t look down,” he instructed as they started slowly slinking across the tiled roof. “Look at the view of London! Look at the sky! Look anywhere! Just don’t look down!”
“Do you believe in ghosts?”
“Really, Shells? You want to talk about ghosts now?”
“I’m pretty sure a ghost has entered my body with the sole purpose of making me look down! There’s no other explanation! It’s like someone’s pulling my eyes over to the ledge!”
“Don’t do it, Shells!”
But the girl couldn’t help it. Something deep within her needed to know if the drop-off was as scary as she imagined.
“Johno…Johno…Johno.”
“Please stop saying my name; it’s making me very nervous,” Jonathan sputtered as everything from the soles of his feet to his scalp started sweating.
“It’s a long way down, Johno,” Shelley whispered. “A really long way down.”
“Not helpful, Shells!”
“‘Two twelve-year-old children died today at Buckingham Palace after falling off the roof.’”
Jonathan clenched his jaw. “How is writing a press release about our deaths helping the situation?”
“All I can hope is that they spell Shelley correctly. You know, a lot of people don’t put the extra e in. It’s always been a point of pride for me, that my name is just the tiniest bit different.”
“I know, Shells. But can we please stop talking about our deaths and focus on scaling down the drainpipe?”
“Scaling down the drainpipe? What does that mean?”
“It means we’re going to hold on to the drainpipe and climb down the wall to the balcony a floor below.”
“The balcony way down there?”
“That’s the one,” Jonathan responded.
“There is no way I’m doing that! Forget it! Let the Brits fend for themselves!”
“Shells, before you decide anything, what do you say we stop and take a deep breath?”
“I hate it when people say that!” Shelley griped. “I spend every second of my life breathing—why is breathing a little deeper so special? Is it a magical unicorn sent to solve all my problems? I don’t think so!”
“I’m sorry, Shells. I never meant to imply that taking a deep breath was anything like a magical unicorn sent to solve all your problems,” Jonathan said calmly. “I just wanted us to pause for a second and think. What’s scarier—climbing down a drainpipe where there is a slight possibility that you will fall and break every bone in your body or letting Nina down, failing the mission, and allowing LIQ-30 to wind up in the wrong hands?”
“Breaking every bone in my body.”
“Shelley Brown, do you really mean that?”
“Do not use my full name! This is not a court of law!”
“This is the moment. We either step up and risk our lives to be great, to be the people that Hammett thinks we are, or we roll over and fail. And this isn’t like failing math or English. There’s no summer school. There’s no second chance.”
Shelley took a deep breath. And then paused, having realized what she had done. “I have to admit, it does kind of help.”
Jonathan smiled.
“I’m not ready to say good-bye to Shelley Brown, International Lady of Espionage.”
“Then start crawling.”
And so they did, one hand over the other until they reached the edge of the roof, where they were presented with the thin metal drainpipe running along the wall to the balcony below.
“Hold my hand,” Jonathan instructed Shelley.
“Eww, it’s all sweaty.”
“I’m going to pretend you never said that,” Jonathan grumbled, then closed his eyes. “We can do this. Even nonathletes can climb down poles.”
“Right,” Shelley said before adding, “This is going to be a piece of cake…or maybe even just a bite of cake…or—”
“I’m going to start down now, so feel free to stop talking whenever you want.”
Jonathan turned around and slowly pushed his legs off the edge of the roof, then slid down until he could grab hold of the drainpipe.
“Why does the balcony suddenly look so far away?” Jonathan asked, his voice cracking.
“Probably because you’re holding on to a flimsy metal pipe that hasn’t been secured for someone of your weight.”
“I can’t hear you. I can’t hear you,” Jonathan repeated as he slowly inched his way down, his eyes tightly closed.
Seven minutes later, when Jonathan finally made it to the balcony, Shelley took off her glasses and began moving toward the edge. “If I’m going to fall, I’d rather not see where I’m going.”
“You can do it, Shells,” Jonathan called out from below.
“Johno? If I should fall, could you at least try and catch me?”
Jonathan crossed his fingers and lied, “Of course, Shells, anything for you.”
Eight minutes and forty-three seconds later, Jonathan sighed as he watched Shelley’s feet land safely on the balcony. “Come on, we don’t want to keep Nina waiting.”
Jonathan and Shelley crawled through a window, slipped across the room, and unlocked the door.
“Now what?” Shelley asked just as the knob turned.
“I must say, so far I’m very impressed,” Nina whispered as she rushed into the room.
“I can’t tell you how many times a day I hear that,” Shelley replied. “Sometimes it’s exhausting listening to all the compliments.”
“Take it down a notch, Shells,” Jonathan whispered. “There’s still a long way to go.”
“This way,” Nina instructed as she led Jonathan and Shelley down a service stairwell to the basement. “We’re almost there.”
Jonathan trembled with excitement; the destruction of LIQ-30 was finally within their reach. And frankly, he couldn’t wait. To be moderately clever with an attention span good enough to rival any number of domesticated animals no longer seemed like such a bad thing.
“We’re so close, I can almost taste it,” Shelley whispered as she imagined the satisfaction of outsmarting three exceptionals.
“And we’re in,” Nina said as she picked the lock on the door to the laboratory.
Three square metal contraptions, each approximately the size of a golf cart, dominated the room. The chemical incinerators, as they were known, contained a latch similar in appearance to a trash chute, through which one could place items for destruction.
“We made it,” Nina whispered, her eyes glistening with tears of joy as she stepped over empty glass vessels strewn about the floor.
“You most certainly did!” a voice came from behind one of the incinerators.
“Darwin?!” Nina shouted as the boy came into view.
“How could you possibly know that we were coming here?” Shelley squawked.
“Your little friend told us,” Oli answered as he and Hattie stepped out from behind another incinerator.
“What on earth are you talking about?” Nina asked.
“Not your little friend,” Hattie clarified. “Their little friend. Although, to be frank, Mrs. Cadogan is hardly little.”
“Mrs. Cadogan?” Shelley repeated. “She thinks it’s 1944!”
Jonathan shook his head. “Unless, of course, we’ve got another great actress in our midst.”
“Dear boy, no one is that good of an
actress!” Hattie responded with a laugh. “It may come as a surprise to you, given that Mrs. Cadogan does in fact think it’s 1944, but she’s remarkably aware of what’s happening around her. And lucky for us, one needs only to ask to find out.”
“It’s true,” Oli confirmed. “She even does a bit of light snooping if you tell her Winston Churchill himself has asked her to do so.”
“Manipulating an old woman?” Nina remarked. “Why am I not surprised?”
“You say that as if you think we’re evil,” Darwin said as he stepped closer to Nina. “You used to understand that the world needs people like us, people who work outside the law.”
“Every day I read about another horrific crime that could have been stopped but wasn’t because of the mountain of evidence required for law enforcement to take something seriously,” Oli lamented.
“But with LIQ-30, we have a humane way to stop these madmen before they have a chance to destroy lives,” Darwin added.
“That sounds a lot like playing God,” Nina said quietly.
“You can call it whatever you’d like, but the fact is we’re just trying to protect innocent people,” Darwin continued.
“But without due process, what do we become?” Nina asked, and then answered, “A dictatorship, and that’s not who we are.”
“No matter how hard we work, we will never foil all the plans,” Darwin said, his face imploring Nina to hand over the vial.
“Can’t you see that if you use LIQ-30, you destroy what makes this country great—freedom?” Nina said as she stepped closer to the incinerator.
“Stop!” Darwin shouted authoritatively. “You once believed in this plan. How can you betray us when we’re so close?”
“Nina’s not betraying you,” Jonathan said. “She’s protecting you from yourselves. She’s stopping you from making the greatest mistake of your lives.”
“Mistake? Dear boy, don’t you understand?” Hattie said, shaking her head. “We’re trying to help people!”
“This isn’t the way to do it,” Jonathan responded.
“Come on, guys, what do you say we destroy the vial, grab the queen and some scones, and get crazy,” Shelley said, in an attempt to lessen the mounting tension of the situation.
“I couldn’t agree more. And to prove the point, I myself will throw the vial into the incinerator,” Darwin said as he stepped closer to Nina, with Oli and Hattie right behind him.
“That’s not necessary,” Nina responded, backing away.
“This is getting a little National Geographic and not in a good way. More in a three-lions-are-about-to-slash-an-antelope-before-ripping-it-limb-from-limb kind of way,” Shelley said as she stepped between the two groups.
“Shells,” Jonathan called out. “I’m not sure that’s the best place to stand.”
“I’m not allowing these three to get any closer to Nina.”
Jonathan shook his head. It wasn’t her intention, but Shelley’s bold move had left him feeling weak and embarrassed. Why hadn’t he stepped into the line of fire with the same ease as Shelley? Was she simply braver, more courageous than Jonathan? Yes, he thought. But she was also less attached to reality. Bottom line, Shelley was a little crazy.
“Sheila, no one wants to hurt you,” Oli said as he stepped closer. “But we will if necessary.”
It was at this moment that something useful caught Jonathan’s eye, prompting him to bend down.
“Hey, Bob!” Darwin barked. “What are you doing?”
“Just tying my shoe,” Jonathan replied meekly.
After turning back toward Nina, Darwin continued, “The future of this country is on the line, and we can’t allow you or Bob or Sheila to get in our way.”
“I’ve had just about enough of Bob and Sheila!” Shelley huffed.
“Our names are Jonathan and Shelley. Not Glasses and Khaki, and definitely not Bob and Sheila,” Jonathan announced to the room.
Shelley smiled. “Yet another reason why this guy’s my hero forty-three percent of the time.”
“We may look dumb. We may sound dumb. In fact, we may actually be a little dumb,” Jonathan said as he raised his left hand in the air. “But we’ve been around the block, so to speak…and we’ve learned that if you want something done right, you best do it yourself.”
Jonathan then opened his left hand, revealing a small vial.
“And the plot quickens,” Shelley announced before pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose.
“Thickens. And the plot thickens,” Jonathan corrected Shelley.
“No, quickens. As in action is happening.”
“Guys?” Nina called out. “Now is not the time.”
“Finally, something we can agree on, dear girl,” Hattie said to Nina as she turned and started toward Jonathan, removing her earrings, gloves, and headband along the way.
“Be careful, Johno! Hattie might be small, but she’s vicious. Sort of like an angry Pomeranian!”
Hattie flung herself to the ground and sideswiped Jonathan’s calves with her legs, bringing the boy crashing to the floor.
“You will thank us one day!” Darwin hollered as he attempted to pin Jonathan’s arms to the ground while Oli focused on wrangling the boy’s legs.
“Get off my partner, you animals!” Shelley shrieked as she lunged at Darwin’s back.
“Hattie? Do me a favor and get rid of this squirrel, would you?” Darwin said as Shelley opened her mouth and then closed it tightly around Darwin’s ear.
“Ahhhhh!!!” the boy screeched. “She bit me!”
“I got it!” Oli cried triumphantly as he stood, covered in perspiration, vial in hand.
“You three never stood a chance against us,” Darwin said as he looked from Jonathan to Shelley to Nina.
“One day you’ll thank us for creating a better, safer world,” Hattie said as she slipped on her gloves, earrings, and headband.
“We are leading the world into the light, and if in doing that we must use a drop of night, then so be it,” Oli stated dramatically before adding, “And for the record, that is not a quote, but the work of my own brilliant mind.”
“Don’t romanticize it! This is wrong, plain and simple!” Nina yelled from across the room.
“You were once one of our most trusted allies. Somewhere deep within you, I know you understand,” Darwin said as he motioned to Hattie and Oli that it was time to leave.
“See you around,” Jonathan said with a smile as he placed an arm across Shelley’s shoulders.
Darwin stopped. “Something isn’t right here.”
“They look rather pleased with themselves, don’t they? Reminds me a bit of a partridge who knows you’re a bad shot,” Hattie remarked.
Darwin held the vial up to the light. “This isn’t LIQ-30, is it?”
“Honestly, I have no idea what it is. I saw it on the floor and thought, Hey, that would make a perfect decoy.”
“And clearly it did,” Shelley added. “But the thing I still can’t get over is that three highly trained operatives could believe that Nina would trust Johno with the vial!”
Darwin turned to Nina, eyes wide. “Give it to me.”
“Unfortunately, Darwin, I dropped it in the incinerator while you guys were busy pinning that poor boy to the floor.”
The look of defeat is unique in each person, and yet instantly recognizable. A combination of regret, shame, and sadness. Darwin lowered his eyes to the floor, Hattie pursed her lips and then silently mouthed a prayer. And Oli, in true Oli fashion, racked his mind for the perfect quote.
“Does Teeth know about this?” Darwin asked quietly, his mind still struggling to come to terms with what had just happened.
“Not yet,” Shelley replied. “But he will shortly.”
“We were trying to help the world, and now it is us who are to be punished?” Darwin said, shaking his head.
Jonathan, who had been silent this whole time, chimed in, “Not if I can help it.”
“Excuse me?�
� Shelley said, placing her hands on her hips.
“Their hearts were in the right place, it’s just that their heads weren’t,” Jonathan explained. “They’re not criminals. Not in my opinion, anyway.”
“Thank you, Bob. I mean, Jonathan,” Hattie mumbled.
“But what they tried to do—Jonathan, they’re basically vigilantes!” Shelley said, shaking her head.
“Every day you and I try our best to be exceptional, Shells. And every day we fail. Can you really say that mixed in with our honest attempts there weren’t a few misguided ideas?”
“Maybe a few,” Shelley admitted.
Hattie turned to Darwin and Oli. “Boys, I believe it prudent that we present our case to Randolph as soon as possible.”
Oli nodded in agreement before turning toward Jonathan and Shelley. “In the words of Humphrey Bogart, ‘I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.’”
Shelley shook her head. “That feels like a bit of a stretch on account of the near drowning and food poisoning incidents. However, lukewarm acquaintances is definitely a possibility.”
* * *
In the following days, after much discussion, Randolph and the prime minister would come to an agreement regarding the fates of Oli, Darwin, and Hattie. While their actions were most egregious, the prime minister thought it best to avoid formal criminal charges. Not only were they young, they had risked their lives time and time again for their country. And though Darwin, Oli, and Hattie had gone astray, their intentions were always in the right place: bettering the world. However, Prime Minister Falcon could not simply ignore what had happened. And so, in a fate worse than jail, Oli, Hattie, and Darwin were stripped of their BAE status. For in the end, their actions were deemed too drastic to be righted by a simple “I’m sorry.”
But fortunately, not all was lost for Darwin, Hattie, and Oli. Their dismissal from BAE freed them up to pursue other passions. For Hattie, it was the stage. As it turned out, pretending to be less intelligent and less focused had sparked a genuine interest in acting. Darwin, on the other hand, was finally able to join the extracurricular club informally known as We Blow Things Up for Fun. And as for Oli, he delighted in discovering other history buffs capable of appreciating his vast repertoire of quotes.
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