by Marcia Wells
Sneeze often. Lars is nervous about germs. Nervous equals distracted equals opportunities for escape.
O’Malley keeps himself apart from the others, as if he’s not one of the gang. Could he be an ally?
Use your pepper pen.
Yes, I have the pepper pen Jonah gave me. I have a weapon. Lars must have searched my pockets when I was passed out, because when I woke up I found my pocketknife was gone, along with my cell phone. But he left the pen because it looks like a dumb, harmless pen. I only get one shot, so I’ll have to make it count.
“I need to see the inside,” Lars is saying. “We have no access to the basement. That is why I sent O’Malley dressed as a guard. I knew you would see him, just as I knew the police would send you to the basement. So now you . . . you are our camera.”
He looks at me as if he expects a response. The silence is filled with the steady tick tick tick of three clocks on the counter. My forehead wrinkles. “Uh . . .” I begin.
He gives an impatient stomp of his foot. “You tell me where they are in storage, eh? You do this.” He slaps down a piece of paper and a pen. “Draw,” he demands.
I stare at the paper. “Draw what?”
He makes a disgusted noise in his throat, as if I’m the stupidest person he’s ever met. “The rooms. Security cameras, ceiling ducts, exits. Everything.” He points to the paper. “Draw,” he repeats.
Understanding washes over me like the cold water from Frank’s Tank. This has nothing to do with lost gold from the Civil War or Alexander Fox’s treasure exhibit at the Smithsonian. I am a camera. Lars’s camera. He said I was next.
And now he wants me to help him rob the Met.
Chapter 19
Retirement
FIVE SECONDS LATER
“I can’t remember.” I stare at the puddle of melted butter on my plate, all that remains of my dinner.
Lars takes out a large pocketknife, flips open a particularly sharp and shiny blade, and begins cleaning his nails with it. “Are you sure?”
I grip the sides of my chair. Play it cool. He won’t hurt you if he thinks you can help him. I nod. “I’m nervous. And I don’t feel well.” I sniffle to illustrate my point. “Maybe in a few hours my memory will come back. It does that.”
“We don’t have a few hours,” he says. “What a pity.” He nods to Rock, who stands up and comes behind my chair. Is he going to kill me right here, right now?
Suddenly I have an idea. I let out a little moan. “I have a really bad cold,” I explain. Then I sneeze. Instead of reaching for a tissue, I wipe my nose with my sleeve. Gross but effective. Lars squirms as if I’ve placed a spider on the table. “My memory gets messed up when I’m sick. There’s only one thing that will make me feel better quickly. Wonton soup with no wonton, from Madame Ling’s Chinese restaurant.”
Lars frowns. “Chicken is best for a cold. Chicken and potatoes.” He gestures to my empty plate.
“It’s a really special soup with healing herbs. And they have gluten-free lo mein noodles.” I add this last part for O’Malley’s benefit. I heard him talking on the phone to room service when they messed up his sandwich order. He has celiac disease and can only eat gluten-free foods. “The restaurant is on Columbus and West Seventieth. Not far from here.”
O’Malley, who up until now has been very quiet, turns to Lars and says, “I’ll get it, yeah? I’ve not had lo mein in years.”
Lars looks at me, then at O’Malley. “We will order delivery,” he says coolly. “Just to the lobby, not the room.” Then he turns back to me. “Okay, kitty. We will get you your soup. But if this is a trick . . .” He holds the knife up to the side of his eye.
I swallow hard. “No, sir,” I say. “The soup will really help me.”
He nods and then points to the piece of paper with his blade. “Then you draw.”
An hour later I have a bowl of Madame Ling’s wonton soup (without the wonton) and three perfectly drawn maps of the Met’s storage facility. I also wrote out a detailed list of where the different Picassos are stored. Lars is happy. Snaggle is happy. Rock looks like he’s ready to kill someone, but maybe he always looks like that. O’Malley is sitting quietly on the sofa, hugging his bowl of gluten-free lo mein noodles to his chest.
Here’s my plan: According to Madame Ling, I’m the only person in the city who likes wonton soup without the wonton. So if O’Malley called it in to be delivered to the Plaza, Madame Ling would check in with my mom to ask what we’re doing at the Plaza Hotel (she’s good friends with my mom, since we eat at her restaurant so much). Mom will talk to Jonah, who will understand it’s a message from me. He’ll realize that plaza on the list means Plaza Hotel. He’ll call Bovano, who will actually listen to him. And then they’ll come and rescue me.
It’s a long shot, but it’s all I have to hold on to.
I clear my throat to get Lars’s attention. He looks up from the plans I’ve drawn, staring at me with ice-cold eyes. I know I shouldn’t engage him in conversation, but I’m dying to understand how the past few weeks all fit together. “If you’ve been after the Met this whole time,” I say, “then why’d you send me those texts? Why aren’t you robbing the Smithsonian and the old gold, like you said? Why call yourself the Fox?”
He smirks. “That was my associate. She handles the technology. The Smithsonian means nothing. You passed her test, that was all.”
She? I open my mouth but he cuts me off.
“No more questions.” He gestures to Rock, who escorts me down the hallway to my bedroom. I close the door and press my ear against the wood. I hear a lot of rustling noises, followed by German spoken in low tones. A key rattles in the front door. There are no bolts on the door, only a keyhole. I need to get my hands on that key. The door of the suite opens and closes, and a lock clicks into place. I peek out of my room.
“It’s just you and me, lad,” O’Malley calls from down the hall. He has a slight accent. “Come watch the telly,” he adds. “I won’t hurt you.”
I find him on the couch, twisting wires in the back of a clock. A bag of white clay is on the table in front of him. I have a feeling it’s a real explosive this time and not flour mixed with water.
He stops and wipes his fingers on a rag, then extends his hand to shake mine. “I’m Rajani O’Malley. You can call me Raj. Have a seat.” He points to the couch across from his.
I sit down. “I’m Eddie Red. But you can call me Edmund.”
He nods and gets back to work. Four other bombs are on a side table next to the wall. They’re all blinking the same time of 13:38. A minute passes and suddenly they all read 13:37. They’re counting backwards. Thirteen hours until they explode? I glance at my watch. That will be exactly nine o’clock tomorrow morning, when a lot of families are out for their Sunday stroll, enjoying the monuments. The thought sickens me.
“You seem like a nice person, Raj. Why are you doing this?” I motion to the bomb in his hands.
His expression darkens. “I got no choice. I’m a prisoner, same as you.”
“You went to the lobby for Chinese food,” I say. “You could run.”
He snorts. “No one runs from Lars, no one hides from Lars. Surely you of all people can appreciate that.” He rakes a hand over his short black hair. “Last year my father double-crossed Lars. A month later dear old Dad was thrown in a Russian prison, so I’m the unlucky bloke who’s got to pay his debt.”
A commercial comes on for Cheesy Crunchers, Jonah’s favorite potato chip. Sadness floods my chest. I wonder what Jonah’s doing right now. He must be really upset. I try to send him telepathic messages: I’m safe . . . stay calm . . . tell Bovano to come get me at the Plaza Hotel . . .
“I tried to warn you,” O’Malley suddenly says. “I stood by that painting in the Met so you would understand what was coming for you.”
“The Angel of Death?” I squeak. “Is Lars going to kill me?”
“Blimey, no,” he says hurriedly. “It was a metaphor. Evil was coming for you.
I . . . look, just forget it. What’s done is done.” He mutters something under his breath and picks up a small pair of pliers from the toolbox beside him.
He tried to warn me. He must hate Lars as much as I do. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. “Lars seems pretty pleased with his Met plan. He’s been after Picassos this whole time?”
“Don’t forget about the diamonds, yeah? The royal exhibit coming to town. It’s a one-two punch. Crime of the century.”
“The jewels are already at the Met?” Mentally I curse Bovano for not telling me this information. “I thought the exhibit was next month.”
He nods. “The diamonds arrived early. They’re in storage.” He pulls out a spool of red wire. “Usually I make the cut-wire green, but this time I’ll do it in red. For you.” He gestures to my red hat with his pocketknife. “I’ll do three in red. The cut-wire’s the middle one, but loops left at the end.” He snips the wire and my heart skips a beat. I can’t believe I’m sitting here chatting with a man who could blow us to bits with one wrong move. He’s calm and barely paying attention as his fingers work.
“Do you do this for a living?” I ask.
“No. I was third year at university when Lars found me. I’m studying to be a teacher like my mum. This”—he waves the pliers at the bombs on the table—“is a skill I picked up from Dad. Some kids play cricket with their father. Mine taught me how to rig a bomb.”
He studies the weapon of destruction in his hands. “This bomb triggers the others,” he explains. “It will blow at Grant’s Tomb, then set off the rest of them in a chain reaction around the city: Wall Street, the Brooklyn Bridge, Rockefeller Center, Grand Central. But if it’s stopped in time, none of them will blow.” He doesn’t look at me as he speaks. Why is he telling me this?
And the Brooklyn Bridge? What does that have to do with anything? “What about the other landmarks?” I say. “The William Sherman statue and Cleopatra’s Needle?”
“Decoys. Lars wants to strike high-traffic areas. It’s his final farewell to the city, and a punishment to the NYPD for stopping him last time.” With a final twist of wire and a snap of plastic, he closes the back of the bomb. Stretching his arms, he says, “I’m hungry. Do you want more soup? I bought you two containers.”
“Okay.”
We decide to watch a reality show about racecar drivers. It’s really not my thing, but whatever makes him happy and relaxed. I ask if I can doodle on some paper and he gets me a notepad and pencil. I sketch the different rooms in the hotel suite, hoping to catch a detail I might have missed, a hiding place for a key or a cell phone. Meanwhile Raj tells me stories about university and how he met a woman he really likes but is too nervous to ask out.
I smile and nod and keep drawing the rooms. Where are you hiding that key, Lars?
I wait.
And wait.
And wait.
Jonah doesn’t come. The police don’t come. I am still on my own. I need a plan B, but my brain is exhausted and a headache is pounding in my skull. I could spray O’Malley with the pepper pen and try to flee, but without a key, I can’t unlock the door. I’m trapped.
I rub the back of my neck. I still don’t understand Lars’s comment about the Fox. “Raj,” I say, “who is the Fox? Lars said something about his associate. He used the word ‘she.’”
He shrugs. “Don’t know. He doesn’t tell me much. I just do what I’m told or he’ll kill my mum.”
“Oh.” When he puts it that way, I guess I can’t blame him for making these terrible bombs.
An hour later, the door to the suite opens. Lars, Rock, and Snaggle stride through. Lars drops a heavy red velvet bag on the table that makes a clinking noise. Fishing a hand inside the bag, he pulls out a crown with a brilliant white diamond the size of my fist and tosses it to O’Malley. Then he pulls out four rolled-up canvases from a long leather case and lovingly places them on the coffee table. I catch a glimpse of one. I recognize it as a beautiful Picasso in bold reds and yellows.
Lars grins and slaps his hands together. “Gentlemen, now we retire!”
I wish I had retired from being Eddie Red oh, about twenty-four hours ago.
I put my head in my hands. I just assisted in the crime of the century. Will I go to prison for this? A small blue velvet bag lands on the couch beside me. “For you, kitty,” Lars says.
Against my better judgment, I peek inside. Diamonds, at least a hundred of them. I bet they could pay for the rest of my years at Senate, plus college, plus an apartment on Park Avenue.
“Thanks,” I say in a tight voice. I put the bag on the coffee table. Does he really think I’d take them?
Lars raises his eyebrows at my actions but says nothing. He and his men head to the kitchen for a late-night snack. My gaze flickers over to O’Malley, who’s fiddling with his new crown and watching me with a dark stare.
“I can go home now, right?” I say.
He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Sure, lad. Tomorrow.”
Chapter 20
The Horse
8:11 A.M., SUNDAY
I try not to sleep. I stare at the crazy digital clock in my room that reads 52:15 and never changes time. Eventually I must pass out, because I wake up in a puddle of drool. Ironically, my cold feels better. My watch says 8:11 a.m. Less than an hour until the bombs go off.
O’Malley appears in the doorway. “Breakfast,” he says. He looks terrible, with dark shadows under his eyes as if he didn’t sleep at all last night.
As I follow him out of the room, a potted plant in the front hall snags my attention. It’s been shifted to the left by three inches. Yesterday it was lined up perfectly beneath a painting, but now it’s off-center. Someone moved it. Is that where they keep the key?
We turn the corner and head into the living room. The bags of jewels and the Picassos are gone, along with my bag of diamonds. And the bombs aren’t on the table anymore. They must already be in place at the landmarks.
“Where’s Lars?” I ask. Snaggle and Rock are standing by the windows, but Lars is nowhere to be seen.
“He left for Europe this morning,” O’Malley says. He won’t look me in the eye. Something’s wrong. Very, very wrong.
“There’s a huge horse outside,” Snaggle grunts.
O’Malley frowns and walks over to the window, motioning for me to follow. As we approach, I hear loud trumpets and thumping drums. A parade?
I peer out the glass. My heart stutters. Senate Academy Middle School is marching down the street! The brown Trojan horse is on a truck bed, surrounded by kids dressed in Greek costumes, who are waving from the float. Some kids are playing musical instruments, while others hold Walter the Flying Cow balloons. The balloons are a personal message from Jonah—they have to be. He found me! He found me and he’s coming for me!
I glance at O’Malley. He looks from me to the horse, back to me again. His mouth opens and closes as if he wants to say something but is too scared. He’s making me really nervous. I need to get out of here.
“I need to use the bathroom,” I announce.
“I’ll take him.” Rock’s voice is raspy like sandpaper. It’s the first time I’ve heard him speak. O’Malley nods, staring down at the carpet. Rock walks me back down the hall toward my bedroom. I reach into my pocket and flip the pepper pen to the “on” position.
“You should have taken the diamonds, kid,” he says. “You failed his final test.” He reaches a hand into his back pocket and pulls out a gun.
Quickly I bring my arm up and spray the mace right in his eyes. He stumbles away from me, dropping the gun and screaming while clutching his face. With panicked movements, I dive for the potted plant and look behind it, searching, searching . . . yes! My fist closes around a small key. I run to the door, shove the key into the keyhole, and twist. Freedom!
As I swing open the door and race into the outside hall, I glance over my shoulder. O’Malley appears by the potted plant, with Snaggle close on his heels. Snaggle sees me escaping
and starts to lunge forward, but O’Malley grabs him around the waist. “Go!” he shouts at me. “Run!”
There’s no time to wait for an elevator. I heave my shoulder into the emergency exit door and sprint down the stairwell, my feet barely touching the steps.
One flight, two flights, three. I run and run. Are there footsteps behind me? I can’t tell and I don’t dare stop to listen. Finally I reach the bottom and push through a heavy door. Sunlight blinds me as I step out into a side alley. Keep running!
I stumble toward the street. A crowd has gathered on the sidewalk, clapping and cheering. About thirty feet away, two policemen are directing the Trojan horse down a side street and away from the hotel. Jonah’s nowhere to be seen. I need to find Paula and Bovano immediately. We need to stop that bomb!
The crowd is thick. I search for a familiar face from the precinct, and then I see it: a white van with FRANK’S FLOWERS on the side, parked down the block. Paula’s on the sidewalk beside the van, talking to a group of men. Her back is turned to me so she doesn’t see me approach.
“We believe the package is in room four twenty-two,” she’s saying. “We’ll move in tactical teams of two. On my count, we’ll—”
“Paula!” I yank on her shirt like an excited little kid.
She turns around and shuffles back a step. “Edmund?” she says in disbelief. Then “Edmund!” she shouts, and grabs me in a fierce hug. “How did you . . . ? Never mind, we’ll talk in the car. Get in.” She opens the front of the van for me, but I stay where I am.
“Lars is at the airport,” I say. “He’s there right now, heading for Europe. The other bad guys are still in the hotel. There are three of them. And there’s a bomb set to blow at Grant’s Tomb. We have to stop it or it will trigger bombs all over the city.”
She stares at me. I think she’s going to shut me down like Bovano always does, but instead she barks new orders at her men while pointing for me to get into the van. This time I do. She climbs into the driver’s seat, a cell phone by her ear.
