Endangered Operation

by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  Finally, you find the spot where the beeping is the fastest. Ivy brushes aside wide fern leaves around your feet, looking for the Cropan’s boa. “What would it look like?” she asks.

  “About six feet long, yellow and black with a diamond pattern on its back.” You look up into the dense canopy of leaves above your head. “But I don’t think it’s on the ground. The Cropan’s boa is a great tree climber, which might be why they’re so rarely seen.”

  “So you’re saying she’s right over our heads?” Carmen asks.

  “Probably.”

  “Okay,” says Carmen. “You’re our expert snake catcher. You think you can get up there?”

  Honestly, you aren’t sure. You look at the sunlight flickering through the leaves overhead, and it looks like a long way up. Luckily, there are vines everywhere, coiling around the tree trunks and hanging from overhead, which can help you climb.

  Time to climb. You brace your foot against a knot in a tree trunk and reach for a vine above your head. Pulling yourself up, you get to the lowest branch in the tree and swing yourself up so that you are sitting on top of it. There are vines everywhere, and you’re able to climb hand-over-hand, higher and higher, until the leaves are so thick that you can see only a few feet in any direction.

  There’s no sign of a snake, so you keep climbing. All around, you hear the buzzing of insects and the chirping of birds, like the forest is pulsing with life. Finally, your head pops out from the top of the canopy and you see treetops all around you, like a giant green field.

  The Cropan’s boa is in the very next tree—the snake so rare that only a few people in the world have ever seen one. She’s coiled in and out of branches like a complicated knot, her tail dangling, her head up. Although she is motionless, you know that she is watching you with her glassy eye.

  Steadying yourself, you reach into your backpack and pull out your snake hook, which you extend to its full length. It’s a simple tool, basically a pole with a hook at the end that you can use to catch the boa. It feels wrong to take her from her treetop perch, but you tell yourself that it’s for her own good.

  Something in the distance catches your eye, something leaping from tree to tree. You try to remember what kind of monkeys live in the Atlantic Forest, but it looks too big to be a monkey. As it gets closer, you realize it’s a person, leaping through the trees with impossible skill, like a cartoon Tarzan.

  One final leap, and he lands on a treetop next to you, swinging around and then perching in the highest branches. You see that he is a tall, wiry man with a beard. Attached to his waist are a snake hook like yours and an electronic device with an antenna—another snake tracker.

  “I do not know who you are,” the man says in a French accent, “but I suggest that you leave. This snake and I have plans, and you are not invited.”

  You realize that he’s a VILE operative, sent to catch the Cropan’s boa. You hold up your snake hook like a weapon, hanging on to the tree with your other hand. “You’re not taking the snake,” you say firmly.

  “You should not challenge Le Chèvre to a fight in the treetops,” the man scoffs. Leaping effortlessly from his perch, he swings his snake hook at you. You block his blow like a sword fighter as he hops onto another tree.

  Suddenly, the Cropan’s boa springs into motion. With surprising grace, she extends to her full length and slithers along her tree branch, disappearing into the canopy.

  Grunting his annoyance that the snake has escaped, Le Chèvre swings at you again with his snake hook. You latch your own hook onto his and yank, pulling him off balance. He tumbles, dragging you with him, and you both fall, crashing through vines, branches, and leaves.

  You hit the ground hard, twisting your arm the wrong way. A few feet above you, Le Chèvre catches a vine and swings himself easily onto the forest floor, where Carmen and Ivy are waiting.

  “Carmen Sandiego,” Le Chèvre sneers, “how is it possible that you are always everywhere you should not be?”

  “Stealing snakes now?” Carmen fires back. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own species?”

  Le Chèvre jumps, swings on a vine, somersaults in the air, and lands on a thick tree branch fifteen feet up. “No man or beast can match me for climbing,” he boasts, holding up his snake tracker. “And I can follow that snake anywhere it goes.”

  Carmen raises her arm, and a grappling hook shoots out from the sleeve of her trench coat, knocking the tracker out of Le Chèvre’s hand and smashing it against a tree trunk. “How are you going to follow the snake now?” she quips.

  “Argh!” Le Chèvre hollers. “How can one person be so much trouble? I will be back.” With that, he leaps higher into the treetops and is gone.

  “What now?” you ask. As you sit up, you feel a stabbing pain in your wrist, worse than anything you have ever felt. Glancing nervously at your arm, you see that it’s bent the wrong way.

  “Now we’re going to take you to a hospital to get that arm taken care of,” Carmen says. “It will take some time for VILE to make a new snake tracker, and when they do, we’ll be waiting for them.”

  Ten minutes later, you are sitting in the back seat of the car, cradling your throbbing arm, driving back toward São Paulo. “Thank you,” Carmen says. “We would never have gotten this far without you.”

  You are proud of everything you have done but sad that your part in the story is over.

  THE END

  Return to page 26.

  “OF COURSE I’LL HELP!” you say. “I don’t know where they went, but if they’re trying to escape quickly, they probably headed for the west entrance.”

  “Got it,” says Carmen. “Lead the way.”

  You sprint through the zoo, with Carmen Sandiego right behind you. You race past the large, rocky habitat where the grownup Amur tigers live, making a sharp left turn through a food court to reach the aviary. Luckily, you know these paths like your own backyard, so it’s no problem finding your way in the dark.

  The aviary is filled with trees and covered in a high netting so the zoo’s birds can live with room to fly. “Hold on!” you say. “I know a shortcut.” Using your keys, you open a gate in the fence that surrounds the aviary so that you can cut through the middle rather than go all the way around.

  Inside, the aviary is kept wild and feels like being in a forest, with trees swaying and birds calling overhead. You dash through and open a gate on the far side, arriving at the edge of the zoo, steps away from the west entrance.

  Carmen puts a hand on your shoulder. “There!” she says, pointing.

  On the other side of a fence that surrounds the zoo, you see a black van, parked on a city street with the motor running. Someone is in the driver’s seat, but you are too far to see their face in the dim light. As you watch, the van begins to pull away. “Wait here,” says Carmen. “I’m going after them.”

  She points her arm up in the air, and a grappling hook shoots out of her sleeve with a ZZZIP, attaching to a streetlight overhead. A moment later, Carmen hurtles upward like she’s flying, landing gracefully on the sidewalk on the other side of the fence. The van pulls away and Carmen sprints after it, disappearing down the street.

  So you wait.

  A few minutes later, you hear a voice coming toward you along the path that runs around the edge of the zoo. You dodge behind a row of bushes and crouch low, trying not to breathe too loudly.

  A young woman walks toward you, wearing what looks like a tiger costume, a black suit with orange stripes and a pointy mask. She’s talking to someone on a video screen that she has strapped to her wrist.

  “Tigress, please tell me you bagged that critter,” says a voice from the videophone with a deep Texas drawl.

  “We ran into a little trouble with the guards, but I took care of it,” says the woman in the tiger suit, whose name, it seems, is actually Tigress.

  “Good work,” says the voice on the videophone.

  “What now, Coach Brunt?” Tigress asks, looking at a piece of paper
. “Should I head for the next location on the list?”

  “No need, kitten. We’ve got other operatives on the way. You’ve done your part, so come on back to home base for your next assignment. Brunt out!”

  Tigress is now standing right next to the row of bushes where you are hiding, only a few feet away from you. She looks toward the dark zoo and holds her hands in the air like she’s addressing a crowd. “Jungle animals,” she says, “bow down to your queen!”

  Laughing at her own joke, she turns and walks away down the path. In a few seconds, she’ll be gone.

  WHAT DO YOU DO?

  ▷ If you try to stop Tigress, turn to page 86.

  ▷ If you wait for Carmen, turn to page 119.

  Return to page 35.

  YOU SLIP THE TRACKER into your pocket as Zack speeds away.

  Within a few hours, the three of you have docked at a marina on the mainland. You hear from Player that Carmen managed to land the helicopter and will meet you there soon. Zack and Ivy have gone into a diner to get some takeout while you sit on a bench outside, watching boats come and go.

  You are holding on to Carmen’s red fedora until you can return it to her. You try it on your head and find that it fits well. So this is what it feels like to be the world’s greatest thief, you think with a smile.

  Suddenly, a green van screeches to a stop on the street in front of you, and the back door flies open. You glimpse a woman in a kimono aiming her parasol at you—and then you feel a sting in your neck. You touch the spot and pull out a tiny dart as the world goes fuzzy. The last thing you hear before you lose consciousness is someone saying, “That’s not Carmen Sandiego!”

  When you come to, you are lying on a tangle of vines next to a hollow tree trunk. Where in the world are you? Looking around, you realize that you are inside an animal enclosure like the kind you have in a zoo, with a mesh wire fence on all sides.

  Outside the enclosure, you see the woman in the kimono, the one who kidnapped you, talking to a much larger woman. “Good job getting the kakapo, Lady D,” the large woman says. “But why did you bring back that zookeeper?”

  “I apologize, Coach Brunt. We thought we were capturing Carmen Sandiego.”

  Coach Brunt peers in at you. “A minor mistake in an otherwise outstanding mission,” she says. “We’ll get this cleaned up in no time.”

  When the two women leave, you try to get out of the enclosure, but you can’t break the fence, and the gate is locked from the outside. You start to feel hopeless—but then you have an idea. Reaching into your pocket, you flip the switch, turning on the Interpol tracker. Hoping that someone gets the signal, you sit down on a fallen branch to wait.

  A few hours later, you hear helicopters overhead. Coach Brunt sprints past the cage where you are being held. “WE’VE BEEN FOUND!” she hollers. “All VILE staff, get out now!”

  An Interpol officer appears outside your cage and snaps the lock on the door with wire cutters. “Who are you, and what are you doing in there?” she asks. You tell her that you are a prisoner of VILE, so she directs you to the harbor, where Interpol boats are waiting.

  When you come out of your cage, you find that you are on a path through a small zoo. You pass a water tank on your right, with what looks like a rare hawksbill turtle swimming inside. On your left, you see a fenced-in area where a black rhino grazes peacefully. This must be where all the stolen animals are being held!

  Leaving the zoo, you come over a ridge to see a harbor where several Interpol boats are anchored. Inspector Chase Devineaux stands by the shore, the same one who was chasing you in New Zealand. A dark-haired woman in large round glasses stands next to him, checking items on a clipboard. “Giant panda, check. Black rhino, check. Amur tiger, check. It seems that every rare animal that has gone missing is right here on this island.”

  Chase holds up a finger imperiously. “You are incorrect as usual, Miss Argent. For where, I ask you, is the rarest creature of them all? Where is Carmen Sandiego! She is the mastermind behind this entire operation.”

  Julia bites her pen thoughtfully. “You may be right, Inspector. And yet it does not fit Carmen Sandiego’s usual patterns to kidnap animals for a private zoo.”

  “Do you forget? It was the tracking device that I cleverly placed in Miss Sandiego’s hat that led us to this island. How do you explain that, Miss Argent?”

  “I suppose I cannot. Still . . .”

  As weeks go by, Interpol makes sure that the animals are returned to their homes. The story is big news, how an eccentric billionaire stole the rarest animals from around the world to keep in his own private zoo. You notice that there is never any mention of VILE—they must be good at covering their tracks—or of Carmen Sandiego.

  You return to your life working at the Schönbrunn Zoo, deeply proud of the part that you played in rescuing the animals. Best of all, Nadezhda is returned to her nursery, where she is growing into a fine young tiger.

  THE END

  Return to page 31.

  OF COURSE YOU CARE about Nadezhda, but you’re not ready to risk your life with these dangerous criminals. While Tigress and Otter Man are watching the guards, and Moose Boy is loading the carrying case into the van, you slowly take a few steps away from them . . . then a few more steps . . . and then you break into a run.

  “Get back here!” Tigress snaps.

  “Forget the zookeeper,” says Otter Man. “We need to get out of here, now.”

  You sprint away down the sidewalk, green trees of the zoo to your right, fancy apartment buildings to your left. As you run, you imagine Tigress slashing her razor claws at your back, but after a few blocks, you are sure that no one is chasing you. You stop to catch your breath. What now?

  You walk around the zoo to another entrance. Two police cars are parked out front, their lights flashing. You realize that they must know about the robbery.

  As the only eyewitness to the crime, you are interviewed several times, telling your story again and again. Finally, by midnight, you are exhausted, wanting only to go home and put this terrible night behind you. As you leave, though, you are called for one final interview. You are led into an office in the zoo’s administration building, where you find yourself sitting across a table from a tall, squared-jawed man in a brown suit.

  “Good evening,” the man says in a thick French accent. “I am Inspector Chase Devineaux of Interpol. I trust you will not mind if I ask you a few questions.”

  “Go ahead,” you say.

  “I understand that you saw the thieves firsthand, oui?

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Very well,” he says. “It so happens that I have been tracking a series of similar crimes across Europe and throughout the world. All by the same master criminal.” He smacks a blurry photograph down on the table, showing a woman in a red coat half hidden in a doorway. “Carmen Sandiego!” he declares. “The crimson ghost. She was tonight’s mysterious thief, oui?”

  “No, actually,” you answer. “I didn’t see anyone like that.”

  Chase leans in so close that you can feel his breath on your face. “Are you certain?”

  “Yes. Like I told the police, it was three people. There was one girl with claws who called herself Tigress, then this huge guy named Moose Boy, then another guy named Otter Man, who met us later.”

  Inspector Devineaux leaps to his feet and slams both hands against the table. “Am I to understand it is your story that three people named after animals broke into and robbed a zoo? Why do you waste my time with such nonsense?”

  “I . . . you asked to talk to me—”

  “The witness is clearly delusional! This interview is over!” Chase waves his hand in the air and storms out of the room.

  The next day, the Schönbrunn Zoo opens as usual and things return mostly to normal, although everyone is sad about the loss of Nadezhda. The police are never able to recover the lost cub, and as you imagine her growing up, you hope she is having a good life and that someone is taking good care
of her.

  THE END

  Return to page 14.

  “I THINK WE SHOULD GO NOW,” you say. “If those creeps get away with another endangered animal, I won’t be able to forgive myself.”

  Carmen agrees. And so, as soon as you land in Invercargill, you pick up your boat. It’s a powerful eighteen-foot motorboat, open on top, with seats in back and front. Zack clearly loves driving it, jumping over waves as you cruise out of the harbor and into the open water.

  “This is my kind of driving!” he whoops. “Nothing to hit out here.”

  You head across a broad channel of water called the Foveaux Strait toward a large, mountainous island dotted with trees. “Is that Codfish Island?” Zack asks.

  “No,” you tell him. “That’s Stewart Island, which is much bigger. Take us around the north side, and we’ll see Codfish Island.”

  Sure enough, about an hour later, a smaller island comes into view. It looks wild, with green hills that rise sharply out of the ocean. On one side, you see a sandy beach, but no houses or other signs of human civilization.

  As you get closer, you see another boat motoring away from Codfish Island. “Uh-oh,” says Ivy. “Do you think VILE is already getting away with a kakapo?”

  “I don’t think so,” Carmen replies. “Look! They’re coming our way.”

  Sure enough, the boat has changed direction and is now headed toward you. As it gets closer, you see that it has the logo of the New Zealand Department of Conservation. A man and a woman are on board, both dressed in ranger uniforms. They pull their boat close to yours and stop the motor.