by Bruce Hale
“Careful, Max!” cried Mr. Segredo, rejoining the group.
At that instant, floodlights flashed on, bright as a Barbados sunrise. Wyatt blinked, temporarily blinded. Shouts rang from behind them and from the right, as if two teams of guards were converging on the escapees.
“There!” cried Cinnabar.
When Wyatt’s vision cleared, he saw what she was talking about: a heavy carpet had been tossed atop the razor wire. It was followed by the whump of a rope ladder being flung across the wall.
“Bloody thing!” Mr. Stones cursed from the other side.
Wyatt noticed that the ladder had missed the carpet entirely and now dangled across razor wire. He sure didn’t fancy climbing that.
Stones tugged from the other side, but the rope was stuck fast. The team couldn’t escape until their route was secure.
“Max-kun!” cried Hantai Annie. “Some help?”
IN THE GLARE of the floodlights, Max’s golden-brown face seemed a little green around the gills. He wrestled with the jet pack’s controls, first soaring too high, then nearly impaling himself on a wall spike.
“Watch it!” yelled Mr. Segredo.
Cinnabar’s heart tried to crawl out of her throat. Would brave, reckless Max kill himself trying to save them?
At last, he managed to hook a foot under the ladder and lift it straight up, off the barbed wire. With a kick, he flipped it over so it lay on the protective carpet.
“Go, go, go!” cried Annie.
Wyatt leaped for the ladder and scrambled up the rungs.
“Whatever happened to ladies first?” Cinnabar asked.
“Sorry,” called Wyatt over his shoulder. “Like I told you, I’m a cat person, not a dog person.” Deep baying from the approaching watchdogs underlined his remark.
An amplified voice boomed from concealed speakers. “It’s useless to run.” Mrs. Frost’s clipped, sneering tone was instantly recognizable. “My team will be on you in seconds—you can’t escape.”
“Just watch us!” shouted Max, and he spiraled like a dizzy butterfly, right over the wall and out of sight.
“You’d better not damage my jet pack!” snapped the LOTUS chief.
Cinnabar shook her head as she followed Wyatt up the ladder. “Too late.”
At the top of the wall, she glanced back. Her stomach churned. A half-dozen LOTUS agents were racing down the pathway, around the bend. In seconds, they would spot Mr. Segredo, covering their backs, and Hantai Annie, who had just stepped onto the lowest rung.
“Enemy agents!” she called down, pointing at the onrushing spies.
Mr. Segredo brought up his pistol and squeezed off three shots as the first LOTUS agents hove into view. A couple of the spies ducked behind tree trunks to return fire while the rest crashed into the brush.
“They’re circling behind you,” Cinnabar cried.
One of the enemy agents shouted, “The brat on the wall is spotting for them.”
“Take her out!” cried another.
A bullet whined, pinging off the iron spike beside Cinnabar. At the near miss, her innards turned to custard.
“Down!” cried Hantai Annie. “Isoge!”
“Gladly,” muttered Cinnabar, swinging her legs over the other side. The last thing she saw was Hantai Annie pitching a smoke bomb toward the shooter.
Rough hands helped her down the last rungs.
“All right, then, sunshine?” Mr. Stones’s brown skin blended into the shadows, but his smile gleamed, a jack-o’-lantern grin.
“Never better,” she said, giving him a quick hug.
Cinnabar noted that Tremaine and Nikki were helping disentangle Max from a gorse bush, mostly unharmed. “What about Annie and Mr. Segredo?”
“Don’t worry your head about it, pumpkin cake. They’re aces.” Stones scowled. “What I’d give to be with ’em, handing those dirty buggers a bit of what-for, but the boss said to keep you lot safe.”
A crafty look crossed his face. “Still, maybe I could lend a hand.” The short, burly agent fished a smoke bomb from his jacket pocket. He cocked an arm to hurl it, but winced at the pain. “Bugger and blast!”
“Here, let me,” said Cinnabar.
Grimacing, Mr. Stones passed over the device. “The shoulder’s not quite up to snuff since I got shot. Bloody Styx—if I ever get my hands on that ratbag…”
“Right now he’s knocked out and handcuffed.”
Stones’s smile returned. “That’s my girl.”
Cinnabar chucked the smoke bomb over the wall in the same direction Hantai Annie had thrown hers, narrowly missing the spymaster’s head as it popped into view. Hantai Annie merely grunted and dodged. She swung one leg over the carpet and, producing a pistol, lay down a covering fire for Mr. Segredo.
“I thought you didn’t like guns,” Cinnabar called up.
“I don’t,” said Annie. “Last resort only.”
In another few seconds, Mr. Segredo’s head poked up over the wall. He scrambled over and down, and then, after a few parting shots, Hantai Annie followed.
With Mr. Segredo’s help, Stones yanked the rope ladder back over to their side of the wall. Working swiftly, they bundled it up.
“Think you’re a bright spark, do you?” a deep voice boomed from the other side. Ebelskeever.
“Only compared to you,” called Max. Wyatt snickered. It was childish, yes, but Cinnabar felt a chuckle bubbling up.
“You’ll never stop us,” snarled Ebelskeever. “You’re just a blip. A bug on the windscreen.”
“Yeah? Well, bug this,” cried Nikki, tossing a flashbang in the direction of the voice. Curses and coughing followed the explosion, and Nikki grinned hugely.
“S.P.I.E.S.: one; LOTUS: nil,” said Tremaine, bumping fists with her.
After the rescue, the team retreated to its run-down safe house above the Chinese restaurant, arriving seconds before the skies released a downpour. They sprawled on couches and chairs in the living room, digging into last night’s leftovers with a vengeance.
“Missions always make me hungry,” said Stones, popping a cold spring roll into his mouth.
“Everything makes me hungry,” said Tremaine.
The reunited team members caught up on all that had happened during their separation. Cinnabar learned that Jazz was safe with Madame Chiffre, Miss Moorthy, and the rest of the gang, in temporary quarters not far from their old orphanage. In fact, the two sisters even got to talk with each other on the phone, laughing through tears.
It was bittersweet to know they’d have to stay apart awhile longer. But Cinnabar took comfort in knowing that Jazz was far safer where she was than here with them, going up against enemy spies.
She was also relieved to learn that Rashid was doing well in the hospital—well enough that he was complaining about missing out on the action.
When Max shared the story of his semi-undercover life at the LOTUS mansion, the mood turned serious. Even Nikki left off her usual needling when she heard the scope of LOTUS’s plans.
“So, near as you can tell, they plan to use that brainwashing device on government ministers?” asked Mr. Segredo. His long face was as grim as a Christmas card from death row.
“Hard to say for sure,” Max admitted. “But after seeing that layout of Parliament and the list of names on their computer, well, that’s my best guess.”
Cinnabar chewed on a fingernail.
Hantai Annie leaned back in her armchair and rubbed a hand over her jaw. She spoke the question that was on everyone’s mind: “But why?”
Stones’s eyebrows rose. “There’s a lot—mmph.” He finished chewing his bite and gulped it down. “A lot you can do with the government of a major country in your pocket.”
“Cause wars,” said Tremaine.
“Drain the treasury,” said Mr. Segredo.
“Pass a bill outlawing chocolate,” said Wyatt. When everyone stared at him, he turned his palms up. “Hey, I wouldn’t put it past them.”
Steepling her fingers, Hantai Annie m
used. “Dame da. Too much power in the wrong hands. We must stop them.”
“But how?” asked Max.
Nobody answered.
For a while now, Cinnabar had been quiet, absorbing the situation and mulling over the events of the rescue mission. Something she’d heard earlier that night came back to her.
“What about your information?” she asked Mr. Segredo.
“How’s that?” he said. In that moment, his warm brown eyes looked so much like Max’s.
“Back at the mansion, you said you had evidence of LOTUS’s crimes.”
“Ripper!” Wyatt sat forward. “So we hand it to the cops or MI5, and Bob’s-your-uncle, they lock up the bad guys.”
“Bob’s-your-uncle?” Max raised an eyebrow.
“My gran used to say that,” said Wyatt. “She’s been on my mind lately.”
“Bob or no Bob”—Mr. Segredo unfolded his long legs to stand and pace—“it’s not as easy as all that.”
“Why not?” asked Stones, spearing a dumpling with a fork.
Stopping beside the front window, Mr. Segredo was backlit by a red-and-yellow neon glow from the restaurant below. “For one thing, they’ve got contacts inside all of the major law enforcement agencies, people watching and waiting to snatch anything incriminating before it gets into the wrong hands.”
“And for another?” asked Cinnabar.
“I fear the evidence may not be quite strong enough to lock them up for good. If that’s the case, Mrs. Frost and her crew would be out on bail in a blink, protected by the best lawyers in the country.” Mr. Segredo sighed, and in the lines of his face, Cinnabar saw the toll that living on the run had taken on him.
Hantai Annie spoke, her ebony eyes glittering. “So we must…” she said, “nan to iiu ka na?—how you say? Catch them in the act.”
“Brilliant,” said Nikki, clapping her hands together. Her brow furrowed. “And just how do we do that?”
“Yeah, mon,” said Tremaine, speaking up for the first time, after snarfing a prodigious amount of moo shu pork. “Not to be a killjoy, but we’re outnumbered and outgunned. LOTUS has a small army of spies, and we’ve only got what’s in this room.”
That sobering thought let some of the air out of their tires. Cinnabar sagged on the ratty sofa. How on earth would they pull this off?
Then Wyatt’s blue eyes lit with a fiery light. His voice was low and intense, a Wyatt she hadn’t seen before. “Did the French Resistance worry about that when they fought the Germans?” he said. “Did those three hundred Spartans worry about that when they went up against those other guys? Did Luke Skywalker worry about that when he struggled against the Empire?”
“Um, you know that last one’s fictional?” said Max.
Shooting to his feet, Wyatt smacked his palm with a fist. “I tell you, we can do it!”
“What’s gotten into him?” said Nikki.
“Too much hot mustard?” said Tremaine.
“Not quite.” Cinnabar smirked and raised a spring roll in her chopsticks. “I think our boy may have an idea.”
NO SURPRISE, Wyatt’s plan involved a fair amount of computer hacking. The S.P.I.E.S. crew split into two teams, drawing and redrawing their plans far into the night. Approaching the challenge from both ends, one group covered the government angle, and one tackled LOTUS.
Priority One became learning when LOTUS would make their move on the ministers. Simon Segredo and his team set to work trying to hack the government’s database, searching for any mention of meetings with Mrs. Frost or LOTUS Security Systems, the spy agency’s cover company. Wyatt’s team had the unenviable task of hacking LOTUS’s computer network, which was even better protected than the government’s.
Max knew he was rubbish at computer hacking and strongest at fieldwork, so he and Hantai Annie elected to run a guerrilla campaign against LOTUS. He had no illusions. It was a little like trying to bring down a rogue elephant with a BB gun, but anything that harassed and distracted the enemy would work to their advantage.
Early the following morning, while the rest of the group slumbered in armchairs, sofas, and beds, Hantai Annie shook Max awake.
“Wuzza?” he mumbled.
“Oi okiro!” she said. “Wakey-wakey. Time to go.”
He yawned hugely, sat up on his couch, and looked around. First light brushed the dark sky with a hint of pearl gray across the horizon. Cinnabar lay sprawled in the armchair beside him, soft and vulnerable in sleep, a strand of hair stuck to the corner of her mouth. Max felt the urge to reach over and pull it free.
“Well? You waiting for engraved invitation?” whispered Hantai Annie.
“Huh?” muttered Max. “Oh. I’m coming. Five minutes.”
Ten minutes later, he trailed Annie out the door, still yawning. The chilly morning air helped rouse him, and by the time they reached the subway carrying pastries, tea, and heavily sugared coffee from a nearby bakery, Max felt nearly awake.
“So what’s our strategy?” he asked, munching on a chocolate croissant.
Hantai Annie Wong patted the gear bag slung over her shoulder. “Today, we take fight to them, like David and Goliath.”
His forehead crinkled. “You know about that Sunday school stuff? I thought you were Buddhist or something.”
“Even Buddhists like a good story.” She winked, which was a little unnerving, like seeing a marble statue scratch itself. This lady was full of surprises.
After they boarded the train and got settled, Max recalled something he hadn’t had time to pursue in all the excitement of the rescue operation.
He sent her a sidelong glance. “Can I ask something?”
“Mochiron,” she said. “Ask away.”
“Back at the mansion, when you were imitating Dijon, you spoke perfect English.”
“Hai.” She nodded.
“So…now you’re back to talking like you always do,” he said. “Why?”
“A woman has her secrets, and a spy woman has even more.”
He rolled his eyes and shifted his body away, thinking, I might have known not to expect a straight answer. But after a sip of tea, she continued.
“The truth? To keep people off balance, but also…”
“Yes?”
“When you play a part long enough, it becomes part of you.” Her eyes searched his. “Wakatta ka?”
Max swallowed, thinking of his time in the LOTUS mansion, spent pretending to be on their side. How he’d—even if only for a millisecond—considered the devil’s bargain Mrs. Frost had offered. A light chill juddered across his shoulders.
“Now I have question for you,” she said.
Max shrugged. “Okay.”
“How are you?”
He flapped a hand, glancing away again. “Fine.”
Annie reached over and gently turned his face toward her. “No. How are you now? You suffered much, Max-kun. You lose everything, and pretend to become what you hated. This would break many people.”
Trying for a smile, Max found his bottom lip trembling. His voice wobbled. “Lucky thing I’m not most people.”
She held his gaze for several heartbeats. “Lucky thing,” she said. Annie squeezed his shoulder. “You good boy, Max-kun.”
Max’s throat constricted, and his eyes felt suspiciously misty, so he took another sip of coffee and rummaged around in the sack.
“I’m just glad we’re all back together,” he mumbled, thinking that he’d never spoken truer words. Max had to shake his head, marveling over how much had changed in a day.
Hantai Annie sent him a shrewd look. “Your father?”
Max stared down into the bag. “I almost can’t believe it. You know?”
“Wakatta,” she said.
“Do you think—can I…trust him?” Max almost hated to ask, but he needed to know her opinion.
For a stretch, the spymaster remained silent, considering. “He loves you,” she said. “And he tries to change for you. Is muzukashii—very difficult. Real question is: Can you f
orgive him?”
Now it was Max’s turn to ponder. “I…I’m getting there,” he said at last.
“Like I say, you good boy.”
By the time they reached the LOTUS mansion, the sun was struggling to pierce the blanket of low clouds that smothered the city. The rubbish collectors rattled up the street in their truck, leaving a cloud of acrid exhaust smoke in their wake, but all the residents were still indoors.
Annie tugged a baseball cap low over her face, and Max pulled the hood of his sweatshirt forward. “You know key to effective guerrilla warfare?” she asked.
“Surprise?”
One side of her mouth curved upward. “That, and don’t get caught.”
Max dug into his rucksack and came out with a small plastic box. “I know how I’m starting our campaign.” Using the rubbish truck as cover, Max slipped past the mansion’s driveway and scattered the entire box of tacks in the mud puddle that had pooled where driveway met street.
Making sure she was out of the security cameras’ range, Hantai Annie tossed a few flash drives and CDs over the wall. Max smirked. “That’ll hit ’em where it hurts,” he said. “Someone will slip on those and fall on his bum.”
Annie arched an eyebrow. “Wyatt’s idea,” she said. “Trojan horse program.”
“Ah,” said Max. “So if an agent finds one and puts it into his computer…”
Her hand darted out, imitating a striking snake. “Instant hack.”
Max chuckled. “Clever boy, our Wyatt.”
For the next few hours, they disabled security cameras, planted long-range listening devices in various trees, short-circuited the current in the wall-top razor wire, tossed hamburger balls laced with sleeping pills for the dogs, and generally made a nuisance of themselves.
Several times, guards rushed out to catch them, but each time Max and Annie melted away into the neighborhood. Once, a black Mercedes blasted down the driveway in pursuit and instantly got four flat tires on the hidden tacks. Humphrey, the driver, cursed so hard and so much, he grew light-headed and nearly passed out.
So this was guerrilla warfare.
Max loved it.
But more than that, he loved being back with Hantai Annie. He hadn’t fully realized how much he’d missed her, and how concerned he’d been about her disappearance.
