by Bruce Hale
They capped off the morning’s mischief by flagging down a grocery delivery truck that was pulling up to the gate. Annie had doffed her overcoat to reveal the black-and-silver uniform she’d worn as Dijon.
“Beg pardon,” she said to the driver, a chubby man with a huge red walrus mustache.
He stopped the truck. “Yes?”
“I’m frightfully sorry, but there’s been a change of plans,” said Annie in a pretty good upper-crust accent.
Red Walrus frowned. “Oh?”
“Mrs., er…” She rotated a hand.
“Cheeseworthy,” Max supplied.
“—has sent us out to catch you. It seems we’ve made a duplicate order for groceries. So sorry, but you’ll have to take this load back.”
“Take it…back?” The driver’s face screwed up like he’d bitten into a bitter lemon. “The whole load?”
“That’s right,” said Annie. “If you bring this truck through those gates, Mrs. Cheeseworthy will be…what’s the phrase?”
“Seriously cheesed off,” said Max with a straight face.
Red Walrus’s eyes widened.
“You don’t want to cheese off the cook, do you?” said Hantai Annie in her gravest tones. “She might pull all her business away from your store. It’s happened before.”
Max could scarcely contain his laughter at the expression on the man’s face.
“No,” said Red Walrus. “Heavens no. Thanks for the warning, ma’am.”
“Not at all,” she said. “Be seeing you.”
The portly man reversed his truck and drove away without another word. Max burst out laughing. Even Hantai Annie cracked a tiny smile.
“Army runs on its stomach,” she said. “And this army will be hara hetta—very hungry.”
Shaking his head in admiration, Max said, “You’re devious.”
“You are too kind,” said Annie. She jerked her head to the side. “Owatta. We leave now.”
“Already?” said Max.
She cast a glance at the mansion. “By now, everyone is awake and active. Remember second key of guerrilla warfare?”
“Don’t get caught,” Max said.
“Maybe we return tonight,” said Annie. “For more fun. But now we meet with member of House of Lords.”
Max frowned. “Someone from Parliament? What for?”
“To show us how to break into government building, of course.”
A short while later, Max and Hantai Annie joined the line outside the public entrance to the Houses of Parliament, a colossal limestone structure on the riverbank. Eager students and foreign tourists kept up a babble of conversation as the line inched forward.
Unlike their fellow visitors, Max and Annie had zero interest in the collections of art, the historical structures, or the intricate workings of government. They were probing for weak spots in the security system.
Max noted the stern-faced policemen posted seemingly everywhere, surveying the crowd with suspicious eyes. As he and Hantai Annie passed through security, he registered the metal detector, the X-ray scanner, and the care the cops took in screening everyone. When a constable confiscated the penknife on a teacher’s key ring, Max leaned close to Annie and whispered, “How in the world could LOTUS smuggle the brainwashing device past all this?”
Hantai Annie’s mouth tightened. “Never worry. They find a way.”
Reading the posted list of banned items—pepper spray, knives and other sharp objects, climbing gear, spray paint—Max was glad they’d left Annie’s bag of tricks in a locker at the tube station. Shame to lose such useful equipment.
While researching this government complex online, Hantai Annie had learned that it had witnessed a fair amount of theft over the years, as well as the odd protest action. Articles had mentioned all these things, but neglected to state the most important detail: how the thieves and protestors broke in.
Max mused. This was the government’s nerve center. If the cops couldn’t even prevent thievery, how could they forestall a much more serious threat?
After collecting their security lanyards at the check-in desk, Max and Annie joined a small group waiting in an alcove. Right on time, a tall, pale woman with a beaky nose and the predatory look of a wading bird stalked up to them, trailed by a much shorter Indian man. He scooted around her to address the cluster of people.
“Welcome, welcome!” he said. “The eleven o’clock tour for Lady Sallow-Dankworth? I’m Kevin Chopra, and this, of course, is her ladyship.”
Lady Sallow-Dankworth stared down her considerable nose at the group, and seeing those nostrils, Max whimsically wished for a Plexiglas shield in case she sneezed. “Greetings to all of you,” she began, in a voice that seemed to emerge from somewhere deep in her sinuses. “And welcome to the place where it all happens, the very epicenter of—” Her gaze fell upon Hantai Annie, and the lady visibly blanched. “Er, your government,” she concluded.
The spymaster showed the politician a serene expression.
“I shall leave you in Mr. Chopra’s capable hands,” the lady said. “As I have, er, pressing business to attend to.” Another nervous glance at Hantai Annie. “We do hope you enjoy your tour.”
“Right this way, please, ladies and gents,” said Kevin. “You’ll discover that lawmaking is rather like sausage making—once you learn the process, you may find you’ve lost your appetite.” Dutiful laughter followed his remark.
As the tour group shuffled off, Max muttered to Annie, “Is she afraid of you?”
“Let’s say she owes me,” said the spymaster.
At last the band moved out of earshot. With a quick glance to either side, Lady Sallow-Dankworth approached.
“Whatever is the matter?” she whispered. “I left a very important budget meeting for this.”
“Hisashiburi,” said Hantai Annie. “Good to see you too.”
Belatedly, the politician seemed to recall her manners and stuttered a brief greeting. Max couldn’t help observing that this woman really didn’t want to be in Hantai Annie’s debt.
“Problem is this,” said Annie. “A powerful group wants to control your government. We believe they will make their move in the next few days.” In brief terms, she sketched out what they had learned about the threat from LOTUS.
At the mention of a mind-control device, Lady Sallow-Dankworth brayed a laugh that sounded more like a donkey than one would have expected from such a birdlike woman. “Brainwashing? You pulled me out of a vital meeting to discuss some science-fiction threat?”
Hantai Annie bristled, but her voice stayed steady. “No science fiction; fact. People have died for this invention, and if LOTUS gets to use it on—”
“I’ve been very patient with you,” said the politician, “but if you expect me to take such a ridiculous claim to the security department, you don’t know Lady Sallow-Dankworth. Why, I’d be laughed out of the building. My reputation—”
“Baka yarou,” snapped Hantai Annie. “Reputation will not help if you are puppet of LOTUS.”
The lady waved her hand as if brushing away a fly. “No, no, no. Mrs. Wong, I owe you a great debt, but I simply cannot involve myself with this matter.”
A muscle jumped in Hantai Annie’s jaw. “Let me talk to security chief and learn the building’s vulnerable spots.”
The politician shook her head.
“At least tell us if ministers are meeting with LOTUS Security Systems.”
“Dreadfully sorry, but even if I knew it, that’s restricted information.” Lady Sallow-Dankworth kept shaking her head back and forth like a metronome. “Now, that’s all the time I can spare. You may join the tour or you may leave—entirely your choice.”
A sudden idea struck Max. “Can I at least use the toilet before we go?” he asked in his most innocent voice.
The politician tilted her head back, sighed as if she were doing him a huge favor, and pointed to the nearby loo. Max trotted off.
Pushing his way inside, he winced at the pungent smell of a
ntiseptic cakes and urine, and immediately started assessing the chamber as a hiding place. No security cameras or alarms that he could see. Loads of stalls. There was even a spacious janitor’s closet with a lock that could be easily jimmied.
He surveyed the room with a satisfied smile. Stinky, but it would serve.
“I say, young fellow,” said a stuffy-looking man staring at Max from a stall doorway. “What precisely are you doing here?”
“Research,” said Max.
A furrow appeared between the man’s eyebrows. “Research?”
“For my, er, blog,” said Max with a disarming smile. “Top Ten Loos of the Land. I’d say this one is number three with a bullet—wouldn’t you agree?”
Gawking at Max like he’d just sprouted a third eyeball on his forehead, the man edged around him and hurried outside without even washing his hands.
Max rejoined Hantai Annie, who was pacing her corner of the great hall and scowling at any officials who happened by. “Fools,” she muttered. “Not smart enough to save themselves.”
He lifted a shoulder. “Did you expect any different?”
Stopping her pacing, Annie narrowed her eyes. “No. But this is why I don’t work for government intelligence.”
“Government intelligence? That’s one of those contradiction thingies,” said Max as they headed for the exit. “Like easy algebra or jumbo shrimp.”
“Oxymoron,” said the spymaster.
Now it was Max’s turn to narrow his eyes. “I keep forgetting. Your English is better than you let on.”
A slight twitch of her mouth was Hantai Annie’s only response.
BACK AT THE SAFE HOUSE above the Chinese restaurant, Wyatt was doing the happy dance. “Because I’m bad, I’m bad, I break a bum-da-dum-dum,” he sang as he tried to imitate moves he’d seen on TV.
“I’ll say.” Nikki looked up from her laptop computer. “If you’re gonna butcher a song, at least get the lyrics right,” she groused.
Wyatt was in such a good mood, not even Nikki could burst his bubble. “Aw, you’re just brassed off because you’re still hunting for a back door, while I’ve hacked the LOTUS private network.” He strutted around the takeout-strewn living room, waving his arms in what he was almost sure was a hip-hop move. “I am the King Kong champion of all hack—ow!”
“Enough!”
The happy dance came to an abrupt end when Nikki grabbed on to his ear and twisted. Okay, so maybe he wasn’t quite in the sort of mood where Nikki couldn’t bother him. Maybe that state didn’t actually exist.
“Settle down, cupcake,” growled Mr. Stones, separating the two of them.
“But he—” Nikki began.
The burly man cut her off. “Save your spleen for the enemy.”
“Thanks,” said Wyatt.
“Even if he is bloody annoying,” continued Stones as if he hadn’t heard, “Wyatt’s on our side, remember.”
The redheaded girl grumbled, but she sat back down.
“Let’s see what you got, boy-o,” said Stones to Wyatt. He came around to peer at the blond boy’s laptop.
Still rubbing his smarting ear, Wyatt joined him. “See?” he said. “Someone must’ve picked up one of our Trojan horse thumb drives and plugged it into their computer.”
Mr. Stones squinted at the screen and rubbed his unshaven jaw, producing a sound like sandpaper on a wall. “Well, paint me pink and call me Mary. What am I seeing here?”
“Some kind of message from the system admin,” said Wyatt.
“Then why’s it look like alphabet soup gone through a blender?”
“Um, well, it’s still encoded,” said Wyatt. “But I’ve got three decryption programs working on cracking it.”
“Yeah, who’s bad?” Nikki smirked.
“I need more tea and bikkies,” mumbled Wyatt.
Stones clapped him on the back as he shuffled off toward the kitchen. “Good job, sunshine. We’re gettin’ there. At least you broke in.”
Wyatt stretched and yawned. They’d been at it nonstop for six hours, ever since he woke up this morning—one team in the living room, one team in the master bedroom—hacking away for all they were worth. Searching for the information that this mission depended on. His breakthrough was the first, but now that the balloon of his excitement had been punctured, Wyatt realized it could easily be another six hours before his software broke the LOTUS code.
He hoped it would be in time. Wyatt had a bad feeling that Mrs. Frost would use her dangerous new toy sooner rather than later.
And he really didn’t want to witness the results.
Switching on the heat under the kettle, he dumped the old tea leaves into the sink and added some fresh Earl Grey to the brewing basket.
“Any progress?”
Wyatt wheeled about to see Cinnabar enter the kitchen. “Oh, I cracked LOTUS’s private network,” he said in what he hoped was an offhand way. “You?”
“Wyatt, that’s brilliant!” Cinn rushed over and grabbed him by both hands.
His cheeks warmed at her praise. “Yeah, well. It’s all encoded anyway.”
“Even so,” she said. “Well done, you. We’ve been trolling the government Web sites for hours, and so far, nothing about LOTUS, and no luck with the hacking.”
Wyatt’s gaze dropped to the soggy tea leaves in the sink. “Cinn, what if we’re too late?”
“What do you mean?”
That tickle of dread in the pit of his stomach sharpened. “They’ve got all the money, all the manpower, all the connections. What if we can’t stop LOTUS in time?”
She gripped his hands tighter and gave Wyatt a little shake.
“We’ll just have to, that’s all,” she said lightly. But the false cheer in her voice was as obvious as a preschooler’s lie.
Mr. Stones called from the next room. “Wyatt? Get your bucket in here.”
Wyatt’s eyes met Cinnabar’s, which were as mystified as his own. They hustled into the living room, where Stones and Nikki stood over Wyatt’s laptop.
“Problem?” said Wyatt, joining them.
Stones only pointed.
On the screen, one of the deciphering programs had finally stopped its work. A pop-up message blinked in blue letters:
Type password and press ENTER for result.
With quivering fingers, Wyatt typed his password and tapped the key. Two lines scrolled across the screen:
Tonight’s the night. 7:30 p.m.
A and B teams to Location I.
“Brilliant,” said Cinnabar with a wide smile. “So where’s Location One?”
If the shabby safe house had been a beehive of activity earlier, this news amped things up to a whole new level. While Wyatt continued to search for and decode other LOTUS messages, the rest of the crew set their sights on pinning down Location I.
With only six and a half hours to go, this task took on a certain urgency.
Stones and Mr. Segredo barked orders, hurrying back and forth between computers and phoning all their contacts for leads. Tremaine, Cinnabar, and Nikki hacked for all they were worth. Hantai Annie and Max were headed back in, Max having managed to scatter a few more of Wyatt’s Trojan horse drives in Parliament’s employee parking lot.
Everyone focused on that seven thirty deadline. Everyone tried to discover where the meeting would take place.
Had LOTUS lured the top ministers with a conference on some vital topic—national security, perhaps? Wyatt wondered. Or was Mrs. Frost’s group planning to crash some other gathering that had already been slated?
No seven thirty ministerial meetings of any sort showed up on the publicly accessible schedules. But many sensitive discussions weren’t listed. Despite pleas, complaints, and veiled threats, the offices of Mr. Stones’s and Mr. Segredo’s MPs were of no help whatsoever.
Through it all, Wyatt was impressed at how well Max’s dad was able to work with the rest of the S.P.I.E.S. team. For a lone wolf and man of mystery, he displayed surprising patience and an ability to ope
rate within the group. True, Mr. Segredo and Stones occasionally had their differences, but so far they’d been able to iron things out without having to resort to biting and punching.
At last, Hantai Annie arrived with Max in tow, and everyone crowded around them, talking at once.
“Director, there’s only five hours left!”
“Come and see what we did with LOTUS’s e-mail system.”
“I can’t work with Nikki any longer—she’s driving me bonkers!”
Hantai Annie held up a hand. “Oi! Shizukani shiro!” she barked. “Everybody shut you mouth!”
Finally, the living room fell silent.
“One at a time, make report.”
Taking turns, the team members filled her in on their progress. After a brief huddle with Stones and Mr. Segredo, Hantai Annie addressed the group.
“Time is short, and we don’t know location,” she said. “So we play odds.”
“Play odds?” asked Max. “Like with horse racing?”
“Atari,” she said. “You got it. Odds are, meeting is somewhere in Parliament. So, we keep searching for site, but we prepare for meeting to happen there. Wakatta ka?”
“Loud and clear,” said Tremaine.
“No time to plan fancy break-in,” said Hantai Annie.
Stones screwed up his face thoughtfully. “How about staging a diversion?”
“No good,” said Mr. Segredo. “One whiff of any threat, and the whole place goes into lockdown.”
Mr. Stones shot him a dirty look, but said nothing.
“So, how do we get inside?” asked Wyatt.
Hantai Annie arched an eyebrow. “Only way a group of kids can get in,” she said. “School tour.”
IT TOOK some quick scrambling and a fair amount of arm-twisting on Lady Sallow-Dankworth (not literal arm-twisting, though Annie was sorely tempted), but in the end, the Merry Sunshine Orphanage School was able to arrange a last-minute parliamentary tour at four fifteen that same day.
Now all they had to do was sneak away from their guide, hack into the massively protected computer system of one of the world’s most developed nations, and save that nation’s government from a diabolical plot—all by seven thirty that night.
