3
Operation Blown Away
I was dying to know what our latest mission was, but we didn’t have time to play the disc just then because we had to eat.
Then, after dinner, Mom asked, “Who’s up for a game of Scrabble?”
Uh-oh. I looked at Frank, who just shrugged.
Thanks for coming up with an out, dude.
Not.
I cleared my throat. “Um, actually, Mom, Frank and I were planning on playing some video games.”
Mom looked totally crushed. “You brought your portable game player on our family vacation?” she asked.
“Sort of,” I had to admit. “Dad did just get it for me for my birthday. I figured it would have been rude not to take it, you know?”
Mom wasn’t buying it. “It’s bad enough that you boys switched to snowboarding, so we can’t even ski together as a family anymore. Now you want to lock yourselves in a small bedroom to stare at the television?”
“Oh, don’t worry. It’s not the TV,” I said. “The game player has its own screen.”
My brother kicked me. Frank turned to her and said, “I think you’re forgetting that the game is educational.”
Mom raised her eyebrows and asked, “Oh really, Frank. How do you figure that?”
“It allows us to practice hand-eye coordination,” he replied.
That’s my bro!
“Maybe on toddlers,” said Mom.
“Frank’s not that mature,” I piped in.
He kicked me again, but this time I got him back.
“Ow,” he said.
I grinned and wiggled my eyebrows. “Something wrong, Frank?”
“No,” he grumbled.
Mom wasn’t gonna give up. “Now, boys, are you forgetting that we’re in Lake Tahoe? Just look out the window. There are gorgeous mountains right outside.”
“And you want us to stay cooped up here so we can play a board game?” I asked.
“We’ve been outside all day, Mom,” said Frank. “Look at what the outside did to Joe’s face. Come on. Give us a break.”
Dad started laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Mom and Frank asked at the same time.
“You’re never going to win this argument,” Dad said, as he stood up and began clearing the table. “Just accept the facts.”
“Are you talking to us or to Mom?” I wondered.
“Hmm,” said Dad. “You know what? Forget I said anything. I think I’m better off not taking sides.”
“I have an idea,” said Mom. She turned to Frank and me. “How about if you boys play your video game for an hour, and after that, we can play Scrabble as a family.”
“Deal,” I said. And then we bolted upstairs.
The cabin Mom and Dad had rented for us had just two bedrooms, so Frank and I were sharing for the week. He made sure our door was shut tight, and I headed straight to the portable game player.
As I popped in the disc and hit play, we both huddled over the screen in anticipation. We knew the drill by now. All of our ATAC missions came to us via video game discs.
This time, some elevator music started blaring from the speakers. Blech. I could totally live without that. Then the screen blinked and an image of some fancy hotel in the middle of the desert came on. Soon we heard the deep voice of some guy with a British accent. It didn’t sound like Q, the agent who usually spoke on these CDs—maybe it was one of the other guys on his team.
“Located just outside of Phoenix, Arizona, the Billing ton Resort and Spa is one of the finest hotels in the country. Every president since Theodore Roosevelt has vacationed there. And today, the resort is a popular destination for celebrities and world leaders. In fact, it was just bought by Jake Beller, the real estate mogul and reality television star.”
“Cool,” I said. I knew all about Jake Beller. His show was called The Candidate. He recruited people from all over the country and they competed, on camera, for a job running one of his companies. “That guy owns everything. And isn’t he about to marry that model/actress? What’s her name? Emma, or Eddy, or someone?”
“Shh,” said Frank.
My brother is so serious.
The British voice droned on. “This weekend the resort is hosting two high-profile events.” Just then an image of Beller and the model/actress flashed on the screen. “The first is Jake Beller’s wedding to Ella Sinclair. They are expecting more than three hundred guests, and they will spend an estimated million dollars on the party.”
“A million dollars on one wedding!” I exclaimed. “That’s insane.”
“Jake Beller is one of the richest men in America,” Frank pointed out.
“Still . . .”
The image changed from Beller and Ella Sinclair to some of the coolest old sports cars I’d ever seen.
“And number two,” said the voice, “is the M&P Car Auction, the biggest annual antique car auction in the world. There are one hundred forty-five vintage cars on view, worth a total of more than fifteen million dollars.”
Fifteen million bucks on a bunch of cool cars? That I have no problem with. “This is gonna be so excellent. I wonder what the problem is,” I said.
It was like the mysterious British guy was listening in on our conversation. “The problem is,” he said, “ATAC recently found out that there’s a bomb somewhere on the premises. It’s powerful enough to blow up the entire resort—along with everyone and everything in it. The bomb is set to go off at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon. If the bomb goes off, everything—and everyone—will be blown to bits. It will destroy the property. It may cost lives, do tens of millions of dollars in damage, and send a bad message to the terrorists.
“Besides identifying and detaining the guilty party, you’ll need to find the bomb and contact the bomb squad—they’ll be standing by and ready to defuse it. If you don’t find the bomb by two o’clock, the resort will have to be evacuated so no one gets injured. Evacuation is a last resort.”
“Doesn’t sound too complicated,” Frank said.
It didn’t, but seeing the simulated explosion, even in cartoonlike graphics, gave me the heebie-jeebies. The screen filled up with smoke.
“Complications will arise,” said the voice. “Neither Jake Beller nor Henry Peterson, the owner of the M&P Car Auction, will cooperate with the authorities. The two men have a history of conflict. Neither man wanted to share the resort this weekend. Each wanted the other to switch dates, but both refused. This made them very unhappy. Both are used to getting what they want. Jake tried to bribe Henry and when that didn’t work, he threatened to sue. Henry didn’t like that. Each has threatened the other, and they’ve both hired their own security forces for the weekend. It’s a mess—too complicated for our adult secret agents. But you boys should be able to sneak in under the radar. As always, you must be careful to stay undercover. If either party finds out who you are, they’ll throw you out.”
“What kind of jerks won’t even cooperate with the police?” I asked.
“The kind of jerks who have something to hide,” Frank replied.
“You will leave first thing tomorrow morning. This mission, like every mission, is top secret,” said the voice. “In five seconds this disc will be reformatted into a regular music CD.”
As promised, five seconds later the game player started blasting the elevator music. I switched it off.
Frank read the plane tickets. “We need to catch a seven a.m. flight tomorrow, and we come home at five o’clock that night. Not much time.”
“I guess if we don’t find the bomb and the bad guys, we’re useless,” I said.
Just then, Mom knocked on the door.
I closed the video game player and called, “Come on in.”
Mom poked her head inside and looked at us suspiciously. “I was walking by your door when I heard something strange.”
Uh-oh. I looked to Frank, who quickly hid the plane tickets between the mattress and box spring of his bed.
“It so
unded like Beethoven’s Fifth,” Mom continued. “Are you boys listening to classical music?”
Phew. She really had me there for a second. “We sure were,” I said.
“Really?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yes, we can only take so much rap, hip hop, and ska. Classical music is so . . . classic.”
Mom placed her hands on her hips and smiled. “This is such a nice surprise,” she said.
We both grinned back at her. What else were we going to do?
“You know, Mom,” said Frank. “I’ve been thinking about what you said, and you’re totally right. We hardly ever spend family time together. The video game can wait—how about if we play Scrabble now?”
My brother—such a brownnoser.
“Are you sure?” Mom asked. She looked so happy.
“Positive,” I said. “We can’t have a really late night, anyway. We want to be at the lifts first thing tomorrow morning. You know—to avoid the lines. We’ll probably leave at five a.m., right, Frank?”
“Yup.” Frank nodded. “Five o’clock in the morning sounds perfect.”
“Wow, that is early,” said Mom. “Joe, promise me you’ll be more careful tomorrow?”
My brother turned to me and put his hand on my shoulder. “Mom’s right, Joe. Even I’m starting to worry about you. You need to take it easy.”
I smiled through gritted teeth and answered, “Promise.”
As soon as Mom was out of earshot, I whispered, “I’ll get you for that later.”
Frank asked, “Is that supposed to be a threat?”
“Nope,” I replied. “Just a promise.”
4
The Lay of the Land
Even though the flight from Tahoe to Phoenix was less than two hours, it felt as if we’d traveled to a different universe. It wasn’t just the climate—we were prepared to go from the frigid, cold mountains to a scorching-hot desert. But the thing is, there was nothing desertlike about the Billington Resort. There were lush green lawns and flowers everywhere.
“For a place that gets only eight to ten inches of rain a year, Phoenix sure feels tropical,” I said.
“Yeah, this place is weird,” Joe agreed.
The resort was so huge and sprawling, it took us almost twenty minutes just to get the lay of the land. There were twenty-three separate buildings, spread out over forty-five acres. Besides guest rooms, the hotel contained four ballrooms, five restaurants, and a beauty salon and spa. Outside, the grounds were filled with seven swimming pools, two golf courses, eight tennis courts, croquet courts, and even a cobblestone street lined with shops. With an ice cream parlor and a general store, it was set up to look like a small-town Main Street.
And the people? They were weird, too. The place was crawling with women dripping with fancy jewelry. Most of the guys were wearing pastel shorts and shirts. Basically, we were in a private, self-contained village for rich people.
The size of the place was astounding. It was so large, there could be five raging parties happening all at once, and they’d never overlap. It was hard to believe that a couple of guys could complain about sharing the place—even two ego-driven multimillionaires like Beller and Peterson.
“Know what I’m thinking?” asked Joe.
“No idea,” I replied.
“Sure, it’s hot out here, but what’s with all the sun visors? Why not just get a hat that can protect your whole head, rather than leaving a gaping hole in the middle?”
I glared at my brother, but that didn’t cut his rant any shorter.
“Especially bald guys in sun visors,” he went on. “What are they thinking? Do these guys know how stupid those things actually look?”
“I’m guessing no. Otherwise, they probably wouldn’t be wearing them.”
“Right,” said Joe.
As we strolled past an Olympic-size swimming pool, Joe suddenly stopped short and grabbed my arm.
“Is that Cassandra Marquis?” he asked, pointing to some woman in a yellow bikini. She was lounging at the other end of the pool.
“Who?” I wondered.
“That actress on that new sitcom? I forget what it’s called. You know what I’m talking about, though. She used to be in those potato chip commercials, too.”
“I have no idea,” I answered.
“Wow, you’re really out of it.” Joe slipped on his shades and walked toward the actress.
“Wait. Where are you going?” I asked, grabbing his arm.
“I want to talk to her,” Joe replied.
I shook my head. “Come on, we can’t. We’re on a mission. And we’re supposed to keep a low profile, remember?”
“Hey, this is all about the mission,” said Joe. “She probably knows Beller. I’m hoping she’ll give us some leads.”
He shook himself free from my grasp and walked over to her. Or I should say, he tried to walk over to her. This beefy guy in a black T-shirt and a blond crew cut stopped him when he was still ten feet away.
“Do you know Ms. Marquis?” he asked, crossing his arms and glaring down at my brother.
“Uh, not personally,” said Joe, backing up a few steps. “But I’m a huge fan.”
“Ms. Marquis didn’t come here to talk to fans,” he said. “She came here so she could relax, in private.”
“Okay,” said Joe, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “I can take a hint. Sorry, dude.” He headed back to me with his head down and his shoulders slumped.
I managed to refrain from saying “Told you so,” and I didn’t even laugh. Of course, I didn’t have to. Someone else was cracking up. The voice was definitely female, and it was coming from right behind me.
I turned around to find this really pretty girl sitting by the pool. She had short blond hair and blue eyes. She was dressed in blue shorts and a pink tank top with matching flip-flops, and she was knitting a blue and red striped scarf.
When she noticed us watching her, she stopped laughing. “Oh, I’m sorry. Don’t take offense. It’s just that I’ve been sitting here for less than an hour and you’re the fourth guy I’ve seen try to approach Cassandra.”
I finally had something to smile about. “Nice work, Joe.”
The girl said, “If Cassandra Marquis pays her security guard by each nuisance he gets rid of, she’s going to owe him a lot of cash at the end of the day.”
“You may think I’m just another nuisance,” said Joe. “But that’s not the case at all. I figured that would happen. I just wanted to keep the security guard on his toes.”
This time we all laughed.
“Joe Hardy,” said my brother, offering her his hand. “And this is my brother, Frank.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Ashley McGill,” she said, setting down her knitting needles and shaking both of our hands. “So are you guys with the wedding? Or are you here for the car show?”
“Neither,” said Joe, as he sat down at the foot of Ashley’s lounge chair. “We’re just here with our parents for the weekend. What about you?”
“My parents dragged me here, too, but for the wedding,” Ashley explained. “Ella Sinclair is my dad’s cousin.”
“Cool,” I said.
“One would think,” said Ashley. “But it’s actually pretty boring here.”
Joe shaded his eyes from the sun and squinted up at me. “Take a seat, Frank.”
I sat down in the lounge next to them.
Joe picked up Ashley’s scarf. “It’s a little warm for this, don’t you think?”
“Yes, here,” she said. “But I go to school in Wisconsin.”
“Wisconsin?” Joe exclaimed. “That is such a funny coincidence. I am a huge fan of cheese. . . .”
“. . . and of being cheesy,” I added.
I wasn’t giving Joe a hard time for no reason. While he was using this opportunity to flirt, I realized we could actually get some potentially valuable information from Ashley. She was Ella Sinclair’s cousin, after all.
“So, do you know Jake Beller?” I asked. Time t
o dial direct.
“Not really,” Ashley said. “But I do know enough about him to know that I can’t stand him.”
“How come?” I wondered.
“He’s a mega-huge developer,” said Ashley. “And he’s turned miles of beautiful Arizona desert into tract houses and shopping malls and parking lots.”
“I guess everyone needs a place to live,” said Joe.
“Not everyone needs a huge mansion with grass and trees and flowers in the desert,” said Ashley. “This country’s focus on the new and overdone is kind of sickening, when you think about it. I mean, just look at his resort. Do you know how much water it takes to sustain all this grass and these flowers in their unnatural climate? Beller has only owned the Billington for six months, but he’s already wasting twice as many natural resources as the old owners. Plus, he just bought up all the land surrounding the resort. He wants to build more houses and golf courses, like there aren’t enough already. You know, this nonprofit group was trying to raise the funds to buy the land so they could turn it into a national park. But right before they signed the deal, Beller swept in and outbid them.”
Ashley raised an interesting point. I wondered who owned all that land before Beller. Perhaps they were upset that he was developing it and adding to the suburban sprawl. “Which group was going to buy the land?” I asked.
“Don’t know,” said Ashley, with a shrug. “Hey, sorry to go off on such a tangent. Do you guys want to play lawn chess?”
“It depends,” said Joe. “What’s lawn chess?”
“It’s like regular chess, except the pieces are all five feet tall,” Ashley explained.
“Wouldn’t desert chess be more appropriate?” I wondered out loud.
Ashley smiled at me. “Good point. But try and find desert in this desert. You’ll have to travel pretty far. I suggest we make do with the resources we have.”
“Actually, we should go,” I said, as I stood up.
“We’ll take a rain check, though,” Joe added. He gave Ashley his cell phone number and told her to give him a call later.
“Will do,” she said. “Where are you off to now? More celebrity stalking?”
Blown Away Page 2
