The Winning Element

by Shannon Greenland

  We left our room and joined the other color-coordinated girls trickling through the halls and down the elevator.

  TL caught up with us in the lobby and motioned us to follow. He led us down a hall, around a corner, and into a vacant conference room.

  That was the good thing about hotels. Lots of nooks and crannies to duck into.

  TL pulled the tiny blue pyramid from his pocket and rotated the top. “Eduardo and his men were in their room all night. Parrot translated the Portuguese you recorded.”

  Portuguese? I’d thought it was Spanish. Guess that’s why I wasn’t the linguist of the group.

  “Everything’s definitely on,” TL continued. “But they didn’t talk times, dates, or locations.”

  Beaker held her finger up. “So basically we still have nothing.”

  “No,” TL corrected. “We have the recording, pictures, the DNA dust. Some proof. It’s a start. We need a location, though, where it’s all going down. We need the smuggled chemicals. We need the location of where his buyers will be making the bombs. We need to know how he’s shipping them back out. We need Eduardo Villanueva in the middle of it all. And we need to get a tracker on him so we know when he’s on the move.”

  “The simulated mosquito sting,” I suggested, “is going to be our best bet. That way we can plant the tracker from a distance. ”

  TL nodded. “I agree. And I want a camera in his room today. No audio function on it, though. We don’t want him to pick up our signal if he happens to scan his room for bugs. The IPNC has given us a lip reader.” TL handed me a piece of paper. “This is his IP address. Make sure all film goes directly to his computer so he can analyze it and tell us what Eduardo and his men are saying.”

  I pocketed the paper. Great idea sending silent film to a lip reader. Why hadn’t David and I thought of that while we were planning things?

  “That’s it for me. You two got anything?”

  We shook our heads.

  TL extended his hand. “Give me one of the simulated mosquito stings.”

  I slipped my backpack off my shoulder, unzipped the front pocket, and gave him what looked like a mechanical pencil. The stings were cool little devices, able to shoot up to twenty feet. They were a combination of Chapling’s technology, my proto laser tracker invention that I’d brought with me from Iowa, and Wirenut’s putty-blowing bamboo that he’d used on the Rissala mission. I’d thought Wirenut’s homemade device was so neat that Chapling and I had immediately started tinkering with it after Rissala.

  Once programmed, the simulated stings worked like those military missiles that swerve through the air until they find their target. The pencil’s lead end held the tracking component, and the eraser served as the release lever. Line the lead up with the target (person), and press the eraser. A tiny chunk of lead would shoot through the air and straight into the person’s body, feeling like a mosquito sting.

  TL slipped the pencil in his T-shirt pocket. He rotated the pyramid counterclockwise to the off position. “You two go and eat breakfast. No skipping.” With that, he strode from the room.

  Beaker and I slowly made our way down the hallway back to the lobby.

  “How’d your call with David go?”

  “Fine. We got cut off.” I didn’t tell her I’d stayed up all night obsessing over it.

  “Huh. That’s weird.”

  “Tell me about it.” I stopped at a water fountain and took a quick sip.

  “I, uh . . . I saw CJ again last night after I left you at the pool area, as I was heading back to the room.”

  “You did?” I smiled. “How’d it go?”

  Shrugging, she glanced away. “It went all right.”

  Her nonchalant tone did not match her shy avoidance.

  I dropped the CJ subject. Something told me she wouldn’t give me more even if I pressed. And pressing, I figured, might ruin our newfound bond.

  Crossing the lobby, we entered the meal room. Like yesterday, everyone had already served themselves and been seated.

  And like yesterday, Beaker and I loaded up our plates: eggs, strawberries, muffins, bacon. And like yesterday, our hearty appetites drew snide attention.

  After breakfast, we headed across the lobby into the practice hall. As we walked in, music throbbed from speakers positioned around the room. Contestants were already spread out, stretching, getting ready for rehearsal.

  In hindsight I should’ve had a muffin and called it quits, because here I stood thirty minutes later feeling a bit queasy. Girls surrounded me on all sides, sweating, dancing, ponytails sagging.

  With clipboards in hand, the current America’s Cheer team meandered through us, stopping here and there, observing, checking things off.

  Beaker stood diagonal to me, her jaw convulsively flexing. She needed gum. I’d keep an eye on her in case she blew one of her chemically talented gaskets.

  Wearing a head mike, the team leader stood on a riser at the front of the room demonstrating the moves. “Five, six, seven, eight.”

  She spun, dipped, kicked, swirled, and did about a dozen more fancy things. All around me girls effectively followed her. I barely made it to the kick part.

  An America’s Cheer member wandered by, stopping a few feet from me. She watched me, her brows slightly puckered. Then she flipped a few papers on her clipboard and checked things off. I could only imagine:

  Ana. Red-and-white team. Complete reject. Check.

  The clipboard Nazi moved on, and all around me girls snickered.

  I rolled my eyes. What losers. Get a life.

  “Five, six, seven, eight.” Team leader busted into a rapid-fire series of moves.

  Yeah, right. Like that’s going to happen.

  All around me, girls gyrated. I didn’t even try.

  Wiping my hand across my forehead, I gazed longingly over everyone’s heads to the mats stacked along the side wall. I’d give my last segment of code to flop across them for a few seconds.

  “Take five,” Team leader echoed through the speakers.

  Oh, thank God.

  I found the closest America’s Cheer member and pulled her aside. “I’m going to need more than five. I’m not feeling well. I need to go to my room.”

  “That’s going to cost you points on the competition.”

  So. “I know.” I gave her my best disappointed look. “But I’m really not feeling well.”

  “All right.” She made a note on her clipboard. “Take as long as you need.”

  “Thanks.” For good measure, I put my hand over my mouth and puffed out my cheeks.

  She jerked back. “Go!”

  Nothing like the threat of impending vomit to make things real. I snatched my backpack from the pile of everyone else’s purses and bags, gave Beaker an I’m-out-of-here look, and then bolted upstairs to our room. Finally, some time to work.

  I walked into the room and turned on Lessy’s and Jessy’s signals on my cell phone. Two red dots popped up on my screen. Cranking up my laptop, I keyed in the access code to the satellite. I plugged in the coordinates to our hotel, X-rayed through the roof, and brought up a picture of Eduardo Villanueva’s suite.

  He and his men sat around the room as if they were having a pleasant afternoon. One read the paper. Another talked on the phone. Eduardo played chess with the last.

  Too bad the lip reader couldn’t watch them via satellite. It would make things a lot easier than planting a camera. But with cloud coverage and storms between here and Denmark (where the lip reader lived), the image would constantly flicker and go out.

  Speaking of which. I froze the image to stabilize it and studied the room’s layout. The wide angle camera would definitely have to be placed high in order to film the entire room and all the men.

  I zeroed in on the ceiling fan and the globe light attached to it. If I could get the camera inside that globe, it would be the perfect location.

  My heart jolted with excitement as a plan clicked into place.

  I accessed the secret pa
nel beneath the bed and found The Fly—a nifty little gadget Wirenut had developed way back before he even became a Specialist. It was a wide-angle camera that looked, big surprise, like a fly. Once programmed it would buzz to its destination, land, and begin filming. According to Wirenut, it had enough battery life to last a year.

  Sticking my pencil under its tiny wing, I pressed the on button. It fluttered, and I smiled. Cute little thing.

  I brought up the software that I had developed for The Fly and, through a wireless connection, programmed it to its final destination—the globe light.

  I deactivated The Fly’s audio function and then input the lip reader’s IP address so all film would be copied to his hard drive.

  In mere minutes, we would know what was being discussed in that room.

  Climbing on top of the bed, I lifted The Fly to the vent and let it go.

  From studying the hotel’s blueprints, I knew the ventilation system from my floor connected to the presidential suite. One way or another, The Fly would find its way there.

  Reactivating the live satellite, I kept my gaze glued to the ceiling vent in Eduardo Villanueva’s living room. Minutes later, The Fly zoomed out, buzzed across the ceiling, and flew straight into the light fixture. None of the men even looked up.

  I flipped from satellite to The Fly’s software. Sure enough, it had already begun filming.

  I wanted to hug both Wirenut and his bug for their awesomeness.

  In the bottom corner of my screen a message popped up from the lip reader, acknowledging the transmission.

  Good. Almost everything in place.

  We had implemented DNA dust, and pictures of it along with swabs would give us documented proof of where Eduardo had been. The Fly provided film of them in their suite. And now I just had to get a tracking device on them longer than thirty minutes to electronically monitor where they were going.

  One way or another, we’d know where everything was going down.

  On Our morning break The next day, David texted me. HEY. BEEN BUSY. A LOT OF UNEXPECTED THINGS ARE GOING ON. TELL YOU LATER. WANTED YOU TO KNOW I GOT YOUR MESSAGE.

  What unexpected things? BE SAFE, I texted back.

  “Ana?” TL approached me in the lobby.

  I showed him David’s text. “What’s going on?” I whispered.

  TL shook his head. “I’m not at liberty to say right now.”

  I hated when TL did that.

  “Patience,” he said.

  Patience was usually a strong point for me, but not when it came to all this top-secret stuff. I didn’t like not being in the know.

  “The lip reader just texted me that Eduardo has a video conference call scheduled in five minutes.” He started walking to the elevator. “Let’s go. You’re going to hack into it. Chapling already knows and has Parrot ready.”

  My heart gave one giant leap. A video call was exactly what we needed. Hopefully, we’d find out something worthwhile.

  TL keyed a message into his cell. “I’ll let Beaker know to cover for us.”

  We rode the elevator up and hurried into my room. I snatched the laptop from my case, powered up, and keyed in my scrambler code. In the bottom-left corner of the screen I brought up The Fly’s software and watched as Eduardo opened his laptop. He plugged in an interpreter box and typed in a password. I watched closely, memorizing it.

  I zoomed in on the interpreter box and read its model number. Then I zoomed in on the screen and saw which conferencing software he was using.

  Chapling appeared in the bottom-right corner in a video feed. “What do you got?”

  “He’s using the micro parley software,” I told Chapling.

  “One second.” Chapling’s fingers raced over his keyboard. “Sending it to you now.”

  My screen flicked as my laptop accepted the software Chapling sent me.

  “Got it,” I told him, activating it.

  Through the micro parley software, I hacked into the interpreter box on Eduardo’s computer and entered his password. The upper-left corner of my screen mirrored Eduardo’s computer exactly.

  I signaled TL, and he sat down beside me on the bed.

  Parrot appeared in the upper-right corner of my screen, wearing a headset.

  I ran a quick stereophonic code patching Eduardo’s audio to Parrot. At that exact second, a dark-haired man appeared on Eduardo’s screen. He began speaking in another language. Parrot gave a nod to let us know the transmission was coming through.

  Chapling’s fingers raced across his keyboard again. “That’s Eduardo’s brother, Pedro.”

  Parrot began translating simultaneously with the movement of their mouths. He preceded each translation with the name of the person speaking.

  “Pedro: Eduardo, how are you?”

  “Eduardo: Fine brother, you?”

  “Pedro: Fine. I’m missing my son’s soccer game.”

  “Eduardo: I’m missing lunch.”

  I looked over at TL. “Is this for real? They’re talking about stupid stuff.”

  He shook his head. “Could be code for something.”

  “Pedro: I ordered pizza for lunch and it came wrong. I had to send it back.”

  “Eduardo: Did you get your money back?”

  “Pedro: No. They made me a new one for a discounted price.”

  “Eduardo: When’s the new pizza getting delivered?”

  “Pedro: At the time we previously discussed.”

  “Eduardo: Are you waiting on me then?”

  “Pedro: Yes, I know you’ll be hungry.”

  “Eduardo: And where is it being delivered?”

  “Pedro: The emporium.”

  Eduardo nodded and signed off.

  Parrot took off his headset with a shrug. “Sorry, guys.”

  With a disappointed smile, I waved at him. “Thanks, Parrot.”

  I clicked a few keys, and he disappeared from my screen.

  Chapling lifted his bushy brows. “Obviously the pizza is the shipment.”

  Oh, I hadn’t thought about that. Made sense, though.

  TL nodded. “I agree. Get cranking on emporium,” he told Chapling, “and see what you can come up with.”

  Chapling nodded and clicked off.

  I powered down. “Now what?”

  “Back to cheerleading rehearsal.”

  I trudged through the hotel beside TL, wishing that call would have gone better. I didn’t feel like we’d gotten anything.

  For the rest of the day, Beaker and I went about our rehearsal /dance/smiley annoying daily routine. Eduardo and his men didn’t move from their suite. According to a text I received from Nalani, they’d even canceled maid service.