Who in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?

by Rebecca Tinker

  “I added a fingerprint sensor. It’ll work only for me,” Gray told her triumphantly.

  Carmen shrugged. “Then it’s a tie.”

  Suddenly, the windows began to shake and Gray covered his ears as the deafening sound of an engine came from outside the train car.

  Right outside the window was a small plane flying alongside the moving train. In the pilot seat was a furious Frenchman who seemed to be shouting something at them while waving a badge around. “What the blazes . . . ?” Gray said, distracted by the sight of the madman in the plane.

  Gray remembered that Carmen still held the crackle rod and turned back to her. But he was a moment too late. Carmen swung it over her head.

  WHACK!

  Gray fell forward, his face pressing against the window. With a loud squeak, he slowly slid to the floor. Carmen snapped the crackle rod in two as he went down.

  “Red! You’re back online!” Player said through her earpiece.

  “Glad to have you back with me, Player.”

  “Did I miss anything?”

  Carmen stepped toward Gray, who was lying unconscious on the floor. “Nothing you didn’t already know. But I had to fill in a few details for Gray.” The memories swept over her . . .

  Chapter 16

  I remember that voyage across the sea like it was yesterday. The boat moved up and down over the stormy waves while I steered it carefully along.

  I felt a buzz in my pocket. I took out my phone to see the white hat and immediately answered. “Player!” I cried, happy to have him back with me. “I made it! I’m off the island,” I told him.

  “You did it! I knew you could!”

  “I need your help. I need to know where I am!” It was no good trying to direct the boat if I had no idea where in the world I was.

  “Tracing your position . . . You’re near the Canary Islands, a Spanish settlement just off the coast of—”

  “West Africa!” I had another pin to put in the world map, it seemed. “Now it’s time to see the rest of the world. Are you with me, Player? I could use some tech support.”

  “You know it!” I could almost hear him pumping the air with his fist through the phone. “When do we start?”

  I thought his question over as I gripped the wheel of the boat tightly, the rain splashing against my face. “Right now.”

  The wind flapped against the brim of my hat, causing it to hit my face over and over again. Annoyed, I took it off, preparing to toss it out into the ocean like a frisbee. “No more VILE,” I said firmly.

  “You’ll need a passport if you want to travel, which means you’ll have to use a different name. Black Sheep isn’t going to cut it. You do have a real name, don’t you?” Player didn’t know that Black Sheep was never just a code name for me. It was the only name I had ever had.

  Something on the hat caught my eye. It was the label, sewn into the side of it. I brought it closer to read it. “Carmen Brand Outerwear . . .” I read. It was printed in a large, curly font. Then, in smaller words below, it said, “Made in San Diego, California.”

  The wind whipped my hair. I pulled the red trench coat tighter around me, feeling my confidence growing by the second.

  “My name is Carmen. Carmen Sandiego,” I told him with a smile. It had a nice ring to it. “Now . . . about this white-hat hacker thing,” I said as I flipped the bright red hat back onto my head and pulled it down across my face. “Does it have to be white?”

  Chapter 17

  Inspector Chase Devineaux could see the thief’s red fedora from where he stood in the train’s narrow hallway. “Carmen Sandiego . . . I’ve got you now,” he growled under his breath as he raced toward her train car. He caught a glimpse of her trench coat from behind the glass window. There is nowhere for her to hide, nowhere for her to escape to! Chase thought happily as he reached the door to her car.

  He burst into the compartment, his badge in his hand. “Carmen Sandiego, you are under arrest!”

  Chase saw what looked to be Carmen Sandiego herself, slumped over in the train seat. Her hat was covering her face. It looked as though she was sleeping. Is the super thief taking a nap? Has she foolishly let her guard down? he wondered.

  This was not how he had imagined the arrest of the great Carmen Sandiego happening. He had been hoping for a more exciting capture that would be spoken of by everyone at Interpol for years to come. Nevertheless, he had still captured her.

  Chase lifted the hat from her face and jumped backwards. Slumped unconscious on the train seat was not a woman, but a young man. His ankles and wrists were tied. “What?” the inspector cried aloud. Who was this man, and where was . . . ? Oh no, he thought.

  Chase ran to the window and looked toward the train platform. Suddenly, his eyes were drawn to a flash of red in the crowd. His eyes went wide. For the briefest of moments, he could see the shape of Carmen Sandiego in her bright red trench coat. It’s her! She was making her way through the crowds on the platform.

  The train slowly began to pull away from the station. A pillar crossed in front of Chase’s vision, just for a moment. When he looked at the station again, she was gone.

  Chase slammed his fist on the window angrily. “No! Not again!”

  He felt his cellphone ring, and he answered it.

  “Yes?”

  “Inspector Devineaux,” said Julia Argent, “we’ve turned up something rather amazing.”

  “Well? What is it?” Chase asked as he rubbed his forehead.

  “We believe it’s the second Eye of Vishnu. The one from the unsolved Morocco heist? We found it right there in the chateau, almost as if—”

  “Let me guess . . . almost as if Carmen Sandiego wanted us to find it!” Chase could feel a headache coming on, and what he was hearing was only making it worse. He popped some more mints into his mouth.

  “Why else would she have left behind such a rare and valuable artifact, Inspector? When that heist in Morocco happened and the Eye of Vishnu was stolen, it was a terrible loss to the historical community. Perhaps she wanted it put back in the right hands. To make sure it would go to a museum.”

  Chase shook his head. No, he thought. A thief is a thief.

  “If she left the Eye of Vishnu behind,” Chase said, “then what was in her black satchel? She must have gotten away with something else—​something truly priceless!”

  * * *

  A motorboat cruised down the calm waters of the Seine river in France. Unlike Carmen Sandiego’s daring escape from Vile Island, this boat trip was peaceful and relaxing.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t take the gemstone!” Player said in disbelief. He had just found out about Carmen’s little bait and switch. “That thing was the size of my head!”

  “It was a total win-win,” Carmen said with a smile. “I knew Interpol would get it back where it belonged, which left my hands free to take the real treasure.”

  “The real treasure?”

  Carmen opened the black bag and carefully took out the object that was inside. She held the Russian nesting dolls tightly in her hands, her fingers once again tracing the familiar swirls of red paint. It felt like a lifetime ago that she had left them behind on the night of her escape. She hadn’t realized then just how much she would miss them.

  “My oldest companions. They’re like an archaeological find . . . the only link I have to my past.” She turned them over. On the bottom of the largest doll was a metal sticker that was blinking red. It was the tracker that VILE had used to trace her location.

  “VILE knew I would take these dolls. They were using them to get to me.”

  Carmen peeled off the tracker. There was a boat approaching her from the opposite direction. Let’s send them on a wild goose chase, she thought, and slapped the tracker on the side of the passing boat.

  “Now, did you send the money from the Shanghai job to the charities on my list?”

  “Food bank, homeless shelter, orphanage—​check!”

  Carmen smiled. She and Player kept
whatever money they needed for their operations, but the rest always went to the people who needed it most.

  “I even had time to decode the next entry from the VILE hard drive,” Player said. “It’s another secret hideout.”

  “Where to this time?”

  “It’s located in Southeast Asia, on the island of Java in Indonesia.”

  Carmen chuckled. “Just when I thought I was through with islands.”

  Sparkling light began to dance across the water, and Carmen looked up to see the Eiffel Tower spectacularly lit up against the darkening night sky. Parisians and tourists alike were walking the city streets hand in hand and sitting at the small sidewalk cafés.

  Carmen pulled her coat tighter. “Paris isn’t going anywhere. We need to stay one step ahead of VILE while we have the advantage.”

  “I’ll book you a flight.”

  The boat sped off down the river, passing through Paris and all its spectacular nighttime beauty.

  After her escape from the island, the first thing Carmen had done was mail the stolen VILE hard drive to Player. Her instincts had been right—​the layers of security encryptions that protected the files on it were no match for Player’s awesome hacking skills.

  The second thing she had done was travel. She had wanted to see the world, and that’s exactly what she had set out to do. Carmen traveled every chance she got, trying new things, seeing incredible landmarks, and experiencing as much history and culture as she could. It hadn’t all been play, of course . . . she had also been training hard and making her plans to take down VILE. With the hard drive in their possession, Player was able to locate VILE’s operations and heists. The rest was up to the great Carmen Sandiego.

  Carmen adjusted her red fedora. She knew her mission in life would continue to allow her to see the far corners of the world, and she had never been to Indonesia before. She was excited by this sudden realization and steered the boat toward the airport. Another new place to see—​who knew what kind of excitement would be in store for her there?

  “We’re off to Indonesia,” she said.

  And with a bright streak of red against the darkness, Carmen Sandiego was off to her next adventure.

  About the Foreword Author

  Gina Rodriguez can currently be seen playing the title role on the CW series Jane the Virgin, for which she won a Golden Globe. She also voices the title role of Carmen Sandiego in the Netflix animated series. Born and raised in Chicago, Gina currently lives in Los Angeles and is a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

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