by Ron McGee
“Don’t be fooled by its appearance,” Jacqueline said, her slight French accent adding an essence of sophistication. “What makes this violin so exceptional is what it can do. Deep, resonant tones. A purity that blends the best of the Italian and French styles. It may be beautiful on the outside, but the music it produces is what makes it extraordinary.”
Ryan spent a lot of afternoons here since they’d moved to New York, helping his mom unpack all the instruments and get the shop organized. Ryan found it kind of boring, but he got paid. Soon, he’d earn enough for the autographed Yogi Berra Mets hat he wanted.
Jacqueline noticed Ryan in the doorway to the back room and instantly recognized that he was upset about something. He didn’t want to worry her, so he ducked back into the office and storeroom behind the store. As he left, he heard the customer ask his mother, “And how much is it?”
“One hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” she answered, her calm tone making the huge number sound completely reasonable.
Ryan sat at his mom’s desk, automatically reaching for the box of chocolate truffles she always kept handy. Chocolate helped him think, and right now that’s exactly what he needed to do. He’d clearly heard the man say his father’s name—was his dad in some kind of trouble? John Quinn had left on one of his trips two weeks earlier. He was in Thailand for a plastics trade conference. They’d talked on the phone four days ago. John told Ryan he’d be home in time to go ice-skating in Central Park this weekend. That was the last they’d heard from him. Which was strange, Ryan realized, because his dad usually checked in pretty regularly.
Out front, Ryan heard the entry-door chimes ring as the customer left. He expected his mother to check on him, but then heard more voices—somebody else must have come in. Something in Jacqueline’s tone caught his attention. Though he couldn’t make out the words, he could tell her voice was strained. Something was wrong.
Ryan moved to the doorway that joined the two spaces. The door was cracked open, but as he approached he kept himself partially hidden. He didn’t know exactly why he did this; his mom never cared if he listened when she spoke with customers. But some instinct had kicked in, making him cautious. Nearing the door, he heard a man’s voice, gruff and abrupt.
“… You realize that lying to us could have serious consequences,” he said.
“Why would I lie to you?” Jacqueline said, sounding bolder—and louder—than normal.
“Mrs. Quinn, we’re only trying to help.” Ryan craned his neck, peering into the shop. His mother stood in front of a man and woman, both in business suits. The man had gray hair and hard eyes; the woman was African American and tall. “When was the last time you heard from your husband?”
“A few days ago. He called from Bangkok.”
“From the International Plastics Exhibition?” the woman said, consulting her notes.
“That’s right. Has something happened? Why is the Central Intelligence Agency interested in John?”
The CIA? Ryan thought about the Asian man following him. He could have been CIA, too; but then, why the diplomatic plates on his car? And why was he coming after Ryan?
“Agent Calloway, show her the photos,” the man said
The woman pulled out a packet of eight-by-ten photographs. Ryan couldn’t see the pictures from where he stood, but Jacqueline glanced down and he could tell that she recognized his father. Even from a distance, Ryan could see the tension in her expression.
“These pictures were taken five days ago in Muang Tak, Thailand,” the man continued. “Nowhere near Bangkok. The man there with your husband, he’s a known smuggler. Muang Tak is his base of operation.”
Jacqueline met the agent’s stony gaze, and Ryan knew she was over her initial surprise. Her tone was calmer and more under control. “Are you accusing him of something? John meets with hundreds, maybe thousands, of people every year.”
“We want to know why he’s meeting with a known felon over two hundred miles from where he was supposed to be.” He snatched one of the photos from Agent Calloway’s hand, pushing it at Jacqueline. “It’ll be a lot better for you if you tell us everything you know, Mrs. Quinn.”
“I don’t know anything about it at all.” Ryan could tell his mother was lying—and so could the CIA agents.
“You sure this is how you want to play it?” Agent Calloway said.
“I don’t know what to tell you. I’m sure John will straighten it all out.”
The two agents shared a look, then turned away. The entrance chimes tinkled as the gray-haired agent opened the door and walked out.
Agent Calloway followed, but suddenly spun around. Across the room, her eyes locked on Ryan. She coolly scrutinized him and nodded her head slightly. Calloway had been aware of his presence all along, and she wanted Ryan to know it.
Drifting back to the desk, Ryan’s head was spinning as he sank down into the chair. His father, a criminal? It wasn’t possible—but then, why was he meeting with smugglers? And why was his mother lying about what she knew?
Jacqueline came into the back room, all the fight gone out of her. Ryan could see how worried she really was.
“Mom, what’s going on?”
“Nothing. Just a mix-up, that’s all.” She gently brushed her son’s hair off his forehead, something she’d done since he was a child.
“Where is Dad? Why hasn’t he called?”
“I don’t know. I’m sure he’s fine,” she said. Ryan stared at her, his mind reeling, because one thing had just become clear to him as he heard that louder, bolder tone creep into her voice: His mother was lying to him, too.
CHAPTER
07
NEW YORK,
USA
The scariest moment in Ryan’s life had been three years ago. They were living in a town in Paraguay where Ryan’s dad was working to help farmers develop more sustainable crops. He and his mom were alone when a terrible storm hit. The thunder was so loud the house shook. Radio announcers warned of flash floods and reported that roads and bridges were being washed out. Jacqueline and Ryan had hunkered down together, her arms wrapped around him comfortingly as she told him stories of growing up on her family’s farm in the south of France.
A loud crack, worse than the thunder, startled them both, and then a giant tree limb crashed through the roof of their small house. Rain poured in as the rest of the roof was torn apart by howling winds. In moments, Ryan and his mom were drenched. Ryan was scared to death, but Jacqueline remained calm and focused. She told him they had to get across town to one of the bigger buildings and find shelter. Ryan refused—they’d get carried away in the rushing water and drown!
But his mom looked him in the eye and asked if Ryan trusted her. Of course, he told her. Then he needed to do exactly what she told him to do. She promised that she’d get them both to safety. Ryan trusted his mom more than anyone—even his dad—and she had always protected him. He finally nodded and followed her out into the violent storm. Hand in hand, they fought their way across the battered town, eventually finding refuge in a stone church.
All his life, through all the places they’d lived, the one constant Ryan could count on was his mom and dad. They had always been a team, and Ryan believed he could trust them with anything.
Now, he didn’t know what to believe.
As he hurried down 5th Avenue, pushing his way through the throngs of people, Ryan felt confused and alone. He definitely didn’t think what the agents said about his father was true. But his mom wasn’t being honest with him, so he was going to have to figure out what was going on himself.
To do that, he’d need help—and he knew exactly where to find it.
Ryan arrived at the New York Public Library, passing the famous stone lions without a glance. He took the stairs two at a time to the third floor and burst into the Rose Main Reading Room. Over fifty feet high, the Rose, as it was known among students, had grand chandeliers hanging from a ceiling painted with murals of clouds. Thousands of books lined the wal
ls, long wooden tables with brass reading lamps were filled with students. Normally, Ryan loved hanging out here—it was his favorite spot in the city for people watching—but right now, he was all business. He searched for Danny, which was no easy task considering that this one room went on for two full city blocks.
Danny told his parents that he came here to study, but what he was really interested in was the untraceable WiFi connection. Danny was a hacker, and the library was the ideal place to hone his cyber talent. With hundreds of laptops running in the Rose Room at any given time, he was virtually invisible online.
Of course, for Danny, it wasn’t just the WiFi. The library also had girls. Lots of them. From all over the city. They came to study at the Rose after school.
Ryan spotted Danny across the room, whispering with two girls in private-school uniforms. They were probably fifteen, a couple of years older than Danny, but they hung on his every word. Danny just had a way.
“You’ll never get those concert tickets trying to buy them through the website,” Danny was telling them. “They’ll sell out in seconds. But I can build a bot that’ll get the best seats in the house for you.”
“A bot?” one of them asked. “That’s some kind of computer program, right?”
“Mine are more like works of art. I could get three tickets, we’ll all go!” The girls shared a skeptical look, unsure if Danny was for real or just blowing smoke.
“Hey, you got a sec?” Ryan interrupted.
Danny was surprised to see Ryan here. “Don’t tell me you blew it with Kasey already.”
“I need to talk to you. Now.”
Danny could tell something was up. “Think about it,” he told the girls. “You know where to find me.”
As Ryan moved away, Danny caught up with him. “What’s up?”
“You have your laptop, right?”
“I’m breathing, aren’t I?” Danny slid into a seat at another table. He flipped open his tricked-out laptop and the screen came to life, displaying the words: THIS COMPUTER WILL SELF-DESTRUCT IN 15 SECONDS.
As the timer started counting down, Danny quickly tapped in the seventeen-digit password, his fingers moving across the keys like he was playing a piano.
“Will it really self-destruct?” Ryan asked.
Danny smiled. “Hope you never have to find out. All right, mi amigo, what can I do for you?”
Ryan pulled out his cell phone and opened it, showing Danny the picture he took of the man who’d followed him. “This guy was following me today. At first, I thought maybe he was CIA.”
Danny rolled his eyes. “Riiight. I may be gullible, but I’m not an idiot.”
“This isn’t a joke—I swear.”
Danny’s grin faded as he realized Ryan was serious. “You’re not screwing with me?”
“Not even a little bit.” Danny looked back at the picture as Ryan continued. “The car he got into had diplomatic plates. So maybe not CIA, but he definitely gave off that Secret Service, spy kind of vibe. I need to find out who he is. I overheard him say my dad’s name. I think my dad may be in trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“I don’t know. Here, I snapped a picture of the plates on his car.” Ryan showed him the picture of the license plate.
“You want me to hack into the Department of Motor Vehicles?”
“Can you?” Ryan knew it was a long shot, but Danny was his only chance. His mother was a member of UNESCO, the United Nations agency that dealt with cultural and educational affairs, and Danny had used her access to get into all sorts of databases and software servers around the globe.
Danny stared at his computer, brows furrowed, thinking hard. Suddenly, his face lit up with an idea. “I don’t know if I can hack into the DMV, but I could probably get access to the UN’s diplomatic vehicle registry. I know my mom has to fill out a form every year for her car.”
“You think it’ll work?”
“It’s worth a try,” Danny said, “but it’s gonna take a while.”
“Like what, a couple of days?”
Danny looked at Ryan like he’d lost his mind. “Like, a couple of hours. Email me all the pix.”
Ryan sent the photos, then stood. “You’re the best.”
“Oh, I think that’s already been firmly established, brother.” As Ryan left, he glanced back. Danny was already deeply immersed in his search. The one thing that could distract his friend from girls was a serious hack.
CHAPTER
08
NEW YORK,
USA
Ryan emerged from the subway station at Lexington and 63rd cautiously, searching the face of every passerby for signs of danger. The streets were now dark and quiet. Ryan worried that he was being paranoid but then remembered something his father told him before his first ice-hockey game the winter they lived in Croatia: Never second-guess your instincts. Good instincts make the difference between winning and losing. Ryan had tried to take his dad’s advice but ended up getting creamed on the ice. Turns out, Croatians kick butt at hockey.
The Quinns’ brownstone on 62nd Street was a prewar four-story walk-up that had been in their family for almost a hundred years. Both his grandfather and father had grown up there. Some of Ryan’s favorite memories were the times spent with Granddad on his family’s visits to New York. Declan Quinn told the best stories. He’d sit with Ryan in the big chairs in his study, the fire blazing and crackling, and spin tales of knights and dragons, leprechauns and windigos, the Russian witch Baba Yaga and the Japanese samurai Masashige. Stories from cultures all over the world that spoke of bravery, loyalty, and sacrifice. Ryan never forgot any of them. When Granddad died last year, it took Ryan a long time to accept that he was really gone. Living in the brownstone these past months, he thought of Granddad often.
Ryan approached the home from across the street, pausing behind a parked truck and searching the shadows. Did the man who followed him know where he lived? Not spotting anything suspicious, he headed inside. Just in case, he had his key out and ready as he ran up the steps to the front door.
Entering, he shut the door and locked the deadbolt, then started flipping on lights. Mom wasn’t home yet. Perfect. Ryan wanted answers, and he knew the best chance of finding any was in the study on the bottom floor. Dumping his backpack, he hurried down the long central hallway and took the stairs down.
The entire lower floor of the brownstone had been carved out decades ago by Granddad as a large study and library. Shelves lined one entire wall, filled with an array of books on geography and history. The bottom shelf was crammed full of old maps and atlases. Ryan passed the fireplace and the two wingback chairs where he’d spent so many hours listening to his grandfather and headed to the massive desk that sat in the middle of the study.
He started opening and closing drawers, not even sure exactly what he was looking for. Paid bills, old financial statements, files on the various UN projects his father coordinated. None of it helped. As far as he could tell, everything looked totally normal.
“It’s never enough. It’s never enough… .”
Ryan jumped out of his skin at the loud noise. It took a moment for him to realize the music was the ringtone assigned to Danny on his cell phone, The Cure crooning their displeasure. Ryan snatched the phone from his pocket and answered, “Hey.”
“Dude, what have you gotten yourself into?” Danny was clearly worried.
“You found something?”
“We need to talk.”
“What about the plates—”
“Not on the cell,” Danny snapped. “Just stay inside and lock the doors. I’m already on the way.” The connection was cut.
Ryan had never heard Danny sound so intense, and he wondered what could have him so worked up. He sat heavily in the desk chair, frustrated and anxious to have some answers.
Looking around the room, a memory drifted in at the edge of his subconscious. He was around six years old and his family had been visiting. Upstairs, Ryan had heard arg
uing coming from the study. Curious, he had wandered down, listening from the stairwell.
“… It’s too dangerous,” his father had said.
“It’s always dangerous, John. Always has been.” Granddad’s tone was deadly serious.
Ryan remembered a strange sound, like something metal rolling, then silence. He’d crept down the stairs and peered around the doorway.
No one had been there. His father and his grandfather: gone.
Just then, his mother had arrived upstairs, yelling out that she’d brought home his favorite ice cream. Chocolate won out over a mystery any day. He raced upstairs, forgetting all about the strange occurrence.
Sitting at the old desk now, Ryan spun around, looking at the room. Where had they gone that day? There were no doors other than the entrance from the stairs, and the only windows were up high at street level and didn’t open. Ryan stood, looking at the room more closely now, analyzing everything about it. Something was bothering him, but he wasn’t sure exactly what it was.
His gaze drifted up to the ceiling. The floor above this one held the living room, a dining room, and the kitchen at the far back of the brownstone. As he pictured it in his mind’s eye, Ryan realized this floor and the one above weren’t quite the same size. They should have been, as the brownstone was built straight up from the bottom.
Ryan moved to the exposed-brick wall at the end of the room and inspected it more closely. There were no lines in the mortar, though. Nothing to indicate that it was anything other than a normal wall. He felt stupid. What was he thinking, that there was some kind of secret entrance here? His dad was a diplomat, not Batman!
He looked down, annoyed with himself, and turned back toward the desk.
Then, he stopped.
Ryan spun back toward the wall. The mortar lines on the wall were all in perfect shape. Three bricks from the bottom, however, the mortar was cracked in strange places, almost as if it had been cut. Kneeling, he looked more closely at the bricks. Using the tips of his fingers, he grabbed the loose mortar. It pulled out with little effort and he began working more quickly. Several more pieces came out until Ryan had outlined four of the bricks, one each on top and bottom and two in the middle, making a lowercase t shape.
