Charlie Thorne and the Last Equation

by Stuart Gibbs

  “Fine. Give me them.”

  “Okay. But I still have to work them out.”

  “I want to see,” Alexei said.

  “All right.” Charlie stepped to the desk. The only paper was a stack of Post-it notes, but she figured those would do. She wasn’t planning on writing much anyhow, and if she started opening drawers, the Furies would probably freak out and shoot her.

  She needed to continue to put up a good front for the Furies, to look like she wasn’t remotely a threat.

  Charlie strained to remain calm, keeping an eye on her watch, praying her math was right. If it wasn’t, these could very well be her last moments alive.

  Thirty seconds.

  Alexei came to the desk by Charlie’s side. He was now close enough for her to smell him. He reeked of sweat and stank like a dead fish.

  Charlie picked up the Post-it notes and chanced a final look around the room. Hans and Fez were looking at her, rather than Dante. Oleg was still pinning Milana against the wall, but his focus was on Charlie as well. Vladimir was now a few steps away, too far to grab her.

  At the front window, the sun continued slanting through the blinds, the beam of light slowly edging across the room while the earth rotated. . . .

  “Let’s begin with the first number in this equation,” Charlie said. “Ninety-one minus sixty to the eighth is a massive number, so we’ll have to represent it in scientific notation. . . .”

  She casually reached for the mug full of pens.

  One second . . .

  Behind Charlie, the ray of sunlight slid a fraction of a millimeter across the desk beneath the window, catching the tilted glass of the computer monitor for the first time. There was a sudden flash as the light glared off the monitor, momentarily blinding Alexei.

  Charlie grabbed the mug and smashed it on Alexei’s temple, sending him reeling.

  Then she threw it at Vladimir, hitting him in the face.

  The other Furies wheeled on Charlie with their guns, but she had positioned herself so that Alexei was directly between her and them.

  And while the Furies were distracted by her, Milana and Dante leapt into action.

  Milana quickly wrenched Oleg’s gun from his grasp and flipped him over her shoulder.

  Dante grabbed Fez and flung him into Hans, sending both tumbling to the floor. “Charlie!” he yelled. “Up the stairs!”

  Charlie didn’t question the order. She was out of her element here. So she ran toward the staircase.

  Alexei lunged at her, but he was big and slow and she was quick and lithe. She ducked him easily and hit the stairs running. From behind her came the sounds of fists striking flesh and furniture breaking. Two guns discharged, the explosions ear-shattering inside the house.

  Then there were footsteps on the stairs behind her. Terror gripped her, but before Charlie could even pause to see if it was one of the Furies, Milana yelled, “It’s me! Keep going! All the way up!”

  Charlie obeyed and kept moving.

  Another gunshot rang out below her, this one followed by a thud.

  Charlie reached the third floor and saw what Dante’s plan was: The stairs didn’t stop there, but continued upward, and there was a door at the top, bright sunlight peeking around the edges. Charlie unlocked it and threw it open, and suddenly she was out on the roof, the city spread out all around her.

  The roof wasn’t only the roof of the safe house, but of all the roofs of the connected houses, an enormous swath of white plaster, blinding in the sun.

  Milana was out the door behind her a second later, but Dante stopped on the third floor and reloaded his gun, preparing to make a stand.

  “Dante!” Charlie yelled to him. “Come on!”

  “Milana! Keep her moving!” Dante yelled in return.

  Milana wavered, then started back down the stairs.

  “No!” Dante exclaimed. “Keep Charlie safe! They still have the clue! If I don’t get it back . . .”

  He didn’t have time to finish the statement. The Furies were on their way up the stairs; Charlie could hear them. Dante fired down, directly through the floor. There was a scream of pain from below, and then Dante dove away as more bullets tore upward through the floor, splintering the wood and pocking holes in the plaster of the ceiling.

  Charlie understood what Dante was about to say, though: If he couldn’t get the clue back from the Furies, then the only other copy of it was in her mind.

  Milana understood too. She grabbed Charlie by the arm and raced across the rooftops with her, leaving Dante behind to face the Furies by himself.

  Charlie had no idea how many of the Furies were still alive. But it was certainly more than one. Dante might have had the high ground in this battle, but he was definitely outnumbered and outgunned.

  He was risking his life to protect Charlie’s.

  There was a very good chance that Charlie would never see her brother again.

  Before she could truly deal with the cold, harsh reality of that, someone else started shooting at them.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  In parts of the Old City of Jerusalem, the rooftops were as much of a thoroughfare as the streets. The big, amorphous blocks of homes were topped by wide, flat spaces and connected to one another by bridges and arches that spanned the narrow streets. While each house had its own private door, like the one Charlie and Milana had just emerged through, there were also public staircases that led directly down to the streets, allowing any pedestrian in the city access to the area—if they knew how to find it.

  Charlie and Milana raced across the rooftops, running for their lives.

  The wide expanse of white plaster lay before them. It was uneven and rolling, changing with every home, dotted with satellite dishes, ventilation grates, and the occasional piece of old furniture someone had discarded. None of that provided much cover from the sniper, though.

  Several other people were up there as well, commuting via rooftop: Hasidic businessmen in dark suits with tzitzit hanging down from the waist, Muslim women draped in hijabs—a group of schoolboys was even playing soccer. All lay down flat when they heard the gunfire, trying to stay low, although Charlie noticed no one panicked. Jaded by years of living in a dangerous city, the Jerusalem citizens calmly made sure they weren’t the targets, then stayed low to ensure they weren’t hit by stray bullets.

  Charlie and Milana just kept running.

  They had no choice. There had been no time to determine where the sniper was. They only knew the general direction the first shot had come from—and since then they had simply been running the other way.

  Charlie followed Milana’s lead, juking left and right without any pattern to keep the sniper from being able to draw a bead on her. Three steps left, one right, one left, five right . . . They heard more shots ring out, saw the occasional puff of dust as a bullet missed them and hit the roof instead.

  Despite Charlie’s attempts to focus on her running, other thoughts kept creeping into her mind, things she tried to ignore but that rose to the surface anyhow.

  Like the fact that Dante might be dead. The way that Rats already was.

  Four steps right, two left, two right . . .

  Charlie didn’t want to believe it, but she couldn’t help seeing the numbers. The probability was that he hadn’t survived.

  The simple idea was devastating. Charlie had never been close to Dante; for much of their lives, she had believed her half brother hated her. But now she knew that probably wasn’t true. Dante had merely been jealous of her and then disappointed in her. And to make matters worse, Charlie realized Dante was right.

  Her brother’s last words to her still rang in her ears: All the talent in the world doesn’t mean a thing if you squander it. It was true. Charlie knew she had been barely using her gifts. In fact, she had been perversely proud of that.

  But now you can make a difference, Dante had added. Which had a much greater resonance now that he had sacrificed his life to protect hers. The last thing she wanted was for Da
nte to have died in vain. . . .

  A bullet ricocheted off the ground at Charlie’s feet, snapping her back to the crisis at hand.

  “We have to get off the roof!” Milana shouted.

  Charlie brushed the hair from her eyes as she ran and desperately scanned the horizon, looking for a way out. There were many doors leading down into homes, the same as the door they had emerged from, but they were certainly locked, while the closest set of public stairs leading down from the rooftops was a long distance away. . . .

  Charlie suddenly caught sight of something ahead to her right. A slash of darkness on the white rooftops.

  “Follow me!” she yelled.

  • • •

  Three blocks away, the sniper watched them through the scope of his gun.

  He wasn’t trained as a sharpshooter. He didn’t even have a proper rifle; he only had a .46 Magnum. He shouldn’t have even been in this position, trying to shoot these agents. If Alexei had done his job, the women would have been dead down in the safe house and Pandora would be in his hands. But now, somehow, that whole plan—that perfect, foolproof plan—had failed and the CIA agents were still alive and on the run.

  As usual, he would have to take care of everything.

  The Magnum was powerful enough to kill someone three blocks away, but it was big and heavy and hard to aim. It was difficult enough to hit a stationary target with it, let alone one zigzagging erratically. But the sniper was getting the hang of it. He had stopped trying to freehand the gun and now steadied it atop an air conditioner. His last shots had been closer to their mark. Now he had three bullets left in the clip, and he intended to make them count.

  He focused on the girl with Milana Moon. The sniper didn’t know who the girl was; he couldn’t even tell how old she was from this distance. But he presumed she was important. After Bern, the CIA had been flummoxed, its plans to track down Pandora in shambles. And suddenly they were here in Jerusalem with her. She had ruined everything at the university. Things had fallen apart after her arrival at the safe house. She was nothing but trouble. Therefore, she had to be taken out first. Without her, Agent Moon would be useless.

  The sniper pivoted the Magnum slightly on its grip, lining up a point just ahead of his target. Despite the unpredictable path the girl was taking, she was moving in the same general direction. Which meant that no matter which way she zigged or zagged, in just a few seconds she would pass through the point in space the sniper was aiming.

  Sure enough, the girl jogged left, away from where the sniper was aiming, but went only a few steps before cutting back in her original direction.

  The sniper pulled the trigger three times, emptying the clip.

  In the distance, his target dropped.

  TWENTY-SIX

  It was suddenly quiet in the stairwell at the safe house.

  Dante was crouched in the hallway on the third floor, ready to make a stand, his heart pounding like a jackhammer in his chest. The Furies were gathered on the floor below him, shouting back and forth to one another in German, plotting the best way to take him out. He and Milana had banged them up, but they were all still alive. Dante figured he had the skills to take out one or two, maybe even three of them, but not all five. His number was certainly up. Still, it would be worth it to protect Charlie, Milana, and Pandora. He would at least give them a fighting chance.

  And then the Furies were retreating back down the stairs, racing for the door.

  Dante sagged against the wall, relieved—but only for a moment. Then he realized that the Furies hadn’t backed off because of him. They had fled too quickly for that to be the case.

  They had simply changed their plans. Killing him was no longer their priority.

  Charlie was.

  They weren’t heading for the roof anymore because they were hoping to ambush her somewhere else.

  Dante leapt to his feet and raced down the stairs.

  • • •

  Charlie and Milana came crashing down into the marketplace.

  The dark slash in the rooftops Charlie had spotted was the ten-foot gap between the stone walls. A low arch of green glass spanned it, crusted with dirt and spackled with pigeon droppings, but the glass wasn’t thick and it collapsed easily under their weight.

  Charlie and Milana both knew there were risks involved, dropping into the market this way. They could have cut themselves on the glass, or broken a bone if they landed wrong, but staying up on the rooftops any longer meant certain death, so this was still better.

  As it was, Charlie felt a bullet pass right over her head as she fell; if she had jumped a second later, she would have been dead. She smacked into the awning over a rug shop and tumbled off it. The startled tourists and locals below her scattered as she dropped to the stone street. She landed on her feet but lost her balance and tumbled into a rack of dried fruits, which upended all over her.

  Milana, being bigger, tore through the awning and landed on a pile of rugs.

  Charlie instantly snapped to her feet, brushing apricots and figs off her, sweeping her hair from her eyes. The shop’s owner screamed at her in Hebrew, pointing at his wares and the shattered glass above.

  “I’m very sorry,” Charlie replied in Hebrew. “Trust me, I’m more upset about this than you are.”

  The owner grabbed her arm roughly and raised a hand to strike her in a way that indicated this was a common behavior for him.

  Charlie tensed for the blow, but it never came.

  Milana had caught the man’s hand in midstrike. She was glowering at the shop owner with the same hatred she had shown the terrorists. “That is no way to treat a woman,” she said, then wrenched the man’s arm so hard that he howled in pain, releasing Charlie. “Not so much fun when you’re the one getting hurt, is it?” Milana asked.

  The man whimpered and shook his head. Milana shoved him backward, sending him sprawling into the pile of fruit.

  “Thanks,” Charlie told her.

  Another commotion erupted farther along in the market, shoppers squawking in surprise as they were roughly shoved aside.

  The Furies. Three of them. Oleg, Fez, and Hans. They had probably split up from Alexei and Vladimir to cover more ground.

  Charlie and Milana fled. They had landed in a tourist market, where merchants hawked T-shirts, souvenirs, and ancient artifacts that probably hadn’t been acquired legally. The narrow walkways were jammed with people, making it hard to run. The Furies, being bigger and tougher, were able to bulldoze their way through the crowds faster and quickly closed the gap on them.

  Milana gave Charlie orders as they ran. “If they catch us, you won’t be able to beat them in a fight. So let me do the fighting. You use your strength . . .”

  “You said I didn’t have any!” Charlie protested.

  “I said you’re a bad fighter. But you still have strengths. Don’t use your body against these guys. Use your brain. Figure out what’s around you and use it against them, the same way you used the skateboard to take down Marko. Or the computer against Alexei.”

  “Gotcha.” Charlie suddenly felt surprisingly confident, given her circumstances. The Furies no longer seemed like thugs who were going to overwhelm her as much as problems that needed to be solved. Charlie quickly scanned the market ahead, as Milana had suggested, looking for what she could use to help her.

  The road angled downward, and ahead it intersected with the underground market Charlie had come across earlier, which gave her an idea. The Furies were now almost upon them, although the market was too crowded for them to use their guns. Charlie willed herself a final burst of speed, hooked around the corner, and spotted exactly what she was hoping for: a spice merchant. Tables in front of the shop were laden with dozens of bowls piled high with ground seasonings. As Oleg bore down on her, Charlie grabbed a handful of chili powder and flung it into his eyes.

  Oleg roared in pain and stumbled forward blindly. Milana spun around and drove a knee into his crotch, folding the man like a hinge. Then she sho
ved him backward into the path of his fellow Furies.

  They nimbly raced around him. Charlie flung a second handful of chili, but Hans and Fez were ready for it, blocking their eyes with their arms, and then they were upon her.

  Milana caught Fez and used his momentum against him, whirling him away from Charlie and flinging him into a butcher shop, where he skidded on the blood-slicked floor and face-planted in a pile of innards.

  Charlie ducked Hans’s attack and the Fury shot past her. By the time he had turned around, Charlie had snatched a samovar filled with boiling water from the front of a tea shop. She popped the lid open and threw the boiling water into Hans’s face, scalding him and burning his eyes. Hans fell backward, blinded and screaming.

  In the butcher shop, Fez got back to his feet, grabbed a cleaver from a carving block, and charged. Milana lifted an entire sheep’s leg off a hook and parried the attack. The cleaver sank into the bone, embedding so deeply that Fez couldn’t pull it free. Milana then cracked Fez across the face with the sheep shank. The Fury smashed headfirst through a glass display case and went down for good.

  Milana stepped out of the butcher shop, took a look at Hans, wailing on the ground, and nodded approval to Charlie. “Now, that’s how to play to your strengths.”

  There was no time to celebrate, however. Alexei and Vladimir were still out there. Heavily armed men who wanted them dead.

  Milana swiped the guns from the other Furies and then she and Charlie fled into the Old City.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Langley, Virginia

  No one was answering the phones in Jerusalem.

  Jamilla Carter’s staff had been trying to reach someone for the last ten minutes. Finally, Carter had grown annoyed and started placing calls herself, but the result was the same. Nothing but voice mail.

  The spy game was different than it used to be. Back before cell phones, you didn’t expect to reach anyone whenever you wanted. If someone went deep into Afghanistan or Nicaragua or even parts of Eastern Europe, there might be weeks between communications from them. But now you could pretty much reach anyone, anywhere, at any time.