by Carter Roy
“What am I observing?” I asked.
Mathilde sneered. “Be quiet and learn! Fabrice will tell you.” She stomped away into the darkness and around a corner.
Fabrice whispered, “She does not like you.”
“I understood that,” I said.
Fabrice explained that we were watching the entrances of the big glass foundry across the street, where during the day, teams of scientists and glass artisans made many of the best lenses in France. “They make big, as for lighthouses, and small, as for your eyes.”
“What’s that got to do with the missing couple?” I asked.
“Je n’ais sais pas.” He shrugged. “That is what we will discover, no? They came here many times before they disappeared. So we observe. Mathilde and I, we must be in disguise, but you are perfect—the dumb English tourist who is lost and afraid.” He drew an X on the wall by me. “If you leave, you make an O so we know. We will observe the other sides of the building and then come back for you in six hours.”
“Six hours!” I said. “What time will that be?” I’d had a watch, but it had been stolen with my purse.
“Sunrise!” he said happily. And then he strolled off in the other direction, and I was alone.
Whatever happened in this district during the day, it must have been over by nightfall—there was no one on the streets. I found the shadowy doorway of a closed storefront, sat down, and cursed Jenks and Mathilde.
This mission was impossible. Sure, I could sit and watch this place all night every night, but that wasn’t going to make Mathilde safe. In fact, for all I knew, she was on the other side of the building getting into trouble. The only way to keep her safe, I decided, was to wrap this case up as quickly as possible.
I watched the darkened windows until I’d almost fallen asleep. There were no lights from inside, and no one went in or out, though a pair of rats did fight over something they found in a refuse pile in front of the building.
I chalked an O on the wall by the X, then drew out one of the needle-thin blades Vidocq had given me.
There was a long row of skylights along the roof. Maybe one of those could be unlocked.
Getting in was easy; the skylight locks broke with a few sharp hits. Getting down—that was the challenge.
It was only as I dangled from the window frame, swinging my legs back and forth, that I realized it was too dark to see anything below me. The building had no second floor; it was a straight drop down to the worktables, kilns, and likely tons of glass breakables lurking in the shadows on the ground floor.
I’d need a rope.
I tried to raise myself back up, but I was still suffering from the four days without food, and all I managed to do was loosen my grip.
I hung there for another thirty seconds, feeling my hands cramp and weaken, knowing I couldn’t hold on much longer.
So I let go.
I lucked out and landed on some kind of long workbench.
But that’s where my luck ran out.
I hit the edge, and the entire table flipped up, spilling me to the floor and catapulting everything on it into the air.
There couldn’t have been that much on the table, but it sounded like I’d upended a barrow full of scrap metal on top of all the glassware ever made in the world. The crashing and smashing sounds went on for fifteen seconds, twenty, and then finally stopped.
I breathed as quietly as I could and listened.
Something else rolled in the dark, then fell and smashed.
The room was silent again.
“That wasn’t so bad,” I whispered to myself. Which was when I realized that I was now trapped in the center of a large, locked room surrounded by shards of broken glass that I couldn’t see.
From now on, I told myself, always carry matches.
A quarter of an hour later, I noticed a thin sliver of light far off to my left: someone with a covered, shuttered lamp. I scooted behind the workbench I’d tipped over and waited.
I heard a man whisper something in French and recognized the word Anglaise—Englishman.
A woman’s voice spat out an angry reply. I’d barely known her for a day, but already I recognized Mathilde’s snarl.
I could hear their feet kicking glass.
“That was me, I’m afraid,” I said in English, standing up.
“Dawkeen?” Fabrice asked.
“Over here,” I said. “I thought I’d—um, see what was inside this factory.”
“Imbécile!” Mathilde shouted. “Now they will know they are under suspicion!”
“If they’re up to no good,” I said, “then they already know. Uncover that lantern and let’s see what they’re hiding.”
“What did you do? There is broken glass everywhere,” Fabrice said.
There were a dozen long wooden tables, each filled with all sorts of tools and equipment. (Well, eleven—I’d knocked one of the tables onto its side.) There was a wall of kilns for glassblowing, and metal racks with dozens of molds for shaping molten glass.
“Look—all of these are molds of very ugly faces!” Fabrice said, holding one up. “Do they make masks in this place?”
One entire wall was taken up with wooden shelves, now mostly empty because my table had catapulted something right into the center support and all the shelves had collapsed. Unless something nefarious was hiding in the piles of shattered glasswork, there were no secrets in the workshop.
“Nothing!” Mathilde said.
“What about those doors there?” I said, pointing.
At the back of the building was a set of double doors with a chain looped through the handles.
We walked over and examined it. “There is no lock,” Fabrice said.
“May as well see what’s behind them,” I said, unwinding the chain and then opening the doors.
“Mon dieu,” Fabrice whispered, stumbling backward.
Mathilde stood frozen in place, her hands raised to protect herself.
I yelped and slammed the door closed, throwing my weight against it. “Run! I’ll keep them here as long as I can!”
But no one pushed against the other side, so after a few deep breaths, we opened the doors again.
Inside was a long narrow room absolutely packed with people. They stood in rows eight or nine wide, and so deep that our light failed to reach the ones in the back. Hundreds of people, all of them standing still, staring straight ahead, their eyes open but dull.
“What is this evil?” Mathilde whispered.
CHAPTER 10
THE TRAP AT THE SPOT WHERE WE WENT THAT TIME
“So what were all those people doing there?” I asked Dawkins as Diz’s cab slowed along Forty-Fifth Street. “Were they zombies? Robots?”
“Zombies?” he repeated. “No, they weren’t zombies, Ronan. But … a fuller explanation is going to have to wait until another time. We have arrived.” He gestured toward a mob of people who’d spilled into the street and now surrounded the cab.
Times Square.
My family always avoided this place when we lived in Brooklyn, and looking around, I remembered why. There were throngs of people everywhere—families and foreigners and senior citizen tour groups; theatergoers wandering around in their fancy clothes, sailors in their dress whites, and street performers wearing everything from tuxedoes to Statue of Liberty costumes. It was nearly eleven at night, but the million chaser lights, neon signs, and billboards all over Times Square lit the streets up as bright as daytime.
“I despise this place,” Diz muttered. She punched the horn, but no one seemed to notice.
“Sammy,” I said, “can you hear me?”
“Loud and clear,” came his voice from my collarbone.
“Any sign of the cat?” Dawkins asked.
Sammy sighed. “It is in a two-block radius of where you guys are now, but I can’t pinpoint it any closer than that.”
“Why not?” Dawkins asked.
“I don’t know. Interference? The signal keeps leapfrogging between t
hree—make that four—different sites. I mean, it’s Cat-o-Grapher, guys, not some fancy GPS system. We’re lucky it’s this accurate.”
Diz threw the cab into park. “This is where you get out, kiddo.”
I looked out at the wedge of raised sidewalk where my dad and I had lined up for Mr. Met a million years ago. Bunches of people crossed back and forth, all of them looking up instead of where they were going. Standing in the center was a tattered six-foot-tall Elmo holding a sign that read PICTURES $20. Unbelievably, a couple of tourists in I ♥ NY T-shirts were haggling with him for a photograph.
“I have, what, a half hour until my dad shows up?”
“Yes. When we have Greta’s mom, we will let you know,” Dawkins told me. “If we find Greta first, we will let you know. The moment both are safe, Ronan, you make a run for it.”
“That’s a lot to worry about,” I said.
“So don’t worry at all. Keep an eye out for Greta. And if she doesn’t show, just focus on the meeting with your dad. Remember: stall him for as long as you can.”
I popped open the door and immediately some guy in a tuxedo tried to get in.
“Hey!” Diz shouted. “Read the sign: I’m out of service!”
“I just need you to run me down to Canal Street—” the man said, trying to push past me.
“How about I run you into a canal?” Diz said.
The man backed off, and I slid out of the cab.
“Don’t forget the ’Scope, Ronan,” Dawkins said, as Diz popped the trunk.
I raised the hatchback and lifted out the duffel bag with the rusty pipe. A moment later, Diz goosed the engine, and the cab edged into the crowd.
I dragged the bag to the center of the triangle and triple-checked my phone’s connection to the Bluetooth. “Sammy?” I said.
“Still here,” he said. “And still mad about being left behind with the dusty ghosts of the subway.”
“Sorry,” I said. “You there, Jack?”
“Just getting into position, Ronan.” I looked over my shoulder, where brightly lit red-and-white bleacher seats rose over the Times Square TKTS booth. “I’ll be surveying the crowd from on high.”
“Diz?” I said.
“Trying to stop myself from running over pedestrians,” she said. “I’m heading down Forty-Fifth but will loop back around on Forty-Sixth.”
And then, before I lost my nerve, I took out my phone, put Dawkins and Sammy on hold, and thumbed another phone number. “Everything is ready,” I told the person on the other end when he answered. And then I merged all the calls.
“I don’t know who you’re talking to or what you got in that bag,” said the giant photo-op Elmo, shaking a red fur finger at me, “but this is my spot, kid.”
“Peace,” I said, raising two spread fingers. “I’m just waiting for a friend.” To be safe, I figured I should take a couple steps away from the guy.
“Live long and prosper, nerd!” Elmo said. “You nerds are out in force tonight, ain’t you?”
I was tempted to correct him—two fingers in a V is the peace sign; four in a V is Spock’s trademark—but I realized that would only confirm my nerd status. Somewhere in that crowd, my dad and his team of Bend Sinister agents were closing in. If I was going to get out of here alive, I needed to spot all of them before they spotted me. And, if I was lucky, before they even got here, I’d spot—
Greta.
“I see her,” I said, as the crowd to my right parted for a moment. “She’s under the marquee for M: The Musical. Still wearing her black hoodie.”
“I’ll head over and intercept her,” Dawkins said. “Maybe I can tie her up and throw her in the cab.”
“Hurry,” I said. “She’s coming my way. She’s got to be gone before my dad gets here.”
Greta strolled over with her hands sunk in the hoodie’s pockets, then stepped up onto the concrete island and spun in place, looking out at the crowd. “Are you here by yourself, Ronan?”
“What do you think?” I said.
“I think that Diz and Sammy and Jack are probably all close by.” She stared at my chest. “Why are you wearing Diz’s necklace?”
“Long story,” I said, grabbing her wrist. “Listen, we have to get you out of here right now.”
Greta wrapped her fingers around my wrist and twisted her arm to throw me off balance, then yanked me over her foot.
I tripped and sprawled on the ground at Elmo’s feet.
“What was that for?” I asked Greta.
“I’m not some maiden in distress to be carried out of harm’s way, Evelyn Ronan Truelove,” she said.
Elmo gave me a hand up.
“I never said you were!” I said, raising my hands in surrender.
“Then stop treating me that way!” Greta said, shoving me. “I have just as much right to be here as you do. More, even, because she’s my mom.”
“But that’s exactly why you shouldn’t be here,” I said. “You’re not going to be able to think clearly. It’s your mom.”
“So I should trust you and Jack again?” She kicked the duffel bag. It clanked softly. “You think this thing is going to fool anyone?”
I looked down. “Not if they look closely at it,” I said. “It’s just to help buy us time.”
“I thought we were friends,” Greta said.
“We are,” I insisted.
“It’s obvious to me that you two care for each other,” Elmo said.
“Hey!” I said. “This is private.”
“Kid, you’re doing this on my stage—oh, fine, I’ll go over here.” Elmo picked up his sign and wandered off to the far curb.
Greta took her hair out of her scrunchy, then pulled it back into another ponytail. “If you’re really my friend, then you’re going to do right by me.”
I squinted up at the clock over Times Square: 11:31. Fourteen minutes until my dad was supposed to show. “The Bend Sinister are going to be here any minute now, Greta.”
“It was you who got me mixed up in all this Blood Guard stuff, back on that train to DC. And you know what? I trusted you and went along with it.” That wasn’t exactly how things went down in my memory, but I didn’t have time to argue. “But now they have my mom, Ronan. She doesn’t know what’s going on. She’s probably terrified. So we need to fix this, you and me together. It’s what friends do for each other.”
She was completely right. True friends are there for each other, they do rely on each other, and they should have each other’s backs no matter what ugly stuff the world may throw their way. “Okay.”
“Okay?” she repeated, shocked. “Just like that?”
“You love your mom. I get it.” I took her hand—not grabbing her wrist this time. “You should be here. But my dad said just me—not me and her daughter. If he sees you, it might ruin the deal.”
She raised her other hand to her mouth. “Do you really think he’d flip out?”
“Who knows?” I said. “But why risk it? This is your mom.”
“Oh gosh,” she said, nodding. “I’ve got to go hide somewhere, so that I’m out of sight but close by if something goes wrong.”
That was the best I could hope for. “Great!” I said. “But you need to go now.”
“Too late for that, old boy,” said Dawkins’ voice. “I count … five joyless drones in ill-fitting suits on the north side of the square.”
“You told me there wouldn’t be that many,” I said. “Does my dad have two teams?”
Greta stared at the necklace. “Jack?”
“Bluetooth enabled,” I said. “Jack’s back there.”
Diz’s voice came next. “Another two Bend Sinister suits on the west side making a beeline toward the center.”
“There’s too many for it to be just your dad’s team,” Dawkins said. “We’ve got company. Greta? Ronan? Abort this mission. It’s not safe.”
Sammy chimed in. “But guys—the cat’s pings have stopped bouncing around! It’s on the east side of Times Square, righ
t between Forty-Fourth and Forty-Fifth Streets. Maps says it’s in the atrium of the Grand Duchess Theater.”
“That’s just over there!” Greta pointed right.
“On my way,” Dawkins said.
“I’ll be behind you with the cab,” Diz said.
Greta grinned. “My mom?”
“Ronan, Greta, don’t wait for confirmation—just get out now.”
“Okay,” I said, and pulled Greta south.
Elmo called out after us, “Kid, your duffel bag!”
“I’ll be back for it!” I shouted, weaving between a bunch of drunken college students and pausing at the curb. A slow stream of cars beeped along the street. “Soon as the light changes,” I said to Greta, “we jog across and try to get lost in that crowd.”
“Um, Ronan,” she said, tugging on my shirt and pointing.
Facing us on the opposite curb were the three Bend Sinister agents from the subway: the bald, pizza-eating guy, and the two beautiful women. Pizza man waggled his fingers in a wave.
“What are they doing here?” I said.
“I don’t want to know,” Greta said, dragging me left. She shoved past one person after another, shouting, “Excuse me! Pardon me! Excuse me!”
But then we stopped short again.
Coming toward us were two dark-suited men wearing bowler hats. Part of my dad’s team.
“North?” I suggested.
“North,” Greta agreed, leading the way again, toward the red-and-white bleachers over the TKTS booth.
We passed Elmo, and he gave us a thumbs-up.
But our path was blocked by a line of tourists six deep watching a fire eater. We worked around the outside of the mob until I spotted a break in the crowd.
“This way,” I said, squeezing through a gap between two people.
On the other side of them, the pavement was clear all the way to the next cross street.
“Now we run,” I said.
But before we’d taken even three steps, a man in a pinstriped suit stepped into our path. His arms were held wide, and he had a smile on his face like he’d just found the one person he’d been looking for all his life.
“Evelyn!” my dad exclaimed, striding forward. “Such a pleasure to see you. And joy of joys, you brought your friend Greta with you.”