Double Cross

by Beth McMullen

  Boy, I’d love it if my worst nightmare were a little rain. My current worst nightmare is the Ghost achieving world domination. “Come on,” I say. “We don’t have a lot of time.”

  Before she can move, Poppy has to spend a full minute being horrified by the mud covering her head to toe. But being a spy involves discomfort, and it’s better to know that up front.

  On the edge of the old coffee fields, I scan the horizon. There is nothing to see, but somewhere out there is Owen Elliott’s last known location, so that is where we are going. I trudge forward into the overgrown fields. Eventually, Poppy follows, grumbling.

  We hike over uneven ground, full of holes obscured by waist-high grasses with razor-sharp edges. Each step is a chore. Overhead, birds chatter enthusiastically. I don’t speak bird, but I sure hope they are not warning us away.

  Poppy drags behind. “This is my second-worst nightmare,” she mutters. “Nature. Yuck.” Ignoring her, I do a mental inventory of my gear. Protective baseball hat, check. Spy phone, check. Exploding candy, check. Rainbow shoelaces, check. Now if I only had some idea what was waiting for us up ahead, I’d be in good shape.

  “How much longer?” Poppy asks every two minutes. My refusal to answer does nothing to diminish her enthusiasm for the question. But she’s right. This is taking a long time. I might be leading us in circles.

  Just when Poppy is close to mutiny, the peaked roof of a grand white mansion comes into view. My first thought is relief quickly followed by dismay. This is the very definition of isolation, and we have no way to contact the outside world if things go awry. Iceman has surely wiped clean our flight details by now. If we disappear, no one will even know where to start looking. I keep this doomsday scenario to myself.

  We move a little closer, squatting in the brush at the perimeter of mowed grass and fancy landscaping for a better look. The house, with white clapboard siding and a wraparound porch, sprawls in every direction. There are three visible outbuildings, a barn, a garage, and a guesthouse. This means our people could be in one of four places. I shiver, despite the warm, humid air.

  “Here’s the plan,” I whisper. “We get into the house. Find everyone. Leave.”

  Poppy snaps out of her nature-induced funk long enough to look incredulous. “That’s your plan?”

  “Do you have a better one?” I demand.

  “Undoubtedly,” she says. “This is basically a search and rescue. First, we deal with the dogs. There are three of them. See? Guard dogs. They should respond to hand signals, which I happen to know because my father shows standard poodles in the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show every year, and the commands are generally the same. Once the dogs are down, we move on to the guards. There are also three of them, but you probably already saw that. One is sleeping. They must be on a rotation, so all we do is wait one or two cycles and figure out the best time for us to move undetected. I suggest we start with the main building and systematically work our way back in this direction. Once we know the guards’ rotation, that should be easy. At this time of day, the buildings will provide ample shadow for us to remain hidden if we stay on the west side. If there is a building we can’t access, we navigate the perimeter and look for a weakness. An open window, an unlocked door. Once we gain access, we reconnoiter. Basements are good for hiding hostages as are attics. Questions to consider: How many people are inside the various buildings? Do they have information? Can we neutralize them? I don’t see any signs of occupancy from here, but that may change when we get closer. We don’t want to get in a situation where they send out an intruder alarm or anything. Oh, and we do all this quietly. Naturally.”

  She stops for a breath. My heart constricts. I didn’t even notice the dogs. Or the sleeping guard. I was too busy thinking about Izumi and Charlotte and Toby locked up in one of these benign-looking buildings, hungry, thirsty, scared.

  Suddenly, I understand exactly why Poppy will be accepted into the spy school and I will not.

  Chapter 29

  Going to the Dogs.

  POPPY CONTINUES TO EXPLAIN how we will evacuate the hostages if, in fact, we find them, and how we will proceed if we don’t. Her plan has contingencies and fallbacks and fail-safes. It has an emergency escape route. It rolls off her tongue as if by magic, rife with important details I would not have picked up if I’d stood here and assessed the situation for a century.

  A good spy must accept her limitations and carry on regardless. But am I a good spy? Or am I just reckless? Poppy eyes me, waiting patiently for feedback. She is not interested in my self-doubt. And it certainly won’t save anyone’s life. I shake it off. I can doubt myself later.

  “That’s a great plan,” I say quietly.

  Hunkered down uncomfortably in the tall grass, we observe the guards until Poppy is sure of their rotation schedule. “Every fifteen minutes, they move one position clockwise.” The dogs, however, follow no such routine. They roam freely, snuffling at the ground, on the lookout for trespassers. They are big, burly dogs with square heads and jaws full of sharp teeth. I surely hope Poppy’s Westminster Kennel Club poodle commands work or this will be one short rescue.

  On Poppy’s insistence we approach from the west, shrouded in long shadows. The first dog to spot us creeping along is black and brown. He growls, bits of slobber dangling from his lips. My mouth goes dry. Beside me, Poppy starts winging her arms all over the place like she’s a baby bird about to take flight. There is no way this works. We are dog food.

  But just like that, the dog whines, lies on the ground, and covers his stubby snout with his paws. Poppy gives him a vigorous rub between the ears, and the dog actually sighs with pleasure. We leave him begging for belly rubs as we dash across an open stretch of grass between the buildings.

  The next two dogs go down equally fast. I’ll admit, I’m a little dazzled.

  “Now.” Poppy gives me a shove. The guards are rotating, the dogs are down, and it’s time to go for the big house. And if we run smack into ten armed guards inside, I bet Poppy has a plan for what to do about that, too.

  But there is no one inside the house’s entryway, a good sign. We bolt into the nearest room and throw ourselves behind a couch upholstered in fabric like a Hawaiian shirt gone bad. Pineapples and orchids, I think. Panting, I adjust my baseball hat. I’m shocked we are actually in the house and not chewed up on the lawn. Poppy’s cheeks burn red with adrenaline. Her hands shake. We wait another few minutes. No one appears. All is quiet.

  “The kitchen is that way,” Poppy whispers. “I noticed an air vent on the roof toward the back of the house. Probably a stove exhaust. Typically, the cellar would be off the kitchen and used for cold storage. That’s where we look first.”

  She’s killing me. Stove exhaust? Cold storage? We sneak to the kitchen. True to her word, there is a basement door. I should be happy. I’m not.

  The kitchen is empty too. Poppy looks longingly at the sink. “Do you think I have time to wash my hands?” she whispers.

  “Forget it,” I whisper back. The basement door is jammed but yields to a good jarring kick. Poppy leaps out of her skin at the noise.

  “I said quietly!” she hisses. I will never live it down if I blow our cover. But no one appears. This is because there is nothing interesting in the basement except baskets of onions and potatoes. There are two refrigerators and three chest-style freezers where, in the movies, they always hide the dead body. Fortunately, I discover only hunks of frozen meat.

  “Nothing,” I say, heading back to the stairs.

  Off the kitchen, there is a set of back stairs to the second floor of the house. I’m halfway up when I realize Poppy is not behind me. She’s still in the kitchen, a weird look on her face, pointing at a few bulging plastic trash bags lined up waiting for removal.

  “Look,” she whispers.

  “What? Are they not sorting their recycling correctly?”

  “No.” She stabs her finger at one of the bags where the bottom hem of a distinctly blue Smith T-shirt peeks
out. Gingerly, I remove it from the bag. It’s damp and stained. Poppy’s eyes go as big as saucers.

  “Is that . . . blood?” she asks.

  When I put the T-shirt up close to my nose and take a sniff, she almost heaves. “Coke,” I say. “And maybe soy sauce.”

  She grabs the shirt, roughly turning it inside out to reveal a bit of fabric stitched to the inside. The smart fabric. Owen’s T-shirt.

  “Well, at least I know why it stopped functioning,” she says, shaking it at me. “I’m still working on waterproofing.” She seems relieved that the smart fabric failed due to outside circumstances and not some deficit of hers when really, she should be concerned that Owen Elliott is not in the T-shirt. “And how could he be so casual with my intellectual property?”

  My jaw hangs open. “Did it occur to you that maybe Owen Elliott didn’t want to take off the T-shirt, but he was forced?”

  “What? Oh. Oh! I didn’t think of that.”

  “I’m sure he’s fine,” I say, as much to her as to myself. I poke at the remaining contents of the trash bag, but there are no other familiar items in among the plastic yogurt containers and empty cereal boxes. Poppy tucks the dirty T-shirt into her back pocket, where it dangles like a soft blue tail.

  We head to the second floor of the house. Poppy is quiet as we poke our heads into each room, turning up exactly nothing. The top floor is more of the same, although the ocean view from up here is spectacular. Overall, views aside, the main house is a bust.

  It’s now mostly dark outside. A glow lingers from the sunset. Poppy informs me that we will search the barn, garage, and guesthouse counterclockwise to avoid the guards. I want to argue, to poke holes in her perfectly laid-out plan. But I can’t find any.

  We exit the main building through the kitchen back door, maybe a little too comfortable with how easily we’ve evaded detection thus far. That is always when trouble shows up. And right now, trouble is in the form of an angry dog with glistening black eyes. Poppy throws out a few hand signals to quiet him, but he doesn’t respond. Instead, he sinks low and growls.

  “He must have failed school,” she whispers as the dog moves closer. He licks his lips, envisioning how good we will taste.

  “What’s the plan, Poppy?” I ask. Our backs are flat against the side of the house. If we run, the dog catches us and eats us. If we stay, the dog goes straight to eating us.

  “I . . . I don’t know . . . I . . . This should work. . . .”

  It’s not working. I have another idea, but Poppy is not going to like it. Moving very slowly so as not to further alarm our furry nemesis, I pull the spy phone from my backpack.

  “Social media?” Poppy hisses. “Now?” I ignore her, holding the phone up so it recognizes my face and grants me access. I secure the hat on my head. I’m going to buy us some time.

  “Plug your ears,” I say. The dog is so close I can smell his last meal.

  “What?”

  “Stick your fingers in your ears. Do it now.” There is no way her fingers will be enough, but I only have one hat.

  Poppy jams her pointer fingers in her ears. “Whatever you are going to do, do it now.”

  I tap the blaring horn app. The phone grows scalding hot in my hand, and I can barely hold on to it. The dog’s ears perk up, his head pivoting rapidly from side to side. He whines as his tail tucks between his legs. And then he pitches forward on his face.

  Unfortunately, Poppy also pitches forward on her face. I tuck the scorching phone gingerly into my shorts, grab her by the arms, and drag her awkwardly around the dog and across the lawn to the barn. She makes weird little noises every time I hit a rock or a bump, and after about thirty seconds she says something that sounds like I’m going to kill you, Abby.

  But I can’t be sure.

  Chapter 30

  No One Here But the Bad Guys.

  KEEPING ONE EYE on the dog, who doesn’t even twitch, I drag Poppy through the barn door. Inside are ten abandoned horse stalls. Rusted farm tools lean against a weather-worn wall. By the time I drag Poppy through a few piles of hay and something else that I can’t identify but doesn’t smell great, she’s mostly awake. I think I liked her better the other way.

  “What did you do to me?” she yells. “How dare you?”

  “Be quiet!” I yell back. “I didn’t have a choice.” But did I? Could I have used the bees instead? Don’t second-guess yourself, Abby. You did what you had to. Sometimes there is collateral damage in spying.

  Poppy staggers to her feet, bent over, hands on knees, and for a second I’m concerned she might puke. Toby did not mention side effects, but usually the apps are reserved for bad guys, so if they feel a little lousy afterward, well, too bad.

  “What was that?” Poppy demands, holding her head in her hands.

  “What?” I ask innocently.

  “You knocked out the dog,” she replies. “And me.”

  “Oh. That. Right. Well, let’s see. Toby might have given us a few toys before we left Briar.”

  “That was no toy.”

  “I mean spy gear. Gadgets. Things to help you buy time. When you need it. To escape. Like we just did.”

  Poppy drops her head back to her knees. “I cannot believe this is my life,” she says. “I was supposed to win the Challenge. Get the glory. Instead, I’m stuck out here with you.”

  “I could leave you here, if you want.”

  “Shut up,” she hisses. “And tell me what other tricks you have up your sleeve. Maybe if you’d shared them, I’d have come up with a better plan.”

  I’m about to lob back a snarky reply when I realize she’s right. For all intents and purposes, at this moment, Poppy and I are a team. And I withheld vital information. If Veronica knew, she’d be so disappointed.

  I open the spy phone and show her the defensive apps: the horn, with which she is now familiar, the bees, the snarling dog, and the lightning bolt. I try not to get too anxious over how the horn drained my battery.

  “What’s with the cookies?” she asked. “That’s what you traded to Iceman, right? What does it do?”

  For the first time, I notice the Cookie app is not blurred out on this phone. “No,” I say quickly, not wanting to explain that I was less than honest with Iceman. “That was something else. The cookies are nothing. And by the way, I also have exploding candy and shoelaces.” Poppy’s jaw goes a little slack.

  “Are you kidding me with all this?” she asks.

  “Not at all,” I answer.

  “Wow,” she says, picking a bit of hay out of her hair. “Toby should win the Challenge. I mean, look at this stuff.”

  “Don’t forget the bad guys want your technology, so that makes you kind of the default best, even if it’s in a really bad way.”

  She puzzles over my logic and dismisses it with a shrug. “I guess, but still, this stuff is cool.” Now would be a good time to tell her that, provided we survive, she will soon be recruited to join the spy school, and the gear will be infinitely cooler than deafening horns. But I can’t bring myself to do it. There will be time later.

  “There’s nothing here,” I say instead. “We should move on to the garage.”

  The garage is like an airplane hangar, with a concrete floor, a high roof, and bright lights. Dozens of exotic cars sit silently in two lines, gleaming and beautiful. We creep along, peeking into each vehicle just in case. Poppy stops at a red convertible two-seater that is about five inches off the ground. It looks terribly uncomfortable to sit in.

  “A Ferrari Spider, probably 1957,” she says thoughtfully. “It’s worth about thirty-five million dollars. Mint condition.”

  “What?” I bleat. Who would spend that much money on a car that doesn’t even get driven from the looks of it? Poppy runs her hand lovingly over the glossy finish.

  “I like cars,” she says. “Especially old ones. They make perfect sense to me. Everything has a purpose.”

  We continue our search, but there is no sign of Charlotte, Izumi, Toby, or Owen
Elliott. I’m about to express my doubts about this whole venture when Poppy yelps and drops to the concrete floor between a silver roadster and another Ferrari, which are a dime a dozen in this swanky garage. I hit the ground next to her. It’s a man in a cowboy hat and flip-flops, with a bulky satellite phone mushed against the side of his head. He paces up one row of cars and down the other, dragging his fingers along the fancy vehicles absentmindedly. Suddenly, he is right next to us. I could reach out and touch his foot. Gross. The last thing I will remember will be a toenail green with fungus. But he’s on the phone, completely oblivious to our presence.

  “We’re close,” he says, eyes unfocused. “The kids have the information—they must. They just need to be properly motivated to share it, and that happens to be my specialty. It’ll get done. I have ideas. I’m heading down there in a few minutes to get started.”

  His eyes drift right over us. Right over us. And yet he sees nothing. I guess this is why you’re not supposed to drive and talk on a cell phone at the same time. I squeeze my eyes shut and try not to breathe. Done with his phone call, the man gives the pretty Ferrari a kiss on its hood and finally leaves. His heavy footsteps disappear out of the garage.

  “That was close,” Poppy says, her face shiny with sweat. “Too close.”

  “He said ‘down there.’ Did you hear that?”

  She nods. “We checked the cellar in the main house, remember? Nada.”

  I peer through a window as the man vanishes into the murky night. The casual way he discussed getting them to talk has turned my stomach.

  “No matter what, we need to hurry up, find them, and get out of here.”

  “You make it sound like no big deal,” says Poppy, “when really it is.”

  If our lives weren’t in imminent danger, I’d explain to her that it’s better if I don’t consider the big picture, as in stopping the world’s most notorious criminal from bringing down modern civilization, because with stakes that high, I wouldn’t even get out of bed. Instead, I break everything into chunks, small pieces, micro steps. That way it feels like no big deal.