by Dave Barry
Suzana kept going. In the middle of the block she slowed down again pointed to at the house directly to her left. It was a red brick house, narrow and two stories high, like all the others on the block. It was attached to the house on the left, but there was a small alley between it and the house to the right. There were no lights on anywhere that I could see. The house had a front porch with a couple of metal chairs on it, looking over a small front yard with a FOR RENT sign stuck in the grass.
Suzana kept walking to the end of the block, where she turned and waited for me and Cameron.
“What do you think?” she said, looking at me.
The truth was, I wasn’t thinking anything, because I was expecting Suzana to have a plan.
“Well,” I said, trying to think of something, “we need to figure out where Matt is.”
“Right,” she said.
“I bet it’s the basement,” said Cameron.
“Why?” said Suzana.
“Because that’s always where they keep prisoners.”
“You mean in movies.”
“Right.”
“This isn’t a movie.”
“That’s true,” said Cameron.
“But it kind of makes sense,” I said. “That he’d be in the basement. They could lock him down there, and there’s no windows for him to climb out of.”
“True,” said Suzana, a little unhappily because it meant she was agreeing with Cameron.
“Okay,” I said. “Say he’s locked in the basement. How do we get him out?”
“There’s an alley on the side of the house,” said Suzana. “We sneak back there and check the windows. There might be one unlocked. Or we could maybe break one.”
“But they’d hear us,” said Cameron.
“So we’ll create a diversion.”
That was definitely a line from some movie, but I didn’t point that out. What I said was, “What kind of diversion?”
“Like we pound on the front door, make some noise out there. While they’re checking to see what it is, we sneak in and let Matt out of the basement.”
She made it sound totally simple.
I said, “So who’s going to create the diversion?”
“I will,” said Cameron. I did not expect that. He sounded really brave. As soon as he said it, I wished I’d said it.
“Okay,” said Suzana. “You hang out front. We’ll go around the back and check it out. When we’re ready I’ll text you, and you start making noise. Try to get them to come out of the house if you can. The longer you can keep them busy, the more time we have to find Matt.”
“Okay,” said Cameron.
“Let’s go,” said Suzana.
We walked back to the house. It was still dark. The street was still empty and quiet.
For a few seconds we just stood on the sidewalk, looking at the house. You know how, in like every horror movie, there’s a scene where the people who are about to get hacked apart by a chain saw maniac or turned into human lobsters in the secret basement laboratory come to a creepy house, and everybody watching the movie is thinking DON’T GO INTO THAT HOUSE YOU IDIOTS but they always do anyway? That’s what it felt like to me—a don’t-go-into-that-house moment.
But I could not say that to Suzana.
Besides, Matt was in there somewhere.
Matt was in there somewhere.
“Everybody ready?” whispered Suzana.
Cameron and I nodded.
“Okay,” whispered Suzana.
We started walking toward the alley.
The alley smelled even worse than the hotel room. Also it was really, really dark. It was so dark I couldn’t see Suzana, who was right in front of me, which I found out when I bumped into her.
“Sorry,” I whispered.
“Shh.”
We inched forward trying not to inhale the swampish smell. When we got to the end there was a little bit of light from the house on the next street over. We could see that the backyard had a high wooden fence around it, with a gate to the alley. The gate had a latch, but there was no lock. Suzana quietly lifted the latch and pushed the gate. It creaked, and she froze, but nothing happened, so she slowly pushed it the gate open and we went into the backyard.
“Oh my God,” whispered Suzana, breaking her own silence rule. Not that I blamed her.
Because the backyard wasn’t empty.
In fact, it was totally, fully occupied.
By a dragon.
The body had to be twenty feet long, with big spikes along the back and a long tail coiled behind. It had clawed feet and big wings on either side. And the head…well, I’d seen the head before, on the plane.
“What in the world?” whispered Suzana.
“No idea,” I said.
We touched it. The skin was some kind of nylon-y material, held up by some kind of frame underneath. You could tell that even though it looked huge, it was pretty lightweight.
“This is just weird,” whispered Suzana.
“Yeah.”
We pondered the weirdness for a few more seconds, then Suzana said, “Okay, let’s see how we get inside.”
There was a wooden porch on the back of the house, with steps going up to it. We went up the steps really carefully, to keep them from creaking. There was a back door, with windows on either side. I tried the door; locked. Suzana went to the window on the left and pressed her face against it. She motioned to me, and I looked in. There was just enough light coming through the window that I could see it was the kitchen. We tried lifting the window; it was locked. We went to the window on the other side and looked in; it was an empty room. We tried lifting the window.
It was unlocked.
Slowly, we slid it up. We got it open about three inches when it got stuck. We gave it a little shove; nothing. I was about to give it a harder shove, but Suzana stopped me. She put her mouth right next to my ear and whispered “Diversion.”
I nodded. She was right. Opening the window was about to get noisy.
“When we get in, look for the basement,” she whispered.
I nodded again.
She took out her phone and tapped a text to Cameron:
now
Then we waited. We stood by the window with our shoulders just barely touching, which should have been the highlight of my life—My shoulder is touching Suzana Delgado’s shoulder—but I really can’t say I was enjoying the moment. Sweat was trickling into my eyes and I don’t think I was breathing at all.
Nothing was happening. It felt like at least a minute had passed since Suzana sent the text, and there was no noise from the front. I decided Cameron must have chickened out. I didn’t really blame him. It was insane to be deliberately trying to wake up a pair of crazy guys who…
BANG
Even at the back of the house, it sounded loud—the sound of a metal porch chair slamming into the front door. This was followed by Cameron’s fists pounding on the front door, and Cameron yelling something I couldn’t make out.
So much for him chickening out.
“Now,” whispered Suzana, and we both shoved up on the window as hard as we could. It opened with a bang, but that got covered up by all the noise coming from the front of the house. Suzana went through the window and I was right behind. Now we were in the empty room. There was a door to our left, which opened onto a hallway. We stuck our heads out and looked right. At the end of the hallway was a door next to some stairs.
“I bet that’s the basement door,” said Suzana.
We heard men yelling upstairs and feet pounding. We pulled back and watched. A couple of seconds later the little weird guy came down the stairs, with the big guy right behind. At the bottom of the staircase they turned right, away from us, into what I guess was the living room, headed for the front door. The diversion was working.
“Come on,” said Suzana.
We ran to the door next to the stairs. Suzana tried it; locked. It had those round locks above the knob, the kind you need a key to open.
; Suzana stepped back and kicked the door hard. Then I did. Nothing. At the front of the house the banging on the door suddenly stopped. We heard the front door opening and the men going out, shouting. I heard Cameron shouting too, from outside, still diversioning.
“Kick it together,” I said. “Near the knob. One, two…three.”
And that time it opened.
And there was Matt.
He was standing near the top of the basement stairs, looking terrified and then suddenly very happy.
“Wyatt!” he said.
We heard the weird guys shouting again. But now they were closer. They must have heard us and quit chasing Cameron. They were coming back into the house.
“Come on!” said Suzana. I grabbed Matt and yanked him up the stairs. We followed Suzana, running to the door at the back of the house. It was also locked, but it was the kind of lock you could open without a key, just by turning a knob. Suzana fumbled with it. The men’s shouting got louder behind us. Suzana got the door open and we ran out onto the porch. There was shouting and pounding feet in the hallway. We turned right and ran past the dragon. We got through the gate just as the weird guys reached the back porch. We went into the alley, which was still completely black. Suzana was in front; I had Matt by the arm and was dragging him behind me. We reached the end of the alley. I looked back; it was too dark to see the weird guys, but I could hear them coming. We ran to the street, turned right, and started running down the middle of the street as fast as we could. We looked back and saw that the weird guys had reached the end of the alley and were looking around for us. They spotted us, looking back at them, but they didn’t start running. They could see we were too far away; we’d already proven that we could outrun them.
We were going to get away. We were going to get away.
And then I saw Cameron.
Oh no.
He was standing in the open front door of the weird guys’ house, looking in, pounding on the door frame.
He hadn’t seen us come out of the alley. He thought the weird guys—and we—were still inside the house.
He was still creating a diversion.
I yelled, “Cameron! Cameron! Run!”
He didn’t hear me. Didn’t even turn around.
Didn’t suspect a thing until the big guy grabbed him from behind and carried him into the house.
The little guy was still in the street, looking toward Suzana, Matt, and me.
He stared at us for maybe five seconds.
Then he went into the house and closed the door.
We stood in the middle of the street, looking at the door.
“What do we do now?” I said.
“I don’t know,” said Suzana. Which was not like her.
Lights were coming on in some of the other houses on the block.
Suzana turned to Matt. “What will they do to him? Did they do anything to you?”
“No,” said Matt. “They locked me in the basement and fed me frozen pizzas. I mean, they microwaved them, but they started out frozen. You know how they say frozen is the same as delivery, but it’s not, but it was okay, as long as I picked off the mushrooms, because those are—”
“Shut up about the pizzas,” said Suzana.
“Okay,” said Matt.
“Did they hurt you?” said Suzana.
“No,” said Matt. “All I did was eat pizza and watch TV and sleep. They told me they’d let me go when they were done.”
“Done with what?”
“They didn’t tell me.”
The front door of a nearby house opened. A guy stepped out onto the porch and stared at us.
“We need to get out of here,” said Suzana.
We ran to the end of the block, away from the weird guys’ house, Suzana in front, Matt and me trying to keep up. When we rounded the corner Suzana slowed down to a fast walk.
“How’d you guys find me?” puffed Matt.
“Your phone,” I said.
“Ohhh, right. Well, thanks. For coming to get me, I mean.”
“You’re welcome.”
“So now we’re gonna call the police, right?”
Suzana stopped, turned, looked at me.
“I think we’d better,” I said.
“I don’t know,” she said. “What if they…” She shook her head.
“What if they what?” said Matt.
“They said they’d kill you if we called the police.”
“Kill me?” said Matt.
“They didn’t say kill,” I said.
“That’s what they meant,” said Suzana.
“Wait,” said Matt. “You were talking to them?”
“Not talking,” I said. “Texting from your phone.”
And right on cue my phone rang. I dug it out of my pocket and the three of us looked at the screen. It wasn’t a text: It was a FaceTime video call from Matt’s phone.
“Answer it,” said Suzana.
I slid my finger across the answer bar, and a few seconds later there was Cameron’s face on the screen. Somebody else was aiming the phone at him. There was a bright light shining on his face. He looked really scared.
“Wyatt?” he said.
“Yeah, it’s me. I’m with Suzana and Matt.” I moved under a streetlight so he could see our faces better. “Are you okay?”
“They’re really mad,” he said. His voice was shaky. “They said you better not tell the police. They said if you tell the police…”
He stopped, about to cry. We could hear somebody saying something to him, but we couldn’t make out what it was. Matt nodded, swallowed, and said, “Wyatt, please, don’t tell the police. Promise, okay? They’re listening.”
“Okay,” I said. “I promise we won’t tell the police.”
And then Cameron’s face was gone.
I said, “Cameron? Hello?”
But the call was over.
I looked at Suzana. “Now what?”
“I don’t know,” she said, for the second time. “For now I guess we should go back to the hotel, before they figure out we’re missing.”
“We’re just gonna leave Cameron?” said Matt.
“We’re going to figure out how to get him out,” said Suzana. “But we’re not going to do something stupid now and get him hurt.”
“I still think we should call the police,” said Matt.
“You just heard me promise I wouldn’t,” I said. “We made the same deal when they had you, and we got you out, didn’t we?”
“Yeah,” said Matt. But he didn’t sound convinced.
The truth was, I wasn’t convinced either. But I’d made a promise.
“Okay, then,” said Suzana. “Back to the hotel.”
We made it back to the hotel and snuck up to the room without any trouble. Victor was still awake, looking worried. We told him what happened with Matt and Cameron at the weird guys’ house, which made him look more worried.
“So now they have Cameron,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said.
“This is bad,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“My dad called me,” he said. “Really late. He had a lot more questions about the picture of the jammer I sent him. He wanted to know where exactly on the Internet I saw it. I made up a story about how I didn’t actually see it on the Internet myself, but somebody sent it to me and I didn’t know where they got it but I would try to find out.”
“Why’s he so interested?” said Suzana.
“The picture I sent him. He showed it to some people where he works, military intelligence people. They blew it up and enhanced it and they could read the serial number. There aren’t many of those things. And they knew exactly which one this one was. It was stolen off a helicopter in Afghanistan, and they’ve been trying to track it down because they really, really don’t want this technology to get out. So according to their informants it was sold to a guy who sold it to another guy who sold it to another guy in Miami. And that’s where they lost the trail.”
“So that’s why the weird guys were in Miami,” I said. “They were getting the box.”
“Yeah,” said Victor. “And speaking of them, I’ve been doing some more research about Gadakistan, and—”
“About whatistan?” said Matt.
“Gadakistan,” said Suzana. “That’s where those guys are from.”
“So anyway,” said Victor, “remember I told you the leader of Gadakistan is a guy named Gorban Brevalov?”
Suzana and I nodded.
“Well, guess who’s going to be visiting the White House?”
“Seriously?” said Suzana.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow. Actually, now it’s today. This afternoon.”
“So that’s why they’re here,” I said.
“Looks like it,” said Victor.
“Waitwaitwait,” said Matt. “What are we talking about?”
“Okay,” I said. “You missed some stuff. The box you stole from the little guy’s backpack is a jammer. It jams laser-guided missiles, so they miss their targets. We think these two guys plan to use it to jam the missiles that protect the White House, so they can attack it.”
“Attack it with what?”
“We don’t know that,” said Suzana. “But now we know when. The leader of Gadakistan is going to be at the White House this afternoon. It looks like our guys are planning to attack it then.”
“But they’re from Gadakistan too,” said Matt. “Why would they attack when their leader is there?”
“Because they’re against him,” said Victor. “They belong to a rebel group Ranaba Umoka. It means Dragon Head, which must be why they were carrying one. They—”
“Wait a minute,” I said.
Victor looked at me.
“Suzana and I saw it tonight,” I said. “The dragon head.”
“Where?”
“At the house where they were keeping Matt. In the backyard. Attached to a dragon.”
“What?” said Victor.
“Yeah,” said Suzana. “There’s this giant weird dragon made of nylon or something.”
“Why would they have a dragon?” I said.
“Maybe they’re going to use it in one of those Chinese parades,” Matt said. “You know, where a bunch of people march inside a giant dragon puppet.”