by Paul Aertker
Everyone leaned forward, fascinated—like Lucas was about to reveal a big secret.
THE LEGEND MUST BE TRUE
Lucas cleared his throat.
“Earlier today,” he explained, “I met a woman with long black hair who was supposed to be my mother. Turns out she was an impostor, but she’s secretly helping us.”
Everyone was listening. Lily Hill and some Tier Two kids were taking notes.
“The big thing I learned was my mother really was killed by the Good Company.”
There was collective gasp of shock, but still no one spoke.
“I was pretty sure of that already,” Lucas said, glancing back at his dad. “But this woman also told me that my mother was part of a team of hotel housekeepers who were and are trying to expose the Good Company for what they really are.”
With the exception of the Tier Two kids who were typing, all eyes were on Lucas.
“I also found out that my grandfather used to own a diamond mine in the Belgian Congo.” He paused. “But some people in the Congolese army didn’t like foreigners. There was a group led by General Bunguu, Lu Bunguu’s father, who overthrew the government and took over the mine. Then, with money and diamonds stolen from my grandfather, the Bunguu family and the Günerro family started the Good Company.”
The kids moaned at hearing this awful news.
Several kids blurted out, “What!”
“No way!”
“Unbelievable,” Jackknife said, pounding his fist on the table.
“Wait a minute!” Astrid said. “If the Bunguu and Günerro families started the Good Company together, how is that Ms. Günerro now works for Lu Bunguu?”
Mr. Benes set a coffee cup down and spoke up. “We’ve heard a version of this story for years,” he said. “I don’t think it is a question of who works for whom with Bunguu and Günerro. It’s more a question of how they can help each other make more money.”
Everyone got quiet again as they waited for the next piece of information.
“Alister,” Lucas said, “probably knows more about this than anybody.”
Sophia asked, “How so?”
“Alister’s father knew my mother,” Lucas said.
The dots on Alister’s cheeks reddened as everyone turned to him. He set his briefcase up on his carrel.
“About twelve years ago, Lu Bunguu sent a shipping container to the Good Hotel Buenos Aires,” Alister explained. “Lucas’s mother, as head of housekeeping, opened it and found her father’s diamonds, as well as tons of ivory, gold, and cash.”
Travis gasped. He seemed struck with an idea, and he buried his head in his computer.
“Go on, Alister,” Robbie said.
“Lucas’s mother deposited the money in my father’s bank in the Falklands.” He paused. “And she gave him specific instructions on what to do with the container of diamonds, gold, and ivory.”
Robbie asked excitedly, “Is FLK in Lucas’s birth chart an abbreviation for the Falklands?”
“It is,” Alister said. “FLK is the ISO code for the Falkland Islands.”
“What about the ivory?” Sophia asked. “Do you mean elephant tusks?”
Someone in Tier Two typed into his computer, and in a second the screen behind Sophia filled with images of ivory tusks being confiscated by the police.
“Literally a ton,” Alister said. “Two thousand pounds. Nine hundred and seven kilograms of ivory tusks to be exact.”
“If your father shipped this container away,” Astrid asked, “then to where did he ship it?”
“I don’t know,” Alister said. “What you have to understand is that Lucas’s mother was a maths wiz of some kind.” His Scottish accent seemed heightened, and he pronounced math with an s at the end. “Using a complex set of instructions, she sent the container to different Good Hotels all over the world. My father paid for everything using Bunguu’s stolen money.”
“Stolen from Lucas’s grandfather!” Jackknife pointed out.
Alister stopped like he had nothing more to say. He looked to Lucas, who was also speechless.
“Great,” Mac said. “Alister knows as much as Lucas does, which is nothing.”
“You nuthin',” Gini said.
The way Mac had accused Lucas and Alister allowed the other kids to call out freely. A burst of worried gossip filled the room.
Li Ha, the new Chinese girl, said, “Mac has a point here.”
Her roommate, Emma, added, “We don’t know anything more than that the letters FLK mean the Falklands?”
Mac seemed to like the breakdown, and he kept antagonizing the group. “This is a big waste of time.”
“Wait a minute,” Travis said. “These are Kapriss diamonds!”
Sophia asked, “Other than having Lucas’s middle name, what’s special about these diamonds as opposed to regular ones?”
“Kapriss diamonds are first-rate,” Travis explained. “The best of the best. And no one cuts them like this anymore, which makes them extremely valuable. Some are worth a million dollars apiece!”
Someone in Tier Two said, “And that’s why Ms. Günerro would want them. They’re the best.”
Travis glanced at a page on his screen. “Now the diamonds coming out of Bunguu’s mine are of poor quality, and he’s run the place down. The profits all go to pay for wars and child soldiers.”
“Children,” Nalini said, holding Gini up, “who could have been trafficked like this.”
“The legend must be true,” Mr. Benes said. “Ms. Günerro wants these diamonds, not just because they’re worth a fortune. But if the police find Kapriss diamonds, then they’ll connect the Good Company with the Bunguu family, and that would be not only devastating but could land her in jail.”
The room went dead silent.
Mr. Benes said, “Alister, I want you up here with Tier One.”
The Falklander sheepishly moved across the room and sat next to Lucas. He set his briefcase on the floor.
“So,” Robbie said, putting his fingertips on the table. “Where do we find this container?”
Big Mac sulked. “I bet the Good Company knows where to go.”
“No!” Lucas blurted. “They couldn’t know.”
Sophia said, “Why exactly?”
“Because they don’t know the pattern,” Lucas said.
The room went silent again.
“What pattern?” Sophia asked.
“The pattern is a map,” Lucas said. “It’s a route that the container has taken over the last twelve years.”
“Well,” said Sophia, “where’s the map?”
“It’s hidden in my birth chart.”
MAP VS. APP
The boardroom door opened, and Terry Hines rushed back in.
“The digital version of Lucas’s birth chart is on the New Resistance cloud,” he said. “Everyone should have access in their reading apps.”
Robbie then called out orders, fast and methodical.
“Li Ha,” he said. “Your dad was in shipping. Get me some data on all vessels that could potentially carry a container like this.”
“Something else I learned today,” Lucas said. “Supposedly this container only went to Good Hotels that are located on the sea or ocean.”
Robbie stood. “Astrid! You work with Emma,” he said, pointing toward the new German girl. “Get me the location of all Good Hotels near or on the water.”
He looked to Sophia. “Let’s get all this on screen one.”
Astrid hopped up and went to work with Emma.
Robbie raised his arms and pointed toward the left side of the room. “Sora Kowa,” he said to the Japanese girl. “Pull up every code in the file.”
He pointed at Kerala, who looked asleep behind her Goth makeup. “Kerala!” She raised her white face. “Scan Lucas’s file for languages and see if you can come up with something.”
The sound of keyboards clacking filled the room with a buzz.
Robbie didn’t stop. “Jackknife?”
&
nbsp; “Yeah.”
“You grew up in Sao Paulo near the port, right?” he asked.
“Yeah,” said Jackknife. “Number one port in South America.”
“Perfect! Tier Two right side,” Robbie called out. “I need the port authority in every city where there is a Good Hotel. Jackknife, you lead the port study.”
“Let’s go, Emma and Astrid,” Robbie said. “We need that data now!”
Someone yelled across the room “What’s the longitude and latitude of the Falklands?”
The room was a flurry of activity.
Robbie turned to Lucas. “What else?”
“There is a golden spiral on Ms. Günerro’s desk,” Lucas said. “It’s part of a number, phi, one point six one eight zero three three, and relates to the Fibonacci sequence.”
“Nalini,” Robbie said, “you work with Zibby on the number phi and see if there’s a relationship to make codes from. And Gini, too.”
Mac bellowed from the back corner. “You’re just making stuff up!”
“Stuff it,” Gini said.
Terry Hines looked around.
“Whoa!” he said. “What did I miss while I was gone? I am so lost.”
Melissa Rathbone called out, “The number one point six one is the ratio that relates the numbers in the Fibonacci sequence. Is there a relationship between the number and the location of the container or the hotel?”
“Oh,” Terry said sarcastically, “now I get it. Not.”
Lucas wasn’t sure this was going to work. And he needed time to think. Alone.
“Ms. Günerro wouldn’t use Fibonacci because it’s not original,” Travis said. “That’s what Hervé, the French guy, told us at Notre Dame.”
“Exactly why Lucas’s mother would use it,” Jackknife said.
Sophia said, “Travis, would you explain the Fibonacci sequence?”
Lucas didn’t listen. He knew this was a total fail.
“It’s easy,” Travis said. “Start with one plus one, which of course equals two, and one plus two equals three, two plus three is five, and so on. So your list looks like one, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen...
“Turns out the ratio between each number after the first two is 1.6. Weird how that works out, but it does.”
He paused to see if anyone was paying attention. Sophia and Robbie seemed to be the only ones listening.
“Just what I wanted,” Mac said. “More math.”
“Kerala,” Sophia asked, “do you have any first impressions?”
Despite the black makeup, Kerala looked happy to be working. She perked up in her chair. “I have come up with at least thirty different languages in Lucas’s chart. Nice Esperanto your dad writes, Alister.”
“What do the languages tell you?” Sophia asked.
“Well,” Kerala sighed. “Not really sure. At first the number fifty-one comes up a lot, but mostly it seems very random.”
“Fifty-one,” said a Tier Two kid, “is the country code for Peru.”
“There’s a Good Hotel in Lima,” Emma said.
“Page three has PVR on it eight times,” Kerala said. “It’s diagonal and vertical on the page, with no clear meaning.”
“PVR,” Melissa Rathbone blurted out, “is the airport code for Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, isn’t it?”
Emma confirmed this. “There’s a Good Hotel there, too.”
“Okay,” Astrid announced. “We have the map ready.”
Sophia pointed at the screen behind her. “Put it up here.”
The room got a little quieter as the map appeared on the big monitor. It was a political world map with blue oceans and each country outlined in a different color.
Astrid explained. “Ms. Günerro and the Good Company own just under twelve hundred hotels worldwide.”
Tiny red lights lit up the map.
“Of those, Emma and I have identified three hundred thirty-seven on a large body of water. Here they are.”
The 337 lights blinked.
Robbie stood at the map. “So the container is in one of these three hundred thirty-seven hotels. Is this right, Lucas?”
Lucas bit his bottom lip. “Yeah,” he said, studying the map. “I guess.”
“By the time you find this container,” Mac said, “it’ll be gone.”
The bubble of energy burst. Everyone turned to Mac.
“This container you’re trying to find is old, right?”
“Twelve years old,” Alister said.
Mac said, “All international shipping containers have to have a four-letter code ending in U, and they have to be registered with the BIC.” He paused. “Now Lucas’s mom may have been a math genius, and you may be able to figure out her complicated algorithm that she left in the birth file. But today we do have things called apps that speed things up a bit.”
Still no one said anything.
“It’s simple,” he said. “Find the number and plug it into the website or on your phone. Not you, Lucas, you’re too cool to have a smartphone. In a few seconds we’ll know the location of the container.”
Robbie asked, “Do we have the container number?”
“It’s more than that,” Mac said. “The first three letters are the owner’s or shipper’s code plus the letter U for this type of container.”
“Then what?” Sophia asked.
“Six numbers,” Mac said. “Plus a check number at the end.”
“We have that number,” Alister said. “It’s got to be Lucas’s birth chart number.”
Lucas said, “Three three zero eight one six dash one.”
“Okay,” Robbie said. “But we don’t know the owner’s code.”
“All you need to do,” Mac said, “is figure out three letters that Lucas’s mother or Alister’s father would have used as their shipper’s code.”
“FLK?” Terry called out.
Astrid asked, “What about the Globe Hotel, TGH?”
“How about this,” Robbie said. “Everyone go online right now and look up a container-tracking website. Input three letters from the chart plus the letter U plus three three zero eight one six dash one.”
It was like someone had started a timer on a standardized test. The room fell into silence, and the kids dove into their work.
“Container not found,” Emma called out, “on China Shipping.”
“I’m getting the same thing,” Sora Kowa said.
“Try LKBU.”
“Container not found,” Lily Hill said, “on Maersk.”
“Keep trying other shippers,” Robbie called out.
A few minutes later, Mr. Benes spoke up. “Twelve years ago we had just named our philanthropy group: The New Resistance,” he said. “Try TNR.”
Mac entered it into his app. “Container TNRU three three zero eight one six dash one arrived five nights ago at 19:07 in Civitavecchia, the port about an hour northwest of Rome, Italy. It was reloaded this morning at 5:04 onto a Hamburg Süd ship called the Leviathan. It sets sail tomorrow night at 20:27.”
“Where’s the ship headed?” Robbie asked.
“Barcelona.”
“All right!” Terry Hines said as he clapped. “Barça—greatest fútbol team in the world.”
Jackknife shot out of his seat. “What!” he said. “Brazil dominates.”
Astrid cut them off. “Guys,” she said. “Not right now!”
Mr. Benes said, “Sophia?”
“I know what you’re going to ask,” she said. “It’s already done. We have an H1 heated and cooled bunk-sleeper container for seven people,” she said. “We just actually have to get Tier One inside that container before they load it onto the ship.”
“Okay,” Mr. Benes said. “I want to make a few changes to the Tier One team.” He paused to make sure everyone was listening.
“Nalini, since you’re taking care of Gini, I want you to stay with us on the plane all the way to Barcelona. Kerala, I want you in on this mission since you speak Italian.”
Mr. Benes pointed at A
lister and Mac. “You two have proven yourselves today. I want you both on Tier One. Let’s go.”
The Boeing 747 Intercontinental airliner was waiting.
Techs were streaming all over the place getting White Bird One ready. There were fire and fuel trucks, baggage handlers loading boxes onto conveyor belts, and security patrolling on mountain bikes.
The seats were ultramodern, oversize pods tricked out with everything, so it didn’t really matter which place you got. Everyone in the New Resistance flew first class.
Etta came over the speaker.
“Thanks so much for riding with us today, kids!” she said in her cheery voice. “Take a seat pod, buckle those belts, and do have a pleasant day as we head over to Rome, Italy.”
INTERPOL
In the center of Lyon, France, nestled alongside the Parc de la Tête d’Or, Agent Charlotte Janssens sat alone in her Interpol office. The walls were gray, and the furniture was made of French oak. A new computer sat on her desk, and next to the keyboard stood an empty cup of coffee.
Agent Janssens placed her newly manicured nails on the keyboard and opened up a secure email.
She typed:
Lyon, FRANCE – Interpol is calling on all police departments and border-patrol agents to track an international fugitive. Parisian police discovered fingerprints on the steering wheel of a bus that sank last month in the river Seine. The prints belong to the following:
Present family name: Benes
Forename: Lucas Kapriss
Nationality: Argentina/USA
Age today: 14 years old
Intelligence believes the fugitive to be residing in Nevada, USA. Recent leads indicate that Mr. Lucas Benes may have travel plans in or around Rome, Italy. If found, do not apprehend. Report back to me directly.
Current American passport picture included with the attached bulletin.
Agent Charlotte Janssens
Interpol Special Operations
Agent Janssens hit send. Then she went for a walk in the park.
PASSAPORTO
The sound of Etta’s voice came across the airplane’s intercom system. “Good morning,” she said softly. “We arrive in Rome in thirty minutes.”