Priceless: Crime Travelers Spy School Mystery Series Book 3

by Paul Aertker

  “That’s huge,” Sora said. “For eight songs?”

  Travis tossed the 8-track back into another box and spotted a bigger rectangular case—thick, black, and plastic.

  “That’s a VHS!” Sora said. “For recording TV, isn’t it?”

  Travis remarked, “It’s the same size as an e-reader.”

  He picked it up and looked at the spool of tape inside the case. “This thing is the reason older people always say ‘tape it’ when they really mean record it.”

  Sora laughed. “Let’s find a machine that can ‘tape’ your show.”

  Travis opened a metal cabinet, looking for a machine that could record onto VHS. Inside there were stacks of cameras, microphones, and cassette recorders. On the bottom shelf, Travis spotted a VHS recorder. It was so big that at first he thought it was a microwave oven.

  Sora said, “That’s it.”

  Travis located the cables for the recorder and hooked it up to the TV.

  The program he wanted to record came on the television with three BBC News beeps. The VHS machine blinked red, indicating that it was taping the show.

  Travis and Sora watched the news with their mouths wide open. When the segment ended, Travis popped the tape out. He couldn’t wait to show it to the others.

  PLAN B

  Travis Chase sprinted up the back staircase to the seventh floor. He flipped his skateboard onto the floor, and the wheels squished into the carpet that was still damp from Lucas playing firefighter with Magnus’s face. The door to room 701 had been wedged open, and a bank of fans blew warm air into the hallway.

  Travis glided down the seventh floor, where he thumped the nose of the longboard into the door as he burst into room 725.

  Alister sprang up and guarded his hotel of cards. Lucas sat wide-eyed. Jackknife rolled over in his bed and burped.

  Travis pushed across the carpet and glided to the foot of Lucas’s bed.

  “Let’s roll,” he said.

  “Where are we going?” Jackknife said, not even looking up from his pillow.

  “Madrid.”

  “As in the capital of Spain?” Alister asked.

  Jackknife asked, “What’s up?”

  “Rufus has a mole of some kind, the kid named Andrés, at Ms. Günerro’s hotel,” Travis said. “Apparently plan B for the Good Company is in Madrid.”

  “Are we going?” Lucas asked.

  “Your dad is going to issue a Call to Legs soon,” Travis said.

  “Do we have to go?” Jackknife asked.

  “I’m happy staying right here in bed,” Lucas said.

  Alister said, “You’ve been asleep forever, Lucas.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Travis said. “The trip is not optional.”

  Jackknife sat up. “Madrid’s not that far away. We going by car or train?”

  “Neither,” Travis said. “White Bird One.”

  WHITE BIRD ONE

  An alarm pulsated in the hallway, and a yellow light flashed throughout the hotel.

  “All members of the New Resistance,” said a voice over the ceiling speakers. “This is a Call to Legs.”

  A CTL was like a fire drill, except that when you got out of the building, the mission started, and the chances of dying were infinitely greater.

  In complete silence everyone filed out of the rooms, down the stairs, through the lobby, and onto the front circular drive of the hotel. Outside, a line of vans waited.

  The kids piled in, and the drivers transported them to a private airfield north of Barcelona.

  When they got out of the vans, the sun was hot and bright, and the sky was littered with parachuters.

  Two airport technicians rolled open a giant hangar door. Inside, the Boeing 747 Intercontinental airliner dominated the space.

  White Bird One.

  Teams of workers buzzed across the floor on golf carts. Mechanics scurried around the airplane performing the final check. A fuel truck beeped as it backed up.

  Lucas loved this airplane. Who wouldn’t? It was arguably the most modern flying machine ever, tricked out with every luxury in the world. Paid for by the profits from his dad’s chain of Globe Hotels.

  As they shuffled toward the big plane, Lucas fantasized about sleeping in one of the calm blue pods and eating candy for hours on end.

  The grown-ups walked in front of the kids.

  “This is going to be a short flight,” Mr. Benes said to the group. “So don’t get too comfortable.”

  Coach Creed marched backward. “Eyes on me,” he called out. “When we get on the plane, I want Tier One and Alister at the boardroom table, Tier Two on the sides, and everyone else in your pods. We’re working with very little information, so we’re counting on you to do a lot in a short amount of time.”

  The kids clomped up the back staircase and through the galley. Jackknife snatched a handful of snacks and Cokes and then stopped. He unclicked the food service cart and pushed it down the aisle toward the boardroom.

  While a soft Spanish guitar drifted through the speakers, white LED lights on the ceiling faded into a pastel blue. As the kids approached the next compartment, a door slid open. Inside, a mahogany table took up the center of the oval-shaped boardroom.

  A voice cut in and crackled over the intercom. “Please take your seats, and buckle those belts.”

  Jackknife locked the service trolley’s wheels and passed drinks and snacks across the table.

  The other Tier One kids—Lucas, Astrid, Nalini, Travis, Kerala—and Alister crashed into the regular airplane seats that surrounded the table. A dozen other kids took the window seats and opened their laptops.

  Lucas gazed out the rectangular windows and spotted the grown-ups huddled with the pilot. A flock of parakeets flew into the hangar and rested on the ceiling’s metal trusses. At the back of the airplane Lucas heard Gini giggling.

  It all started with her, he thought.

  There was a little commotion as the rest of the kids took their seats. A few minutes later, the main cabin door closed.

  Tug trucks pulled the airplane from the hangar and out onto the tarmac.

  “Please prepare for takeoff,” said Captain Bannister over the PA system.

  The engines fired, and the plane rattled and shook as the all-white jet blasted down the runway. In less than two minutes the aircraft rocketed up into the blue Spanish sky. Soon they were fast approaching the speed of sound.

  The seat-belt light dinged, and the two program leaders came down the circular stairs to start the meeting. They had obviously spent some time shopping while in Barcelona. Robbie Stafford wore a baby-blue suit and white T-shirt, and Sophia Carson followed wearing a pink pleated dress and carrying a tablet under her arm. The two fifth-year seniors took their seats at the head of the table.

  “This flight will take only about an hour,” Sophia said. “So, as Coach said, we have a lot to do in a short time.”

  Some kids grumbled.

  Someone in the back of the plane called out, “Nothing to eat?”

  “As some of you may have heard,” Sophia went on, “we are headed to Madrid today. We have credible information that Ms. Günerro is planning an attack of some kind on one of Madrid’s museums.”

  Robbie said, “Although Travis has a film that he says conflicts with this information.”

  “Which museum are we supposed to be going to?” Astrid asked.

  “Good question,” Sophia said. “We don’t know exactly which one.”

  “Wait a minute,” Jackknife said. “It seems to me that we should have already figured this out, you know. We’re going to this big city but we don’t know exactly where?”

  “You’re right, Jackknife,” Robbie said. “But Andrés, Rufus’s mole at the Good Hotel Barcelona, told us this morning that Ms. Günerro and her team headed to Madrid in the middle of the night. We’re a half a day behind her, so it’s better for us to figure it out while traveling.”

  “Actually, we can pinpoint where we’re headed,” Sophia said.
“We just need to decipher the message Andrés intercepted the other day.” She tapped a key on her laptop, and an image of a note appeared on the screen behind her. “Let’s take a look.”

  siba,

  I know of your troubles. i hope the west bengal silk housecoat i left for you makes you feel better. but you may have to sell everything you own. if you want to Remain president of the Good company, your payment to me and buNguu’s too must now be “priceless.” fortunately, U are in spain and there are plenty of priceless objects there. i have a troupe of Artists from everywhere—bangladesh, too—that “happily” stay at my castle in granada.

  you will comply. or Else.

  sincerely, ching Ching

  A boy with black bed-head hair raised his hand. “Excuse me,” he said. “Why is the formatting of this note so odd?”

  “Good eye, Nicolas,” Sophia said.

  “They didn’t even capitalize the proper nouns, like Bangladesh and Granada,” Nicolas said. “There must be something up with that.”

  “There’s clearly a hidden message here,” Sophia said. “I need everyone in Tier Two looking into this. Nicolas and Sora, you two lead the search.”

  The computers on the side of the airplane lit up, and the kids dug in, searching for a clue. The kids clumped around Sora’s and Nicolas’s seats.

  “For the rest of you,” Robbie said, “Travis has a video he recorded this morning that he would like to share.” Robbie pointed his index finger at Travis. “Let it roll.”

  “Okay, guys,” Travis said, opening the computer in front of him. “This video is super scratchy because I had to copy it from a VHS tape.”

  “A what?” Terry asked.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Travis said. “It’s an old recording device, and this is some footage pulled from a BBC broadcast of a Southeast Asian newscast. Just watch.”

  Travis tapped a few keys on his computer, and the screen behind Robbie and Sophia lit up.

  AN IN-FLIGHT MOVIE

  The window shades hummed as they closed simultaneously and blocked the sun’s glare. The image on the screen slowly came into focus. It was dark and gray.

  The program then beeped three times.

  All eyes in the airplane’s boardroom locked on the screen.

  The video was still hard to see, fuzzy, as if it had been taken by an old flip-phone camera. Travis tweaked his computer, and the TV program became brighter. On screen someone lifted a handwritten note that said, This July on the border of Burma (Myanmar), and Bangladesh.

  Then the real video began. At first it was unfocused on a marsh with tall grass. A second later a man’s voice whispered into a scratchy microphone.

  “This is Daniel Foley, reporting for the New York Journal.” He paused and adjusted the sound. “I am south of the financial city Chittagong at the Naaf River Wildlife Sanctuary. We are waiting here at the Bangladesh and Burma border for a glimpse of the secretive businessman known as Ching Ching. According to the Panama Papers, he is believed to be one of the richest men in Southeast Asia and reportedly trades in anything illegal.”

  The reporter pried the weeds back, and the camera showed a line of boys wrapped in yellow monk’s gowns marching barefoot on a dirt road through the rain forest. The monks, all with clean-shaven heads, shouldered wooden artist easels.

  Behind this group a man with a long white beard sat on a golden throne, which was strapped on two poles and carried by short men.

  One by one, the boys in the yellow gowns walked across a metal plank with roped handrails and boarded a superyacht. The name on the bow read Thimblerig.

  Daniel Foley reported again. “There are many aid agencies here helping stateless people. My sources tell me that these boys have lost their homes to wars and rising sea levels, and they have turned to this man for help.”

  The camera panned to the bearded gentleman on the throne and zoomed in.

  “This is Ching Ching, who has kept these boys in a school here called Good Trade. But locals tell me Ching Ching doesn’t teach anything; he has the boys in factories making counterfeit money, art, even basketball shoes. I’ve learned that he’s putting these particular boys on the Thimblerig, a superyacht that is headed to Spain, where the children will be studying at the Good Art Institute of Granada.”

  The procession suddenly stopped, and the reporter paused.

  “Tell them!” Ching Ching yelled from his throne. “Tell Bunguu and the woman he works with that the only payment I’ll accept must be priceless or they will get none of my cash.”

  Ching Ching wafted his face with a fan made of five-hundred-euro bills.

  The reporter whispered, “Ching Ching is referring to Lu Bunguu, supposedly one of Africa’s wealthiest men and a notorious warlord. The woman he works with is anyone’s guess.”

  The video stopped abruptly and cut to black.

  MONEY IS BEHIND EVERYTHING

  Sophia adjusted the dimmer, and the lights grew brighter in the boardroom.

  Robbie said, “I think we all know who this woman Ching Ching is referring to in the video.”

  “This is terrible,” Kerala said. “This is another group of kids being forced to work for the Good Company. They might even be brainwashed into being Curukians.”

  “I agree,” Astrid said. “We should be going to Granada. Not Madrid.”

  “None of this makes sense to me,” Alister said. “Art. Weapons. Spain. Günerro?”

  The airplane shook in a bubble of turbulence, and Sophia grabbed hold of the table as she stood.

  “Let me connect the dots for you, as I now see it,” she said, addressing the group.

  Everyone sat back and listened.

  “We know the Good Company is on the verge of bankruptcy,” she said.

  “That would be good news for us,” said a girl in Tier Two.

  “Ms. Günerro lost money,” Sophia said, “on the failed kidnapping in Paris. Then she tried to get the Kapriss diamonds. Again, failure. Enter Ching Ching. A person to whom Ms. Günerro and the Good Company owe a lot of money.”

  “In fact,” Robbie said, “Mr. Benes, Coach Creed, and Rufus Chapman are upstairs in a meeting trying to figure out how they can buy parts of the Good Company if it goes bankrupt.”

  “That means,” Alister said, “if Ms. Günerro is out of money, she’ll have to sell everything—cars, houses, boats—just so she can pay her bills.”

  “Sorry,” said a boy in Tier Two. “I’m still lost.”

  “Stay with us,” Sophia said. “Ching Ching sells guns, actually weapons of all kinds. Dirty bombs. Mines. Anything that kills.”

  “So how does art fit in?” Kerala asked.

  Robbie stood next to Sophia. “Art is sometimes used as currency—money,” he said. “Art is something of value that bad guys use to trade with, and it’s fairly easy to transport, too.”

  Sophia added, “Currently, there are more than a thousand Picassos that are reported stolen or missing.” She paused for effect. “Art theft is a multibillion-dollar business, which is used to pay for other illegal activities.”

  “Such as ...” said a girl from Tier Two.

  Sophia glanced at Robbie.

  “Money is behind everything,” he said. “Good and bad.”

  “Typical!” said Astrid. “Siba Günerro and the Good Company have figured a way to make money from just about everything bad in the world.”

  “So the painting is like a trophy,” said a girl in Tier Two. “It’s a game.”

  “It could be,” Robbie said.

  “But wait,” Nalini said. “If you’re going to steal a painting and then resell it, why have children with easels come all the way to Spain?”

  “Remember,” Sophia said. “Art is valuable, but it can also be copied.”

  “Cheaters,” Terry called out.

  Travis said, “They could hold the painting for ransom and threaten to destroy it if the museum didn’t pay them.”

  “Or,” Jackknife said, “if you own one million-dollar
painting and sell copies as originals, then . . .” He paused. “Then you could have hundreds of copies. A hundred million dollars for fakes!”

  “Exactly,” Robbie said.

  “And,” Alister said, “if the person who bought the painting found out it was a phony, no one would say anything because they would have traded the painting for something illegal ... like guns.”

  “Or people,” Lucas said.

  “Well put,” Robbie said.

  There was a moment of silence as everyone seemed to understand the lengths to which the Good Company would go in order to cheat to make money.

  “What kind of art do they steal?” Lucas asked.

  “All kinds,” Sophia said. “Paintings, statues, one-of-a-kind pieces.” She paused and clicked a key on her computer, and a map of Spain appeared on the screen behind her. She zeroed in on the capital. “Which brings us to Madrid, where we are heading today.”

  “But why Madrid?” asked Alister. “Why Spain?”

  “First,” Robbie said, “there are several groups in Spain, like the Basque separatists, with whom Ms. Günerro could work seamlessly.”

  “My guess,” Sophia said, “would be the Prado Museum in Madrid, which has one of the largest collection of paintings in the world.”

  “Let’s see if Ching Ching’s note gives us a clue,” Robbie said. He pointed to Sora Kowa. “Sora? Any luck deciphering the note?”

  “Yes,” she said, tapping her keyboard. “I think we’ve got it!”

  She hit a button, and Ching Ching’s note reappeared on the main screen.

  “Notice,” she said, pointing with an electronic pen. “Ching Ching’s letter has odd breaks in the lines and capital letters used randomly. And he uses the letter U to mean you. Not odd in a text but strange in a handwritten note.”

  Sora highlighted eight letters from the note: I, R, G, N, U, A, E, C.

  “It’s quite simple,” she explained. “An anagram of these letters reveals only two words. Urgencia, which is Spanish for urgency or emergency—and the other word is the only piece of artwork mentioned in the letter: Guernica.”

  “Guernica,” Sophia said, “is the most famous antiwar painting in the world.”