by James Ponti
“No,” she countered. “But you said I was the alpha.”
“Right.”
“And you said that the alpha is in charge of the mission once it’s operational.”
“Also true,” he admitted.
“So, I made it part of the plan,” she said defiantly. “Did I pass the test? Am I three for three?”
“Yes,” answered Mother. “You passed. And, while I see the appeal of locking them on the roof, it probably wasn’t the best thing to do.”
“Life is filled with ‘probablies,’ ” she said, repeating his line back to him. “I guess we’re both going to have to get used to them.”
A smile slowly formed on his face, and he chuckled.
“What?” asked Sydney.
“I’m wondering what I’ve gotten us into,” he said.
Sara grinned. She spun around in her seat and looked back toward the house as it disappeared in the distance.
“They’ll be stuck up there until the kids get home,” she said. “I wonder what they’ll tell them.”
“Nothing,” replied Mother. “The kids aren’t coming home.”
A panicked Sara turned back to face him and asked, “Why not? What happened to them?”
“Everything’s fine,” he assured her. “At MI6 we have friends in American law enforcement. We passed along the files you hacked as well as some others we found and asked them to dig a bit deeper. Right now, a senior social worker is meeting with the children and seeing to it that all of them are assigned to better homes. Meanwhile, the New York Office of Children and Family Services is taking a closer look at the Clarks and their history as foster parents. The roof is only the beginning of their problems.”
Sara was stunned. “You did that?”
“No, Sara, you did,” he said. “I just made a few phone calls. You did the difficult work. I know you’re not familiar with it, but this is what justice feels like. This is what we’re all about.”
As Sara considered this, she reflexively hugged the shoebox against her chest. Her defiant attitude melted away and tears began to stream down her face. She didn’t try to stop them. For the first time in her life she didn’t mind someone seeing her cry.
The others were quiet for a moment until Sydney placed a gentle hand on her knee. “Are you okay?”
Sara wiped away some of the tears and nodded. “Better than okay,” she said. “I just don’t understand how all of this happened. This morning I woke up in jail, and now I’m about to fly to Scotland for spy training. It’s just so … overwhelming.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” said Sydney. “I felt the same way.”
“It’s a lot to take in,” said Mother. “I’m sure you have some questions.”
“Only a few thousand,” joked Sara. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“How about we start at the beginning?” He looked down at the scars on his hand. “Why don’t I tell you about the fire?”
The limo glided into traffic heading toward JFK Airport.
“Five years ago, I went to Paris on a top-secret mission called Operation Gumdrop.…”
5. Operation Gumdrop
Paris, France—Five Years Earlier
DESPITE ITS PLAYFUL NAME, OPERATION Gumdrop was deadly serious. Mother had spent more than a year trying to infiltrate Umbra, a global crime syndicate made up of mercenaries, terrorists, and former intelligence agents. Its leader was a shadowy figure known simply as Le Fantôme, which was French for “the Ghost.”
Little was known about him, although it was believed that, in addition to being a master criminal, he was also an avid art collector. This was why Mother went to Paris posing as a black-market dealer with three priceless Monets. MI6 didn’t think Le Fantôme would trust an underling to judge whether they were forgeries. If Mother could arrange a face-to-face meeting, he might be able to arrest him.
A key to this plan was setting up shop in an abandoned factory on the outskirts of the city. The factory had once manufactured candy, which was how Operation Gumdrop got its name.
Mother looked at the building through a rusted chain-link fence. Its royal-blue walls were dull and peeling. Broken windows lined the second floor, and the parking lot was overrun with weeds and wildflowers.
“Beautiful,” he said, taking it all in. “Absolutely beautiful.”
With bolt cutters for the chain on the fence and a lockpick for the main door, he was inside in less than ninety seconds. Skeletal remains of old machinery filled the factory floor and reminded him of the dinosaur exhibits at the Museum of Natural History. A wall was lined with giant sacks of sugar long since devoured by rats.
This was where he planned to set his trap. Just as rodents had been lured into the building by the sweet scent of sugar, Mother hoped Le Fantôme would be unable to resist the temptation of three stolen Monets, which were in fact masterful forgeries confiscated by Scotland Yard.
On the second floor Mother found a row of offices that had once housed Confiserie Royale S.A.—or the Royal Candy Corporation—a grandiose name for a company that manufactured low-quality gummies and lollipops. He looked in each office and found nothing of interest until he reached the final one.
As the beam from his flashlight swept the floor, he spied a blanket and pillow laid out like a bed. Next to them a row of books was neatly lined against the wall. He squatted down and ran his finger along their spines. Some titles were in English and others in French. He smiled when he noticed they’d been alphabetized by author.
He turned on a reading lamp by the pillow, and amber light filled a corner of the room. That’s when he heard the rustling behind him. He spun around, rising to his feet, expecting to confront either an attacker or a rodent, but instead saw only a boy cowering behind an overturned desk.
Mother exhaled deeply and, once his pulse calmed, said, “Bonjour.”
The boy did not respond.
“Je ne suis pas la police,” Mother told him. “I’m not the police.”
He carefully placed the flashlight on the floor and held up empty hands to show that he meant no harm. The boy responded by cautiously moving out from behind the desk, keeping his back to the wall and his eyes fixed on the man. He looked to be about ten or eleven years old and wore several layers of clothes to fight the winter cold. He had dark skin and cropped hair, and he looked like he was ready to bolt for the door.
“Please don’t run,” said Mother. “You speak English, right?” He motioned to the books on the floor. “I say that because some of the books are in English and my French is not very good.”
The boy did not answer but nodded.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Mother promised. “Is this your home?”
Another nod.
“Do you live here with the rest of your family?”
The boy spoke for the first time. “No family.”
Mother noticed a dingy yellow electrical cord leading to a larger lamp in the corner of the room.
“I’m just going to reach over and turn this on,” he said, slowly moving toward the lamp, careful not to scare the boy away. “So we can see better. Is that okay?”
“Yes.”
This illuminated the entire room, and now Mother saw that, in addition to the makeshift bed and books, there was a drawer on the floor holding several items of neatly folded clothing. There was also a chess set with the pieces arranged in the middle of a game.
“Who are you playing?” he asked, worried another, possibly larger, person might be hiding nearby.
“I play myself.”
Mother was both relieved and saddened. His first instinct was that the boy’s accent was from Central Africa. That would mean he was far from home and completely alone. He examined the progress of the match and said, “You’re good.”
“Do you play?” asked the boy.
“I do.”
“Want to play me?” This was accompanied by a hopeful grin.
“I wish I had the time,” said Mother. “But unfortunately, I don’t.”
His mind raced as he tried to solve this unexpected wrinkle in his plan. “You live here alone?”
“Yes.”
“But the fence was locked. How’d you get in?”
“I have a secret way,” said the boy. “So no one can follow me.”
“Where is it?”
The boy smiled. “If I told you, it would not be a secret.”
“Fair enough,” Mother conceded. “Can you tell me your name? Or is that a secret too?”
“They call me Le Roi du Paris.”
At first he thought the boy had said “Leroy,” as in the name, but then he remembered that in French “le roi” meant “the king.” He chuckled. “You’re the king of Paris?”
“They call me that to make fun of me, but I do not care.”
“Well, I’m not going to make fun of you,” said Mother. “So which would you rather I call you? Leroy or Paris?”
The boy shrugged. “Paris, I think.”
“Okay, Paris, I’d like to make a business arrangement with you. I’d like to rent this building for the next month. I’ll pay a generous rate.”
“I do not understand.”
“It’s hard to explain,” said Mother. “But I need this building … for my work.”
“I will share it with you,” said Paris. “There is enough room for us both. We can play chess when you are not working.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” he said. “It wouldn’t be safe for you. You need to go someplace else.”
According to MI6 protocol, Mother had three options: cancel the operation, move to a different location, or use intimidation to get rid of Paris. But he’d spent a year getting to this point, the building was perfect for his needs, and he couldn’t bring himself to threaten a child. So, he came up with a fourth option instead.
They went shopping.
Mother bought Paris new clothes and a winter coat. He arranged for him to stay in an MI6 safe house and fed him better than he’d ever been fed. They even squeezed in time for a few games of chess. Part of the arrangement, though, was that Paris was not allowed to come anywhere near the factory.
This was a rule the boy broke every evening just after sunset when he snuck back to spy on his new friend. Paris watched one night as Mother unloaded wooden crates from the back of a moving truck. Another time, he saw him installing hidden surveillance cameras. He couldn’t imagine what the Englishman was planning, but his curiosity was piqued.
Paris didn’t see anyone else there for three weeks, until he arrived one night to find two black Mercedes parked in front of the factory. A light snow had fallen, and one car’s engine was idling. He assumed someone was inside using the heater, although the tinted windows made it impossible to tell.
He crept closer and hid behind an abandoned delivery truck. When he heard people coming out of the building, he crawled under the truck to spy on them.
The group consisted of a woman and three men, with no sign of Mother. One man had a gun and constantly scanned the road, looking for possible threats. The other two carried narrow wooden boxes, which they loaded into one of the trunks.
A fourth man got out of the car and began an angry conversation with the others. He was bald with a gray-black beard and wire-framed glasses. Paris couldn’t make out the language they spoke, so he crawled closer to hear better. He must have made a noise because two of the men instantly looked his way.
Paris pressed his body against the cold, hard ground and said a silent prayer, hoping they didn’t see him. He tried not to move a muscle, but a moment later he heard a bang and the sound of glass exploding. He assumed the guard with the gun had shot at the truck and broken its windshield, but when he opened his eyes, everyone was looking up at the building.
There was more exploding glass, and Paris inched forward so he could look up from beneath the truck. That’s when he saw the fire burning inside the factory. The sound had been a second-floor window shattering due to the heat. He waited for the people to react, but they just stood there watching the building burn.
* * *
In the same room where he first discovered Paris, Mother was about to die. His hands were tied behind his back, his feet were wrapped together with wire, and a rag had been forced into his mouth so he couldn’t scream for help. He writhed on the floor, trying to break free, his face covered in sweat from the heat of the nearby flames. He strained with all his might, but there was nothing he could do to loosen the bindings. Each breath filled his lungs with smoke and brought him closer to death.
He closed his eyes and did his best to accept that this was where his life would come to an end. He tried to figure out where he’d gone wrong. How he’d wound up in this situation. But mostly he thought about the woman who Paris had seen outside the building.
It was Mother’s wife, Clementine.
She was also an MI6 agent, yet she’d betrayed him and their country to join forces with Umbra. How could she have done that? How could the woman he loved leave him to die in a fire?
He pushed those questions away and instead thought about their two children. He wanted their faces to be the last pictures in his mind. He heard the crackling of the wooden floor as the fire closed in on him, but just as he started to fade away, the gag was yanked from his mouth.
Mother hacked out smoke and opened his eyes, expecting to see his wife. But she wasn’t his rescuer.
It was Paris.
“Get out of here,” Mother said, coughing.
“Quiet,” replied the boy. “They are still outside. Do not let them hear you.”
The flames dancing along the wall cast eerie shadows on Paris’s face as he struggled to free Mother’s wrists.
“You need to save yourself,” Mother insisted. “Even if you can untie me, we can’t escape without them seeing us. They’ll hurt you, too.”
Finally the knot loosened and came undone. Paris smiled at Mother and said, “Maybe now I will show you my secret way out of the building.”
6. The Welcoming Committee
Edinburgh, Scotland—Present Day
THE SOUNDS OF MORNING COMMUTERS echoed through Waverley station, interrupted every minute or so by a woman announcing arrivals and departures over the public address system. Paris had just gotten off the train from Aberdeen and was in a hurry as he expertly navigated the jumble of passengers and luggage trolleys that filled platform twelve.
It had been five years since he’d saved Mother from the fire, and during that time he’d grown seven inches and added fifty pounds. But his physical transformation was nothing compared to the other changes in his life. The Rwandan refugee who lived alone in an abandoned factory was now part of a family in which he played the role of protective older brother. He’d flourished in his new environment, adapting in every way except one: No matter how hard he tried, he simply could not get used to the weather.
Looking up through the glass-paneled roof, he saw the sky was nothing more than a dismal swirl of black and gray with no hint the sun even existed. “Another lovely day in Scotland,” he muttered as he flipped up the collar of his overcoat and braced for the cool, damp air that would greet them outside the station. “Hurry up,” he said, turning to the others. “We’re on a schedule.”
“So’s my stomach,” replied Rio, who’d stopped in front of a takeaway stall with a display case full of pasties. They’d skipped school in order to be at the airport when Sara arrived. And while Rio didn’t mind missing class, he definitely minded missing lunch. “Just give me a minute,” he said as he checked his wallet. “And spot me a fiver.”
“No and no,” Paris answered. “We don’t have a minute, and you already owe me twenty quid.”
Rio made an exasperated gesture toward Kat, who stood next to him eating an egg sandwich. “How come she has time to eat and I don’t?”
“Because this morning, she got up early and packed a lunch,” answered Paris.
“Once I checked the train timetables and factored in how long it would take to get to the airport,
I knew I wouldn’t get a chance to eat otherwise,” she said before taking another bite.
“It’s called planning ahead,” Paris said. “You might try it sometime.”
Rio pointed to the other half-sandwich she was carrying, its delicious goodness wrapped in neatly creased wax paper. “I don’t suppose you factored sharing into your equation.”
Kat tried not to laugh too hard with her mouth full.
“There’ll be food at the airport,” Paris promised as he headed up the exit ramp. “But right now we’ve got to move. If we’re not there before they land, this whole trip will be a waste.”
The three of them were serving as Sara’s welcoming party, but with a twist. They weren’t actually going to greet her so much as they were going to spy on her. After all, they worked for MI6. Spying was their specialty. They wouldn’t officially meet her until later at the house. But introductions like those were awkward, making it hard to get a good read on someone.
They were just weeks away from an important mission, and if she was going to be part of their team, they wanted their first impressions to be unfiltered. So rather than bringing balloons and a banner that read WELCOME TO THE UK, they headed for the airport with surveillance equipment and hidden transmitters ready for reconnaissance.
“I hope she’s nice,” Paris said as they exited onto Waverley Bridge. “And plays chess. I’m tired of beating you lot.”
“I just want her to stay out of my room,” said Kat. “I don’t like it when people touch my things.”
“Really?” Rio said. “We never would have guessed that from the padlock on your door or that expression you make whenever someone stands close to you.”
She shot him a dirty look, and he laughed.
“Just stating facts,” he said.
“Besides, it doesn’t make sense to add someone right now,” Kat continued. “There’s not enough time to prepare.”
“Well, it makes sense to Mother,” said Paris. “And that’s all that matters.”
They boarded a sky-blue double-decker bus that ran from the train station to the airport, and found the top deck empty. The privacy allowed them to continue their “spy talk” as they sat sideways across the back three rows.