by James Ponti
“I’m the new you,” answered Brooklyn. Then, with as much New York City attitude as she could muster, she added, “They call me Charlotte 2.0.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“ ’Cause I’m the new-and-improved American,” she answered. “You know, like when they come out with a computer upgrade, they call it 2.0?” she said.
“Yes, I’m quite familiar with …”
“No offense to you,” said Brooklyn. “I mean, they say you’re really good at computers. Personally, I don’t know anything about them. That’s not my specialty.”
“No?” she said. “Then what is?”
“Breaking in and out of buildings,” said Brooklyn. “Stealing things.”
“Well, then, you’re quite an upgrade,” Charlotte replied snootily.
Charlotte’s reaction told Brooklyn that she’d hit a nerve. This was the second part of her plan. She was taking advantage of Charlotte’s one great weakness.
She thinks she’s better than us, Sydney told Brooklyn the night before. She’s never come out and said it, but I know she thinks she’s better than all of us.
This led to a discussion among the others, and even though none of them had ever talked about it before, they all agreed that it was true. Kat, Paris, Rio, and Sydney had all survived difficult childhoods filled with poverty and heartbreak. But that wasn’t true of Charlotte.
She wasn’t poor, Rio had said. She had a good family.
Charlotte had grown up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where her parents were college professors. Her mother taught computer science and her dad mathematics. Everything about her life was perfect until she was ten years old and her parents were killed in an auto accident. Because of this, said the others, she acted like she was better than they were. They were born into their sadness, but hers was the result of an accident. It was almost as if they deserved it and she didn’t.
“So are you excited about going to Paris?” asked Brooklyn.
“It’s always exciting to see Paris,” Charlotte answered, like she’d been there a thousand times. “It’s my favorite city.”
“I can’t wait,” said Brooklyn. “I’ve never been. Of course, I’ve never been anywhere. Except New Jersey … and now Scotland.”
Charlotte gave her a superior look, and Brooklyn knew that the second step of her plan was complete. The third, and most crucial, was to conceal any hint that she was a hacker too. If Charlotte got even a whiff that Brooklyn knew her way around a computer, she’d be suspicious.
Once they got to the priest hole, Charlotte put her backpack on the table and pulled out her laptop.
“Wait a second. I thought you were going to use Beny,” said Brooklyn.
“I beg your pardon?” said Charlotte.
“Why do you have your laptop if you’re going to use Beny?”
“Who’s Beny?” asked Charlotte.
“The big computer,” Brooklyn answered, pointing at it.
“First of all, it’s not a big computer, it’s a supercomputer,” said Charlotte. “I’m going to access it with my laptop, which contains the data I need for my weather models. Also, his name is Ben.”
“I know,” Brooklyn said, taking a suddenly serious tone. “But it shouldn’t be. ‘Ben’ is short for Benjamin or Benedict. It’s an Anglo name. But this computer is named after Benito Viñes. That’s a Spanish name. And the nickname for Benito is Beny. Spelled with one n, not two.” She smiled and added, “I may not know anything about supercomputers. But I know a lot about Spanish.”
Brooklyn had Charlotte right where she wanted her, all distracted and discombobulated. She was not her normal, sharp self. And in the middle of all this, Brooklyn saw her opportunity.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out the keylogger that she’d found in her desk the first day. The one that Charlotte had accidentally left behind. She hid it in the palm of her hand just like Rio had taught her and slipped it unnoticed into Charlotte’s backpack.
Charlotte was too good to hack head-on, so this was going to be Brooklyn’s backdoor. She was counting on Charlotte to find it in her backpack and assume that it had always been there, overlooked somehow. If she checked it, she would see that it was hers. She would see that it had her files on it. What she wouldn’t see, however, was the tiny program that Brooklyn installed.
How do you hack a hacker? You don’t. You let them hack themselves.
15. XUHET
THE P4 JEAN MÉRIEUX-INSERM LABORATORY in Lyon, France, was one of the most advanced biological research centers in the world. The scientists inside the highly secure facility had to wear futuristic-looking BSL-4–positive pressure “spacesuits,” because they worked exclusively with the deadliest viruses on the planet. Even the slightest exposure to them could prove fatal.
Inside the lab’s most secure room, two scientists prepared a vial of virus identified only as XUHET to be transported to their research colleagues at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. This vial was placed in a specially designed metal case the size of a thick book. The case was airtight, strong enough to withstand a blast of dynamite, and could be opened only with a randomly changing fifteen-digit computer-generated code. Even if it somehow fell into the wrong hands, there was no way for an outsider to open it without destroying its contents.
Soon after the scientists were done, a red-and-white armored truck pulled away from the building and got onto the A6 highway leading to Paris. It was closely followed by a chase car with two agents from the DGSI, the French intelligence agency in charge of counterterrorism.
The highly trained agents were ready to use lethal force to protect the cargo. But even they didn’t know that the truck was a decoy.
The actual case was tucked inside a backpack carried by another agent, who along with his partner was boarding a train for Paris. This was an old-school intelligence trick. If anyone had learned the specimen was being transported, they’d be focused on the armored truck. No one would suspect the pair with long hair and scruffy beards who blended in with all of the other college students backpacking through Europe. The two certainly didn’t look like the assassins that they were.
The train from Lyon to Paris took two hours, and the pair was expected to reach the Pasteur Institute just after noon. When they hadn’t arrived by one thirty, the agent in charge of the operation began to worry. By five o’clock an extensive search was underway at all locations along the agents’ route.
It was two days until their bodies were discovered floating in the Seine. There was no sign of the backpack or the case, though there was one unmistakable clue that hadn’t been washed away by the water.
On each agent’s forehead was a distinctive purple thumbprint.
16. The Slater Loan Co.
BROOKLYN STARED AT HER CLOSET and had absolutely no idea what to do. For the first time in her life she was packing. There’d been six previous occasions when all her possessions were dumped into cardboard boxes and dropped off at a new foster home. But that was moving. Never before had she put clothes into a suitcase with the idea that she would return. This was the latest in a whirlwind of first-time-evers that included flying over an ocean, signing the United Kingdom Official Secrets oath, eating baked beans for breakfast, and learning how to use a bobby pin to pick the lock on a pair of military-grade North Korean leg shackles.
Not only that but it was also the first time she had clothes to choose from. Monty had taken her shopping in Edinburgh, and together with the clothes Sydney bought for her in New York, she actually had a wardrobe. It was mostly jeans, shorts, and graphic tees, but it was still hard to choose. In the end, she decided to take everything. That way she would have plenty of options when she got to Paris.
“What are you doing?” asked Sydney, who walked in to find Brooklyn sprawled across the overstuffed suitcase, using her body weight to hold it closed while she zipped it.
“Packing,” Brooklyn answered sheepishly.
“Packing what?” she asked.
Brooklyn
gave her a look like it may be some sort of trick question. “My suitcase.”
“Bad news, mate,” Sydney said with a laugh. “That’s our suitcase.”
Brooklyn sat up and sighed. “Yours and mine?”
“Yours and mine and Kat’s,” Sydney answered. “We’re travel triplets. That means we share a room and we share a suitcase. We also only get to bring along one of those little shampoo bottles, so get ready to argue over whose we take.”
“Okay then,” said Brooklyn. “How much am I supposed to bring?”
“The only one who travels right is the one who travels light,” said Sydney.
“Wow, there’s a Motherism for everything.”
“Forget all that tuxedo-and-evening-gown nonsense you see in spy movies,” said Sydney. “When you’re on a real mission, you’ve got to be able to pick up and go in an instant. You can’t do that if you’re lugging around a bunch of suitcases. But we can fix this,” Sydney offered as she dumped the clothes onto the bed. “We just have to start over.”
As they started packing the appropriate amount, Brooklyn said, “Kat’s going to hate being a travel triplet with me.”
“What makes you think that?” asked Sydney.
Brooklyn gave her an incredulous look. “I’m pretty sure she despises me.”
“Nah,” said Sydney. “You got that wrong.”
“Really, because she never says more than two words to me,” replied Brooklyn. “Unless it’s ‘Get out of my seat’ or ‘That’s not supposed to go there.’ ”
“That’s just Kat being Kat,” said Sydney. “I told you, she sees the world differently. Sometimes she’ll say something rude, but she doesn’t mean it that way. And sometimes she’ll do something you think is totally mad only to find out later it’s really quite lovely. Like her caper with the chocolate bars.”
“Her what?”
“For one week last year, she was obsessed with Cadbury Crunchie chocolate bars,” said Sydney.
“Never heard of them,” said Brooklyn.
“You’ve been deprived,” Sydney replied. “You’re going to love the chocolate here. So much better than in the States. Anyway, without warning or explanation, Kat started buying Crunchies like mad. One day, she’d buy ten in a single store. The next day, she’d buy one each from ten different stores.”
“Does she have that much of a sweet tooth?” asked Brooklyn.
“She’d only eat one a day,” Sydney answered. “And for the rest, she’d just open the wrapper and offer the chocolate to us. At first we loved it. I mean, who doesn’t love a free Crunchie? But by the end of the week we’d had so many, even Rio was turning her down. And Rio never turns down food.”
“Did you ask her why she was doing it?”
“All she’d say was that it was a ‘project for school,’ ” Brooklyn answered. “We didn’t get the full story for a couple weeks. Turns out, the chocolate company was running a sweepstakes to give away five thousand pounds. Kat was comparing the serial numbers on the outside of the wrappers with the game pieces on the inside. She wanted to see if she could crack the code.”
“How is that a project for school?” asked Sydney.
“Because when she did crack the code and won the five thousand pounds, she donated it all to her old school back in Nepal.”
“That’s amazing,” said Brooklyn.
“It is,” said Sydney. “And so is she. Kat is absolutely amazing. And if the cost of that is a little social awkwardness, then the price is well worth it.” She paused for a moment before adding, “Besides, I think she’s scared of you.”
Brooklyn couldn’t believe it. “In what way am I scary?”
“Not scared like that,” said Sydney. “She’s scared you’ll be like Charlotte. It’s difficult for Kat to make friends, but the two of them were thick as thieves. It really helped her come out of her shell. Then one day … Char was gone.”
“Why?” asked Brooklyn.
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” said Sydney. “Two and a half years together and she just leaves. No warning. No good-bye. The rest of us went to school one day, but she stayed home. Said she was sick. When we got back, there was no sign of her. Mother had to tell us what happened.”
“She didn’t give a reason?” said Brooklyn.
“None,” said Sydney. “She hasn’t even said a word to me at school.”
They talked some more about Charlotte until an urgent voice interrupted them. “You do realize that we’re wheels-up in less than two hours?”
Monty stood at the door, her face the picture of impatience.
“Is there a reason you’re not getting ready?” she continued. “Is it because you’re trying to drive me crazy? Or is that just a bonus on top of some other goal?”
“We are getting ready,” Sydney said defensively. “We’re packing.”
“Really? Because it sounds like you’re gossiping,” said Monty. “Besides, when does it take two of you to pack for one person?”
“Um … that’s my fault,” Brooklyn said, a bit embarrassed. “I was having trouble figuring out the whole how-much-you’re-supposed-to-bring-on-a-spy-mission thing. I went overboard, and Sydney’s helping me get it back under control.”
Monty noticed the pile of clothes on the bed and softened her tone. “I see. Well, now you know, so hang those up and let’s get a move on. Vauxhall Cross has us under the microscope, and I will not let us fall behind schedule before the mission’s even started.”
If Monty was uncharacteristically gruff, it was because the team found itself facing unprecedented scrutiny. Everything changed the moment the French secret agents were murdered. Once their bodies were discovered with purple thumbprints on their foreheads, Operation Willy Wonka became an MI6 top priority.
It was so important that the team was about to board a small unmarked plane and fly to a top-secret facility outside of London for a week of mission-specific training alongside British Special Forces.
Before that, however, Brooklyn needed to speak to Mother. She wanted to talk to him in private while they were still at the FARM, so once she was packed, she left the house and crossed the lawn to the airstrip. She found him in the flight tower getting the radar and communication equipment ready for the plane to arrive.
“Well, hello. What brings you up here?” he asked.
This was her first time inside the tower, and her train of thought was derailed when she saw the furnishings. “You live here?” she asked incredulously, looking around at the sparse furnishings. Other than the air traffic control equipment, there was little more than a metal cot, an electric teakettle, and a bookcase filled with old paperbacks.
“Well, I’m the caretaker of the airfield,” he said. “And living in the tower comes with the job. Like the old lighthouse keepers.”
“When you said you lived in an apartment in the tower, I assumed it was an actual, you know, apartment,” she said.
“The flat’s one floor below,” he said. “I use it as an office. To be honest, I prefer sleeping up here. The furniture’s not much, but the view’s magnificent.”
Brooklyn couldn’t disagree. Windows wrapped around the entire room, giving it a 360-degree panoramic vista that stretched from the North Sea in the east to the sun setting over the highlands in the west.
“A cuppa, a good book, and this view is the best relaxation I know,” he said. “However, I doubt you came here to talk about my accommodations, so …?”
“Right … yeah,” she said as she tried to refocus. She wasn’t sure how to broach this subject, so she just dived right in. “Have you ever heard of the Slater Loan Company?”
“No,” he answered without hesitation.
She stared at him and shook her head. “It’s amazing how good you are at lying,” she said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d believe you.”
He paused for a moment and said, “Tell me what you know.”
“I’ve been spending a lot of time with Ben. Or Beny, as I like to call him,” she
said. “And I’ve been digging around trash cans.”
“You’ve been doing what?” he asked.
“It’s an old hacker’s trick,” she said. “If you put something in the computer’s trash can, it looks like it’s been erased, but it hasn’t. All you’ve got to do is pluck it out again. It’s the perfect place to hide a file you don’t want anyone to see.”
“But you saw something?”
She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket, unfolded it, and handed it to him.
“The Slater Loan Company,” he said, reading it. “Alton H. Slater, CEO.” He looked up at her. “This is the company you think I know something about?”
“Don’t even try to deny it,” she said. “Now, there’s nothing particularly suspicious about this. Except that it was hidden. I mean, why go to all the trouble to scrub and hide that in a trash can unless there is something suspicious about it.”
Now she was getting excited. “So I started looking around. Remember, I was able to hack into a bank using an old PC in my school computer lab. With Beny, the sky’s the limit, so I found out everything there is to know about the Slater Loan Company.”
Mother was torn. He didn’t want her to discover what she’d learned, but he was amazed at how good she was at this. “So what is there to find out?”
“Not much,” she said. “Even though it’s a loan company, it’s never made any loans. Not one. It just borrows money from one bank and pays it back to another. That’s all it does. Borrow and pay back.”
“So that tells me that Alton Slater’s a substandard businessman,” he replied. “But it doesn’t mean he’s a villain.”
“That’s what I thought too, until I was playing Scrabble with Kat,” she said. “You know Scrabble, the word game.”
“Quite well,” he answered. “Kat’s been known to crush my soul playing it. Which is hard to take, considering English is my native tongue and she spent the first ten years of her life speaking Nepali.”
“That’s good to hear,” said Brooklyn. “I thought she just enjoyed humiliating me. Anyway, she’s been using the game to teach me code-breaking, and she said the most amazing thing. She told me that the world champions of Scrabble are never writers or English teachers like you’d think. They’re always mathematicians. It’s because writers and teachers are obsessed with words but mathematicians just figure out the points. She said the trick was not thinking of the tiles as letters, but as symbols.”