by Stuart Gibbs
The entrance to Aquarius was extremely ostentatious, with elaborate fountains, an electronic gate, and a guard booth. However, it was all for show; the rest of the resort’s perimeter was only protected by a spindly wire fence. We abandoned the truck on the side of the highway two hundred yards past the main entrance, easily jumped the fence, and then worked our way to the lobby.
At most resorts, anyone seeing five kids in our filthy, banged-up condition probably would have immediately called a hospital. But at that hour, tourists were returning by the vanload from eco adventures, and most of them looked to be in even worse shape than us. The ones who’d gone ATVing looked particularly bad: Most were so caked in dust and dried mud that they’d changed color, save for clean patches around their eyes where their safety goggles had been. Everyone sported welts and scratches and bug bites, which they bore as badges of pride, pleased with themselves for having done something as rugged as hiking through the jungle for a few minutes to go down a zip-line.
Given what we’d done that day, we weren’t that impressed.
Still, they were easy to blend in with. We walked right into the hotel lobby behind a vanload of mud-encrusted ATVers. Since Aquarius was located in a climate where it never got cold, the lobby was open air, without any doors or windows. Hostesses in fake Mayan outfits had offered us complimentary glasses of lemonade, which we gratefully accepted before proceeding on to scope out the surroundings. The balcony where we now stood was on the opposite side of the lobby from the front entrance, designed for new guests to pause and gawk at the beauty of the resort.
“So what was your plan?” Erica asked Murray. “Steal the truck, drive here, and offer to tell SPYDER where we were as a bargaining chip for them taking you back?”
“Pretty much,” Murray admitted. He didn’t want to admit it, but he was well aware that Erica’s threat to forcibly remove all his teeth if he tried anything sneaky wasn’t idle. For extra security, Erica had lashed his hands behind his back with a vine for the entirety of our drive to civilization, and she’d shoved a dirty sock in his mouth to keep him quiet. (There hadn’t been any real security reason for the sock, but Erica didn’t want to listen to him whining and felt he deserved the punishment anyhow.) Unfortunately, we couldn’t have him bound and gagged in the hotel, so we were all keeping a very close eye on him instead.
“It wouldn’t have worked,” Erica informed him. “They would have still killed you.”
“I don’t think so,” Murray said, though it sounded like he was trying to convince himself this was true. “You’re the ones they really wanted dead. The information that they’d failed, along with directions to where I’d stranded you, would have been worth a lot.”
Erica shook her head. “Get it through your thick skull, Murray. They’re done with you. Nothing you do is going to change that. The moment they know you’re alive, they’ll toss you right in the shark tank.”
That wasn’t a euphemism. There really was a shark tank at the resort. It was in the water park. One of the water slides went through a glass tube that ran straight through it. The slide also had two corkscrews and finished with a twenty-foot plummet into a pool of water. It was called, quite insensitively, Montezuma’s Revenge.
I hadn’t seen the slide myself yet, but there were TV monitors throughout the lobby displaying all the fun things to do at the resort. There were many other slides in addition to Montezuma’s. Several of them coursed down yet another fake Mayan pyramid, though this one was significantly smaller than the one with the hotel rooms. There was also a lazy river for tubing, a wave pool, a kiddie park, and some zip-lines that dropped you into a large basin. Apparently, Quintana Roo was the zip-line capital of Mexico.
The voice-over on the videos was entirely in English, despite the fact that we were in a country where the official language was Spanish. Almost all the guests appeared to be from the United States, although, based on the accents, there was a smattering of Europeans as well.
The entire hotel staff was from Mexico, though. My first instinct, upon arriving at Aquarius, had been to ask the staff whether anyone unusual was renting the penthouse suite. After all, I spoke Spanish. However, Erica had cautioned me not to.
“There’s a good chance SPYDER has warned them to report anyone asking too many questions,” she said. “And besides, sometimes you can learn a lot more if they think you can’t understand them.”
Now, as we stood on the balcony, I found that, once again, Erica knew exactly what she was talking about. Two maids passed us, chatting in Spanish. They made no attempt to whisper or conceal their conversation in front of us, assuming we only spoke English, like everyone else at the resort.
“The one-eyed man in the penthouse wants fresh towels again,” the first one said. “And he wants them fluffed like they were new.”
“Again?” the other asked. “That guy is more picky about his towels than any guest we’ve ever had.”
“Maybe,” said the first. “But he’s a good tipper.”
“For a cyclops,” the other said, and they both laughed.
I must have stiffened in response to this, because Erica sensed it. “What’d they say?” she asked. It might have seemed surprising that someone as smart as Erica didn’t speak a language as common as Spanish, but then, she already spoke French, Russian, Mandarin Chinese, and Arabic.
“There’s a one-eyed man staying in the penthouse,” I reported.
Now everyone else stiffened slightly. Even Erica.
“Joshua Hallal,” Zoe said.
Joshua only had one eye. And one leg. And one hand. He had suffered a terrible accident while fleeing the scene of a crime right around the time Erica had been forcibly removing Murray’s tooth from his mouth.
I returned my attention to the penthouse, just in time to witness a shift change on the terrace. The big, muscular man with the sunglasses melted back into the patio garden and was replaced by a bigger, even more muscular man. He wore only a Speedo bathing suit and had a blond mullet.
Even though it was sweltering outside, I felt my entire body go cold.
I knew the new guard all too well. He had tried to kill me. Several times.
“Don’t look up,” I said quietly—as though the man could hear me from all the way across the resort. “But Dane Brammage is at the SPYDER penthouse.”
Everyone did exactly what I’d just asked them not to do and looked up. Except Erica.
Thankfully, Dane was gazing in the other direction. Otherwise, he would have noticed such an obvious display of staring.
Erica grabbed Murray and Zoe and dragged them with her behind some potted plants. “Nice work,” she hissed sarcastically. “Why don’t you guys just call him and let him know we’re here? It’d be faster.”
I yanked Mike into the shade of the potted plants as well.
My friends were all too shaken by the appearance of Dane to be upset by Erica’s insult. “That’s the guy from Vail!” Mike exclaimed. “I thought you killed him, Ben!”
“So did I,” I agreed.
When we’d last seen Dane, he was plunging through the ice into a frozen lake. However, that hadn’t been the first time we had thought he’d died that day. He had proven exceptionally hard to kill. He had already fallen from a helicopter and been buried by an avalanche. (For the record, what I had done was in self-defense.)
Zoe peeked out at Dane from behind a palm frond. “What’s he even doing working for SPYDER? I thought he worked for Leo Shang!”
“Shang is in jail, thanks to us,” Erica reminded her. “And thugs need to pay the rent like everyone else. Shang’s arms dealer, Paul Lee, is connected to SPYDER. He probably made an introduction.”
“Or maybe Paul Lee is here,” I suggested.
Erica cocked an eyebrow, considering that. “Anything’s possible.”
I pulled aside a frond and chanced another look at Dane. The only times I had seen him before had been in the mountains in winter, so he had always been bundled up in ski clothes. Now hi
s bathing suit allowed me to see his whole, insanely muscular body. He looked like a Greek statue that had come to life and then spent three months in the gym while hopped up on steroids. He was also no longer pale, indicating he had probably been in Mexico for a while. His delicate Scandinavian skin hadn’t tanned very well, though. He was as red as a boiled lobster.
Thankfully, he still hadn’t looked in our direction. Instead, his attention was focused out on the water, beyond the beach.
I followed his gaze. There was a yacht anchored in the bay.
It was the biggest yacht I had ever seen. Not that I’d seen a whole lot of yachts, but still . . . It was like a floating mansion. It was four decks tall, sleek, and gleaming white. Two speedboats hung from davits on the stern, while a black helicopter perched on the roof.
“Is that the helicopter that came looking for us earlier?” I asked.
“Yes,” Erica said in a tone that indicated she had noticed the helicopter well before I had. “The serial number on the tail is the same.”
I couldn’t make out the serial number. The helicopter was too far away. The writing on the tail was only distant hazy images.
“You can read that?” Zoe asked.
“You can’t?” Erica asked.
“How good is your vision?” Mike asked.
“It’s off the charts,” Erica replied. “I eat a lot of carrots.”
“So SPYDER has the penthouse and a yacht,” I deduced.
“Or they have rich friends who brought their own yacht,” Erica posited. She looked to Murray for an answer.
He shrugged helplessly. “I never heard anything about a yacht. All I heard was that they were staying at this resort. If you want to know more than that, you’ll have to figure it out yourselves. I’m finished here.” He started for the exit.
Before he could go two steps, Erica lashed out a hand and grabbed him by the throat.
Despite his newfound muscles, Murray was powerless against Erica’s grasp. He made a strangled urk and quickly sank to his knees in the lobby.
“You’re not finished until I say you are,” Erica warned.
“Dane Brammage knows all of us!” Murray gasped. “If he spots me—or you—or any of us, then we really will all be finished.”
“Um, Erica,” Zoe said quietly. “If we want to keep a low profile, strangling Murray in the lobby probably isn’t the best idea.” She pointed toward the main entrance, where a new vanload of American tourists was funneling inside.
This group had obviously just returned from ATVing, which I could determine from the dust plastered all over their faces. And they were all in the same family, which I could determine from their matching T-shirts. The shirts were a garish neon yellow (at least, in the spots they weren’t coated with mud) and proudly proclaimed FARKLES RULE! on the front and FABULOUS FIFTH FARKLE FAMILY FIESTA on the back. There were seventeen Farkles, greatly varying in age, size, and body type, but every last one of them was brash and boisterous. Luckily, they were all too busy high-fiving one another and loudly recalling the best wipeouts of the day to have noticed Murray being throttled.
Erica reluctantly let go of Murray’s neck. Murray collapsed against a potted palm, sucking in air.
The Farkles all clustered around the ladies handing out free lemonade and began to discuss their plans for the rest of the day at the top of their lungs.
Once Erica determined they weren’t paying attention to us, she said, “Surviving was only the first step of this mission. Our primary objective is finding out what SPYDER is plotting and thwarting it. . . .”
“Actually,” I corrected, “our primary objective is to let the CIA know where SPYDER is and simply keep an eye on them while waiting for backup.”
Erica gave me a harsh stare that made me think she was now considering clenching a hand around my neck. “That was a stupid plan,” she said.
“It was your grandfather’s,” I argued.
“That doesn’t mean it’s good,” Erica countered. “Case in point, the whole thing was a setup by SPYDER to leave us all dead in a plane crash. And the very men Grandpa handpicked to fly us down here turned out to be double agents, which means the entire CIA is compromised. Meanwhile, SPYDER is obviously planning something big—and we’re the only ones in position to find out what it is.”
“We’re in position to end up dead,” Murray whined.
“We’re not,” Erica said. “Because SPYDER already thinks we’re dead. So really, we’re the last people on earth they’re considering killing.”
“Unless they discover they didn’t really kill us all the first time around,” Murray said. “At which point we will become the first people on earth they want to kill. Again. And every minute we stay here is another minute we’re in danger.”
“Not if we’re careful,” Erica said.
“Hey, guys,” Mike interrupted. “I know SPYDER is really important and all, but I think there’s something else that ought to be our primary objective: food. It’s been a long day, and if I don’t get something to eat soon, I’m going to implode.”
“I second that,” I said. With all our adventures, I had often been distracted from the fact that I hadn’t eaten since the night before. But now I was starting to feel weak from hunger.
“Me too,” Zoe agreed. Her stomach was grumbling so loudly I could hear it.
“And then a shower would be nice,” Murray suggested. “I still have iguana poop in my hair.”
“And we need to figure out where we’re staying for the night,” Mike added.
“All right!” Erica said, in a way that indicated she felt food, showers, and a place to sleep weren’t nearly as important to her as they were to everyone else. “I’ll take care of it.” Her eyes flicked across the lobby to where the Farkles were now having a lemonade-chugging contest. “In fact, I know exactly what to do.”
“What?” Murray, Mike, Zoe, and I all asked at once.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Erica asked. “We’re going to be Farkles.”
11
FARKLES
Coco Loco Lounge
Aquarius Resort
March 29
1900 hours
No matter how hard I worked at honing my powers of observation, Erica always made me look like an inattentive nimrod. This was the case with my friends as well. Even though we were all looking at the exact same view of the resort from the balcony, we hadn’t seen what Erica had.
For example, there were a lot of Farkles at Aquarius.
It should have been clear as day. They were all wearing the same garish neon-yellow shirts; they couldn’t have stuck out more if they were wearing those fruit-covered Carmen Miranda hats. Farkles were everywhere: swimming in the ocean, strolling on the beach, basking in the sun, chasing iguanas through the landscaping, and splashing in the pool.
Not all of them were wearing their T-shirts, however. Most of the Farkles in the pool had left their shirts wadded up on their lounge chairs. No one was paying any attention to these, as they were all busy having chicken fights and playing rowdy games of Marco Polo. We were able to easily swipe five shirts as we walked through the pool area, then camouflage ourselves as Farkles.
High above us, on the patio around SPYDER’s penthouse, Dane Brammage and other guards were still on patrol. But now, being kids worked to our advantage. There were many places where being a kid made you stick out (office buildings, hospitals, the Pentagon), but a family resort wasn’t one of them. Instead, Aquarius was teeming with other kids. We easily blended in with them. After all, children rarely posed a threat to evil organizations—we were the rare exceptions—and SPYDER had good reason to believe that we had died by plane crash, missile blast, drowning, or crocodile attack that morning.
Still, we moved about with caution, trying to look like normal kids and not draw any attention to ourselves.
After acquiring our Farkle shirts, we focused on cleaning up. There were showers arrayed along the edge of the beach. These were really for Aquarius guest
s to rinse the salt water and sand off themselves before polluting the swimming pools with it, but they worked perfectly well for us, too. We scrubbed off the layers of dirt, grime, and iguana poop, then dried ourselves with complimentary beach towels. Sure, we still ended up with damp shorts and underwear that way, but after the litany of things we had been through lately, moist boxers weren’t so bad. (My underwear had been soaked so much that day, merely being moist was an improvement.) It felt fantastic to be clean again.
We were still hungry, though. There was poolside food service, but we didn’t have any money—and even if we’d had some, the prices were outrageous. Getting hamburgers, fries, and drinks for all of us would have cost the same as a plane ticket home. I was giving serious thought to devouring the scraps off plates people had left behind when Erica revealed that she had a plan to feed us too:
Just before seven o’clock, as the sun sank behind the penthouse at the top of the hotel tower, all the Farkles began heading toward the Coco Loco Lounge, a large open-air restaurant next to the beach. It was a mass migration. The entire horde of them filtered into the room in their neon-yellow shirts, greeting one another heartily and happily recounting the events of the day. I was hesitant to enter, thinking there was no way we could all pass ourselves off as members of a family we hadn’t been born into, but Erica advised us to act like we all belonged there and then she breezed through the door confidently.
It turned out I needn’t have worried. There were even more Farkles than I had imagined—at least two hundred—and it seemed no one in the family could keep track of who everyone was. They were predominantly Caucasian, but through marriage (and possibly adoption) there was enough ethnic diversity to account for all of us. The mere fact that we had Farkle T-shirts was good enough to convince everyone that we belonged there.