by Stuart Gibbs
Erica and I were seated in patio chairs across the table from Joshua. Three thugs loomed behind us, guns aimed our way to ensure we didn’t try anything stupid, while Dane Brammage stood beside Joshua.
Now that I was closer to Dane, I had a much better look at what the sharks had done to him. He had taken quite a beating. In addition to all the bite marks, he was missing several pieces of his body, including the lobe of his right ear, the tip of his nose, and the pinky finger on his left hand.
If any of this pained him, he didn’t show it. A normal person would have spent weeks recovering in the hospital after a shark attack, but Dane had just slapped some bandages over the wounds and gone back to work as though this were a routine day at the office. He was either incredibly tough or really doped up on painkillers.
Murray, Mike, and Zoe were all sitting in patio chairs behind Erica and me. It felt like Joshua had purposefully given them worse seats to the show he was putting on. Paul Lee was slumped in a fourth chair, whimpering pathetically.
Meanwhile, Ashley Sparks was working out on her gymnastic equipment close by, doing loops and twirls on the uneven bars. I suspected that Warren was also around, although I couldn’t see him anywhere. Most likely, he was wearing something green so as to blend in with the forest of potted plants.
“I am going to make you suffer physically,” Joshua told Erica and me. “But before that, I’m going to revel in your failure. This time, you are not going to thwart my plans. Instead, you are going to watch me succeed.” He raised his good hand and snapped his fingers.
Dane produced the T-38 Boombox detonator and placed it in Joshua’s outstretched hand.
Joshua grinned wolfishly. “I suppose you’re wondering what my plans even are this time.”
“No,” Erica said. “Ben figured them out again. As usual.”
For the first time since we had been seated on the patio, Joshua’s smile faded. “That’s not possible.”
“You’re using all the planes Vladimir Gorsky sold you to drop all the nukes Paul Lee sold you on the Antarctic ice cap,” Erica said. “Then you’re going to use that detonator to set them off, melting enough ice to raise the world’s sea levels several feet, causing worldwide chaos. After that, you’ll come in with all your construction companies and make billions fixing the infrastructure.”
Joshua lost his cool. He turned on his thugs. “How do they know that? Who let that information slip?”
“No one did,” Murray told him. “Ben just figured everything out on his own like he always does. I told you that you can’t fool that kid.”
Joshua glared at me, annoyed his surprise had been ruined. “There’s no way you could have figured it out. It was just a lucky guess.”
“No it wasn’t,” I said, realizing this was getting under his skin. “Honestly, it wasn’t even that hard to figure out.”
“It’s a pity Ben works for the other side,” Murray said, then added, “As for me, I’m on your side, Joshua. And I have been all along. So any time you want to free me, I’ll be happy to do your bidding—”
“There is one thing I don’t understand,” I said, cutting Murray off. “Why go through all the trouble and expense to do this when it’s happening anyhow? The planet is already heating up due to human behavior. And humans aren’t doing what’s needed to stop it. The ice in the Antarctic is already melting. The seas are going to rise and cause all this trouble anyhow.”
“But they’re not going to rise fast enough,” Joshua said. Now that he once again knew something I didn’t, he quickly shifted back to his pompous, cocky self. “Yes, the world is heating up, but it’s happening way too slowly if we want to profit off it now. Humans suck at preparing for the future. No one wants to spend their taxes on preventing something that’s going to happen to their grandchildren. All anyone cares about is themselves at the present. If you want the government to pony up the big bucks, you need a crisis now. So we’re creating one.”
“Millions of people might die because of what you’re doing,” Zoe said angrily. “And hundreds of millions will lose their homes or businesses. Entire cities will be destroyed. And you’re doing all this just so you can make a fortune rebuilding everything?”
“Of course not,” Joshua said, offended. “We’re also going to make a killing in real estate.”
“How?” I asked before I could stop myself.
Joshua burst into laughter. “My goodness. It appears the great Ben Ripley isn’t quite as brilliant as we thought. He doesn’t know everything.”
“He’s still way smarter than you,” Zoe challenged.
“I highly doubt that.” Joshua languidly waved a hand in the direction opposite the beach. “Tell me, Ben, what do you see over there?”
We were at the highest point for miles, so I had a view in every direction, although it was partly blocked by some potted plants and Ashley’s gymnastic equipment. While the thin strip of land along the coast was lined with resorts, to the west, across the two-lane highway, there was a great, unbroken expanse of greenery.
“A jungle,” I said.
“A jungle?” Joshua asked disdainfully. Like I’d said something stupid. “That’s where you come up short, Ben. You only see jungle, whereas I see opportunity.”
Mike stared at him blankly, then said, “You probably ought to be wearing a hat. All this sun has cooked your brains.”
I finally grasped what Joshua meant, though. “All these resorts are going to be flooded when the sea rises.”
“Exactly!” Joshua’s eye lit up with excitement. “Right now, most people think that huge swath of jungle is useless. The beach is over here. All they have there is snakes and mosquitoes and humidity. That land is barely worth anything. I should know. SPYDER and I own most of it. We bought it for a song.”
“But once the sea rises,” Erica said, putting everything together, “all the resorts on this side are ruined. They get swallowed by the ocean, and suddenly you have a ton of beachfront property.”
“Admittedly, it’s not ideal beachfront,” Joshua said, looking awfully pleased with himself. “You’ll have all the ruins of the old resorts within sight, but the guests won’t complain. Tourists want to be next to the water, not in it. Resort companies like this one will be lining up to take that brand-new coastline off our hands. And this isn’t the only place we’ve invested. We bought land throughout the tropics all over the world. We’ll make trillions.”
“My God,” Murray gasped. “That’s brilliant.”
Erica gave him a scornful look.
“Face it,” he said. “It is.”
Erica shifted her scorn to Joshua. “You’ll never get away with this.”
“Oh, but we will.” Joshua picked up a raspberry with his steel hand and popped it into his mouth. “You’re in no position to stop me. The CIA is clueless as usual. Who else is there?”
As if in response to this, the phone in the suite began to ring.
Now it was Erica’s turn to smile. “I’d answer that if I were you.”
Joshua’s good mood faltered slightly. He looked to Dane. “Get it.”
Dane dutifully ducked inside and answered. “Ja?” He listened for a bit, then came back outside, flipping the phone to speaker. “She says she wants to talk to you.”
“Hello, Joshua,” Catherine Hale said. “Call off your plans. Right now.”
“Is that your mother?” Joshua asked Erica tauntingly. “You called your mommy for help?”
For a moment, I was surprised that Joshua knew about Catherine at all, but then I realized that much had happened between Joshua and Erica before I arrived at spy school. Erica had had a crush on Joshua, and she’d been younger and possibly even a bit naive. It was possible she’d told him plenty of secrets that he could now use against her.
Erica didn’t say anything. But her glare grew even colder.
“Don’t talk to my daughter that way,” Catherine told Joshua. “In fact, the only people you should be talking to at all are the ones who ca
n call this whole sordid plot of yours off.”
Joshua raised an eyebrow. “And if I don’t?”
“Then I’ll blow up your yacht with all your friends on it. I have a grenade launcher aimed at it right now.”
Joshua swiveled in his chair, turning from the jungle to the ocean. SPYDER’s yacht bobbed on the azure water.
“That’s an awfully big target,” Erica informed him. “Mom won’t miss.”
“So she’s here?” Joshua asked.
“That’s right!” Zoe cried triumphantly. “And she has your bosses right in the crosshairs!”
Joshua stared at the yacht. His real hand moved to his chest, and once again, he absently fiddled with something on a chain around his neck. That morning, I hadn’t been able to see what was on the chain. But now, I could.
It was a silver key. There was something odd about it, though. It looked almost normal, but not quite. As though it would open a type of lock I had never seen before.
Joshua never looked at the key. He didn’t even seem to realize he was playing with it. Instead, he kept his eyes locked on the yacht. He appeared to be considering whether or not Catherine was lying to him.
And then, to my surprise, he started laughing.
Judging from the looks on their faces, Zoe and Mike were surprised as well. Meanwhile, Erica remained cold and placid.
Joshua returned his attention to the phone and said, “Catherine, be my guest.”
There was a pause before Catherine spoke again, now sounding somewhat confused. “I’m sorry. What was that?”
“I said, ‘Be my guest,’ ” Joshua repeated. “Do you honestly think blowing up my bosses is a threat to me? I don’t need them anymore! They’ve already done all the work. With them gone, that’s a lot fewer people for me to split the money with. You’d be doing me a favor!”
There was another pause. It was brief, but it gave the impression Catherine had been caught off guard and wasn’t quite sure how to play this. “Joshua, if you think I’m bluffing, I’m not. . . .”
“I certainly hope you aren’t!” Joshua chuckled. “If you don’t kill those guys, I’ll have to do it myself.”
“Fine,” Catherine said. “I warned you.”
There was a sudden explosion from the beach. Even though it was quite far away from us, it was still loud enough to rattle Joshua’s plate on the table and make all of us jump. All of the windows at the resort rattled too.
A rocket-propelled grenade blasted off the patio of our villa and screamed across the water toward the yacht.
Joshua reflexively turned toward it, as did Dane and the other bodyguards—and me and Zoe and Mike and every other person at Aquarius. It’s basic human nature; when someone fires heavy artillery close by, you automatically look that way, partly because big explosions grab your attention, and partly because you want to make sure that the heavy artillery hasn’t been aimed at you.
One person didn’t look toward the beach, though. Instead, Erica Hale saw her opening and sprang at Joshua Hallal. In a split second, she had snatched a paring knife off the table and swung it toward Joshua’s throat.
But before she could make contact, something very fast and sparkly slammed into her.
Apparently, Ashley Sparks hadn’t been distracted by the grenade either.
The grenade itself was still racing across the water.
Ashley and Erica crashed down onto the patio table, which splintered and collapsed beneath them. Joshua’s fruit plate sailed into the air and splatted on Dane’s face.
I leapt from my chair, planning—or at least hoping—to give Erica a hand. But before I could even get to my feet, I felt the cold steel of a second knife, this one pressed against my throat.
“Don’t even think about it,” Warren hissed in my ear.
I hadn’t even seen him, but a quick glance over my shoulder explained why. Warren wasn’t merely wearing camouflage gear; he had painted every inch of his skin and festooned himself with leaves and flowers so that he blended perfectly into the jungle of potted plants on the patio. He’d even gone so far as to dangle an orchid from one ear.
I reluctantly sank back down in my chair. I might have been able to beat Warren in a fair fight. In fact, he was one of the only people I could have beat. But I didn’t stand a chance against the knife.
Meanwhile, things weren’t going much better for anyone else. Zoe and Mike had also attempted to back Erica up, but by now Dane and the other bodyguards were no longer distracted by the grenade and had aimed their guns at us. “Stop!” Dane warned, wiping a large dollop of cottage cheese off his nose. My friends had no choice but to obey him.
Erica was straddling Ashley amid the shards of the patio table, her fist cocked, ready to deliver a devastating punch to the face. She should have been able to beat Ashley one-on-one, but that was no longer the situation. The rest of us all were on the wrong ends of weapons. Erica reluctantly gave up the fight and raised her hands in surrender. “I’m stopping,” she said. “Don’t hurt anyone.”
Ashley promptly took advantage of the situation and sucker punched Erica. Sucker kicked, really. She whipped her sturdy gymnast’s legs up, bucking Erica off and sending her sprawling.
Out at sea, the grenade flew past the yacht, missing it by mere inches, then exploded in the ocean beyond, sending up a geyser of turquoise water.
“Ha!” Ashley laughed. “She missed!”
“I did not,” Catherine said over the phone, sounding offended. “That was a literal shot across the bow. The next one leaves that yacht—and your superiors—in very tiny pieces.”
“Go right ahead,” Joshua replied. If this was an act, he was giving an Oscar-worthy performance. He really didn’t seem to care for his superiors at all.
Out on the yacht, everyone was far more concerned for their own well-being. A dozen people were scrambling for their lives, racing across the decks to where the helicopter was parked on the roof. I was too far away to see anyone clearly, though; they were only silhouettes against the glare of the sun on the water. They looked like ants swarming an upturned anthill.
Around the resort, none of the guests quite knew what to make of all this. Most everyone with a view of the ocean was simply watching the events unfold. Many were applauding, having mistaken Catherine’s attack on the yacht for some sort of midmorning fireworks. A few resort security people milled about uneasily, unsure what to do. The greatest security risk most of them had ever faced was probably pool crashers; confronting someone armed with a grenade launcher was well above their pay grade.
“I am not joking about this,” Catherine warned Joshua, though her voice wavered tellingly. Joshua had called her bluff. I knew she wasn’t about to kill all those people, no matter how evil they were. “I know there must be someone on that yacht you care about.”
“No. In all honesty, I’m far more upset about the fruit plate your daughter ruined.” Joshua turned on Erica and pointed to the scattered remains of his breakfast, finally showing some emotion. “Look what you did! That cost me seventeen dollars! I’m telling you, what they charge for room service at this place is criminal.”
On the yacht, the heads of SPYDER piled into their helicopter. The rotors began to spin.
Erica strained to shout even though Ashley had knocked the wind out of her. “Mom! Blow them up before they escape! And then take out this penthouse too! Before Joshua can set off those bombs!”
Warren gulped behind me. Ashley, Zoe, Mike, and Murray all paled in fear as they realized this was Catherine’s best option for defeating SPYDER. Perhaps her only one.
I might have paled a bit myself.
“Um, Erica . . . ,” Murray said. “We’re in the penthouse.”
“Our lives are worth less than the future of the earth,” Erica told him.
Joshua broke into laughter again. “Erica,” he chided, “do you know your mother at all? She doesn’t have the nerve to take out all those bad guys, let alone to kill her own daughter, no matter what’s at stake.�
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“I’m willing to do whatever it takes to save the lives of millions of people,” Catherine warned.
“Yeah, right,” Joshua said, then hung up on her.
Another phone rang. This one was in Joshua’s pocket. He fished it out with his good hand and answered it. “Hey. Are we good to go?”
I couldn’t hear the person on the other end of the line too well, but it sounded as though they said, “One minute.”
Joshua’s laptop computer had tumbled to the ground when the patio table broke. Dane picked it up and held it open for him. A satellite image of Antarctica was on the screen. A series of red blips lit up across it as the receivers for various bombs came online. A counter displayed sixty seconds counting down to zero.
Joshua kicked aside some shards of the patio table and found his detonator. He picked it up, humming happily as more red lights came on across Antarctica.
On the yacht, the helicopter took to the air and skimmed across the water, whisking the leaders of SPYDER to safety.
Catherine Hale did not blow it out of the sky. But then, that might have been because she’d reoriented her grenade launcher toward us.
Mike looked to Erica worriedly. “Do you think she’ll really take us out?”
“She should,” Erica said quietly.
Warren looked to Zoe. “I’ve always loved you,” he said. “I just wanted you to know before we die.”
Zoe looked even more disturbed by this than she did about potentially dying. “Oh, ick,” she said.