by Ron McGee
“And I know the Quinns always keep their promises.” He stood up. “Get to class. And don’t let me see you in here again.”
Ryan jumped up and hurried out before the principal could change his mind.
CHAPTER
03
NEW YORK,
USA
Ryan saw Danny bouncing down the front stairs toward him as school let out. “Where’d you learn to do that? You were like a ghost—one second you were there and the next you were gone.”
“It’s just something my dad taught me,” Ryan said, acting like it wasn’t a big deal. “We lived in some pretty dangerous places. He wanted me to be able to defend myself.”
“Can you, like, kill people and stuff?”
“Yeah, but I’ve only had to do that a couple of times.”
Danny stopped on the bottom step, looking back, eyes wide. “Seriously?”
Ryan grinned. “Dude—really?”
“Jerk.” Danny was grinning, too.
Actually, Ryan did know how to knock somebody out or break some bones, if he had to. But the last thing he needed was getting a rep as a good fighter. He knew from experience that was a sure way to invite more trouble.
The front of the school was crowded with limos and bodyguards waiting to pick up the kids of dignitaries. Ryan and Danny navigated the black-suited security guards who refused to move out of the way, their cold stares slightly vacant as students flowed around them on all sides.
“Can you teach me how to do some of that ninja stuff?” Danny said.
“Sure—you’d be good at it.”
“Course I would—I’m small and fast. Makes me harder to hit.”
Danny made Ryan laugh a lot. They had met during Ryan’s first week at ICS. Sitting next to each other in physical science class, Danny noticed Ryan’s shirt, a vintage concert tee from The Smiths’s Meat Is Murder tour, and they started talking ’80s alt-rock bands. Danny was a die-hard fan of The Cure, and they got absorbed in a debate on which was the better band—a debate that nearly got them both a detention.
Picking up the conversation after school, they didn’t stop talking for hours. They’d ended up hanging out at Danny’s apartment for so long that Danny’s mom invited Ryan for dinner. The family was originally from the Philippine Islands, and they were all shocked when Ryan said how much he loved kare-kare stew and rice with bagoong. After Ryan said “thank you” in Tagalog—the Filipino language—they practically made him an honorary member of the family.
Since then, Ryan and Danny had hung out often. Both were outsiders in their own way: Danny was a techno-geek who often tried too hard to make people like him, and Ryan felt like his new American school was as unfamiliar as any of the foreign countries where he’d lived. But with Danny, Ryan didn’t feel like he had to try and blend in. He could just be himself. Whoever that was. Ryan was still figuring it out.
“Ryan, Danny—wait up!” a girl’s voice called. The guys turned, surprised to see Kasey Stieglitz pushing through the crowd, joining them at the bottom of the steps.
“Hey, Kasey, what’s going on?” Danny greeted Kasey as if it was totally normal for the prettiest girl in the eighth grade to be heading over. Ryan didn’t know what it was about Kasey that turned him into a mumbling idiot. It’s not like he couldn’t talk to girls. He wasn’t nearly as smooth as Danny, but he wasn’t terrible (at least, he didn’t think so). But something about Kasey, with her wild, unruly hair and her casual confidence, threw him completely off his game.
“Sorry about Drew,” Kasey said. “I told him to stop acting like a jerk.”
Danny shrugged. “He doesn’t bother us. I just hope we don’t have to teach him a lesson again.”
Kasey smiled, glancing at Ryan. He just grinned back. And kicked himself inwardly. Talk, he begged himself.
“Which way you going?” Kasey asked.
“Up to the Rose,” Danny said. “You?”
“Downtown—got this meeting. Guess I’ll see you in class.”
As she turned to leave, Ryan blurted out, “Actually, I’m going downtown.”
“Yeah?” Kasey said, turning back.
“I help out at my mom’s store.”
“Mind if I walk with you?”
“I—no—that’s …”
Danny rolled his eyes. “He’d love it.”
Kasey lit up. “Great—let me just tell Lisa so she doesn’t wait. Be right back.”
As she darted away, Danny whacked Ryan playfully in the chest. “She’s totally into you.”
“What? No …”
“Trust me. I know about these things.”
Ryan watched Kasey as she told her friends the new plans and then bounded back toward them. The girls glanced at Ryan, whispering and grinning, the gossip machine shifting into overdrive.
“Dude, kill the smile—you’re so obvious,” Danny said.
“Shut up.” Ryan did, however, do his best to seem cool as Kasey returned.
“Ready?” she said.
Danny backed away. “You two have fun.”
Ryan glared at him, but Danny only winked, then disappeared into the crowd.
“He’s funny,” Kasey said, watching Danny. “Like he stepped out of an anime comic or something.”
“He’d consider that high praise.”
As they started walking, Ryan was a little nervous that Stieglitz might be watching them together and come after him to start another fight. He scanned the area for trouble and suddenly stopped. Behind an SUV across the street, a man in a dark suit was looking in their direction. Though he was pretty far away, it seemed to Ryan as if the man was staring right at him.
“Coming?” Kasey asked, now a few steps ahead.
“Yeah.” When he looked back across the street, the man had disappeared.
CHAPTER
04
NEW YORK,
USA
Ryan and Kasey walked along 37th Street, the crisp November air chilly against their light jackets. Determined not to let his nerves get the better of him, Ryan reached inside his jacket pocket for his secret weapon—chocolate.
No matter how different and unusual Ryan found the cultures of the places he’d lived around the world, one thing had always been constant. People loved chocolate. Kids loved it. Adults loved it. And Ryan kind of obsessed over it. He’d had rich, dark chocolate in Belgium; milk chocolate with curry powder in India; even xocolatl, the thick chocolate drink made with hot chilies and adored by the Aztecs a thousand years ago. Chocolate was the ultimate icebreaker.
Stopping at the light, he held out several small, brightly wrapped bars to Kasey. “Want one?”
“Thanks. Are they all different?”
Ryan pointed to one in a green wrapper that was long and thin. “This one’s from Switzerland—it’s just a plain ganache with a cocoa-nib crust. Simple, but delicious. The blue one’s from Ecuador. They grow all their cacao beans in the same place they make the bars. Which is very unusual. And the one in gold is chocolate mixed with bacon. Sounds gross, but it’s incredible. The chocolatier trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. Only uses the highest-quality ingredients.”
Kasey laughed. “You’re kind of a chocolate snob, aren’t you?”
Ryan could tell her teasing was playful. “I try it everywhere I go. And I’ve been a lot of places.”
“So which should I choose?”
Ryan handed her the one in green. “This one. They make the bars in Zurich, but all the cacao beans are grown on this farm in Cameroon close to where I lived for a while.”
The light changed and they started walking as Kasey unwrapped her small chocolate bar. “You lived in Cameroon?” she asked. “Were you there during the education protests last year?”
Ryan looked at her in surprise. “You know about that?”
“I watched videos that were posted online. All those students coming together, standing up for themselves. I wish I could have seen it.” She bit into her chocolate bar. “Oh my god—so good.”
/> “Right?”
“Did you see any of the protests?”
Most of the kids Ryan met here in the States didn’t know a lot about what was going on around the world, much less in a small country in Africa. But Kasey actually seemed interested.
“I was in one.”
Kasey stopped short. “No way. Like, really in it?”
“A group of students passed right by our school,” he told her. “It was mostly young people, and so some of us just joined in. The leaders wanted to block this bridge. We piled up all these tires and things so no one could cross.”
“Sounds like the French Revolution when they built those barricades.”
“That’s what it felt like. Traffic piled up in every direction. The whole city came to a standstill. Eventually, these cops came in with tear gas and machine guns. Everybody just ran. It was chaos.”
“You got gassed?” She sounded half-horrified, half-thrilled at the thought.
“A little—my throat felt like it was on fire for hours.”
“That’s incredible.”
“It was. Scary, too.” The truth was, Ryan got in over his head before he realized just how crazy the situation would get. Looting and vandalism. Smoke everywhere. Ryan was swept along, enjoying the feeling that he was part of something bigger, that his actions had some purpose and might make a difference. But the protests became more violent as the police cracked down. One of his classmates, a German girl he studied with sometimes, was hit by a cop’s baton and dropped to the ground. She was bleeding as Ryan fought through the crowd and pulled her back to safety.
“In the end,” Ryan said, “we didn’t do much good. Nothing really changed.”
“At least you tried.”
“People got hurt. I still don’t know if it was worth it.”
Ryan had never talked to anyone about that day, not even his parents. He was afraid they’d be angry with him for putting himself in danger. Talking to Kasey, though, came easily. “How did you hear about it?”
Kasey gave him a half smile. “I do have some idea of what’s going on in the world.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“I’m kidding. I got interested when I was in this bizarre little theater piece last semester.”
“You act?” Ryan asked.
Kasey nodded. “Yeah, and the school brought in this Romanian director who was brilliant but totally crazy. The play was all about revolution with real-life characters from all these different time periods—Roman slaves, French peasants, George Washington. It was so insane.”
Ryan loved Kasey’s laugh. “I wish I could’ve seen it.”
“It was pretty terrible. But it got me interested in things in a way I’d never really been before. I’ve been reading a lot more history since then, watching more news. Some of it’s just so sad, though,” she said. “It’s like you said. It feels like all this bad stuff is going on and there’s not much we can do to help.”
As they turned the corner onto Lexington, Kasey stopped in the doorway of an older office building. “Well, this is where my meeting is.”
“What kind of meeting?”
“Don’t laugh.” Kasey took a piece of paper from a folder she carried, handing it to Ryan. It was a flyer that read: “Books Not Bombs!” She continued, “We’re trying to get the government to spend more money on schools and education instead of on making weapons. You can come, if you want.”
“I promised my mom I’d help her out. Maybe next time?”
“Sure.” Kasey pushed the glass door to go inside, but Ryan stepped forward, holding it open for her. “Thanks.” She suddenly seemed nervous as she blurted out, “I don’t suppose you have any interest in going to the Autumn Carnival Dance on Saturday?”
“Um, I’ve never really done much dancing.”
“Don’t worry, I’m a klutz. We can trip over each other’s feet.”
Ryan forced himself not to smile like a dork. “Sure,” he said, “It’ll be my first official dance.”
“Great!” Kasey started inside. “Oh, you might want to avoid my brother. He’s not as horrible as he seems, but he can be protective.”
“I got that.”
Grinning, Ryan watched her walk away. When she disappeared into the stairwell, he finally stepped back, letting go of the door. As it slowly closed, Ryan froze.
Through the reflection in the glass, Ryan could see across the street directly behind him. The man in the dark suit from the school was there again, staring right at him.
CHAPTER
05
NEW YORK,
USA
Ryan fought his initial instinct to turn and stare. Instead, he started down the street at a brisk pace, believing that the stranger was probably watching his movements closely. His parents had warned him about being careful in the places they lived, but he’d thought New York would be safe by comparison.
Ryan took out his cell phone and held it up, thumbs moving over the keys as though he was texting somebody. He held the phone awkwardly, raising it slightly over his shoulder so the camera had a good vantage point behind him.
Click—click—click.
Ryan spun the phone around and pulled up the photos he’d just taken. The man kept several people between them at all times. His gaze, however, never wavered, focused like a laser on Ryan’s back. He was of Asian descent, medium height with military-short black hair and a mouth that turned down at the corners in a perpetual frown. Ryan guessed he was probably from Southeast Asia somewhere, maybe Indonesia or Thailand.
Moving quickly, Ryan tried to put some distance between them. He turned at Park Avenue, using the busier street to shake his stalker. Darting in and out of the crowd, he hunched down so the man couldn’t see him as easily.
Just before the light changed, Ryan dashed across the street toward the median, which was landscaped with trees and long rows of bushes. Ryan slipped behind the greenery. At the corner, the man was forced to stop as traffic whizzed past. He pulled out a phone and dialed, then began talking via a Bluetooth earpiece, continuing to search for some sign of Ryan.
Watching, Ryan was reminded of the times he and his father had played “Follow-the-Monkey,” their own version of “Follow-the-Leader.” The follower was supposed to stay hidden and the monkey could go anywhere he wanted. Once, when they were in a crowded market in Rio de Janeiro, Ryan had done so well staying hidden that his dad had panicked, thinking he’d actually lost his son.
The light changed and the stranger darted across the street, passing the bushes where Ryan was hidden. Halfway across, he stopped and whirled around, his eyes locked on the median, scanning with a professionalism that revealed he was used to tracking. Ryan’s impulse was to jump and run again. Instead, he remained still. He recognized that quick turn as a classic misdirection technique. The man was becoming desperate, trying to spook his prey into moving too soon.
A yellow cab honked, zooming toward the man as the light changed once more. He jumped out of the way, hurrying to the other side. At the far corner, he looked in all directions, frustrated at having lost his target, and finally started moving down Park Avenue.
Ryan decided to turn the tables and play a little “Follow-the-Monkey” himself. As the light changed once again, Ryan joined the crowd, pulling off his green jacket and turning it inside out so the black lining showed. He opened his backpack and pulled out one of the baseball caps from his collection: a 1996 World Series Champions commemorative hat he always kept handy. He assumed the man had tracked him by the green of his jacket and that in the black jacket and cap, he looked different enough to go unnoticed. Blending in came easily to Ryan.
The man was at the far end of the block and Ryan hurried to catch up, keeping his head low and his body hidden as much as possible. When the man stopped and turned around once more, Ryan ducked into the doorway of a bagel shop just in time, flattening his body against the wall.
He forced himself to count to five slowly, his body poised to fight if the man
came after him. Reaching five, he peered out. The man was just turning onto 40th Street. Ryan darted out of his hiding place in pursuit, but as he rounded the corner, he stopped short—his follower had doubled back and was about to collide with him.
Ryan veered at the last moment, their shoulders barely missing one another. Luckily, the man was too focused on his phone conversation to notice. He had a deep, guttural voice, and he was angry. Ryan had been right. The man was speaking a Southeast Asian language, though Ryan didn’t recognize this one.
As he passed, Ryan distinctly heard the man say “John Quinn.” Ryan couldn’t help himself. All his self-control went out the window as he turned to stare from under his Yankees cap, shocked to hear his father’s name. Just then, a black Lincoln Town Car screeched to a halt at the curb. The man yanked open the back door and climbed inside.
Ryan wanted to shout, to stop the guy and find out how he knew his dad. On the car’s bumper, he recognized the red, white, and blue of a diplomatic license plate. The man tailing him was probably connected to one of the embassies in New York. Ryan snapped a picture of the plate with his phone as the Town Car sped away.
CHAPTER
06
NEW YORK,
USA
Jacqueline Quinn held the violin delicately, as if it were made of glass. Her customer marveled at the rare instrument as she explained its provenance. “This one was designed by Giovanni Francesco Pressenda around 1841. The back is made of spruce.”
“It’s stunning,” the man said.
Across the shop, Ryan watched his mother, always impressed by her deep knowledge of the instruments she sold. Jacqueline had a reverence for these musical gems that she conveyed to her customers. It’s why they sought her out, no matter where she happened to be living. After all their travels, Ryan figured his mom probably knew just about every person who bought or sold musical instruments around the world. She’d been a consultant for serious collectors and auction houses, but this was the first time she’d been able to open her own shop.
Jacqueline had designed the store with counters made of rich mahogany and beveled glass. It was like a time machine back to the 1800s. She’d even somehow imported the musty aroma of old wood and pipe tobacco.