by Roland Smith
The walls were covered in photographs. Many of them showed him posing next to famous musicians, rock stars, and other celebrities. There were framed concert posters, programs, and playbills for performances that dated back to the eighteenth century. There were musical instruments in display cases. One of them held a Stradivarius violin. Inside another was one of the first Fender electric guitars. There were even pictures of him with presidents and heads of state from all over the world.
A long, luxurious leather couch occupied the center of the living room. He plopped his tired body down on it and kicked off his cowboy boots. Leaning back, he laid his head on the headrest, closing his eyes. In his mind, he recounted everywhere he’d been in the last few days: Philadelphia; Washington, D.C.; Kitty Hawk; San Antonio; and Chicago. Not to mention all the small towns and cities in between as he’d crisscrossed the country. It had been exhausting but necessary, and his current public persona was one of his greatest creations. Living as long as he had, moving in and out and around the people in the music business, he’d managed to fool them all.
Then there was the ghost cell. His brilliance had built an organization that had endured for centuries. For hundreds of generations it had struck fear into the hearts of the infidels. And while his enemies grew smarter and used technology and better intelligence to their advantage, so did he. He had not idly watched as times changed. He used the same, if not better, resources that they did.
And at last, after hundreds of years of searching, he finally found the one other person in the world who shared his ability. He remembered the night he first found him—on a battlefield, gravely wounded and clutching the box in his hands. Whatever was inside it gave off a strange and mysterious glow. Number One had finally understood that whatever it was, it was the object inside the mysterious box that gave both of them the ability. He was sure of it. But the man had sealed it up before he could grab it.
It had taken centuries but at last he had found him.
Now he would not let Buddy escape before he brought him the box. He would capture this man and convince him to reveal the secrets of the source of their power. It had taken so long. The identity of the man had truly surprised him. The fact that they had crossed paths professionally so many times before was ironic and truly mind-boggling.
He let his mind drift. He was so tired. All he needed to do now was rest. After the man told him what he needed to know, Number One would kill him. Then no one could stop him.
Kill him.
He wondered about death. Just because they could use the incredible power they’d been given, he knew they could still be killed. Or could they? Yes, they aged slowly and the power they had to move about so quickly also slowed the aging process, but was it really immortality? What would he do if the other man could not be killed and managed to stop him? Or he would not reveal the secret of their ability? Maybe they were immortal. They both had grown older. Perhaps the two of them had simply been granted an extended life. Whatever power the item granted them merely slowed their aging process. Since they had both aged, maybe they would both die one day.
But not yet.
Not before he learned what he needed to know.
It was time to complete his mission. He ran through the details again in his mind.
All he had to do was wait for Buddy’s call. Everything was in place. All the players were here in San Francisco. He could rest.
Number One smiled, closing his eyes and running his fingers through his long hair.
If he wasn’t so tired, he would have stood up and danced.
Reality Bites
“They can send me to boarding school, but they’ll never take my freedom,” I said.
Angela chuckled.
“Why are you laughing?” I asked her. “This is serious. You realize after the concert tonight we’re going to be put in . . . I can’t say it.”
“I’m laughing because even when you’re freaking out you can still be funny. And you need to lighten up. Boarding school isn’t the worst thing in the world,” Angela said.
Easy for her to say. Whoever invented a school you had to live at was obviously evil. I’ll bet the ghost cell invented boarding schools. It was the most malicious thing I could think of. I couldn’t quite grasp how she could be so nonchalant about it.
On the other hand, it was nice to see that Angela had finally relaxed a little. We were sitting in the back of Agent Callaghan’s rental car. We had picked it up at the airport and were circling around to where the cargo terminals were located. Boone and the SOS crew had arrived there right as we’d landed. I’d had a little dustup with my mom over a Kit Kat bar. Actually I was just trying to create a diversion because this ginormous plane carrying the Match tour’s coach was visible out the window of the terminal. I didn’t want Mom or Roger to see it. So I’d bought a Kit Kat from the gift shop and scarfed it down right in front of them. Mom got mad (but not so mad that she didn’t filch a piece of chocolate before she made me throw it out) and Roger had looked perplexed. Roger is a vegetarian. I wanted to point out that a Kit Kat bar is technically vegetarian, but thought better of it. He’s against junk food too.
Anyway, I was in big trouble and Agent Callaghan had deftly interceded on my behalf. He told Mom and Roger that until Boone caught up with us, he (Callaghan) was still technically in charge of our security. So he’d take us to our hotel, get us checked in, and make sure we were safe. After everything that had happened the last few days—there had been terrorist attacks in L.A. and Atlanta—I think Mom and Roger were secretly happy to have a U.S. Secret Service agent watching over us. Mom had promised me that we’d “discuss my rude behavior” later, right before Agent Callaghan spirited us away.
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Angela said, bringing me back from my reflection on how much trouble I was in.
“I thought you said I was being funny.”
Angela rolled her eyes and chuckled. Before we left Chicago, she received a text from Ziv—she’d recently learned he was her grandfather—that her mom was safe. Safe for now, I thought to myself. Ever since we met Boone and all of this started, I’d learned that “safe” was a very fluid term.
Agent Callaghan was using a Bluetooth headset as he drove. I didn’t know who he was talking to, but he was using words like “sit-rep,” which meant situation report. I knew this because I’d been hanging around a bunch of spies.
“Dramatic? I’m being dramatic? Do you want me to run through everything we’ve been through in the last few days? Starting with the pigeon poop in Philadelphia?” I asked.
“No, I’m good,” Angela said.
“As a matter of fact, you are in a happy place,” I said. I just wanted to point it out to her before she got gloomy again. Angela could be a little moody.
“Right—because I know my mom is okay,” she said. “At least for now.”
One thing about having Angela as a stepsister was that it had made me do a lot of thinking in the past few days. The entire flight out here, I was a jumble of all kinds of emotions. There were a lot of reasons why, not all of them having to do with having to go to boarding school. A lot of bad stuff happened while we were on tour. I’d seen things I could never unsee. Angela and I were helping Boone and his group of former spies track down these bad guys, which had put us in some very hairy situations.
Except that now there had been horrible terrorist attacks in L.A. and Atlanta. We’d stopped them from executing their plan in Chicago, which would have made the total casualties a much higher number. Then there was the fact that, in Chicago, we discovered we had a ghost cell member right in the middle of our tour.
Buddy T.
He was Mom and Roger’s manager. He’d walked off the job in a huff right before their last concert. Only it was all an act. Buddy was involved in everything right up to his perpetually red face.
There was another reason why remaining on the tour was vital. Not just because I wanted to see the ghost cell destroyed and brought to justice. I also had a person
al reason.
When Angela and I were on the rooftop of the Hancock building in Chicago, a terrorist had been just about to shoot her. I saw the red laser-targeting dot on her forehead. She was going to die within seconds. Before I even realized what happened, I poofed! just like Boone. I zoomed across the rooftop and knocked her out of the way. The bullets missed her by inches. But it scared me. And I was still scared. What if I did it again? I didn’t even know what it was I was doing! Which was why I needed to talk to Boone. He did it all the time. He was a poof! expert. A poofpert.
And if I got shipped off to Screwupmylife Boarding Academy, well, it would be a lot harder to get answers out of Boone. Because he wouldn’t be there, being that he was so busy chasing terrorists. I had to figure out a way to get back in Mom’s good graces and get her to change her mind. I pulled out my phone and texted her that I was sorry about my behavior at the airport. I asked her to forgive me. I hoped it helped.
If I was being honest, I didn’t blame Mom or Roger for the boarding school thing. I’d probably do the same if I were in their place. It just couldn’t happen in the next couple of days. I needed to talk to Boone. And so did Angela, for that matter.
And so Agent Callaghan took pity on me. Probably figured chasing terrorists was safer than being around my mom when she was really angry—and he wasn’t completely wrong. Now we were on our way to meet up with the SOS crew again.
Everyone on the plane had been quiet and somber on the flight out. The terrorist attacks had cast a pall over the entire country, and our little group was no different. It was all anyone could really talk about, and it was always on the news. The thing was, very few people knew all the things Angela and I knew. Like, the ghost cell. That Angela’s mother was still alive. That we’d helped save the president’s daughter from terrorist kidnappers. And all the other stuff. It was a walk on a delicate tightrope to keep our parents from finding out. And actually, Buddy T. disappearing worked to our immediate advantage, in a way.
Things were chaotic with the tour because Buddy T. threw a huge fit in Chicago and quit. As the tour manager he took care of a lot of details. His leaving forced Mom, Roger, and Heather to scramble while they dealt with many of the duties Buddy usually handled. Heather Hughes was the president of Mom and Roger’s record company and she’d stepped in as temporary tour manager when Buddy disappeared.
Only Buddy T. hadn’t really walked off the job after his little performance in Chicago. He was part of the ghost cell. Buddy helped put the chemical weapon on top of the John Hancock Center building in Chicago. He was deeply involved in all the bad stuff that had happened in the last few weeks. And now he was on the run.
We knew Boone had to come to San Francisco to maintain his cover on the tour. But we hadn’t heard from him until he’d called and said we should meet at the airport. It made sense, given that this whole thing had started when we left San Francisco right after Mom and Roger got married. Buddy lived in San Francisco; he was probably coming back to get his money and whatever else he needed to disappear.
At least that was our guess. We’d been hanging out at the hotel in Chicago, because after the attacks all the flights were grounded. If I had to guess, I’d bet Boone called POTUS—the president of the United States, J. R. Culpepper, who we’d had the pleasure of meeting and who’d given us really cool spy watches at the White House. The president had arranged for them to use a big military cargo plane to get everything out here once the flight restrictions were lifted.
But right now we had no clue what Boone and his team were planning or what they’d managed to find out about Buddy. Once we got to the terminal I guessed we’d get briefed and he’d give us something to do.
Otherwise, we were going to be stuck in another hotel room for a while, at least until the boarding school enrollment happened. It made me really hope Boone would have a job for us. Hotels now officially gave me the heebie-jeebies. I’d been kidnapped from one in San Antonio. A terrorist had been staying right down the hall for the last week. I was beginning to think I should take up camping. Being in a tent surrounded by grizzly bears couldn’t be any more dangerous than our lives had become since we met Tyrone Boone.
Agent Callaghan disconnected his call. “I’ve got something to tell you. Two things, actually,” he said. Agent Callaghan looks like he just stepped off a recruiting poster for the Secret Service. He has this strong, square jaw. His eyes are kind of a steel-gray color. But the one thing you notice about him most is his . . . I guess you’d call it presence. When you first glance at him, he’s tall and kind of a good-looking guy. But when you look deeper, you see he has this attitude about him. You instantly get a feeling that while he might be friendly, he’s not someone you want to mess with. If you did, he’d make you regret it. Probably fifty different ways. With his pinkie.
“First, I just have to tell you how much the two of you have impressed me the past few days. Boone briefed me about your involvement in the Chicago op. And this whole thing with your parents sending you to boarding school? Most kids would cave, start whining, and tell their parents everything they knew if they thought it would get them out of it. But not you two. Angela, it’s unreal how much you remind me of your mother. And Q, you sure do some quick thinking. That little performance with the Kit Kat bar was smart. I just wanted you to know you’ve both done a good job in a very difficult situation.”
Angela blushed and I shrugged. But it was kind of a cool thing for him to say. When you get praise from a guy trained to take a bullet for someone else, it tends to mean a little more than the average compliment.
“The other thing is, that was Boone on the phone. X-Ray has some leads on Buddy T. We need bodies to run surveillance. When we get to the hangar we’ll figure out where we need to set up.”
“Is my mom there?” Angela asked.
“Ziv texted Boone. They’re going to be there any minute,” he said. “They’ve been driving out from Chicago. You know Ziv, he wouldn’t trust any kind of public transportation.”
Angela sat back in her seat and smiled. I was secretly glad that Malak and Ziv were on the way. The more people we had who could beat up terrorists the better, as far as I was concerned.
The car slowed and Agent Callaghan turned it onto an access road leading to the cargo terminal. Up ahead I could see the coach, the Range Rover, and the intellimobile. It looked like they were all here.
It was time to catch up with everyone.
The Monkey and the Leopard
The gray Buick sedan exited the freeway, heading toward the San Francisco airport. Ziv was at the wheel. Malak, who had been restlessly sleeping in the passenger seat, sat up.
“We’re here?” she mumbled, still groggy from her nap.
Ziv, as he often did, said nothing.
Malak rubbed her eyes. It had been a long trip. Spending this much time in a car with Ziv had been revealing. She had a much better understanding of why she had always felt so safe when he was watching her in her guise as the Leopard.
Ziv was quite possibly the most paranoid person she had ever met.
Had they taken turns driving, they could have likely reached San Francisco in two days once they left Chicago. But Ziv would not hear of it. He drove. In four days on the road, they had changed vehicles six times. All of them rented under different identities Ziv carried with him.
They took circuitous routes and back roads. Ziv had particular requirements of the small motels they stayed in. No nice places or chains. “Too many records and cameras,” he’d said. They stayed at small, privately owned places in out-of-the-way, off-the-grid locations. Always, they paid in cash.
Whenever they traveled a freeway, Ziv would exit every fifty miles or so, then turn around and drive back the same direction they had just come from.
“What are you doing?” Malak asked the first time he’d done it.
“Watching,” he said. As if that was all the explanation that was required.
No wonder the Leopard had never been caught.
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Malak stretched and rolled her shoulders, trying to get the muscles in her neck to relax. She reached into the waistband of her blue jeans and removed her automatic pistol. Racking the slide, she chambered a round, making sure the safety was on.
“No, daughter,” Ziv said quietly. At first, Malak almost didn’t realize he was speaking. Because he would remain silent for hours at a time, the sound of his voice often startled her.
“What?” she asked.
“No. Put the gun away,” he said.
His eyes never left the road, and he maneuvered the car deftly through the airport traffic.
“No? What no? I’m just—”
“Put it away,” he said. “There is no need.”
“Need? Need for what? I—”
Ziv held up one hand to interrupt her. He sighed. She realized he must be tired but he would never admit it.
“Do you think I do not know what you plan to do? The Monkey who watches the Leopard’s tail? I know what you are thinking. Many times I know it before you do.”
“What am I thinking, Ziv?”
“You are thinking, and have been since we left Grant Park in Chicago, about the identity of Number One and who it was that set you up to die.”
“So?”
“So when we are nearly ready to rendezvous with Boone and his team you check your weapon? All these days on the road, you have been running down a list of suspects in your mind. Your plan now is to confront Boone. To force him to admit that either he is Number One or he knows who is. You will do it at gunpoint if required.”
“That . . . no . . . I just—”
“Enough. Boone is not the enemy.”
Malak looked out the window. It was uncanny how Ziv had been able to read her mind. She was planning to confront Boone. There were too many mysteries surrounding him. In truth, from the time J. R. Culpepper had been vice president and she served on his security detail, Malak had never trusted Boone completely. He and J.R. were friendly. Even back then she had heard rumors that Boone was NOC—No Official Cover—and that he and J.R. had worked together for years. Back when J.R. ran the Central Intelligence Agency.