Capture the Flag (5 page)

“You know where I think we should start?” Anna pulled her notebook from her backpack and settled in a chair. After the concert, they'd wandered around the stores a while, but the clerks were getting cranky, so they'd gone back to the gate. “We need a list of suspects. People who might have a reason to take the flag. Then we can see if anyone at the airport looks shady. Like if they act nervous … or look around suspiciously … or …”

“If they're carrying around a giant duffel bag with stars and stripes spilling out all over?” José lowered his book and leaned back against the glass window. Behind him, the tarmac sat quiet and white. It should have been crisscrossing with planes and fuel trucks and luggage carts. But it looked like somebody had spread a big white blanket over it and put the whole thing to sleep. “You did see the flag, right?” José raised an eyebrow at Anna. “You know how big it is?”

“It's not
that
big.”

“It's
huge
.”

“Sure, but you could roll it up and put it in something.” Anna looked around the terminal. Everyone's carry-on luggage was way too small to fit a thirty-four-by-thirty-four-foot flag, though. Finally, her eyes rested on a fat, red cylinder of a garbage can. “It would fit in
there
.” She scanned the hallways. “Or it would fit … maybe …” There really was nowhere else it would fit.

“Well?” José tipped his head toward the trash can. Anna sighed, put down her notebook, walked over, pushed in the flap thingy, and peered inside. It was half empty and too dark to see anything in there except a partly eaten cheeseburger and some scrunched-up napkins halfway down. She smelled onions.

No flag.

Anna plopped back down next to the boys and huffed. “I wasn't saying it
was
there, just that it could have been.”

“But it's not.” José turned a page in his book.

Anna fought the urge to grab the book from him and fling it out a window into the snow. “You know, you said your mom cares about the flag so much, and you're not even helping. Your family made a
promise
to protect things like this flag. Don't you think your mom would want you to do your part?”

José looked up. “She'd want me to stay out of trouble. Besides, there is
nothing
we can do. Not really.” He held up a finger. “Sometimes the key to wisdom is recognizing your limits.”

“Who said that?” Anna asked. “Shakespeare?”

“No. My mom.” He went back to his book.

“Can't you guys at least help me brainstorm?” Anna flipped her notebook open to a clean page.

“See that guy hiding in the alley? You gotta take him out first. Otherwise, he'll sneak up on you while you're chasing the other robbers. Try again.” Henry handed his SuperGamePrism-5000 to Sinan, reached for the bag of chips they'd picked up after the concert, and turned to Anna. “Want some?”

“No, thanks. I don't want grease spots all over my notebook.” Anna wrote
Possible Suspects
at the top of a clean white page. The police thought that the flag theft might be an inside job, that someone from the Smithsonian might have been involved. First on the list, she wrote:
Security guard?

Who else?

Anna looked around. Had anyone been acting strangely here at the airport?

Henry and José acted strangely, but she was pretty sure that's just because they were Henry and José.

There was Snake-Arm from Pickersgill Diner. He had seemed all hurried after that news report about the flag. Could he be hiding something? It was possible he'd remembered an appointment or had to use the bathroom really bad or something, but maybe, just maybe, he was rushing for a more exciting reason. Anna added
Snake-Arm Diner Man
to the list of suspects.

On TV, the police always talked about motives. Who had the motive to commit a crime? Who would risk everything to try and get away with it?

Halfway down the page, Anna wrote
Possible Motives
. She twirled her pen in her fingers, thinking. Who had a motive to steal the Star-Spangled Banner? Could somebody be planning to sell it? It's not like you could list it on eBay and expect that nobody would notice.

“No! Don't go in there!” Henry yelled so loud that Sinan almost dropped the SuperGamePrism-5000. “That's an ambush. The robbers are waiting in there, and you'll lose all the points you got so far if they trap you.”

Anna watched Sinan poke at the buttons. The bank robbers in the game were easy to figure out. They wanted money. But why would somebody want a huge flag? Anna saw a documentary once about this guy who stole a famous painting from a museum — way too famous to sell in public or he'd get caught — but he had this other guy all lined up to buy it already, a private collector who loved the painting — really, really loved it and wanted it in his mansion so he could see it every day. What if the person who took the flag stole it because he or she loved it so much?

Anna was thinking how to write that on the motives list when she heard a man in the next row of seats raising his voice as he spoke into his cell phone.

“No, it is not all right! And it is
not
understandable! Not by any stretch of the — no. Just — Fine, I'm listening.”

Anna sat up straighter so she could see over the seats. Between the World's Greatest Grandma and a man who had fallen asleep listening to his iPod sat José's father, his phone pressed tightly to his ear, his brow furrowed, and his face blotchy red. “That's ridiculous!” he said. “No. How could they even —” He paused and squeezed his eyes closed. “I know. I will. I love you, too.”

By the time he snapped the phone shut and opened his eyes, Anna, Henry, José, and Sinan were staring over the seats at him.

He took a deep breath. “That was Mom,” he said to José. “The police have taken her into custody as a suspect.”

“Dude, can you imagine if she did it? Your mom would be some kind of genius!” Henry and the others half walked, half ran to keep up with José's march down the B-terminal hallway. “I mean, it's awesome. That flag must have had alarms and everything, so for her to —”

José whirled around with his finger pointing and almost poked Henry in the chest. “It is
not
awesome. My mother …” His voice trembled, but he held up his arm, still pointing at Henry as if daring him to speak. “My mother
loves
that flag. Until last night, I hadn't seen her in three weeks. She lived away from us on and off for six months to work on the restoration. Six
months
!” Henry took a small step back, but José stepped forward to meet him. “She'd
never
take the flag from the chamber. Never. She loves that flag … as much as she loves me,” he finished quietly.

Henry stepped back again, and this time José let him go. “I didn't mean it like that,” Henry said. “I just meant … you know, whoever did it — not your mom — but whoever — must have done some cool stuff to get it out.” He looked down at the GamePrism in his hands. “Like secret spy stuff. Only in real life.”

“Well, you ought to think before you say things like that. How would you like to go three weeks without seeing your mom?”

Henry blinked. “My mom died three years ago.”

“Oh.” José scuffed his sneaker on the floor tiles. For once, he couldn't seem to come up with a quote.

“I'm sorry, Henry.” Anna put her hands in her pockets, then took them out again.

Hammurabi trotted up and dropped Mr. Squeaky at Henry's feet.

Henry gave the toy a kick. “Yeah, well … my dad and I have been doing okay. And he's got Bethany now, so you know …” Henry shrugged and started walking slowly down the hallway, scuffing his untied sneakers. He turned on his GamePrism and poked at it as he walked.

José, Anna, and Sinan followed Henry past the coffee shop and Cinna-Bunny. Hammurabi ran ahead with Mr. Squeaky in his mouth, dropping the toy every few yards to see if anyone would pick it up and throw it for him. No one did.

Finally, Henry looked up from his game. “Where are we going anyway?”

José shrugged. “I was going to walk around and … I don't know. Anything seems better than sitting at the gate.”

“I have an idea,” Anna said. “We should check on that Snake-Arm guy from the restaurant. He's on my suspect list. And you know … Henry's right. Whoever did this must have studied the security system and wanted the flag — no,
needed
it. Needed it enough to risk everything.”

Anna stopped in front of Pickersgill Diner, where the dinner line snaked into the hallway, and turned to Henry. “The dog can't go in, so I think you should wait here with Sinan and Hammurabi. José and I will go back to investigate.”

The diner was even busier now, with more waitresses carrying bigger, fuller trays of hamburgers.

“Excuse me,” Anna said, squeezing past a lady with a stroller near the front of the line. “We're not eating. We … need to see someone really quick.” She pulled José into the corner by the hostess stand so they could look for Snake-Arm. “He's probably not back yet from wherever he went, but maybe someone will have information.”

The kitchen door swung open, and the pink-haired hostess stepped up to them. She held a pile of menus. “How many?”

“We don't need a table,” José said. “We're just wondering about someone.”

Anna stood on her toes and tried to see into the kitchen, but the door swung shut. “That man who was here before? With the tattoo?”

“Claude Pickersgill. He owns the place. But he left. And you need to leave, too, if you're not ordering. We're busy.” The hostess shooed Anna and José back toward the door with her menus.

“Do you know where he went?” Anna asked.

“Said he had to go home early.”

“Go home early?” Anna turned her head to the window, where the snow was falling so thick and fast, the planes on the runway were just ghosts covered in white. “I thought the roads were closed! Is he coming back?” Anna called over her shoulder after they'd been ushered all the way back to the hallway.

“Who knows?” The hostess held up menus to the next couple in line. “Table for two?”

“There's definitely something up with that guy,” Anna said as she and José left the diner. They found Henry and Sinan sitting in side-by-side shoeshine chairs, leaning together over Henry's GamePrism. The shoeshine guy was nowhere to be found, but Hammurabi was sniffing at Henry's sneaker as if he might lick it clean.

Henry looked up. “Oh, hey! Did you find the flag? That guy had it hidden in the restaurant's silverware drawer, didn't he?”

Sinan snickered, and even Hammurabi seemed to have a sort of smirk on his face. Anna folded her arms. “You can laugh all you want, but I think that Snake-Arm guy is hiding something. There's no way he just left to go home in the middle of this.” Anna gestured toward the window.

“No, that doesn't really add up,” José agreed. “But we can't go running out there to track him down. I'm afraid we bit off more than we can chew here.”

Sinan's face lit up, and he pulled his sketch pad from his pocket.

While he drew, Henry chased his GamePrism bank robbers.

José patted Hammurabi's head thoughtfully, while Hammurabi looked longingly at the doggy bags being carried out of Pickersgill Diner.

Anna stared out the window at the fat snowflakes. There had to be something they could do to help while they were stuck here. A little investigating wasn't biting off more than they could chew, was it?

“What do you think?” Sinan held up his sketch.

“Very nice,” Anna said. “But I still think —”

“WRROOOF!”

Hammurabi jumped up and barked at a group of men hurrying out of the candy store behind them.

It was Senator Snickerbottom and his crew. “Good boy, Hammurabi!” Anna said. “Maybe I can finish my interview.” She headed for the men, but then she stopped and turned. “Look!” she whispered. “It's him!”

They could see half of Snake-Arm's face sticking out from behind a big rack of gummy worms at the candy store entrance. He kept his body hidden but peered down the hallway as Snickerbottom and his men walked away.

Then Snake-Arm looked around, came out from behind the rack, and ran into the electronics store next door.

“He's following Snickerbottom!” Henry said, finally looking up from his game.

Sure enough, Snake-Arm reappeared, half hidden behind a stack of remote control airplanes, and peered down the hall. Ducking in and out, behind book displays and candy counters, Snake-Arm tailed the senator and his men past four more stores.

“Well, forget the bank robbers, then.” Henry stood up from the shoeshine chair and tucked his game into his pocket. “We've got a real-life suspect to chase now.”