Prank Wars (40 page)

I rushed forward with the perfume and sprayed our attacker in the eyes. Both Byron and the guy fell back, their eyes watering. Byron took advantage of the opening and knocked the gun away. The big guy stumbled back, screaming out. Now that the attacker was somewhat incapacitated, I tried to figure out how I knew him. Even under all that paint, I never forgot a face, well, I shouldn’t, especially someone clad in such outlandish clothes. He was wearing a
Wile E. Coyote
shirt for Pete’s sake! “You’re dead,” he hissed at Byron—mighty bravely for someone not holding the gun anymore. “You won’t live through the night.”

Byron’s form went dangerously calm. “What’s your plan? To kill me with that stench?”

The guy reeked of old lady perfume. Sweat mingled with paint dripped down his chiseled face. “We want the girl.”

My stomach tightened when I realized he meant me and not Thanh, but why? I didn’t have the control box anymore. Byron cast him a menacing look, but he didn’t pull the trigger. I hoped he’d do the normal thing and call the cops. I think we had some pretty good evidence for Brady and Oliveira now. “Tell your superior to keep away from her or he can’t hold me responsible for what I’ll do.” Byron’s accent was all over the place like he wasn’t trying to hide it anymore. “He has what he wants. Now tell him to get lost.”

Holding his head, the big guy glared and limped away with his message. I elbowed Byron. “Why did you let him get away?”

Byron squinted at me with his one good eye; the perfume had grazed him. “What is that awful stuff? It’s nasty as…”—he didn’t compare it to anything.

I identified his accent. “You have some explaining to do, New Zealand!”

“You said you got my message!” he accused.

“Yeah. You took the control box! Did you give it to whoever that guy works for? What’s wrong with you?”

“I didn’t give it to him…I
let
him have it. And that wasn’t my message anyway.” The physics book lay on the ground by the dumpster back where that guy grabbed me. Byron picked it up, black paint smudged all over his fingers. “Here’s my message.” He handed it to me. “Behind the front cover.”

I opened the book.
“Don’t worry, I’m with the CIA.
” I glanced up at him. No invisible crayon, no lemon water, no blood, no nothing. “That’s a really stupid message.”

“Yeah, well your war journal wasn’t much of a read either.”

I hit him with the physics book, not hurting him in the least. “New Zealand’s not with the CIA,” I told him.

Byron took out a handkerchief and started wrapping his hand. His knuckles were covered in blood. “We’re the SIS and we’re your allies. The CIA needed my skills to make up a special team, mostly because I came to this school six years ago and know the culture already, plus I’m a physicist, speak passable Vietnamese and I’m fluent in German—that was a bonus from my mission.”

No way. That would put him in his late twenties. Maybe early thirties. I always figured I was the older one. For once my age worked for me. “If you’re the CIA then why aren’t you after the guy who took the control box? Huh?”

“Yeah…because the CIA is a one-man operation? I thought you watched more movies than that?”

I gulped. If I hadn’t just seen him fight, I would never have believed him. I didn’t want him to be anything else but Byron, though CIA agent was better than believing he was a black-hearted kidnapper. “Who else is on the team?”

“Confidential.”

I glanced around at all my friends with a suspicious eye. It could be any of them. They had the perfect cover; they were all idiots. “So what? You’re some agent playing the field? Why did you let Thanh get taken then?”

“Just as you surmised.” He tied off his bandage with a snap. “Thanh made a little someth’nk someth’nk for the government. Grad students do it all the time, but this one got the attention of some undesirables. They called me and the rest of my team on a protective detail to watch her and the
item of interest
. It’s too powerful anyway. We’re gonna destroy it. It won’t see the light of day.”

“But
they
have it now!”

He led me behind the dumpster by my elbow, giving us some privacy. “
They
think they have it,” he said in an undertone. “We gave them a decoy…a fake. Get it?”

All that for nothing? “But they have Thanh?”

“No, we do. Everything’s under control. She’s in our protective custody.”

Relief washed over me. I wasn’t going to die tonight. At the same time, I felt incredibly stupid. “So, who’s the bad guy then?”

“We call him the white hawk, our female agent does actually. She thinks he’s hot.”

“Sandra!”

“Where?” Byron turned, looking for her. “I don’t see her.”

“Knock it off. I get it now. She moved into the ward at the same time. You still talk after the break-up. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.” I laughed, partly in shock. “Sandra was way too mean to be real.”

“Sorry to disappoint, but that’s really how she is, cuz.”

His New Zealand accent had the same effect chocolate and cologne had over other girls. He should probably suppress it so I could think clearly. “Why did you help me steal the fake control box, you jerk? That was a lot of work for nothing.”

“It had to look real.” He tugged on my arm, forcing me to follow him. He was stronger than I thought. “Let’s get you somewhere safe.”

How did I know he was telling the truth? “Wait, did you plant all the evidence then? The threatening note? The backpack? The keys?”

He laughed. “No.”
What about the meeting at Denny’s?
“You’re just unlucky to the days,” I heard him say.

My eyes narrowed at him. His dark hair was disheveled from the attack and he was smudged in black paint, but now that I saw him for what he was, I could see that he was as mischievous as ever. “Where are the bad guys now?”

“It’s covered,” he said. I dug my heels into the ground. If he didn’t know about Denny’s, it wasn’t covered. “Look.” Byron’s eyes pleaded with me to keep moving. “I can just throw you over my shoulder and drag you out of here. None of
our friends
would question it.”

He was right, and I tried to figure a way out of this. “Okay, assuming I go with you Byron, I have one last request.” I smiled, making sure I showed my gums this time. “If we’re safe now, I’m dying of hunger. What do you say to Denny’s?” I watched to see if Denny’s was significant to him.

Byron glanced down at his iPhone. “We have some time to kill, but...how can you possibly want to eat at a time like this?”
Byron didn’t know where the drop was.

My mind shuffled through the stored facts. The cranky guy threatened me so I would steal a decoy for him, and then in the next breath called Byron to say he had Thanh. Something wasn’t right. Thanh didn’t want to go with whoever stuffed her in that car. And if that had been the cranky guy? He didn’t sound like someone I could trust, so why did Byron? I glanced over at him and immediately recognized that closed-off look. I’d never be able to convince him of any of this. No doubt he was already planning on packing me off to some safe house and then it would be too late.

“Yeah.” I found myself nodding. “And it’s redneck night, so…you need to fit in, so…”

He laughed. “Only in Provo would there be a redneck night.”

“Are you saying you’ve never dressed up in all of your years of service?”

“Only suit and tie just like a good little spy.” He was being sarcastic. “I’ve never gone hick.” We only had an hour. I was sure his job was to distract me until after the drop-off. He came to a decision and gave a brisk nod. “Let’s go then. You’re not going anywhere without me.”

I squared my shoulders, knowing I had to play this smart. I couldn’t prove anything yet, but I was pretty sure Thanh’s life depended on us being there. Byron slowed his long stride to match mine, following me to my diamond advertisement of a car where I had stashed my wigs and whatever else I planned to use as our covers tonight. The only difference was that I thought Tory would be tagging along with me instead.

Byron grimaced at my car. “And that’s not conspicuous? I’m driving.” Trust him to be rude about it, but as long as he suspected nothing, I’d take it.

Day 113

2334 hours

“
Life is but a stage, I am merely an actor. The curtain will fall and in moments, it will all be over.”

—Madeleine’s War Journal Entry (Tuesday, June 5th).

The long blonde wig looked a lot stranger on Byron than it would’ve on Tory, but he looked hot in it anyway, tying it into a ratty ponytail behind him. It wasn’t exactly BYU standard, but it
was
redneck night, so no one would notice. I twisted my red wig into two braids to look like Pippi Longstocking. To complete the look, I gave Byron a tattered jean jacket and baseball cap then threw on an oversized slouchy shirt over my black one that said,
“I’m with Stupid.”

We walked into the restaurant, ignoring the stares of the other rednecks. Well, at least Byron did. Most of Denny’s patrons weren’t rednecks either. They looked like a bunch of BYU students. To my relief, Byron didn’t ask questions.

“I’m totally twittering this.” I heard someone laugh at their table. They stared at us and I tilted my chin up—going out in public looking like a fool was just one of the sacrifices I gave for my country.

Byron’s lip curled up at my discomfiture. He wasn’t actually enjoying this, was he? “Don’t look now,” he told me, “but the paparazzi’s here. Pose for the picture, pumpkin.” I glanced up just in time to catch someone snap a picture at us from the booth over.

The waitress at the front studied my hair. I’m sure it looked great under the florescent lights. And yes,
that
was sarcasm. Her hair was almost as blonde as Byron’s wig and teased high with a ponytail bobbing out beneath it all. She melted when she saw her male counterpart. Even when Byron looked like he had crawled from a beat-up pickup truck, I had competition. Byron leaned over the hostess’s little podium with a familiar air. “This here’s my girl, Ashley Q Miller May.”

That was cruel. I returned the favor. “And this here’s my sister’s
ex
, Joe-Joe Rocky Joe Jr.” I said it in the worst Southern drawl I could come up with.

Byron gave me a surprised look, which meant I had outdone him. “How’s the grub in this place?” he asked the waitress, quickly adopting my twang. Apparently Midwestern accent wasn’t the only thing he could mimic.

“Grub?” the waitress asked in confusion.

He grinned and I wished it was toothless. “Throw some road kill on the grill. We’re a’celebratin’. This pretty little thing just…” His brow furrowed and he looked at me, thinking hard. I smiled prettily at him, hoping it would shame him into being nice. It didn’t work. “She just won the Little Miss Rodeo Competition,” he said. “You should’ a seen her in the long john competition. She looked almost as good as my best huntin’ dog. Go ahead, Suzy Q…uh…May. Tell her all about that spitting contest you done won.”

My eyes narrowed at him. “How about I demonstrate it right
now
?”

The waitress blew a bubble with her gum, not impressed with any of my honors. “Get a booth, right?” Byron said with a wink. “Give us your finest, and dim the florescent lights, will ya? This here’s a special night.” He was making my skin crawl in a creepy way, except…the dimple in his cheek was standing out and I kind of liked it. That meant we were both messed up. The waitress gestured us to follow her. Byron tugged on my hand. “C’mon, cuz.”

“Hey.” I pulled away. “That’s not short for cousin, is it?”

“Don’t worry. We’re kissing cousins.”
That’s what I was afraid of.
The waitress brought us to a shadowy booth. It cut us off from the rest of the world—a good thing if we were trying to hide, a bad thing if we were trying to find someone. I drummed my fingers against the table while the waitress passed us our menus. Byron leaned back on his bench, glancing up at her. “What kind of vittles you got?”

“I’m not sure. What are vittles?” the waitress began. I felt sorry for her. At the same time, she was in my way. I tried to peer past her to see who else was in the restaurant. I wasn’t sure how I was going to find the team of kidnappers, besides checking their shoes to see if they matched the ones I saw from under Thanh’s sink.

“Grits?” I heard Byron ask.

“What is…?”

“How about some gizzards?”

The waitress looked relieved that she finally understood what he was saying. “Yes. Yes, we’ve got that.” She started writing it down.

“Well, we don’t want that.” Byron turned back to his menu.

I gave him an evil grin. “As long as we don’t have to kill my pet pig for supper, I’ve got an appetite for most anything.”

He met my eyes knowingly. “How about some biscuits and gravy.” He read her name tag, “Hilary?” He leaned towards me, taking my hand in his. “I’m going all out for my sweet sugar dumpling. Forget the brats for the night, little girl.” He peered up at the waitress as if bragging. “We got a dozen or so out on the farm.”

I pulled my hand away. “He’s talking about his dogs,” I translated.