The Alias Men (2 page)

3

THURSDAY, 1:45 P.M.

I HAD TO GIVE MY COUSIN PROPS,
because his shortcuts got us to the Perfect Frame Café fifteen minutes early. Mike spent the whole ride arguing with Willow about some movie they'd seen the night before—Willow thought the ending was too sad, but Mike liked that the main character's best friend died, because it seemed authentic. Me, I tuned out most of the way, thinking of this new mission.

Maybe I'd really ace it this time. That would be cool.

Mike pulled up slowly and lucked into a parking space only half a block down from the Perfect Frame Café.

“I just think he didn't need to die is all,” Willow said. She liked to get the last word in.

Mike shrugged and put the car in park. “So Linc, why am I dropping you here, and not at Sterling Studios?”

“Sam's dad's friend is meeting me here,” I lied. I unbuckled my seat belt and grabbed my backpack. Couldn't have Mike asking too many questions. “Mom knows all about it—look, I gotta go.”

Mike squinted.

But then he relaxed. “I gotta hustle to meet my friends anyway,” he said. “Just need to make sure you're not getting into trouble. Like that time you got stuck in the storm drain.”

“I remember.” It's a long story for another time. I was eight, and the incident involved a runaway soccer ball, the Pasadena fire and police departments, and me being grounded for a month.

“All right. Call if you need another ride, 'kay?”

I opened my door. “Sure thing.” I said good-bye to Mike and Willow and got out.

I watched my cousin pull into traffic, waving his hand out the open window. I tightened my backpack straps, feeling Dad's compass bump against my side. Dad gave it to me before I went to Paris on my first mission, so I'd always know my way home, he said.

I turned to go inside the café but then saw a taxi take Mike's spot, and I heard a familiar voice call from an open window.

“Wait up, kid!” Before the cab had come to a complete stop, Albert Black got out. He's big and round, and today he was wearing a blue shirt and tan shorts. Black quickly paid the driver and watched the cab zip back into traffic before joining me on the sidewalk. “You get here okay?”

“My cousin drove. Don't worry—I told him it was just a studio tour,” I added when I caught Black's dark expression. He's an intense kind of guy. I never know if he's going to break into one of his loud laughing fits or if he's going to yell at me for doing something wrong.

Black nodded, and he stopped in his tracks.

“What's wrong?” I asked.

Black turned his face to the sun, closed his eyes, and smiled. “You guys got it good here in California. What's it, seventy degrees out today?”

“Probably. I guess I'm used to it.”

“Better than Washington, DC, that's for sure.” Black exhaled, and then motioned to the café. “Come on. I'll brief you on the case.”

The place was pretty quiet, probably because we were there at two in the afternoon—a little late for lunch, but not dinner, either. Albert Black ordered us some California chicken sandwiches and sodas, and then picked a spot in the back of the café. The surrounding tables were deserted, so nobody could overhear our conversation.

“Your tour of Sterling Studios is at two thirty. We don't have much time,” Black said after he ate half his sandwich. The guy has some jaws, because it only took him two bites to get there. He pulled a picture from the breast pocket of his shirt. Slid it across the table. “This is your objective.”

I picked up the black-and-white photo. It was a picture of a bowler hat, the kind people wore in the early 1900s. “What's this—some old guy's hat?”

Black glanced around to make sure no one heard. “Not just anyone's.” He leaned across the wobbly café table. “
Charlie Chaplin's
bowler hat.”

“It's a Dangerous Double,” I said, guessing that it had to be. Dangerous Doubles are these artifacts—identical to real-life ones, only they're very dangerous. Nobody really knows how they get their powers. On my first mission, in Paris, I helped Pandora find a double of the Mona Lisa that hypnotizes people. In Washington, DC, we found the double of George Washington's coat that makes you bulletproof if you wear it. Dangerous Doubles are serious business.

Pandora is this super-secret organization that retrieves these Doubles, to keep us all safe. And now there was a new one to find: Charlie Chaplin's bowler hat.

“That's right—it's a Dangerous Double,” Black said, confirming my suspicions. “This hat, if tilted at precisely fifteen degrees . . .” He got close enough for me to spot the stubble of an overdue shave and whispered, “It makes you invisible.”

“No way,” I said, probably a little too loud.

Albert Black shot me a death-ray stare.

“How do we know this, exactly?”

Black sat back and glanced around the café, and seemed to relax when he saw that the customers still couldn't care less about our conversation. “Honestly? We got lucky, kid. There's a Pandora insider who deals in rare Hollywood antiques. A few days ago, she got a call about an item someone was putting up for sale: a Charlie Chaplin hat that had been stored away in the costume department at Sterling Studios, one rumored within the Pandora intelligence community to have special powers. The guy who'd been running that department for decades, William Redding, was given the hat by Chaplin when Redding was young. Redding passed away, and in his will he gave the hat to his daughter. No one knew he had it until it came up in the will. Not even Pandora.”

I tucked the photo of the Chaplin hat in my pocket. “So this daughter has the Dangerous Double?”

Black shook his head. “It's still at Sterling Studios, where Redding kept it. The daughter lives on the East Coast and the antique dealer hasn't picked it up yet—lucky for us, with all the arrangements that had to be made for her father's funeral, she hasn't gotten around to it. But time is running out.”

I got what this was about now. “You want me to steal the hat.”

Black grinned.

“Why not ask Ben Green to do it? Or is he too squeaky clean for the job, and you need troublemaker Linc?”

Black shook his head.

“Or is this about Pandora not being part of the CIA?” When we were on our mission in Washington, DC, I found some files that said Pandora wasn't a CIA operation. “If I'm going on this mission, you need to tell me the truth.”

Black just looked at me. It was kind of creeping me out, but then he said, “You're right: Pandora isn't CIA.
On paper
.” He leaned closer across the table. “Pandora is extreme black ops—that means even members of the CIA don't know we exist. Plausible deniability, Linc.”

Black leaned even closer, making the café table dip on his side. “There's going to be a big reveal at a defense-technology summit in Las Vegas on Monday,” he said in a low voice. “It's of a top secret counterterrorism weapon.
Beyond
top secret, actually. A group of defense-contractor engineers invented a drone system—you know what a drone is?”

“An unmanned airplane, right?” I saw it on the news awhile ago. “It drops bombs or does surveillance.”

Black nodded. “Only this is a group of drones that can communicate with each other in a highly sophisticated way—don't ask me how; that's the engineers' department. I do know this: When released, these little planes can deliver antidotes to a virus across a city, even across the country.”

“Isn't that a good thing?” I asked. “And what does this have to do with the Chaplin hat anyway?”

“Imagine if instead of an antidote, you used the drones to deliver a deadly virus.” Black pushed his plate aside. “We've picked up chatter that a terrorist group wants to use it. Their test location is right here.”

“Los Angeles?” My throat tightened. I choked on a bread crumb and gulped my soda.

Black nodded. “And from here every major city across the country. This drone system allows the terrorists to maximize impact.”

That meant they'd kill as many people as possible. I thought of the Baker clan, tinkering with that rusty car. Mom, making macaroni salad.

I felt sick. I had to save my family. “So you think the terrorists will use the hat to steal that drone-system prototype.”

“It's possible. Bottom line: The Chaplin hat could mean a major security breach at the reveal.” Black leaned close. “Your mission is to get the Dangerous Double.”

“Why me?”

“A big guy like me can't exactly sneak into a place like Sterling Studios without tipping off security.” He looked me in the eye, and for once Black didn't look like he was mad at me. “And Ben is on another mission. He can't get here in time.”

They needed
me
. Linc Baker, the kid with troublemaking skills. Not Ben Green. “Okay, so where am I going, exactly?”

Albert Black nodded and pulled a piece of paper from his breast pocket. When he unfolded it, I saw that it was a map. “Here's a layout of Sterling Studios. The tour has you sitting on a tram, and will take you from the entrance, here”—he pointed to what looked like a gate shack in front—“around the lot.” He ran his big hand over the paper, following a dotted line.

“Where's the costume department with the Dangerous Double?”

“Over here, building three hundred.” Black pointed to a large building at the back of the lot. “It's a warehouse split in two: The front has set props—you'll have to walk through there to get to the costume department in the back. The front door is the only way in. Oh, and don't take any of the exits—unless you swipe a staff pass, you'll set off the alarms.”

“Got it.”

“Now, the tour will just pass by the building, so you'll want to break away from the group right around here.” He tapped his finger on the dotted line, about a third of the way into the tour. “Jump off the tram. Then you'll sneak inside, grab the hat, and get out.”

He made it sound so easy. And it kind of was—I mean, I did sneak into the science lab to set the mice free, right? This was sort of the same thing.

“Redding's will only said the Chaplin hat was in a safe place. No specifics. It might be on a shelf, in a safe, or in a box—so be sure to look everywhere.” Albert Black folded the map and slid it my way across the table. “There's security, but they're a bunch of slow surfer types, far as I can tell. You should have at least ten minutes. Oh, and make sure you tell 'em you're fifteen. Otherwise they won't let you on the tour without a parent.”

“Okay.” I felt butterflies in my stomach. My family's safety was on the line. Suddenly I didn't feel like finishing my sandwich, tasty as it was.

Black dug into his pants pocket, pulled out a cell phone, and handed it to me. “Your new Pandora phone. I'm programmed in there. Call when you secure the Dangerous Double.”

I nodded. “Wait—what if I can't find it?”

Black stood up and gave me a dark look. “Then don't bother calling.” He leaned on the table. “Secure the artifact, Baker. Whatever it takes.”

4

THURSDAY, 2:20 P.M.

THE STUDIO WAS JUST A BLOCK AWAY,
so I walked. Most of LA is not set up for walking—no nice sidewalks, and the whole city is just way too spread out—but here someone had been smart enough to build a path from the studio complex to the strip mall where the café was.

I tightened the straps of my backpack and clutched the compass Dad gave me. It usually made me feel better. But not this time. It only reminded me that my family's lives were on the line.

What if I couldn't find this hat? Much as I hated Ben, he
was
a trained junior secret agent. I was just a regular kid. And Black seemed pretty hard-core about me retrieving the Dangerous Double, with this whole “don't call me unless you find it” business.

I picked up the pace, even though I had plenty of time. But I was surprised to find that there was one of those tourist trams already waiting near the gatehouse at the Sterling Studios entry. A dozen or so people were spread out on the plastic benches, and the tour guide gave me a big thousand-watt smile once I got close. He was a big dude, wearing one of those T-shirts made to show off his biceps. He looked a little orange from too much time on a tanning bed.

“And what's your name, young man?” he asked me, checking his clipboard.

I froze. Was I supposed to be Benjamin Green? On my previous missions, I'd traveled under his name—not cool, since I couldn't stand the guy, but necessary to keep our double status a secret. We'd been able to fool the bad guys more than once.

“Your
name
, little man.” The guy looked impatient.

“Linc Baker,” I said, going with my gut, wishing Black had told me what to say.

“There you are,” the guide said as he checked my name on the board. “Now that wasn't so hard, was it?” More teeth and a fake grin. “How old are you anyway?”

“Fifteen,” I lied, just like Black told me.

Tour Guide Guy squinted, and made a big deal of looking me up and down. “Missed a growth spurt or two?” But then he waved to the tram. “You can sit anywhere you like.”

I picked the empty bench in the very back, thinking it might give me a quick exit. I was beginning to feel a little nervous as I waited.

What if I got busted? I was very good at causing trouble—at getting away with it, not so much. I was at about fifty-fifty: Half the time I got off, but the other half . . . well, you get the idea. This was going to be a challenge.

“All aboard!” the tour guide called, stirring me from my thoughts. “Choo-choo!”

I realized some lady in a poufy floral dress and lots of curly blond hair was sitting next to me. It would be even harder now to sneak away in the middle of the tour.

The tram jerked, and we slowly made our way through the open gate, past the security checkpoint. The guard waved to us but looked pretty grumpy, like maybe he'd been told to be friendly to the tourists. The lady next to me waved back, but the guard didn't seem to notice or care.

“Welcome to Sterling Studios,” the guide told us from his spot next to the driver of the tram. “My name is Greg, and I'll be divulging all of Hollywood's
sss
ecrets to you today.” He spoke very close to the microphone, so the speakers overhead made him sound like a hissing snake. “We'll
sss
tart our tour on the west
sss
ide of the lot, and go clockwise until we're back where we
sss
tarted. Oh, and watch out for
ccc
elebrities!” he added with a fake happy tone to his voice. “I hear they're running loose around the studio lot.”

Someone laughed at his lame joke. We drove between a warehouse-type building and a small parking lot. There were only four cars there, which made me wonder if this studio was operational at all, or if it was all just fake, like Greg the tour guide.

We drove down a street that looked like a cute little town—the kind of place that sells fudge and antiques. But it wasn't real: You could see the plywood fronts from our angle on the train.

“This is
Ssss
terlingville,” Greg hissed overhead. “Many movies and TV
sss
eries have been
sss
hot here—if you look clo
sss
ely, you might
sss
ee one of the
sss
tars of our hugely popular TV
sss
eries
You Only Live Once
.”

I'd never heard of the show, but okay.

To the left of me, a fake cameraman was setting up a tripod. He waved. The lady next to me waved back. But I could see the dust on the camera lens as we passed—obviously, this dude wasn't filming anything, except maybe us tourists.

“Hey, Jim,” Greg called from in front, waving to the fake camera guy. “To the right, you can see the general store of Sterlingville. This town has been in existence since the studio was first established in 1935.” He droned on about all the movies that were shot there, but I tuned the guy out. I had a mission to accomplish.

While the rest of the tourists were hanging out the right side of the tram, I took a minute to pull out my studio map. I followed the dotted line of the tour, past the gate guard and the parking lot, and through this fake little town. Up ahead were more buildings, then we would slowly move eastward to make that clockwise route the guide was talking about. In a few minutes I would have to break away from the tour to get to the costume department building at the far back of the lot.

The lady next to me had her head turned to the general store, where some couple was pretending to set up for a scene. Greg the tour guide was droning on about this oh-so-popular television series, holding the attention of the rest of the tour. The tram was moving, but very slowly.

Now might be the only chance I had to sneak off.

I inched closer to the edge of my seat. Leaned forward.

I took a step, but then heard the hiss over the tram's intercom behind me.

“Where i
sss
it you think you're going, young man?”