The Inside Job (15 page)

“We won't need much time,” I said, pulling a shirt over my old SRS uniform. This was just a simple break-in, but still, I felt like it was wise to have the uniform on under my clothes—or maybe it just made me feel more like a
real spy. Kennedy and Walter were wearing theirs as well; Kennedy's had become a bit snug, given her growth spurt over the summer. She closed the laptop she'd been looking at and handed it to Beatrix. We were clearing all of Beatrix's computer stuff out of the kitchen so Twinkles wouldn't see it when he arrived.

The back door opened, and Ben, Clatterbuck, and Otter walked in, Annabelle trailing them with what looked like a dismembered robot arm in her mouth.

Ben grinned. “It's from one of my older model robots, don't worry. Anyway, helium tanks are installed in the back of the car, Hale. Should be all set to safely hold the books until we can get them back to Hastings.” He motioned for me, Walter, and Kennedy to gather around him. “All right, so, chances are that the books are in a helium chamber, just like they were at Hastings's. If you can get into the tank legitimately—pick the lock or something—it'll probably turn the helium pump off. But if you have to just shatter it or bust it up, the mechanism won't flip the helium off, and it'll fill the whole room with helium. Depending on the size of the room, that can be really dicey—the helium will rise to the top of the room, just like a helium-filled balloon floats up. Assuming the room has an average height ceiling for the homes in the area, that means, you”—he pointed to Walter—“will be too tall to stay in the oxygen. You'll be breathing pure helium.”

“And that's bad,” Walter said.

“Very. You'll suffocate. So I made you this out of scuba gear and some vacuum tubes,” Ben said. He reached to the side of the couch and grabbed a little canister with a long hose attached to something that looked like a hacked-up scuba mask. “Put this over your mouth. The pump takes the air—the oxygen, really—from around your feet and sends it up the tube to your head. It's called the B(reathe)-EN.”

“Whoa,” Walter said. “Thanks.”

“I went ahead and put together your belts with the stuff I think you're most likely to need—the basics, of course, and then a few odds and ends. You've got the CariBENer, the DustBEN, the BEN of All Trades. There's also a can of spray paint, just in case he has cameras you need to take out.”

That wasn't really how I would take out a camera—I'd likely just unhook it rather than blacken the screen—but a lot of Ben's spy knowledge still came from movies. I nodded and took my utility belt from him. Kennedy had fewer items on hers—since she was usually the one who had to slink in places, she couldn't carry around a lot of tools. Walter's belt was nearly entirely taken up by the B(reathe)-EN, which made him look a little like he'd decided to go all high fashion and wear a garden hose as a belt. I was surprised he didn't look embarrassed by that, but I guess when a device is going to help you
not
suffocate, you don't blush at the thought of it.

“Let's go rob a clown,” Walter said, grinning.

Step 1: Break into Twinkles's house

“There he goes!” Kennedy said. We were parked down the street from Twinkles's house, and had been for nearly an hour. I looked up just in time to see a sketchy-looking car swerve away, driven by a man who either had terrible red hair or was wearing an enormous clown wig.

“You're sure?” I asked.

“Of course! Come on!” Kennedy said. Otter and Walter slipped back into the front seat of the car, leaving Kennedy and me to jump in the back. We didn't have anyone running mission control from the farmhouse—everyone there would be too busy at the fake birthday party we were holding to get Twinkles away—which made my ears feel strangely quiet. I wondered if we should have packed two comms just to communicate with one another, in case we somehow became separated—

“That's it,” Otter said quietly as he slid the rental car into a street parking spot. He pulled out a map and made a show of opening it as we surveyed the house.

This wasn't going to be easy. The house didn't have much of a backyard, so there wasn't a lot of tree cover. There was a fence, but it was just chain-link, so it wouldn't hide us from the neighbors. We'd need to get inside and out of sight quickly.

The three of us walked slowly up the driveway, at first

acting casual. Then, when we were sure no one was looking, we darted around the side of the house, to the hopefully more secluded backyard—

I groaned. The backyard got brilliant sunlight and was almost entirely consumed by a giant deck. We were practically breaking into this place on a stage. I grabbed ahold of a piece of patio furniture and sat down. Walter and Kennedy plopped into other chairs immediately. Kennedy leaned all the way back in hers, as if enjoying the sun. Anyone who happened to see us would just think we were out enjoying the weather on our porch.

I surveyed the back of the house. Nothing special, except that there was one room just off the deck with a window air-conditioning unit. I removed one of Ben's inventions from my belt—the BENchwarmer—which was basically a pocket-size battering ram. I extended the BENchwarmer—it looked like one of those toy swords, the kind that zips out—then leaned over the deck railing and lined the BENchwarmer up with the air-conditioning unit.

Bang
. The BENchwarmer knocked the unit cleanly into the house, leaving a rectangle about one foot by two feet wide open. Before I could even put the BENchwarmer down, Kennedy had sprung over the side of the deck, balancing herself on first the ledge of the deck, then the windowsill. She pushed off the deck and, without the slightest wobble in balance, slid neatly through the window. I went
back to looking casual but held my breath; from the looks of it, Walter was holding his too. What if we'd been wrong, and Twinkles was still home? What if—

“Welcome,” Kennedy said smartly as she opened the back door, grinning. Walter and I exhaled at once and then hurried in.

I sort of wished we hadn't. Twinkles's house smelled like cheese. I made a face.

“I know. I think it's the trash,” Kennedy said, frowning. She didn't mean the trash in the trash can. She meant the trash
everywhere
. The coffee table was covered in food takeout boxes. The floor was covered in laundry—some of it old and dingy underwear, which I knew I'd never be able to unsee. The kitchen was flooded with dirty dishes.

The place was flat-out disgusting.

“This doesn't look like the house of a guy who's carefully keeping thousand-year-old jeweled manuscripts,” Walter said warily.

He was right. My stomach felt pitted, but we couldn't give up yet.

Step 2: Find the helium chamber

If there was a helium chamber. As we picked our way through the house, my hope fizzled. It
had
to be here. It had to be here somewhere. Beatrix said he was getting a
crazy amount of helium delivered. Yes, he was a clown, but from the photos we saw online, he wasn't a clown many people would hire. He was there the day—

Stop!
I shouted to myself. Doubting yourself was a quick way to get burned. At SRS, they always told us to make a decision and stick with it. This was my decision. I had to . . .

“Oh, gross,” Kennedy said, gagging as she made her way out of the bathroom.

“Where
is it
?” Walter said, growing frustrated. We'd gone through the entire place, and nothing . . .

“The tanks. He's getting the helium delivered in tanks, and we haven't even seen
those
. We're missing something,” I said. I closed my eyes, tried to remember what the exterior of the house looked like. Was there a room visible from the outside that we hadn't gone through inside? I turned the mental picture of the house into a blueprint, traced my way around . . .

“The crawl space,” I said, turning to them. “There's probably a crawl space underneath the house. The deck was raised, remember, and the yard was steep? But there's no real basement.”

“Million-dollar books in a crawl space. Classy, Twinkles,” Walter said, but he looked excited. After a quick glance to make sure neighbors weren't watching, we walked out the back door and over the side of the deck railing (Kennedy
and Walter dropped neatly into crouches, while I basically hit the ground and rolled like a log). I went first under the deck. There was
almost
enough room to stand, but not quite. Sunlight peered through the deck slats above us, giving us just enough light to see a very small door—a few feet tall and wide at the most.

There was a fat lock on it, but the door itself was made of flimsy plywood. Since no one could see us under there, Walter karate-kicked the door; it buckled beneath his foot. He stepped aside so I could look in.

Automatic lights flickered on, and cool air rushed out. I gasped.

This
room was flawless. Neat, pale gray, and perfectly empty except for a series of helium tanks off to one side, and in the very back, a box that had to be the helium chamber.

We'd found the Runanko books.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“Hale? What do you see?” Kennedy asked urgently. I spun around to her and Walter; they instantly read my expression and grinned. They then shouldered around me to get a look for themselves.

“Whoa,” Walter said. “Now, that's what I call a crawl space.”

“There they are!” Kennedy said at the same time. “I
knew
Mom and Dad weren't art thieves!” It was strangely relieving to hear Kennedy as pleased as I was about this. She jumped up, nearly hit her head on the ceiling, and then hugged me.

“Guys.
Now, that's what I call a crawl space
,” Walter repeated, motioning to the room.

“Right,” I said as Kennedy released me. The room—for all its smooth walls and hissing helium pumps and
fanciness—was only about three feet tall. Which meant none of us could safely detach the helium pump from the chamber, because it would flood the room with helium and there'd be no staying low enough to breathe only oxygen-rich air.

“Ideas?” Walter asked, looking grim.

I checked my watch—we'd been at the house for nearly a half hour now. We weren't over time yet, but I wanted to be gone before the full hour was up. I paced in front of the door for a moment, trying to shake the happiness about my parents not being thieves out of my head.
Focus on the mission, Hale.

“All right,” I said, looking at the helium chamber in the back of the crawl space. It was at least ten feet away. “I need a hose. A garden hose.”

“I'll find one,” Kennedy said immediately, and darted out from under the house. She returned less than a minute later with a long, dirty garden hose slung over her shoulder. “It's the neighbor's,” she explained. I withdrew the BEN of All Trades's knife and sliced a seven- or eight-foot section of hose off. “Walter, give me the B(reathe)-EN. Good, now, hold this section, and—Kennedy, hand me the duct tape off my belt. Perfect.”

I'd removed the scuba mask from the B(reathe)-EN and extended the tube length by adding the section of hose. It was now long enough to reach the back wall and, if the
pump stayed outside, would still provide the mask-wearer clean oxygen.

Walter pulled his shirt off so he was down to just the SRS uniform. He clamped the mask over his mouth and, with a quick look at me and Kennedy, made his way into the crawl space. He couldn't even move on his hands and knees—he had to army crawl along the floor. It really
was
a genius hiding spot. Who would think to look in such a small space for priceless jeweled books? Yet here was the chamber, the helium, the . . .

“How do you think Twinkles made all this?” Kennedy asked quietly as Walter's feet got farther away.

“Maybe he's really clever. Ben could make this,” I said.

Kennedy looked doubtful, but we didn't have a chance to discuss it, because Walter shouted over his shoulder.

“Looks like there's a melting lock on the chamber! Probably easiest to just break the glass case!”

“Do it!” I answered.

A few moments later I heard the glass shatter—which meant the air in the crawl space was now filling with helium. I held the oxygen pump as far away from the crawl space entrance as I could so there was no chance it would suck in any helium air. I couldn't see the helium chamber anymore because of Walter's body, and I worried that the pump wasn't making much noise—was it working? Walter was rustling around, moving . . .

He started backing up, emerging from the crawl space. Without the chamber. He rose up, removed the mask, and shook his head.

“I can't get the books out. There's a plinth alarm underneath that I could disarm, but I think there's also some sort of alarm on the back of the chamber. I can't tell what it is, so I'm afraid to unhook it.”

I pressed my lips together. Who did the alarms call? A security company? Twinkles himself? “All right—I'll go in and unhook the alarm in the back. Then you go
back
in and undo the pressure alarm, and—”