Zeke Bartholomew (7 page)

I stared out at the blue expanse. The yellow parachute drifted for a few more minutes, then folded up on itself and sank.

“Sparrow…” I whispered, head in my hands. “I'M SO SORRY!”

“Sorry for what?” a voice behind me asked.

I turned around. Sparrow was standing there, squeezing water from her hair.

“You're alive!” I ran over to her and threw my arms around her.

“Easy there, Swamp Thing.” I backed off.

“I thought you were dead.”

“You think a plane explosion and an emergency crash landing in a lake would kill me?” Sparrow said, laughing.

Her laughter unnerved me. Any one of a thousand things could have killed me, maimed me, burned me, exploded me, or beat me up real good today. And she was laughing about it. It felt like the time I won a fourth-grade chess tournament, only to then get beat up by the kid who won the karate tournament being held next door.

“By the way, I found your pants.” She held up Gertie's husband's soaked trousers. I looked down. My tighty whiteys were plastered to my pale legs.

I grabbed the trousers and put them on angrily. “Why the heck do I keep losing my pants? I swear, this is some kind of pants conspiracy.”

Sparrow held up a finger and whispered, “
Shh.
”

“Come on,” she said, tapping her wristband. “It's destroyed. Unbelievable. With all the technology at our disposal, you'd think they could waterproof the ComLet.”

“ComLet?”

“Communications bracelet. Most of us call it the ComLet. But the wusses who aren't secure enough in their masculinity to admit that they wear a bracelet just call it the MultiPurp. Either way, without this we're in a bit of a bind.”

“Who are you talking about?” I said. “I don't know what you're talking about with this ComMultiPerp Hot Pocket thing. Speak English.”

Sparrow sighed. She walked over to me. “Calm down.”

I gritted my teeth. “I am calm. And considering I've been semi-kidnapped, almost killed by a giant white gorilla person, almost incinerated in a plane crash, and lost my pants
twice
in the past two days, I'm as calm as could possibly be expected. But if I don't get some answers
now
, whatever your name is, I might lose that calm and just go freaky nuts on you.”

“Freaky nuts?” she asked incredulously.

“Yeah. Freaky nuts.” This did not sound nearly as intimidating as I thought it would.

“Okay. You want some answers?”

“I think I'm entitled to them.”

“You want answers?”

“I want the truth!”

“You can't handle the truth!” Sparrow said.

“I think I've heard that somewhere before,” I said.

“Here's what we know,” Sparrow said. “For years we have been tracking a massive criminal enterprise. Their funding has been in the billions, and they have enough manpower and firepower to take over a small country. The enterprise was run by a man named Le Carré.”

“I know that name,” I said. “The goons who took me, they said he was going to be real upset if I didn't give them the codes.”

Sparrow furrowed her brow. She did not like hearing that.

“I work for an agency called SNURP. The Strategic National Underground Reconnaissance Project.”

“You're a spy,” I said.

“To put it bluntly, yes. We are spies. As you may have guessed, my code name is Sparrow.”

“Cool code name.”

“Thank you. Anyway, ten years ago SNURP began development on a project called SirEebro. SirEebro was, in effect, a massive transmission device. It could take any sound wave and ‘hijack' the signal, encoding it with subliminal sound waves.”

“That sounds like brainwashing. Like heavy metal records that secretly tell you to go eat bunnies or something.”

Sparrow stared at me. “Are you, like, brain damaged or something?”

“Not that I know of. But isn't it kind of like that?”

“In simple terms? Like very basic simple terms that even a child could understand?”

“I'm a lot smarter than you think,” I said.

She looked at me, trying to discern whether I was merely saying it to defend myself. Or if I was, in fact, capable of greater deduction than she thought.

Then I hiccupped.

“Sorry. Happens sometimes when I'm nervous.”

“Maybe you're right,” Sparrow said. “Maybe you're not just some kid living in small-town nowhere who can't tell his butt from his nose. We'll see. Because your life is going to depend on it.”

“Whoa, hold on there, Robin.”

“Sparrow.”

“Whatever. I'm done with all this spy stuff. I fell off a bridge, almost drowned, nearly got killed by some giant…
thing…
and just fell from an airplane
that
I
was
dangling
from
on
a
grappling
hook
. I have homework due Monday. A problem set for algebra. And I haven't done any of the reading. I'm going home.”

“If you go home, your father will die.”

I stopped in my tracks.

“What did you just say?”

“Your father. Jonah Bartholomew. Age forty-two, currently employed as a tax attorney at the law firm of Holt, Lester, and Carol.”

“How do you know that? How do you know about my dad?”

“We know everything about you, Zeke. The moment you used Gertie Zimmerman's phone, we were able to track you down and find out everything about you in less time than it takes you to Google ‘boogers.' Your mother, Sandra, passed away six years ago. Your father has an account on three dating websites but hasn't updated them in over two years.”

“Stop talking about my dad,” I said, my teeth gnashing against each other.

Sparrow held up her hands. “I'm not saying this to upset you, Zeke. I'm only saying this because everything we know, they know.”

“Who is ‘they'? This Le Carré guy?”

“Yes. And Ragnarok.”

“Who the heck is Ragnarok?”

“Ragnarok is that
thing
that nearly killed you back there. Ragnarok's real name is Richard Knox. He was a world-famous geologist and seismologist, not to mention world-class triathlete. He was in a plane, flying solo, surveying a volcano in Iceland, and was in the blast zone when the volcano blew. His plane went down. The wreckage was found, but Knox was not. One year later, he was seen at a secret rehabilitation facility in Switzerland. His skin was ashen, white, and tubes were hooked up all over his body. Red liquid was seen coursing through the tubes.”

“Just like on his suit,” Zeke said.

“Yes. The exposure to the volcanic blast changed Knox's thermal temperature. He cannot exist at temperatures below two hundred degrees Celsius. That red liquid you saw is pure volcanic magma.”

“Those tubes. They would need to be made of a special material. It would need to be both flexible and anticorrosive. Likely some sort of aluminum/steel hybrid.”

“Maybe you're not as dumb as I thought,” Sparrow said.

“Don't give yourself a headache with all these compliments. That's why when he touched ice cubes it was like he'd suffered instant frostbite.”

“Anyway, I'm not telling you this to scare you. It's fact. A few months ago, SirEebro was stolen from a secured armored carrier while en route to the SNURP headquarters. They were blindsided and taken out by laser rifles, an incredibly advanced technology. These weren't regular thieves. We believe somebody tipped off a dangerous enemy.”

“What do you mean ‘enemy'?” I asked.

“We weren't sure. At least not until we found you.”

“Wonderful,” I said. “Happy to be the key to this insane puzzle.”

“The scientists at SNURP were smart enough to install a safeguard into SirEebro. The device itself is harmless, unless…”

“Unless they have the program codes.”

“That's right.”

“So whoever stole it wasn't able to get the codes.”

“Correct. We didn't keep them with the device.”

“Which means they needed somebody from inside SNURP who had access to the codes.”

“Exactly.”

“And so those people who took me the other night, they thought I was Derek Lance, because…Derek Lance has those codes.”

Sparrow nodded solemnly.

“Which means that Derek Lance is an agent of SNURP.”

“
Was
an agent of SNURP. He was the greatest young spy our agency had ever seen. A few months back Lance began acting strange. He was always a bit of a weirdo to begin with.”

“Seriously. Who wears sunglasses to class?”

“That's not what I meant. It's not usual for a twelve-year-old to have a god complex. But Lance would always say that god had a Derek Lance complex. We believe he stole the codes and was planning to sell them to Le Carré. You happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, Zeke. And now, even though you don't have the codes, you know about SirEebro.”

“And Operation Songbird,” I said.

Sparrow looked at me strangely. “Operation what?”

“Songbird. The agents—whoever they were—the Brooks Brothers guys who picked me up, they talked about an Operation Songbird that would go into effect in twenty-four hours. Wait, no, technically that was last night, so it would be in about,” I checked my watch, “twelve hours.”

Sparrow looked concerned. “That is very not good. What did they tell you about Operation Songbird?”

“That's, that's really it. I don't know anything else. I just want to go home and for my dad to be left alone.”

“That's not possible. You're in this, Zeke. The best we can hope for right now is to keep you and your father alive.”

“Best we can hope for?”

She looked at me. “We don't make promises.”

I sighed. What else could I have done? Sat back and let that boiling hulk ruin my life? I wasn't helpless. I'd gotten an
A
in physics and chemistry. Provided I didn't have to outmaneuver dodgeballs or avoid wedgies, I felt I had something to offer.

“We need to find out where the goons were taking me. Le Carré's headquarters. That's where we'll get to the bottom of Operation Songbird.”

“Agreed. But my ComLet is busted. I need to—”

I ripped the ComLet off of Sparrow's wrist.

“Hey!” she shouted. “Give that back!”

She reached for it. I pulled it away. I opened the battery pack and…
oof…
was not prepared as Sparrow planted the heel of her palm right into my stomach. The wind flew from my lungs faster than a hurled tree trunk.

I collapsed into a heap, wheezing.

“I was just…
cough…
trying…
wheeze
…to tell you…
hack…
I can fix it.”

Her eyes perked up. “Um, really?”

“Yes…
sputter
…have parts…
groan
…at my lab.”

“Your lab? What are we waiting for? Let's go!”

Clearly Sparrow wasn't big on apologies. Instead she picked me up, hurled me up on her shoulders like a log, and began to walk. Either she was as strong as an ox, or I needed to eat more meat.

I managed to squirm out of her grasp. “I can walk,” I said as my breath returned.

“Just trying to move us along. We don't have much time if those goons were right about Operation Songbird.”

“Where are you even going?”

“To the road,” she said evenly. “We're going to steal a car.”

Sparrow wasn't kidding.

The nearest road was about three miles away. It was a remote one-lane road, with trees on either side and nary a stoplight or stop sign in sight. Ten minutes passed between each car. We tried to hitchhike, but since it wasn't the 1960s nobody stopped for us.

“This is useless,” I said. “We'd be better off walking back.”

“We're about twenty miles from your neighborhood. If we walk, by the time we get back, Operation Songbird will already have gone into effect. Don't be stupid.”

“Yeah, SNURP didn't bother to make your oh-so-important, crummy spy bracelet waterproof. And you call me stupid.”

“Car!” Sparrow yelled. Approaching us was a beat-up blue station wagon, the kind of car that was worth more as scrap than as a vehicle. It sputtered and shook. I laughed.

“Feel bad for the poor schmo who…
oof
.”

Before I could get the next word out, Sparrow had pushed me into the middle of the road. The car screeched and stopped, smoke billowing from the exhaust. The driver's eyes went wide, and he screamed so loud I could see his tonsils vibrating.

The car came to a stop four feet from my nose.

Sparrow immediately ran over to the driver's side door. The man got out. He was wearing a mesh trucker cap. Ironic since his car had as much in common with a truck as I did. His eyes were bloodshot and his face was ripe with black stubble.

“I…I didn't see you there, kid. You okay?”

“Give me your address,” Sparrow said.

“Excuse me?”

“Your address. Give it to me.”

“What for?”

“Because we're stealing your car and I need to make sure you get reimbursed. I'd say this car is worth about five hundred dollars. We'll send you a thousand.”

“This was a setup? You ain't taking Bessie nowhere, you crazy bandits!”

“Your car has a name? So cliché. Fine. Two thousand. You complain any more, and I'll dislocate every finger on your right hand and then insult your mother.”

The driver looked at Sparrow as if she'd sprouted two heads.

“She'll do it,” I said. “She pushed me in front of your car.”

“Yeah. Right.” He took out his wallet and handed Sparrow a business card. “You'll really pay me for Bessie?”

“Darn right. We may be spies, but we're not thieves.”

She took the key from Bessie's owner, waited until he moved to the side of the road, then slipped behind the wheel.

“Come on, Zeke.”

“Are you crazy? You're, what, eleven?”

“Twelve. And you're a nerd, and here we are. Come on.”

Cautiously I opened the passenger door and got in. I buckled the seat belt, then looked around for Velcro, Krazy Glue, or anything else that could keep me attached to the seat.

“Hang on,” she said.

“To what?” I replied.

Sparrow didn't wait for an answer.

Within seconds, we were speeding down the road at approximately the same speed as the average space shuttle launch. Around the time we crossed into Mach 4 I realized Sparrow was hugging every curve, rounding every turn fluidly.

“Have you done this before?” I said.

“No. First time.”

“Really?”

“No.”

“You know, you don't
always
need to make fun of me.”

“Where's the fun in that?”

“You're a…jerkface.”

“Nice one.”

We made the twenty-mile drive in about ten minutes. Or thirty seconds. Either way, it was about ten times faster than we would have made it if my dad (aka Slowpoke McBadDriver) had been behind the wheel.

Soon I began to recognize my neighborhood. And just as soon as I did, I also began to recognize the thick plumes of black smoke gushing from under the car's hood.

“Uh, Sparrow. I think you pushed Bessie too hard.”

“She can take it.”

One minute later the smoke was followed by a bright, loud spark. And then Bessie caught on fire.

Sparrow slammed on the brakes. Thankfully my seat belt kept me in place. We leaped out of the car, just as tendrils of flame began to blacken the rusty blue paint.

“She was a good girl,” I said. “And went out in style.”

“Classy eulogy. Let's go. Do you know where we are?”

I looked around. The town swimming pool was just a few blocks away, and I recognized the old run-down movie theater that hadn't seen business since people called it pop instead of soda.

“There,” I said, pointing at the Brian Brooks Little League Field a few blocks away. It was a beautiful field, with lush green grass and dirt as pure as, well, dirt could be. Even though I wasn't much of an athlete, I would lie in the outfield during the off season to read, stare at the clouds, and wonder what people braver than me were doing at that very moment. Right now, though, I had no time for daydreaming.

“The baseball field? Your lab is on the baseball field?”

“Not on,” I said. “Under.”

I jogged over to the field and opened the gate to the ballpark. I inhaled deeply. I loved that smell. Sparrow followed, hesitant.

“Where are we going?”

“Just come on. I was out here a few years ago when I noticed that shed out in the distance,” I said. “I'd never seen anybody go in or out. It was just
there.
One day I got curious. It had an old rusty lock on it. I broke it off with an aluminum bat. And found this.”

On the door was a combination lock. I'd put it there. As far as I knew, nobody else had even tried to get in after me. It was hiding in plain sight.

I entered the combination, 5-2-8, May 28, the birthday of Ian Fleming, the man who created James Bond. I took off the lock and yanked open the creaky door.

“This is it?” she said.

“Sometimes you need to look closer,” I said. “Things can be more than they seem.”

Inside the shed was a water fountain. It was caked in grime and sludge. Next to it was a grate that measured about eighteen by twelve inches. That was it. Nothing else. Except the dime.

Inside the water dish on the fountain was a run-of-the-mill dime. I'd left it there the first time I found the shed, knowing what it was used for.

I took the dime and knelt down. One by one I inserted it into the small slot at the top of each of the four screws holding down the grate. A little elbow grease and the grate was free. I pulled it off the opening and gently placed it to the side of the fountain.

“Let's go.”

“Down there?” Sparrow said. She peered into the darkness, appearing hesitant. Strange for a girl who had just parachuted away from a damaged aircraft. My dad has a friend, Phil Bushwick, who served in the navy. Big, strong guy who looks like he wears his skin three sizes too small. Phil is afraid of frogs. I mean, once I brought a live frog home, and when he saw it, Phil, who was having a beer with my dad, fell over backward in his chair, cracked his head on the floor, and ended up in the hospital with a concussion. Maybe long, dark tunnels were Sparrow's frog.

“You can wait here,” I said. “I'll take the ComLet and go myself.”

This appeared to anger Sparrow. “I'd rather fall into a vat of boiling acid. Let's go, tunnel rat. You first.”

“No need to be so dramatic. Come on. “ I climbed into the grate opening.

There were old metal footholds on the side where sewage workers must have climbed up and down at one point. Step by step I made my way down the ladder into the damp, smelly darkness. I'd made this trip many times, often with backpacks full of stuff. I felt a slight surge of pride when I saw Sparrow daintily making her way down, pausing every few seconds to check below her. For the first time all day, I felt like the braver person.

“Careful,” I said, helping her the last few steps. A narrow stream of water flowed through the middle of the tunnel. The walls were slick rock, slimy, and the whole place smelled dank. There was barely any light. But I knew the way by heart. “Follow me.”

I led the way, Sparrow's shoes clacking on the rocks behind me. I'd memorized the path a long time ago. One hundred thirty-seven paces forward—to the T-junction. At the T-junction, we made a left. Forty-two paces to the next junction. From there we made a right.

“I hope you know what you're doing,” Sparrow whispered.

“Shh,” I said. “You'll make me lose focus and then we'll be lost.”

“Lost? Are you kidding? Where are we, Zeke?”

“Calm down. I'm kidding. I know exactly where we are. Geez, were you born in a dark tunnel or something?”

Sparrow didn't respond. I looked back. Something I'd said had clearly touched a nerve, because she was staring down at the rocks. Water whooshed between us. The mystery of Sparrow was deepening. I wanted to ask what the problem was, but if the goons were right, there wasn't much time before Operation Songbird—whatever it was—took effect.

At the latest junction, we took the roundabout until we came to a long, dark corridor. I remembered the very first time I'd come down here. It was three years earlier. Kyle had finished a little league game. He was pitching. At the time, he was only nine inches or so taller than everybody else. His blazing fastball made the other boys in our grade flail like they were swatting invisible flies. After the game, while the teams were shaking hands, one of the opposing kids tripped Kyle. He went down like a broken branch.

Everyone laughed at him. Even the kids on his own team. The kids he'd just helped win. I was in the stands with my dad. I felt awful watching it. Kyle lay there, embarrassed. Finally the kids all left. I told my dad I'd meet him at home. I went out to the pitcher's mound, where Kyle was sitting with his face in his glove. I told him he didn't need those jerks. He didn't say anything. We spent the afternoon talking. He said he wanted to play baseball in college, maybe the pros, but didn't think he could handle it if things were like this. He said he didn't want to be a geek forever. I told him that the kids who were geeks in school ended up the most successful people ever. Bill Gates was a geek. That guy who invented Facebook was a geek. George Lucas? Steven Spielberg? Mega-geeks. I told him he should be proud to be a geek—because we would inherit the earth. Or at least invent cool new software.

We walked around the outfield and eventually stumbled across the shed. Kyle said sometimes he wished he could crawl into a dark hole and disappear. That's when I took the dime out of my pocket and said, “Now's our chance.”

I unscrewed the grate, and the rest is history.

Eighty-four paces after the roundabout, Sparrow and I came to a door. It was barely visible in the gloom. Kyle and I had found the door by accident. It was the greatest discovery of our lives. Kyle had put a large Master Lock padlock on it. The combination was 9-29-14.

“Are you ready?” I asked.

“For what?” Sparrow replied. “More murk?”

I ignored the comment. I gripped the lock and entered the combination. It released. I removed it and put it in my pocket.

Then I gently pushed the door open. Sparrow's eyes opened wide.

“Whoa…this is…”

“The GeekDen,” I said. “The name is a work in progress.”

“Progress,” Sparrow said absently. “Right.”

She stepped into the GeekDen and took in her surroundings. I felt a faint burst of pride as she surveyed the cave Kyle and I had built over the last few years.

The walls were lined with dozens of shelves, each of which was piled high with circuitry, wiring, and various battery packs. A workbench at the far end held every kind of tool imaginable, all laid out as neatly as a surgeon's table. A bookshelf was piled high with manuals, glossaries, instruction books, and how-to videos. Blueprints were tacked to the walls, each design one of our own making.

There were screws, bolts, wires, tubes, cylinders, beakers, and everything a growing mad scientist could possibly want. It had taken Kyle and me weeks and weeks to gather everything, transporting it step by careful step down that dark hole and through the damp sewers. This GeekDen was everything I couldn't do out in the open. In here I was allowed to be myself. In here I wasn't Zeke Bartholomew, First-Class Nerdzilla. Here I was Zeke Bartholomew, Superspy.

I turned the ComLet over in my hands. It was a fantastic piece of equipment, something that would have been impossible to manufacture given my relatively meager access to these kind of high-tech materials. Still, despite its technological advances, the ComLet was assembled in a pretty primitive fashion. Aside from the lack of waterproofing, the circuitry was all wrong. It was too bulky, too heavy. If I had the resources Sparrow did, I could make the most kicking ComLet ever.

“Give me a minute,” I said. I took the ComLet over to the workbench. I unscrewed the battery chamber and pried open the circuitry board. The batteries were a little waterlogged and would need to be replaced. I didn't recognize the type of batteries it used—but I could work around that. The wiring was another matter.