Behind Enemy Lines (5 page)

“Oh, good,” Sera said. “That clarifies everything.”

“You’ve made a mistake,” Riq said, then chuckled. “What’s an M-man? A mailman? Marshmallow man?”

Sera nodded, and with a snort of laughter, added, “Maybe it’s the Muffin Man.”

But Dak only shook his head. “Here’s a tip for telling jokes, dudes. They’re always better if they’re funny.” Then he stood and stuffed the SQuare into his pants. “The M-man is real, and it’s the key to the Allies winning this war. C’mon, we’ve got work to do!”

D
AK WASN’T
sure where he was going, only that he had so many ideas turning in his head that he needed to move, just to keep things flowing. Riq and Sera were on either side of him, and as they walked, he tried to explain the code.

“Hitler’s first name, Adolf, means
wolf
. He used to call himself that sometimes, like a nickname.”

“Charming,” Sera muttered.

“And we have to help a dead guy swim to him?” Riq asked. “Because I’m not going near any dead bodies.”

“Well, I’m not going anywhere near Adolf Hitler!” Sera said.

Dak stopped and turned to Riq. “When you were inside the Admiralty this week, did anyone ever talk about Room 13?”

“No, but Duncan mentioned it during the bombing, so I found it, but I’m not allowed to go inside. Why? What’s in that room?”

“I sort of hoped that by now, you could tell me,” Dak said.

“What?” Riq asked. “So, you don’t know everything?”

Sera interrupted them. “Oh, for the love of mincemeat!”

Dak slapped a hand to his forehead as ideas moved like pinballs inside his brain. “ ‘For the love of mincemeat’ — exactly. You’re always saying that, Sera.”

She followed behind him as he started walking again. “I only say it when you two are fighting.”

Dak grinned. “Like I said, you’re
always
saying it. Anyway, I connected that with the word
Trout
in the code. M-man is Mincemeat Man. Mincemeat is a code of its own.”

“Like mincemeat pie?” Riq asked.

“It’s a code, not a dessert. I mean
mincemeat
as in slang for a dead man. You know, kaput, kicked the bucket, cashed out, toast. If you’re dead, you’re mincemeat.”

“And some dead guy is going to save the war?” Sera asked.

“That was the plan,” Dak said. “But in the history I learned, the plan didn’t work. In fact, it backfired in the worst possible way. The Allies never recovered.”

“Mincemeat!” Riq shouted. “Yes!”

“Could you say that louder?” Dak said. “The only way for everyone to know you’re a spy is if you SHOUT OUT YOUR PLANS!”

Riq glared at Dak, then lowered his voice and said, “Mincemeat — I’ve heard some people whispering about that. They got the body of a dead homeless person and dressed him up to look like a British officer. They call him Major Martin.”

“That’s him!” Dak stopped walking, this time because he realized he had no idea where he was going. Then he turned around to Riq. “The Allies are going to plant fake information about their next invasion on Major Martin. They want the Germans to discover it and believe what they’re reading. But that’s where they run into problems.”

“What problems?” Sera asked. “The plan seems simple enough.”

“To win this war, the Allies have to invade Sicily, right?” Dak’s thoughts were still racing, but he tried to say everything slowly so he wouldn’t have to explain it a second time. Or a tenth time, in Riq’s case. “So their fake information has to do two things: First, it has to convince the Germans that the Allies are
not
going to Sicily.”

“Even though they are,” Riq said.

Dak nodded. “Right. But the Germans are going to see the Allies preparing for an invasion, so they have to make them think their target is actually somewhere else.”

“Greece!” Riq said. “I heard people talking about Greece.”

“I get it!” Sera said. “So the Allies want Germany to think they’re invading someplace they’re not,
and
that they’re not invading somewhere they are.”

“Yeah,” Dak said. “Way to clarify that. Nice job.”

“I still don’t understand the problem,” Riq said.

“In the history we learned, Hitler did get Major Martin’s fake papers, but he never believed them. If Germany knows the story about invading Greece is a lie —”

“Then they know the story about
not
invading Sicily is a lie, too —” Sera said.

“So instead of tricking Germany, Mincemeat Man told them exactly where the Allies were going to attack!” Riq finished.

Dak folded his arms, satisfied with himself. “In our history — the wrong, SQ-twisted history — Sicily was a disaster for the Allies. The Nazis were ready for us, and we never recovered. The only way to fix things is to make sure the wolf — Adolf Hitler — believes Major Martin is a real British soldier carrying real plans for the invasion of Greece.”

“How do we do that?” Sera asked.

Dak eyed Riq. “For a start, you have to get us inside Room 13.”

R
IQ SIGHED.
Dak had asked to get inside Room 13 as if that were something simple. As if they could just walk into the Admiralty, open the door, and peek at some of the most top secret plans of World War II. Sure, anyone could do that!

Then Sera pointed out that this was exactly the kind of thing they had to do in order to influence the war from behind the scenes. Easy for her to say. Two kids who were caught sneaking around would just get kicked out of the building. But Riq was older than they were, and he had a job there that involved sensitive matters of national security. If he was caught, could they put him in military prison? Could he be tried as a traitor?

It wasn’t a pleasant thought, but Riq knew that Dak was right. They had to get into that room!

It took Riq most of the afternoon to wander the corridors of the Admiralty and its connecting buildings until he found an old, unguarded room in the basement with a window large enough for Dak and Sera to squeeze through. It was a good thing that
he
didn’t have to come and go this way, but they were a little shorter and should be able to fit.

That was where he waited for them that night. What had started as a drizzle an hour before had turned into a heavy downpour. At any other time, that would’ve been a problem, but tonight, it was very good news. The rain would help camouflage Dak and Sera from the soldiers who patrolled the area, and hopefully lower the soldiers’ guards a bit. Even so, he breathed a huge sigh of relief when the secret tap they’d devised came to the windowpane.

Riq inched the window open, which took more effort than he had expected. Who knew how many months or years — or decades — had passed since it was last opened?

A soaked Sera crawled through first, then Dak followed. They dripped on the floor so much it was as if they had brought the rainstorm inside with them.

“Next time, I’ll stay in the warm building while you sneak through the rain,” Dak told Riq through chattering teeth.

Riq had a nice response ready, but decided to save it for later. At least until Dak looked less like a wet puppy.

He started to close the window, but Sera said, “We should leave it open, in case we need to make a quick escape.”

“Good idea.” Riq frowned at the water now puddled on the floor, but decided it would dry long before anyone happened upon it. “Let’s get this done.”

He opened the door to the hallway, and then froze, certain he had heard a shuffle in the bushes outside the window.

Dak looked out, but only shrugged his shoulders. “Nobody except us is crazy enough to be out on a night like this. Must be the wind.”

“C’mon, then.” Riq led them into a narrow and dark hallway with low ceilings and worn paint. Outside, the rain seemed to have picked up speed. The pelter of drops echoed through the hallway, which masked any sound they might make, but it also made Riq nervous. It concealed any sound from an oncoming guard on his rounds, too.

Room 13 was marked clearly, but for a place that held such powerful secrets, it didn’t seem to be anything special. Maybe that was the idea. If a German spy got in here, the last place he’d think to look for top secret plans was behind an ordinary door in a narrow basement.

Dak stepped forward and tried the door handle. “It’s locked.”

Sera shoved a hand in her pocket and pulled out some slim pieces of metal. “No worries. I’ve gotten pretty good at picking locks by now.”

“Excellent,” Riq said.

Sera went down on her knees and stuck the metal pieces inside the handle. While she did, Riq explained to Dak how the few men and women who worked inside this room mostly kept to themselves and seemed very serious about their jobs. “But they’re still just regular people,” he whispered. “Everyday people trying to stop a really bad guy.”

“Real spies don’t have all the cool gadgets you see in the movies,” Dak said, watching Sera struggle with the lock. “Though I sure wish we had a sonic screwdriver right about now.”

Riq wasn’t sure he got the reference, but he raised an eyebrow knowingly.

Sera continued fiddling for several minutes, all the time muttering to herself about the feel of the tumblers. Riq and Dak huddled in close to watch, and neither of them moved when she told them to back off.

“I can’t . . .” she said. “This won’t . . .” And then, halfway through a sentence that began “We’ll never —” her eyes lit up and she exclaimed, “That did it!”

The lock clicked. Sera rotated it and pushed. “Let’s go in,” she whispered.

“Why don’t we all go inside?” someone behind them said in an English accent.

All three kids turned, and sighed in unison. A tall man with wavy brown hair, prominent cheekbones, and bushy eyebrows was motioning them inside Room 13.

Once inside, he turned on the lights, then shut and locked the door behind him. Sera stood between the two boys, holding each of their hands. Or rather, locking their hands in a death grip. Riq would’ve pulled away, just to preserve some blood flow in his fingers, but Sera looked like she needed his support.

Okay, he was scared, too.

“Who are you?” Dak asked.

“Call me Anton.” Then he chuckled. “I’ve always wanted to get inside the Admiralty, but I never thought three kids would make it so easy for me.”

“So you’re a spy?” Sera asked.

“I suppose you could say that.” His eyes rested on Sera’s sack, the one with the Infinity Ring inside, and Riq leaned closer to her to block Anton’s view of it. Anton continued, “But I do not work for Britain or for Germany. They’re too caught up in their war to see the bigger things happening in this world.”

Riq jutted out his chin. “We don’t care whose side you’re on. We’re not here to fight. We don’t have anything to do with this war.”

Anton’s smile only widened. “Maybe not
this
war. But our war is even bigger, eh, time travelers?” He chuckled again. “That’s right. We know what you look like now. There is no safe place for you in this era.”

Riq’s heart sank, and Sera squeezed his hand tighter, if that was possible. He cut a glance toward Dak and saw that the younger boy’s eyes were fixed on some papers on a nearby desk. Riq suppressed a groan. Even if the secrets of the universe were on those papers, it wasn’t the best time for Dak to be distracted.

“Do you have kids, Anton?” Sera asked.

The man looked her way. “What?”

Sera shrugged. “You’re wearing a wedding band, and it’s tarnished, so I bet you’ve been married a long time. Do you and your wife have any kids?”

“They live very happily here in London. Why? What’s it to you?”

“It’s nothing to me. Your kids are going to be fine,” Sera said. “Because the SQ does win here. Big congratulations for that, by the way. You’re about to get a lot of power and control, and pretty soon your children will have everything they want. But their children are going to have a lot to worry about. And your great-grandchildren — the ones who’ll be around in the time we come from — they won’t do so well at all.”

“Why not?”

Sera continued. “The SQ is going to destroy the world — literally destroy it. I’ve been there. I’ve seen it for myself. If you don’t let us go free, your grandchildren will face one disaster after another and your great-grandchildren will not survive to adulthood.”

Anton’s eyes darted from one kid to the other. “You’re lying.”

Riq shook his head. “You’re a Time Warden, so we know what your orders are. But we are the last hope for your family. What you choose to do right now can either save them, or destroy them.”

Anton hesitated for a moment, and then frowned. “You’re lying. The SQ will
save
this world. In time we will control everything and everyone, and then there will be no more war or starvation or catastrophe. The woman in red has promised it.”

Dak snorted, then went back to reading the paper.

Anton looked offended that his speech had failed to impress any of them. He stepped closer to Dak to get his attention. “I’m deciding whether to kill you and your friends. You might at least listen to me.”

“Huh?” Dak looked up. “Sorry, I know you’re under orders, but . . . wow.” And his voice trailed off again as his focus wandered back to the papers.

Anton withdrew a pocketknife from his pants and opened the blade. “Tell you what. You all come with me, nice and quiet, and I’ll take you back to Tilda. She’ll know what to do with you.”

“Hold on,” Dak said. “I’ll be finished in a minute.”

“You’ll come with me now!” Anton advanced with the blade angled toward Dak. “Or else.”

“You wouldn’t be threatening me if you knew how brilliant this plan is,” Dak said. “But it’s already in motion.”

“What is?” Getting no response, Anton strode over to Dak and shoved him aside to look at the papers for himself. When he did, Dak picked up the heavy telephone from the desk and swung it at Anton’s head. The man tumbled to the ground, unconscious.

“That was a great idea!” Sera said. “Getting him to look at the papers so you could attack him.”

“That wasn’t my plan,” Dak said. “I really was reading the papers. I only thought of the telephone after he pushed me.”

“So, what’s on them?” Riq asked.

“We’re almost out of time. They’ve already set sail with Major Martin’s body, which means it’ll wash up on the shores of Spain any day now.”

“Why Spain?” Sera asked. “Why not send him directly to Italy or Germany?”

“That would be too obvious,” Riq said.

“Spain is the perfect choice,” Dak said. “Officially, they’re a neutral country in the war. But unofficially, a lot of people in the Spanish government are on Germany’s side.”

“So we have to hope the people who get Martin’s body support Germany and slip them the phony plans,” Sera said.

“I think I know what we need to do about Mincemeat Man,” Dak said, “but we’re going to have to split up.”

Behind them, Anton began to stir. “Tell us about it later,” Riq said. “Let’s drag this guy away from the top secret intelligence and dump him in some bushes before he wakes up!”