Ends of the Earth (24 page)

Max lifted a hand in farewell at the sight of his father disappearing down the corridor. An unexpected pang gripped his heart. In all the brief time they had spent together, there had been far
too many good-byes.

“Now, let's get you tykes sorted out,” said Sergeant Yee, an amiable Asian man tall enough to be a first-string basketball player. “We'll need to contact your legal
guardians.”

“Those
are
our legal guardians,” Max and Cinnabar chimed in together.

“Oh,” said the sergeant. He blinked. “Well, er, we'll make sure they're present when you're questioned. Now off with you.”

Hard-faced cops escorted the five teens to an isolated holding cell with six crummy-looking cots and a toilet, clanging the door shut on them. The key turned, the constables left, and the junior
spies were alone with their thoughts.

Not very pleasant thoughts, to be sure.

Max slumped onto the cot and sank his head in his hands. This was it. Once the police learned that Merry Sunshine Orphanage didn't actually have a home anymore, they'd split up Max
and his friends and hand them over to social workers for placement with foster parents. Max too, since his father had been part of the group breaking into Parliament.

Or—worst case—now that they were all lawbreakers, the cops might dump the teens into juvenile hall.

And it was all his fault.

Max's stomach churned. He'd been too greedy. He'd wanted everything—a father
and
his orphanage friends
and
a career as a spy. This cell, this was where
greediness led. He should have known that orphans don't get happy endings.

“Fool,” he muttered.

“I couldn't agree more,” said Nikki.

Max couldn't even bring himself to trade insults with her.

His forehead resting against the bars, Wyatt stared at a scuffed patch of concrete floor. “I saw on TV that if they arrest you under the Terrorist Act, they can hold you for up to fourteen
days before even charging you.”

“
Now
who's a ray of sunshine?” said Cinnabar.

Wyatt lifted a shoulder. “I'm just saying….”

“We need to do something more productive here.”

Nikki sneered. “What, like carve our names into the wall?”

“No,” said Cinnabar. “Like figure out where LOTUS will make their move.”

“What's the point?” muttered Max, not lifting his eyes.

“The point,” said Cinnabar, her voice sharpening, “is that we're the only ones who can stop them. It's all up to us.”

Nikki snorted. “Then this country's in big trouble.”

“Enough, Nikki!” snapped Tremaine, coming to his feet. “She's right—we've gotta do
something
.”

“Hey, guys?” said Wyatt.

The redheaded girl lunged to standing, face flushed. “Don't act all boss man with me, Natty Dread. I happen to agree with her. It's only that we're, you know,
in
jail
.”

“Guys?” Wyatt tried again.

Tremaine's eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. “
Natty Dread?
You did
not
just call me Natty Dread. You think, 'cause I'm from Jamaica,
that—”

“Oi!”
yelled Wyatt. “Shut it!” The two of them broke off squabbling, and Wyatt blinked in surprise at his own shout. “Look, I think we're going about
this the wrong way.”

“How do you mean?” asked Cinnabar.

Wyatt ran his fingers through his unruly blond curls, scrubbing at his scalp as if to stimulate his thinking. “Well, we all assumed that, because LOTUS is after government ministers,
they'd strike at the Houses of Parliament.”

Sunk deep in his own misery, Max had mostly let the conversation wash over him. But at this, he raised his head. “But…Parliament's one of the most heavily guarded spots in the
country.”

“Exactly,” said Wyatt. He spread his hands. “Too much security. So what if LOTUS was never planning to meet there at all?”

“You mean…?” Cinnabar said.

“What if they want the ministers to come to
them
?”

Nikki frowned, drawn into it despite herself. “But how? What does a bleeding minister like?”

“A party?” said Tremaine.

“A fund-raiser?” said Max.

Cinnabar's mouth fell open and her golden eyes widened. “A circus.”

Everyone regarded her strangely. “Say what?” said Nikki.

“I saw an invitation in that MP's office,” said Cinnabar. “Cirque du…Something.”

Max jolted upright, galvanized. “Chat. Cirque du Chat—there was a poster in Mrs. Frost's office. And
chat
means—”

“‘Cat,' in French,” said Nikki. Now everyone stared at
her
strangely. “What? I've been to school, you know. Plonkers.”

Wyatt snapped his fingers. “Of course!” he cried. “That smell when we were leaving LOTUS HQ. It's not just the one tiger; it's the stink of the big cats'
cages. She must have a bunch of 'em.”

Tremaine raised an eyebrow. “Uh, and you know this how?”

“My gran worked in the circus,” said Wyatt. “They used to call me—”

“The Cat Whisperer,” said Max and Cinnabar together. “We know.”

Stroking his chin, Wyatt said, “But performing circuses are banned here….LOTUS must have gotten some kind of special dispensation. I wonder—”

“Brilliant,” said Nikki, with sarcasm thick enough to frost a wedding cake. “So you're Little Joey Cat Boy, and LOTUS is gonna brainwash all those pols in a circus
tonight. How does that help? As I pointed out earlier, we're in jail.”

Tremaine gripped the bars, gazing up at the surveillance camera in a corner of the room. “We could tell them. If only the cops knew that we broke into Parliament for good reason. We could
explain—”

“Waste of time.” Nikki snorted. “You think they'd care? All the fuzz care about is the law, and we broke it.”

“True enough,” said Cinnabar. “Then I guess that means we'll have to bust out.”

A long pause followed that remark. Tremaine smiled.

“Of here?” said Nikki. “Have you gone completely barking mad? I like breaking laws as much as the next girl, but that'd only land us in worse trouble than we're in
already.”

Cinnabar bristled. “I don't hear you coming up with any better ideas.”

The bigger girl growled and stared down at Cinn. But she didn't say anything. She truly didn't have any better ideas.

Max shifted back and forth. A fragile sense of hope made his limbs tingle. There
had
to be a way out. If he could only think…

“Did anyone manage to keep their lock picks?” asked Tremaine.

Nobody had.

“Any smoke bombs or flash grenades or experimental bang-bang chewing gum?” asked Wyatt.

None.

Cinnabar paced the confines of their cell, scanning high and low. Max could've saved her the trouble. The windows bristled with steel bars, and the only drain was about six inches across.
No great escapes happening there.

“We could try a…diversion,” she said. “Start a fight or something, and when the cops rush in, we knock them out and escape.”

This time Tremaine shook his head. “Cho! This isn't the movies, sister. These blokes have seen those tricks before.”

“Well, we can't just sit around waiting for our fairy godmother while LOTUS brainwashes half the government.” Cinnabar threw up her hands. “Think!”

Max raised a finger. “Fairy godmother?”

“Too bad you don't have one, Maxi-Pad,” Nikki sneered. “She could get you a date and cure your zits, both.”

A faint smile hovered around his lips. “Oh, but I do,” he said. “And aren't we allowed one phone call?”

One phone call, some extravagant promises, and an excruciating wait later, the fairy godmother arrived. And unlike most folktales, he arrived in the person of an eccentric
billionaire named Reginald Demetrius Elbow.

“This had better not be some kind of trick,” sniffed Mr. Elbow, standing outside their cell with a small army of lawyers and a pair of bodyguards straight out of a wrestling
promoter's dream. With his liquid brown eyes, goatee, and chiseled cheekbones, the billionaire resembled a Chinese Johnny Depp. If you squinted.

“No trick,” said Max. “You get us out of here, and we get you back the mind-control device.”

Max didn't bother mentioning that there were a few ifs involved.
If
Hantai Annie would agree to this deal he'd just made on S.P.I.E.S.'s behalf.
If
they could
actually arrive in time to stop LOTUS. And
if
the cops didn't impound the device afterward for evidence.

All these ifs were need-to-know only, and he figured that right now Mr. Elbow didn't really need to know.

With a wave of their fairy godfather's magic wand (and some Rottweiler-aggressive legal work), soon they were all—adults included—standing on the sidewalk outside the police
station. Max didn't ask how. All he knew was, it paid to know eccentric billionaires with friends in high places.

“
Yoku yatta
, Max-
kun
,” said Hantai Annie. “Well done.”

Simon Segredo clapped his son on the shoulder and left his hand there. Max didn't shrug it off.

“Genius move,” said Max's father. “You're a chip off the old block—off both old blocks. Your mum would be proud.”

At the praise, Max felt his face grow warm.

“Now remember, Mrs. Wong, the lot of you are on probation,” said Sergeant Yee, standing on the steps above them. “One misstep, one illegal activity, and
ffwit!
—back in the clink you go.”

“You can be certain, Sergeant,” said Mr. Elbow, “that if she and her team do not fulfill their promises, Mr. Elbow will lock their cell door himself.”

The tall sergeant stepped down and extended his hand. “Mr. Elbow, sir, it's been a real honor.”

The billionaire stared at the proffered palm as if it were a tarantula-and-rattlesnake sandwich.

“Mr. Elbow don't shake,” said one of the bodyguards.

“Right, then,” said Sergeant Yee. He executed a flawless salute. “A real honor,” he repeated, then pivoted and marched back into the building.

The billionaire let his imperious stare roam over the S.P.I.E.S. team, stopping at Hantai Annie. “Well? Where's my device?”

“First,” said the spymaster, “we must learn location of circus.”

“Is that all?” Mr. Elbow snapped his fingers, demanding his cell phone. In a few moments, he'd reached someone. “Jack? It's Mr. Elbow. Fine, thanks. Listen,
where's that cat circus happening tonight? Right, right. Ta, Jack. Best to the missus.”

“Who's Jack?” Max whispered to his father.

“The prime minister,” said the billionaire, overhearing him. He turned to Hantai Annie and told her the name of the park where the circus was being held.

Simon rubbed his jaw. “But that's easily a half hour away by car, and the show starts in fifteen minutes.”

Mr. Elbow smiled a patronizing smile. And just like that, the air filled with the
whup-whup-whup
of a large passenger helicopter, which whirred over a nearby building and landed smack
in the center of the traffic roundabout. Drivers swerved, honked, and swore.

“You were saying?” said the billionaire. He strode toward the chopper, bodyguards in tow.

“Wow,” murmured Wyatt. “I wonder if he wants to adopt any orphans?”

SEEN FROM ABOVE,
the park was a diamond of darkness adrift in a sea of city lights. The helicopter's spotlight picked out stretches of trees and
lawn, the sudden sparkle of a small rowing lake.

But the spotlight was unnecessary. At one end of the park, lit up like the prime pastry in a bakeshop window was an enormous red-and-yellow tent.

The big top.

The pilot landed his chopper on a vacant stretch of lawn, and as the S.P.I.E.S. crew disembarked, two really fit women with gear bags came trotting up, courtesy of Mr. Elbow. One woman passed
Max his jet pack, which he greeted with a cry of “Come to Papa!”

Cinnabar peered around Mr. Stones's shoulder as he unzipped one of the bags. It held smoke bombs, a variety of tools, and a pair of very serious-looking pistols.

“Lookie lookie, cupcake,” Stones shouted over the roar of the rotors. “Just what the doctor ordered.”

Giving the group a thumbs-up, Mr. Elbow leaned back in his seat with a cold beverage. Clearly, he planned on getting nowhere near the action.

Everyone crowded around for their equipment, and Hantai Annie had to take one of the pistols away from Nikki. Cinnabar blew out a sigh of relief. Nikki and firearms was a seriously bad
combination.

The spymaster led her little group away to the cover of some trees, where they could hear one another better. She gestured at them to form a huddle.