Ends of the Earth (25 page)

“Minna, yoku kike,”
said Annie. “Listen up. This is our most important mission ever.”

Cinnabar felt a little shiver dance along her spine. And she didn't think it was due to the chilly wind off the lake.

“LOTUS has more resources,” said the spymaster. “More manpower. Odds are against us, but we have one big advantage.”

“Surprise?” guessed Max.

Hantai Annie held a fist to her heart. “Goodness. No matter what we face, we fight for justice.”

“Yer bloody well right,” said Stones, eyeing the circle of faces with a half-crazed grin. “And there's no one I'd rather face impossible odds with than this bunch
of plonkers.”

Simon Segredo nodded. “I've only been with you all a short while, but you've taught me so much about family.”

“That it can be a real pain in the bum?” said Wyatt, to laughter.

“And a true inspiration,” said Mr. Segredo. “It's an honor to take on this mission with you.” At that, Max beamed.

A warm rush spread through Cinnabar's chest. She squeezed Max's shoulder on one side, Wyatt's on the other. These (and her sister, Jazz, of course) were her family, her people.
With them, she could face anything.

“How do we do this?” she asked.

Hantai Annie guided them closer to the big top. At this distance, it glowed like a huge Japanese lantern, trailing long strings of lights to the ground on every side. The lights also served to
illuminate a number of agents in dark suits or silver-and-black spandex, standing at regular intervals around the perimeter.

“They are night-blind,” whispered the spymaster. “Too close to lights.”

“What a shame,” said Mr. Segredo, with a rakish grin. “Then they won't know what hit them.”

Annie gave instructions, dividing her crew into three teams—Tremaine and Nikki for distraction, and the rest split into two units that would infiltrate the tent from either side.

“But how do we get in?” Wyatt asked.

Mr. Stones slid a razor-edged knife from its sheath and whipped it around like a ninja. “Don't worry, sunshine,” he said. “Love will find a way.”

A roar went up from inside the tent. A flourish of trumpets.

The show had begun.

Cinnabar took her position behind some bushes, beyond the nimbus of light cast by the tent. With her waited Mr. Segredo and Max. At the signal, Tremaine bopped along the lit pathway to the big
top, earbuds in place, as if he were rocking out to his own private sound track.

Two beefy LOTUS agents left their posts by the entrance and swaggered toward him. Just before they arrived, Tremaine whipped out a flashbang and tossed it at their feet, simultaneously leaping
aside.

Foomf!
The explosion rocked the spies, tossing them backward onto the lawn like discarded dolls, temporarily blinded and deafened. The concussion overlapped with another roar from the
crowd in the tent.

Cinnabar chewed her lip. What was happening inside? Would they make it in time?

Spotting the flashbang explosion, the nearest LOTUS agent spoke some quick words into her sleeve and hustled forward, weapon at the ready.

Pow!
From out of the darkness, the blast of Nikki's paintball gun took the agent down—not with paint, but with a concentrated ball of pepper-spray gunk. As two more spies
rounded the far corner of the big top, Tremaine lobbed a teargas grenade. Then he and Nikki faded back into the trees, luring the other LOTUS agents away.

“Now!” said Mr. Segredo.

He, Max, and Cinnabar ran full speed for the tent. With his long blade, Mr. Segredo hacked a V in the canvas, and he and Max dove through it, tucking and rolling to their feet in unison.
Cinnabar plunged after them, into a bewildering world of noise and lights and smells. Popcorn, hay, and that funky cat stink from LOTUS HQ assaulted Cinnabar's nose. She blinked, eyes
adjusting to the brightness.

The trio found themselves behind rows of theater seats mounted on bleachers. Although she couldn't see the action in the center of the big top, Cinnabar noticed the myriad of twinkling
fairy lights, the multicolored lasers arcing back and forth, and the red-and-yellow tint cast upon all the people inside.

Some kind of strange circus-y hip-hop blared through the speakers, only to be overpowered by an amplified voice.

“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, honored ministers,” said Mrs. Frost from some unseen location. “But that is merely a taste of what's to come. Behold, the Lions'
Leap!”

The crack of a whip. The blast of trumpets.

Cinnabar, Max, and his father crept into an aisle between bleacher sections, and now they could see what fascinated the audience of posh men and women, power brokers all.

The broad center ring was surrounded by what must have been more than twenty big cats. On individual golden stands, lions, tigers, leopards, and black panthers sat obediently, eyes glowing in
the reddish light like hot coals. Seven women in black-and-silver spandex wheeled in an odd metal structure with a number of platforms set in a circle.

Another whipcrack, and a shouted command from the ringmaster, a diminutive figure in top hat, red tailcoat, and black boots. She half turned, and Cinnabar recognized the grandmotherly woman.

“Frost,” hissed Mr. Segredo. “She always did like to crack the whip.”

At Mrs. Frost's command, two lions, a tiger, and a leopard left their stands and slunk forward, climbing onto the platforms in the center ring. Cinnabar sucked in her breath, awed by the
graceful strength of their movements. As often as you see big cats on TV, she thought, you never get just how powerful and truly
big
they are.

Mrs. Frost gestured to her helpers, and now the platforms began to raise the four predators into the air as the structure revealed its nature. It was an irregular series of circular stands, with
long vertical gaps between them, and it extended from the ground to the very top of the tent, at least a hundred feet above.

When the lifts stopped, the big cats poked their heads over the edge and snarled at the crowd far below.

“They're going to jump to those little stands?” said Max. “One miss, and splat goes the cat.”

“Watch for the mind-control device,” said Mr. Segredo. “All this circus stuff is merely a distraction.”

“Oh, right,” said Cinnabar, who'd gotten completely caught up in the pageantry. She lowered her gaze to find that several LOTUS agents had discovered their presence and were
sprinting down the aisle. “Look out!” she cried.

“I'll hold them off,” said Max's father.

The two forward agents skipped, turned their skips into front handsprings, and came flipping toward Mr. Segredo like a pair of evil acrobats. He pulled something from his pouch that resembled a
mass of cord with three black rubber balls attached, whirled it once, twice, three times around his head, and let go.

Spinning through the air, the contraption wrapped around the lead spy's face like an attack octopus. The balls struck him several sharp blows. He collapsed, and with a few punches and
kicks, Mr. Segredo made short work of the second acrobat.

From behind the downed agents, Ebelskeever loomed, roaring, “I've got you, Segredo!”

“You most certainly do,” said Max's father. He clenched his fists and waded into battle with a savage grin.

Max caught Cinnabar's arm. “Come on!” he cried, dodging back behind the bleachers. “Let's find the invention.”

They raced around the perimeter, eyes peeled for other LOTUS agents and the distinctive blue cube of the mind-control device.

“You know what I've been wondering?” Cinnabar half shouted over the crowd's oohs and aahs.

“What?” said Max.

“How she's going to brainwash all these people. I mean, that headset only fits over one head at a time, right?”

“Right.”

“So, are they brainwashing the ministers one by one while everyone's distracted, or what?” she asked.

Max's perplexed expression changed to one of alarm as he spotted something. “Watch out!”

He grabbed the support pole on the rear corner of the bleachers, kicked off, and swung his body around horizontally.
Whump!
His feet struck a spandex-clad LOTUS agent squarely in the
chest. The spy stumbled backward across the aisle, smacking his head on the next set of bleachers.

As he sagged to the ground, Cinnabar rushed forward and zapped him with her Taser. The man twitched and lay still, out cold.

Retrieving the jet pack that had fallen off during his attack, Max slipped his arms back into the straps.

“Really?” said Cinnabar. “After all the trouble it's given you, you still want to use that?”

One side of his mouth turned up in a smirk. “A spy's gotta have his gadgets.”

Cinnabar couldn't argue with that. Boys and their toys.

A deafening round of applause signaled the end of the Lions' Leap performance. Cinnabar felt almost disappointed that she'd missed it. After all, an orphan girl didn't get out
to the circus that often. (Try never.)

But she and Max had more than enough to occupy their attention. Down the next corridor they passed, Cinnabar glimpsed the center ring. The predators had returned to their regular platforms, and
Mrs. Frost stood beside the tall structure holding something new. Something familiar.

“There it is!” cried Cinnabar, clutching Max's sleeve.

And sure enough, the ringmaster now grasped the cobalt-blue cube of the mind-control device in one hand. With the other, she brought the microphone to her lips. “And now, for our final
act, the one I like to call…the Big Payback. Because when you damage one's livelihood and deny her the honors she deserves, there is always
payback
.” Even from this
distance, her storm-gray eyes were eerie and electric.

The audience murmured in confusion as Mrs. Frost set down her mike and adjusted the dials. Cinnabar got a queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“What's she up to?” said Max.

“I don't know,” said Cinnabar, “but we've got to stop it.”

They sped down the aisle, heading for the center ring. On the opposite side, Cinnabar spied Hantai Annie Wong and Wyatt running to help. But they would all be too late.

Mrs. Frost pressed one last button, and spoke two simple words.

“Ready…”

All at once, the lions, tigers, leopards, and panthers shifted on their platforms to face the audience.

“Killll!”
shrieked the evil ringmaster.

And the big cats pounced.

UTTER PANDEMONIUM
. The government ministers screamed and scrambled up the bleachers, trying to escape the onrushing predators. Men trampled women;
women shoved men. Dignity forgotten, every audience member at once attempted to go up or out. But steel bars now blocked the entrances, and the bleachers only stretched so high.

Nowhere in that tent was safe.

And through it all, the creepy hip-hop circus tune kept grinding on.

As he sprinted toward the center ring, Wyatt gaped at the insane simplicity of Mrs. Frost's plan. She didn't want to control the government, she wanted to destroy it. And she
hadn't brainwashed the ministers.

She'd brainwashed the big cats. Somehow LOTUS had modified the device to work on all of them.

Wyatt screwed up his face. A surge of pity swelled in his heart for those magnificent animals.

Ahead of him, Hantai Annie dashed into the center ring, intending to snatch the blue cube, but Mrs. Frost saw her coming. The LOTUS chief lashed her whip to drive Annie back, and then hopped
onto a platform, tossing the weapon aside. With the flip of a switch, her stand began to rise.

“You can't stop them, not even with the device,” the ringmaster cried. “Only I can—
unh!
”

Hantai Annie had taken a kung fu leap, catching the edge of the platform with one arm and Mrs. Frost's ankle with the other. The older woman toppled, but managed to keep both the invention
and her place on the stand.

She kicked savagely at Annie's face, still rising.

Hearing a fresh round of screams in the bleachers, Wyatt tore his eyes away from the fight. Maybe he couldn't help his spymaster. But he could help all those doomed ministers.

His eye fell on the microphone, lying abandoned on the sawdust in the center ring. In three long strides, he grasped it.

“Rrroar,” he said into the mike.
Wow
. His amplified voice sounded so loud, so weird, that Wyatt immediately choked up in embarrassment. He shrank. Who was he to be the
loudest person, the tallest poppy, the voice of authority?

“Help! Somebody help!” cried a tall, regal-looking woman. A white tiger had caught a corner of her long evening gown in its jaws, and she was whacking at the creature with her purse.
Wyatt knew, as soon as the tiger finished playing with her, it would gobble the woman up.

Somebody had to do something. And that somebody, like it or not, was him.