Ends of the Earth (5 page)

Tully raised a quizzical eyebrow, so Wyatt clarified: “Good as new. And I doubled your processing speed while I was at it.”

As he and Cinnabar tucked into their sausage, eggs, and beans with a vengeance, the info broker tested her computer and pronounced herself satisfied.

“We have a deal,” she said. “First, I'll tell you what little I know of your team. Victor Vazquez and two or three of your fellow students were spotted yesterday in
Chinatown.”

“That's a relief,” said Wyatt, speaking around a mouthful of sausage. “But what about Hantai Annie?”

The woman shook her head. “Missing.”

Silence fell in the information broker's lair as they absorbed the news. Cinnabar was absolutely still. The food caught in Wyatt's throat, and his heartbeat felt sluggish. If all
were well, surely Annie would have resurfaced by now?

“And the ones who stayed behind at Merry Sunshine?” asked Cinnabar after a pause. “Any word of them?”

Wyatt knew that Cinnabar's sister, Jazz, was among that crew. When Tully shook her head, Cinnabar chewed a fingernail. Wyatt felt for her. Not having had brothers or sisters, he
couldn't imagine what it was like to miss one, but he knew how much he missed his mate Max.

“And now,” said Tully briskly, “for the second part of our trade.” With a few clicks of the keys, she pulled up a computer file. “One of my sources in the Records
Department sent this along late last night.”

“What is it?” Cinnabar asked, craning her neck to see.

Tully scanned the document. “Apparently, a Mrs. Helen Frost has taken out a petition to adopt a certain Max Segredo.”

“Adopt?”
spluttered Wyatt, sending sausage bits spraying like a food machine gun.

“But she can't!” cried Cinnabar. “His dad is still alive.”

“Apparently it's possible—if the parents can't be found or if the child would be at risk.” Tully waved an elegant, plum-nailed hand at the screen. “At any
rate, it hasn't been submitted yet, merely initiated.”

“But Max would never—he couldn't. I mean…” Wyatt said.

Cinnabar set her plate aside. “Come on, Wyatt. We're going.”

“What? Where?”

“To find him,” she said. “Now.”

Wyatt frowned, a bite of egg frozen halfway to his mouth. “But Tully said she doesn't know where Max is.”

“Not Max, you cabbage head.
Simon
.” Cinnabar stood. “Tully, where's Simon Segredo?”

The information broker lifted a shoulder. “Somewhere in the city, is all I've heard. And that's all you get from me today.”

“Thank you,” said Cinnabar. “For everything.” She snatched Wyatt's plate off his lap, set it atop her own half-finished meal, and tugged him to his feet.
“Move it, slow coach.”

“But—” Wyatt snagged one last sausage from his plate as she propelled him toward the curtain.

“Adieu, Wyatt Jackaroo,” said Tully with a little finger wave. “If you ever need a job, come look me up.”

And that was the last he saw of the information broker, as Cinnabar hustled him through the doorway and out onto the street.

“What's the rush?” he said. “We don't know where Simon is any more than we know where Max is.”

Her golden eyes blazed and her fingers dug into his arm. “What's the
rush
? If we don't find Max soon, that old witch will have captured him the legal way, fair and
square. We'll never see him again.
Ever
. Do you want that?”

“'Course not,” said Wyatt. “But I don't see how finding Simon Segredo will help.”

Cinnabar stopped on the sidewalk and gaped at him. “Duh. The only person who would hate the idea of Max being adopted even more than we do? And Mr. Segredo's a trained agent. If
anyone can help us find Max in time, it's him.”

They began walking again, edging around a pair of overflowing trash bins at the mouth of an alleyway.

“But you don't trust Max's dad,” said Wyatt.

“That doesn't matter now,” said Cinnabar. “What matters is stopping Mrs. Frost.”

“Excuse me, please,” came a voice from behind them. The Pakistani man from the coffee shop stood there with a politely perplexed expression on his face. “Do either of you have
the time?”

Up close, Hatchet Face was broad-shouldered and solid, built like the back half of an earthmover. He loomed over them.

Cinnabar took a step back. “Not me.”

Out of habit, Wyatt patted the pocket where he usually kept his cell phone, then remembered he'd left it behind when they fled the safe house. “Sorry, mate,” he said.

Suddenly a heavy blackjack appeared in Hatchet Face's hand, shielded from the street by his body. “In that case, you will please come with me.”

“No, wait—I can guess the time,” Wyatt blurted.

He stumbled back a step and glanced around for help. The road was empty. They stood just inside the alley's mouth, with the spy partly blocking them from the sidewalk. Another man,
gaunt-cheeked and dead-eyed, emerged from the shadows deeper in the alley. Unhurriedly, he strolled toward them.

“Help us!” cried Cinnabar.

The gaunt man's smile didn't reach his eyes. “That's what I'm doing, pretty girl.”

Cinnabar flinched.

“Come along quietly, or I'll be forced to hurt one of you,” Hatchet Face said.

“Bugger that,” said Wyatt, and he screamed, “Help! Somebody, help!” at the top of his lungs.

The spy spat a curse and advanced on him.

Cinnabar aimed a snap kick at the hand holding the blackjack. Hatchet Face moved at the last second, and the blow glanced off his forearm.

“You'll pay for that, girl!” the man snarled.

Hatchet Face still gripped the lead-weighted weapon, and now he swung viciously at Cinnabar's head, driving her back. She stumbled against one of the bins and went down.

As Hatchet Face pursued Cinnabar, Wyatt whirled to face Dead Eyes, who was stalking him, wielding a wicked-looking knife. Before the man could grab him, Wyatt kicked out at his bony knee. Jackie
Chan he wasn't, but he managed to connect with a calf.

Dead Eyes didn't make a sound. He bared his teeth, recovered, and executed a spinning back kick that made Wyatt feel like a woolly mammoth had stomped his chest. He fell to the rough
concrete, dazed.

The LOTUS agent stood over him, brandishing the weapon. “When you have a knife, people are supposed to listen to you,” he groused, half to himself. “What's wrong with
kids today?”

“Poor role models, I presume,” said a new voice, like steel wrapped in velvet.

Wyatt blinked.

A third man—tall, lean, and immaculately dressed—now stood behind Dead Eyes. Past him, Hatchet Face lay slumped, unconscious, against a trash bin. Before Dead Eyes could react, the
newcomer had karate-chopped his neck and wrenched his knife hand behind his back, causing him to drop the weapon.

As the LOTUS agent struggled, the tall man calmly drew a yellow-and-black Taser from his trench-coat pocket and zapped him at point-blank range. The man sank to the ground, twitching like a
landed flounder.

“I—uh, oh. Wow,” said Wyatt.

“You're welcome,” said Simon Segredo.

IF ANY ROOM
in the LOTUS mansion was likely to contain valuable secrets, like the location of Max's friends, it was the comfortable study that
served as Mrs. Frost's office. As far as Max could tell, there were only two problems with accessing those secrets: one, finding a time when the LOTUS chief would be away from her office; and
two, breaking into the blasted place.

During his brief time at the mansion, Max had wandered every hall, every open room, checking the security measures as inconspicuously as possible. The office presented a challenge. Two cameras
covered the hallway outside it, and the door boasted a biometric, keypad-controlled lock. Plus, three guards randomly patrolled the house at all hours, so you never knew when they might come down
that corridor.

The ceilings were solid, so you couldn't break in from above, the windows were barred, and the heating vents were too narrow to accommodate a person, even one as slim as Max. Not so much
as a cockroach could sneak in undetected.

No, as far as Max could tell, the office security had only one weak link: the bathroom. A chance remark from the butler, Leathers, had revealed that the study shared a bathroom with the
neighboring second-floor room.

Vespa's bedroom.

Now the only problem was how to sneak through the bedroom of someone he hated, in order to break into the office of someone he despised. Yep, life here at LOTUS was all just unicorns and
rainbows, Max reflected. What a family.

Speaking of families, he'd managed to delay writing Mrs. Frost's adoption statement, claiming that he needed time to think before making such a major decision. The move had bought
him a day or two, but the calculating scrutiny in the woman's icy eyes told Max that this delay came with an expiration date.

He planned to be long gone by then.

And when it came to fleeing, Max really didn't want to leave LOTUS HQ empty-handed. He couldn't head blindly off into the city; he needed some line on where to find his
friends—maybe even his missing father.

And if he could steal a couple of secrets that might hurt or hinder LOTUS, so much the better.

The opportunity to snoop arrived sooner than he'd anticipated, at dinner that same night. The meal took place in the enormous formal dining room, a chamber dripping with crystal
chandeliers, gilt mirrors, and all manner of fussy antique furniture. Despite that clutter, the room was still large enough to accommodate an entire family of waltzing elephants, a symphony
orchestra, and an aardvark.

Max sat with Vespa, Mrs. Frost, and her assistant, a man named Bozzini, at a table designed to hold thirty. Servers, including the crusty old butler Leathers, bustled in and out bearing platters
and tureens. Given all the fuss, it could've been a state dinner for diplomats, rather than a casual evening at home with murderous friends and family.

It was so different from the chaotic camaraderie of dinners at Merry Sunshine Orphanage. People laughing, arguing, the dog begging for food, Tremaine throwing dinner rolls to Rashid.
That
was a family meal. With a pang as sharp as a blade, Max missed Hantai Annie Wong. Her gruff manner concealed a huge heart—unlike Mrs. Frost, whose polite demeanor concealed a
heart the size of a pomegranate seed.

Working his way through a slice of apricot-stuffed lamb shoulder, Max monitored Mrs. Frost's conversation. Unsurprisingly, it was all about work.

“They've agreed to your demand,” said Bozzini, reading from his computer tablet. He was a lipless, olive-skinned man with all the sparkle, humor, and excitability of a bowl of
lukewarm linguine.

“Excellent,” said Mrs. Frost. “And when will it be ready?”

“Mr. Rook says”—Bozzini consulted the tablet again—“tomorrow afternoon.”

Max's ears perked up at the mention of the mind-control device's inventor, Addison's father.

“He's weak and sentimental,” Mrs. Frost said, patting her lips with a linen napkin. “I knew our little ploy would work.”

The sweet lamb turned bitter in his mouth and Max swallowed uncomfortably. Caring about a kidnapped son made someone weak? Mrs. Frost had about as much maternal feeling as a hammerhead
shark.

“Have a team standing by to make the trade.”

The assistant inclined his head. “Already done, ma'am.”

Mrs. Frost's lips pursed in a tiny smile. “Such efficiency.”

“I live to serve.”

Max glanced up from his plate to find Vespa mouthing “I live to serve” behind her napkin. She rolled her eyes at her aunt's exchange, and Max suppressed a snort of laughter. He
had to remind himself that he loathed her.

Still, this tidbit was news. LOTUS would possess a working mind-control device by tomorrow night, and the S.P.I.E.S. team needed to know about it. Perhaps while snooping for his friends'
location, Max might uncover LOTUS's intentions. Which made it all the more important for Max to get a look inside that office and—

“You're finished?” asked a voice from behind. Max started, then glanced up to find a young woman, part Asian like himself, with her hand extended.

He nodded. The server cleared away the lamb and replaced it with a plate of asparagus in vinaigrette sauce. Oh, yum.

“Don't you like asparagus?” asked Mrs. Frost.

“Love it,” he said. “Nearly as much as brussels sprouts and haggis, combined.”

Max was just starting to puzzle over how he could get Vespa and Mrs. Frost out of the house at the same time. Start a fire? Flood the bathrooms? Invent a shoe sale? Then he finally caught a
break.

“Vespa, dear,” said the woman, “don't forget our little errand after dinner. Time to pick up our new pet.”