The Case of the Missing Deed (23 page)

“Ted … Crombie …,” Seb panted.

“I’m sorry, Ted is with someone. Would you take a seat, please?”

“It’s really important,” Seb said, wiping his arm across his forehead.

The woman looked at him as if she didn’t believe that a kid could have anything that important to tell a newspaper reporter. “He’ll be with you as soon as he’s free.” She turned back to her computer.

Impatiently, Sébastien turned to sit down, but then he heard a familiar voice coming from down the hall – the last voice he wanted to hear right now. He darted past the receptionist’s desk.

“Hey!” the woman shouted. “You can’t do that!”

Ignoring her, Sébastien ran in the direction of the voice. He passed a couple of empty offices, jerked open a closed door to find a man on the phone with his feet on a desk, then came to a half-open door with
CROMBIE
on it. Seb pushed it open. There, behind a desk, sat Ted Crombie, and across from him – Charlie.

“I’m telling you, Ted, you have to get on it right away,” Charlie was saying.

Get on it right away
. He was telling Ted to write another positive story about the mine!

“Don’t listen to him, Ted!” Sébastien shouted.

“What!” Ted gaped.

“Sébastien! What are you doing here?” Charlie said, turning pink.

Heels clacked down the hall. The receptionist poked her head in. “I’m sorry, Ted, I told him you were busy–”

“It’s all right, Helen. Thanks.”

With a baleful look at Sébastien, she left.

Sébastien turned back to Ted. “Don’t believe a word he says, Ted. He’s in with them!”

“Who’s in with whom?” Ted said, looking baffled.

“What are you talking about?” Charlie said.

“You. And Tantalus.
And
Atlantus,” Sébastien said with clear disgust.

“Who?” Charlie asked.

Sébastien rolled his eyes. “Nice try, Charlie.”

“Excuse me, you two,” Ted said, “but would someone mind telling me what’s going on here?”

Charlie looked baffled, as if he had no idea what Sébastien was talking about.
Still acting
, Seb thought. Then,
Okay, Charlie, have it your way
.

He sat down and pulled the slip of paper out of his pocket. “Remember this?” he said to Ted.

Ted nodded. “Yeah. So?”

“What’s that?” Charlie said, craning over Sébastien’s shoulder.

“Like you don’t know,” Sébastien said sarcastically.

“Sébastien, I keep telling you–”

Sébastien told Ted the whole story. How he’d suspected something was funny about the slip of paper. How he became convinced that the bold and plain letters hid some kind of secret. How he’d tried, over and over, to break the code. And how, finally–

He whipped the other sheet out of his pocket.

Charlie drew his chair closer. Sébastien could feel him trembling.
Nervous about having the truth come out
, he thought.

“So finally I found this thing called Bacon’s Cipher,” Sébastien said. “It was really hard, but I figured it out. The weird paragraph is a false message. What it really says is–”

He unfolded the paper, and Ted read it aloud. “Atlantus mine environmental disaster.”

Sébastien waited for Charlie to cringe or turn red or say, “No way!” Instead, Charlie looked … intrigued.

Huh? What’s going on?

“What does it mean?” Ted asked.

“I don’t know, but I found something else,” Sébastien said and told Ted about the Atlantus Mining environmental report. Ted brought it up on his computer screen, and Charlie leaned close while Sébastien showed Ted the names of the two authors.

“Who the heck are Dr. Sophie Kalamas and Dr. Mohinder Dhillon?” Ted asked.

“I don’t know,” Sebastien said.

“It’s a different environmental report,” Charlie said slowly. He shot up straight. “Wait! There must be something funny about the other report – the Tantalus Mining one.”

That was what
he
was starting to think, Sébastien thought. Why was Charlie saying it? And why was he looking excited?

A distinctly uncomfortable feeling began to grow in him.

“That’s crazy,” Ted said. “They’re two separate reports. Two different companies. It must be some other mine.”

“No,” Sébastien said. “It’s
our
mine.” He showed them where the report talked about Otter Island.

“But it can’t be–” Ted broke off as Sébastien showed him where the report listed all the environmental impacts the mine would have. Then Sébastien had Ted scroll down to the last page.

“ ‘Our research leads to the conclusion that Atlantus Mining’s proposed tantalum mine will have serious environmental impacts on Otter Island and should not proceed,’ ”
Ted read aloud. He shook his head. “Who is Atlantus Mining, and why is this report talking about the Tantalus Mining mine?”

“I don’t know,” Sébastien began, “but it must be something shady–”

“Look!” Charlie interrupted. “Atlantus has all the same letters as Tantalus. – you just have to scramble them!”

“Whoa–” Sébastien said, suddenly getting what Charlie was saying.

But why is Charlie saying that? Isn’t he on
their
side?

“They must have changed their name!” Charlie said.

“Now you’ve really gone off the deep end,” Ted said.

But Charlie could be right
, Sébastien thought with excitement.
In fact, it’s the only thing that makes sense
.

“How can we find out?” Charlie said impatiently. “Ted, is there a Web site that lists companies?”

“Yes,” Ted said, “but …” He tapped the keys, and a business site opened with a long list of names. Ted scrolled down.
There was no Atlantus Mining.

“Try Tantalus,” Charlie suggested.

Ted scrolled farther.

TANTALUS MINING (FORMERLY KNOWN AS ATLANTUS MINING)
, said the listing.

The three of them stared at one another.

“The company was originally called Atlantus Mining …” Sébastien thought aloud.

“And they hired – who was it?” Charlie asked.

“Dr. Sophie Kalamas and Dr. Mohinder Dhillon,” Sébastien answered.

“Right. They hired them to do the environmental assessment …”

“And they discovered that the mine was going to be an environmental disaster …” Sébastien went on, his mind racing.

“And Saxby and those guys knew they couldn’t go public with that – because it would be the end of the mine – so they changed the name of the company,” Charlie put in.

“And then they changed the report.” Sébastien thought for a moment. Then it hit him. “Wayne Cheng must have changed it!”

“But that’s nuts,” Ted said. He lifted the
OTTER ISLAND TANTALUM MINE: ENVIRONMENTAL REPORT
. “Dr. Wayne Cheng is an eminent scientist.”

“It’s the only thing that fits,” Sébastien said.

“No wonder he always looked so uptight,” Charlie added.

Sébastien thought of something. He tapped a key and brought the screen back to the Atlantus Mining report. It was dated in January. Then he held up the
OTTER ISLAND
TANTALUM MINE: ENVIRONMENTAL REPORT
. April.

“See?” he said.

To Sébastien’s amazement, Charlie threw his arms around him. “Sébastien! You’re brilliant!”

“W-what?” Sébastien threw Charlie’s arms off and gaped at him.

“First you figured out the secret code, and then you found the real report, and then you figured out what they were really up to. You’re amazing!”

Sébastien was beginning to think he’d made a terrible mistake about Charlie.

Ted leaned back in his seat. “It’s crazy. It’s preposterous. But it looks like that’s what happened.” He sat back up and pounded his fist on the desk. “And after that Valerie London woman fed me all this information about how great the mine was!”

“Imagine the deception,” Charlie said, shaking his head. “Fudging the numbers, changing the conclusions. What crooks!”

Ted’s face turned red. “They hoodwinked me – and I fell for it.”

“You certainly weren’t the only one, Ted. Lots of people did. All those people who sold their land to Tantalus. All those people who invested in the mine. All those people who believed the mine would be good for Otter Island,” Charlie said. “But that’s not what’s important now. What’s important now is to get the word out – before Tantalus gets the permit.”

“But if Tantalus handed in a fake environmental report, the government won’t give them the permit, will they?”
Sébastien said. “Won’t the mine be dead?”

“I’d certainly think so,” Charlie replied. “But I’d still feel a whole lot better if Ted exposed the whole thing right away.”

“Oh, you can believe I’ll do that,” Ted said grimly. “And you’ll read all about it in the
Otter Observer.”

“Good,” Charlie and Sébastien said together.

Ted lifted the slip of paper. “But who sent this to me?”

Charlie shrugged. “Maybe it was Dr. Kalamas and Dr. Dhillon. Maybe they found out what Tantalus had done and they had to let someone know – without Tantalus finding out they were doing it.”

“Or maybe it was Wayne Cheng,” Sébastien said. “Maybe he had a guilty conscience.”

Ted shook his head. “To think that I would have missed the whole thing if it hadn’t been for you, Sébastien. You did an amazing job!” He shook Sébastien’s hand. “I’ll tell you one thing. You’ve got a future as an investigative reporter – or a secret agent.”

Sébastien avoided looking at Charlie as he walked over to his bike. “Uh … Charlie …” he began, “I’m sorry …”

“Let me get this straight,” Charlie said. “You guys thought I was in with them?”

“Yeah, but–”

“Sébastien!”

“But it looked like it!” Sébastien felt his cheeks grow warm. “We saw you with them … Saxby and Wilensky … down by Wilensky Air.”

“I was just trying to string them along, to get them to
reveal what their plans really were.”

“And we saw you looking at the report …”

“Trying to find a clue to prove there was something shady going on.”

“And then you got a phone call from Wilensky …” he said lamely, knowing already that it had been perfectly innocent.

“About my float-plane reservation! For crying out loud, Sébastien, how could you kids think that about me?”

“Claire didn’t,” Seb admitted. “She wouldn’t believe it.”

“Good old Claire,” Charlie said with a chuckle. “At least someone had faith in me.”

Sébastien swallowed. “I’m really sorry, Charlie. I thought … I was wrong.”

“Sébastien,” Charlie said, “don’t you know that I would never do anything to hurt your grandma? Or your mom? I love them both. I love this place.”

Sébastien stared at the ground. He knew that now. If only he could curl up in a ball and disappear. If only he could go back in time and erase all those terrible things he’d said about Charlie.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. “Hey,” Charlie said, and there was a smile on his face. “No hard feelings, Seb.”

“Really?”

Charlie nodded. “Now that I think about it, I’m impressed that you were prepared to go to such lengths to protect your grandma – and your mom.”

The knot in Sébastien’s stomach eased a little. He climbed onto his bike seat.

“One more thing, Sébastien,” Charlie said, lifting Sébastien’s chin. “Your grandpa would be proud of you. Not just for cracking
the code. For everything.”

Sébastien felt tears rush to his eyes. Blinking them away, he said something he’d never expected to say.

“You too, Charlie.”

ou mean … the mine is dead? Really dead?” Grandma’s voice sounded disbelieving.

“Really and truly dead,” Charlie said. He clamped a hand on Sébastien’s shoulder. “And all because of your grandson here. If it hadn’t been for Seb, Tantalus probably would have gotten away with it … and gotten the permit.”

Eve hugged Sébastien. “Way to go, honey!”

Alex scratched his head. “I don’t get it. Five times as many letters as what?”

“I’ll show you later, Alex,” Sébastien said.

Grandma wiped the tears from her eyes. “This calls for a celebration. A feast! In honor of Sam – and Sébastien.”