Slowly I walked in.
“Faisal?” came Cass’s voice from behind me.
I jumped. “We don’t need the disguises,” I said. “She’s not here.”
“Who’s not?” Cass asked.
“Mom. None of them. They’re not anywhere near.”
My eyes focused on a flickering light shining from the wall to my left—a rectangular pane of glass with bright blue letters, flashing to the rhythm of the beep.
Beep.
FAILSAFE MODE: 00:00:17 . . .
Beep.
FAILSAFE MODE: 00:00:16 . . .
I snapped to and grabbed Cass’s arm. “Out—now! The whole place is going to blow!”
Aly was already in the hallway. I pushed her back the way we’d come. Together we sprinted up the hallway toward the exit. At the base of the stairs we ran into Torquin, which was like running into a small building. “Turn around and go!” I shouted. “Now!”
Torquin’s face went taut. He scampered up the steps and out the door with the speed of someone one-third his weight.
I felt the floor shake. I smelled sulfur.
The boom shook the walls, its blast hitting me square in the back.
CHAPTER THREE
PURYS ELPAM
“PKKAAAACCCH!” I COUGHED and spat as my eyes teared up from the dust.
I was outside, on the ground. Alive. My back rested against Torquin’s rented car, which meant I was about thirty feet from the Massa entrance.
I opened my mouth to call out, but instead I sucked in another lungful of sandy dirt. Spitting, I struggled to my feet. Everything hurt. My pants had been torn at the ankle. “Cass!” I finally called out. “Aly!”
“Torquin,” a familiar voice rumbled behind me. “Forgot Torquin.”
The big guy’s silhouette came out of the cloud, coated brown gray from head to toe, as if he’d been created from the dirt itself. With his right hand, he dragged Cass by the scruff of his neck. Cass’s face was blackened, his limbs slack. His floppy hat and glasses were gone.
“What happened?” I slumped toward them as fast as my scraped-up legs could take me.
In a moment, Aly was beside me, holding a grimy pair of glasses. “I found these. Is he . . . ?”
“Chest moving,” Torquin said, setting him on the ground. “Need to find help.”
Aly and I dropped to our knees beside Cass. “Please, please, please, be okay . . .” I whispered, slapping his face gently. “Hey, Cass, come on. Don’t forget to be emosewa.”
“This can’t be happening . . .” Aly said, yanking a canteen from her pack and spilling some water on Cass’s face.
No reaction.
A team of KI soldiers surrounded us now. “We’ve got EMTs coming,” one of the KI men called out.
Aly pried Cass’s mouth open and dumped water in. “Come on, Cass,” she said. “Cass, you can do this!”
Cass’s body jerked upward, clipping Aly on the jaw. “Do what?”
“That!” Aly cried out in surprise, falling backward.
Cass turned away, retching a glob of wet sand. “Ewww, that needed a little purys elpam.”
Holding her jaw with one hand, Aly managed a huge smile. “I will buy you a gallon of it when this is all over.”
As two KI operatives approached with a stretcher, Cass’s eyes were trained on the Massa headquarters. The entrance shack was a pile of twisted metal.
Another muffled explosion shook the earth. The structure groaned loudly, tilted, and vanished into a widening black hole.
Cass sprang to his feet. We ran for our cars, leaving the stretcher empty on the ground.
“Corrupt . . . gibberish . . . broken . . .” Aly muttered. She was in the copilot seat of Slippy, the KI retrofitted stealth jet, her fingers flying across the keyboard of the tablet that was built into the arm of her seat. Torquin was our pilot, and for once he wasn’t making the plane do barrel rolls. He just focused on flying us back to the KI while Aly tried to get some usable information off Cass’s flash drive.
My eyes were fixed on the sea below. The water was silvery and bright on a cloudless day. I don’t know what I was looking for, maybe a big ship with a Massa flag blowing in the wind. I was kind of rattled, obsessed with only two thoughts:
We’d gone to find Mom.
We’d walked into a trap.
No warning about the evacuation. No hint about the time bomb. What if I hadn’t noticed the readout? What if we hadn’t gotten that far into the headquarters? What if we’d been a few seconds late? Did Mom know we would be going back?
How could she have let that happen?
Aly massaged her forehead, sitting back from the tablet. “If only we’d gotten there a few minutes earlier. Those jerks managed to overwrite just about everything. Maybe I can take apart the remaining data packets, but I’ll need better equipment.”
“You can do it,” I murmured. “You’re Aly.”
Aly sighed, turning away from the tablet. “How’s Cass?”
I turned toward the back of the compartment. Cass was lying against the bulkhead just behind my seat, on a narrow platform covered with layers of foam and blankets. He’d been asleep most of the way. Now he was blinking his eyes and grimacing. “What’s that smell?”
“No smell,” Torquin said. His face turned a slightly deeper shade of its natural red, and he held his arms superclose to his sides.
“Thank you for choosing KI Air,” Aly said. “Each seat is equipped with an oxygen mask for use in case of toxic Torquin armpit or fart odor.”
“Oow!” Cass groaned.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“It hurts to laugh,” Cass said. “Where the heck are we? And don’t say anything funny.”
“We’re over the Atlantic,” I said. “You survived an explosion with some cuts and maybe a mild concussion. We left mainland ops and now we’re headed back to the KI.”
“Mainland who?” Cass said.
“The KI has mobile operatives all over the Mediterranean,” Aly said. “Their job is to stay there and provide backup when necessary. Torquin has been telling us about them. See all the news you miss when you’re asleep?”
“Where were the mainland ops when we needed them in Rhodes and Iraq?” Cass asked.
“We were incognito in Greece, and they had no clue where we were,” I said. “But you did see some of them in Iraq. Remember those teams that took those shifts along the Euphrates?”
Aly swiveled in her seat and reached out to touch Cass’s forehead. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I was just run over by a knat,” Cass replied.
“Knat?” Torquin grunted.
“Backwardish for tank,” Aly said. “Which means he’s feeling better.”
“I’d feel even better with some ice cream,” Cass went on. “Actually, any food.”
Torquin held up a greasy paper bag. “Iguana jerky. Cajun spice flavor.”
Cass groaned. “Any food except that.”
I saw a distant, shining, metallic cigar shape on the water below. A tanker, maybe, or cruise ship. It glinted in the sun, sending up sparks of light. For a moment I thought someone was trying to send us Morse code. Rubbing my eyes, I looked away. I needed to get some rest.
“I can’t figure it out,” Aly said. “How did the Massa escape? Where did they go?”
“And why didn’t my mom tell us we were heading into a trap?” I added. “She could have sent a message to her own phone. She knows I have it.”
“But she’s one of them!” Aly said. “Her mind has been turned.”
I glared at her. “I’m her son, Aly! Parents care about their kids. It’s . . . it’s just built in.”
“Well . . .” Cass muttered.
We glanced back to where he was lying.
Cass, who hadn’t seen his parents in years. Because they were in jail. Because they had abandoned him to a life of orphanages and foster parents.
I took a deep breath. “Hey, I—I’m sorry.”
&nbs
p; But Cass’s eyes were wide with fright. The plane had begun to shake. We dropped like a roller coaster. My seat belt cut into my gut and I gripped my handrests.
Aly let out a gasp. “Does this mean we’re getting close?”
Torquin nodded. “Entering KI territory.”
“You’re doing that on purpose!” Cass said.
“Magnetic forces,” Torquin said with a shrug.
“Something extremely gross will fly out of my stomach and magnetize to the back of your neck if you don’t fly better,” Cass replied.
I saw Mount Onyx first, rising like a black fist from the water. In a moment we saw home—our new home, an island undetectable by even the most sophisticated instruments.
“What the . . . ?” Aly said.
My eyes locked on the location of the Karai Institute campus, where I expected to see the lush green quadrangle, surrounded by brick buildings.
In its place was a giant plume of black smoke.
CHAPTER FOUR
TRIANGULATION
THE PLANE BANKED sharply right, away from the campus.
“Where are you going?” I demanded. “The airport is in the other direction!”
“Back of island,” Torquin said. “Change in plans.”
“It’s all jungle on that side!” Cass said. “We’ll never land this thing there.”
“Airport too dangerous,” Torquin declared.
“It’ll take hours to hike through the trees,” I said. “We need to get there fast, Torquin. The institute is on fire.”
Torquin ignored us both, yanking the steering mechanism again.
My stomach jumped up toward my throat. We were out over the water, circling farther away from land. As it vanished over the horizon, Torquin banked again.
We zoomed back in, toward the rear of the island. It was a blanket of green, surrounded by a thin sliver of beach. “The sand is too narrow!” Aly said, her voice rising in panic.
“Banzaiii!” Torquin yelled.
The plane’s nose pointed downward. I gripped the armrest. From behind, Cass grabbed my arm. He was screaming. Or maybe that was me. I couldn’t tell. As the plane dove, I closed my eyes.
We hit hard. My back jammed down into my hips, like I’d been squashed by an ogre. Cass slammed into the back of my seat. A deafening roar welled up around us as water slammed against the windows.
“Sand too narrow,” Torquin replied. “But sea not too narrow.”
As the jet’s forward momentum slowed to a stop, the windows cleared. I could see the island shore about a football field’s length away from us, separated by an expanse of ocean.
Cass’s eyes were tightly closed. “Are we dead?”
“No, but I think I sprouted some gray hairs,” Aly said, “aside from the lambda on the back of my head. Torquin, what are we doing here?”
Torquin mumbled something in a hurry. He jabbed a button, and Slippy began speeding toward the island on its superlight aluminum-alloy pontoons.
Cass, Aly, and I shared a baffled look. My heart was racing. As the pontoons made contact with sand, we jumped out. Torquin opened a compartment in the back of the plane and pulled out a huge pack of equipment. I’d never seen him move so fast.
Aly stared, ankle-deep in water. “Torquin, I am not moving another step until you talk to us. In full sentences. With an explanation!”
Torquin handed us each a flak vest, a machete, a lightweight helmet, and a belt equipped with knives and water canisters. “These are for protection,” he snapped. “Island is under attack.”
“You know that just from that smoke?” Aly said.
“Where smoke, fire,” Torquin replied. “Where fire, attack.”
His logic was not perfect, but when I saw the furious glint in his eyes I decided not to argue. Aly and Cass clearly felt the same way. We suited up quickly. Weighted down by the equipment, we waded to the shore. The trees formed a thick, impenetrable wall. No paths in sight.
Torquin stopped, carefully looking around. “Wait. Easy to get lost.”
“Just follow me,” Cass said. “We have the sun, the shore, the slope of the land, and Mount Onyx. More than enough points for geographic triangulation. We don’t need a map.”
We didn’t question him. Cass was a human GPS. He could memorize maps and routes to the inch.
“Need dictionary,” Torquin gruffed, as we all started after Cass.
I didn’t know which was worse—the smothering heat of the sun, the bug bites that made my legs look like raw hamburger, the screeching of animals we couldn’t see, or the smell of the smoke.
It was all horrible.
I knew Torquin’s analysis had to be wrong. The island was shielded by some force that made it impossible to find by anybody. But what had happened? An electrical short circuit? A lightning hit?
I dreaded what we would find.
Cass stumbled and stopped. His face was bright red, his clothes drenched. Setting his backpack down, he sat on a tree stump. “Dry . . .” he said.
“Have some water,” Aly said, unscrewing her canteen.
Cass waved it away. “I’m okay,” he said. “I meant, the land is dry. The trees, too. If the breeze pushes the fire in this direction, we’re toast. Literally.”
I nodded. “Let’s stay close, in case we have to retreat to the beach.”
“We have to help them,” Cass said, wiping his head. “We have to be like Marco. He would never retreat.”
“Marco,” Aly said, “retreated from us.”
I helped Cass to his feet. He quickly slipped ahead of Torquin, taking the lead. We were passing Mount Onyx now. Below us were Jeep tracks, where we’d raced back to the campus when the griffin attacked.
Cass picked up the pace. The smell was pungent and strong. White ash floated down through the treetops. Monkey screeches and birdcalls echoed around us. But I could hear other sounds now. Voices. Distant shouts.
“Stop!” Torquin ordered.
We nearly plowed into each other. Torquin passed us, squinting into the smoky air. I followed closer and saw what looked like an enormous spiderweb, strung between trees. “Security fence,” Torquin said. “High voltage.”
“Aly knows how to disable that,” Cass said. “She did it when we tried to escape.”
“From the inside,” Aly reminded him. “Not from here. We’re stuck.”
Torquin crouched silently, grabbed the top of an umbrella-shaped mushroom, and pulled hard. The stalk broke cleanly, revealing a blinking red light, flush with the ground. I heard a soft click. “Voilà,” he said. “Disables. Thirty seconds. For KI people stuck in jungle.”
“You know French?” Cass asked.
“Also croissant,” Torquin replied proudly.
Cass took the lead again. The scent of smoke was growing stronger. We were practically running now. The sweat on my back felt like a lake against the heavy pack. But up ahead, the dense jungle darkness was giving way to the light of a clearing.
A light made brighter by fire.
Cass stopped first. He dropped to his knees, his jaw hanging open.
“This can’t be . . .” Aly said.
We all sank down beside Cass, at the edge of the jungle now. The Karai Institute spread out before us, but it looked nothing like the stately college campus we’d left. The grassy quadrangle was chewed up by boot prints and speckled with glass from broken windows all around. I could see figures moving through the brick buildings, white-coated KI technicians fleeing into the woods. Flames leaped from Professor Bhegad’s second-floor collection of antiquities.
Fires raged behind the quad buildings, from the direction of the airport, the dorms, the supply sheds, and support buildings. The tendrils of smoke twined skyward, disappearing into an umbrella cloud of blackness.
“Leonard . . .” Cass rasped.
“Leonard?” Aly said. “All you can think about is what happened to your pet lizard? What about the KI staff?”
An anguished cry from across the quadrangle made us all instinct
ively duck behind a thicket. I peered through the branches to see a man in a ripped white KI lab coat tumble out the game room entrance. His hair was matted with blood.
As he scrambled to his feet, there was no mistaking Fiddle, our resident mechanical and aeronautical genius.
“We have to help him,” I said, rising, but Aly grabbed me by the collar.
From the building entrance, behind him, stepped a man dressed in black commando gear, goggles, and a helmet emblazoned with a black M.
“Massa . . .” Aly said, pointing him out to me.
“But how?” Cass asked. “The island is undetectable by human means.”
“Massa not human,” Torquin said.
Now I could see more of them—in the windows of the lab buildings, running across the basketball court. I could see them dragging KI scientists into the dorm, throwing rocks through windows. One of them, racing across the campus, tore down the KI flag, which stood in front of the majestic House of Wenders.
Fiddle staggered closer toward the jungle. He looked desperately around through the broken lenses of his glasses. I wanted to call out to him, but the commando grabbed Fiddle by his lab coat and yanked him down from behind.
“We have to help him,” I said.
“But it’s four against a bazillion,” Cass said.
Torquin crouched. “But this four,” he said, pulling a wooden case from his pack, “is very good.”
CHAPTER FIVE
COUNTERATTACK
TORQUIN PULLED A long, slender pipe and a handful of darts from his pack. He moved through the jungle, crab-walking silently away from the thicket.
Dropping behind a fallen tree, Torquin put the pipe to his lips, and blew.
Shissshhhh!
Fiddle’s captor crumpled downward instantly, felled by a small, green-feather-tipped tranquilizer dart. “Eye of bull,” Torquin said.
I scrabbled to my feet and raced out of the jungle toward Fiddle.
As Fiddle saw me approach, he turned to run away. “It’s Jack McKinley!” I called out as loudly as I dared.
He stopped and squinted at me. “I must be dreaming.”
I took his arms and pulled him toward the trees. Behind us I could hear doors opening, voices shouting. Torquin’s tranquilizer darts shot out from the jungle with impossible speed, each one followed by a groan.