Double Vision (20 page)

“And where did this report with the email come from?” Smith asked, sounding like a kindergarten teacher.

I tried to think back to when Stark first told me about the threat on Sunday, when she was waiting for me down the street from Sam's. “The Daily Brief or something. Isn't that from the CIA and stuff?”

“The Presidential Daily Brief.” Smith nodded. “But if Steve only followed you kids to find the coat, why was the plan to use the coat to kill the president already reported?”

I took a breath. Smith was right: It made no sense for Steve to have been the one and only guy. “He never seemed smart enough anyway.”

“Thinking with your gut, Young Abe. Now you're talking.” Smith touched his nose, telling me I was right.

Some guy was testing the sound system. Piercing noise bounced off the stone, then silence.

“So who came up with the plan?” I asked.

“Who delivers the Presidential Daily Brief?” Smith fired back.

I opened my mouth, but Smith covered it with his palm.

His hand smelled like dog biscuits.

“Don't say his name.” Smith glanced around. “You never know who's recording this.” He got up and wiped the dog hair off his pants, making it fly in my face.

“Now what am I supposed to do?”

“You'll think of something.” Smith walked away with Nixon trailing him, hoping for another biscuit.

This was just great. I'd diffused a bomb, and it still wasn't enough. Now I had to take down the big bad dude.

The guy who called himself Dagger.

Sid Ferguson.

JUST IN CASE YOU THINK I'M SOME SORT
of hero after that whole bomb situation, I should tell you that you're wrong. I'm just Linc from California, that twelve-year-old kid who gets into trouble. A lot. Linc, who barely gets passing grades in school but can kick your butt at Racing Mania Eight.

Not Linc the junior secret agent who takes down the director of National Intelligence. I was beginning to think I might've given people the wrong impression by hugging that bomb.

But now I had a problem. I knew the truth about this plot to kill the president. The real bad guy wasn't Steve—it was Sid Ferguson. And he was still roaming around the president, doing whatever it was that the director of National Security
did, only in an evil kind of way.

So maybe Pandora had saved the president.
This
time. But for all I knew, Ferguson was planning his next assassination attempt right now.

While I was here looking at the giant statue of Lincoln, someone suddenly came up next to me. “Penny for your thoughts.” Amy snickered, making me jump. “Get it? Lincoln's on the penny.”

“Clever joke. Give me a minute to contain myself.”

“Jeez, who ate your homework?”

“Sorry.” I sighed. “How did you even find me here?”

“I wanted to say good-bye before you left, so I called the motel,” Amy said. “Mom told me it was okay. So anyway, the motel lady told me you got some weird message about a car, so I figured you were here.”

I spotted a new Secret Service lady a dozen feet away—earpiece, dark suit, brown hair in a bun. She was hard to miss. She had her back toward us and was scanning the area. Watching the crews set up for the celebration. “New babysitter?”

“She's okay. Today is the last day of the Celebrating America's History Week—did you see it out there?”

I nodded. But I couldn't care less.

“There will be dancing, and Mom is doing a speech—”

“That's great,” I snapped.

Amy blinked.

“Sorry,” I said, realizing how I sounded.

Amy pointed to the stairs. “Let's get away from the people, and you can tell me what's up.”

We found a quiet spot, away from the setup crew and the podium. I told her about Ferguson and how he planted the intel in the Presidential Daily Brief. How he was Dagger, the real bad guy behind the bombing.

“He used Mom. Ferguson knew she'd bring Pandora in to find the coat. So all his slimy guy Steve had to do was wait for you to find the Dangerous Double so he could steal it. And Ferguson didn't have to get his hands dirty—plausible deniability.” Amy was fuming.

“Ferguson is an expert liar,” I said.

“And we have no proof.” Amy sighed.

“No.” But then I had an idea. It wasn't the best I ever had, but then, this was crunch time. “So we get the proof. A confession.”

“How?” Amy looked at me with sad eyes.

“A guy like Ferguson won't show up unless you've got something he wants.”

Amy frowned. “We don't have anything.”

“Actually, we do. We have the Culper Ring book,” I said.

Amy looked shocked. “You can't be serious. We can't give him that. He'll know the identities of all the Culper Ring spies. We should burn it,” Amy whispered.

“No,” I said. “I'll find a safe place for it. But first, I want to take out Ferguson.”

“By luring him with the Culper Ring book?” Amy shook her head. “No. It's too risky.”

“Haven't you learned from these CIA dudes? We don't give him the real book.” I gave her my best Linc smile. “We give him a double.”

DON'T TELL ANYONE THIS, BUT I ONCE
forged my mom's signature when I got an F in math. Not that it really worked—Mom found out in the end when my report card went out, and I had to fess up. But the forgery was never discovered.

My skills came in handy when we worked on the Culper Ring book. I mean, it had to look authentic enough if we were going to fool Sid Ferguson, right? I used the real book to fake some of the code systems that the spy ring used—like the whole laundry business—but messed up enough to make the information useless. Now I was copying numbers with names from the phone book we borrowed from the Thrifty Suites reception desk.

“You really think he's going to buy this?” Amy kept looking over my shoulder, then pacing Henry's motel room. She'd bought the leather-bound book for us. We'd soaked the pages in watered-down coffee from the lobby and blasted it with the blow-dryer to make it seem old—thankfully, Ferguson didn't know what the real Culper Ring book looked like. Or I hoped he didn't anyway.

“It'll work,” Henry mumbled. He was chewing on his cuticles.

“Quit stressing me out, guys. You're not helping.” I hated being the calm one. I wrote down another series of numbers—467—and copied a name from the phone book. “Let me focus.”

Henry obviously didn't hear me, because he kept asking me about my plan. “So how is this going to work? I'll be recording the conversation, right?”

“With your camera, yes. I can't do it, because Ferguson will be looking for a wire on me.” I'd seen enough crime shows with Grandpa to know how this worked. “All you have to do is be nearby.” I wrote down another number with a made-up spy name.

“How close do I have to be, exactly?” Henry asked. His voice sounded like someone was giving him a wedgie.

“I don't know, Henry. Close enough to catch him with the camera.”

Henry was very quiet. It wasn't until I was done making my fake Culper Ring book that he spoke up. “I can't do it,” Henry whispered.

“What do you mean?” I sounded pretty snippy, but let's face it: We were running out of time.

“I can't be out in the field like that. Not anymore.” Henry's face was pale, and his eyes were panicky. “After that bomb situation, I just . . . I'm not brave like you.”

I could tell he was majorly stressed out. And Henry was the gadget guy, not a field agent.

“I'm sorry, man,” he whispered.

“Don't be.” I gave Henry a punch in the arm. “You did your time as a field agent—first at the CIA, then at the White House.”

“We couldn't have caught Steve without you,” Amy said.

“See? You already saved the first daughter,” I said.

Henry smiled. “If you're sure. But who are you going to get for the video?”

I looked at Amy. She looked at me. We both knew: It was down to the two of us now.

Amy went out to check in with her new Secret Service lady—she was waiting for Amy in the lobby.

I should have walked her downstairs. But I was too busy sweating like crazy, since it was just about time to call Ferguson. I dug the card he gave me on Taco Tuesday from my pocket and used the phone in Henry's room while Henry was checking the camera again.

What if Ferguson didn't fall for my story?

I didn't have to worry. I pretended to be Ben on the phone,
and he took the bait instantly. It was so easy—a little
too
easy.

“But why wait until three to meet?” Ferguson said.

Because that's how long we need to set up our plan.
I couldn't tell Ferguson that, so I fired back, “Why not?”

I could hear Ferguson laugh.

“What's so funny?”

“You and your scheme. What are you doing up there—making a fake Culper Ring book?”

How did he know that? And what did he mean by “up there”?

“Your little friend Amy told me everything,” Ferguson went on. “She's quite the talker if you threaten her family.”

“You have Amy?” I muttered. I felt the blood drain from my face.

“Caught her right in the lobby of your motel. Or my new Secret Service agent did—you'll remember her from the little break-in you had earlier this week?”

I tried to say something, but my mouth was too dry to talk.

“I find it's good to have leverage.” Ferguson paused. “Let's meet someplace public. How about—”

“The Lincoln Memorial,” I said quickly. I needed it to be somewhere familiar.

Ferguson hesitated. “Why not? This is my city after all—and the place is already crawling with my agents. But we'll meet at one thirty. Oh, and Ben?”

“Yeah?” I said.

“Let's make it just you, me, and Amy, shall we? If I see
even one of your sad Pandora team members, Amy is dead. You understand?”

“Yes.”

“I'm so glad we understand each other. You really do make a great agent, Benjamin Green.”

I JUST SAT THERE ON THE BED IN HENRY'S
motel room, holding the phone. Ferguson's words were still ringing in my ear.

If I see even one of your sad Pandora team members, Amy is dead.

“Linc?” Henry gently poked me in the shoulder.

I looked up at my friend. “He has Amy.” I told him about the rest of the conversation.

Henry sat next to me. “So I can't come with you now, not even if I wanted to.”

I shook my head. “Ferguson said he'll kill Amy if he sees any Pandora members.” But as I said the words, I thought of one Pandora member who could help me. One guy who could
show up at the Lincoln Memorial and get past Ferguson's men.

“I have an idea!” Henry jumped up as he thought of the same person I did. The guy I hated most.

Benjamin Green.

I left Henry and Ben a few blocks away as they went over the plan one last time. It was a pretty simple operation, but it involved some tech, so Henry had to explain it to Ben about a dozen times.

Me, I was practically shaking as I rode my skateboard to the Lincoln Memorial. Ben would be right behind me. Because we looked alike, we counted on him being able to slip past Ferguson's men and execute our plan. Without Ben, the whole thing would be a bust.

By the time I made it to the Lincoln Memorial, I had a single focus:

Save Amy.

Even if it meant giving up the real Culper Ring book. I couldn't risk trying to pass off the fake, especially since Ferguson already knew about our plan. The place was bustling with tourists, secret agents, and people in period costumes. The stage was all put together now. There was some old music playing over the speaker system, stuff that sounded like it was from the 1800s or something.

I made my way up the steps and looked up at the white columns of the Lincoln Memorial. I was about to meet with the director of National Intelligence, the guy who wanted the
presidential family dead and held Amy hostage.

What if our plan didn't work?

I was freaking out.
Big time.
So I took a breath. It was one twenty-nine, one minute before our meet time. The place was packed. And I had no way to tell who were the good guy agents and who were the evil ones on Ferguson's team.

I popped the battery back into my phone. Dialed Ben's number and muted it. I stuffed it in my pocket, along with my last Ruckus on a Roll.

“Benjamin Green,” I heard next to me. Sid Ferguson was like a ninja, I swear.

“Hi,” I said, hearing my voice skip.

Ferguson got really close to me. “Open your coat.”

I did. I even lifted up my black sweatshirt—Ferguson was making sure I wasn't wearing a wire. “See? No recording equipment.” I sat down.

“Your cell phone,” he said, extending his hand.

I gave him Henry's, following our plan.

Ferguson dropped the cell phone on the ground and crushed it with his foot, grinding the plastic into bits with his heel. So far, he acted as I expected. I only hoped my call to Ben had gone through.

Ferguson sat to the left of me on the Lincoln Memorial steps. “You have what I need?”

“I do,” I said, feeling the weight of the Culper Ring book in my left pocket. “But first, I want you to tell me what you're going to do with it.”

Ferguson was silent for what seemed like forever. We
both looked out on the Reflecting Pool, which stretched in front of us, the Washington Monument standing straight and tall off in the distance. The crowd below, waiting to see the performance onstage.

“The George Washington coat,” I said, prodding the guy, hoping he didn't hear how nervous I was. I pulled my phone from my right pocket and slid it down my side to place it on the stone step, tucking it next to my leg where Ferguson couldn't see. “How did you even know about the Dangerous Double?”