Zeke Bartholomew Read online

  One Red-i-Cam was bolted to the Lances’ front door, right above the peephole. Several others were mounted over the windows. Another hung over the garage. Clearly the Lance family wanted to know about everything and everyone who came near their house.

  My blood ran cold. They could probably see me at this very moment. And in my dark sweatpants and sweatshirt, wearing a pair of aviator sunglasses, I probably looked like a short, nervous burglar. Nice going, Zeke.

  Hastily I put the lids back on the trash cans and turned to head home. Just as I fastened the last lid on, however, a car pulled up in the Lances’ driveway and I was frozen between a pair of ultra-bright headlights.

  This was really not good…

  The car was sleek and black and the windows were tinted. I didn’t know what to do. If I ran, they’d know I was up to something. And if I stayed put, they’d still know I was up to something. So I did what I always do when I get nervous—I got the hiccups. As I held my breath, the passenger door opened.

  The engine was still running when out stepped a man wearing a dark suit and sunglasses. He walked around to where I stood, never taking his gaze from me. I tried to think of a million things to say, some sort of excuse as to why I was there.

  The man walked up to me, stopped, and to my surprise said, “Agent Derek Lance?”

  Agent Derek Lance. I was right. Derek Lance was a spy!

  I could have replied any way I wanted, and to this day I don’t know why I said what I did. I responded with six simple words: “Yes, I am agent Derek Lance.”

  The man nodded and mumbled something into a microphone attached to his sleeve that sounded like “Mr. Safari.” Then he said, “Come with us.”

  The agent opened the back door of the sedan. Another agent was sitting there, along with a driver, both wearing the same suit getup. The man in the backseat nodded. “It’s an honor to meet you, Agent Lance.”

  “Likewise,” I said, slipping in next to him. I know you’re never supposed to get in cars with strangers, but something about this felt right. My whole life I’d wanted to be a spy, and even if I couldn’t be Derek Lance, I could at least feel what it was like to be him for one night before they discovered I was lame old Ezekiel Bartholomew. “Medium everything.”

  The car pulled away from the Lance home. The three agents stayed silent. After about ten minutes, I said, “So…where to?”

  The men laughed. “You know where we’re headed, Agent Lance. He’s dying to meet you.”

  “Oh, I’m looking forward to meeting, um, him too,” I said stupidly. “Just forgot the address is all.”

  “Understandable. He doesn’t like people to remember where his headquarters is located.”

  “Right. Well…he’s done a very good job keeping it hidden.”

  “He works quite hard to maintain secrecy,” the man next to me said.

  “Quite hard,” the driver seconded.

  “Extremely hard,” the third man said.

  “He works hard. Got it,” I said.

  “Before we arrive at our destination,” the man next to me said, “we need to be certain that you have the codes.”

  My eyes went wide.

  “The…codes?”

  “Yes. As you know, Operation Songbird is scheduled to go into effect in twenty-four hours. SirEebro cannot be activated without the codes. That is why you’re here.”

  “Of course, SirEebro and Operation Songbird,” I said, playing it off. “But, you know, I’d rather wait until we get there before I give them to you. If that’s okay.” I figured that would at least buy me some time to figure out what to do.

  One of the agents up front spoke into a microphone. I only made out codes…wants to wait…affirmative.

  The man turned back to face me. “Mr. Le Carré understands your concerns. However, he requires you to reveal one of the three codes right now. The others can wait until we arrive, as you desire.”

  “Right. One code. Out of three. No problem.” I thought about all the spy books and movies I’d memorized. They always spoke in code. I remembered enough to give it a shot. “Alpha. Tango. Bravo…”

  The man next to me screwed up his lip.

  “Is this a joke?” he said.

  “Um…no. No joke,” I said. I was getting nervous. Being Derek Lance wasn’t what I’d expected.

  “Don’t play stupid with us, Agent Lance.”

  “I’m not playing,” I said.

  “We all know that the codes for SirEebro are numeric.”

  The codes for SirEebro were numeric. Of course they were.

  “Agent Lance,” one of the men in front said angrily, “what are you trying to pull?”

  “Is it about the money?” the man next to me said. “You’re being compensated quite handsomely for Operation Songbird.”

  Okay, it was time to end this charade. I didn’t know what Agent Derek Lance was involved in, but it didn’t seem like it would be too good for my Zeke Bartholomew.

  “It’s not the money,” I said. “It’s just that I don’t have the codes.”

  “Agent Lance, we are not playing a game,” one of the men said, anger rising in his voice. “If you are unable to give us the codes, you are worthless to Mr. Le Carré. And since you know what the codes are being used for, since you know about Operation Songbird, and since so much and so many lives are at stake, if you cannot give us the codes, we cannot let you leave.”

  “If you can’t give us the codes for SirEebro,” the agent next to me said coldly, “we have no choice but to kill you.”

  My heart hammered in my chest. I didn’t know what to do or what to say. Kill me? Lives at stake? Even if they believed I wasn’t Derek Lance, they’d already said too much. They wouldn’t let me live. Suddenly, playing Derek Lance wasn’t so much fun anymore. Suddenly, being a spy wasn’t such a glamorous idea.

  “What if I weren’t Agent Lance?” I said nervously. The driver laughed.

  “Right. We just happened to pick up a random kid standing in front of Derek Lance’s house. Besides, I’d recognize those sunglasses anywhere, Agent Lance.”

  Those stupid sunglasses! This didn’t sit too well. In fact, it really didn’t sit too well with my stomach. Then I remembered. The ipecac.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” I moaned.

  “Enough games, Agent Lance,” the agent next to me said. “We’re not in the mood…”

  I leaned forward, pretended to cough, and quickly slipped the ipecac pill into my mouth. It lodged in my throat. Of course it did.

  “Do you have any water? Bit of a scratchy throat.”

  The agent next to me handed me a bottle of water. I drank it and felt the pill slip down into my belly. I smiled. It worked.

  Then my smile vanished. Within five seconds my stomach felt like it was rolling and pitching on the high seas. And this storm wasn’t about to end well.

  “Oh, no,” I whimpered. “Spaghetti and meatballs…”

  Suddenly I lurched forward and puked up my spaghetti-and-meatball dinner all over the driver. He shrieked and lost control of the wheel. The sedan skidded across the road, the tires making an awful rubbery screech. I upchucked all over the three agents, who screamed and tried to dodge the mess. No such luck. I’d had a big dinner.

  Then I felt a huge jolt as the car slammed into something. Sparks flew up around us. My teeth rattled, and my shoulder slammed into the door hard, sending pain searing through my body. The seat belt kept me from being thrown into the windshield. Then we were spinning, around and around and around. If I hadn’t already puked, this spin cycle would have done it for sure.

  The four of us held on for dear life as the car rotated again and again, finally coming to a stop after about ten spins. I opened my eyes. The car was a complete mess. The agents were groggy, preoccupied with
the grossness. This was my only chance.

  I unbuckled my seat belt, threw open the door, and ran out into the night. The car had stopped on the middle of a bridge, diagonally cutting across two lanes. I was fifty yards away from either end of the bridge. No-man’s-land. Then I heard someone yell, “Freeze, Agent Lance! Move and you’re dead.”

  I slowly turned around. The driver was standing there, nasty spaghetti strands dangling from his sunglasses. I felt a burp rise in my chest.

  “I knew you were dangerous, Agent Lance,” he said, “but we clearly underestimated your diversionary skills. Now get back in the car and give us the codes.”

  I started to walk backward. I couldn’t get back in the car, but I didn’t have time to run. The muzzle was pointed right at me. “I can’t!” I shouted.

  “You can and you will. Right now, or you’re one dead spy.”

  I kept backing up, kept telling myself, This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. Then the armed agent held out his hand and stepped forward. “Be careful, Agent Lance!” he shouted.

  Just then I felt the guardrail clip my knees from behind. And as I toppled over the guardrail into the abyss below, I heard my own voice echoing in the night: “I’m not Derek Lance!”

  The first time I tried to swim on my own I was five years old. The town swimming pool was free to anyone who registered with city hall, and as soon as my arms fit into floaties my mom dragged me over and carried me into the water. My mom would always wear a one-piece with some sort of floral design. My dad wore swim trunks and a T-shirt. He never took off his shirt. He’s kind of pale guy, so I think he might have been worried that if he took off his shirt on a sunny day he might spontaneously burst into flame.

  So one day, when my parents weren’t looking, I ran and dove into the pool to show them that I didn’t need those stupid floaties. I was a big boy and didn’t need their eyes on me at all times.

  I did my best cannonball and splashed down in the deep end hard enough to drive the air from my lungs. Fifteen seconds passed. Thirty. Forty-five. I was doing it. I was swimming alone. Then suddenly I realized that in all of my excitement, I’d forgotten to breathe.

  And that’s when I felt a pair of hands grab me around my waist and hoist me out of the water, sputtering like a perforated garden hose. It was my dad. He was holding me and crying. And he still had his shirt on.

  “What in the heck did you think you were doing?” he shouted, the fear in his eyes far greater than any anger.

  I shrugged and said, “Proving to you and Mom I could do it. Swim alone.”

  He hugged me tight and said, “I’ll never doubt that you can do anything, Zeke.”

  My dad hoisted me out of the pool and plopped me on the ground. And that’s when I realized that, in my hasty dive, somehow my pants has come off. I stood there butt naked for about ten seconds before my father realized what had happened. My bathing suit was floating on the surface like an unmanned vessel. He plucked it out, picked me up, and carried me into the bathroom. So much for feeling like an adult.

  That years-old memory ran through my head when I realized, once again, that I’d forgotten to breathe.

  I lurched out of the water, my eyes, nose, and brain burning. Where was I? What had happened? Then I remembered the suited man pointing the gun at me. I remembered backing up, holding my hands out, and then…darkness.

  Wiping the water from my eyes, I looked around. Everything was dark. I couldn’t make out much of anything. Thankfully I’d become a much better swimmer since that day at the pool, so I was able to tread water while figuring out just what to do.

  The current was fairly strong. My sweatpants were waterlogged and heavy, and they were dragging me down. I couldn’t see a riverbank, so I began to paddle in a random direction hoping to strike land.

  Bad idea, Zeke.

  About a dozen strokes in, a massive light appeared above me, shining directly into the path I was swimming toward. The light flooded my eyes, blinding me. It was coming from the bridge I’d just fallen off. The goons were looking for me.

  Yesterday I had been in math class. Ms. Connelly was glaring at me because I wasn’t paying attention and didn’t hear her ask me a question. I thought I was in big trouble then. I didn’t know what big trouble was.

  When my vision adjusted to the darkness, I could see that the goons were climbing down the riverbank to try to spot me from there. I could hold my breath for a minute—two, tops—but these guys were pros.

  Advantage goons.

  The light drew closer. The goons would spot me in a matter of seconds. Then I heard a voice, and my heart froze in my chest.

  “Lance has to be here somewhere.” It was the goon who had sat next to me in the car. “Kid fell straight down. I heard a splash. He’s in the water.”

  “Ugh, I have spaghetti strands in my hair,” another goon said.

  “He’s smarter than we thought,” the first voice said. “Obviously Derek Lance has the ability to innately control his gag reflex. Mr. Le Carré should have warned us about who we were going up against.”

  “He’s still a kid, and there are three of us. All we gotta do is find him.”

  “I owe Lance a broken leg. Maybe two. Ugh, I think there’s meatball in my nostril.”

  I’d thrown up dozens of times in my life, and never once had it been considered “resourceful.” But that awkward sense of pride died down when I remembered that these goons still thought I was Derek Lance, and just a moment ago they’d threatened to kill me. I decided it wasn’t the best course of action to wait around for them to find me.

  The problem was I didn’t know where to go. If I made any noise they might hear me, and I didn’t know how far the other riverbank was.

  Through the dim light I could see steel supports rising from the water like rusty gray sentries. A bed of reeds and lily pads swayed underneath the bridge. And that’s when I got the idea that I thought might just save my life.

  I dug into my pocket and found the pen I’d used to sift through Derek Lance’s trash. At first I wondered if I could throw it at one of the lackeys, maybe do some sort of boomerang thing where it knocked all three of them out cold. Then I remembered that I have the arm strength of a wet noodle. Maybe I could write a note on a leaf, stick it inside a bottle. Yeah, right.

  I uncapped the pen. I must not have been paying attention, because I felt the cartridge crack. That’s when the idea came to me. Maybe I wasn’t as stupid as I thought I was…

  I worked the barrel of the pen back and forth until the cartridge split in two. I let the closed-off end float away and brought the other end to my lips. I blew as hard as I could. A nasty, inky taste flooded my mouth. Blech. This had better work…

  I dove below the surface and quietly swam over to the reed bed, wary of creating too much attention and drawing the goons to my position. Once I was nestled in with the reeds, I pinched the ink tube, pulled it out, and let it drift away. Then I brought the newly created breathing tube to my mouth, ducked underwater, and hovered just below the surface with the tip of my new breathing straw poking just above the waterline.

  Then I waited.

  I couldn’t draw much air through the tube, and I had to tread water just below the surface to keep the tube out of the water. I wouldn’t be able to do this for very long. My arm muscles were growing stiff from treading water, but my life depended on it.

  Just then, I saw a wave of light sweep across the water directly above where I was hiding. Then another. Then another. My eyes widened, water stinging them. Each of the three goons was scanning the river with a flashlight. I was scared to breathe, scared to move. What if the breathing tube dipped underwater for a moment and I accidentally blew bubbles? Not only would I get caught, but I’d die with inky blue lips. Real heroic.

  Hold it together, Zeke…

  I heard no
ises above the surface, but couldn’t make them out. The men were clearly shouting. Frustrated at something. The flashlights had come to rest directly above my hiding spot. I breathed in and out as slowly as I possibly could. The pen tube was incredibly slim and still tasted kind of nasty. I only had a few more seconds before my arms would cramp up.

  Then the lights were gone. The shouting was growing distant. I peeked my eyes above the surface. The goons were walking back up the riverbank toward the car. They were leaving.

  “Mr. Le Carré is going to be pretty peeved,” one of the goons said.

  “You were in the backseat with him. He’s a freakin’ kid, and you couldn’t restrain him?”

  “Lay off; there’s a reason Mr. Le Carré sent three of us. This isn’t an ordinary kid.”

  “We know that now,” the driver said. “We only have one choice.”

  “No…him? You’re going to call him?”

  The goon said the word him like “him” was the last person you’d ever want to meet in a dark alley.

  “We can’t. He can kill Lance with his pinky finger.”

  They were too far away. I couldn’t make out what the driver was saying. All I heard was something that sounded like, “Call hag rock.”

  I didn’t know what a “hag rock” was, and even though it sounded silly, if it was bad enough to have these goons quaking in their penny loafers, it was bad enough to make me want to get the heck away from it.

  I waited until the car had driven away, then slowly swam to the riverbank, launched myself onto the muddy grass, and breathed in deep, thankful gulps of air. I sat there in the mud and gloom for what must have been an hour. I wanted to make sure the goons were gone—and that they weren’t coming back. Every so often I would hear the roar of traffic, the honking of horns, see glimpses of headlights. And each time, I hunkered down, ready to dive back into the murky depths should the goon squad realize I had been able to shake them.