1 - Sam #3
He headed to the street and put up an arm.
Almost instantly, a yellow cab pulled up, its rear door right next to him.
Sam jumped in the back, not taking his eyes off Red-Locs.
“Follow that guy on the Segway! Standing up there!” Sam pointed against the plexiglass barrier that separated the driver from the backseat.
The corner of Sam’s eye saw the cabbie’s Yankee baseball cap dip in acknowledgment, and they were off.
“Don’t get too close, I don’t want him to know we’re following,” Sam instructed as they kept going north.
At Ninety-Second Street Red-Locs turned left toward Central Park, going against traffic.
“We’re going to lose him!” Sam cried.
“Nyet.” It was the first thing the taxi driver had said.
CLAK! The doors on either side of Sam suddenly locked.
Sam took his eyes off Red-Locs and looked at the driver.
The Russian!
Still wet. But looking pretty pleased with himself. He had some kind of bulky gun in his left hand.
Oh fuck!
The Russian tapped his gun against the plexi. “Not bullet-proof. Neither are you,” the Russian said. “Phone. Now.”
Sam slid his phone out of his pocket and thought about hitting 9-1-1 fast.
The Russian placed his gun barrel against the air vent holes drilled into the barrier by the swivel payment tray. “No tricks.”
Sam didn’t want to push him, and he absolutely didn’t want to get shot. He put his phone in the little tray and tilted it so his phone slid into the Russian’s hand.
With no way for Sam to call for help, the Russian turned around and started driving again.
Sliding from one side of the backseat to the other, Sam tried both doors and windows, but they were locked tight.
He might as well have been in a cage.
Sam wanted to kick himself, but there wasn’t room. There, on the barrier behind the driver’s seat, was a photo of turbaned G ANGANDEEP B ARAR: Y OUR F RIENDLY N.Y.C. T AXI D RIVER!
The Russian didn’t look anything like a Gangandeep. Sam hoped the real driver was okay.
Sam flipped the Bond-level-cool bracelet Ari had given him to the blur side.
Now, on every camera the taxi passed, the angular shiny black stones would replace his image with a smear of color and light.
He slid closer to the window behind the driver, bracelet by his face to make sure the gadget would work.
Ari could find that telltale blur and hopefully track wherever they were taking him.
But that wouldn’t happen until Sam was missing for long enough that Ari, Frida, and Nico would know something was wrong.
Ten agonizing minutes later, they pulled up to a nondescript building on Madison Avenue.
A fancy vacuum cleaner store on the ground floor had a single red-and-chrome race-car-styled model in the window, under a spotlight.
Exactly the kind of place Sam had walked by a hundred times and hadn’t thought twice about.
Red-Locs appeared on the street side of the taxi, blocking that way. The Russian opened the sidewalk-side door, gun pointing at Sam from inside his open bomber jacket. Sam didn’t have much choice.
As the three of them approached the glass door it buzzed to unlock, and Sam realized there was at least one more person in on this.
They marched Sam inside. Upon entering, the Russian flipped the store’s O PEN sign to C LOSED .
Sam heard the taxi drive away. Four people and counting.
Red-Locs pushed Sam between his shoulder blades to keep him walking through the black showroom past five other fancy vacuum models, through a heavy curtain to an inside storeroom. Their entire inventory seemed to be twelve vacuums in boxes. How do they stay in business?
And then Sam realized selling vacuums wasn’t their business, or he wouldn’t be there. The store was just a front. But for what? Or maybe more important, who?
Another door took them into a metal-walled room, about ten feet square, with one of those cheap molded-plastic green table-and-chairs sets in the middle.
It made Sam think of a meat locker, the kind of place a Bond villain would torture someone, because you could yell and yell and no one would hear you scream.
Sam tried to swallow past the fear in his throat.
The Russian’s gun, which looked like it had a second, shorter barrel under the first, motioned Sam to sit.
Sam did.
Red-Locs was scowling at him. The Russian had found a towel and was scrubbing at his hair, still aiming that gun at Sam.
But then Sam realized something: If they had wanted to shoot him, they could have already. They would have. So they didn’t want him dead. The realization gave him courage. “Why am I here? What do you want?”
Neither of them said anything.
And Sam’s fear shifted into something else—he was starting to get pissed off.
A Polynesian woman walked in, eyes on a computer tablet.
She read from it out loud, “ Making the mission to find, and then terraform, a hostile-to-humanity other planet, while not explaining why we can’t terraform the getting-more-hostile-to-humanity Earth we’re already on, is a logic thread that, once you pull it, unravels the whole movie. ”
Those were Sam’s words. From his vlog review of Earth 2.0 .
She scrolled, and read again, “ If the aliens are so desperate for water they’d attack us to steal ours, why not just help them create it on their home world? Hydrogen and oxygen are not that rare. If we make water on the space station, we could do it on another planet. ” He’d said that too.
And then she read, “ Even alien life has to follow some evolutionary logic. ” That was from the review Sam had posted just last night.
“This is about my vlog?” Sam asked, incredulous.
She looked at him, her gaze steely. “It’s why the Director thinks you’re the Knitter. Or might be. I’m Keahilani. You’ve already met Noble One and Brigadoon.” She tilted her head toward the Russian and then Red-Locs.
“Code names,” Sam said, guessing their parents hadn’t given them those names. “Why do I have a code name?”
“Because your country needs you. Our world needs you.” Keahilani kept staring, like they were in some competition.
Sam wasn’t playing. But he was totally lost. “I thought you were the bad guys.”
“Always, Americans. You hear accent and—” Noble One smacked his hand against the plastic table—it echoed in the metal room. “Right for stereotype.”
“You were chasing me,” Sam pointed out.
Noble One glowered. “Because you ran.”
Keahilani cut them off. “This is not helpful.” She turned to Sam. “We need you to start working for us.”
One Good Thing
I guess I finally have something to write about for this bullshit therapist homework, so I can tell Dr.Sanchez “I wrote down my One Good Thing daily.” Thank God I don’t have to show it to her.
We never see James Bond get recruited, but I bet it was nothing like today!
I get that I’m not supposed to tell anyone—a spy can’t go around telling people he’s a spy—but I don’t love the idea of keeping secrets from Nico.
Well, secret, singular, I guess.
Keahilani explained it was to keep the people I care about safe. If they knew, then they could become targets.
Targets of whom, I don’t know, because she was kind of vague on that point.
I actually don’t know what I’m going to be doing for them either. An analyst of some kind. The vlog posts convinced them I have “the mind” for it.
This code name though? Awful.
I looked “Keahilani” up. It’s Hawaiian for “fire in the sky.” Bitching. “Noble One,” I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean. He’s noble? Is there a Noble Two? Are these all weird inside jokes? “Brigadoon” is some old musical that takes place in Scotland.
But The Knitter ? Ugh! What a grandma kind of code name. I’ll have to talk to “Fire in the Sky” about that…
On the subway to school now—Almost two hours late! Would have been easier to skip the whole day and say I got sick, but I’m not supposed to draw “unnecessary attention.”
So I’ll just say I overslept, get an unexcused absence.
Whatever.
Nico’s back tonight! It will be so good to see him!
Everyone’s meeting at Mehudar for the one-month anniversary of getting out of Hergenreder’s Institute. A Freedom Party.
Huh. We should call ourselves that, the group of us. The Freedom Party.
I should get Nico something, congratulations for finishing barista training.
Maybe that Omega Seamaster Diver 300M Co-Axial Master Chronometer with the brown-and-cream bezel and face and titanium mesh strap—exactly what Daniel Craig wore as Bond in No Time to Die .
Then we’d have kind of a set, me with the watch from Craig’s first Bond movie, Nico with the watch from his last.
Dad and Mom thought I was crazy for swapping my Pierce Brosnan–Bond Chronometer 2531.
80.00 for the Craig-Bond Co-Axial 2220.80.
00—but they’re completely different blues!
And Daniel Craig’s watch in Casino Royale didn’t have the gadgets.
As cool as Brosnan’s watch gadgets were from Q Branch, Craig doesn’t need the watch gadgets, and that’s what I want for me.
To walk through the world with magical penis swagger. To be that confident.
Anyway, they asked me what I wanted for a wedding present, and I got to choose.
I bet Nico will look great in his!
Should I surprise him?
No, that just feels like another secret.
One secret.
I’ll ask him about the watch. We’ll do the party. Then we’ll go home and enjoy Die Another Day together. Brosnan-Bond.
Haven’t seen it in ages.
And then, some couple-time… Three days is way too long!
Our honeymoon was great but now that we’re back, things are tougher.
Nico took this barista job, and he’s been gone, and he’s so bad at talking on the phone.
Maybe it’s me? Am I bad at talking on the phone?
Whatever the reason, we’re so bad on the phone.
I’m almost afraid to write it down, but I can’t stop thinking about it. When Noble One and Brigadoon were chasing me, even though I had to say goodbye to Nico fast, I still said “I love you.”
He didn’t say it back.
I was running, and maybe he was pissed that I had to get off the phone so quickly?
I know he does. Love me, that is.
But…
He does, right?
Ugh, I just need to see him in person.
And I will, in 10 hours. Outside Savta’s—I mean my —hotel. That’s still so weird.
Shit! Almost missed my stop.
Tomorrow, right after school, I’m supposed to show up for my first day on the job.
My first day as a spy—like a real-life James Bond! Or, well, someone on the team at least.
Heck yeah!