Double Vision (5 page)

Ben took a step forward and another. Until our noses were just inches apart. “Is that a challenge?”

“Absolutely.” And I had a brilliant idea. A way for us to go our separate ways but still get the mission done. “Let's make it a bet. Whoever brings the Dangerous Double back here first wins.”

Ben stepped back and laughed at that. “Fine.”

“And that person gets to claim the title of best junior secret agent ever.”

Ben clenched his teeth. “Let's up the ante. If I win—no,
when
I win, you'll give me your Presidential Medal of Freedom. You'll walk away empty-handed.”

That made me pause. I really wanted that medal—Mom and Dad would be so proud. But I was confident I could beat Ben.

“Are you in, Baker?”

I nodded. “Game on,
Agent
Green.”

BEN AND I PUSHED THROUGH THE
conference room doorway at the same time. I watched him get on the elevator before I went back to ask Stark where I could find Henry. Turns out he was just down the hall in room 418.

I took a deep breath as I made my way over there. Why did I let Ben get under my skin like that?

Henry lit up when I knocked on the open door.

I instantly felt better. “Hey, Henry.”

“Linc!” Henry called from behind the desk. There was a table between us, with a cardboard box and a tool kit on it. “Come in.”

I wasn't sure how you were supposed to greet your gadget guy who is also your friend, so I gave him a knuckle punch.

Henry gave me a big grin. “Isn't this great? The team is back together again.” He rubbed his hands. “And I cooked up some good stuff for you and Ben.”

I shook my head. “No dice on the gadgets for Ben. He has his junior secret agent manual to beat the bad guys over the head with.” I told Henry about our little run-in.

“Jeez, who messed with his cereal this morning, huh?” Henry knew what a pain Ben could be. They were at junior agent boot camp together and didn't exactly get along. “But what if he wins? You'd lose out on the medal.”

“With your gadgets, I'll come out on top,” I said, hoping I sounded confident. “I can't wait to see what you've cooked up for me. Did Albert Black tell you about the case?”

“George Washington's coat? Yeah, it's a real toughie.” Henry leaned on the box, looking lost in thought. “So where are you going to start?”

“I was hoping you might have something to go on. I didn't pay attention much when I learned about Washington in school.” The truth was that I barely paid attention at all. I usually fell into a mental coma when someone started saying “in 1776, blah blah.”

“I can't say I remember much myself. He had fake teeth and was a big-time hero during the Revolutionary War.” Henry stared at the ceiling, like the historical clues were written on the ceiling tiles. “He could have been a king, you know. But he didn't want that kind of power. Washington was one of those real straight arrows.”

“Straight arrow—that's all you got?” I groaned. “How am I going to find the Dangerous Double?”

“Sorry.” Henry was cutting the box open. “I'm the tech guy, not a historian. You know, you might want to try the Library of Congress. Just about anything you can think of is archived there. You never know what could help.”

“Yeah,” I said, trying to hide my disappointment. Digging through archives didn't exactly sound like fun.

“Maybe these gadgets will cheer you up.” Henry reached inside the box and pulled out two black plastic balls with holes in them. He handed one to me.

It was about the size of a Ping-Pong ball but felt heavier. “What does it do?” I pushed a tiny red button, and all of a sudden, there was the loudest blaring noise. Police sirens, loud enough to make you deaf for a few hours. “Help!”

Henry snatched it from my hands and pushed the red button again. The noise stopped. “I call it ‘Ruckus on a Roll.' I used my baby brother's little toy police cars to make it. Loud, huh?”

“What?”

“I said that it was loud. Wait—you're messing with me.” Henry smiled. “That was good.”

“A police siren might make a bad dude take a hike.” After this mission was over, I might just try to snatch one to bring back home. The Ruckus on a Roll could come in handy during a test or something.

“Since Ben's not interested, you can have two,” Henry said, reminding me of the mission. He handed me the balls. “The button is recessed, so the Ruckus won't go off in your bag.”

I put the two balls in my backpack.

Next, Henry took some gum from his pocket and put it in his mouth. While chewing, he unpacked two rectangular strips of plastic. They looked like mousetraps. Henry placed one on his palm. “You're gonna love it.” Then he took the wad of wet gum from his mouth.

“Gross, Henry!”

He shrugged. “You can't be picky when it comes to science.” He stuck the gob on the small square plate. Then he held his hand out, like he was Spider-Man ready to toss a web from his wrist. Then he used his right index finger to push a small button and—

Splat! Almost instantly, the gum was pasted against the far wall.

“This is the coolest slingshot ever, Henry!”

“I call it the Sure Shot. Just be careful what you put on it. Nothing hard or you'll shoot someone's eye out.”

“Soft objects only, got it.” I put the two Sure Shots in my backpack.

“Oh, and last but not least.” Henry reached into the box and pulled out some folded-up plastic thing. It was about the size of a rolled beach towel.

“It's a boat,” I said.

“Pretty much. But I made it ultra-light and compact, out of this new material I invented. I had one for you and one for Ben, but I'll keep his for me.” Henry pointed to a red plastic ring. “You pull this to inflate it.”

I didn't think I'd be boating on this mission but put it inside the bottom pocket of my backpack that I normally use
for my gym shoes. The boat would just smell like stinky socks if I wound up using it.

“Well, thanks, Henry. You know I couldn't do this without you. Ben doesn't know what he's missing.”

Henry waved the compliment away, but I could tell he was proud of himself. He should be—the guy is the smartest twelve-year-old I know.

“Hey, you want to come with me to the Library of Congress?” I really wanted some company, and Henry was more of a book guy than me.

Henry shook his head. “Stark called me just before you got here. She wants me working on some data analysis. We're looking for the mole, and I think I have a program that might be able to help.”

Henry went on for a while about how he was going to work his high-tech magic to find the mole, but it all got a little too complicated for me. I zipped up my backpack and nodded every once in a while, pretending to understand what he was talking about.

“So you're going to do some research?” Henry asked.

“Yeah, I guess I better get started.” I said bye to my friend. Those Library of Congress archives were probably a lot like Pandora files. Fun, right?

I took the elevator down. When the doors opened and I got off, I turned left down a hall. And I almost ran down a girl with red shoulder-length hair.

“Hey,” she said, like I was supposed to know who she was. Honestly, I had no idea.

But then I remembered the files I read on the plane, the ones on the president and her family. The photos of the first daughter.

It took me a second, but then I recognized the twinkle in her eye. “Amy?”

I GLANCED AROUND, BUT NO ONE IN THE
hall seemed to notice us. “Where's your Secret Service person?” This was the first daughter I was talking to, after all. There had to be some security.

“You mean babysitter?” Amy pulled me along inside the visitor center. “Steve's over there.” She pointed across the room. The place was huge, with high ceilings, white stone archways, and red carpet—it looked like a mini-version of the White House. Amy's Secret Service guy Steve stood near a giant black-and-white historical poster of the White House. He looked our way and smiled.

“He seems nice.”

Amy nodded. “Steve lets me go where I want, as long as I let him come along.” She pulled at her fake red hair. “And I have to wear this wig.”

“It does make you hard to recognize,” I said.

“Sometimes, he makes me wear these glasses and this hat.” She pulled a black knit cap from her pocket and a pair of red plastic-rimmed glasses.

“Yikes.”

“No kidding.” She stuffed the hat and glasses back in her pocket. “I'm glad I found you. Steve saw Wilson come get you guys. I guessed you were going to the clubhouse meeting with Mom and figured you'd eventually come out here.”

I leaned closer and whispered, “You've been down to the clubhouse?” The visitor center was pretty busy, but the place was so huge that it was easy to stay out of earshot.

“Only once, during the first week after we moved here.” Amy sounded sad. “After that, Mom kind of made everything top secret.”

Top secret—that reminded me of my hunt for the coat and how Ben was already way ahead of me. “Listen, I'd love to hang around here and talk, but I have a mission.”

“Can I come?”

I glanced at Steve. He was smiling at some pretty blond lady walking by. She gave him the stink eye. “Is he going to be okay with that?”

“Steve's easy. He goes where I go.” Amy smiled. “So where
are
we going?”

I should have told her not to come, but then, I could really
use some help finding my way around DC. “The Library of Congress,” I said as we walked toward the visitor center exit. I could feel Steve hanging behind us, like a piece of gum stuck to my shoe.

Outside, Amy pointed past the blue awnings of the visitor center and behind the Herbert C. Hoover Building. “That's this way.”

I trailed, too busy gawking at the White House to my left.

But then Amy pulled me by the coat sleeve. “Let's go,” she said.

We started walking, and I buttoned my coat. “Why are we going to the Library of Congress, exactly?” Amy asked.

“I'm looking for this . . . artifact.” We'd left the White House and the visitor center behind us now. We were walking past more imposing buildings to the right and some kind of fancy lawn to our left.

Amy leaned close and waited for a group of people to pass before whispering, “Is it a Dangerous Double you're finding for Pandora?”

I glanced behind me, but Steve was far enough back. He wouldn't hear our conversation. “How do you know about all that?”

“I borrowed the files from Mom.” Amy shrugged like it was no big deal. “You're Linc Baker, but you're here as Ben, right?”

I nodded.

“That's what Steve thinks, so your cover is still good. Anyway, it was all there—your first case in Paris and everything. You sure get arrested a lot,” she added with a snicker.

“You stole the Pandora files?”

“
Borrowed
,” Amy corrected. We stopped at a crosswalk.

“Then you know about the threat to your family and everything?”

Amy nodded. “Steve showed me the email and told me there was an increased security risk. That Dagger person wants to kill us.” The light turned green, and we crossed the street.

“Aren't you scared?” I whispered. Not that anyone around us paid any attention. People were just passing like there was no big threat to the White House.

“I'm not afraid,” Amy said. She had to be lying, but I figured maybe now was not the time to call her on it.

So we walked along Pennsylvania Avenue, which was huge and wide, with three lanes of traffic going in either direction. I told her about the George Washington coat and the bet I had with Ben to find the coat first. “Apparently the Library of Congress has some George Washington archives.”

Amy laughed. “Oh yeah,
some
is the word. Like,
sixty-five thousand
documents.”

I stopped and coughed. “Seriously?”

“You bet. There are diaries, letters, military documents—you name it, the Library of Congress has it archived. I borrowed a few documents once,” Amy mused.

Of course she did.

“Not a good idea.” Her face was very serious now.

I groaned. “I don't have time to dig through tens of thousands of files.”

“I know where to go.” Amy pulled my arm. “Come on.” Steve scrambled to keep up with her brisk pace.

“Where are we going?”

“To the International Spy Museum.”

AMY GAVE ME A SMILE. “YOU KNOW
,
George Washington was a spy.”

I tried to picture the guy on my dollar bill in black clothes and sunglasses. George Washington, super-spy. I laughed. “No way.”

“Oh yes.” Amy nodded. “Did you know Revolutionary War spies used invisible ink to send messages between the lines of documents?”

I didn't. That spy history stuff sounded like the secret club Sam, Daryl, and I had in second grade. Only this was serious business.

As we kept walking, Amy told me about all the ways spies used to send messages. She was explaining something about
laundry hanging to dry and that being a code, but I was too busy trying not to gawk at all the imposing buildings we passed to pay much attention. Washington, DC, was like a big fat history lesson, only we were walking in it.

We took a left on 9th and then a right on F Street, where the buildings were closer together.

“Come on,” Amy said. “This is it.” She pointed to a large brick building with red awnings and a giant movie-theater-style billboard across the front.