Science Fair (12 page)

“Yes,” said Vrsk, “but we only want to go to Hubble Middle School.”

The driver sighed, then radioed his dispatcher, who looked up the school and told the driver the address. The driver wrote it down, then said to Vrsk: “That’s Maryland. You got money for the fare?”

“Yes,” said Vrsk. He showed the driver one of the one-mil ion-purd bil s. It featured a picture of Grdankl the Strong wearing a traditional Krpshtskani fur headpiece. He looked like a man whose scalp was being attacked by a raccoon.

“What kind of money is this?” said the taxi driver.

“Is purds,” said Vrsk.

“Purds?” said the driver.

“Purds,” said Vrsk.

“I don’t take purds,” said the driver.

“What about gold?” said Vrsk, showing the driver a coin.

“Gold is good,” said the driver.

“Hal e Berry,” said Drmtsi, to be part of the conversation.

“She’s good, too,” said the driver. With that, he put the taxi into gear and eased away from the curb. Traffic was heavy; it was rush hour. Neither the taxi driver nor his two tired passengers paid any attention to the white government-issue Ford sedan that began moving when the taxi did and was now fol owing about one hundred feet behind.

D
ANIELLE PRESCOTT MARCHED PAST
the secretary into the large, modern office of her husband, Tim, and took a seat without asking if she was interrupting. Which, in fact, she was: Tim was on a conference cal with some men in Taiwan who were about to pay Tim’s company, PresTech Industries, fifty-three mil ion dol ars to build a surveil ance satel ite that could count the dimples on a golf bal from space. Although that probably wasn’t what they planned to do with it.

“Excuse me for a moment, gentlemen,” Tim said into the phone. He pressed the MUTE button. “Dani, you can’t just…”

“Where’s the thingie?” she said.

“The thingie?”

“The whaddyacal it,” Daniel e explained. “The computer thingie. For Harmonee’s project.”

Tim quickly rose from his desk, crossed the office, and closed the door.

“Dani,” he said, “this is not something we should be discussing here.”

“Yes, it is,” she said. “Harmonee needs the thingie tomorrow.”

“Yes, and I wil —”

“So I thought I’d just pick it up now, since you might forget.” Daniel e checked her diamond-encrusted watch. “I have a nail appointment in fifteen minutes.”

“This is…a delicate situation,” said Tim. “It’s not exactly”—he lowered his voice—“legal.”

“This is the
science fair
,” said Daniel e, raising her voice. “Do you care about your daughter’s education at
all
?”

“Of course I do.”

“Wel , I hope so.” Daniel e checked her watch. “Thirteen minutes.” She drummed her flawless nails on her husband’s desk. Tim wondered why nails that perfect needed a manicure, but he was way too smart to ask.

He looked at the phone, its light blinking to indicate that the fifty-three-mil ion-dol ar customers were waiting. He cleared his throat and said, “I’l meet you at the loading dock in ten minutes. Have the trunk open.”

Daniel e smiled a flawless smile. “You’re
such
a good father, Timmy,” she said. “Have I told you that?”

* * *

Carl Niles lugged the heavy aluminum case into the spacious, spotless, and fabulously ultramodern Niles kitchen, where his wife, Jeanette, and son Jason were eating food from Burger King. Jason was watching his video iPod. Carl set the case down gently on the floor. He tapped Jason’s shoulder to indicate that he wanted to talk. Reluctantly, Jason removed one of his earbuds.

“What?” he said.

Carl pointed at the case. “Be very, very careful with this,” he said.

“Yeah, whatever,” said Jason, starting to put the earbud back in.

Carl gripped his son’s shoulder. “I’m
serious
,” he said.

“Ouch,” said Jason.

“Carl, you’re hurting him!” said Jeanette.

Carl let go, took a calming breath. “Okay,” he said. “But he needs to understand that this”—he gestured toward the case—“is an extremely sophisticated piece of technology. If anybody found out it was in civilian hands…”

“I’m sure Jason wil be very careful,” said Jeanette, scraping the breading off a chicken nugget. “Won’t you, dear?”

“Sure,” said Jason.

“And above al ,” said Carl, “tel the…tel your guy to fol ow the power-supply specifications. This is very important, al right? If he exceeds them, this thing could…It would be very bad.

You understand, Jason?”

“Yeah,” said Jason.

“Then tel me what I just said,” said Carl.

“You said he shouldn’t exceed…something.”

“The power-supply specifications!” said Carl, gripping Jason’s shoulder again. “This is
very important
.”

“Ouch,” said Jason.

“Carl, stop hurting him!” said Jeanette. “I’m sure it wil be fine. Jason wil tel the science coach what you said. Won’t you, Jason?”

“Yeah,” said Jason, reinserting the earbud, his eyes on the iPod screen.

Carl looked at his son for a moment, then at the metal case, then at his wife.

“I need a drink,” he said.

D
RMTSI AND VRSK STARED OUT
through the taxi windows at America, their mouths wide open like groupers. Everything they saw astonished them, starting with the sheer number of cars—

more cars on just this street than there were in al of Krpshtskan. And these were
new
cars, cars that actual y worked, driving at amazing speeds on smooth roads as wide as the Krpshtskani presidential palace.

The taxi whizzed past forests of fantastic buildings, new and clean and spectacularly high, some of them looking as though they were made entirely of glass. And then there were fields of houses,
big
houses; Drmtsi and Vrsk assumed that houses this grand must be occupied by the rulers of America. But there were so
many
of them, and every one had a car out front. Sometimes
two
cars. Just
sitting
there. The houses were surrounded by grass, big swaths of it, green and lush. Drmtsi and Vrsk saw no livestock; they assumed that the cows and goats were kept inside the houses, let out to eat the grass at night. Much different than the Krpsht system.

Drmtsi turned to Vrsk, and, speaking Krpsht, said, “Is large country.”

“Yes,” replied Vrsk, also in Krpsht. He was thinking,
Maybe it is not such a good idea to attack this country.

“Where are you from?” said the taxi driver.

“Krpshtskan,” said Vrsk.

“Gesundheit,” said the driver.

“What?” said Vrsk.

“Gesundheit,” said the driver. “It’s a joke.”

“Ah,” said Vrsk. “Ha-ha. Thank you.” He did not actual y understand the joke. But in Krpshtskan, where people had little else to give each other, a joke was considered sort of a present. If somebody told you one, good manners required that you tel one in return. Vrsk frowned, trying to think of a Krpshtskani joke he could translate into English. Final y, he settled on one that was popular with Krpshtskani children. He said to the driver, “How are you keeping chicken out of toilet?”

“What?” said the driver.

“How,” Vrsk repeated slowly, “are you keeping chicken out of toilet?”

“You need a toilet?” said the driver.

“No, no,” said Vrsk. “
Chicken
is trying to get into toilet.”

“Chicken?” said the driver.

“Yes,” said Vrsk. “Chicken.”

“What chicken?” said the driver.

“Is not real chicken,” Vrsk assured him.

The driver eyed Vrsk in the rearview mirror.

Drmtsi said to Vrsk, in Krpsht, “What are you saying to him?”

“I am tel ing him joke about chicken and toilet,” said Vrsk.

“Ha! Good one!” said Drmtsi, roaring with laughter and pounding his thighs hard enough to send powerful puffs of smerk smel bil owing through the taxi.

“Is there a problem back there?” said the driver.

“No problem,” said Vrsk. “Is joke.”

“You think it’s funny, stinking up my cab?” said the driver.

“Ah,” said Vrsk. “Is not stink. Is smerk.”

Recognizing the word, Drmtsi reached into his pants and held a reeking green glob out toward the driver.

“Smerk?” he said.

“Get that away from me!” said the driver, almost swerving off the road.

“He says he is not hungry,” Vrsk said to Drmtsi.

They rode the rest of the way in silence, the driver darting suspicious glances at his aromatic passengers in the rearview mirror. By the time they pul ed into the Hubble Middle School driveway, dusk had fal en. The taxi stopped in front of the enormous, two-story brick building, which appeared deserted. Drmtsi and Vrsk got out and gave the driver a gold coin.

He grunted—he was pretty sure the coin was worth far more than the fare—and drove away, keeping al the windows open to rid the taxi of smerk stench.

Drmtsi and Vrsk approached the school’s large, glass front doors. They pushed and pul ed on the handles; the doors were locked. They pounded on them and waited; nothing happened. They pressed their faces against the glass and peered into the dark corridor. They saw nobody.

Drmtsi and Vrsk looked at each other. They hadn’t given much thought to what they would do when they got here. They’d just assumed that they would find Prmkt. But there was no Prmkt here, and it was dark, and they were both very tired and very hungry. Drmtsi frowned. As fourth vice president, he knew it was his responsibility to come up with a plan.

“Perhaps,” said Vrsk, “we should find a place to sleep and come back to school in morning.”

“Quiet,” said Drmtsi. “I am thinking of a plan.”

“Sorry,” said Vrsk.

Drmtsi frowned some more. It was hard work. After a minute he said, “I have a plan.”

“Yes?” said Vrsk.

“Right now,” said Drmtsi, “we find a place to sleep.”

“Ah,” said Vrsk.

“Tomorrow,” said Drmtsi, “we come back here and look for Prmkt.”

Vrsk nodded. “It is a good plan,” he said.

“Yes,” said Drmtsi. “Fol ow me.”

With Fourth Vice President Drmtsi in the lead, the two Krpshtskani agents began walking along the school driveway. When they reached the street, they turned right, toward the business district.

They did not notice the white Ford sedan creeping along the street about fifty feet behind them.

The two occupants of the Ford—both wearing starched white shirts and dark suits—were not thril ed to have pul ed this duty. They’d fol owed the cab from the airport into the suburbs, only to realize—as the two targets started
walking
—that it was going to be a long night.

With al their attention on the two in front of them, they did not notice the man fol owing them—a man who had emerged from Hubble Middle School a minute behind Drmtsi and Vrsk. A man keeping an eye on the Ford as wel as the two men the Ford was fol owing.

A man with a plan of his own.

F
OR THE HUNDREDTH TIME
on this endless day, Toby looked at his watch. Six-thirty p.m.
Finally.
He was meeting with Micah and Tamara at the mal at seven p.m. Time to put his escape plan in motion.

Toby took a deep breath and blew a final lungful into the ful -scale Luke Skywalker blow-up dol that was a central part of his parents’ cherished memorabilia col ection. He closed off the valve and pul ed up the bedcovers so that when the room lights were off it would look as if he were asleep—as long as nobody looked too closely. Next, he slipped his iPod’s extension speaker inside the pil owcase right next to Luke’s head. The speaker was connected to his laptop computer over on his desk via a concealed wire. Final y, he tested the smal wireless microphone taped above the door by speaking into it.