Chapter 11: Nicholas

Twenty minutes later, Ace and I were back at my house. Mom greeted him with the usual pleasantries but left us on our own.

“The note’s in my room,” I said. “I’ll be back in a sec.”

Ace grabbed my arm. “How do I know you’ll keep your word about the money? Do you even have enough?”

“Tom will take care of it with his insurance, and you can always come after me if I’m lying. You know where I live.”

He seemed satisfied with the answer. I fired off a quick text to the old man as I jogged up the stairs.

I handed the note to Ace and sat down at the kitchen table.

He looked at the paper. “The person who wrote it is the leader of the Underground, but I’m guessing you knew that already.”

“You can tell from a glance?” I asked.

“The Underground has a standard system for aliases. If the recipient’s follows the same rules, his full name would be Nathan or Nathaniel, something along those lines.”

It sounded familiar but I couldn’t quite recall where I had heard it before. “And what does the message say?”

“That’s what I’m working on.”

I watched the clock as Ace scribbled on the paper and fetched whatever supplies he needed, namely sheets of scratch paper. Mom came in at around eight and brought us bowls of noodles.

I scarfed down mine within fifteen minutes while Ace didn’t even touch his.

“Could I use your phone to search something?” he asked at ten.

I handed it over.

At half past midnight, he threw down his pencil and cursed under his breath.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Did you figure it out?”

If an actual member of the Underground couldn’t decode it, I didn’t know where else I could go.

“There’s someone I need to talk to.” Ace stood up, staring at the paper like it would burn him. “I have to go.”

“Ace, tell me what happened,” I demanded. “You look like you saw a ghost.”

Or he was coming close to becoming a ghost himself.

Ace pushed past me and ran to the front of the house, calling a hasty goodbye to my mom. The door slammed shut behind him.

On the note, he had marked every eighth letter and had written them out in blocky letters beneath the closing signature.

Atenia, It’s just awful when parents take your iPhone. Like, do they somehow choose to control us partly by obstructing our social life? Geez.

Talk to you soon, Esther ANTIKSHOPOICG

Under the letters, Ace had written two lines, “antik shop oi cg” and “antique shop on intersection Claremont and Gisele.”

No intersections in town started with the same letters. Ace couldn’t be mistaken. It was the exact place EAGLE had uncovered earlier. I pulled out my phone, hoping that the search he had made would give me some insight. The tab was closed, but a quick look through my browsing history revealed what I was looking for.

Ace had looked up the name of the EAGLE director.

My head spun with revelations. Ace believed Nathan Harker was in contact with the leader of the Underground. Or perhaps the current leader was a spy deep undercover working for EAGLE who had somehow made his way to the top of the Underground hierarchy.

But then he could order all the people involved in the Underground to congregate at a meeting point and send EAGLE the location. There had to be more to it.

I pulled up the news app on my phone and filtered the results, looking for any article that had to do with EAGLE and the Underground. There were too many to read through.

I tried narrowing the time limit to the last several months. Then weeks. And finally, days.

Nothing.

The next thing I knew, I was slumped on the table with my phone dangling by my fingertips. I groaned and rubbed my eyes. The sunlight coming from the open window was like a thousand tiny knives.

“Rise and shine, Nicholas. You two must have stayed up late last night.” Mom smiled. "Where’s Ace? I can give him a ride home.”

“He left,” I said.

“Did his mother come pick him up?”

“I think so.”

Mom had a protective streak a mile wide that would send her phoning the police station if she caught wind of a minor out alone past ten o’clock. It was best to avoid the trouble.

“Alright then. I’ve got an extra shift at the daycare because Debbie’s out sick. You’re on your own for the day, sweetheart.”

“It’s fine. I’ve got tons of homework.”

Not that I was planning on doing any of it. Mom kissed me on the forehead as she headed out the door.

I rolled a crick out of my neck as I opened up the newsfeed on my phone. This time, the search results yielded a video published just two hours ago. I clicked on it and turned up the volume. A Middle Eastern couple popped up onto the screen. I recognized Mohammad Khalid.

“My son, Jeremiah, died last night.” His voice shook. “The autopsy found that he was with a slow acting poison favored by the Underground. I will donate several hundred million dollars to EAGLE to aid their efforts to bring down the Underground. My company will also provide any supplies the agency may need. The assassin who took Jeremiah’s life must be brought to justice.”

The billionaire shook his head. “I-I am sorry, that is all I can say.”

He took his wife’s hand and bowed his head. I closed the video and called Tom.

After several rings, he picked up. “Did something happen, Nicholas?”

“Can I come over right now? It’s important.”

He paused. “I’m on my way back from headquarters, and I’ll be at the Blue Jay in fifteen minutes. Are you in immediate danger?”

I assured him I was not before stuffing the note in my pocket and heading out the door. It was a ten minute jog to his house, delayed by an intersection with cars that refused to yield to pedestrians. Tom was pulling up in the driveway when I arrived at the house.

“The code’s cracked.” I handed the paper to him. “It was from the leader of the Underground, and you’re not going to believe what it says.”

Tom frowned as he read it. “The leader of the Underground wouldn’t give away an important meeting point.”

“But you can’t deny what you’re seeing.”

Tom squinted. “Who cracked the code? The notes aren’t in your handwriting.”

“It was a reliable source of information.”

“Does it have anything to do with the hospital bill you had me cover?”

“Possibly.”

He raised an eyebrow.

I sighed. “It was an Underground assassin. Before you say anything about his credibility, I doubt he was lying to me. He seemed as shocked by the message as I was.”

“And the hospital bill?”

“For his friend. It was the only way I could get him to cooperate. And what you read isn’t the most surprising part. The note is addressed to Nathan Harker.”

“The EAGLE director?”

I nodded. “The heads of the two rival organizations are working with each other, and I doubt the Underground would help EAGLE without something in return. The secrecy makes the situation suspicious.”

“I find the situation hard to believe. Are you certain the assassin was not tricking you?”

“Positive.”

Ace wasn’t a good liar.

Tom tilted the note back and forth as if an answer would reveal itself to him. “You are not to breathe a word of this to anyone, Nicholas, not even Ishaan or Sandra. We don’t want the EAGLE director figuring out that we’re onto him. Right now, we hold an advantage, however slight, but it could turn against us fast. Do you remember one of the first lessons I taught you?”

“Never act unless you are certain you can win.” I thought for a moment. “Also, mixing ketchup with lemonade is a bad idea.”

“I’ll choose to ignore that last bit. We need to gather more information, figure out what both parties are gaining from this exchange. There’s also the question of how they’re meeting, the number of people involved, and what their intentions are.”

I pulled up the news article and handed it to Tom. “Do you think EAGLE is hiring Underground assassins? It seems strange that the man who had refused to donate funds would lose his child.”

Mohammad Khalid’s heartbroken voice played from my phone.

“Khalid is a billionaire,” Tom said. “He has enemies rich enough to order a hit on his son. I think we should set up a meeting with your assassin friend. We can pool together what we know.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“It would be in his best interest to help. If his leader is working with our director, he’s affected too. When do you think you can contact him?”

I frowned. “Well, I’m pretty sure he’ll be at school on Monday.”