Capture the Flag (9 page)

Anna flattened herself on top of the black suitcase and took a deep breath. She felt the cold zipper of the little side pocket against her cheek and hung on tight as the belt climbed higher.

Now, way up by the steel-beamed ceiling, Anna could peer over the edge. Conveyor belts hummed and squeaked through the room below, twisting and looping, climbing and plunging over and around one another.

Anna tried to trace the path her BTV suitcase would take. Her eyes followed the belt up ahead, around a hairpin curve, then back alongside the same belt for a while before it took a steep climb and looped off toward the other side of the room where they'd first come in. Big plastic carts were stacked on one of the belts over there, and she couldn't see past them.

Where were the boys? She was looking over her shoulder and nearly fell off the belt when the suitcase made that hairpin turn. When she regained her balance, she thought she heard the echo of a voice on the far side of the room. Maybe Henry and José were coming. She closed her eyes, trying to tune out the drone of the conveyor belt motors and find the voice again, but it was gone.

Anna felt herself sliding backward as the suitcase started up a big slope. She held on and was all the way to the top before she realized that this hill dropped off into another steep plunge. She would have screamed if she'd had time.

But she didn't.

Still clutching the handle of the suitcase, she landed flat on her stomach at the bottom of the ramp, then tumbled another three feet onto a pile of bags that had slid off the belt after the plunge. The BTV suitcase landed on top of her. “Oomph!”

“What was that?” A man's voice — it wasn't Henry or José — drifted over the top of a huge plastic cart filled with suitcases. Anna held her breath. Something in the duffel bag underneath her poked into her ribs, but she didn't dare move.

“What was what?” Another voice. Lower than the first. Was it Snake-Arm? She tried to remember his voice from the restaurant, but she couldn't be sure.

“I thought I heard somebody.”

Anna couldn't make out what they said next. She closed her eyes, trying to sort out words from the humming of the motors. “… middle of the night. I told you, the handlers are all off duty. Just a suitcase falling off the belt or something. We'll probably hear more coming through now that the system's turned back on.”

The voice had a familiar tone to it, but Anna still couldn't hear clearly enough to say for sure it was Snake-Arm. There was a faint clinking sound, too, like someone juggling change in a pocket. Then more clunking. More thumping of tossed bags.

Another duffel bag barreled down the ramp — “Oof!” — and pinned Anna down.

“See? That's what I heard before!”

“I'm telling you, it's the bags. Now get moving. We still have all these to check. I can't believe you didn't have the brains to mark the thing somehow.”

“But it had to fit right back in with all their other stuff. What was I supposed to do? Write
FLAG
on the case in chalk?”

“Shut your piehole and keep going.”

Anna's heart pounded so hard she thought it would burst. She'd been right all along; the flag was
here
, and those men had it! Or at least, they expected to find it soon.

She strained to hear the voices. Did one of them belong to Snake-Arm? It sounded familiar. But who was the other man? And how many Serpentine Prince members were at the airport? What if it was Vincent Goosen himself? Anna swallowed hard. From under the duffel bags, she could hear something like big boxes being pushed around, scraping on the concrete floor.

“Nope. Not this one.”

She shifted under the suitcase, and something poked into her hip. Her mini video camera in her pocket! If she could get to a place where she could see the men without being seen herself, she could take video of them — maybe even with the flag — and she'd have evidence to prove José's mother and Sinan's family and all the orchestra people were innocent.

Anna squeezed her eyes closed; she could do this. She could solve the mystery and then José's mom and Sinan's parents would be okay. She'd have the story of all stories for the newspaper, and Snickerbottom would give her an interview, and then they'd
have
to let her be in the Silver Jaguar Society no matter how old she was. She just had to get up the nerve.

Little by little, Anna wiggled out from under the bags.

She held her breath.

Had they heard her moving? She doubted it. The noises from the other side of the luggage carts were getting louder, if anything. More clinking change. More thumping. It sounded as if they'd dropped something big.

“Blast it! That was my toe!”

Anna tucked her knees into her chest and rolled to the side, sliding off the pile of bags until she was kneeling next to it on the floor. She pulled the camera out of her pocket and turned it on. She crawled as close as she dared but still couldn't see a thing. The voices were louder and clearer, though.

“Quit fidgeting and help me. And what
is
that you keep clinking in your pocket?”

“Sorry. It's just these.”

Anna heard more clinking but couldn't see what
these
were.

“
What
in the —?! You
brought
them here from the museum?”

“I wanted to get outta there. I wasn't thinking. I'll just — I'll put 'em back with the flag when we find it.”

“You'll
put
them back in your pocket. Now.”

“Fine.”
Clink
. “How come?”

“Because they're covered in your fingerprints, you dimwit! Hold on to 'em and toss 'em in some garbage can in Vermont when it's all done.”

Anna's breath caught in her throat. With every word she overheard it became more obvious that Senator Snickerbottom was right! The flag
was
headed to Vermont. But right now it was
here
. And she was trapped in this room with the men who stole it.

“Did you check this one yet?” The voices had to be right on the other side of those carts. Anna bit her lip. Where could she go to see them without being spotted? Her eyes followed the conveyor belt, snaking around the room. At one point, not far from where they'd first come in, the belt climbed a gradual, long slope. Then there was an even longer stretch of straight belt that was elevated. It would be the best place to see anything in the room, but there was no cover. No railing on the belt way up there. No place to hide.

“Got that one already. Come on, we need to hurry
up
. They'll be back soon.”

As quietly as she could, Anna heaved the big BTV suitcase back up onto the metal edge of the conveyor belt. She'd have to make herself a place to hide. She piled two duffel bags onto the belt, climbed up herself, and wiggled in between them. She slipped her camera from her pocket and pressed the button to start recording as the belt began to climb the slope.

“You got something?” An excited voice, even louder this time, came from below.

This would be her only chance to record evidence.

Anna still couldn't see the men. Somehow, they'd changed position or she'd miscalculated, but they were directly below her. She couldn't come out from her hiding place — they'd spot her for sure — so keeping her head down between the bags, she clutched the camera and stretched her arm as far as it could reach, until her hand stuck out over the edge of the belt. Anna shook off a chill that was half cold, half fear that she was about to be seen, that whoever was down there, clunking things around, would spot the camera with its Rudolph-red
RECORD
light in her hand, dangling over the belt.

“Well, here we are! Jackpot!”

“About time, little brother. Get what we need and let's go.”

Anna's hand shook so much she was afraid she'd drop the camera.

“You got scissors or something?”

“The thing's two hundred years old. Just tear a piece off.”

A new chill settled on Anna as the belt rumbled along under her knees. They were going to
tear
the flag? That beautiful, dignified old flag? Anna wasn't sure if she actually heard it or if she imagined the soft rip, but it felt as if something had torn in her heart. She lifted her head the tiniest bit to see where she was on the conveyor belt. The higher-up stretch was a long one, but it had to be ending soon.

“Hey! What was that?” The lower voice said, and Anna yanked her arm back into her chest. Her camera caught the edge of the belt and she lost her grip. It clattered to the cement floor, and Anna braced herself for the men's reaction.

Instead, she heard deep, loud barking.

“What the — What's a dog doing down here?”

Oh,
no
! Anna gasped.
Not now. Not now.

“Hammurabi! Come, boy!”

She should have known Sinan would be right behind him, but the sound of his little voice made her heart sink.

There was nothing she could do but stay hidden between the bags and ride away from them, but she heard everything.

“Got him!”

“Well, there. You seem to be in the wrong place, now, don't you?”

Hammurabi's bark bounced off the hard walls, more and more frantic, until something made him yelp and go quiet.

“Please, sir …”

“A busy place like this, all kinds of bad things could happen. It'd be mighty easy for a kid to get lost. Or hurt real bad. He might even go missing.”

It was the last thing Anna heard before she felt rubber strips tugging at her hair. The conveyor belt pulled her into one of the dark tunnels she'd seen from the far side of the room, and the voices faded away behind her.

At the end of the tunnel, the conveyor belt came together with a much bigger one, like an on-ramp joining an interstate highway. It stretched down a long, chilly hallway, and every few yards, there was a mechanical arm. As scanners read luggage tags, the arms moved like flippers on a pinball machine. They opened to keep some suitcases moving on the main ramp and closed to direct others to different belts. Some bags got shuttled off to the side and rode smaller conveyor belts up to high baggage racks that lined the walls, almost to the ceiling. The racks were teetering with bags, maybe because so many planes had been delayed. Other suitcases got kicked off the ramp altogether and dumped into big rectangular carts on the ground.

Off to Anna's left, standing next to one of those carts, were José and Henry.

“Dude, we thought you got lost in there. We've been waiting for, like,
ever
.”

Anna tripped over herself trying to get her limbs unfolded and climb out from between the bags.

“Sinan's in there!” She jumped to the ground, letting the black BTV suitcase go on without her. It didn't matter where it went now; she knew exactly where Sinan was.

In trouble.

“Sinan's back in that room. And there are two of them. We have to go for help!”

“Slow down.” José held up a hand. “What are you talking about?
Who
are you talking about?”

“I don't
know
who, but I heard voices — two men — and —”

“Was one of them Snake-Arm?” Henry asked.

“I — maybe. Probably. I'm not sure, but
listen
, will you? They were arguing, and one kept clinking something in his pocket, and they were clunking boxes and containers around and talking about the
flag
. It's
there
. They have it in
there
!”

“They have the flag? THE flag?” Henry held his arms wide.

Anna nodded.

“Dude, that's awesome!”

“It's awful.” José whispered. “You said Sinan is in there now?
With
those men?”

“He ran in after Hammurabi while those men were …” She took a deep breath. “I think they were ripping a piece off from the flag.”

“
Ripping
a piece from it?” José's mouth fell open. “Are you sure? What exactly did you see?”

“I didn't
see
much, but I heard them talking, and I heard the ripping.”

“What else?”

“That's about it. I was trying to videotape, but —”

“You have
video
?” José's eyes lit up. Then he stared at her empty hands.

“But I dropped the camera.”

Henry shook his head. “Aw,
man
… You'd totally lose points for that.”

“This is not pretend, Henry!” Anna whirled around to face him. “You think everything is just a dumb game, and I don't know where you two were when I was in there with those guys, but let me tell you something. They are
real
live bad guys — not some characters you can control with your thumbs. They're real. They're scary. And they caught Sinan.”

“They
caught
him?” Henry's jaw dropped.

“
Yes!
They grabbed him, and one of the men started talking about how a kid could … could disappear in there, and oh!” Anna's voice trembled. “My mom said how dangerous the Serpentine Princes are, and the way they were talking, I think they might really hurt him. Sinan would have seen
everything
where he was … their faces … the flag.” She swallowed hard. “He's in huge trouble.”

Henry's face turned to stone, his mouth tight, his eyes focused on the tunnel that led back to the larger baggage room. “We need to get him out of there. We need to —”

“What we need is help,” José said. “But we just broke the law sneaking into an off-limits area of the airport, so unless we can prove what Anna heard is true, we're not going to get help. We're going to get yelled at.”

“What we need …” Anna looked over her shoulder, toward the tunnel.

José finished her thought. “… is that video camera.” He blinked a few times, fast, and tugged at his eyebrow. “Do you know where you dropped it?”

“Kind of.” She could still hear the men's voices —
all kinds of bad things could happen.
“But it fell a long way. It might not even work anymore. And don't you think it's too dangerous?”

“What's wrong with you?” Henry's voice was sharp. “
You're
the one who wanted to be Little Miss Secret Society.
You're
the one who said this isn't a video game. Sinan is
alone
in there with those guys. He's eight years old. Eight. We have to go.” He jumped up onto the conveyor belt with one foot on each of the metal edges, the only parts that weren't moving in the wrong direction. “Whoever's coming with me, keep your feet to the metal edges. You're going to have to get down on all fours to get through the tunnel.” Teetering, he took a couple of tentative steps, then squatted and put his hands down on the edges in front of him, moving hand-hand-foot-foot all the way up to the rubber strips before he looked over his shoulder. “Who's with me?”

José bit his lip and mumbled something.

“What was that?”

“A coward turns away, but a brave man's choice is danger.” José said it but didn't sound as if he really believed it.

“Yeah.” Henry nodded. “I like whoever said that.”

“Euripides.”

“Well, if you believe that, then follow me.” Henry turned and headed into the tunnel.

José took a deep breath and climbed onto the belt. He looked wobbly, but he followed Henry, hand-hand-foot-foot, back toward the big room.

Anna's knees threatened to buckle under her. In her mind, she heard the man's deep voice again —
a busy place like this, all kinds of bad things could happen. It'd be mighty easy for a kid to get lost. Or hurt real bad. He might even go missing
— but she knew Henry was right.

Still shaking, she hoisted herself back up onto the belt, stepped onto the outside edges, caught her balance, and followed the boys through the tunnel.