Get Smart-ish (7 page)

“Relax, I would never eat you. You're too skinny. It wouldn't be worth all the effort to make a fire, marinate you. Okay, I'm starting to see what you were saying about the conversation getting weird.”

After a few seconds, Randolph stepped away from Darwin and Oli, who then lured Hattie down to the cafeteria with the promise of milk and cookies.

“I hope you don't mind, but I asked them to step out for a moment so that we might have a talk,” Randolph said, motioning for Jonathan and Shelley to take seats at a nearby table.

“I must admit that after hearing of your near-death experience last night, my first reaction was to pull you from the field. To send you back to America on the next plane. But then I got to thinking about President Arons's great faith in you and your ability to move through life without registering on anyone's radar,” Randolph explained.

“That's what we're known for, by the few people who remember us, anyway,” Jonathan said.

“It's true that there is something about you two that makes you slip one's mind,” Randolph admitted.

“What are you guys talking about? Tons of people remember me,” Shelley interjected.

“Unfortunately, the truth hurts Shelley so much that she refuses to accept it,” Jonathan explained to Randolph. “It's not an easy road to walk, that of the forgotten child.”

“Forgotten
child
? More like forgotten
young lady
!” Shelley corrected Jonathan.

“So now you're admitting you're forgettable?”

“What does it matter if I admit it or not? Can't you just let me be happy for a minute? There's no reason to blow out the candle inside me.”

“The candle inside you?” Jonathan repeated with a chuckle.

“What? You're the only one who gets to talk like some lame poem inside a greeting card?
The forgotten child!
”

“All right now,” Randolph interrupted, sensing that the situation was snowballing out of control. “After much consideration, we have decided to use the two of you to collect updates from our eyes, that is, our informants, around the city.”

“You mean undercover operatives?” Shelley asked.

“No. These are people who have either come forward of their own volition to help us with tips, or, more likely, they were caught committing a crime and have agreed to act as informants as a means to avoid jail time. Either way, it's crucial that they remain undercover, which is where you two come in. Since you're rarely, if ever, noticed, we thought you perfect for the job.”

Shelley nodded and then pushed her smudged glasses up the bridge of her nose. “This is good to know in case I'm ever arrested. Not that I'm planning on doing anything illegal. Not this year, anyway.”

“In order to protect the identities of our informants, we do not maintain photographic records of them, instead giving each one a unique signal by which our operatives can identify them,” Randolph said as he pushed a pen and paper across the desk to Shelley.

“Pen? Paper? What is this, 1995? All I need is this up here,” Shelley said, tapping the side of her head. “You're looking at a state-of-the-line computer.”

“Shells, why don't we write it down—”

Shelley threw up her right hand to silence Jonathan. “Every five minutes, you know what my brain is doing?”

“I'm afraid to even ask,” Jonathan muttered.

“Autosaving, just in case the computer crashes.”

OCTOBER 23, 3:07 P.M. STREET. LONDON, ENGLAND

“I'm sensing someone could use a hug,” Shelley offered, arms extended as she walked down the street next to Jonathan.

“No thanks.”

“And by
someone
, I mean me,” Shelley said as she pulled Jonathan in for a painfully close hug. “I'm petrified. I'm sweating like a pig about to go to slaughter.”

“That's graphic,” Jonathan said as he pried himself from Shelley's grasp.

“I know how much you look up to me, Johno, so I've been trying to be strong for you,” Shelley said, her voice crumbling. “But I don't think I can do it anymore.”

“First of all—”

“What did I tell you about saying things like ‘first of all'?” Shelley cut in.

“Fine,” Jonathan grumbled. “What I was trying to say is, I don't look up to you, which isn't to say that I look down on you. I just look
at
you.”

Shelley nodded.

“But I get being scared,” Jonathan admitted. “Trust me, I'm terrified. What if Nina infects us and then we're too dumb to be spies?”

“Never speak those words again! We're going to find her and stop LIQ-30 before it goes viral…and not in a cool video way…but in a scary outbreak way….”

“Yeah, I got that.”

OCTOBER 23, 3:47 P.M. BUCKINGHAM PALACE. LONDON, ENGLAND

Buckingham Palace, home to the queen of England, was surrounded by a tall and imposing gate that was monitored twenty-four hours a day by guards. Ten feet from the gate, amid the throngs of tourists, Jonathan and Shelley eyed the lineup of guards carefully.

“Randolph said the informant would be wearing a black furry hat,” Shelley recalled as she racked her brain for more information.

“Shells, all the guards are wearing black furry hats.”

“And a red jacket!” Shelley screeched excitedly.

“Are you looking at the same people I am?” Jonathan asked. “They're all in red jackets. Every single one of them!”

“I guess we have no choice but to go up and ask which one of them is the undercover informant,” Shelley suggested. “Sometimes, honesty really is the only policy.”

“Undercover informants do not tell people they are undercover informants!”

Shelley paused. “You might be right about that,” she accepted, rubbing her chin.

“Plus, my guidebook says the guards are forbidden to speak to anyone.”

“Well, my guidebook says the guards are part of a cult who are waiting for their leader's return, hence the furry hats. Their leader is an intergalactic bear. Okay, I made that up. I just really wanted a fact that could outdo your fact.”

Jonathan rolled his eyes and then sighed, “I think it's time to call Randolph and admit that we forgot what he told us and that we should have written down his instructions instead of pretending to have good memories.”

“I would rather swim back to America than admit we can't even remember a few simple things!”

“I hate to point fingers, but you were the one who said your brain was better than a computer's hard drive, that nothing could be erased from your mind,” Jonathan recalled, much to Shelley's aggravation.

“Excuse me, kiddos, but would you mind taking a photo of me and the missus?” a man asked, prompting Jonathan and Shelley to look up.

Standing before them, dressed in jeans and sweatshirts with cameras dangling around their necks, were none other than Hammett and Nurse Maidenkirk.

“Here's our camera, kid,” Hammett instructed Jonathan. “All you need to do is look through the lens.”

“I'm actually not a very good photographer. I have a tendency to cut off people's heads or feet,” Jonathan conceded.

“Just look through the lens, kid,” Hammett insisted.

And when Jonathan finally did, he found a message.
THIRD FROM THE LEFT
.

“But how could you possibly know?”

“He's the only one who noticed the two of you standing here arguing,” Hammett said quietly before raising his voice. “Thanks for the picture. Enjoy the rest of your vacation.”

“It's the third guard from the left,” Jonathan informed Shelley as she watched Hammett and Nurse Maidenkirk disappear into the crowd.

“I don't want to say I'm psychic…but I had a feeling it was the third guy from the left.”

“And yet you said nothing while we were standing here, searching our brains for some small detail to help us figure out who was the informant,” Jonathan responded.

“You are what is known as a psychic hater.”

“Great,” Jonathan said. “You can add it to the list after fun killer, Negative Ned, sunshine sponge…”

Shelley snapped her fingers. “Get it together, Johno. We have work to do,” she said, then started toward the informant.

“Hey there, furry-hat man,” Shelley whispered. “Seen anything fishy? And by
fishy
, I don't mean an aquarium.”

The guard stared straight ahead, seemingly unaware of Shelley.

“Is he ignoring me? Or does he just not hear me?”

“Let me try,” Jonathan said, leaning into the guard. “Seen anything?”

“Negative,” the man replied, most impressively, without even moving his lips.

“Come on, Shells, we have two more stops to make,” Jonathan said as he turned to leave.

“Just one thing,” Shelley said before grabbing the guard's arm. “I hope no bears were killed or injured in the making of that hat.”

Jonathan sighed. “The part-time vegetarian strikes again.”

OCTOBER 23, 4:36 P.M. THE LONDON ZOO. LONDON, ENGLAND

The zoo was crowded. Children as far as the eye could see. Jonathan and Shelley navigated the strollers like land mines, stealthily moving out of the way every time a double-wide, titanium-plated beast barreled toward them.

“There should be a law against double-wide strollers,” Jonathan griped. “They're nothing but a public nuisance!”

“What about slow walkers? Unless they're really old or injured, there's no acceptable excuse,” Shelley said before turning her attention to something in the gorilla compound.

“Shells? What is it?” Jonathan asked.

“I think this might be love at first sight.”

“You're in love with a gorilla?”

“No! He's in love with me! Look at the way he's staring at me,” Shelley said, grinning from ear to ear.

“It must be rewarding to finally be noticed—even if it is by another species.”

Shelley grabbed Jonathan's arm. “We've got eyes on us, and I'm not talking about my new friend.”

“A gorilla looks at you for a couple of seconds and suddenly he's your friend?”

“To the left of the gate, there's a woman in a khaki outfit,” Shelley whispered while pretending to read the sign posted in front of the gorillas' cage.

“The woman is to the right of the gate, not the left,” Jonathan corrected Shelley.

“What is this obsession with right and left? Is there really that big of a difference?”

“Actually, yes, there—”

“She's signaling us!”

“You remember the signal?” Jonathan asked with genuine surprise.

“No, of course not,” Shelley replied impatiently. “But she's waving us over, which is a universal signal for ‘Hey, I want to talk to you.'”

Shelley waved good-bye to her new “friend,” prompting Jonathan to shake his head, before approaching the middle-aged woman with frizzy hair and brown, leathery skin.

“You guys are friends of one-eyed Randy?”

Jonathan and Shelley nodded.

“Then what's the problem? I've been signaling you for almost four minutes now.”

“My friend here forgot the signal,” Shelley said, motioning to Jonathan.

“What kind of operatives forget the signal? I've never heard of such a thing!” the woman barked at Jonathan and Shelley.

“He recently suffered a head injury that has impacted his short-term memory,” Shelley said, eyeing the woman closely. “Don't feel guilty. How were you to know? Yes, you hurt his feelings, there might even be a few tears later—”

“There's no crying in espionage!” Jonathan burst out before giving the woman a tell-us-what-you-got kind of look.

“There was a break-in, someone stole a tranquilizer gun, that's it.”

 “Got it,” Shelley said to the woman. “You were caught committing a crime, weren't you? That's how you wound up as an informant, isn't it?”

“Shells, I think someone's following us. We need to move,” Jonathan said in a brusque manner as he pulled her away from the cage. “I've noticed an orange hat trailing behind us since we entered the zoo. At first I thought it was a coincidence, but we've moved around so much that it can't be.”

Walking at a brisk yet inconspicuous pace, Jonathan and Shelley started making their way through the throngs of people.

“Casually glance behind us and tell me if you see someone with an orange baseball cap,” Jonathan instructed Shelley.

“You got it,” Shelley replied, then dropped to her knees. “My ankle, my ankle!”

“This is your idea of casual?” Jonathan grumbled.

“The orange cap is still on our tail,” Shelley said as Jonathan helped her back onto her feet. “Do you think it's Nina?”

“It's possible that she's come to finish what she started yesterday.”

“Why would anyone want to kill us? We're such good people,” Shelley whined.

“Because we're trying to stop her and she believes what she's doing is more important than a couple of nobodies' lives,” Jonathan said as he scanned the path ahead for an exit.

“Nobodies count too!” Shelley cried dramatically, pumping her fist in the air. “Just because no one remembers our names doesn't mean you can kill us!”

“We don't know that the person in the orange cap is Nina. For all we know, she's working with other people and she's sent one of them to get us,” Jonathan said.

“I'm not going to just wait around for her to take another shot at us,” Shelley said, suddenly turning and charging full speed, or more precisely, as fast as an unathletic kid can, toward the person in the orange cap.

Arms flailing. Legs jutting out. There was no hiding Shelley's physical awkwardness.

“You're going down!” Shelley hollered as she rammed into the person with the orange cap with all her might.

“Ahhhh!” a young girl's voice cried out. “Help me! Somebody help me!”

Upon hearing the girl's terrified voice, Jonathan looked around and suddenly noted the smattering of orange caps all around the zoo. Much like a lightning bolt, the truth of the situation hit Jonathan with such force that he was momentarily paralyzed.

After regaining control of his body, Jonathan ran toward Shelley, wailing, “It's a field trip! It's a field trip!”

“Tell me where Nina is!” Shelley hollered at the frightened girl.

“I made a mistake!” Jonathan screamed in between gasps of air. “A bunch of kids are wearing orange caps as part of a field trip!”

Glistening with perspiration, Shelley immediately let go of the young girl. “I'm really sorry. This seems to have been a case of poor detective work on my partner's behalf. Is there any chance you'd be willing to accept a full retraction of my behavior?”

“What? I can't hear you,” the girl responded as Jonathan grabbed Shelley's arm.

“She called for reinforcements! Run!” Jonathan shrieked as a mass of orange hats descended upon them.

OCTOBER 23, 5:33 P.M. TATE BRITAIN. LONDON, ENGLAND

“What do you say we keep the whole tackling-of-a-young-child story to ourselves?” Jonathan asked sheepishly as the two walked up the steps to the palatial entrance to the Tate Britain Museum.

“Is someone feeling guilty that their substandard detective work led to the emotional scarring of a poor, innocent girl?” Shelley asked, peering judgmentally over the frames of her glasses at Jonathan.