26 EXPLANATION

Somewhere above Panama

En route to the Panama Canal

May 18

1130 hours

“I bet you’re wondering what my plot really was with this bomb,” Murray said.

He was seated across the aisle from me, devouring a bag of Doritos that one of the stewards had found for him in the kitchenette. His lips were already coated with neon-orange Dorito dust.

I asked, “Didn’t you tell me that you weren’t going to share your plots with me anymore?”

“That’s when I thought I was going to live another day,” Murray replied. “Now that we’re all going to die, you might as well know how brilliant my scheme was. There was way more to it than just blowing up a cruise ship for the insurance money.”

“I don’t really care about your scheme,” I said, although it was a lie. I really did want to know about Murray’s plans. But there was no better way of getting under Murray’s skin than acting like you didn’t want to listen to him.

Sure enough, he grew sulky, but he didn’t shut up. “Well, I’m gonna tell you anyway. Because you’ve forced me to come along with you against my will. So you’re all stuck with me.” He signaled for the attention of the stewards and asked, “Is there any meal service on this flight? I’d like a sandwich. With as much bacon as possible.”

One of the stewards shrugged. “I’m sorry, Mr. Hill. We don’t have any bacon on this plane.”

Murray looked almost as horrified as he had when he’d learned he was being taken back to the cruise ship. “No bacon?! Fine. Then take everything you can find that’s not healthy and put it between two slices of bread.”

The steward looked at him curiously. “Everything?”

“Everything,” Murray repeated. “Chips, chocolate, aerosol cheese. Whatever you’ve got. I might not have much time left, so I’m going to enjoy every last second I can.”

While the stewards went to work, I looked out the window at the land below me. Nueva Gorgona wasn’t very far from the Panama Canal, so even though we hadn’t been in the air long, I could already see it ahead of us. The canal wasn’t a simple cut directly through Panama. Instead, it had been designed to take advantage of Lake Gatun, a large body of water in the center of the country, which required less construction. Thus, in a way, it was really two separate canals. Ships went through one, crossed Lake Gatun, then went through the other. This was located at the narrowest point in Panama, where the country arched like a horseshoe on its way between North and South America, so bizarrely, the canal really ran north to south rather than east to west. We were closer to the Pacific terminus, and I could see dozens of container and cruise ships queued up to enter the waterway.

I scanned them all, hoping that perhaps the Emperor of the Seas was among them, still stuck in traffic rather than in the center of the canal. Unfortunately, I didn’t see it.

Erica was doing the same thing in the seat ahead of me, while Mike was taking advantage of the plane’s free Wi-Fi and computer terminal to check his messages. Alexander was simply fidgeting nervously.

Erica hadn’t spoken to me the entire flight. Even though there was an empty seat next to her, it had been clear that she didn’t want me sitting in it. I was still upset with her, too, but unsure how to fix things. Certainly, this wasn’t an opportune time for a heart-to-heart discussion.

“Anyhow,” Murray said, “here’s the deal: I’m not only working with Shayla Shang here. I met Shayla when I freelanced with her husband for Operation Golden Fist last winter, and one night, Leo told me that the Emperor of the Seas was costing billions more than it was supposed to. So I got the idea that maybe the Shangs would be interested in having someone help them destroy the ship and make it look like a terrorist act. But then I thought: What’s the point of making a fake terrorist act… when you could have a real one?”

I turned to him from the window, unable to control my interest. “Who would want to destroy a cruise ship?” I asked.

“No one,” Murray replied. “Except for the Shangs. But there are lots of people who’d like to destroy the Panama Canal: truck and train companies that want to hurt the shipping industry, South American ports that will get much more traffic if ships have to go all the way around their continent instead of skipping it altogether, construction companies that want the contracts to rebuild the canal, concrete companies, steel companies, companies that make earth-boring equipment, Nicaraguans who want to build a rival canal through their country, people who just hate Panama… I found dozens of shady organizations that were each willing to pay me separately to do this!”

Erica said, “And I’m guessing you didn’t tell any of them about each other.”

“Nope!” Murray exclaimed. “I charged each one for the full price of my services!”

“How long have you been plotting all this?” I asked.

“Since I first started working with Leo, right after you blew up SPYDER’s evil spy school. Of course, I didn’t let SPYDER know I was freelancing—which might have been one of the reasons they tried to kill me back in Mexico. But I was done with them anyhow. The Croatoan had already asked me to help bring SPYDER down, so I manipulated you guys into helping me do that and got the Croatoan to pay me for it! Brilliant, right?”

“No,” I said, even though I was secretly kind of impressed. I just didn’t want to give Murray the respect he was craving.

Murray frowned, but only for a second. He was too intent on laying out all his plans. “So, anyhow, while SPYDER and the Croatoan both thought I was working for them, I was setting up my own evil empire the whole time: SMASH!”

“SMASH?” Erica asked.

“Yes! Because a smash is a big hit. And also, I destroy a lot of stuff. So it works on two levels. Pretty cool, huh?”

“It’s okay,” I said, knowing this would annoy Murray.

Which was exactly what happened. He immediately grew defensive. “Oh, come on! It’s a cool name. Way cooler than the Croatoan. Or SPYDER.”

“No, SPYDER was much cooler,” Erica said. “SMASH sounds like the name of a toy company.”

“Shows what you know,” Murray said petulantly. “The name is trending very well in the evil community.”

The steward brought Murray his sandwich. As Murray had requested, it was loaded with everything unhealthy from the kitchenette. The steward was carrying it at arm’s length, as though it were radioactive. “Here’s the meal you requested, sir.”

“Fantastic!” Murray grabbed it and took a bite, then rolled his eyes in ecstasy. “Ooh! There’s gummy worms in it! Nice touch!”

“Hey, Ben!” Mike called suddenly. “Zoe wants to talk to you.”

“Zoe?” I asked, surprised. “How’d she even know…?”

“I was answering all my messages,” Mike said. “And Zoe saw I was online, so she started writing to me, and now she wants to talk to you, too.”

I hesitated, wondering if this was a good idea, but then realized this might be the last time I ever got to communicate with Zoe. I glanced out the window again to see how much time we had left. The Panama Canal was coming up fast. “All right.” I unbuckled my seat belt and started toward the computer center.

“Wait!” Murray said, his mouth now crammed with sandwich. So many gummy worms dangled from his lips, he looked like a bait box. “Don’t you want to hear the rest of my plot?”

“No, I get it,” I said. “You suckered a bunch of bad people into paying you to do something horrible so you could get rich while causing worldwide chaos and killing a bunch of innocent people. Not cool, Murray.”

Mike evacuated the seat in front of the computer, and I slipped into it. “Trixie says hi,” he whispered to me, then headed back to his own seat.

A second later, I got a request to video-chat with Zoe. I agreed and a window popped open, showing her face. Since we were on a plane, the connection wasn’t great. The image was grainy and stuttered a bit. But I could still see Zoe clearly enough to recognize that she was in her dormitory at school and that she was doing her best not to look jealous.

“Hey,” she said. “Mike says you’re on your way to defuse a nuclear bomb?”

“Actually, this time, it’s really more of a nuclear reactor rigged to detonate. But yeah, same concept.”

Zoe frowned. “You always get to have all the excitement. I never get to defuse nuclear bombs.”

“It’s not as much fun as it sounds. In fact, it’s not fun at all. It’s really scary.”

“You’re only saying that to make me feel better.”

“I’m not! I’m really terrified! This mission has been extremely difficult. Dane Brammage nearly killed me twice!”

“You’ve had multiple attempts on your life?” Zoe exclaimed enviously. “How many action sequences have there been?”

“A couple,” I admitted, feeling strangely bad about this. “In fact, I just had to chase Murray down on a speedboat.”

“I knew there would be a chase like that,” Zoe said sadly. “Remember? Right before you left? Were you on a Jet Ski?”

“A WaveRunner,” I admitted.

“Oh, man! That is so cool! I’ll never get to chase anyone on a WaveRunner working for DADD.”

“I’m sure you will someday,” I said supportively.

“I doubt it. All I’ve been doing for them is filling out forms. Agent Taco told me that the worst injury she ever suffered on the job was a paper cut.”

“Ben!” Erica called to me. “We’re getting close. You need to get back to your seat.”

“All right,” I said. Although I didn’t go back to my seat right away, because I wasn’t ready to say good-bye to Zoe quite yet.

I turned back to the computer monitor. “Zoe, I know you’re upset about all this, but what I’m about to do here really is dangerous. So if you don’t hear back from me, could you let my parents know that—”

“I’m going to hear back from you,” Zoe said. Something in her voice had changed. She was no longer jealous. She was confident, letting me know that she believed in me. Despite the grainy image, I could see the faith in her eyes. This wasn’t an act, just to make me feel better. “You’re going to succeed. I know it. If anyone can handle this, it’s you and Erica and Mike.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“But just in case you need it, I’m sending you something that Mike asked me for.” The computer pinged, indicating that a message had just arrived.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Schematics for the nuclear reactor on the Emperor of the Seas. They weren’t that hard to find.”

“Ben,” Erica said, more firmly than before. “Get ready.”

“Okay,” I said, then looked to Zoe one last time. “I’ve gotta go.”

“Go save the day,” Zoe told me, then thought to add, “again.”

I clicked off the video chat, then opened the file Zoe had sent. Sure enough, the blueprints for the nuclear reactor and its housing came up. I went to print it but then noticed…

“There’s no printer on this plane?” I asked the stewards.

“No,” one answered. “However, we do have a large selection of beverages if you’d like one before we land.”

“This plane has a screening room, but no printer,” I muttered. Then, without any other choice, I focused on the schematics and did my best to commit them to memory.

“Ben,” Erica said one more time.

“Give me a moment,” I told her, staring at the screen.

The jet shuddered slightly as the landing gear deployed.

I glanced out the window. We were coming down alongside the canal, which cut through the land between the Pacific Ocean and Lake Gatun like a giant scar. Although there was a good amount of protected forest terrain close by, the area on both sides of the canal was heavily industrial. I could easily see the Emperor of the Seas, as it was the largest object for miles. It was in the process of moving through the Miraflores Locks.

Since Lake Gatun was a hundred feet above sea level, ships had to go uphill to get to it. This involved an intricate series of locks, which were kind of like hydraulic elevators. A ship would pull into the lock at sea level; then the lock would be closed off and flooded to lift the ship up to the next level. At this point, the ship would be released into the higher section of canal and move on. This was a relatively slow process, which is why it took eight to ten hours to get through the canal—although that was still several weeks shorter than it would take to go all the way around South America.

The canal was less than two hundred feet wide, so from the air, it was a surprisingly thin line across the landscape. The Emperor of the Seas almost filled it completely. (I would learn later that the width of the ship had actually been dictated by the size of the Panama Canal, which was the case for almost every ship on earth. There was little point in building anything too wide to use the world’s most famous maritime shortcut.) From my vantage point, it looked as though there was virtually no room at all between the ship and the sides of the locks; it fit into the gap as perfectly as a Lego piece.

There was no airstrip near the locks. The pilot was bringing the jet down on a road that paralleled the canal. It appeared to be in a restricted maintenance area, rather than for the public, so there weren’t any cars on it at the moment.

“Are we allowed to land here?” Mike asked.

“Probably not,” Alexander said. “But this is an emergency situation. We need to get as close to that ship as possible.”

“Ben!” Erica exclaimed sharply.

“Right.” I took one final look at the plans that Zoe had sent, then scrambled back to my seat and buckled in as the plane came down for its landing.

We passed close to the Emperor of the Seas. Large crowds of passengers were gathered along the railings, watching the lock fill up around the ship.

The tires screeched as the jet touched down. We jolted once, then braked. The jet hadn’t even come to a full stop before Erica had unbuckled her seat belt. She grabbed Murray’s arm and said, “Let’s go.”

“I haven’t finished my sandwich yet!” Murray protested. Although he had made surprising progress; only a few bites were left. The front of Murray’s shirt was spattered with chocolate sauce, potato chip crumbs, and tiny flecks of Spam.

Erica yanked him out of his seat. Murray desperately crammed the remainder of his sandwich into his mouth as he was dragged down the aisle.

Alexander, Mike, and I were right behind them. As the jet came to a stop, Erica punched the button that controlled the door. It opened automatically, extending a small flight of stairs down to the road.

Erica led the way out, pulling Murray along with her, and the rest of us followed. We were immediately walloped by a wave of heat. It was late spring near the equator, so the sun was blazing and the road was baking.

As the whine of the jet’s engines shut down, it became quiet enough for us to hear something else: police sirens.

A black sedan was barreling down the road toward us, lights flashing.

Erica kept on going, hurrying toward the canal with Murray in tow. Murray was doing his best to drag his feet, like a petulant child who was being forced to go shopping with his parents, so I gave Erica a hand, grabbing Murray’s other arm and pulling him along.

“I guess the police are upset at us for landing in the road like this?” I asked.

“That’s not the police.” Erica was studying the car that was racing toward us with concern. “That vehicle is from the Drug Enforcement Administration.”

“Why would the DEA be interested in us?” I asked.

“Maybe because we came here on a drug dealer’s jet,” Murray said. “I borrowed it from a friend of mine in Costa Rica. A guy named El Diablo.”

“El Diablo?” Mike repeated. “We know him too! He’s a great guy!”

I wasn’t nearly so excited, as I realized what was going on. “So the DEA thinks we’re involved with a drug dealer?”

“It sure seems that way,” Murray said.

The black sedan screeched to a stop between us and the Emperor of the Seas, blocking our access to it. Two agents leapt out, aiming guns at us.

“Hands in the air!” they yelled. “You’re under arrest!”