Meanwhile, inside the ice cream van, the Holts were strangling each other.
Madison was on Hamilton’s back, hitting him over the head with a box of Fudgesicles. Their mother, Mary-Todd, was trying to pull them apart. Reagan and Arnold, the pit bull, were playing tug-of-war with a package of Eskimo Pies. Eisenhower, the weary leader of the family, bellowed, “Stop it! Company, FALL IN!”
Hamilton and Madison separated and snapped to attention, dropping the Fudgesicles. Mary-Todd brushed herself off, glared at her children, then fell into line. Reagan held the Eskimo Pies in present arms stance. Arnold rolled over and played dead.
“Right!” Eisenhower growled. “I will not have this family killing each other over frozen dairy products!”
Reagan said, “But, Dad—”
“Silence! I said you’d get ice cream after we finish the mission. And we are not finished until I get a report!”
Madison saluted. “Dad, permission to report!”
“Go ahead.”
“The surveillance microphone worked.”
“Excellent. Did the brats take the book?”
Madison shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know, sir. But they’re going to 23 Rue des Jardins, Île St-Louis.”
“If you got the number right this time,” Hamilton griped.
Madison’s face turned bright red. “That wasn’t my fault!”
“We drove the rental car into the Seine!”
“Oh, and you have all the great ideas, Hammy. Like that stupid explosion that hit the wrong team in the museum! Or burning down Grace’s mansion!”
“Stop yelling!” Mary-Todd yelled. “Children, we can’t keep arguing with each other. It hurts team morale.”
“Your mother is right,” Eisenhower said. “The fire at the mansion and the museum bomb were both bad ideas. We should’ve pulverized the Cahill brats in person!”
Arnold barked excitedly and tried to bite Eisenhower’s nose.
Reagan knit her eyebrows. She shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. “But, um, Dad …”
“Problem, Reagan?”
“Well, the explosion … I mean, it could’ve killed them, right?”
Madison rolled her eyes. “Oh, here we go again! You’re going soft, Reagan!”
Reagan’s face turned bright red. “Am not!”
“Quiet!” Eisenhower bellowed. “Now look, everybody. We’re going to have to use some drastic measures to win this contest. I can’t have anybody going soft! Understood?”
He glared at Reagan, who stared glumly at the floor. “Yessir.”
“We know Dan and Amy were Grace’s favorites,” Eisenhower continued. “Old McIntyre is probably giving them inside information. Now they’ve beat us inside the Lucian stronghold while we were trying to do surveillance, which was also a bad idea! Are we going to tolerate any more bad ideas?”
“No, sir!” the kids shouted.
“They think we’re not clever,” Eisenhower said. “They think all we can do is flex our muscles. Well, they’re about to find out we can do more than that!” Eisenhower flexed his muscles.
“Teamwork!” Mary-Todd cried. “Right, children?”
“Yessir! Teamwork!”
“Arff!” Arnold said.
“Now,” Eisenhower said. “We have to get that book. We’ve got to assume those brats have it, or they know what’s in it. We need to get to the Île St-Louis, without driving the ice cream van into the river! Who’s with me?”
The kids and Mary-Todd cheered. Then they remembered the ice cream, and the kids went back to strangling each other.
Eisenhower grunted. He decided he’d let them wrestle for a while. Maybe it would build character.
All his life, people had laughed behind Eisenhower’s back. They’d laughed when he flunked out of West Point. They’d laughed when he failed the entrance exam for the FBI. They’d even laughed the time he was working as a security guard, when he’d chased a shoplifter and accidentally Tasered himself in the rear end. A simple mistake. Anyone could’ve made it.
Once he won this contest, he would become the most powerful Cahill of all time. No one would ever laugh at him again.
He pounded his fist into the van’s cash register. Those Cahill kids were starting to get on his nerves. They were too much like their parents, Arthur and Hope. Eisenhower had known them all too well. He had an old score to settle with the Cahills.
Soon, Amy and Dan Cahill would pay.