Cass leaned over the garden—arms, elbows, knees covered in rich, black, ancient soil. She hadn’t tended a garden since she was a girl, but she had enough of a green thumb, and given Valor’s long summer days and Mum’s four decades of labor, it almost seemed there was no better place to get back into the dirt. The sun would rise at 4:30 a.m. and set sometime after 11 p.m. In the light of long summer days, everything seemed to explode from the volcanic soil—the cucumbers, the currants, the massive heads of lettuce—like the children Mum never had, flourishing under her constant care. Row after row, Valor’s organic horn of plenty.
Most recently, Mum had been teaching Cass the secrets of crop rotation, and planting a variety of fruits that would grow in cycles. “Tomatoes would spring up first,” Mum said. “Then beans, summer squash, and sweet peas.” The garden was roughly the size of two swimming pools and fed campers for much of the summer, which worked out, as Valor was not exactly convenient for food trucks. Mum had also shown Cass the spot in the garden where she kept her medicinal herbs.
“And this is the one I used last summer when Wyatt got a tooth knocked out in a fight.” Mum blushed. She knew Cass was also upset about the abrupt loss of her friend. Her comrade in grief.
The truth was, everything had shifted. There were no missions. Eldon, though he was clearly trying to unite the group, had lost every bit of spring in his step.
Cass sighed. She needed something to go as planned. To bear fruit.
“Dear, Wyatt will be all right. Something tells me he has a plan. He’s far stronger—and smarter—than we think. All these kids are.”
“Hope you’re right.”
She knew what it was like to have her plans literally blown to pieces, but for once, she was tired. Too tired to put them back together again.
She leaned over the outdoor sink, letting the cool water run over what was left of her scarred skin, her damaged right hand, unsure in that moment if she had the strength to fight again.
Across campus, the Rovers were having their midday downtime in their cabins. Cody, since he wasn’t much for journaling or taking naps, sneaked down to the shooting range. Thanks to Ken, the campus had long been combed of weapons, but he had managed to steal a Beretta M9, a sweet little number, and sometimes, when he was certain no one was around, he’d get a few shots in, just to practice.
And he was doing just that when his pocket buzzed. He reached in and pulled out an old iPhone, and on the notification screen, six voice mails. Cody was confused and a little alarmed. Normally there was no cell service at Valor, and definitely no Wi-Fi access for campers, but he kept the phone with him, another form of contraband, and he would play the few games he’d downloaded before he left, Minecraft, Fortnite.
He played the first message, and it took only a couple of seconds for him to recognize a voice he knew better than any other.
“Cody, it’s me. You gotta get back here. They took him, they took your brother! Oh my god, oh my god,” Narcy sobbed.
Cody looked around the empty range, wondering where his dad would be at this point in the day as the first voice mail ran over into the next.
“Cody, it’s your aunt. Where are you? Oh my god…”
There was shuffling on the other end of the line. “Cody, someone wants to talk to you. Hang on.”
“Cody,” a male voice said. “This is Mr. Yellow. Do not overreact,” the man spoke calmly over the chorus of Narcy’s curses and screams.
“Overreact? I’m a hostage!” she bellowed.
“I know Narcy left you a disturbing message, but the situation is not as dire as you might think. We have men following Wyatt and Jalen right now.”
“They stormed into the house,” Narcy squawked. “Wyatt kicked their asses, doin’ some kind of judo … he judo-chopped one of them right in the stomach.”
“Narcy, please,” Mr. Yellow said faintly in the background. “Why don’t you have a Coke?”
“Well, thanks for the offering, for pity’s sake.”
“Cody,” Mr. Yellow again turned his attention to his message. “I know this might sound disturbing, but truly, everything is fine. Right now, Wyatt and Jalen are with an individual—I cannot reveal his name—suffice it to say, he’s a man of great means, and though we do not know exactly the intent, we believe they’re on a mission to find America’s most-wanted terrorist.”
Cody knew where he had to go. He slipped the phone into his pocket and climbed out of the range, taking the long way instead of going up the trail on a path where he might encounter campers returning from training. He followed the shore north and west. He entered the bunker complex, which, at its entrance, was large enough to drive through. He sneaked past the security detail and headed toward the director’s office. But instead of going to his father, he went down into the bowels of the bunker and followed a series of ladders and narrow staircases to find the thick metal door and biometric scanner that led to Avi’s hideaway.
“Avi,” Cody said, rapping on the metal door. “It’s Cody. Could we talk?”
“What’s going on?” Avi’s bland tone blared through the intercom.
“Just let me in.” Cody looked around, worried at any minute his father might see him.
There was a long buzzing sound, and the door unlatched. Cody found Avi inside his lair, goggles down.
“Now, what is going on?” Avi grunted.
“Avi,” Cody said, wide eyed from the lights and sounds behind him. Though he had been at camp for a few weeks now, he’d yet to see Valor from this kind of James Bond vantage.
“Something’s going on with my brother,” he said. “And I think you know what it is.”
Avi did his best “Who, me?” face, but feigning innocence—or feigning anything, for that matter—was not his strongest skill set.
Cody extended the old iPhone. “Here,” he said. “I have messages … from my aunt Narcy. And Mr. Yellow. I know Wyatt’s involved in an important mission and he’s been kidnapped.”
Avi began tinkering with something in his hand. Behind him, behemoth racks filled with servers, spy gear, and drones, and his staff of secretive computer geeks scurrying about.
“Come inside,” Avi said after a minute. He waved the boy past a wall of knobs and screens and blinking lights, his own private world of security equipment.
“Now, where did you get this?” Avi asked, snatching up the phone. “You know electronics of any kind are prohibited.”
“My aunt Narcy. It’s her personal phone, she kept her one for business. Anyway, I’m sorry. I know Dad said not to contact anyone, but Narcy insisted I keep it for emergencies. I was worried … I just wanted to be able to check in on my mom. If I had to. She was really messed up when we left—”
“Well, your brother is fine. What your aunt witnessed was likely a recovery of assets.”
“Huh?”
“Your brother and Jalen are in the employ of a powerful billionaire—Mr. John Darsie.”
“Hey, I know him. The Paycard guy.”
“Yes, Paycard and all of that. He’s very well known. Your brother left camp because he’s made a secret pact with this man in hopes of finding Encyte, but if I had to guess, it’s for revenge.”
“I knew Wyatt didn’t give up on us.”
“Of course he wouldn’t do that. Especially not when it comes to you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“A brother’s love is very important,” Avi said, his tone going cold. “And that is why I’m allowing this total disregard for protocol. I want to help your brother find the man who killed mine.”
“Hallsy?”
Avi nodded. “And it seems now, with Valor turned into a glorified amusement park and your father under a microscope, this man—Mr. John Darsie—is the only way.”
Just then, the heavy steel door to Avi’s lair clicked closed. He looked at Cody, wide eyed. “Did anyone come with you?”
“No. Just me.”
“Well, then, we’ve got a bigger problem on our hands.” Avi sighed and went over to a metal cabinet and pulled out the tiniest drone Cody had ever seen.
“What are you doing?” Cody asked.
“I’m going to see who was just spying on us.”
“Why were you following Cody, anyway?” Rory asked, resting her oar across the hull and letting the kayak drift.
As was common, Group-A was out on the lake in the afternoon. One place they could get cool, be alone and away from the watchful eye of the landlocked Ken.
“Well, I was down in the Caldera and I thought I heard a shot…” Samy said from the other kayak. Pierce was in the seat behind him. “And I knew no one was supposed to be down on the range, so I followed him.”
“And why do you think Cody didn’t just go to his dad?” Rory asked.
“I don’t know! Maybe because he didn’t want to tell his dad he had a gun and a cell phone! But the point is, I heard it from Avi’s mouth—Wyatt and Jalen are going after Encyte. Don’t you see? Wyatt’s getting a plan in place. He’s going to bring us back in. So we gotta get off our butts already!” Samy said to the rest of his group, his passionate voice a little too loud for the still lake.
“Quiet, dum-dum. Sound travels on the water,” Mary Alice snapped. “Anyway, what about Wyatt’s memory? He’s been wiped, so how will he remember us?”
“Yeah, I don’t know how that works, but he must have planned for that. Come on, guys. Wyatt had balls.”
Rory and MA looked at each other and rolled their eyes, paddling just ahead of the boy’s kayak.
“You know what I mean,” Samy persisted. “Courage. He made his own path. I say we get back to our training.”
“And then what?” Pierce asked from the seat behind him.
Samy smiled. “And then we freaking go after him … He’s going to need our help. I just know it.”