It was the last day of the year. From the way the snow was still falling – huge flakes that built into drifts, the side streets of New York now impassable – it felt like it might be the last day of forever. The dawn of a new Ice Age.
The New Year’s Eve celebrations had not been cancelled. They had become, instead, a bigger story than usual – the people of New York City gathering at Times Square as a kind of declaration of solidarity against the elements. It could snow all it wanted; the storm was not going to stop the countdown to midnight.
They were now predicting a record number of people in Times Square. And the occasion had become an international news story; there might be as many as two billion people tuning in from around the world – the largest television audience since the first moon landing back in 1969!
“How appropriate,” Nish announced with delight. “Both times they’ll be tuning in to see a moon.”
Not only was Nish still going to proceed with his outrageous plan, but Data and Fahd had become almost as caught up in the scheme themselves.
Data had swept the Internet for information on how to hack into a broadcast line. Travis was amazed at how much information was readily available through chat lines and Web sites. Data had been able to verify that a live, on-location broadcast like this would be done through the phone lines. They already had Data’s laptop computer. They had the file containing Nish’s moon. They had a telephone line at the hotel and, if they really needed it, a connection to Fahd’s cellphone that would allow them to do it all from Times Square itself.
But they still needed more technical information. It was one thing to know the broadcaster, Data told them, but quite another to get to the video boards that would be controlling the broadcast. It would take them hours, if it could be done at all, to hack through the broadcaster’s telephone system to reach the right location to begin their work. Considering the blocks and passwords that were likely involved, the task was next to impossible.
Data, however, had found a contact in Germany who kept e-mailing new ideas for them to try, and within an hour of computer time they had their answers.
“We can get the number for the direct phone line off the broadcast truck,” Data explained. “Each truck has the number listed on the outside. We need to get the number for the main truck, then we’re just one password away from the control board – and passwords tend to be obvious. We can worry about that later – right now we need the number from that truck.”
Travis might be team captain, but he was certainly not in charge here. The idea of Nish mooning the entire world had captured everyone’s imagination. All he could do was go along for the ride – and be there if he was needed.
They told Mr. Dillinger they were just slipping over to Times Square to see what the preparations were like. There were six of them altogether – Fahd, Nish, Andy, Derek, Jesse, and Travis. Mr. Dillinger told them to be careful, to stick together, and not to get in anyone’s way. They promised, and set out through the drifting snow.
The stage was almost ready when they got there. This was where the host would be doing the countdown. A huge ball was going to fall down a spiral high on one of the towers precisely at midnight, and the whole ceremony would be flashed live on the big screen above the square at the same time it was broadcast across the world.
The broadcast trucks were parked up a side street just away from the stage area, but there was crowd-control fencing blocking the way, and security everywhere.
“How are we going to get it?” Andy asked.
“We’ll never get past that cop,” said Fahd.
“We can talk to him,” Jesse said. “He looks bored anyway.”
“What about?” Fahd asked.
“Nothin’,” said Derek. “Just ask him some stupid questions – keep him busy while one of us slips through.”
“Who’ll ask him questions?” Fahd wondered.
All five of the other Owls were staring at him. They needed stupid questions. They needed someone who could ask questions all day long if necessary. And there was only one Owl for that job: Fahd.
“Okay,” Fahd said. “And who’s going to get the number?”
“It’ll need to be someone who won’t be noticed,” Andy said. “Someone smaller.”
Now they all turned and stared at Travis. If it required someone small, there was only one Owl for that job.
Travis nodded okay. He didn’t think he could speak.
Fahd performed brilliantly. The policeman seemed to enjoy talking to kids. He was fascinated that they had come here from Canada, and he wanted to know if any of them knew a cousin he had up there somewhere.
“In Victoria, I think,” he said. “Something to do with a queen, anyway. He’s got a wheat farm or something.”
“Regina,” Fahd offered. “You must mean Regina. It’s in Saskatchewan.”
“Whatever,” the cop said, and switched to a subject he liked better – himself. For a long time he talked about being a policeman in New York City, while the Owls listened and kicked up mounds of snow with the toes of their boots. But slowly Fahd got him onto the topic of the upcoming show.
Fahd played him perfectly. Flattered, the policeman began talking like a television executive. He used the star’s first name as if they were best of friends. He talked about rehearsals and make-up artists and how important his own job was.
“Where does the director sit?” Fahd asked.
“Well,” the cop said, “it’s not like the movies. There’s no director’s chair, and he doesn’t wear a French beret and shout through a bullhorn. In fact, there might be three or four directors. They work from that big truck back there.”
Fahd and the others craned their necks to see.
“Which one?” Fahd asked.
The policeman looked back as if to make sure himself. “The blue one. The one right dead below the portable satellite dish.”
Fahd looked quickly at Travis, who understood. Travis would need to get away now if he got the chance.
“Is that gun loaded?” Fahd asked, nodding at the policeman’s open holster.
The cop laughed. “’Course it’s loaded, son – you don’t think we fight bad guys with water pistols, now, do you?”
“Yeah, but,” Fahd said, “in Canada they have to load them first. And they’re all holstered up practically out of sight.”
“Canada ain’t New York City, kid,” the cop said, as if they hadn’t realized. “If I took the time to unbuckle and load up, I’d be shot a thousand times before I was ready.”
The policeman was off and running. He began to brag about the cases he’d solved and the drug dealers he’d arrested and the important people he’d guarded – never for a moment aware that a bunch of twelve-year-olds had just pulled the wool so far over his eyes he was about to flunk the one assignment he had that day: keeping people out.
Travis slipped away and ducked under the nearest truck. He wriggled his way through to a narrow space between one truck with “MAKE-UP” on it and another with “MAIN FEED,” all the time keeping an eye out for security.
Someone had left deep tracks in the snow, and he kept to them, careful not to leave his own small footprints behind.
As Travis drew closer to his goal he heard a man cough. He leaped from the footprints and scrambled under the nearest truck, rolling in the snow.
Just in time! Two television-crew members rounded the far corner and walked down the same narrow space he’d been coming through.
Travis rolled out the other side of the truck, retraced his steps, and, when the men had gone – thank heavens for coughs! – he stepped back out into the tracks and hurried the rest of the way.
“DIRECTOR” a sign read on the blue vehicle’s side. The policeman had been right.
“MAIN CONTROL PANEL,” it read below. And beneath that was a number: 212-555-7449.
Travis stared hard at the number. How would he ever remember all that? He had nothing to write it down with. He couldn’t write it in the snow – what good would that do? He had to remember it.
The first part – 212 – was the area code. Even if he forgot that, he could easily look it up.
The second part was also a snap. 555 – he’d seen enough television shows to know that was always the number in these circumstances!
But 7449?
Easy – Travis Lindsay, Wayne Nishikawa, and Sarah Cuthbertson. Numbers 7, 44, and 9.
He raced back along the tracks through the snow, repeating the numbers out loud as he hurried to where the policeman was just winding up yet another story of a mob shootout.