Travis hadn’t been the only one to recognize the voice. As soon as he looked at Nish and saw his beet-red, sweating face, he knew that Nish, too, had realized instantly who was beneath the balaclava.
Big.
Nish took it particularly badly. Not just because the lead terrorist turned out to be his great friend, but because his ambitious plan to moon the entire world had gone up in smoke.
Travis could tell that Nish was struggling with what to do. There was little choice, however.
“We better show this to somebody,” Travis said.
Nish nodded helplessly.
Travis led the little group down to Mr. Dillinger’s room. Mr. Dillinger called in Muck while the Owls explained the situation. Fahd then played the recording for them both.
Mr. Dillinger called the police. A detective came and heard the story and, once again, Fahd played the recording. The police demanded that the Screech Owls take them to this man called Big, and Nish sadly led the way to the underground garage where he had last met with his great friend.
Travis was astonished at how quickly the police moved. In no time, with the Owls well out of the way, they had gathered up Big and his buddies and hauled them off to be charged.
“What for?” Nish asked.
The detective in charge looked at him as if it were one of the stupidest questions he had ever heard. “Uttering terrorist threats,” he said. “In this country, that’s right up there with murder.”
One of Big’s friends had broken immediately and explained the story.
It was all Big’s idea. He’d got it when Nish had invited Big over to the hotel room to tell him about his great scheme to moon the world. Big had even been shown the file of Nish mooning before the camera.
Big was smarter than Travis had imagined. He had figured out that if he could just replace the “Moonshot” file on the computer with another one, then instead of Nish’s big butt on the screen at Times Square the New Year’s crowd would see his own recording.
“This man claims there was no real terrorist threat,” the detective said. “The guy they all call Big figured that they could panic the crowd who’d come down to see the show. With everyone running for cover, and with the snowstorm still blowing, they’d paralyze the city and empty the downtown core, leaving them free to loot wherever they wanted – even along Fifth Avenue.
“They filmed their own recording and saved it on disk. It took them less than five minutes to break into the hotel room, replace your file with theirs, and give it the same name. That way, you would load their file thinking it was yours. It was pretty ingenious – and it might have worked if you hadn’t checked it out first.”
“So it was them who hit Muck!” Sarah said.
The detective nodded. “There’s also going to be assault charges,” he said. “These guys are in deep trouble, believe me.”
“But–but–but,” Nish began, “what happened to my file?”
“It’s gone,” the detective said. “Outer space, I guess. But count yourself lucky, son.”
“W–why’s that?”
“If your file had gone up on that screen, I might be here charging you instead.”
Nish stuck out his chin, challenging. “No way you’d have recognized me.”
The policeman blew out his cheeks and shook his head. “We’d have checked every butt in New York,” he said. “A butt like that is pretty distinctive, wouldn’t you say?” He pointed at Nish’s rear end.
Nish blazed red – for once speechless.