I’m pretty good at this spy stuff! he said to himself.
Here he was, not fifteen feet from these guys, recording them, and they had no—
The sound was huge, like someone dropping a metal tray right behind him—a heavy tray that went bong! The coffin lid!
Ben sucked in a quick breath . . . .
It was immediately quiet, but then he knew a horrible truth . . . it was too quiet. The arguing in the janitor’s room had stopped.
Seconds later he heard jangling keys.
Lyman and Wally were at the art room door.
CHAPTER 15
Standoff
Ben panicked, fought it back, then panicked again. A wave of heat rushed to his face. His hands shook as he grabbed his backpack and yanked it on, his mouth burning with the sharp coppery taste of raw fear.
Footsteps, more jangling keys, and the two of them, Lyman and Wally, were right on the other side of the door!
He scanned the room, the tiny flashlight beam jumping madly from wall to ceiling to floor, as if to spot some magic exit. If he’d had the strength, he’d have heaved a huge roll of craft paper through a window and leaped to freedom through the splintered sash.
There was no way out.
They would find the right key any second now.
They would walk in and flip on the lights.
There was no way out . . . except right through that door.
That door.
Those two men.
That door.
A sudden calm flowed across him like a curtain of mist.
Ben knew this feeling.
It was like the final leg of a race out on the bay, with two feet of chop and a hard crosswind. The hull bucks, the spray slashes, the sail snaps taut, there are three gallons to bail before taking the turn, and the red buoy is dead ahead. And in the middle of it comes a sharpness, a burst of clarity. It’s all instinct, every twitch of the tiller, every shift of weight, every dip and duck and dodge, and in moments the buoy arrives—and then it’s behind.
With no hesitation, Ben got a fresh grip on his cell phone, checked the settings, took four strong steps to the door, turned the knob, and pushed it open, blinking in the bright light.
The two men jumped backward, stunned for a second, and Ben took a quick step forward into the art room. And he also pushed the button that started the video recorder on his phone.
Lyman’s face broke into a wide smile.
“Well, well, well—look what we have here, Wally. It’s a sneaky little boy, caught after school . . . with his backpack full of stolen art supplies!”
“I didn’t steal anything!”
“Wally and I both saw you, just now—you were pulling all sorts of stuff out of your bag, only a few moments after we heard a noise and came running. You are in very serious trouble, young man, very serious trouble indeed!”
Lyman turned to Wally who stood with a dull grin on his wide face. “I’ll keep track of our little thief here while you run and fetch the principal—and maybe the principal should put in a call to the police.”
“It’s . . . it’s your word against mine!” Ben spluttered.
“Exactly,” said Lyman, his voice suddenly harsh. “Two witnesses against one—who do you think the principal is going to believe?”
As Ben struggled to reply, his phone buzzed. He almost dropped it as he rushed to push talk—barely spotting the tiny name on the screen.
“Jill! I’m in the art room with Wally and Lyman, and they’re gonna say I was stealing and turn me in!”
Silence. Lyman kept smiling.
“You there? Jill?”
“I’m here. Put me on speaker, Benjamin.”
Ben pushed the correct button and held on to his phone with both hands, like it was the end of a lifeline.
“Mr. Lyman, Mr. Robleton? Can you hear me?”
Lyman quickly tapped Wally and shook his head, putting a finger to his lips.
Ben said, “They hear you, but they’re not going to say anything!”
“That works fine for me,” she said. “Mr. Lyman, if you and Mr. Robleton don’t step aside and let Ben walk out of there right now, this is what happens. First, I call our attorney, and that is not a bluff—we have a very good one on retainer. The lawyer and I will prepare a press release with factual information about who the two of you are, who you both work for, what kind of work you do, and we will have full details—all sorts of information about your professional and personal histories, including the problems that your angry little friend—the one known as the Fireplug—has had with the law over the past fifteen years or so, issues that you both probably hid from the school superintendent in order for Wally to be allowed to even set foot inside a public school.”
Wally’s eyes narrowed, his face turning bright red. Ben nearly took a step backward, but held his ground. Jill sounded great, but Ben could tell she was scared too, and that she was having trouble finding the next thing to say. She kept talking.
“What the superintendent of schools has done will be exposed, how she hired two outside agents—without the knowledge of Principal Telmer—and how you two are being paid by both the town of Edgeport and the Glennley Group. We will also release our time-stamped photos of the Underground Railroad hideout, proving that we discovered that important historical place first . . . and how the discovery was stolen by Glennley and then used for their own selfish purposes. This press release, along with photos and video and all sorts of other information that you really cannot even imagine, Mr. Lyman, will be e-mailed to all the major media outlets inside of one hour . . . and it will be big news by six o’clock tonight, guaranteed. Is this what you want, Mr. Lyman? Is this what you think your bosses want? And the reason I’m talking to you, Mr. Lyman, is because we all know that you are the quarterback here, right? And Ben, if that little Fireplug takes a swing at you, yell, and I’ll hang up and dial 911—which will solve this problem in another way.”
Wally raised his arm and tried to swat at Ben’s phone, but Lyman stepped in front of him. The tall man’s face was twisted with anger.
Ben said, “Lyman’s thinking about it, Jill.”
“Good,” she said. “He should be. He should think very carefully. Because I have a sound recording of all of this. Can you snap a photo of the two of them there, Ben?”
“I already did!”
Ben kept his side of the phone turned so neither man could see it—this didn’t seem like a good moment to reveal that he had a video of this whole thing.
“Great,” Jill said. “So now let’s state for the record that the time is exactly 3:47 p.m. on Tuesday, June second, just in case either of those men even touches you, Benjamin. Because the laws about child endangerment in Massachusetts are very strict. In fact, Ben, I think it’s perfectly safe for you to just step around Mr. Jerroald F. Lyman and Mr. Wallace V. Robleton, and walk right out of the Captain Duncan Oakes School. Ready?”
“Ready,” Ben said.
He took a step toward the windows, and Wally lunged left, as if he intended to tackle him. Again, Lyman held him back, this time actually grabbing him with both arms.
Ben kept walking.
“I’m walking around them, and Lyman’s holding Wally . . . and now I’m out in the hall!”
Jill yelled, “Run!”
Which was unnecessary.
Ben was already halfway down the causeway.
In four seconds he burst out the side door into the sunshine, and he didn’t stop running till he reached his own back door on Walnut Street.
CHAPTER 16
Emergency Meeting
“This isn’t the first time, Benjamin—why don’t you just go ahead and do everything completely on your own from now on?”
Ben decided that “hissing” was too nice a word to describe the tone of Jill’s voice. It sounded more the way a garbage disposal growls . . . or maybe the sound his front teeth would make if they were dragged along a sidewalk.
It was about seven thirty Tuesday n
ight, and they were having an emergency Keepers meeting in his attic bedroom—he’d told his mom it was about their special project, which certainly was not a lie.
Ben sat there, his eyes cast down. He didn’t argue, didn’t offer any defense. Because then he’d have to admit how she and Robert made him feel nearly all the time—outsmarted. And out-clevered . . . out-everythinged. He thought he could have come right out and said that—if it were only to her.
But saying that with Robert right there? Wasn’t gonna happen.
He had to say something . . . but he’d waited too long.
Jill added, “It’s just so . . . so immature!”
Ben said, “Yeah, I know—sorry.”
Robert said, “How about we lighten up, okay? I mean, the guy did get some results! So let’s not forget about that . . . .”
Jill gave Robert the kind of look that’s reserved for traitors. Or convicted kitten killers.
“So now it’s all about results, is that it? Well, let’s not forget that I had to tell our enemies a bunch of our secrets to get Ben out of there. And now Lyman knows a lot more about what we know—which means that his army is already hard at work planning how to block all the moves I told him we’d be willing to make!”
Ben was able to follow what Jill had just said . . . but it was a perfect example of what he’d been feeling: She was able to see layers of planning and strategy in all this stuff that really didn’t occur to him . . . not most of the time.
He was glad for Robert’s support, but he didn’t want to be the cause of more squabbling in the ranks.
“Really,” he said quickly, “I promise I won’t take off and do anything on my own again. I promise. But . . . you really do have to see the video and look at the faces of those guys when Jill was slicing them to bits—it was awesome!”
As those words left his mouth, Ben saw his favorite tiny half smile on Jill’s lips . . . and he realized that maybe he wasn’t so terrible at strategy after all—some kinds of strategy.
“Right, can’t wait to see it,” Robert said. “But now, it’s time to deal with that,” and he pointed at the package on Ben’s desk.
Ben opened the desk drawer, got out a pair of small scissors, and handed them to Jill.
“You should do the honors . . . and Robert and I can take pictures. I’ll shoot video, and Robert, you take hi-res stills with the new camera, okay?”
Ben positioned the swing-arm of his desk lamp directly over the package, and then clicked the light to the brightest setting.
“Get a really tight picture of the seal, and then the stitching along both ends and the flap,” Ben said.
“And also the fabric,” Jill said. “That’s canvas, right?”
“Yeah,” Robert said, already snapping away. “Whoever did the sewing really knew what he was doing!”
“ ‘What he was doing?’ ” said Jill. “You think a man sewed that?”
“Absolutely,” Ben said. “In Captain Oakes’s day, every sailor was an expert with a needle and twine—it was part of the job.”
Jill flexed the scissors open and shut a few times.
“So . . . what’s the best way to go after this thing?”
Ben said, “How about cutting each of the stitches along the right side so we can open that end. That’d do the least damage to it. Sound good?”
“Sounds good to me,” Robert said. “Let ’er rip!”
“There will be no ripping,” Jill said, “at all.”
She got to work, then quickly realized she didn’t have to snip each stitch. She cut every fourth or fifth one, then just pulled out a length of the heavy thread.
Ben followed the progress with his phone camera, pulling back once or twice to get Jill’s face into the frame. Her nose got all scrunched up whenever she concentrated on something.
It took a little more than three minutes to get the end unstitched, and no one had to tell Jill what to do next. She pulled the layers of sailcloth open, and Ben aimed the desk lamp so it would shine inside.
There was a smaller package inside the cloth, and this one was wrapped in something that was the color of coffee.
“Robert, hang onto the left end,” said Jill.
She reached into the open end with both hands and pulled, and the inner package slid out onto the desk. It was similar to the outer package, except its flap was held shut by four large globs of red sealing wax.
“Hmm . . . leather, don’t you think?” Robert said.
“Yeah,” said Ben, “it seems kind of brittle—hey! Check it out!”
He got in close with the camera, then quickly set it aside. There was an inscription on the flap of the packet, along with some kind of symbol. It was inked deep into the leather, like an old tattoo.
Robert read the words aloud:
“That symbol? I’ve seen it before,” Robert said.
“I’ve seen it too,” said Jill. “It’s used by Freemasons.”
“Masons?” Ben thought a second. “Are those the guys who wear the strange hats and ride around on go-karts during the Fourth of July parade?”
“No,” she said, “those are the Shriners. But Masons and Shriners are both fraternities, and they both use old-fashioned symbols.”
“You mean after all this, we can’t even open this thing?” Robert said.
“Well,” Ben said, “not if we’re going to follow Captain Oakes’s orders exactly . . . and I think we should. I think we have to trust that he knew what he was doing. He says to take it ‘unopened.’ And also ‘to the nearest Grand Master,’ whatever that means.”
“I know what it means,” said Jill. “There’s a Masonic lodge right here in Edgeport, over on Washington Street. And every lodge has a Grand Master. But if we follow the captain’s directions exactly, it could be a problem.”
“How come?” asked Robert.
“Because the Grand Master of that lodge is my dad.”
CHAPTER 17
Bad Feeling
Tuesday night’s emergency Keepers meeting continued early Wednesday morning in the school library. And Robert wasn’t happy.
“I don’t see why you won’t just call your dad. Tell him there’s a special delivery package for the Grand Master, and it’s got to be opened right away—maybe he’d let you open it and tell him what you find. Because we’re running out of time here. We can’t just put everything on hold until he’s back in town.”
Jill shook her head. “We have to wait—he’s back on Friday. It’s bad enough that he has to get involved at all, but I’m sure not going to try to tell my dad about this stuff over the phone. He’ll think I’m crazier than he already does.”
“Jill’s right,” said Ben. “Her dad’s the one who has to open that package, and that’s all there is to it. So, we’ve just got to find other stuff to work on for a couple days.”
“Yeah? Like what?” Robert sneered. “If we’re gonna be so insanely careful about all the captain’s stupid little rules, then we can’t even look for the next safeguard until this one’s all settled—right?”
“Well . . . ,” Ben said slowly, “we can at least start thinking about the next clue. I don’t see anything that would keep us from doing that.” Then he added, “And if all else fails, we can go to our classes, and study for our last tests, and get all our final projects and reports finished—you know, school. And maybe if we back off a little, it’ll give Lyman and Wally a false sense of security, and they’ll get sloppy. Could be a good strategy.”
Jill said, “Speaking of the dynamic duo, did you guys notice anything strange about them this morning, other than the fact that they were both here extra early? I mean, I was expecting some kind of reaction after the big showdown with Ben in the art room yesterday—I was pretty harsh over the phone. At the very least, I thought I’d see some anger today, especially from Wally. And there was nothing, hardly a frown from either one—barely a glance. And look”—she pointed toward the doors of the library—“nobody’s even watching us. Seems weird, don’t you
think?”
Robert rolled his eyes. “First you get all freaked out when they follow you, and now you’re worried because they’re not?”
Jill narrowed her eyes, then spoke slowly and carefully. “All I am saying, Mr. Gerritt, is that this is a sudden change in enemy procedures. And we should pay attention, in case it means something.”
Robert got up from the table. Mocking the way she’d just spoken, he said, “All I am saying, Miss Acton, is that you may pay all the attention you wish to those two lumps. I am going to go now, and finish earning straight As in all of my subjects. Have a nice day.”
Jill kept her lips pressed tightly together until Robert was all the way out of the library, then spat out one word: “Idiot!”
Ben didn’t want to try to defend Robert, and he realized he also didn’t want to try to help Jill calm down. He didn’t want to discuss what she’d said about Lyman and Wally, and he didn’t want to discuss the clue for the next safeguard, or discuss anything at all.
There was really only one thing that he actually wanted to do, and it was so simple. He wanted to go sailing.
But he couldn’t, not until Saturday.
“Listen, Jill, I’m gonna go to homeroom early, get some homework done. See you later, okay?”
“Yeah, fine.”
She seemed glad to see him leave.
In the hallway outside the library, Ben took a quick look both ways, out of habit. No Lyman, no Wally.
He walked toward the front of the school and stopped when he had a clear view of the long front hallway that ran by the office. Again, neither man was in sight.
Curious now, he backtracked past the library doors, and near the north stairway he had a clear view across the other long hallway.