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  For Alex

  1.

  The (Not So) Safeway

  MY NAME’S FLORIAN BATES. I’M twelve years old and a seventh grader at Alice Deal Middle School in Washington, DC. My two favorite foods are pizza and egg rolls. I’m on the student council, I’m in the Scrabble club, and I plan to try out for soccer.

  I also work for the FBI.

  I know. That last one kind of comes out of the blue, doesn’t it?

  Technically they classify me as a “covert asset,” which sounds very James Bond spylike but only means they want to keep me a secret. After all, it would be pretty embarrassing for them to admit they get help from a twelve-year-old, and it would be even worse if one of the guys on the Ten Most Wanted list showed up at my front door in a bad mood. So the covert part is good for both of us.

  Becoming a detective wasn’t something I meant to do. It just sort of happened because I notice things other people don’t. My brain’s weird that way. It spots details that seem insignificant and snaps them together like puzzle pieces.

  The only people outside the Bureau who are supposed to know my status are my parents and my best friend Margaret. But that changed the day the Romanian Mafia kidnapped me after school. I was taking a shortcut behind the Safeway supermarket, and unless they were trying to influence any upcoming student council votes, it meant my identity was no longer a secret.

  It’s funny because earlier that day Margaret had warned me not to take that route. Normally we walk home together. But on Thursdays she has piano, so I go alone. That’s when I look for shortcuts. Not because I’m in a hurry, but because it’s like another puzzle.

  “There are a lot of Dumpsters back there,” she pointed out when I told her about it. “And you know what Ben Franklin said about Dumpsters. ‘Nothing good ever happens when you’re surrounded by them.’ ”

  “I’m pretty sure Ben Franklin was dead about a hundred and fifty years before the Dumpster was invented,” I countered.

  “Then maybe I saw it on a poster. Either way, it’s good advice. You shouldn’t go back there.”

  “It may smell bad,” I said, feeling suddenly defensive, “but it’s not like it’s dangerous or anything.”

  “Hmmm,” she replied. “And how do you know that?”

  I thought about it for a moment and smiled. “Because it’s called the Safeway. If it was dangerous it would be called the Un-Safe Way.”

  She didn’t find this nearly as clever as I did. So while I laughed, she just shook her head and said, “Boys are soooo funny.” Then she leaned in close and added, “And soooo stupid.”

  Considering I was kidnapped in the exact place she warned me not to go, I’d say that little nugget belongs on a poster too. In my defense, I was going to walk the long way, but it started raining and I didn’t want to get soaked.

  I’d just squeezed through the gap in the fence and was hurrying behind the store holding my backpack over my head when I noticed the delivery truck. It should’ve been parked by the loading dock, but I was too busy worrying about getting wet to pay attention to that.

  The rain was so hard I could see through its windshield only when the wipers swished across the glass. That’s why I didn’t notice the driver had gotten out and left the engine running. I figured someone was just sitting inside waiting for the storm to pass.

  When he stepped out from behind a Dumpster I almost crashed into him, which would have hurt because he was enormous. The sign on the truck said it belonged to a flower shop called the Happy Leprechaun, but this guy was neither. He was about six foot four, three hundred pounds, and looked like a professional wrestler. One of the villains.

  He just stared at me, unconcerned about the rain pelting down on his giant bald scalp, and smiled. For a nanosecond I thought I was letting my imagination run wild. Then I looked down and noticed he wasn’t wearing comfortable shoes like a delivery person would. He had on steel-toed work boots popular among factory workers, bricklayers, and international assassins.

  I sprinted in the opposite direction, digging around in my backpack as I ran. I was trying to find the “panic button” the FBI had issued me. All I needed to do was push it twice and a team of agents would be put on instant alert. Unfortunately, he got to me before I got to it.

  He tackled me and we skidded across the wet pavement into a pile of old fruit cartons. At first I thought I’d sliced my knee open, but what looked like blood turned out to be rotted strawberries smushed into my jeans. I tried to scramble up onto my feet, but he wrapped his arms around my head and put me in a sleeper hold. Just before I blacked out I looked at all the Dumpsters and told myself that I really should start following Margaret’s advice.

  I don’t know how long I was unconscious, but when I woke up, I had a throbbing headache and was lying on the floor of the truck with my feet bound together and my hands tied behind my back.

  I let out a low, painful moan. “Uunnnnnffff.”

  “Feel better if sleep,” he said with a thick accent. “Twenty minute.”

  For a few seconds my vision was blurry, but when things came into focus I saw something beautiful—my backpack. He must have picked it up so no one would find it and come looking for me. That meant I still had a chance to press the panic button. I just needed to distract him long enough to scoot over to it.

  I’d taken a hostage survival course at Quantico, the FBI training center, but at the time I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to kidnap me, so I didn’t pay as much attention as I should have. Crazy stupid, I know, but at least I remembered the basics.

  SURVIVAL STEP 1—Build a Rapport with Your Captor

  “That was an impressive tackle,” I said. “Are you a football player?”

  “Football is baby sport,” he scoffed. “Pads. Helmets. I play man sport. Rugby.”

  “Well, I bet you’re great at it,” I said. “Did you play back home in Romania?”

  He looked into the rearview mirror and eyed me suspiciously. “How you know I Romanian?”

  I didn’t want to tell him that the FBI had warned me that the Romanians were after me or that I saw the Romanian flag tattooed on his forearm when he put me in the sleeper hold. I wanted him to like me, so I tried buttering him up.

  “My grandfather is from Romania,” I said. “I have a picture of him when he was a soldier and he looks just like you.”

  This made him smile. (For the record my papa Gio is from Italy, and my grandpa Ted grew up in New Hampshire. But I think it’s okay to lie when you’ve been abducted.)

  “By the way, as one Romanian to another,” I continued, “I think you’ve made a mistake. I think you nabbed the wrong kid.”

  The smile turned into a scowl and I worried that I’d offended him.

  “I’m not saying you’re not good at your job,” I added. “It’s just that with peer pressure and our need to fit in, kids look and dress so much alike that even we have trouble telling each other apart. One time my parents drove right by me at pickup. My own parents. So there’s no shame in grabbing the wrong one.”

  “Not wrong,” he replied forcefully.

  SURVIVAL STEP 2—Disrupt Your Captor’s Train of Thought

  “Do you mean ‘not wrong’ as in I’m not wrong in what I’m saying? Or ‘not wrong’ as in you’re not wrong in whom you kidnapped?”

  I waited for a response, but all I heard was a low, fr
ustrated growl. I assumed this was his deep-thinking noise.

  “If you don’t use pronouns, it really makes the conversation hard to follow. You need to say ‘You’re not wrong’ or ‘I’m not wrong.’ Especially in a situation like this with threats and demands. The wrong pronoun could have someone else ending up with your ransom money, and that wouldn’t be good for either one of us.”

  “Not wrong!” he barked again as if saying it louder suddenly solved the grammar issues. Just then he swerved to avoid another car, blasted his horn, and yelled what I assumed were choice Romanian curse words. I figured he was distracted enough for me to start inching toward my backpack.

  “Don’t feel bad,” I continued. “I understand how hard it is to learn a new language. My family moves all the time. I’ve had to learn French and Italian. It’s molto difficile. That’s Italian for ‘very difficult.’ ”

  “Stop talk!”

  “That’s a perfect example of what I mean. You said ‘stop talk’ but it should be ‘stop talking.’ English is so complicated. But let’s forget about grammar and get back to you kidnapping the wrong person. Like I said, it’s an easy mistake and easy to fix. If you let me go, I promise not to tell anyone. Just drop me off at the nearest Metro station.”

  “Shut mouth or else!”

  The “or else” was ominous, and combined with the continued lack of pronouns it reminded me of the third step from my training.

  SURVIVAL STEP 3—Do Not Antagonize Your Captor

  (When I told Margaret about the steps, she couldn’t believe this wasn’t first.)

  So far I’d managed to get about halfway to the backpack, but I still needed one big push to reach it. When my FBI handler warned me about the Romanians, I did some studying and came across a website with phrases in different languages. I’d learned one just in case a moment like this arrived.

  “Vehicolul meu aerian e plin cu maimute!”

  I wasn’t sure about my pronunciation, but it must have sounded Romanian enough because moments later he veered over to the side of the road and slammed on the brakes. The truck came to a screeching halt that sent me tumbling across the floor.

  At this point the backpack was just beyond my fingertips. I was about to scoot the last little bit when he stood up, walked into the back of the delivery truck, and leaned over me, no regard for personal space (or dental hygiene).

  “What saying you?” he demanded, his face red and splotchy.

  “I said that if you let me go I won’t tell anyone.”

  “No,” he replied as he leaned even closer. “What saying you Romanian?”

  I gulped and gave it another try, hoping I’d remembered it correctly. One wrong word could give the sentence a totally different meaning.

  “Vehicolul meu aerian e plin cu maimute!”

  Judging by his glower, I was pretty sure I’d ruined everything. I could just imagine the funeral, with my FBI instructor saying, “I told him not to antagonize his captor.” And Margaret shaking her head and responding, “And I told him not to go behind the Safeway.”

  He reached down and pressed his beefy hands against the sides of my head, and I waited for the inevitable crushing of my skull. But that’s not what happened. Instead he flashed a huge yellow-toothed grin and laughed.

  “Hubbercraft?” he asked, mispronouncing the word as he continued to laugh.

  “Yes,” I replied, smiling back and repeating the phrase in English. “My hovercraft is full of monkeys.” It was a silly phrase from a silly website, but it seemed to do the trick.

  Rapport had finally been established.

  “You’re funny,” he said as he helped me back into an upright position.

  “Thanks,” I replied. “By the way, ‘You’re funny’ is excellent subject/verb agreement. I wonder if the fact that you were more relaxed helped . . .”

  “Now shut mouth!”

  Okay, so it was only limited rapport.

  “Oh, and forget about backpack,” he said. “I already took out what you’re looking for.”

  He cackled and my heart sank.

  “No call home for you,” he added as he pulled my phone out of his shirt pocket and dangled it in the air. I tried not to show relief that he had only found my phone and not the panic button.

  “Okay,” I said, sounding as disappointed as I could. “No call home.”

  Fifteen minutes later we pulled off the highway onto a farm road and parked behind a barn. Everything was quiet for a moment until he said, “Do not joke when here. Understand?”

  It was more of a warning than an order, as if the next person I met might not have a sense of humor.

  “I understand,” I replied. “Thank you.”

  He untied my feet and led me into the barn, my sneakers squishing down into the mud as we walked.

  “Sit here and wait quiet,” he instructed when we reached an old wooden picnic table.

  SURVIVAL STEP 4—Brains Are Better Than Muscles

  I knew I was about to come face-to-face with Nicolae Nevrescu, a ruthless gangster known as “Nic the Knife.” He was the prime suspect in the case I was working on, and considering his reputation, I figured I was running out of time to act. The more I thought about my situation, the more upset it made me. And the more upset I got, the harder it was to breathe.

  At first my breaths were slow and labored, but then I started to gasp for air.

  “Quiet!” the kidnapper told me.

  My gasping intensified and I leaned forward against the table in full panic mode.

  “What is wrong?” he said.

  I was trying to figure out how to hyperventilate and talk at the same time when a new voice came to my rescue.

  “He needs his inhaler—inhalator,” he said, using the Romanian word.

  I looked up from the table and saw that it was Nevrescu.

  “Yes,” I wheezed as I nodded.

  “Where it is?” asked the kidnapper.

  “Back . . . pack,” I gasped.

  “Get it now!” said Nevrescu. “We can’t let him die. At least not yet.”

  The massive man rushed back to the truck and grabbed my backpack. Since my hands were still tied behind my back he just dumped everything onto the table and I pointed at the inhaler with my head.

  “Squeeze,” I gasped.

  He held it up to my mouth and pressed down while I sucked in a lungful of mist.

  “Again,” I said, my voice returning to somewhat normal.

  He squeezed a second time and I sucked down some more mist.

  You’ve got to hand it to the FBI. It looked and worked just like an actual inhaler. You’d never guess it was really a panic button.

  “Thank you,” I said with a huge sigh of relief. “You just saved my life.”

  Help was on the way. Now I only had to drag things out until it arrived.

  Nevrescu sat down across the table from me and started to look through the papers strewn across the table. I don’t know what ruthless crime lords are supposed to look like, but he looked more businesslike than I expected. His hair was cut stylishly, short on the sides, but a little thicker on top. He had a neatly trimmed beard and mustache and intense blue eyes. He also spoke with an accent, but his English was perfect.

  “Florian Bates,” he said, reading my name off the top of some homework. “You are the one the FBI only talks about in whispers. The one they call Little Sherlock.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said.

  He gave me a disappointed look. “Let’s not play games. I know who you are, and you know who I am.”

  I nodded reluctantly. “I know you’re the man who masterminded the robbery at the National Gallery of Art.”

  He chuckled. “Mastermind? I love that word. I wish it were true. No, that fact you have wrong. That’s why I had you brought here. So we could set the record straight and you could tell your friends at the FBI they are looking for the wrong person.”

  He started to roll up his sleeves and I could see th
e collection of tattoos on his forearms. One was a red-and-black eel that I recognized as the symbol of the Eastern European League, a crime syndicate known as EEL. There were other assorted tough-guy phrases and symbols, but one of them didn’t fit in with the others.

  It was a daisy with the numbers “24/7” directly beneath it. It looked like the logo of a flower shop willing to make deliveries twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. But Nevrescu didn’t exactly seem like a florist.

  He saw that I was staring at it. “What’s wrong, Little Sherlock?”

  “Young Sherlock,” I corrected.

  “What’s that?”

  “They don’t call me Little Sherlock. They call me Young Sherlock.”

  He laughed. “I thought you had no idea what I was talking about.”

  I gave him a look. “I thought we weren’t playing games.”

  “Okay. So what’s wrong, Young Sherlock?”

  “I’m not sure but it’s right there,” I said, trying to make sense of it. “I can almost see it.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to picture the puzzle pieces: Daisy, 24/7, EEL, FBI, Nic the Knife, Romania, Happy Leprechaun, Safeway. It just didn’t make sense and then . . . SNAP.

  I opened my eyes and smiled. The solution seemed completely impossible except for one detail. It was the only thing that made the pieces fit together.

  “There’s been a huge mistake,” I said urgently. “You need to let me go right now.”

  “Is that so?” He laughed. “Why should I do that?”

  I looked right at him and did not blink. “Because the FBI is going to be here in less than five minutes and that doesn’t leave us much time to talk about why your tattoo changes everything.”

  2.

  The Meaning of TOAST

  Three Months Earlier

  I PROMISE I’LL EXPLAIN HOW Nic the Knife’s tattoo changed everything. But before I can do that, I have to explain what everything is. That means I have to go back five months earlier to when I first came to Washington. Back then I wasn’t a covert anything, just a kid whose family moved a lot. And I wasn’t looking for a criminal mastermind. I was trying to find my underwear.