The Inside Job (4 page)

“Are you all right?” Leonie asked in French, so stunned that she had forgotten to speak in English. I looked at her
blankly, even though I understood, until she repeated the question in English.

“I'm fine,” I said as Otter fussed over me and then hauled me to my feet. Everyone—even a non-spy—can spot a fake trip a mile away, so I'd had to really go for it. I groaned and rubbed the spot on my head that had crashed into the side of the desk, while Kennedy pranced around me, snickering.

“You should have seen your face, Georgie!” she hooted. Leonie gave Kennedy a stern look, and Otter grabbed for her but she dodged away. Leonie was trying to look after me, silently scold Kennedy, and gather her things all at once. I reached over and quickly, easily, yanked at the plug connecting her phone to the ground socket. It popped out neatly.

“Well—let's see. Er, Markus. Right,” Leonie said, shaking her head as she put her pencils back in her desk. She lifted the phone again and then frowned. “It's not working,” she said, hanging it up and trying again.

“Did he break it?” Otter said, sounding disgruntled. “You must be more careful, son.”

“I didn't mean to fall on my face!” I said, flushing.

“You'll have to pay for it,” Otter said, shaking his head.

“But it was an accident!” I wailed. “It wouldn't have even happened if stupid Violetta hadn't gone over there and you didn't make me go get her—”

“It's no trouble,” Leonie interrupted. She smiled at me sympathetically. “These things happen. You won't need to
pay for the phone. But you'll have to excuse me, since I'll need to dash upstairs to get Markus for you.”

“Fine,” Otter said. “But hurry please. Like I said, we're in a rush. I need to get this deposited before my son breaks anything else.” He waved an envelope—which we'd stuffed with clipped coupons, since we didn't have hundreds of dollars—in the air. Leonie looked hurt on my behalf and then scurried away.

“I can't believe you broke her phone,” Otter said. “Really, Georgie. See if you can fix it.” No one could hear this, but it would be a decent show for the security officers if they were watching us. I rolled my eyes and fidgeted with the phone for a minute, then pulled on the cord. I lifted it to show Otter—and the security cameras—it was unplugged, and then circled Leonie's desk. I jammed the phone cord back into its socket and, as I rose, snapped a picture of the computer screen. We didn't have time to check it—there was no telling how close or far Markus Hastings's desk was from Leonie's. I made eye contact with Otter.
I've got the photo.

Otter shoved his hands in his pockets, looking bored. We couldn't just bolt for the door; it would attract attention. He waited another beat and then lifted his cell phone—which didn't even work—to answer an imaginary call.

“What? No! Tell the pilot we'll be there momentarily. My god, I pay his salary—he'll wait there all day if I want
him to!” Otter grunted into the phone. He rolled his eyes, looked at the envelope of “money” in his hands, then at Leonie's empty desk. “Fine, we're on our way. Let's move, kids,” he said to us as he stormed off. We followed behind, Kennedy still hopscotching. A few other bankers looked up as we stomped through the doors, but their faces said,
What a rich jerk
! rather than
Oh no, spies!
so I didn't panic. I turned back to look just as Otter and Kennedy breezed through the door.

There was Leonie, at the top of the staircase, with a man who I assumed was Markus Hastings. I couldn't tell you a thing about his height or weight or even his hair, because in the split second our eyes met, all I really noticed was this: Markus Hastings looked terrified.

And terrified people? They're the most dangerous.

CHAPTER FOUR

The place where we were staying in Geneva was really nice. This was pretty surprising, since we couldn't exactly
pay
for a fancy hotel or anything. But apparently, Clatterbuck's old spy days meant he and The League still
did
have contacts around the world. His contacts, however, were a little different than what I expected. When the SRS says it has contacts, they mean oil barons and CEOs and mob bosses. Clatterbuck's contact? A farmer.

Well, technically a horse breeder. Small horses. Or rather, (in French),
poneys.

The miniature-horse breeder—a very old man and his wife—had a house on their property they rented out to travelers, and Clatterbuck secured it for us for three weeks. (“If all this SRS business takes longer than that, maybe we can offer to feed the horses to stay?”) Unfortunately, the old
couple spoke only Romansh, which was the only language in Switzerland I
didn't
know. Neither did Clatterbuck, so we made do with lots of smiling and thumbs-ups to convey our gratitude.

“And how do you know them, again?” Otter asked. He was so amazed, I think he forgot to look irritated.

“I had to go in disguise as a circus animal trainer once. They lent me the ponies,” Clatterbuck said. “I guess you could say we hit it off.”

“But . . . you don't even speak the same language,” Beatrix said, shaking her head.

“No, but I brought them chocolate and made the bed when I left. It went a long way,” Clatterbuck said happily, like this explained everything. He turned and went into the house, leaving the rest of us outside, staring at the darkened forms of a tiny pony herd nosing its way up to the barn for dinner.

Inside was sparse but pretty—lots of white tile on the floors and the walls. Beds with perfectly square foam pillows and neatly tucked-in blankets. Bathrooms with windows that overlooked the aforementioned ponies—I guess so you could pee and observe nature all at once. The art on the wall was weird, but not too terrible, even though Kennedy did take down the creepy painting of an old lady that was in the bedroom she and Beatrix were sharing. (“It
stares
at us, Hale. Can paintings be haunted?”) Walter, Ben, and I were in another room that
had four bunk beds—just enough room for three boys and all of Ben's inventing equipment.

We convened at the kitchen table, pulling up an extra recliner and barstool so there was enough room for the seven of us. Beatrix had her Right Hand out and plugged into two different computers. We watched as she pulled up my photo of the bank code and stabilized it, snatching the number off the screen. She then went through a series of screens that contained about a billion numbers and letters, typing frantically. Finally she looked up at us.

She was frowning.

“What's wrong?” I asked.

Beatrix kept frowning. “There's about three dollars and four cents in the account. Adjusting for the currency exchange rate, of course.”

We blinked.

“Maybe this doesn't account for the hard cash and the gold in the vaults, is all,” Otter said swiftly.

“No—this is
including
what's in the vaults rather than in the digital account. Three dollars and four cents.”

“That's impossible,” I said, shaking my head. “We hurt SRS when we broke out of the Castlebury location, but we didn't ruin their finances. Besides, SRS would never allow the money to get so low. They must have moved it.”

“Well, wait—no . . . Hang on, it's weird,” Beatrix said, typing frantically again. “All right—so, yes, money was moved out of this account. It was moved to another
account that has . . . a hundred thousand in it. And then last week, money was moved from that account to two different accounts. And those were moved to . . . three others. Hang on, I'm getting confused by the trail.”

“That doesn't make any sense,” Otter said. “Antonio Halfred, that's the name—did you type it in right?”

“I did,” Beatrix answered testily. “I'm telling you, if this is SRS's account, they've moved the money recently. They're moving it a
lot.
”

“Well, sure, moving it makes sense—it'd keep people like us from being able to find it. But that couldn't have been
all
of SRS's money. Even if that account had a hundred thousand dollars in it at one point, SRS has
millions
. Where is
that
money?” Walter asked.

We went quiet again.

And then I realized. I exhaled. “It's . . . everywhere.”

“What do you mean?” Kennedy asked.

“Beatrix—can you see how many accounts SRS's money has been in? Or how many are connected in some way to this Antonio Halfred?” I asked.

“Uh, well, I can try? But I won't be able to see them all. There are hundreds. Maybe more,” Beatrix said.

“Probably thousands,” I said. I leaned back in my chair, nearly tilting over when the legs slid on the tile. “SRS spreads their resources out. There are dozens of facilities. Even more sleeper agents throughout the world. They have their hands in organized crime and
medicines and real estate. Of course they'd spread out their money too.”

“They have their money in thousands of accounts,” Otter said, nodding in realization. “And they move it around so no one catches it.”

“Are these accounts all in Antonio Halfred's name?” Walter asked.

“No,” Beatrix said. “They're in a bunch of other people's. And they seem to be real people too. This account I'm looking at now belongs to a butcher. This other one belongs to a lady who owns a shoe store.”

“Genius,” I said. “Hide some money in real people's accounts for a week or two. If they notice, they won't say anything—who complains about an extra thousand or so in their bank account? And it means there's no way to steal
just
the SRS money—the accounts are always changing. The amounts are always changing. I bet even the vaults are always changing. No wonder the account is tied to that Hastings guy—he must handle all this for them.”

“He's their inside man. We have to get past SRS
and
the bank's security
and
someone at the bank who actually knows what's going on with those accounts,” I said, slumping down in my chair. I stared at the smooth wood tabletop. No one moved. Everyone waited for someone else in the room to have the great idea.

But no one did.

“So we're done? We can't do it?” Kennedy asked, frowning.

“Looks that way,” Otter said. He stood up, his chair clattering behind him. He stomped off to his bedroom, which Clatterbuck had the misfortune of sharing with him, and slammed the door.

Ben snored.

Ben
really
snored. Like, the sort of snoring that sounds like a truck on the interstate. It was kind of incredible that such a spectacular sound could come from a guy so small. I tossed and turned on the lower bunk, trying to figure out if Walter, who was sleeping above me, was awake. Finally I just whispered up to him.

“Yeah, I'm awake,” he grumbled. “I tried to smother myself with a pillow, but it didn't work. Maybe you could come knock me out?”

“You really want
me
punching you?” I answered, and Walter laughed under his breath. We went silent for a few more moments, which Ben graciously filled with a bunch of short snores all in a row.

“I'm sort of relieved about the bank. It's a big job,” Walter finally said, his voice a little edgy, like he wasn't sure he was allowed to say this.

“You wouldn't have gone in alone or anything,” I reassured him. Walter got jumpy on missions—he was the
sort of guy who could rewire a light grid flawlessly in the practice room but would freeze up in the field.

“That wasn't really what I meant, actually,” Walter said, his voice lower now. “I mean, it's a big job. SRS would be so angry. And they've still got my mom . . .”

I felt stupid for not realizing what he meant, so I scrambled. “Oh. Well. Your mom is tough as nails. They wouldn't be able to hurt her even if they wanted to. She'd go on the run.”

“Like your parents?”

I was quiet for a long time, thinking,
No, not like my parents.
Because, see, my parents went on the run even though it meant
leaving
me and Kennedy, because getting out of SRS was the right thing to do—because they were heroes, and sometimes heroes had to do really hard things like that. Right? But Walter was already gone—his mom could just
leave
. She could walk out right now, and if anything, she'd be even closer to getting to be with Walter again—it'd practically be easy! Yet, she was staying with SRS. She was just choosing to stay with the bad guys.

I thought I could guess
why
she was staying. Because it was easier. She knew who she was at SRS—she knew the rules, the system, the goals. She didn't know who she'd be here on the outside. But if I could get out despite all that, then so could she, right?

Out loud, though, I finally said, “Yeah, I guess like my parents. They could join up, maybe. Help each other out.
And then when SRS is done for, we'll all go to some theme park together.”