Day of Doom (8 page)

“She’s not part of our family. Not

anymore,” snapped Ian.

“Excellent,” said Sandy again. “It’s

so  much  easier  to  kill  non–family

members.”

By prearrangement Amy and Dan met upwith Jake and Atticus at the hotel in DCwhere they were staying. When Amy told Jake and Atticus how she had nearly died, Jake paled, rose from his seat, and put hisarms around her.

“Ames, that was way too close.”

“I’d be dead if it weren’t for mysupersmart little brother,” said Amy,gazing at Dan, but hugging Jake.

Jake released Amy and shook Dan’shand. “We all owe you big for that one, Dan.”

“Hey, she’s my sister. She doesn’tget to leave me by myself. I’ve got yearsleft to make her life miserable.”

Amy could tell that Dan was sayingthis just to lighten the moment, to putfirmly in the past how close he’d come tolosing her. Well, she thought, he wasmostly doing it for that. Little brotherswere little brothers, after all. And at timeshe certainly did make her life miserable. But he had also just saved it. So he couldmake her as miserable as he wanted.

Amy looked at Jake. “How did youguys get away?”

“Those dudes were big but slow,”said Jake. “They ran out of gas after half a

mile. Some bad guys. Isabel needs to hire

fitter criminals.”

Amy sat down. “Okay, I texted Evanwhat happened to us in DC and about Riley McGrath possibly being Vesper One. Hopefully, they’ve reached Phoenixby now. But we need to move on fast. Jake, let’s see the pictures you took of thecompass again.”

Jake pulled out his phone and broughtthe photos up.

“Can you enlarge them?” asked Amy.

“Coming up,” replied Jake. He hitsome keys and the pictures swelled.

Dan eyed one photo and said, “Idon’t see anything remarkable. It justlooks like an old compass.”

He brought up the photos he’d takenand stared at them one after another.

“Nothing.”

“Isabel would not have come all this

way just to look at an old compass,” said Amy. “There has to be something. Let’s see the back.”

Jake hit another key and the nextphoto came up on the screen. It was theback of the compass box.

Amy said, “Okay, there are thenumbers. The ones that Dr. Gwinn said noone had figured out.”

“Right,” said Atticus. “Maybe there’ssomething there. My mother obviouslywanted us to find out about this compass.”

“Can you make them larger?” Amyasked Jake.

He made the numbers as big as

possible.

They all stared at them.

Amy said, “Okay, that looks to be afour and a seven.”

“And the letter
 
M
 
or
 
N
,” added Dan. Atticus squinted. “That’s a twelve,”

he said, pointing to a number just below

the four and seven. “At least I think so.”

Dan said, “And a number one after it. So one twenty-one.”

Amy said, “I think so. And there’s aletter behind the one twenty-one. Looks tobe a
 
W
.”

Atticus said, “Okay, to recap wehave forty-seven and the letter
 
M
 
or
 
N
. And a one-two-one with a minus sign. And the letter
 
W
. What does that tell us?”

He looked at the others. Jakeshrugged. Amy looked uncertain.

Dan, however, was on his laptop. “When in doubt, let’s go to the web,” hemuttered.

He put in the information they hadand hit the
 
SEARCH
 
key.

He looked up, smiling sarcastically.

“Only one billion, nine hundred and sixtythree million, four hundred and seventynine thousand, eight hundred and sixteen possibilities. I should be able to get through them in the next seven thousand, eight hundred and fourteen years. Just sit tight and call up lots of room service.”

Atticus suddenly looked excited. “Dan, search for the
 
map
 
coordinates of the Cascade Mountain Range.”

Amy said, “Why the —” She blinked. “Right, I get it; Dan, quick, do it.”

Dan was already punching the keys on his laptop. It took only a few seconds.

He looked up this time in genuine triumph.   “Forty-seven   degrees   north latitude and one hundred twenty-one degrees west longitude is the exact location of the Cascade Mountain Range.

So the letter was an
 
N
 
for
 
north
, and not

an
 
M
!”

Atticus added, “That confirms whatwe learned from Phoenix. That must be

where the hostages are.”

“And the Cascades have a massive subduction zone,” added Jake. “We already  knew  that.  Perfect  for  the Vespers’ Doomsday device.”

Dan said, “See, Amy, we should’ve just gone directly there without wasting time in DC.”

Amy replied, “No, we’ve now
 
confirmed
 
what Phoenix told us. And even though I nearly died, it was worth it to see the look on Isabel’s face when I told her

she would never be Vesper One.”

“You must have really made her

mad,” said Dan.

“Oh, I did. But that’s not the only reason I did it. But forget her. We need to get to the West Coast as fast as possible. We’ll hook up with the others, save the hostages, and destroy the Doomsday device.”

“And   nail   the   Vespers,”   Dan

reminded her.

“Never fear, little brother, I would never forget that important detail.”

Atticus looked confused. “But why would Isabel have gone to DC to figure out where the hostages and the Doomsday device are? Wouldn’t she already know?”

“Not if Vesper One is keeping things from her,” said Amy with a smile. “And that might just work out to our advantage.” She looked at Dan. “Call the airline and

get us tickets on the next flight out to

Washington State.”

Dan got on the phone with his creditcard ready. But the lines were jammed. He couldn’t get through. He tried ten timeswith five different airlines. He slammed

the phone down in frustration.

Meanwhile, Jake had turned on the TV in the room. After a minute of watching a late-breaking news story he said, “Amy, I think I know why we can’t get through to the airlines. Look.”

Amy turned to stare at the screen. After a few seconds seeing what was unfolding all over the country, her spirits sank. They weren’t going to be able to get to the West Coast after all.

At least not via plane.

Staring at the TV screen, Amy learned thatall air traffic in the world had beengrounded because of a number of near-crashes. The mishaps had been because offailure of the planes’ avionics systems. Since it was inconceivable that all of theplanes’ avionics would fail on the sameday, the authorities had checked for othercauses. They had quickly determined thatchanges in the magnetic fields of the Earth

had taken place. And those changes were causing    potentially    catastrophic interference with pilots’ ability to control their aircraft, which depended on stable magnetic fields.

Dan looked at Amy. Amy looked at Dan. Atticus and Jake stared at them both.

Dan said, “Are you thinking what I’mthinking?”

Amy slowly nodded. “A change inthe Earth’s magnetic fields. That meansthere must have been some significantdisruption in the magnetic poles. Thatcould only mean . . .” Her voice trailedoff.

Dan  swallowed  with  difficulty. “Either aliens are about to eat us, or the Vespers have already begun to activatetheir Doomsday device.”

Atticus said calmly, “Since the Earthis still here I think the key phrase is ‘begun to activate.’ If they had triggered itfully, we would see far more catastrophicresults.”

“Oh, goody,” snapped Dan. “I can’t wait for the far more catastrophic results.”

“Att means we still have a shot at stopping things,” said Jake. “Remember Vesper One got the gear and other stuff in New York. He had to get out to the West Coast and put it together in the device. That takes time.”

“Time we’re obviously running out of,” said Amy. “Like Atticus said, the activation process has begun. Planes were flying just fine earlier. I saw them in the sky.”

“But we still might have a shot,” said

Jake.

“Oh, really?” said Amy. “How? How do we get out to the West Coast and stop them if we can’t fly? You want us to ride a bike? Take a cab? Board a

FREAKING bus? It’ll take forever. Vesper One already sent us that link withthe hostages. He’s planning to kill them. He probably already
 
has
 
killed them. What’s to stop him?”

Atticus pushed his glasses farther uphis nose from where they had slid downand said, “I think he wants us to be therewhen it happens.”

“What?” said Amy.

“I THINK HE WANTS US TO BE

THERE WHEN IT HAPPENS,” shouted

Atticus.

“ I
 
heard
 
you,” said Amy. “I just

don’t
 
understand
 
you.”

“Vesper One is highly intelligent, determined, and forceful,” stated Atticus.

“He’s also ruthless, murderous, and he probably has really bad BO,” shot back Dan.

“Granted,” said Atticus. “But he’s

also   highly   competitive,   even megalomaniacal, like most of the Vespers. He’s been giving us clues and hints and tidbits of his plans throughout this whole ordeal. He’s been using us, essentially, to get what he needed to build the Doomsday device.”

“And he succeeded,” snapped Dan. “We got him everything he needed. He built it. He’s pulled the trigger on it. He doesn’t need us or the hostages anymore.”

“But now, right as he’s about to

perform the final act on his little worlddestruction plan, the only thing missing is

us
. His opponents in all this. He needs us as part of the final act. So he can not only rub our noses in it but kill us at the same