“She is the only asset remaining from our original investment,” said a stick-thin woman with a German accent. Dr. Zimm knew she controlled one of the most profitable biotech companies in the world. She’d also been very instrumental in initiating the Corp’s Einstein Project.

  “We need her in Africa!” shouted the mining mogul from China. “We are making so much money from cobalt, we need to diversify our holdings. Branch out. You promised she could deliver the supercomputer we discussed, provided she had sufficient funding. Well, doctor, the funding is there. Where is the girl?”

  The Chairman banged his gavel. “Enough. As you might surmise, Dr. Zimm, we are not pleased with your performance.”

  Dr. Zimm grinned. “And yet,” he said, boldly, because he knew he could, “you are stuck with me. I am the only one Max will eventually come to trust. Without me, you will never control her.”

  “Well, dang,” said a white-haired man with a Texas twang, “maybe we don’t need her no more. What about that boy your team scouted out for us over there in Poland? Klaus something-or-other. Or that other feller, Vihaan. They’re both geniuses like this Max Einstein y’all love so much. We could put either one of them on the supercomputer project down in Africa…”

  “Impossible,” said Dr. Zimm. “You cannot compare Klaus Kowalczyk or Vihaan Banerjee to Maxine Einstein. Neither one of them are anything like her. They are fundamentally different. Besides. Klaus and Vihaan have also disappeared from our radar.”

  “You lost them, too?” said the Chairman.

  “No,” Dr. Zimm said with a defiant smirk. “I did not lose them because I was never following them. But, ladies and gentlemen, their disappearances have led me to a theory as to what might’ve happened to Max Einstein.”

  “Based on what?”

  “The involvement of Charl and Isabl, our friends at the CMI. They orchestrated the disappearance of Miss Einstein. They might also be the ones responsible for Klaus’s sudden departure from Poland and Vihaan’s disappearance from India. Several other highly intelligent children have simultaneously dropped out of sight. None of them, however, possess what I would call Miss Einstein’s ‘unique gift.’”

  “What are the CMI’s plans?” asked the Chairman.

  “I suspect something hopelessly naive and lofty. Something with no profit motive whatsoever. Something noble and grand that will never earn them a penny.”

  The board chuckled.

  They knew greed was the primary force in the universe. Anyone who thought otherwise was worse than a dreamer. They were fools.

  “But do not despair,” said Dr. Zimm. “I have initiated contact with someone who may provide information that will lead us to Miss Einstein while simultaneously sabotaging whatever plans the CMI might be making.”

  The Chairman arched his bushy eyebrow. “They may provide information?”

  “Yes, if the price is right. We are still in the early stages of our negotiation. But they reached out to me.”

  “Give them whatever fee they require,” said the Chairman. “Then give us Maxine Einstein.”

  “Oh, I will, sir. I will.”

  25

  The next day began bright and early for Max and the eight other contestants.

  After a quick breakfast—featuring healthful food from all over the world—they were sent into a room filled with “testing carrels.” Each competitor was assigned their own boxy cube and given several number 2 soft lead pencils. They also received an answer sheet with one hundred rows of dots labeled a, b, c, d, and e.

  “Kindly proceed to your assigned cubicle,” said the proctor, a stern-looking Israeli woman.

  Max had testing cubicle C. Tisa, the biochemist from Kenya, would be next to her in D.

  “Good luck, Max,” said Tisa with a bright and friendly smile.

  “Thanks. I think I’m going to need it.”

  “Me, too. I hate tests. Or as I like to call them, the rapid and rigid regurgitation of memorized facts.”

  Max grinned. “They’re also a nightmare.”

  “Yes,” said Tisa. “They’re that, too.”

  “So,” said Max, trying to make small talk the way she’d seen other kids do it, “your father is a millionaire?”

  Tisa laughed. “He used to be. Now he’s a multimillionaire.”

  “Silence, please,” said the proctor. “Kindly enter your cubicles and take your seats. You will have three hours to complete this examination. If you need a break to use the facilities, press the button on your work table and one of my assistants will escort you to the lavatory. Keep your eyes on your own papers at all times…”

  Max shook her head in disbelief. How did they think any of the contestants could look at their neighbor’s papers? They were penned in, separated by six-foot-tall walls like cattle on a freight train.

  She looked down at the answer sheet, which reminded her of the time she took the SAT test when she was nine years old just to see if she was statistically ready for college. She got a 1580 on the test. The highest score possible was 1600. But Max had thought two of the SAT questions were ridiculous so she didn’t bother answering them.

  “You may now begin your examination,” announced the proctor.

  Max used her pencil to slice open the seal on the test booklet.

  She skimmed the questions.

  Her eyes fixated on the pattern of dots emerging on the answer sheet.

  They reminded her of three-dimensional binary super-lattices of magnetic nanocrystals and semiconductor quantum dots, a subject she wished she could learn more about. It would be far more interesting than spitting back facts that everybody already knew.

  She daydreamed about quantum mechanics for a full hour. Then her mind drifted off on another sunbeam when the clouds outside the cubicle room’s mirrored windows parted.

  When the proctor announced, “Five minutes remaining on this portion of your examination,” Max scribbled an Einstein quote across the empty rows of circles filling the bottom half of her answer sheet:

  The only source of knowledge is experience.

  Then she added a quote of her own: “I am not a fish climbing a tree.”

  After the exam and a light lunch, Max was taken to a room for her interview.

  The man asking the questions looked even more serious than the lady who’d been supervising the three-hour written test. He launched into a barrage of questions about Max’s hero, Albert Einstein.

  Max didn’t answer any of them.

  Not a single one.

  Because all of the questions were about what Einstein did or said or theorized and not enough about who he was.

  Finally, the exasperated inquisitor asked the one question that Max felt like answering.

  “Which of Einstein’s concepts would you say has the biggest practical impact on your everyday life?”

  “That imagination is more important than knowledge,” said Max, giving the words just enough edge to let her questioner know that she thought the whole interview had been exactly like the earlier exam—a ridiculous waste of her time.

  That’s when Charl and Isabl stepped into the room.

  Neither one looked very happy.

  “Imagination is more important than knowledge?” said Charl. “Is that why you displayed so little knowledge on your written test and here in your interview?”

  “Are you failing on purpose, Maxine?” asked Isabl. “Are you really that eager to be sent back to America?”

  26

  “We had such high hopes for you,” said Charl, shaking his head.

  He and Isabl escorted Max down the sterile hallway.

  “I didn’t mean to be rude to the interviewer,” said Max. “Honest. I’m sure he’s a very nice man. But he kept asking all the wrong questions.”

  “Is that so?” said Isabl. She and Charl were moving so briskly, Max had to speed walk to keep up with them. “Dr. Einstein is your hero, correct?”

  Max nodded. “I’m his number one fan.”

  “Well, since you didn’t like our professional interviewer’s line of questioning, what question would you have liked to answer?” said Charl. “Something more open-ended? Maybe, ‘Which do you think is the most important of Einstein’s theories?’”

  “You’re kidding, right?” said Max. “You guys know Einstein. You know that’s not a very good question.”

  “How so?”

  “Determining the most important of Einstein’s theories depends on what’s important to you. It’s all relative.”

  Charl actually smiled. It was a tiny one, but Max could tell he was actually amused by her answer.

  Isabl halted her march up the corridor so she could whip around and peer into Max’s eyes. “What would be a good question, then?”

  Max pondered her answer. She thought about Albert Einstein’s Civil Rights activism. His pacifism, even though his theories were used to help develop the atomic bomb that ended World War II. His constant championing of the underdog.

  She had her answer.

  “If I were running the interviews for the CMI,” said Max, “I would ask each and every candidate one simple question: ‘What can people living today learn from Professor Albert Einstein?’”

  “And how would you answer your own question?”

  “Easy. ‘Dr. Einstein can teach us all how to be human.’ Wasn’t that what you were talking about yesterday, Isabl? When you convinced me not to quit, you said, and I quote, ‘If we are to help save the human race, we must first recognize the humanity in all, no matter their station in life.’”

  Charl and Isabl looked at each other. Now they were both smiling.

  “And what would be the ‘human’ thing to do right now?” asked Isabl.

  “Easy,” said Max. “You have all these super-smart kids cooped up in dormitories and testing rooms. You have them spitting back facts and penciling in dots on answer sheets when they all could be learning something new. Have any of them even had a chance to do something fun like, I don’t know, take a tour of Jerusalem?”

  “You raise a good point, Max,” said Charl. “Admittedly, the testing has taken priority over the fun.”

  “Well,” said Max, “you know what Dr. Einstein said: Creativity is intelligence having fun. Your eight geniuses might be more creative if you let them go outside and have a little fun.”

  “Very well,” said Isabl. “Round up the others. We shall arrange for a guided tour of the city.”

  “Woo-hoo!” said Max, pumping her arm. “Field trip!”

  She quickly caught herself.

  “Sorry. Was that too loud?”

  “No,” said Charl. “It was… fun.”

  27

  An hour later, Max climbed into a black, smoky-windowed tour bus with the other “contestants”: Siobhan, Keeto, Toma, Hana, Vihaan, Klaus, Tisa, and Annika.

  “Yahav will be your driver and chaperone for this outing,” said Ms. Kaplan, gesturing toward the young man in mirrored sunglasses and a military-style knit sweater behind the wheel. “Yahav is with Shabak, the Israel Security Agency.”

  Max tried not to grin. Yahav from Shabak—say that ten times fast.

  “Yahav will be responsible for your safety outside the confines of the Institute,” said Ms. Kaplan. “I will not be traveling with you. So listen to his instructions. Obey his commands. And, please—don’t make us regret agreeing to let the nine of you go on this ‘field trip.’”

  “We won’t,” said Hana, her eyes locked on Klaus.

  “Can we swing by Shlomo Falafel?” asked Klaus. “I hear it’s the best in Jerusalem.”

  “Forget food,” said Tisa. “Please. Just for two minutes.”

  “Never!”

  “I’d like to visit the Muslim Quarter. It is home to the best souk shopping in the Old City.”

  “I don’t need a new souk!” said Klaus. “I need falafel.”

  “A souk,” explained Tisa, “is an Arab marketplace or bazaar.”

  Ms. Kaplan sighed and handed Yahav a passenger manifest.

  “These are your nine charges,” she said. “Good luck.”

  “First names only?” Yahav remarked after studying the list. “Don’t these kids have last names?”

  “CMI protocol,” remarked Ms. Kaplan. “First names should be all you require.”

  “Of course.” Yahav gave Ms. Kaplan a crisp salute. She slid the side door shut. “Now then,” the driver said to his passengers. “Who wants to eat falafel first?”

  Klaus raised his hand.

  Yahav glanced down at the list of names. “How about you, Max?”

  Max raised her hand. “That’s me.”

  “Ah. So it is. Where would you like to go first?”

  “How about the Einstein Archives at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem?”

  “Excellent suggestion,” said Annika. “I know someone who knows someone. I should be able to wrangle us a pass.”

  “And we can eat nearby,” said Hana. “Some place with vegetarian options.”

  “Falafel is vegetarian!” said Klaus.

  “Sounds cool to me,” said Keeto.

  “Let’s go!” added Siobhan.

  “We’ll take the scenic route through the Old City,” said Yahav. “I will point out the top tourism spots.”

  “I want to try Pasta Basta in the Machane Yehuda Market,” said Vihaan, in his soft Indian accent. “I am fascinated by the particles in their pink dish.”

  “What are they?” asked Max.

  “Beet and cream fettuccini with goat cheese.”

  “Gross,” said Klaus. “Beets taste like dirt.”

  The other kids laughed.

  Yahav started the engine.

  No one was riding “shotgun” up front in the passenger seat.

  No one was paying attention to him. They were all too excited about the Jerusalem that existed beyond the CMI building.

  So no one noticed when Yahav quickly thumbed an urgent text message into the phone he kept cradled in his lap.

  28

  Jerusalem rolled by the van’s windows in all its splendor.

  Max thought it was beautiful and amazing and historic. She could totally understand why it was one of Albert Einstein’s favorite cities, even though he only visited it once, in 1923. At the heart of the Holy Land, Jerusalem was sacred to so many of the world’s major religions. The Jews built their first temple here as a home for the Ark of the Covenant. It was also where Christians believed Jesus Christ was crucified and rose from the dead. For Muslims, Jerusalem was the very spot where the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven to receive God’s word.

  While the rest of the group ate lunch at a restaurant called Manou Ba Shouk near Hebrew University (they served falafel, hummus, and kebabs), Max and Annika, the German master of logic, hurried over to the Levy Building on the university’s campus in the Givat Ram neighborhood.

  “That’s where the Albert Einstein Archives are located,” said Annika, who loved Einstein almost as much as Max did. Max figured that’s how friendships started. You found something you had in common and built from there. She was willing to give it a try.

  Annika’s father was a professor who knew a professor who knew another professor who knew an archivist at the Hebrew University. Albert Einstein was a founder of the Hebrew University and one of its most loyal supporters.

  The kids from the CMI would be able to see several of his eighty thousand papers, artifacts, and treasures stored in the collection—everything from Einstein’s 1896 report card to his handwritten manuscript explaining the theory of relativity to what looked like an Einstein action figure.

  Max and Annika, who weren’t as interested in lunch as everybody else, would see them first.

  “This is amazing!” said Max, who was in heaven as she soaked up everything the Archives had to offer. The building reminded her of a much, much larger version of her suitcase stuffed with Einstein memorabilia.

  “The university has plans to build a new museum to host these Archives in an abandoned planetarium, although the Prime Minister wanted to build a museum in the shape of Einstein’s head!” said Annika.

  “So his writings would be back inside his brain?”

  Annika laughed. “I suppose so. Of course, a lot of this material is now available online, which makes a great deal of logical sense.”

  “True,” said Max. “But it’s more fun to see it up close and personal.”

  “Agreed,” said Annika.

  They were studying some of Einstein’s letters on social issues, such as nuclear disarmament and the Arab–Israeli conflict. In a letter to the editor of a newspaper, Professor Einstein expressed his hope that the conflict between Jews and Arabs could be resolved by a council composed of representatives from both groups.

  “His suggestion in this letter to the editor is quite sound,” added Annika. “It might even work today.”

  Annika and Max toured the Archives for more than two hours. Max memorized everything she could, snapping photographs of documents in her mind. It was helpful that Annika spoke German, the language most of Einstein’s personal papers were written in. She was an excellent translator.

  One letter, written in English, cracked Max up:

  Dear Mr. Einstein,

  I am a little girl of six. I saw your picture in the paper. I think you ought to have your hair cut. So you can look better.

  Cordially yours,

  Ann

  She stopped laughing when Annika tapped her on the shoulder.

  “Max?”

  “Yes?”

  “Where are the others?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’ve been here for two hours and thirteen minutes. Surely even Klaus has finished eating lunch by now.”

  “You’re right. Maybe they decided to go someplace else.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” said Annika. “We agreed to meet here.”

  “Well, the restaurant is only a few blocks away. We can walk back. See if they’re still there…”

  Annika nodded. “A wise and prudent suggestion.”

  They thanked the curators of the Einstein Archives.