TL didn’t move from his spot next to me, just kept studying the screen. “We move out in one hour.”

  “What if I hadn’t come back?”

  TL still didn’t look at him. “I knew you would.”

  All of us, actually, had been on an emotional roller coaster since joining the Specialists: being recruited by TL, settling into our new lives, forming trusting friendships and family-type bonds. But Wirenut…this first mission connected to the single most horrible event of his life. How huge. Was there anything else TL was hiding from him?

  Wirenut trudged across the room and settled right behind us on the edge of the bed. He studied his lap.

  TL finally turned.

  Wirenut brought his eyes up. “I’m sorry.”

  “Apology accepted.” TL tapped his jaw where Wirenut had hit him. “That was your free one. Punch me again, and I will punch back.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It takes a real man to apologize.”

  Tears filled Wirenut’s eyes, and he lowered his head.

  I sniffed back my own tears, glad they were making up.

  TL smiled a little. “It’s okay to cry.”

  Wirenut laughed humorlessly. “Jeez, man, don’t you stop?” He scrubbed his eyes. “I’m fine.”

  “Is there anything you want to ask me?”

  Nodding, Wirenut lifted his head. “Why didn’t you tell me my uncle never made it to death row?”

  “Part of my job involves secrets and knowing when to tell those secrets. Oftentimes it hurts people I care for, and I am sorry for that. Believe me when I say I tell you things when it’s the right time for you to know. I wanted you to be mature enough to handle it. After the conversation we just had, I have no doubt you are.”

  Wirenut pressed his fingers to his eyes. “I’m acting like such a girl.”

  “Hey,” I said jokingly, defending all girls.

  Chuckling, TL sat down beside Wirenut. He looped his arms around both of our necks and pulled us in for a quick hug. “The good news is that we know your uncle’s identity now. That man has been at large for twelve years. He’s finally going to pay for what he did to your family.”

  One hour later, I lay belly down on the museum’s brown-tile roof. Getting up here had been much easier than I thought. Stairs led up from the back.

  I watched as Wirenut chiseled a notch six inches northeast of the roof’s one and only window.

  He looked over at me and grinned.

  Bingo.

  Double-coated EDF wire.

  With a lighter, he melted two drops of copper onto the wire. The combination of the two short-circuited, and the window popped open.

  He shook his head. “Accu Security. Come on, people, update your technology. This hit the market three years ago.”

  He packed up his tools while I secured the small foldable satellite dish to the roof. We pulled our hoods down over our faces. He tossed a rope through the roof window, and we dropped eight feet to the floor of a cleaning closet.

  “Okay, game’s on. Don’t get too confident. Never know what might happen.”

  Pressing the talk button on my vest, I activated my tooth mike. “We’re in.” I checked my watch. “Twenty-three oh-three hours.”

  “Copy that,” TL answered into my ear transceiver, from his lookout spot outside the museum.

  Quickly, I recalled the blueprints I’d memorized. The upstairs of the 3,000-square-foot building served as offices and storage, and downstairs was the museum. We needed to go down one flight and hang a right.

  On silent, slippered feet, we shuffled out of the closet and down the marble hall to the stairs. In the dimly lit hallway, I studied the descending treads. Probably rigged with weight sensors. Wirenut had said buildings that still used the Accu system on the roof window would have weight sensors on the stairs. They came in the same security package.

  Which meant the wooden banister was our only way down.

  Wirenut hopped up, struck a surfer pose, and slid all the way down. He sailed off the end and quietly landed on his feet.

  He turned and bowed, all full of himself, then motioned me on. If he thought I was surfing the banister, he was sadly mistaken. Need I remind him I’m a total klutz?

  I climbed on, straddling the banister very grannylike, and slid down to where he stood.

  We crossed the marble foyer and came to a stop in the pottery room’s doorway. The ceramic egg that held the first encrypted message sat on a stand in the room’s center. A glass box encased it.

  That’s worth millions? You’ve got to he kidding me.

  Taking a moment, I ran my gaze around the room, passing over wall-mounted, ceramic figurines. It didn’t seem like there was anything unusual, except the egg wasn’t in a vault, which was supposed to be part of the Rayver Security System.

  But I wasn’t the expert here. Wirenut was.

  This was as far as I went. It’s up to him now. I reached inside my vest for the mini-laptop.

  A shadow flickered, and my gaze jumped to the other side of the room. I froze.

  Another person. Dressed just like us.

  I looked at Wirenut and he tensed up. “It’s him,” he whispered.

  Oh, my God, this must be the other burglar. The one who got Wirenut busted. The same one who impersonated him in China.

  “I knew you’d be here.” Some sort of voice box warbled his actual speech.

  He knew we’d be here?

  The burglar took the fiber-lit goggles from the top of his hood-covered head and fit them over his eyes.

  We did the same with ours. Yellow lasers spanned the distance between us and where he stood on the other side of the room. The ceramic egg sat smack dab between us. Through the lasers’ crisp, zigzagging pattern, I watched the burglar pull a remote control expander from a pocket on the calf of his pants.

  Not only did he dress the same as Wirenut, but he kept his tools in the same locations. Complete, sneaky copycat.

  “Can he disengage the Rayver System from that side, too?” I whispered.

  Wirenut nodded. “There’re two locks. One on each side. Some Rayver System setups have that option.”

  The burglar pointed to the egg, then to his chest. Mine.

  My jaw dropped. The nerve.

  Wirenut got his remote-control expander, and they both moved at once.

  My pulse jumped.

  Leaning to the left at a seventy-degree angle, Wirenut spied his opening tunnel. He pointed the control down the tunnel and pressed the expanding button. The skinny, metal wire snaked out.

  Steady, Wirenut, steady.

  I switched my gaze across the room to the burglar. Through the field of lasers, I watched him perform the mirror image of Wirenut’s actions. I looked at his wire snaking out and then at Wirenut’s, which appeared to be a fraction ahead of the burglar’s.

  Wirenut’s wire connected with the hole below the stand’s lock, and the lasers flicked off.

  The yellow sizzlers on the burglar’s half of the room stayed on. Yep, we’re definitely ahead of him.

  His lasers flicked off.

  Crap, not as far ahead as I’d hoped.

  Wirenut set his watch, and so did I. One minute and seventeen seconds until everything turned back on. Reeling in the expandable wire, he sprinted to the middle of the room. He yanked the tool kit from his vest and spread it out on the stone floor.

  A mere foot of space separated him from the burglar. Wirenut crouched on one side of the stand and the burglar on the other. Wirenut could reach out and strangle him they were so close.

  Taking the nitrox first, Wirenut squirted the control panel below the lock. It popped off, and he caught it. Multicolored wires crisscrossed one another. He grabbed the diversion and ripped them out.

  The burglar’s clump landed right beside Wirenut’s.

  Jeez, the other guy’s quick.

  Wirenut took his extra-long, needle-nose wire cutters and, leaning to the left, found his tunnel through the red lasers. He inserted the cutters and snipped the white wire at the very back.

  ClickClick. Their locks opened simultaneously.

  Come on, Wirenut. Come on.

  Grrrgrrr.

  Wait. There shouldn’t be a grrrgrrr. That wasn’t the right sound.

  The burglar reached for the protective glass. Wirenut stretched around the stand and quickly seized the burglar’s wrist.

  “It’s a trap,” Wirenut whispered.

  He held his hand up to the burglar. Don’t move.

  I barely breathed as I watched Wirenut dig in his vest. This was what he meant when he said there were all kinds of scenarios that could happen. As good as David was, there was no way he could’ve learned everything in such a short time.

  Wirenut slipped mini–jumper cables from his vest. He clipped one end to the control panel, leaned around the stand, and clipped the other end to the burglar’s control panel. I knew from our hours of training that the two connections would cancel each other out and disconnect the alarm.

  Lifting the glass, Wirenut snatched the ceramic egg. He unclipped the cables and swept up his tools. He dashed across the open floor back to me, with the burglar right on his heels. They both dove, and the yellow lasers flicked on behind them.

  The burglar tackled Wirenut, and I tackled the burglar. The three of us rolled across the marble foyer. The ceramic egg flew through the air. The burglar kidney-punched Wirenut and then head-butted me, stunning me for a quick second. Just enough time for him to scramble out between us and across the floor.

  “You broke it,” he hissed, holding up half the egg.

  Wirenut pushed to his knees, grasping the other half. “Give me what’s inside, and you can have this half.”

  It took the burglar a second to understand. He looked into his half, reached in, and pulled out a small piece of paper. He held it up. “What is it?”

  “None of your business,” Wirenut snapped.

  People’s lives depended on that message. We had to get it.

  “Listen, you would’ve set off the alarm back there if it wasn’t for my partner. Now give us that paper.”

  The burglar studied the scrap as if he thought he had some negotiating power here.

  Give us that paper or you’re going down.

  Putting his half of the egg in his vest, he held out the paper. “Count of three, you give me your half, I’ll give you this paper.”

  Wirenut nodded. “One, two, three.”

  They quickly exchanged, and the burglar jumped on the banister and climbed it to the top floor. Obviously, he knew about the stairs’ weight sensors.

  Wirenut handed me the paper. “Hurry.”

  I pulled out my mini-laptop and quickly punched in the encrypted computer code. A series of numbers. As I keyed, the numbers began to slowly fade. “Oh, no.” I typed faster, staring at the paper, memorizing the strands near the end that were almost gone.

  “What is it?” Wirenut leaned over me. “Oh, crud. Already?”

  I shook my head, keying faster, finishing up from memory.

  Wirenut pressed the talk button on his vest. “Message secured. Taking alternate route out.” He released the talk button. “We’re not going out the roof window. That dude screwed me the last time I followed him. Not again. Let’s go.”

  I followed Wirenut past the stairwell, through a room with modern steel sculptures, and out into a back hall. He clipped a white wire in the corner of a window frame and slid the glass up.

  I climbed through first, and Wirenut followed. TL met us in the dark alley outside. Quickly, we filled him in on the burglar and the disappearing message. Then we slipped our street clothes on over our black outfits and, in the midnight moonlight, made our way back through town.

  I ran the encrypted numbers through my head, analyzing the strands, the sequences. I itched to get to the hotel, contact Chapling, and crank up my laptop.

  Ten minutes later, we walked into TL’s and Wirenut’s hotel room. TL activated the blue pyramid audio-blocker so no one could hear what we were doing.

  Slipping on my glasses, I powered up my laptop and got down to work. I sent Chapling the encrypted message.

  GOT IT, he typed back, THOUGHTS?

  THE DE NUOWSI’T THEOREM, I answered. It had hit me during our walk through town. The De Nuowsi’t theorem was a mathematical code that translated to letters. There were lots of theorems like this used for computer language, but the De Nuowsi’t one was created by a man who lived right here in the Mediterranean.

  SMARTGIRLSMARTGIRL, Chapling typed.

  A few seconds passed while I waited for his comments.

  TRIWALL, he typed.

  Huh. I didn’t expect the theorem to be protected. GIVE ME A SEC, I responded, running code through my brain.

  More seconds passed, or maybe minutes.

  And then it hit me. TRY 46/sni>, <…=yoj-liki+[#@jum%^]>

  OH YEAH. YOU’RE GOOD. GOODGOOD.

  I smiled.

  “David,” TL spoke into his cell phone, and my ears perked up. “Get me anything you can on this Ghost impersonator and why he would be after the same thing we are. And how he knew we were going to be there. See if Beaker has anything on this disappearing message. What kinds of chemicals would cause it and what can we do to stop it? Also, contact Octavias Zorba and arrange a meeting. He has no idea we know who he really is.” TL clicked off. “Now we wait for our guys back home to come through.”

  At this point there really wasn’t much I could do but wait for Chapling to run the encrypted message through the De Nuowsi’t theorem. So I logged onto e-mail and smiled when I saw David’s name. I clicked on the message:

  “Hi. Just wanted to make sure you made it safe and sound. How’d your flight go? Miss you. D.”

  I glanced over my shoulder to make sure TL and Wirenut weren’t watching and typed back:

  “Hi! Flight went good. I did exactly what you said. I thought of you. It worked. I miss you, too. A lot. GiGi.”

  I read what I’d typed, deleted the “A lot,” and hit send. “A lot” seemed too much.

  HERE YOU GO. Chapling IMed me and sent the decoded encryption.

  “I got it,” I told TL. “Chapling’s sending it right now.”

  TL and Wirenut leaned in to look at the laptop.

  RISSALA MUSEUM OF HISTORY. KING’S CROWN.

  USE ELEMENTS TO RETRIEVE DATA.

  “Elements?” I asked.

  TL rubbed his chin, thinking. “Chemicals. It’s telling us we’ll have to chemically treat the crown to retrieve the encrypted data.” He touched my shoulder. “Give me everything you can on that crown. I’ll get Beaker busy on chemical analysis.”

  TL had an early-morning meeting with a local agent. He sent Wirenut and me to check out the Rissala Museum of History.

  So here we sat on the hilltop above the capital city, watching the early sun peek out over the Mediterranean Sea. It was the most beautiful clear blue water I’d ever seen. From our high vantage point I scanned the canals, idly watching the boats sway in the gentle breeze. Below us the city crammed the cliffs. Our hotel was smooshed in there somewhere. It’d been quite a climb getting up here.

  Beside me, Wirenut zipped up his windbreaker halfway. “A little chillier this morning than yesterday. In an hour it’ll be just as warm. No rain expected.”

  “You sound like Nancy.”

  He laughed at that and pointed in the distance to the boats that lined the canals. “You suppose that’s where Katarina lives?”

  “What are you doing thinking about her?”

  Playfully, he shoved my head. “Nothing. Shut up. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  I shoved him back. “Oooh, Wirenut’s got a crush on a girl.”

  He rolled his eyes and made a face.

  Laughing, I shaded my face from the brightening sun and squinted down the hill at a one-room, pastel green stone building. The Museum of History.

  I took a swig of the now-cold coffee I’d gotten from the hotel.

  Beside me Wirenut popped a chocolate-covered espresso bean in his mouth. “I’ve crossed the tired zone into punchy exhaustion.”

  I eyed his espresso beans. “Where’d you get those?”

  “I brought them with me.” He held out his hand. “Want some?”

  “Sure.” I grabbed a handful.

  Wirenut popped another espresso bean. “Maybe I should just hook up to a caffeine IV.”

  I smiled a little. “Chapling’s rubbing off on you.”

  Wirenut slipped the paper cup from my hand and sipped. “Uck. Cold.”

  I checked my watch. 7:30 A.M. “You got everything you need?” We’d been here on the hilltop above the city since predawn getting the layout for tonight’s break-in into the Museum of History.

  Wirenut nodded. “Let’s hit that café again. I’m starving.”

  We pushed up from the ground and made our way down the winding dirt road. Tiny white stone cottages dotted the hillside. The buildings’ doors signified the only colors. Bright blues and reds.

  Other than the little houses, the museum, and a cemetery, nothing existed on the hillside.

  A movement off to the left drew my attention. I looked and saw…Katarina? Wirenut must have seen her, too, because he stopped walking.

  “Let’s go say hi.” He crossed the dirt road.

  “She’s praying,” I whispered, but followed him anyway.

  We stepped through the cemetery’s arched gate and stopped about ten feet away at a mausoleum.

  In the sparse brown grass, Katarina knelt next to a grave with her head bowed. She glanced over her shoulder at us.

  Her eyes smiled, and she softly waved at us. We stayed at the mausoleum until Katarina was finished.

  “Hi,” she whispered as she approached. “I was just visiting my mother. She died when I was a little girl.”

  “M-my mother died, too,” Wirenut murmured.

  She looked up at him, surprise obvious in her eyes. I decided to stay silent. It seemed as if they were having a private conversation. I felt like I should leave and give them time alone, but I couldn’t make myself walk away.

  I missed David.