"We can't let that happen," Cassie said.
"Gump is a nine-year-old kid," I reminded
everyone. "He lives close enough. Meg, Chazz, and CKDsweet are all from out of town. Some of them way out of town. That leaves us with GoVikes-"
"-an idiot," Rachel pointed out.
"-YrkHSer, Gump, Chazz and, of course, Fitey777," I finished.
"YrkH8er is a Controller, right?" Tobias asked. "l mean, that's what he acts like. Like a Controller trying to pass himself off as an enemy of Yeerks."
Tobias was in a branch maybe ten feet over our heads. His talons sank deep into loose bark.
Cassie tilted her head back and forth like she wasn't too sure. "YrkHSer is someone named Edward Cheltingham. What was he? Thirty years old?
But you know what? I looked in the phone book this morning and there was no Edward Cheltingham. Only two 'Cheltinghams' listed and they were both female."
"So? He has an unlisted phone number," Rachel said.
"Maybe so. Or maybe Edward Cheltingham is as phony a name as YrkHSer,"
Cassie said. "Isn't it possible to get a fake ID and a credit card in some name and then open a WAA account?"
Obviously, that had not occurred to anyone except Cassie.
"Oh," Rachel said. "Great. A new level of difficulty. So this guy could be anyone."
"We have an address for him," Cassie said. "We could check it out." She looked at me. "We also have an address for Gump."
"Gump isn't the point," Marco said. "Fen-estre is the person at the middle of all this. He's the main man. Figure out what's happening with him, and you figure it all out."
"Maybe," Cassie conceded. "But he can wait. Gump may be in trouble right now."
"Look, Cassie," Marco said, "it's Sunday. If we go after Fenestre, it's probably going to take some time. Which means a weekend, which means today. We can check out Gump any day after school. Monday. Tuesday."
"Unless Monday is too late. Unless later today that scared little kid talks to his dad and his dad is a Controller, and that's it for Gump.
Gump does a disappearing act. Or else ends up as the new home for some low-level Yeerk."
The two of them looked to me. I was supposed to decide which was our top priority. Rescue a nine-year-old, or maybe bust open the whole thing with a raid on Fenestre's mansion.
I looked down at the ground. "Marco, did you happen to do any research on Fenestre's house?"
"No. I thought you were doing it."
"I got kind of tied up. Big family thing."
"It's supposed to have massive security," Marco said. "Lots of computer stuff. But it shouldn't be any problem for us. I mean, security is designed to keep out humans, right? Not animals."
I nodded. I hoped he was right. I felt a twinge of worry, but Marco was right: Fenestre was at the center. "Cassie, first thing after school tomorrow, we'll checkout Gump."
She nodded. But she looked bitter. "I hope that's soon enough."
"Yep. Me, too. Okay." I rubbed my hands together, shot Rachel a cocky wink, and put on my best "game face." "Let's do it, then. Let's go see how the superrich live."
I sensed I was making a mistake. But I didn't know what it was. And a leader has to lead, not sit around consulting his horoscope or taking his own pulse.
So I made the decision.
Toil think you've seen big houses? You haven't seen anything till you've seen the home of Joe Bob Fenestre, WAA founder and megabil-lionaire.
From the air it looked like a junior college or something. Like a shopping center. There were a dozen separate buildings. Two guest houses, each twice the size of my home. A pool house with changing rooms and a bar that extended to the edge of the pool, which was itself in the shape of the WAA logo. A boathouse down on the riverfront with a sleek cigarette boat docked alongside. A stable big enough to house a dozen horses. What looked like an observatory. A greenhouse bursting with bright green lettuce and
herbs and entire orange trees. A garage, easily big enough to store thirty or forty cars. A security building with armed guards next to a quarter-mile-long driveway. And finally, on a hill surrounded by a lawn you could have held the Superbowl on, was the house itself.
"This guy knows how to live," Marco said with satisfaction. "Someday that'll be me."
"Who'll be you? The guy mowing the lawn down there?" Rachel said.
"What do you think he's got in that garage?" Tobias wondered. "Ferraris?
Porsches? Jaguars? Vipers?"
"Not minivans and Volvo station wagons," Marco said. "That's for sure.
Maybe a few Rolls-Royces. "
We were floating about a quarter mile above the Fenestre compound.
Tobias was Tobias. Ax was in his northern harrier morph, Rachel was a bald eagle, Cassie and Marco were both ospreys. And I was in one of my favorite morphs: peregrine falcon. One of the fastest things alive. And with eyes that could see a flea on a dog from a hundred feet away.
I'd had a slightly bad feeling going into this mission. But I was feeling pretty good now. I usually feel pretty good when I'm flying.
When you are floating on a pillar of warm, up-welling air with your wings spread wide and no
sound but the breeze in your feathers, you pretty much have to feel good. It is as free a feeling as you could ever imagine.
But at the same time I was noticing details with my laser-focus falcon's eyes: three separate fences. One around the perimeter of the entire compound, woods, gardens, pool, tennis courts, and all. Then a second fence about twenty yards inside the first fence. And finally, a third fence just around the house and its lawn.
"This guy is a little paranoid, isn't he?" Rachel said. "You guys see the little observation posts on the corners of the house? There are guys in there. Guys with guns."
"And don't forget the Rottweilers," Cassie pointed out. "Two teams of two dogs each patrolling between the outer fence and the second fence.