He leaped out into the sky, feeling the wind swim around his body. Gravity pulled him downward, faster and faster. He could see his teammates far below—tiny black specks dropping like rain. Suddenly, he heard a ping inside his head, followed by Ruby’s voice. She had activated the communications system implanted in each of their noses, the one that made them sneeze when they were summoned to the Playground. “Here’s the plan, people—Wheezer and Braceface, you are on crowd control inside the bank. The police believe there may be anywhere from ninety to a hundred people inside. Please be careful. Try to use your abilities as little as possible in front of hostages. It’s hard to be a secret agent if the secret is out. Flinch, you’re going to get us inside.”
“How?” Flinch’s voice said.
“You are going to karate chop the building.”
“Awesome sauce!” he cried. “I’ll start eating some candy now to power up.”
“Gluestick, you’re our fly on the wall. I want you crawling on the ceiling, staying out of sight and looking for our target. You know standard protocol. If you spot Simon, don’t engage him until one of us can help. I’ll be on the roof, scanning the building and feeding all of you information. As always, stay in constant contact with one another.”
“Um, I’m a little worried about my Wind Breaker,” Jackson said. “It looked like a jacket and so far it’s acting like one too.”
“Keep your mouth shut, quarterback, or you’ll miss it,” Matilda replied.
“Miss what?”
“The moment we break the sound barrier.” Matilda giggled. There was a tremendous sonic boom in the sky and suddenly the ground was flying toward them at an amazing speed. Duncan’s Wind Breaker expanded, catching the air inside and slowing his descent as if he were a dandelion seed floating in the wind.
“These things are pretty neat, huh?” Duncan said.
“Yeah, real neat. I think I lost my lunch twenty thousand feet ago,” Jackson groaned.
“I liked it better when we were going faster,” Flinch cheered. He reached into his pocket and took out a bottle of energy drink. He guzzled it, then looked at the can as if he might eat it.
“We’re approaching a thousand feet,” Ruby chimed in. “Prepare to pull your tether chords.”
“Nineteen hundred,” Matilda said.
“Eighteen hundred,” Duncan replied. “It would be best if we linked arms.”
The children had all had skydiving training and had performed hundreds of tandem and single jumps. They knew how to maneuver in the sky, so with a few simple body adjustments they formed a circle and linked arms.
“Now try to point your feet toward the ground,” Duncan instructed.
“Seventeen hundred feet,” Jackson said.
Duncan looked below. He could see a busy commercial district and a series of intertwining roads weaving like worms in all directions.
“Sixteen hundred feet,” said Matilda.
“Get ready, people,” Ruby ordered.
“Um, what if these don’t work?” Jackson said.
“Then we go splat!” Flinch cried, breaking into a giggle.
“Fifteen hundred feet. . . fourteen hundred feet. . . thirteen hundred feet. . . twelve hundred feet. . . eleven hundred feet. . . OK, folks, let’s activate the tethers,” cried Ruby.
The children reached down and yanked on the cords around the bottoms of their jackets. Duncan immediately felt something rocket out of his jacket. When he looked down he saw it was a cable that spiraled to the top of a building directly beneath them. It slammed into the roof like an arrow and suddenly the cable stiffened into something as hard as a fireman’s pole. Duncan snatched the cable, sliding down it until his feet were on the top of the Royal Bank of Scotland. His Wind Breaker returned to its jacket form and the cable slackened back into a rope.
Flinch was the second to land on the bank. Jackson was next. Then Ruby. Matilda took a bad landing and nearly skidded off the top of the roof, but Duncan snatched her by the arm and held her fast.
“Thanks, I owe you,” Matilda said as her jacket retracted.
“Not a problem,” Duncan said.
Ruby set up her laptop. The screen came to life. “OK, I’m linked in and pulling up the schematics of the bank. Looks as if there are three levels. The second floor is mostly offices, the ground floor is where the tellers are, and the basement is a deep shaft going down thirty feet. Gluestick was right. If you mess with that vault, you better have a shovel. Satellite heat scans are showing that the customers are lying on the floor and there is a figure moving about the bank.”
“How do we get in?” Jackson asked as he pulled off his Wind Breaker.
“That’s the spaz’s job,” Ruby said, gesturing to Flinch.
Flinch grinned and shoved three chocolate bars into his mouth at once. He chewed greedily and swallowed. Duncan watched as a blue light shone out of Flinch’s harness. His hyperactivity was fueling it—making him superstrong. “I am mighty!” the boy roared, beating on his chest.
“He’s ready,” Jackson said.
Flinch leaned down and karate chopped the rooftop with his bare hand. There was a crack and a giant chunk of the roof fell inward, sending up a cloud of dust and debris.
“Subtle,” Matilda said.
Ruby cocked an eyebrow. “Get in there, Wheezer.”
Matilda fired her inhalers and zipped straight up into the air. When she turned them off, she dropped like a rock into the hole. Duncan watched her fire them up at the last second so she hovered safely just above the floor. Flinch leaped in too, landing on his feet as nimbly as a cat.
“Looks like I’m next,” Jackson said as his obnoxious braces swirled inside his mouth. Soon, a huge, spindly pair of legs made from his dental gear came out of his mouth and lowered him inside.
“All right, Gluestick, you’re up. Search the rooms and report back what you see. Once you’ve found Heathcliff, I’ll send the others to find you. No heroics, OK? I want to take him as a team.”
Duncan kicked off his shoes and got onto his hands and knees. He crawled into the hole. With his sticky toes and fingertips, he felt for the ceiling, then clung to it as he scuttled inside the bank. He raced across the ceiling, moving cautiously from doorway to doorway down the long corridor. After a few minutes of searching, he reported back to Ruby, “There’s no one on the second floor.”
Ruby’s voice was in his ears. “Good. Move down to the first floor.”
Duncan tiptoed down a flight of stairs, then ran up a wall until he was once again upside-down. He came to an open door that led to the bank lobby and crawled inside. He saw the customers Ruby had warned him about. A hundred or so people were lying facedown, their hands on their heads. Some were quietly crying and a few looked as if they might be sick. A beefy guard in a green kilt was handcuffed to a heavy desk and couldn’t move. But what was most troubling to Duncan wasn’t the hostages. It was the squirrels. A dozen or so stood over the cowering people like tiny rodent sentries. A few more were dragging bags of money toward the bank entrance and stacking them by the door. More were rifling through wallets and stealing jewelry right off the fingers of the terrified victims. Duncan had seen a lot of strange things in his life, especially since becoming a spy, but this was the strangest.
“Gluestick, report please,” Ruby’s voice demanded.
“I’ve got squirrels,” he whispered. “They’re all over the place.”
“Yes, Brand mentioned them. How many of them are there?”
“Maybe thirty. Maybe more.”
“Any sign of Simon?” Ruby asked.
Duncan glanced around the room. “No, he’s not in the main room. There are some small offices off to the—wait, I hear shouting. Hang on.”
Duncan followed the noise and soon found the manager’s office. A plump woman in a smart suit was cowering on the floor. She had bright red hair and freckles.
“Do what ye want but ye willnae get into the vault,” she cried in her thick Scottish accent. “Even if I gave ye the codes, ye need two other managers to open the door and they are currently on holiday. Just take what ye have and go.”