Every hair on my arm stands on end. “Eagle Industries,” I whisper.
Yellow opens her eyes wide.
“Same thing with my mission. It was Eta, like you thought, wanting Eagle Industries to invest in a power plant that eventually gets bought out by General Electric.”
“Did Eta say anything about who was behind Eagle Industries?”
“Nope.” I blow out my breath. “Did . . . my dad?”
She shakes her head. But then a thought hits me.
“CE,” I say. “What if the E stands for eagle?”
A lightbulb goes off on Yellow’s face. “And the C stands for Cresty,” she practically shouts. “Cresty Eagle! Do you think that’s someone’s name?”
“It’s a really awful thing for a parent to do to a child if it is a name,” I say. “Maybe it’s a kind of eagle?”
“Only one way to find out.” She trots away from the reflecting pool and looks over her shoulder. “Come on, the library is only a few blocks from here.”
“And it’s Christmas Day,” I say.
Yellow skids to a stop. “Crap. We have to project.”
I tense my shoulders, then release. Pain still lingers in all my joints and muscles. I would kill for a hot bath and two ibuprofens. But she’s right. We have to follow this lead, and there’s no following it here.
“Let’s go forward,” I tell her. “I’m done with 1963.”
We go forward two weeks, to January 8, 1964. It feels at least twenty degrees colder. A bitter wind whips off the bay and through the city, and my teeth chatter as we run down Huntington Avenue toward Copley Square. The streets are crowded this morning with men and women bundled in wool coats and scarves and hats, staring in disbelief at two teenage girls running down the street without any protection from the cold.
Yellow makes a left onto Dartmouth Street, and I follow. We race up the steps to the library, zipping past the statutes representing Art and Science, and run through the open metal gates. My shoulders are pressed up into my ears, but I release them as the heat of the building crawls under my skin and starts to warm me.
I look up, and time stands still. Apart from the woman next to me wearing a swing coat and cat’s-eye glasses, this building looks exactly as it did the last time I was here. It never ceases to take my breath away. Yellow and I are silent as we climb the great marble steps that lead to Bates Hall. Two massive marble lions leer at us on the landing, and Yellow and I exchange a glance.
And then we’re in Bates Hall. A barrel-vaulted ceiling runs the length of the room, which is at least two hundred feet long, and the ceiling itself has to be fifty feet high. Long tables with wooden spindled chairs fill the center of the room, and green banker’s lamps set on each of the tables wash the room in a rich, elegant glow.
Yellow is unfazed. She leaves me standing there, gaping at the ceiling, and walks up to a man sitting behind a desk. I watch out of the corner of my eye as he stands and leads her to a shelf. He points at it, then returns to his desk. I look over at her, and she jerks her head toward the shelf.
The man has led her to a section all about birds. She’s scanning the titles at the top, so I kneel on the marble floor and scan the titles at the bottom. My eyes stop on two red books on the second-lowest shelf.
I pull volume one of Eagles, Hawks and Falcons of the World off the shelf and hold it up. Yellow nods and sits in the end chair at the nearest table. I take the seat next to her and hold my breath. She really does smell of something rank. At least her arm wound appears to be healing all right.
The book has eagles in the front, and it’s alphabetical. I flip past a number of pictures and statistics on my way to the Cs. Both Yellow and I draw in our breath on page thirty-seven. Because there’s an entry for the crested eagle.
My eyes fly to the picture, and my breath catches in my throat. The bird that stares back at me is small, and a mop of what looks like tangled curls sits atop its head. Like a hawk with a bad perm.
My mind flashes back to Testing Day. To graduation. To the pin that Headmaster Vaughn wore on his lapel. It’s the same bird.
CHAPTER 26
“Wait,” Yellow whispers. “Your former headmaster is behind Eagle Industries?”
“He’s definitely involved somehow. Whether or not he’s behind it I really don’t know.”
“How old is he?”
“Huh?” I say it louder than I’m intending. A man looks up at us from the next table and glares.
“Your dad,” Yellow whispers. “He called him ‘Old Cresty.’ How old is old?”
“Oh,” I whisper back. “I don’t know how old he is. Pretty old. Grandfather old? In his seventies?” That’s a total guess. “He was a CIA operative for a really long time, then a division chief before he came to Peel. And he’s been headmaster for a while. At least two generations.”
“Two generations to gain influence in all the government organizations. CIA, FBI, NSA . . .”
“And all the other ones we don’t know about.”
“Annum Guard,” Yellow whispers.
“Annum Guard,” I repeat.
Neither of us says anything for a while. Yellow stares down at the picture of the crested eagle, and I look out the window as the snow falls on Copley Square. I know Yellow is trying to figure out what to do now, and I should probably do the same. But all I can think about is my dad. Maybe this really wasn’t his fault. Maybe Headmaster Vaughn corrupted him early on. And maybe—just maybe—if we go back and stop the headmaster before he has a chance to worm his way into Annum Guard, we can prevent my dad’s death.
“We have to go to Peel,” I whisper.
Yellow shuts the book then looks up at me with a blank stare.
“We have to stop this at ground level, just like with the Gardner.” I put my hands on my hips and stand up straight. “We can’t bring this information to the authorities. Both of us are on the most wanted list in the present.”
Yellow leans back in her chair and continues to stare at me. Her gaze is intense. I’m sure it would unnerve most people, but I’m focused right now.
“We’re going back to 1982,” I say. “We’re going to stop Vaughn before he has a chance to start.”
Yellow has a confused expression. “What?” And then her face settles into understanding. “Your dad was at Peel then, wasn’t he?”
I push back the chair and stand. It makes a scraping sound on the marble floor, and every head in the room looks at me. I walk toward the door, and I hear Yellow follow behind me.
“Iris!” she hisses when we’re on the stairs.
I stop on the landing and turn. The marble lion looms overhead.
“What about Alpha?” Yellow says. “Are you just going to keep making up new enemies in your head until we figure out a way for your dad to live? You can try to deny it all you want, but I know that’s what you’re doing.”
I don’t deny it. I deflect it. “You don’t think Vaughn is an enemy?”
“I don’t think he should be our top priority right now, no. We need to bring all the information we’ve discovered to Alpha’s boss.”
“Yeah, that’s a genius plan. Alpha’s boss is the secretary of defense.”
Yellow crosses her hands over her chest and glares at me.
I narrow my eyes. “Fine. You do it your way, I’ll do it mine. Project to the present and march yourself through the Pentagon demanding to see the defense secretary. Have fun with that. I hope you enjoy prison. I’m going to stop Vaughn, which is going to stop Alpha, which, yes, just might save my dad.”
Yellow narrows her eyes right back at me. “You are the most frustrating person I’ve ever met. Will you just listen to me?” Her voice echoes through the entire library, and the woman in the swing coat tears up the stairs toward us. Yellow holds up her hand to her. “I’m sorry!” She flashes her most innocent smile. She does have that virtuous-naivete thing down pat.