Alexander, Spy Catcher Read online

  Alexander, spy Catcher

  Diane Stormer

  iUniverse, Inc.

  Bloomington

  Alexander, Spy Catcher

  Copyright © 2012 Diane Stormer

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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  Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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  ISBN: 978-1-4697-3443-9 (sc)

  ISBN: 978-1-4697-3445-3 (hc)

  ISBN: 978-1-4697-3446-0 (e)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2012900768

  Printed in the United States of America

  iUniverse rev. date: 1/10/12

  Contents

  Characters

  Glossary

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  For Scott, Justin, and Bethany

  Characters

  •Alexander Scott is the main character, and he is this book’s narrator.

  •Anna Scott is Alex, Ben, and Lillie’s mother. She is an artist who illustrates children’s books. She is presumed to be a widow, as her husband (Alex, Ben, and Lillie’s father) has been missing for many years.

  •Ben is Alex’s younger brother.

  •Brad is Alex’s friend.

  •Caitlin is a friend of the family. She is the same age as Alex.

  •Charlie Massey is Alex, Ben, and Lillie’s uncle. He is Anna’s brother and Savannah’s father. He has a doctorate in computer science and works as a research and development scientist for the United States Department of Defense.

  •Cosmo is one of the family’s cats.

  •Dave is an FBI agent.

  •Lillie is the youngest member of the Scott family.

  •Major Davis secretly spies for a foreign government. He works with Charlie.

  •Rose is the children’s aunt, and is the sister of both Anna and Charlie. She lives in a neighboring town.

  •Savannah is Charlie’s daughter and Alex, Ben, and Lillie’s cousin.

  •Steve is an FBI agent.

  •Will is Caitlin’s brother and a friend of the family. He is about Ben’s age.

  Glossary

  •Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

  The CIA is a civilian intelligence organization. ‘“Intelligence’” means information that has military or political value. CIA headquarters are located near Washington, DC, in Mclean, Virginia. It is not a law enforcement agency. The main purpose of the CIA is to collect information about foreign governments, businesses, and individuals, and to advise public policymakers. And it also carries out emergency tactical operations, secret missions, and exerts foreign political influence.

  •Department of Defense (DOD)

  The DOD has its headquarters in the Pentagon, located near Washington, DC, in Arlington County, Virginia. It employs both civilian and military personnel. The DOD is in charge of all agencies and functions of government that directly relate to United States security and United States armed forces.

  •Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

  “Bureau” is another word for department or division of government. The FBI is an intelligence agency. Unlike the CIA, it is also a law enforcement organization. The FBI is the main investigative arm of the US Department of Justice, and its headquarters are in Washington, DC.

  •Victorian Era

  This was the period in British history during the time of Queen Victoria’s reign (1837–1901). Homes that were built during this time period are considered to be of Victorian style architecture. In the United States, the American Civil War took place during part of this time (1861–1865).

  •Wi-Fi

  Wi-Fi is a way to wirelessly connect to the Internet. A device enabled with Wi-Fi, such as a personal computer, smart phone, or digital audio player, can connect to the Internet via a wireless network access point or “hot spot”. An access point has a range of about twenty meters (sixty-five feet) indoors, even greater outdoors.

  Chapter 1

  Things started off quietly that morning. At first, it seemed like any other Saturday. Looking back, this was the day of the first omen, a whisper of what was to come. There was a vague sense that things weren’t right. For me, that Saturday was the beginning, even though it really wasn’t.

  Before I begin to explain, let me tell you a little about myself. My name is Alexander Scott. If I had to describe myself, I guess I would say that I’m tall and on the thin side. I have brown hair, wear glasses, and have braces. I plan to be a scientist, probably a physicist. I am the eldest of three children.

  My father was a detective for our state police, and he went missing during an undercover operation right before my little sister, Lillie, who is six, was born. My mom is a freelance illustrator and works out of a studio in our home.

  Three years ago, Charlie, my mom’s brother, came to live with us along with his daughter, Savannah. Savannah just got her driver’s license, and she’s pretty cool about driving us kids when we want to go somewhere.

  Charlie works for the Department of Defense. What he actually does, though, isn’t something he shares with us. He has advanced degrees in computer science and oftentimes works at home, using his computer in the study.

  I live with my family and miscellaneous pets in a house that is around150 years old. We live on the edge of a sleepy little village on the outskirts of a midsized city. Our house is the last one in the lane, with nothing but forest behind us.

  Our house sits high on a hill, and behind it are three hundred acres of woods with a small creek running through them. Up a steep bank, in a clearing, are the remains of an old railroad track. It hasn’t been used in years and years.

  Folks around here say that Civil War battles were fought in these woods, and the gullies that remain wer
e once dug by soldiers to use as trenches. The ground is thickly carpeted with fallen pine needles now, and the trees are so tall that their tops seem to reach past the sky.

  It is here in the quiet of the woods that Ben, my younger brother, and I have played since we were small.

  The summer I was nine and Ben was seven, we built a fort. Will and Caitlin had just moved into the house up the road from us, and the four of us spent weeks working on the fort. We used anything we could lay our hands on to build it with: boards, fallen branches, even an old wooden sign that Will found and dragged all the way up there.

  It’s roomy enough to where a picnic table would easily fit, but the roof isn’t high enough to sit on a bench without feeling like you would have to keep your head ducked down. It was Caitlin who figured out we didn’t have enough space overhead. It would have been nice if she’d realized it before Will, Ben, and I lugged the table halfway out there though. We don’t have any dumb signs warning others to keep out because there’s no one else but us around anyway. Although, when Lillie gets old enough to be allowed this far from the house on her own, that may change.

  This past summer, we made a dam in the creek, so now, in one spot at least, the water is deep enough to swim in.

  Now I need to get back to what I started to tell you about …

  That day really did not seem out of the ordinary. It was the first weekend in October. We had been back in school for a month. Will and Caitlin had ridden over on their bikes and asked if we were going up to the fort. I had promised mom I’d carry firewood in, so Ben went with them and I said I’d be along when I was done. It was supposed to rain, and I wanted to get done before it started.

  At last the logs were stacked, and I went on out back to meet my friends. As I reached the edge of the woods, I saw Will and my brother walking toward me.

  “Hey Alex,” Will called. “Ben and I are going down to the corner store for something to drink. You want to come?”

  I shook my head. “No, you go on without me.”

  Caitlin was lying on top of the roof of the fort, reading a book. This is pretty much what she always does. She’s nice, and really pretty too, but she’s shy. I think she prefers books to people. She looked up from her book long enough to let me know that she wasn’t sure where the guys went.

  “It’s okay; I saw them on my way up here. You go on back to your story. I’m going down to the creek for a bit, before the rain comes,” I said.

  As I neared the creek bank, I lost my footing in the mud and slid partly into the water. Oh great, just great, I thought, my cell phone is in my jeans pocket! I dug it out to see if it had gotten wet. It had a little water on it, but seemed like it would still work. There was never a signal this far into the woods, so there was no point trying to make a call to see if my phone was okay. I touched the icon for opening the browser, just to make sure my touchscreen still worked, and a message box appeared on the screen showing an available Internet connection. How strange is that?

  The sky grew suddenly darker and, with a clap of thunder, a torrent of rain let loose. I ran for shelter into the fort, and Caitlin clamored down off the roof and joined me.

  I looked over at her. “Whew, that was a close one! I almost fell into the creek with my phone. What’s weird is when I checked to see if it still worked after getting wet, there was a screen message asking for my password to connect to a Wi-Fi network. I wonder where the signal could be coming from”.”

  Caitlin nodded. “Yeah, that’s odd. We’ve never even come close to having phone or Internet service out here. Let me see.”

  I pulled my cell out, but this time the screen was blank, and nothing happened when I opened the browser.

  So we sat leaning against the back wall of our fort, watching the rain fall. When it finally stopped, the air was so much colder that we decided to go back to my house.

  Chapter 2

  The rain continued for days. It was so drizzly and cold that we stayed inside for most of the next week.

  After school on Thursday was when the next strange thing happened. At the time it didn’t seem important. Later on, it became obvious that what I’m going to tell you about was another sign of trouble. It was a new clue. But on that Thursday afternoon … well, I didn’t even realize there was a mystery.

  It was raining—again. The water was just running down the window panes. The whole world seemed cold and gray. It was a day that made you happy to be indoors.

  I was in the kitchen (being in the way) while Mom was making dinner. Charlie had his music blasting in the study where he was working at his computer. He loves classic rock, and because he loves it, and almost always has it playing somewhere in the house, we all have come to love it too.

  Ben had been playing with his remote control car in the study. Suddenly he let out a yell and I ran in to see what was wrong.

  “Lillie must have been messing with my car because now it won’t work right!”

  I asked if I could try. Sure enough, for a while the car went as I was directing it, but when it neared the west side of the study, it went totally berserk. It backed up and started zigzagging along the edge of the paneling.

  Our uncle got up from the computer and turned down the music, “Here, Ben, let me see the controls for a minute. Perhaps there is a loose connection.”

  Lillie poked her head in the door and said, “Ben, I’ll have you know that I have better things to do with myself than play with your stupid old car.”

  Ben replied, “It’s not as stupid as running around the house pretending to be a horse.”

  Lillie made a face that looked a bit horse-like even to me, tossing her hair like it was her mane. “You’re a significant nerd!” she yelled and flounced out of the room.

  Even Ben couldn’t help laughing at that. You see, Lillie is always trying out new words and using them totally wrong.

  “Say, Ben, what is a significant nerd exactly?” Uncle Charlie asked.

  By then, the car was steering fine again, and it was time to eat.

  Chapter 3

  Saturday morning was cold and wet. Will had slept over at our house, and we were just hanging out, playing video games. Late morning, my friend Brad rode down on his bike. We all went down to the basement game room to watch TV.

  Ben was restless, which was usual for him. He powered up the Lionel train set that had been our dad’s. The track took up the entire top of an old billiards table. It was a cool setup. There were miniature trees, tiny fences, even houses with working lights.

  My dad had spent a lot of time making the tabletop landscape. Most people who knew him probably thought that playing golf was his great pastime, but I remember finding him down here in solitude, tinkering with his train village late at night while the rest of the house slept.

  I heard Mom come down the stairs and go into the laundry room. She stopped what she was doing and came over to the doorway of the game room. She stood watching for a moment.

  “You know,” she said, “that train reminds me of something I was reading the other day. There has been a special series in our local magazine on Victorian era homes. I was hoping our house might be featured in one of the write-ups seeing as it is the right age. There was a small mention of it a couple of times, but I guess our house was not considered unique enough to warrant more attention.

  “This last installment was intriguing though. It talked about how a few of the wealthier businessmen of that day had their own private entrances connecting their homes to the railroad.”

  Will, Ben, and Brad looked up with interest. I knew they were thinking of the old rails in the woods. Brad asked what Mom meant by a private entrance, and she explained that a few homes had underground tunnels that connected their homes to the public railroad.

  “This article didn’t talk about the houses very much. The focus was more on how daily life must h
ave been for people living around here during the latter part of the nineteenth century. Back then, many people took the train into town to work. As time went by, more people owned cars, and the railroad was used less and less.”

  Just then, the phone rang, and Mom went upstairs to answer it. We stared at each other after she left the room.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” asked Will.

  “I sure am,” I replied. What if our house had a secret passage to the railroad? The house was certainly the right age, and then there were the remaining railroad tracks in the woods near the fort.

  We decided to search the house for a hidden tunnel.

  After a short discussion, we agreed that the study seemed the most likely place to start looking. This room is located on the first floor of our house. One wall is mostly windows, but this wall also has some built-in floor to ceiling bookcases. The study runs across the back of the house, so it was logical that this would be the room that had access into a tunnel.

  We armed ourselves with flashlights and a magnifying glass (that was Will’s idea) and went up to the study.

  Savannah was talking on her phone in a big easy chair over by the windows. She looked up at us, taking in our flashlights, magnifying glass, and the Sherlock Holmes hat that Ben was wearing.

  “Okay, what are you guys up to?” she asked. We looked at each other and shrugged.

  “Oh, never mind,” she said. “I’ll go somewhere else to talk. Tell me if you have any luck.” With that, she gave us a knowing look and left the room.

  After an hour, we had gone over all the bookshelves; we found nothing but some dust. We took down the pictures from the walls, and I shone my flashlight over the paneling. We ran our fingers along the edge of the molding, hoping to feel a door frame, or maybe a button to press.