I dropped onto the backseat and curled into the fetal position.

Another spray of bricks thunked across the windows, leaving even more webs in the glass. The bricks then moved on to the SUV ahead of us, riddling the vehicle with dents.

"Don't worry!" the agent told me. "This car is practically indestructible! As long as we stay in here, they won't be able to get us!"

I noticed that, despite his assurances, he was still ducked down below the windows, which made me think that, after a certain number of hits, they might stop being practically indestructible.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much I could do except stay in the car. I was locked in the back and we were trapped on the road. Many of the innocent drivers ahead of us, who had regular cars, had abandoned their vehicles and leapt into the Don River. Without drivers, their cars were going to keep sitting there in our way, meaning we were going to stay boxed in and at the mercy of our package.

The driver was on the radio, calling for backup. "This is Gamma Team. We are with the package on the Ellington Avenue Bridge, stuck in traffic and sustaining heavy fire."

"The Ellington Avenue Bridge?" the radio dispatcher replied with disbelief. "That thing's a mess. Why didn't you go on Leslie Street?"

"Because we didn't!" howled the driver. "We need backup right now!"

"Can you tell where the assault is coming from?" the dispatcher asked.

"Not exactly," the driver reported. "Most likely from the construction site."

I chanced a look back through the window, which was now so webbed with cracks, it was like trying to see through a kaleidoscope. The construction workers were all running for cover, but it was impossible to tell where the bricks were coming from. There were a thousand places for people to hide: stacks of iron beams, pallets of concrete, dozens of construction vehicles.

More bricks rattled the car.

"Why are they trying to kill us?" the driver exclaimed. "We're not with the Little O!"

The agent peered over the front seat at me, a sudden realization in his eyes. "They're not trying to kill us," he said to me. "They're trying to kill you! Your associates know you can name them and now they're trying to make sure you don't!"

Which was what I'd deduced myself. Sort of. I wasn't working for THE ORGANIZATION, but it made sense that they wanted to get rid of me.

If everything had gone the way THE ORGANIZATION had planned, the Little O and I both would have been blown to bits—and I'd have looked like the bomber. This fit THE ORGANIZATION's standard operating procedure: Commit a crime, frame someone else for it, and leave no trace of their own involvement. However, I'd thwarted their plans again. The Little O was still alive and so was I—the only person who knew what THE ORGANIZATION had actually done and how they had done it. So they had to whack me before I spilled the beans.

Unfortunately, THE ORGANIZATION knew how to take care of business. They had manipulated O'Cyrus into inserting me inside the Big Office, then tricked me into taking in the bomb. Now they'd picked the perfect spot for an ambush, and chances were, they were well aware I was inside a well-defended Odd Squad car. Which meant they probably had a plan to deal with it.

I looked out through the front window, to where the other drivers had leapt into the Don River. It wasn't the safest escape strategy imaginable, but it was the best at hand. "We need to get out of here!" I told the agents. "We're not safe in this car!"

"We're safer in here than we are outside it," the agent insisted. "I told you, this thing's practically indestructible. It can stand up to anything they throw at us."

A mechanical groan echoed across the construction site. I turned back that way to see that one of the big cranes was now in motion. The long arm was swinging our way far more quickly than it should have been, whipping the giant metal hook in our direction.

"Can this car stand up to that?" I asked.

"Er . . ." The agent gulped, worry creasing his face. "Maybe not."

"Then unlock the doors!" I screamed.

The agents did. Except, they only unlocked their doors. They might have sworn to protect the Little O with their lives, but they were apparently perfectly willing to let me die on their watch. They scrambled out of the car and fled down the bridge, leaving me trapped in the backseat.

The cable connecting the giant hook to the crane played out, then stopped short with a sudden resounding twang. As the crane's arm came around, the hook arced through the air on a collision course with the car.

I dropped into the footwell between the seats, curled into a ball, and hoped for a miracle.

The hook slammed into the car. There was a rending of metal and a tinkle of glass. The sedan jolted wildly, then stopped abruptly as it crashed into something. The entire impact took less than a second.

I felt a blast of cold air.

I'd been jostled hard by the impact, but was otherwise all right, save for the sudden chill. Wishing I still had my winter jacket (without the bomb), I unfolded myself to see what had happened.

The roof of the car was no longer there. Instead, there was only slate-gray sky above me.

I cautiously got to my feet.

The crane's hook had sheared the roof right off the sedan, turning it into a convertible, and then thrown the car itself up onto the guardrail. The car's entire front end now jutted off the side of the bridge, the tires dangling over the water.

Meanwhile, the hook—with the car's roof still speared on it—reached the high point of its trajectory over the river and swung back toward me. It was coming in fast, as big and deadly as a wrecking ball.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the sedan suddenly tilted forward and began sliding over the guardrail. It was about to tumble into the river—with me in it.

I judged the pitch of the car, the speed of the hook, and the depth of the water below, then quickly calculated the optimal moment to leap from the car and not get killed.

Then I leapt.

The hook and the car roof whizzed back mere millimeters above me, then collided with the rest of the sedan as it tumbled off the guardrail. I didn't see the results, as I was currently plummeting toward the water, but I felt it. The gas tank ruptured and the sedan exploded, sending a wave of heat, fire, and auto parts into the air.

I plunged into the river. The water was murky and opaque, darkened with mud and silt and the poop of a million Canada geese, but I went as far down as I could anyhow. Above me, flaming bits of sedan plunked into the river, so hot that they sizzled as they sank past.

The current grabbed me and whisked me downriver. I held my breath and drifted as far as I could before surfacing.

Back on the bridge, things were even more chaotic now than they had been before. In addition to the panic induced by THE ORGANIZATION, there was now the flaming wreckage of the car and the crane hook swinging about wildly. People were running every which way, and the security agents—easily visible since they were the only ones wearing sunglasses—seemed to have forgotten all about me for the moment.

THE ORGANIZATION probably hadn't, though.

I dove back down into the water again and swam with the current. It was hard going and the water was freezing, but I wanted to stay out of sight as long as I could. The murkiness now worked to my advantage. I didn't have to go far below the surface to vanish from sight.

I couldn't stand the cold for very long, though. In the icy water, I felt like I was turning into a Popsicle. I lasted until I reached E.T Seton Park, then swam onto land behind the cover of a clump of trees. I was still within sight of the bridge, but several other people who'd jumped off it were climbing out of the water there, so I was able to camouflage myself among them. A cold wind knifed through my damp clothes, but I kept running as fast as I could, hoping to leave both the Odd Squad and THE ORGANIZATION behind.

No one tossed a brick at me. No one even seemed to notice me.

Or so I hoped.

I walked for fifteen minutes hiding from hikers until I found what I was looking for. Tucked away in the Don Valley Parkway, overlooked by tourists and forgotten by locals, stood six elephant-shaped statues created for water filtration. I hopped the fence and ran under the legs of one of the statues. A month earlier Orica had told me almost every landmark in the world hid some sort of Odd Squad facility. I felt around searching for a secret switch and located a knob disguised as a rock.

With a grumble, the statue rotated ninety degrees, revealing a staircase hidden beneath it, descending into the earth. I slipped down it and the statue slid back into place over my head. I peered into the darkness and hoped that like the Niagra Falls base the Odd Squad had abandoned it long ago. I heard no sound so I continued my trek down. The stairs led down one floor into an old stone tunnel. I fumbled along the wall for the light switch and flipped it on. A series of antique Edison bulbs flickered to life, illuminating the length of the tunnel.

I started thinking about what to do next. At least a few of the photographers who had snapped pictures of me being arrested after the Big Office bombing would have certainly uploaded the photos to the Internet. By now I was quite likely the most famous fugitive in the world, and a drenched teenager suddenly emerging from a secret passage would probably get a lot of attention from the tourists. Someone was bound to recognize me and call the police, or the Odd Squad.

Even worse, THE ORGANIZATION was also looking for me. I was far more concerned about them finding me than I was about the Odd Squad. Odd Squad would arrest me. THE ORGANIZATION would kill me.

So for the time being, the tunnel itself was the safest place I could think of. THE ORGANIZATION probably didn't know about it, and the Odd Squad probably had forgotten this place existed long ago. It was dank and gloomy, but it was better than being dead.

It was also cold, though. In my wet clothes, I was shivering as though my body was experiencing its own private earthquake. I searched a nearby crate marked with the Odd Squad tailoring symbol until I found something. It was a shimmery silver jacket made out of some kind of space-age heat-retaining material designed for the Odd Squad Space Department (according to the tag).

I peeled off my wet clothes and slipped the jacket on. It sealed my body heat in and warmed me quickly.

Then I dug out my badge phone. It was an official academy model, completely untraceable, so I wouldn't have to worry about THE ORGANIZATION tracking my calls.

To my dismay, it was dead. Whether it had been killed by the water or the various explosions, I couldn't say. It didn't matter. It was no longer useful. Which meant I couldn't call any of my friends back at the Odd Squad Academy for help. (Orica had never seen fit to give me her phone number, but I knew everyone else's by heart.)

The ground above me was now most likely crawling with ORGANIZATION agents, Odd Squad agents, and possibly even ORGANIZATION agents pretending to be Odd Squad agents. It was going to be a long time before I could risk going back up there again.

I was wanted for trying to kill the head of the Odd Squad, on the run from THE ORGANIZATION, and completely on my own, without any way to contact help.

All in all, it had turned out to be a tremendously cruddy day.

Still, moping around wasn't going to solve any problems for me. If I wanted to solve my problems, I had to be proactive.

I started looking for something I could set on fire.