Chapter 13

I had been debating whether or not to bring up the mysterious murders myself at our weekly Sunday meeting at the barn, but I'd underestimated my friends' powers of observation.

Ax had actually been the one to mention it first. After I'd left for my day with Rachel, he'd gone ahead and bought the newspaper. He was already pretty ingrained in the habit, and he didn't want to miss the deluxe Sunday edition. Somehow, even though the murders had been discovered at approximately the same time the paper went to print, they were able to include a front page article about the killings and what they might mean.

Ax had been under the impression that a serial killer was a made-up monster, like Swamp Thing or the Boogeyman. As Marco explained to him everything he knew on the subject – which was a lot, but was also mostly made up junk from movies like Silence of the Lambs – Ax thought he was being set up for a joke.

As with most things about us humans, Ax just didn't get it. He couldn't wrap his big Andalite brain around the concept that a person would go out killing strangers for no other reason than a sick urge and poor impulse control. (But surely the murdered humans have some connection with the killer – perhaps they had wronged him in some way that even you humans would consider insignificant. It does not make evolutionary sense for a creature to kill others of its kind with no motivation. No sense at all.)

Since Cassie's parents were both gone and I was in the rafters, keeping watch, Jake had elected to allow Ax to stay in his natural form. This was more for our benefit than for Ax's – the meetings went smoother and quicker when we weren't trying to figure out what Ax was saying through his "mouth-sounds" or attempting to stop him from tasting the "delicious-smelling" antibiotic ointments.

We were all present and waiting on Rachel, who had yet to arrive. I wasn't worried about her – of course it had crossed my mind that someone was out there killing girls who looked an awful lot like her, but they wouldn't have had a crack at her. Not today, at least. She and I had spent another hour spying on the crime scenes, and then I had escorted her home, myself. Her mom was out doing yard work and her sisters were playing on the lawn when I dropped her off; not exactly ideal circumstances for a serial killer to do his work.

As I was wondering what might be holding her up, I saw a car pull into Cassie's driveway. I recognized Rachel's mom behind the wheel before I realized it was her Mercedes sedan they were riding in. Rachel jumped out of the car next to Cassie's house and waved pointedly at her mom, who reluctantly pulled out of the driveway. Rachel walked like she was going to the house until her mom was out of sight, then changed direction for the barn. She was already complaining before she got past the open double doors.

"Ugh! Just when I need a little privacy…" she growled.

(What's up?) I asked her. She took time out of being annoyed to flash me a genuine smile and a wave. After that, her face went right back to being disgruntled, and I had to hold back a laugh.

"Oh, not much. Of course, my mom has all sorts of insider info on the killings, so she knows the victims slightly resemble me." In my opinion, the victims bore more than a slight resemblance, but I kept it to myself. "So of course, until they get caught, she's not going to let me out of her sight. She tried to tell me I wasn't allowed to come over here." I shook my head; nobody, not even Rachel's mom, was going to tell her she couldn't do something. Especially when it was official business. Rachel's next sentence confirmed that. "She had to settle for driving me over herself. She's picking me up, too."

(Erek's here,) I announced. If I hadn't been expecting it, it probably would have freaked me out. After Rachel's mom left, the air at the end of the gravel driveway had shimmered for a second, and all of a sudden a normal-looking teenager had appeared out of nowhere. He stuck his holographic hands in his holographic pockets and had sauntered over to where we were meeting.

"Hey, Erek," Jake said a second before he walked in. I noted that Jake sounded tired. Not like he just needed a good night's sleep, either; he sounded tired in that deep way, where you're worn out to your very bones. I didn't like that, especially with such a big mission coming up. "Hope you've got some good news."

Erek shook his head. "Not me. I have some news, but it's not exactly great."

"Erek, if you brought us good news, I'd have a heart attack on the spot. We live so far outside of the realm of good news that it's just a distant rumor to us," Marco joked.

Erek studied him for a second, then shrugged. "It's going to be Wednesday night. Thursday morning, actually; the robberies are scheduled for two in the AM."

Jake had his head resting on his arms, sitting in one of the recycled school desks Cassie's dad used to store gauze. He didn't look up as he asked, "Where?"

The others didn't catch it, but I did – Erek hesitated. He'd never had a problem telling us exactly what was up, even if it was dangerous or even borderline-hopeless. But this time, he hesitated, like he didn't want to tell us. That's when I knew it was bad. After he came out with it, the others knew it was bad, too.

"Meridian Mutual, Allendale Savings and Loan, Seabreeze Financial, and Armitage Mutual," he said.

Nobody said anything for a second. Cassie broke the silence. "Four? They're going to rob four bank vaults? All at the same time?"

Erek hesitated once again. "Yes. But those are all scheduled merely as back-ups and distractions. The police will be hard-pressed to cover four bank robberies at once." He took a moment to look at each of us significantly. "The real target is the DeBolt Diamond Exchange in the middle of town."

"DeBolt? Those guys have stores in every shopping center in the state. They're the diamond people," Marco said. "Makes sense that they'd have the best stuff – the Yeerks must have figured that out, too."

"Right," Erek agreed. "Whatever the Yeerks get out of the banks is just lagniappe. It means "extra," Ax," Erek smiled at Ax's confused look. "No, what they really want is at the diamond exchange."

"Okay, so that's good," Rachel said. "We ignore their bank jobs, because we already know they're just for a distraction. We take them on at the exchange."

Marco was already shaking his head disapprovingly. "No way. We're not supposed to know this – if we do that, they'll know we've got a mole on the inside." If Erek was offended at being called a mole, he didn't show it.

Jake agreed. "The whole point of this is to look like we're just reacting, trying our best to stop them."

"Why?" Cassie asked. Everybody turned to look at her, and she blushed a little at the attention, but she went on. "If they're going to get these amazing diamonds and use them in new weapons, why does it matter if we appear to be trying to stop them? Won't that just convince them even more that they're on the right track?"

"That," Erek said, sounding satisfied, "is exactly the conclusion we hope the Yeerks come to."

Erek seemed like he was being evasive, to me. (Same question – why?) I asked.

He smiled at me. "I can't tell you. It's not important to your end of the mission, and you can't tell what you don't know."

"Ahh," Marco said. "So that's what all the secrecy is about. You Chee are going to do something about this, but you need us to do the dirty work. You need us to bleed and maybe die while you're involved in the clean part of the sabotage." The way he said the word clean was almost a curse.

Erek's hologram projected a cold and almost angry expression. "I need you to do what you are capable of, as we will do what we are capable of. Don't underestimate the risk to the Chee in this mission. We will be in touch, and we'll let you know if the plan changes. Be ready." He turned and left the meeting without another word.

The others all started the usual point-and-counterpoint argument that followed new information. I stayed out of it, not because I had nothing to contribute, but because two things were bothering me that the others hadn't considered.

Problem number one – how were the six of us going to effectively cover five different locations at the same time? Especially since there was going to be fighting at each and every site.

Problem number two – even though it didn't seem related, I was worried about the whole serial killer thing, not to mention the fact that Chapman had been at the crime scenes. Even though I was sure the Yeerks didn't have anything to do with that, I still was bothered that I couldn't think of an angle for Chapman to be playing by being there. Something was going on. I just didn't have enough pieces of the puzzle to see what it was, yet.