Spy School Egypt

Chapter 14: Evacuation

The gunshot screamed in our ears, and we all grabbed the files and ran.

I could hear Ashley, Warren, and Joshua yelling after us as we ran. Except for once, I wasn't focused on saving my life. I was thinking. What was Zoe doing in that book? Why was she in the book? I get that she was my ex-best friend, which made her a target, but in the photo, she had a Princess tiara on her head, and she was wearing a dress. The Zoe that I knew never wore dresses. Sure she occasionally wore skirts and crop tops but never a dress. That wasn't an old photo of her either. It looked like a recent photo, like taken a few weeks ago.

I felt a hand slap me on the face and then grab my hand.

"What are you doing!" Erica yelled, grabbing my hand and then running.

"I think I just saw Zoe in the book," I said while running through the room. We did indeed have weapons to run, but it wasn't like we could go back to that room, grab them and then continue the battle. We had lost our only weapons, besides the few knives and guns Erica had.

We ran through dozens and dozens of countless rooms, which made me wonder how large Cordero's area was. I had noticed a significant amount of money around the area. Cases of money and one hundred dollar bills flying on the floor.

"What's with the money?" Erica asked Cyrus as we ran.

"I don't know, sweetheart, but we'll figure it out," Cyrus said to Erica.

"Ben," Erica said to me.

"Um yeah?" I responded, now going down a flight of stairs.

"I need you to figure out the rest of Croder's plan," Erica said to me.

"D-day is tomorrow, and we don't have a lot of time," she said.

"I know, but it's hard to concentrate while people are shooting me," I responded.

"Concentrate harder than," Erica said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I demanded while shoving open a door. "I can't concentrate harder; you either concentrate or not. It's like saying to taste harder or think harder."

"The Egypt pyramid depends on it," Erica said. "So you either try or you fail. I believe you will try, but if you don't right now, we all die."

"Fine," I said.

"You think, and I'll guide you out of here," Erica said, gripping my hand. I thought about how they were going to rob Egypt.

Suddenly a sign reappeared in my head. When we were in the camel chase, I noticed a shop that sold gold, and it said sold out. Another image passed by my head, and this time it was a jewelry store. It had a sign that said, "we do not sell gold." But before I could analyze my thoughts, we had run out of the building.

"Erica," I said to her. She looked at me. "Do you remember that we had passed by a few gold or jewelry shops, and they had all said out of gold?"

"Yes, but so what?" She said, now running on the street.

"There was no gold in Egypt. Think about it. Croder needs gold to enter the pyramids. But where could they get gold to enter it if everywhere is sold out?" I said, and Erica's ice blue eyes suddenly turned yellow as she had suddenly realized this.

"You're right. We have to tell mom," Erica said, running ahead to her mother.

But she had barely walked a few steps before and a huge gun sound rang. A turned around us and the Croder agents were swarming everywhere now. There were dozens of them, and they were calling backup. I nearly fainted. People were screaming on the streets probably due to the fact that there were people in black suits with guns chasing us.

I was pretty sure we were just about to get caught when suddenly I heard a familiar voice.

Chip.

"Uh you guys look like you need help," Chip said. He was in a dusty brown wagon with just enough space.

"Thank's Chip, you're a lifesaver," Mike said and then everyone scrambled on the wagon. It wasn't clean or nice and frankly it looked like it hadn't been cleaned in years, but to me, it was the most lovely thing I had ever seen. Because to me, it was a way to escape from the Croder agents.

"I couldn't get my hands on a car because I was under age, so hope this would have to do.

"Oh boy, this is disgusting," Alexander said, nudging away from a small spider in the corner.

"This is nothing compared to the time I had to climb into human filth," I said. Trixie, who didn't know that you should taunt before you won the race, yelling, "get lost losers!"

The wagon darted forward and I nearly fell from my wagon.

"Aaaaaa! I did say I wanted to be on a mission but this is crazy!" Trixie yelled.

"Actually most missions are like this. There is no such thing you see in the James Bond movies. The swanky car chases and the jumping from the buildings are fake," Erica said, looking like she had just had a nice nap and had just been woken up instead of just been chased through Croder's HQ.

"That's not true! I had been in car chases and fights! In fact, it was quite a darling escape!" Alexander exclaimed. "One time I fought one hundred armed men by myself on the rooftops of the Empire State Building in Los Angeles!"

"Really? Then how come you couldn't defeat the few armed men back there? And also, the Empire State Building is in New York," Erica said.

"I meant the U.S. bank tower," Alexander said quickly.

"Oh I almost forgot, I figured something out!" I said. Everyone's head turned toward me.

"There's no jewelry or gold stores in Egypt. How did Croder ever get their hands on a gold stone then? So they must have had a secret meeting with someone to get the stone from them," I said.

"Are you sure? Here let me google it," Catherine said and then pulled out her phone. After going through everything on it, she exclaimed, "Benjamin, you're right! All the gold is sold out!"

"That only means one thing," I said, pulling out the files. I flipped to the page about the plot.

"They're getting the gold from a company in Egypt called the Golden Egg?" I said looking at the file and Trixie snorted at the name.

"I heard of that," Erica said, pulling out her own phone. "Their fake alias name is Tessa's Car dealership. Their website isn't findable but lucky for me...I know how to hack it." Within a few minutes she had successfully hacked into it.

"Here we go." Erica said and then took a look at the website.

"Alright so now I know why they need the extra 8 million dollars from the ransom. Alright, you need 8 million dollars to first do the contract and then the 10 million dollars for the gold itself."

"That makes sense," Ashton said.

"Oh and also, Zoe's working for Croder," Erica said looking at another page of the book.