Double You

Shane Peacock

Description

When Adam Murphy learns that his late, revered grandfather, David McLean, hid a huge stash of foreign cash and fake passports in the family’s cottage, he is stunned. Was Grandpa really a traitor, as some of the evidence suggests? And why was a loaded Walther PPK pistol hidden at the cottage? Determined to prove his grandfather’s innocence, Adam takes the famous James Bond gun and follows the clues to Bermuda, where he encounters danger, evidence of espionage, and an unusual girl named Angel Dahl. Desperate and on the run with Angel, pursued by a deadly operative, Adam races to other exotic locations, unsure if Angel is friend or foe, or if his grandfather was a hero or a villain. Three clues hold the dark secret of David McLean’s past—the letter W, a glass eye with a golden iris, and the haunting words of someone named Mr. Know.


Double You is the sequel to both Separated, part of The Seven Prequels and Last Message, part of Seven (The Series).

Sujets

• Jeunesse Aventure
• James Bond
• Action
• Family
• Adventure
• Cuban Missile Crisis
• Juvenilee Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Orca Book Publishers
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781459805361
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

SHANE PEACOCK
DOUBLE YOU
ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS
Copyright © 2014 Shane Peacock
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Peacock, Shane, author Double you / Shane Peacock. (The seven sequels)
Issued in print and electronic formats. ISBN 978-1-4598-0534-7 (pbk.).—ISBN 978-1-4598-0535-4 (pdf).— ISBN 978-1-4598-0536-1 (epub)
I. Title. PS8581.E234D68 2014 jc813’.54 c2014-901547-X c2014-901548-8
First published in the United States, 2014 Library of Congress Control Number: 2014935388
Summary: Adam travels to Bermuda, Jamaica and New York in search of the truth about his grandfather.
Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.
Design by Chantal Gabriell Cover photography by Getty Images, Dreamstime, iStock, and CGTextures Author photo by Kevin Kelly

ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS PO Box 5626 , Stn. B Victoria, BC Canada V8R 6S4
ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS PO Box 468 Custer, WA USA 98240-0468
www.orcabook.com
17 16 15 14 • 4 3 2 1
To Watson Peacock, a blunt instrument, but loyal and true. R.I.P.
There’s two sides to everyone. —JOHN LE CARRÉ, TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
I never seen nobody but lied, one time or another. —MARK TWAIN, ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN
TABLE OF CONTENT
ONE: GUN
TWO: FANTASY ISLAND
THREE: MR. KNOW
FOUR: THE DAHL BUILDING
FIVE: CRUSHED
SIX: AN ANGEL
SEVEN: W
EIGHT: ADAM McLEAN IN NEW YORK
NINE: PURSUED
TEN: MOVIE MOMENT
ELEVEN: THE MEANING OF THE EYE
TWELVE: ROADBLOCK
THIRTEEN: BOND ISLAND
FOURTEEN: GOLDENEYE
FIFTEEN: ARMED AND DANGEROUS
SIXTEEN: SCENE ON THE BEACH
SEVENTEEN: W?
EIGHTEEN: VILLAIN
NINETEEN: DOUBLE YOU
TWENTY: DENOUEMENT
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
EXTRAS

TO SEE ALL OF THE COUSINS’ TRAVELS CHECK OUT THIS ONLINE MAP .
TOO SEE HOW ALL OF THE COUSINS ARE CONNECTED, CHECK OUT THIS FAMILY TREE .
ONE
GUN
James Bond’s weapon of choice is a Walther PPK pistol. You see it in his movies—a cold, hard piece of steel held in the grip of the most daring secret agent of all time. Sometimes it looks deceptively small, like an extension of his hand, while other times it’s long and deadly, with a silencer attached to muffle the sound as another villain eats lead.
But now I was seeing it somewhere else, somewhere it didn’t belong. It lay on a table in front of me at our family’s cottage in northern Ontario, looking as innocent as a gun could—a gun used by a man with a license to kill. That man, of course, was 007, not my grandfather, David McLean, though within days I would begin to wonder if that description fit him too.
The gun mesmerized me. And when the others weren’t looking, I took it. I even convinced myself that I hadn’t really taken the gun from anyone, and certainly not to be used as a weapon. I reasoned, so far as I reasoned at all, that it didn’t belong to anyone anymore and that I had no intention of using it (which is why it shocked me so much when I later employed it with such precision). I also told myself that I had every intention of giving it back (which I did) and that none of my cousins seemed to want it anyway.
Something consumed me when I saw it, something bad.
Bad Adam . I used to be him. He isn’t dead or anything—I haven’t completely killed him off. Now he lives inside me. He talks to me every now and then. He asks me to do things I know I shouldn’t. Bad Adam is the guy who used to be insecure, who used to be mean to his amazing girlfriend, Shirley, who used to pine for a shallow but really attractive girl named Vanessa, who he liked just because of the way she looked. Bad Adam is also the guy who went on a trip to France last summer and acted like your typical “ugly American” almost from the minute he touched down. And, much to my shame, Bad Adam was also the one who hadn’t really liked Grandpa very much for a long time. But that isn’t me anymore.
On the day I first saw the Walther PPK, though, I was having a pretty hard time liking my grandfather. And I think most of my cousins felt the same way. I was trying, but the evidence against him was stacking up mighty fast.

We had all agreed to meet at the cottage that December day. Well, all of us except Rennie, who was in Uruguay, of all places, and Steve, who was in search of a little romance in Spain. So, five of the seven McLean grandsons were ready to spend a week or so together to finish off the holidays. In the old days, I would have despised that, but I was looking forward to reconnecting with the guys, seeing what it would be like to not be a jerk around them for once. It was the 26th, Boxing Day, and typically cold, typically Canadian. Actually, that isn’t fair, because Buffalo, New York, where I live, is just as cold as northern Ontario, maybe colder.

I had driven up with Webb. I think there were things going on in his family that he wasn’t talking about. His stepfather had seemed like a bit of a bad dude, even worse than Bad Adam. I hadn’t ever thought about Webb’s problems before. But from the minute I really tried to connect with him, I could tell that he’d been through some tough times. You could see it in his eyes. I’d been texting him (in fact, I’d been texting and emailing all my cousins a lot since I’d come back from France), and he hadn’t responded too often. And when the call came through from DJ about getting together—DJ, who is so full of himself and the supposed leader of our … wait , that’s Bad Adam again. DJ is a good guy, actually. He looks out for the rest of us all he can .
Anyway, when he called to suggest we all get together at the cottage right after Christmas, I thought I’d reach out to Webb. I’m seventeen now, fully licensed (to drive, not to kill, though Mom might say that’s one and the same thing with me), so I asked Webb if he’d like me to pick him up in Toronto. It took half a day for him to respond. And all he texted then was OK. I thought I’d wine and dine him a little to loosen him up, so I decided to take him to an IMAX film on the way up—pay the whole freight, the popcorn and everything. I was hoping we could see a real guys’ flick, something with people just beating the crap out of each other. I figured we’d have a great time. Maybe Webb would even smile once. And it turned out that we were in luck. Skyfall , the latest James Bond movie, just happened to be on, fifty feet tall in IMAX! Man, I’d seen it at regular size a couple of times, and it had just blown me away, so I could hardly imagine what this would be like. Daniel Craig is sick, especially when he takes people out. Best Bond ever, and I know something about Bond. What guy (or girl—Craig walks around with his shirt off all the time) doesn’t? But partway through the show, my reaction kind of worried me. I was pretty hyped up as I watched, especially during the scenes at the end where 007 wipes out Javier Bardem and every last one of his evil army of thugs in ammunition-packed action, and when Craig gets alone with the absolutely smokin’ Bond Girl…and I started wondering if that was Bad Adam responding. Was I acting like what many people believe is typically American, getting off on gunplay and money and cars and perfect bodies and stuff? Vanessa would be into that kind of thing. (My girlfriend, Shirley, wouldn’t.) For some reason, I started thinking about that shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, where that guy went into that school with an assault rifle and shot all those little kids. In seconds I was feeling really bad about enjoying the violence playing out on the screen. So I tried to cool it. But it was hard to do. It was James Bond, after all, the best Bond ever.



I don’t remember much about driving up north. Webb didn’t say a lot, even though I tried to get a conversation going. So it was mostly a blur. By the time we got to the cottage, DJ, Spencer and Bunny were gathered around a hole in the wall by the fireplace, their eyes nearly popping out of their heads. There was usually a lot of chopped wood piled up there, but since Grandpa’s death it had dwindled. Spencer had pulled at the last log, really yanking and tearing at it, and it turned out to be nailed to a panel. When the panel came loose, things got really weird. Behind it was a sort of secret chamber! A bunch of stuff fell out: a leather bag, a sack of golf balls with strange letters on them, and all kinds of cash, in different denominations from all over the world. And the Walther PPK, of course, which I couldn’t stop staring at, though I think I hid my interest pretty well. Then DJ found some passports sewn into the lining of the bag. They came from different countries and had Grandpa’s picture on every one, but none of the names was David McLean! We were all speechless. It was pretty freaky—scary and exciting and upsetting at the same time.
I felt like I was havi