Who in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? Read online

  Chase stared at her, dumbfounded. How does she know my name? he wondered. He reached for his pockets and gasped as he found them empty.

  Carmen Sandiego held up his badge and tossed it back to him. His jaw dropped. How did she get that?

  “Let’s see what’s in a name, Chase,” she said. Before the inspector could formulate a response, Carmen fired her grappling hook overhead and disappeared through the skylight window.

  Chase glanced around. Beyond a set of large windows, he could see a fire escape—​it had to lead to the roof! He pushed open the window, raced up the fire escape, and jumped onto the roof. He could feel every second tick by as he saw Carmen Sandiego sprinting nimbly across the French rooftops. “I ordered you to stop!” Chase called after her, struggling to keep up.

  To his surprise, Carmen did stop. She turned around. “You didn’t say for how long,” Carmen teased, and in an instant, she was off running again.

  Across the rooftops they ran until Chase saw that Carmen was headed straight for the edge of a tall building, with nowhere left to run or jump. I’ve got her now, he thought triumphantly, and began to imagine the glory he would receive as the inspector who finally captured the world’s most elusive thief.

  Carmen reached the roof’s edge and turned to face Chase Devineaux. He smiled. This was it. He had her right where he wanted her, and she had nowhere to go. But to his surprise, she simply waved.

  “Au revoir,” Carmen said, and she stepped off the roof.

  Chase stared in disbelief as red hang-glider wings extended from a backpack strapped to Carmen’s back. She soared up and over the streets of Poitiers with grace and ease. “Impossible!” he exclaimed.

  As he watched her make her escape, he realized a moment too late that he was standing too close to the roof’s edge. Suddenly, his foot began to slip. Chase lost his balance and catapulted down toward the road below.

  CRASH!

  He fell right onto the front of his own car that was still parked below. With a groan, he looked through the cracked windshield to see a shocked Julia Argent gazing up at him from the passenger seat.

  “Inspector! Are you all right?”

  “Never mind that!” Chase pointed skyward to where Carmen Sandiego was gliding, a bright flash of red against the twilight sky. “I must follow her! Now!”

  Chase threw open the door to the car, ignoring the cracked windshield. Julia leaned forward, her eyes trained on the woman in the sky. “She must land sometime . . .” Julia thought aloud.

  Realization suddenly dawned on Chase. “She is heading for the train station! Ms. Argent, go to the crime scene and figure out what was stolen. I will catch her before she makes her escape!” Julia jumped out of the car, and Chase slammed his foot on the gas pedal.

  The car screeched through the narrow streets of Poitiers. As he neared the train station, Chase looked up to see Carmen Sandiego soar down for an elegant landing, disappearing behind the station building. Despite himself, Chase couldn’t help but admire—​just for a moment—​the grace with which this mysterious woman seemed to operate.

  His foot still firmly on the gas pedal, Chase sped the car up alongside the station just in time to see the train pulling away. He turned his car toward the train tracks, and with a twist of the steering wheel, the car lurched up next to the tracks. “I am not letting her get away!”

  * * *

  Carmen made her way through the train car until she located her compartment, then stepped in and shut the door behind her.

  In an impossibly fast move, Carmen had changed from her red trench coat and fedora into jeans and a red hoodie. It was a skill she had learned a long time ago in an unusual class at an even more unusual school, and it served her well in times like these. Getaways were most successful when you blended in with the crowd, she thought. The plush velvet seats in the train car and the passing French scenery out the window were welcome sights. “First class? Nice!” Carmen said with a smile as she sat down.

  “You’ve earned it,” Player responded. Carmen couldn’t argue with that. It had certainly been a successful job.

  She picked up her black satchel. It was heavy with the weight of the stolen object.

  From where he was on the other side of the world, Player was beginning to wonder whether Carmen had stolen the Eye of Vishnu, or whether the object resting in her satchel was actually the thing that had caught her eye in the chateau. He said nothing, knowing that he would find out the answer soon enough. Carmen Sandiego always had her reasons for doing things the way she did.

  The door to Carmen’s compartment opened, and before she could tell the intruder that he was in the wrong car, she found herself face-to-face with someone she had not seen in a very long time.

  “Hello, Gray,” Carmen said as the young man approached.

  He was gangly yet handsome, with messy brown hair and broad shoulders. He spoke with a thick Australian accent. “Well, well . . .” Gray said as he closed the compartment door behind him. “Isn’t this a blast from the past?”

  “Blast from the past? Is someone th—”

  Before Player could finish his question, Gray took out a metal rod that looked unmistakably high-tech and pressed a button on the side of it. A jolt of electricity coursed through the compartment. Carmen raised an eyebrow at Gray.

  “That was a directional EMP,” Gray said. “I just wiped out all your electronics. Your phone and any other communication devices are offline now, so you can forget about calling a friend for help.” Carmen hoped that Player wouldn’t worry.

  “I know what an electromagnetic pulse does, Gray. I took Bellum’s class too, remember?”

  Carmen sat back down on the train seat. She casually gestured toward the black satchel next to her as she said, “You didn’t think I would steal it without checking for a tracking device first, did you?” Gray stared at her, unable to hide his surprise. Carmen suppressed a smile at this. “That’s right. I wanted you to find me. I thought it was time we tied up some loose ends.”

  Gray angrily sat down opposite her. “You were the only loose end . . . until five seconds ago, when I captured the great Carmen Sandiego.” He leaned forward. “Or should I call you . . . Black Sheep?”

  Black Sheep. That was a name she hadn’t heard in a while.

  “Do you remember when we met?” Carmen asked.

  “It would be a hard thing to forget,” Gray responded. “It was the day we became students at VILE Academy. We’re not on the island anymore. We don’t have to abide by VILE’s rules, so we don’t have to keep our pasts a secret anymore.” Gray leaned forward. “What’s your story?”

  “I guess there’s no harm in talking about it now,” Carmen said after a moment. “Why not? We have a long train ride ahead of us.”

  She had never told her story before. Perhaps it was time to come to terms with her past . . . what she knew of it.

  Chapter 2

  I’m told that I was found as a baby on the side of the road somewhere just outside of Buenos Aires, Argentina. I never knew who I was or why I was left there. The only clue I had about my past was a set of Russian nesting dolls that I had been found with. You know, those painted wooden dolls of smaller and smaller size placed one inside another. Even with faded red paint and scorch marks across their sides, they were my most prized possession.

  Despite not knowing who my parents were or why I was abandoned, I never felt sad about being an orphan when I was young. It might sound strange, but back then, it never occurred to me to be sad or jealous about not having the same kind of upbringing that other kids had. I made my own fun, and there was always stuff to do . . . because I was growing up in a real-life paradise.

  I didn’t grow up in an orphanage with other kids or anything like that. Instead, I grew up on the grounds of a very unusual school that was on a secluded tropical island in the middle of the ocean. Whoever found me as a baby brought me to this place called Vile Island, named after the organization it housed. The island was beautiful. Everywhe
re you looked, there were white sandy beaches and palm trees. The ocean was a bright sparkling blue that glistened in the sunlight. I couldn’t have asked for a better place to call home. It was as though I were a princess with her own private island . . . even though I had no clue where in the world that island was.

  The person who found me as a baby in Argentina must have worked for VILE. Rather than hand me over to a local orphanage, they brought me back with them to Vile Island, where I was raised by the faculty. They say it takes a village to raise a child, but in my experience, a group of five teachers on a mysterious island will do the job too.

  The large gray fortress that served as VILE Academy was sleek and modern in its design. It was full of sharp angles and harsh edges that came together in ways other people might have seen as threatening. If I’d had a better understanding of the world, I might have thought there was something ominous about it.

  I lived on the academy grounds, in a small room at the front of the dormitory that was somewhat separated from the students. Of course, that didn’t stop me from sneaking through the main buildings and classrooms. I used to roam the halls, running around and making mischief whenever I could.

  As a child, I was too young to attend the academy with the other students. I would stomp my feet and beg to go to class with the other students, but the answer was always the same. The teachers would tell me the kinds of lessons that were taught there were things that I couldn’t learn until I had grown up a bit more.

  Until then, I was homeschooled by nannies. I never had the same nanny for very long . . . you could say there was a revolving door of them. They came and went, never giving a reason for their sudden departures. Whenever I asked the faculty members why a nanny was leaving, I was told it was because they had work to do for VILE somewhere else. There would always be a replacement ready to step in. But I didn’t mind, because these nannies were from all sorts of different places in the world, and each new nanny would teach me about the country she was from.

  I learned of just about every country in the world during those early years, from the fjords of Norway to the cherry-blossom festivals of Japan. I got a taste of many different languages, like Mandarin and Swahili. These caretakers instilled in me a love of other cultures, and I knew then that I wanted to travel the world and see them all. The world outside the island seemed like such an amazing place that was just waiting for me to explore it!

  One of these nannies gave me a gift. It was a map of the world. She helped me hang it above my bed. I used to lie awake at night and trace the continents with my finger, dreaming of the day when I would be able to see each and every one of them. When I told my nanny about this, she laughed and asked, “Even Antarctica?” “Yes!” I answered with glee.

  Of course, I couldn’t go jetting off to other countries as a little kid, so I made do with exploring the island and causing mischief in the fortress-like school that was on it.

  It didn’t take long for me to figure out that I was the only child on the whole island. And as I explored my surroundings, sneaking through the halls and eavesdropping on conversations, I learned that the large gray academy that stood tall among the palm trees and the crystal-clear waters wasn’t just any ordinary school—​it was VILE’s school for thieves.

  * * *

  VILE was the name of a criminal shadow organization that operated in secret all over the world. Their network of thieves worked in every country, pulling off all kinds of thefts. There was no caper that was beyond them—​from art heists to stealing space shuttles, nothing was too far-fetched for VILE. The graduates from the academy went on to become VILE’s operatives and would work together to steal millions of dollars for VILE. And sometimes VILE seemed to steal just for fun.

  The world’s most impressive, infamous, and hard-to-catch criminals came out of VILE Academy. When it came to their operations, secrecy was always the number-one most important thing. No one in the outside world, not even the authorities, knew that VILE existed. And here I was, growing up right inside it.

  * * *

  It was a school unlike any other . . . and it was also all I had known. I wanted to be a part of it.

  To pass the time until I was old enough to enroll in VILE Academy, I decided to create my own kind of fun. Mischief could have been my middle name.

  One day, a boat was arriving on the island. This boat arrived like clockwork each year on December first. Apart from when new students came to the island, it was the only time during the year that anyone ever came from the outside world.

  Cookie Booker was a stylish middle-aged woman who, aside from the boat’s captain, was the only passenger on board. She was VILE’s bookkeeper and came to the island once a year to deliver an electronic hard drive and upload its contents to the computer servers in the academy. Rumor had it that Cookie absolutely hated water.

  On this December first, I decided to make Cookie Booker’s visit a little more memorable. I crawled up onto the rocks that overlooked the boat dock, water balloons tucked carefully in my arms. I could see Cookie Booker below. She was wearing a brightly colored dress with a wide-brimmed sun hat placed at a stylish angle across her head. The captain was busy tying the boat to the docks. This was my moment.

  I brought my arm back and hurled the first balloon. It curled through the air perfectly, bursting just to the left of Cookie Booker’s feet. She was splashed with water, as was her turquoise handbag. I threw a second balloon, and this one didn’t miss its target. Cookie Booker gave a hysterical shriek of anger.

  I choked back a laugh as I realized the captain had spotted me. Time to skedaddle, I thought, and took off running.

  I burst into the academy complex, rounding a corner as fast as my feet would take me.

  Even though my heart was pounding, I was having the time of my life. I lived for thrills like these. I led the captain on a wild chase through the academy grounds. I could hear him losing his breath—​I just had to keep going a little longer until I lost him for good. Then I turned the corner and felt my feet slip and slide across a wet, freshly mopped floor. I slid straight into a dead end.

  I gave a nervous laugh as the captain approached me. “What strange weather!” I said. “Who knew it was going to rain today?”

  “The only thing raining out there was water balloons, and you know it!”

  “Is there a problem here?” asked Coach Brunt, who had appeared at the end of the hall and was eyeing the captain with a red fury. I never wanted to be on the receiving end of that look. Coach Brunt was one of the five faculty members who ran VILE Academy. She was a large Texan woman who showed brute strength in everything she did. Once, when she was angry, I saw her punch a hole straight through a brick wall.

  But for some reason, Coach Brunt took a liking to me and watched over me like I imagined a mother would. I often suspected that Coach Brunt was the one who found me as a baby in Argentina, but whenever I asked her about it, she quickly changed the subject. She was always there to get me out of trouble, often referring to herself as my “Mama Bear.” And this time was no exception.

  As Coach Brunt glared at the captain, I blinked, just for a moment, and when I opened my eyes again, the captain was falling backwards with a dazed look in his eyes. Brunt lowered her fist to her side.

  As he fell, a small metal object flew out of his pocket and skidded across the floor toward my feet. Instinctively, I reached down and picked it up before anyone saw. My heart started pounding as I realized what I had just gotten my hands on—​a cellphone!

  * * *

  I had discovered that stealing things was really fun, and getting away with it was even more exciting. Slowly, I began to pick up all kinds of thieving skills. I dreamed of the day I’d be able to become a VILE student and put those skills to the test. I would be the best thief that VILE had ever seen! And I would finally get to see more of the world than my tiny island.

  One rainy afternoon, I was in my room, staring at the world map that was pinned to the wall. When she had gi
ven it to me, my nanny said that I could put pins in the places I traveled to mark all the spots where I had been. But it was still as empty as ever. I couldn’t even put a pin in the island, since I had no idea where it was!

  Suddenly one of the Russian nesting dolls on my windowsill began to shake and tremble. An earthquake? I wondered, and bolted upright. No. Nothing else was moving. That’s when I remembered—​I had hidden the captain’s cellphone inside that doll!

  I cautiously took the phone out from its hiding place. On the phone’s screen was an image of a white hat that glowed as the phone vibrated. And then a text message came up on the screen: “‘Better beef up your security. I got in,’” I read aloud. What on earth did that mean?

  Got in where? Here? I messaged back.

  The phone began to ring. I was so startled by the noise that I jumped. I stared at the phone for a moment, unsure of what to do.

  I took a deep breath and answered it.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello,” came the voice on the other side. He sounded young—​much younger than me. But who was he?

  “Who is this?” he asked, beating me to the question.

  “Black Sheep,” I answered matter-of-factly. Coach Brunt had told me that becoming a VILE operative meant giving up your personal identity. After all, it wouldn’t do for authorities to be able to trace your name back to VILE if you were caught. This meant that each of the students would eventually earn his or her criminal code name.

  It was a rite of passage for new recruits, and if you successfully became an operative, your code name was what you would be known as from that point forward. Since I was an orphan with no other name to go by, I was given my code name early.

  Black Sheep.

  “What’s your real name?” he asked.

  I was confused. My real name? Black Sheep was the only name I had ever known. “My name is Black Sheep,” I repeated. To my surprise, the voice chuckled.