Catherine had bought another set of clothing, saying it was necessary to dress like construction workers to get into the building.
"How did you manage to know their location?" I gasped.
"Easy," Catherine replied, holding up a tiny white circle. It was about the size of my thumbnail, and I immediately knew what it was.
"You tracked them?" I asked with a gasp.
"Yeah, I just clipped them. Hopefully, they'll say something important near us," Catherine chirped.
"Maybe. But each time on our spy mission and we tried to track them, it wasn't successful," I said.
"Well, maybe it will work this time. The CIA has faith in us," Alexander said hopefully.
"Did someone just say the CIA?" A voice asked behind us. We all immediately spun around to see who was spying on us. It was a girl and a boy. The girl had blond hair with the tips of her hair dyed pink. Her emerald green eyes glittered in the sunset background, and she had a pale yellow skirt similar to Erica's. The boy looked like her brother because he also had blond hair and green eyes, but just a tiny bit darker shade.
Erica immediately tensed and looked like she was about the kill. Of course, no one messed with Erica Hale.
"Woah! Don't hurt me!" The boy yelled, backing away. "We were just interested in what you were talking about!"
"We aren't talking about anything; say what you heard, and you'll be lying on the floor in two seconds," Erica threatened.
"We maybe want to join the CIA! The spy school you go to sounds cool!" The girl said.
"You don't have any skills that qualify, so scram before I knock you unconscious because I don't mess around," Erica threatened. I stepped between them.
"Erica, we can't do that to innocent people!" I said.
"They're a threat. They know the truth about us. And Ben, don't take their side just because you think the girl is cute," Erica said. Her voice had a bit of annoyance in it, like she was jealous.
"I don't think she's cute! I think we shouldn't just attack people!" I said my face flushing.
"Look, we're on a critical mission; we can't waste any time," Catherine said.
"Maybe we can help! I'm a green belt in karate!" The girl said, smiling.
"I have been a green belt since I was three years old," Erica said.
"Well, maybe we can still help! I'm brilliant at math, and my brother is good at creative thinking and video games!" She said delightfully.
"Ben's the math genius, and Mike's the creative thinker," Erica said, not impressed.
"Tell you what, if you can beat this guy," Erica said, pulling Alexander out, "then you're in."
"You think they can help?" I asked.
"Maybe," she whispered.
"Him? He looks a lot better than me," she said, gulping.
"You never know until you try," Mike said encouragingly.
"Alright," she said and then pulled her fist out. Alexander did the same, although he looked a lot more confident.
The girl swung a punch at Alexander's face, and to my surprise, he dodged it barely. Alexander tried to use the leg sweep trick, but instead, the girl grabbed his leg and flung him over. Alexander fell hard like a dead seal on the floor, groaning and rubbing his leg.
"Um, well, that was quick," she said awkwardly.
"Are all of you all that bad?" The boy asked rudely.
"Let's just say that guy was the worst spy on earth," I said.
"Can I fight one of you? It seems easy enough," the boy asked.
"It's not," Erica said.
"Well, maybe I can try. Who knows, maybe I can kick your butt," the boy said cockily.
"Don't bother; she has been fighting since she was in diapers," Mike said.
Guessing the boy wanted to know, he tossed a punch out at Erica. The fight lasted seconds. Within a flash, Erica grabbed his arm in midair, backflip over, and wrenched it. And then she flipped again, landing on one foot and kicking his jaw hard. And then, grabbing his shirt, she snarled, "try messing with me again, and I'll see you in the emergency room." The kid answered with a simple nod. Erica dropped him on the floor like a dead body.
"We're bringing the girl, not the boy," Erica answered and stepped over the boy. "Let's move." His sister ran over and lifted his brother and whispered something like, "stop being an idiot."
"Hey, what's your name?" I asked the girl.
"I'm Ellie Kanza," she said.
"Nice, I'm Ben Coolman," I said. I had used this alias since Operation Snow bunny, where I had to befriend Jessica Shang.
"Nice to meet you," she said, shaking my hand.
"It's nice to meet you too, but look, this is a critical mission, and you can't tell this to anyone," I said.
"Oh, what's the mission?" Ellie asked.
"There's this organization called Croder. It's plotting something very evil, and it's our job to find out. And we also lost two people, and they're using them against us. We have to pay them millions of dollars," I responded.
"That's terrible!" She exclaimed.
"We know. That's why it's our mission to find out what's going on," I responded.
Suddenly I got a call. It was from Chip.
"Chip?" I asked.
"Yeah, the CIA let me use a private jet to get here faster. I told them that I was needed to stop a bomb from going off in the pyramids. Anyways, where are you, Ben? You're not at the hotel," Chip said.
"I know, but I need to escape from Croder agents. Well, anyway, can I meet you at the pyramids? I want to visit there," Chip said.
"No," Erica said forcefully. "You're here to help with the mission. Take one step in the pyramids, and you're dead. Plus, you will need a goldstone to enter the pyramids, and they cost around 9.7 million dollars, so get your butt over here before I whip it; we're at Croder's HQ, which is on 29th street, the 5th house," Erica said and then hung up. Suddenly something struck me. It hit me so hard that I fell to the ground instantly.
"Ben, are you okay?" Mike asked, lifting me.
"I think I might know what Croder's up to," I said, and everyone's head instantly turned towards me.
"When Erica said about the goldstone, I instantly got an idea," I explained.
"So?" Catherine asked.
"Well, you said a stone cost about 9.7 million, which is about 10 million," I said.
"So?" Alexander asked.
"Let me finish first. How much money did Croder want from us?" I asked. Erica immediately caught on to what I was saying.
"Ten million! The same amount of money they want!" I exclaimed.
"Hold on, what's going on?" Ellie asked.
"Remember how I said that by capturing the hostages, they need millions of dollars from us?" I asked Ellie.
"Yeah."
"Right, and they need exactly 10 million dollars from us," I responded.
"Ohhh, and the gold rock also costs that much money!" She exclaimed. "They must be trying to rob the pyramids!"
"Right, but there's another question, later we received another phone call, and they need 8 million more dollars. Our question is, why?" I said.
Croder was poor. So it made sense they needed 10 million dollars to buy a gold rock and pretend to donate it to the pyramids. After the pyramids stopped letting tourists in, they shut it down and only wanted people who would contribute to the pyramid to enter. So people started donating cheap jewelry that costs about 99 cents to enter. The people who worked there didn't want that because the more people who entered, the more the pyramids would crumble. Many pyramids tend to fall due to how much people's breaths stick to the pyramid's wall. After it gets too moist, it fails. So they only let certain people in now. Croder must have realized that the people working at the pyramids only allow people who were donating gold rocks in, so they probably bought one with the money we were sending them. But the question was, why did they need 8 million more dollars? Robbing the pyramids would give them billions, maybe more. That was a lot of money.
"So that's why we need to get into Croder's building and dig to find out what the other half of the plot is and when they will rob the pyramids," Catherine said.
"Only if, only if," Ellie said, grinning. Everyone turned to her, confused.
"You're too late," she said and shot something at us. I could grasp what it was because everything was getting more blurred and blurry until I blacked out.