The Copernicus Archives #2 by Tony Abbott Page A

that is in Hut Eleven—”
    â€œUnweth you die wight here!” said a raspy voice.
    We wheeled around to see the mop-haired man with the bicycle clips on his pants. He tore off his hair and tugged out his set of false teeth.
    â€œArchibald Doyle!” Lily gasped.
    â€œOnly me mum calls me Archibald!” he snarled. “You best call me ‘the last person I saw before I died’!”
    With one quick move Archie thrust Mavis aside. She collapsed gently on the carpet with a gasp. Then he lunged past all of us and stole the code wheel right off the desk!

C HAPTER S IXTEEN
    W ithout thinking, I grabbed Doyle’s outstretched hand and yanked it hard. He screamed and swung his free arm at me. Wade was suddenly there with raised forearms—a weird move, but it blocked the punch. I snatched the code wheel out of Doyle’s fingers and jumped back.
    Breathing hard, his face a wrinkle of pain, he drew a pistol from his tweed jacket. “Give me that thingy,” he growled, waving his gun around.
    I backed up. We all did. Darrell and Lily helped Mavis to her feet. Her cane was on the floor. She locked her eyes on Doyle.
    â€œOne thing I dislike very much is a traitor !” she snarled. “And you , once a proper Englishman, Ipresume—whose parents my code mates and I defended with our hearts during the war—have sold your soul to a foreign power!”
    Doyle wiggled his gun at her, his eyes fixed on the code wheel in my hand.
    â€œDuring the war, eh? We’re still at war, ma’am. You”—he said to me—“give me that thing, whatever it is, or the old lady gets it.”
    While Lily and Darrell moved back to the window with Mavis, Wade was edging along the wall on their right. Another spy move. Spread out, distract the enemy. By now I was in the middle of everyone.
    â€œHow did you even find us?” I asked, realizing that my nose had started to bleed again. I gently slid a napkin from my pocket.
    â€œYou’re the genius here; you figure it out. But don’t take too long. You’ll soon be dead, you will.”
    At that moment, Sara and Emma returned from the restroom. Emma yelled what might have been a British curse word and pummeled Doyle with her fists.
    I crouched, snatched up Mavis’s cane, and swatted his legs. He fell to his knees. At the same time, Mavis heaved an antique telephone at him.
    Trying desperately to block it, Doyle threw up a hand—his gun hand. The phone made an ugly sound when it met his forehead, but worse was the blast fromhis gun. It blew a neat hole in the ceiling.
    â€œBletchley Park is a registered national charity, you fiend!” Mavis squealed.
    Lily and Darrell now leaped at him from different sides, keeping him on the floor, while Wade tipped over one of the desk chairs and pinned Doyle underneath. Then Emma took Mavis by the arm, and we all hurried out.
    Slamming the library door behind us, we stumbled into the bright outdoors. At least a dozen security officers were running across the lawn toward the mansion.
    â€œLeft!” Emma called, rushing around the house and down past a small post office and—surprisingly—a toy shop, right into a pack of visitors and a guide.
    â€œScatter!” I yelled. “There’s a killer chasing us!”
    You’d be surprised, but that did nothing at all. People gave us looks as if we should mind our own business. Even the presence of a near-ninety-year-old woman running— running! —didn’t seem to alarm them.
    Then they saw Archie, who must have overturned the chair and squeaked by the guards, busting out a side window. He huffed past the post office with a gun in his hand, and someone decided to scream.
    â€œAw, you hush!” Archie snapped, firing into the air.
    Darrell ran with his mother. Wade rushed ahead with Mavis and Emma. Lily and I followed. We couldhear yelling now, followed by another gunshot.
    â€œThis way!”