Product Description
In this fourth installment in the New York Times bestselling series from Edgar Award winner James Ponti, the young group of spies go codebreaking in Cairo in another international adventure perfect for fans of Spy School and Mrs. Smith’s Spy School for Girls.
Codename Kathmandu, better known as Kat, loves logic and order, has a favorite eight-digit number, and can spot a pattern from a mile away. So when a series of cyberattacks hits key locations in London while the spies are testing security for the British Museum, it’s clear that Kat’s skill for finding reason in what seems like randomness makes her the perfect candidate to lead the job.
And while the team follows the deciphered messages to Egypt and the ancient City of the Dead to discover who is behind the attacks and why, Kat soon realizes that there’s another layer to the mystery.
With more players, more clues, and involving higher levels of British Intelligence than ever before, this mission is one of the most complex that the group has faced to date. And it’s also going to bring about a change to the City Spies…
About the Author
James Ponti is the New York Times bestselling author of three middle grade book series: the all-new City Spies, about an unlikely squad of five kids from around the world who form an elite MI6 Spy Team; the Edgar Award–winning Framed! series, about a pair of tweens who solve mysteries in Washington, DC; and the Dead City trilogy, about a secret society that polices the undead living beneath Manhattan. His books have appeared on more than fifteen different state award lists and he is the founder of a writers group known as the Renegades of Middle Grade. James is also an Emmy–nominated television writer and producer who has worked for many networks including Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, PBS, History, and Spike TV, as well as NBC Sports. He lives with his family in Orlando, Florida. Find out more at JamesPonti.com.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter 1: British Museum 1. British Museum
LONDON, ENGLAND—PRESENT DAY
ON A SLATE GRAY NOVEMBER day, one hundred years after the discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb, a group of five young people converged in a part of London known as Bloomsbury. Like Howard Carter, they were looking to recover treasures of Egyptian antiquity. Except they weren’t going to dig a tunnel in the desert. They were going to sneak through one in an abandoned section of the London Underground. And the artifacts they sought weren’t concealed in some long-forgotten tomb. They were on display at one of the busiest museums in the world.
This was no excavation. It was a heist.
“Testing comms, one, two, three,” Kat said into the microphone hidden in the red remembrance poppy pinned to her lapel. “Can everybody hear me?”
“Loud and clear,” said Paris.
“Perfectly,” answered Rio.
“All good on my end,” Brooklyn replied.
There was a pause as they waited for a final voice to check in.
“Sydney, are you not responding because you can’t hear me?” Kat asked. “Or is it because you’re still pouting?”
After a moment, Sydney replied, “I’m sorry. I was under the impression nobody cared what I had to say.”
“So, pouting,” Paris commented.
“I’m not pouting,” Sydney said defensively. “I’m just… disappointed. All I asked was that we slide the break-in a couple hours so we could see the fireworks at Battersea Park. You know how much I love Bonfire Night. It’s going to be huge and everyone’s going to be there.”
“Which is exactly why we’re going to be here,” Kat said. “The police will be spread thin, and there are no celebrations scheduled for Bloomsbury. That means they’ll be elsewhere, which dramatically improves the probability of us not getting caught.”
Kat was the alpha on this mission, which meant she had to come up with the plan to break into the British Museum. She’d studied dozens of famous robberies and noticed that many took place on holidays or during special events, when police and se
