A Girl Named Digit by Annabel Monaghan Read Free Book Online Page B

torturing and murdering individuals who they felt were ‘enemies of the natural world.’”
    “Then why attack an airport?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe as a protest over how much oil we use?”
    Steven was shaking his head, eyes closed. “No, the event at JFK was targeted. They hit a new jumbo jet flying out of that terminal. It was a full-size private jet that accommodated only five passengers in extreme luxury.” Shudder, shudder, punch.
    “The least green way you could possibly travel.” I’m not shy about stating the obvious.
    John sat down in the chair opposite Steven’s desk and motioned me to the one next to it, stony-faced again. Whatever this Jonas Furnis thing was really brought out the darkness in him. Was this the same guy who was busting on my secret codes twenty minutes ago? “Farrah, these guys have a huge, nearly untraceable network. Until now their terror attacks have been on a smaller scale, just a few individuals. But if they were responsible for Wednesday’s attack, then they are getting bolder and more organized, and they are more dangerous than ever.”
    Why did I feel like he was making this my problem? “But can’t you just track down that one guy who was after me and at least end my connection to this whole thing?”
    John shook his head. “Jonas Furnis’s operatives are everywhere. They operate all over the world and represent forty-three nationalities that we know of. The only thing they have in common is that they are willing to kill or die to protect the environment. And this guy—we know his name, but he’s vanished by now. The problem is that you have not. They know you can identify him. They know what kind of car you drive, they have your license plate number, and they likely have your address. You are not safe. At all.”
    Steven got up and started pacing the length of his desk. “You’re sure it’s them? I agree it can’t be a fluke, I mean, if he followed her and is a known operative for Jonas Furnis. And the Fibonacci thing. God, they love their Fibonacci. They call it the code born of nature—you know, the pineapple, the pinecone, flower petals, or whatever.” He ran his right hand through his silver hair repeatedly, adding the finger comb to the beginning of a series of shudder, shudder, punches. “They are going to come after her. They know . . . I can’t keep them from kidnapping . . .”
    Wait. What? “Kidnapping?!” I wanted to shake him.
    John became strangely calm in the face of his boss’s flipping out. There was no levity left to him, no smile, half or otherwise. “Kidnapping is their specialty. Kidnapping and torture, really.” He turned away from Steven, now collapsed in his desk chair with his head in his hands.
    I noticed for the first time that the fist he’d been making with his left hand was not a fist at all. It was just a fingerless palm, perfectly square. I tried not to stare, but sometimes staring has a mind of its own.
    John lowered his voice as if he didn’t want to upset Steven further with the details. “Jonas Furnis is well known for their kidnapping tactics. If they want someone, they will find them and take them, no matter how they are protected. Sometimes the kidnappings are ideologically motivated, but sometimes they’re more strategic to protect the organization from exposure. Like in your case.”
    Uh, freaking out here. “What do they do with you once they have you?”
    “They torture you and brainwash you. Or they kill you. No one, well almost no one”—he turned away from Steven even farther—“comes back as they were.”
    “I really don’t want to know. But, Farrah, how old are you?” Steven asked.
    “Seventeen. Eighteen in June.” There I go again.
    “Oh Jesus.” Shudder, shudder, punch.

I Love My Country. It’s the Government I’m Afraid Of.
     
    By dinnertime—and, yes, I was starving—my parents arrived and were fully debriefed. Dad was somber and seriously concerned for my safety, but there was a