The Alamo Read online

  I, Q SERIES

  Book One:

  Independence Hall

  Book Two:

  The White House

  Book Three:

  Kitty Hawk

  Book Four:

  The Alamo

  OTHER NOVELS BY ROLAND SMITH

  Storm Runners

  Storm Runners: The Surge

  Storm Runners: Eruption

  The 39 Clues: Shatterproof; Cahills vs. Vespers, Book 4

  Tentacles

  Elephant Run

  Peak

  Cryptid Hunters

  Zach’s Lie

  Jack’s Run

  The Captain’s Dog: My Journey with the Lewis and Clark Tribe

  Sasquatch

  Thunder Cave

  Jaguar

  The Last Lobo

  Legwork (e-book)

  PICTURE BOOKS WITH HIS WIFE, MARIE SMITH:

  B is for Beaver: An Oregon Alphabet

  E is for Evergreen: A Washington State Alphabet

  N is for our Nation’s Capital: A Washington, DC Alphabet

  Z is for Zookeeper: A Zoo Alphabet

  W is for Waves: An Ocean Alphabet

  OTHER NOVELS BY MICHAEL P. SPRADLIN

  Killer Species: Menace from the Deep

  Killer Species: Feeding Frenzy

  The Youngest Templar: Keeper of the Grail

  The Youngest Templar: Trail of Fate

  The Youngest Templar: Orphan of Destiny

  Spy Goddess: Live and Let Shop

  Spy Goddess: To Hawaii, with Love

  Spy Goddess: The Spy Who Totally Had A Crush On Me

  PICTURE BOOKS

  The Legend of Blue Jacket

  Texas Rangers: Legendary Lawmen

  Daniel Boone’s Great Escape

  Baseball From A to Z: A Baseball Alphabet

  The Monster Alphabet

  www.IQtheSeries.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the authors’ imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2013 Roland Smith

  Copyright © 2013 Michael P. Spradlin

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Smith, Roland, 1951-

  The Alamo / by Roland Smith and Michael P. Spradlin.

  pages cm. -- (I, Q ; book four)

  Summary: “When Quest (Q) and his stepsister Angela head to

  Texas for their parents’ concert, they discover traces of the terrorist group

  Ghost Cell in the Lone Star state”-Provided by publisher.

  ISBN 978-1-58536-822-8 (hard cover) -- ISBN 978-1-58536-821-1 (paperback)

  [1. Spies--Fiction. 2. Terrorism--Fiction. 3. Stepfamilies--Fiction. 4.

  Musicians--Fiction. 5. Alamo (San Antonio, Tex.)--Fiction. 6. Mystery

  and

  detective stories.] I. Spradlin, Michael P. II. Title.

  PZ7.S65766Al 2013

  [Fic]--dc23

  2013004284

  ISBN 978-1-58536-821-1

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  ISBN 978-1-58536-822-8 (case)

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  This book was typeset in Berthold Baskerville and Datum

  Cover design by Lone Wolf Black Sheep

  Cover illustration by Kaylee Cornfield

  Printed in the United States.

  Sleeping Bear Press™

  315 E. Eisenhower Parkway, Suite 200

  Ann Arbor, Michigan 48108

  © 2013 Sleeping Bear Press

  visit us at sleepingbearpress.com

  For all my friends, readers, teachers, and librarians in the great state of Texas.

  —Roland

  For Roland Smith.

  Thanks for letting me take the Ferrari for a drive.

  —Mike

  Contents

  Cast of Characters

  I, Q: The story so far …

  SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 7 – 9:16 a.m. to 11:20 a.m.

  Speed Bump: “Did somebody say something about breakfast?”

  P.K. on the Case: The White House Solarium

  Escape

  Speeding Up

  Shopping for Answers

  Farther In

  Not on My Watch

  Back On Line

  Hunting

  Some Old Spooks

  Quicker Than the Eye

  It’s Complicated

  Number Three

  Air Force One

  More Questions

  Stranger Danger

  TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9 – 11:10 a.m. to 3:45 p.m.

  A Not-So-Grand Entrance

  Gearing Up

  The Leopard Stalks

  Always Watching

  The Sheriff

  A New Crew

  TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9 – 4:45 p.m. to 9:45 p.m.

  What to Do About Boone

  TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9 – 3:45 p.m. to 10:15 p.m.

  Waiting

  Chasing Ghosts

  Room Service

  Taken for a Ride

  Under the Gun

  What’s Happening to Me?

  Making a Move

  Deception

  Calling In the Big Guns

  You’ve Got to Be Kidding

  Waiting on the Cavalry

  Rescue Dog

  Poof! There He Is

  Now You See Him

  Quality Time

  The Second Monkey

  Attacked

  A Bit of a Pickle

  Counting Down

  Monkey Shines

  Crowd Control

  Ashes of the Martyrs

  Two to Go

  The Good Guys

  Explanations

  Chicago

  About the Authors

  Cast of Characters

  Quest (Q) Munoz: Q is thirteen and wants to be a famous magician when he grows up. His idol is the great magician Harry Houdini. Q is ambivalent about school, but gets As in math and writing. He is seriously opposed to his new stepfather’s vegetarianism and sneaks junk food at any opportunity. Tall with blond hair, he dresses the same way almost every day, usually in some variation of cargo pants or cargo shorts and a polo or T-shirt.

  When Q is nervous, he shuffles cards and practices card tricks. It helps him relax and concentrate. He has a complicated relationship with his biological father, Speed Paulsen. Q is prone to premonitions, occasionally feeling that something bad is about to happen. He calls these feelings “the itch.” The itch proves useful to Q and Angela on more than one occasion.

  Angela Tucker: Angela, fifteen, has shoulder-length black hair with bangs, and olive skin. She has dark brown eyes and, upon first meeting her, Q thinks she is thin and a little frail-looking. But Angela is anything but frail. She wants to be a Secret Service agent like her mother, Malak Tucker, who died in the line of duty. Angela is smart, observant, and highly organized.

  Angela always carries a small tattered backpack, in which she keeps extra hats, sunglasses, and other items that help her disguise her appearance when she practices her countersurveillance techniques and tradecraft (a term spies and agents use that refers to the techniques of trailing a suspect, eluding a tail, and other methods they use in performing their duties). Angela keeps her desire to be an agent secret from her father, Roger, who would not approve.

  Blaze Munoz and Roger Tucker: Q’s mom and Angela’s dad have recently married. They are musicians and perform together as the duet Match. After marrying in a ceremony in San Francisco, they take Q and An
gela on tour with them across the country.

  Tyrone Boone: Boone is an old roadie (someone who travels with musicians and musical acts, performing all kinds of tasks on a tour). Boone is in charge of tour security and keeps an eye on Q and Angela. He travels with his very old, nearly toothless, and quite smelly dog, Croc. Boone is a former NOC (No Official Cover) agent for the CIA. He now uses a network of former spies to run “off-the-books” or unofficial operations.

  Malak Tucker: Angela’s mother and a United States Secret Service agent.

  Eben Lavi: A rogue Mossad agent. (Mossad is roughly the Israeli equivalent of the CIA.) Eben is tracking a terrorist he believes is responsible for his brother’s death. He believes the assassin known as “the Leopard” has a connection to Angela.

  Ziv: The mysterious Ziv is a NOC agent for Mossad.

  Buddy T.: Buddy T. is Blaze and Roger’s manager. Though he is obnoxious and offensive in practically every way, he’s still one of the most successful managers in the music business. Roger jokes that the “T” stands for “To-Do,” because when Buddy talks he sounds like he’s giving everyone a “to-do” list.

  Dirk Peski: Dirk is nicknamed “the Paparazzi Prince” because he takes photos of the rich and famous and sells them to tabloid newspapers and gossip websites. Dirk is one of Ziv’s operatives, or agents.

  J. R. Culpepper: J.R. is the president of the United States, or POTUS, as he is referred to by the Secret Service. Before being elected president he served in the U.S. Senate, was vice president, and was director of the CIA.

  Marie and Art: Marie and Art are Roger and Blaze’s personal assistants, or PAs. Buddy T. thinks that he hired them but in fact they are highly trained agents and bodyguards working for Boone.

  Heather Hughes: Heather is the president of a record company and responsible in large part for putting Match back on the charts. She knows Boone well from all her years in the music industry. Mostly her job appears to be keeping Buddy T. mollified and out of everyone’s way.

  P.K.: P.K. is short for President’s Kid, the Secret Service code name for Willingham Culpepper, son of J. R. Culpepper. P.K. is ten years old, but smarter than most and wise beyond his years. He knows the location of many of the secret passages in the White House and has a Secret Service radio, which he uses to keep tabs on the agents so that he can practice eluding them.

  Bethany Culpepper: J.R. is widowed and his daughter, Bethany, takes on the role of first lady.

  Speed Paulsen: Q’s biological father. Speed is a rock star and loves to play the part. He earned the nickname Speed because he could pick guitar faster than anyone alive. It’s been a while since Speed has had any hit songs and he is jealous of his ex-wife’s sudden, newfound success. Speed is annoying, hapless, confused, in and out of rehab, but at the same time strangely likeable.

  Agents Charlie Norton and Pat Callaghan: Secret Service agents whom J.R. assigns to Boone’s team. Both men are capable, trustworthy, and devoted to J.R. and his family.

  The SOS team: A group of Boone’s most trusted operatives. SOS stands for “Some Old Spooks.” The team consists of:

  X-Ray: The technical genius. He spends most of his time in a beat-up old van the team calls the “intellimobile.” There is no computer system and no database or piece of electronic equipment X-Ray cannot hack, master, construct, or duplicate.

  Vanessa: The team’s designated “world’s deadliest old broad.” She is a master knife thrower, and Boone refers to her as a “human lie detector” due to her ability to read people and determine if they are telling the truth. Vanessa is also an exceptional driver and adept at tailing suspects without being noticed.

  Felix and Uly: Formal Special Forces operatives. Given their size (both are nearly six feet eight inches tall) and matching buzz cuts, they could easily be mistaken for brothers. Their strength, expertise in hand-to-hand combat, and knowledge of nearly every type of weapon imaginable make them invaluable members of Boone’s squad.

  I, Q: The story so far …

  Quest (Q) Munoz and Angela Tucker are new stepsiblings. Their parents are the two halves of the musical act, Match. After their parents marry at a ceremony in San Francisco, Q and Angela accompany them on their national tour. They travel the highways and byways of America in a multimillion-dollar coach.

  As Q and Angela get to know each other, Q learns Angela’s mother was a highly decorated Secret Service agent. Malak Tucker died in the line of duty. She was trying to defuse a bomb set by a terrorist group at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. It’s Angela’s dream to one day follow in her mother’s footsteps and become an agent.

  Angela learns that Q lived for years on a sailboat with his mother. His father was another musician, the famous Speed Paulsen. His parents had a contentious divorce and Q and his mother have made their own way together for many years.

  Q likes and respects Roger, his new stepfather, and is happy for his mom, Blaze. Q has a casual attitude toward school and homework, and his first love is magic. He wants to be a magician someday and his cargo pants are full of decks of cards, colored scarves, and magic coins.

  On their first night out of California, their coach breaks down in the Nevada desert. Q awakens and takes a stroll outside to find an extremely old, very wrinkly, and mysterious man slumbering by their coach in a sleeping bag. He has some camping equipment, a stack of James Bond novels, and perhaps the world’s oldest and smelliest dog, Croc, with him. He tells Q his name is Tyrone Boone. But everybody calls him Boone.

  As it turns out, Boone is a roadie. A roadie is a jack-of-all-trades in the music business. Usually they work with a group or a performer and do everything from driving the bus and setting up all the equipment for each concert, to fixing broken instruments and generally anything else that needs doing. Boone has been in the music business for a very long time and Blaze Munoz-Tucker has worked with him before.

  Q and Angela aren’t too sure about Boone. For one thing, he knows a lot about everything. He has incredibly detailed information about the history of every town they pass through. He has knowledge about things that most people wouldn’t know. And, as it turns out, Boone is not what he seems.

  The bus is being followed. No one knows for certain by whom or why. But Boone seems to know who is following them. More importantly, he appears to know more about how to get rid of them than a roadie should.

  When they arrive in Philadelphia, Angela receives the shock of her life. She learns that her mother, Malak Tucker, is not dead. Angela discovers that her mother had an identical twin sister, Anmar, when they were born in Lebanon. Separated from Malak at birth, Anmar grew up to become one of the most feared terrorists in the world, known as the “Leopard.” Angela learns that years earlier Anmar contacted Malak (who was unaware of her existence), explaining she’d had a change of heart and no longer wished to be a terrorist. She told Malak she was on her way to Independence Hall to defuse a bomb that had been planted there. Malak raced there to help her. But she arrived too late and Anmar was killed in the explosion.

  Seeing an opportunity to infiltrate a deadly terrorist cell, Malak went undercover, impersonating Anmar. To do so, she gave up everything. Her husband, Roger, and her daughter, Angela, needed to believe she died in the blast. Malak made this sacrifice and has spent the past several years working her way up toward the top of the cell’s power structure.

  Boone soon determines that a rogue Israeli Mossad agent, Eben Lavi, and a team of assassins are the ones tailing them. Eben holds Anmar (Malak) responsible for the death of his brother. He believes Angela has some information that may lead him to the Leopard.

  In Philadelphia, Angela meets her mother in secret. She is overwhelmed at learning her mother is alive; Malak insists Angela and Q must keep her secret. They also discover that Boone is not just a roadie. He is a “NOC” CIA agent. NOC stands for No Official Cover. It means that Boone is working outside official CIA channels. If he is caught or captured, he will have no diplomatic immunity and the government will deny his v
ery existence.

  Boone and Malak decide the best way to stop the cell is for her to continue her ruse. Angela and Q are now privy to a deadly secret and when Eben Lavi takes them hostage, Boone must take extraordinary measures to keep them safe.

  After Philadelphia, the next stop on the tour is a special concert at the White House. Q and Angela, along with their parents, stay overnight in the White House guest quarters. In the middle of the night they are summoned to the Oval Office by J. R. Culpepper, president of the United States. And they are shocked to find Boone sitting there, chatting with the president. The president praises them for their actions in Philadelphia and gives them special gifts—Omega Seamaster watches that have the president’s private phone number engraved on them. Each watch contains a tracking device so he can find them if they are ever in danger. The president tells them they may use the private number any time whenever they need his help and he will take whatever action he can to secure their safety.

  As they delve further into uncovering the ghost cell, Q and Angela discover that there is a “mole” in the White House. And they meet P.K., the president’s precocious son, Willingham Culpepper. P.K. is ten years old but wise beyond his years. With his help, Q and Angela whittle down the list of suspects. But during the concert in the East Room, they are shocked to discover that the ghost cell has ordered Malak to kidnap P.K. and Bethany Culpepper, the president’s daughter. With Malak’s help, they foil the kidnapping of P.K. but Malak takes Bethany in order to preserve her cover. She promises President Culpepper she will allow no harm to come to Bethany and will blow her cover to save her if necessary.

  In Kitty Hawk, Q, Angela, and Boone, with his team of operatives he calls the SOS team (Some Old Spooks), track Bethany and Malak as they head south from Washington, D.C. But things go sour when the cell makes a switch at a rest stop. Four identical Chevy Tahoes loaded with car bombs appear and they can’t be sure which vehicle holds Bethany and Malak. Now they are faced with a terrible decision: save Bethany and Malak or try to take out the car bombs.

  In the middle of all of this, to Q’s great surprise and consternation, his biological father, Speed Paulsen, appears. He finds Q and inadvertently interferes with his efforts to help Boone foil the kidnappers. When Q and Angela are taken hostage by the cell, the game changes. On a remote island off the coast of North Carolina, Boone must enlist the help of ex-navy SEAL John Masters and a SEAL team to extract Bethany and keep Malak’s cover intact.