’M THE FLOCK LEADER. I’m fast, I’m tough, and I can think on my feet or in flight. My hair-trigger responses have saved our hides more times than I can count. So my brain kicked in to high gear right away as I cut to the heart of the matter.

“Huh?” I managed. I felt like I’d just taken a karate chop to the chest.

“Phone call,” Iggy said.

“Ella called,” Nudge clarified. “She’s hysterical—your mom disappeared from the airport this afternoon while they were between flights. Dr. Martinez just went to the restroom and never came back. Right now Ella’s at her aunt’s house. I don’t think Jeb knows. Ella was going to call him after she talked to us.” She took a deep breath. For once I didn’t mind her wordiness—the more info I had, the better.

“Did they call the police or the FBI?” I asked, already calculating how long it would take me to fly to my half sister.

“We don’t know,” Nudge said. Then we heard the phone ringing inside. I raced in and grabbed it.

“Max?” It was Dr. John Abate, one of my mom’s colleagues at the CSM. “Max, are you all okay?”

“Yes,” I said tensely. I motioned to the others to get inside and lock the door, turn off the lights. We could be the next targets. “What’s going on?” I punched the button to put him on speakerphone.

“A fax just came in to the CSM office,” Dr. Abate said. “Usually no one would be here at this hour, but a couple of us were putting together a press report. Anyway—this fax came, and it says that Valencia has been kidnapped.”

“Yeah, Ella called.” I was pacing, trying not to bite my nails. “Who was the fax from?”

“We don’t know,” said Dr. Abate. “It looks like the origination number got cut off somehow during transmission. But it says that Valencia has been kidnapped and will be held until the CSM quits its efforts to put pressure on big businesses.”

My head whirled. I remembered Mr. Chu telling me that he’d come up with a way to convince me to quit working with the CSM. Maybe he’d just found it.

“Uh-huh,” I said. “Anything else?”

“Yes,” John said. “Just a minute ago, we received another fax. It showed Valencia being held hostage. She was alive when the picture was taken, but we don’t know how long ago that was. We enlarged the photo, and the weird thing is, the background looks like she’s being held on a boat.”

“Boat?” That didn’t add up to anything. Oh,wait . Yes it did. When Mr. Chu’s M-Geeks had grabbed me, they’d taken me to a boat. I remembered the rocking sensation. Crap.

“We’ve called the FBI, of course,” said John. “They’re going over everything now. Someone’s flying to Arizona to meet with Ella, see if she remembers anything helpful. But I wanted to make sure you guys were okay.”

“Yeah, we’re okay.” If “okay” was broadened to include the feeling of having your heart ripped out and stomped on.

Life was easier when it was just the six of us. I’d had five other bird kids to worry about, protect, keep in line, care about. Now I had Total—who had somehow glommed on to us, I don’t even know how—and my mom, and my half sister. My circle was still expanding, and it was too hard for me to keep track of everyone, keep everyone safe. I’d certainly failed here. Not telling anyone about Mr. Chu and his threats had put my mom in danger. Maybe cost her her life.

“Max, you there?” Dr. Abate asked.

“Yes.” One-word answers seemed all I was capable of.

“Listen—I’ve got to go talk to the FBI. They’ll probably want to talk to you too. You were among the last people to see her. I want you guys to sit tight for a couple hours, okay?”

“Hm,” I said, unwilling to promise that.

“Hole up there, protect yourselves, but stay put,” he said again. “Let me get some answers before you go charging off.”

“I do not ‘go charging off!’ ” I said, offended.

“Yes, you do,” John said, exactly when everyone else in the flock said it.

“Yourmiddle name is ‘Charging Off,’ ” Total muttered, fortunately out of kicking range.

“Okay, gotta go,” said John. “We’re going to try to figure out if we can tell where the boat was by what we can see in the picture. I’ll call you as soon as I can. Stay by the phone.”

“Okay.” I hung up, just as Fang turned toward me from the window.

“In other news,” he said, “the house is surrounded. It looks like those things from Mexico City.”