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they’d taken of the compass, front
    and back.
    “Can you enlarge your image so we get a better look?” Amy asked Jake.
    He nodded and did so. They fixed their gazes on the photos and kept commenting on various ideas and theories

    as they walked along.
    So preoccupied were they with this that they didn’t see the four black SUVs screech to a stop on the street next to them until it was almost too late.
    The doors opened and men poured
    out.
    One leaped at Amy, but the six-foot-two-inch Jake leveled him with a textbook
    football tackle. The man flew backward and crashed into two other men climbing out of one of the SUVs.
    Amy shouted, “Scramble, now!”
    “Go, Att, go!” yelled Jake at his little brother.
    The   four  ran  off  in  different
    directions. This was a maneuver that Amy had had them practice for a long time. Four different directions meant that their

    pursuers would have to split up, too. And it increased the odds that at least one of
    them would escape.
    As Amy sprinted away she glanced across the street and saw Isabel staring at her with unconcealed hatred. When Isabel saw that Amy had spotted her, she turned and ran off down an alley.
    Amy quickly formed a plan and slowed down to let the two men chasing her catch up. Amy had trained hard to become a world-class fighter. But even with all that work she still had doubts
    about her combat abilities. Even now she
    could feel the nerves building inside her. But she didn’t have time to be nervous or
    doubtful. So she just let her training take
    over.
    When the men were about to grab

    her, Amy executed a spinning kick right to the first man’s knee. Her blow bent it
    backward and the man screamed and went down to the pavement. Amy knew that when you took out the knee, you took the fight right out of an opponent for two reasons. First, he couldn’t stand anymore. And second, it hurt him too much to think about fighting.
    The second man slowed and started to pull his gun. Amy never let him get there. She went low, supporting herself on one arm, pivoted, and hit the man with a whip kick, lifting his feet from under him. He crashed back on the pavement. Before he could begin to rise, Amy finished him off with two hard elbow strikes to the jaw.
    Then she was up and running hard

    after Isabel. The woman was not going to get away this time. She was probably the only leverage they would ever have over Vesper One. Amy flew down the alley.
    There was no way the older woman could outrun her. Amy could sprint like a gazelle. She was thinking, too, that despite what Ted’s Morse code had implied and what they had learned previously, Isabel might very well be Vesper One. If she was, they could use her to turn the tide and wreck the Vespers’ plans to destroy the world. At the very least they could find out why Isabel was so interested in the
    compass.
    Amy started to slow down as the alley   grew   narrower,   darker,   and definitely more sinister. It was like day had turned into night here. She stopped

    when she rounded a corner and found that the alley was a dead end. She was staring up at a brick wall that was six stories high.
    But what had happened to Isabel? There was no door, window, or fireescape. Nothing.
    But, no, there was something.
    A big blue dumpster.
    Amy assumed her favorite martialarts fighting stance. She took a few stepsforward. She was confident that she couldkick Isabel’s butt, but Amy had to admitthat Isabel terrified her. After all, this wasthe woman who had burned Amy’s parentsup in a house and had very nearly killedher and Dan a slew of times. Even nowshe could feel the cold dread spiking upher spine. And her mouth was so dry it

    was like someone had stuffed it full of
    cotton balls.
    But now was not the time for hercourage to fail. She had to keep her witsabout her. Amy knew she would have tobe wary of poisons, a staple of the Lucianbranch. Isabel might have a