In this second installment in the New York Times bestselling series from Edgar Award winner James Ponti, the young group of spies returns for another international adventure perfect for fans of Spy School and Mrs. Smith’s Spy School for Girls . After thwarting a notorious villain at an eco-summit in Paris, the City Spies are gearing up for their next mission. Operating out of a base in Scotland, this secret team of young agents working for the British Secret Intelligence Service’s MI6 division have honed their unique skills, such as sleight of hand, breaking and entering, observation, and explosives. All of these allow them to go places in the world of espionage where adults can’t. Fourteen-year-old Sydney is a surfer and a rebel from Bondi Beach, Australia. She’s also a field ops specialist for the City Spies. Sydney is excited to learn that she’ll be going undercover on the marine research vessel the Sylvia Earle . But things don’t go exactly as planned, and while Sydney does find herself in the spotlight, it’s not in the way she was hoping. Meanwhile, there’s been some new intel regarding a potential mole within the organization, offering the spies a lead that takes them to San Francisco, California. But as they investigate a spy who died at the Botanical Gardens, they discover that they are also being investigated. And soon, they’re caught up in an exciting adventure filled with rogue missions and double agents! This mission is hot! The City Spies are a go! James Ponti is the New York Times bestselling author of four middle grade book series: The Sherlock Society following a group of young detectives; 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. Chapter 1: The ‘Sylvia Earle’, North Sea 1. The Sylvia Earle , North Sea IT WAS JUST AFTER DAWN, so the black-clad hijackers were barely visible as they moved with military precision across the deck of the marine research vessel Sylvia Earle . There were seven of them, and they wore special nonslip tactical shoes that gripped the damp metal surface, and balaclava ski masks that concealed their identities and shielded them from the cold ocean air. Virtually all of the ship’s passengers and crew were still asleep, so the intruders faced no resistance as they stormed the bridge and caught the duty officer by surprise. No alarm was sounded. No desperate call for help was transmitted over the radio. That meant the best hope to save the Sylvia Earle was one deck below, only half awake and yawning as she groggily looked for her best friend. There was no precision in her movements, and her pajamas were comfortable, not tactical: neon blue sweatpants, a Ravenclaw T-shirt, and wool socks decorated with cartoon narwhals. According to the ship’s manifest, her name was Christina Diaz, but that was just a cover identity created by the British Secret Intelligence Service. Among her fellow MI6 agents, she was Brooklyn. She was also twelve years old. Brooklyn had been awakened not by the arrival of the hijackers, but rather the endless snoring of two of her cabinmates. She turned on a small reading light above her bed to see if the same fate had befallen her friend Sydney, only to find Sydney’s bunk empty. At first, she assumed her fellow spy was down the hall using the restroom, or the “head” as they called it on the ship. But when Sydney didn’t return after a while and the snoring got louder, Brooklyn decided to look for her. She silently lowered herself from the upper bunk and slipped out the door into the passageway. She was on her way to the galley to see if Sydney was raiding the freezer for ice cream when a man’s voice came over the loudspeaker. That was the first sign of trouble. There weren’t supposed to be any men on the Sylvia Earle . The ship was carrying sixteen students, seven crew members, three scientists, and a documentary filmmaker on a weeklong trip meant to inspire girls to pursue careers in the sciences. Everyone on board was female… until now. Someone had crashed the party. “Attention! Attention!” He had a mild Scandinavian accent and spoke in a chilling monotone. “I am sorry to wake you, but we have taken control of the ship. Everybody must immediately come up to the main deck in a calm, orderly manner. If you obey our instructions, nobody will get hur