In the backseat, Sam whistles. ‘I can’t believe they live out here. Like rich people.’

‘No kidding,’ I reply, my hands sweating on the steering wheel. I was thinking the same thing as Sam but don’t really feel like talking about it, worried that I won’t be able to keep the jealousy out of my voice. I’ve spent my entire life on the run, dreaming about living in places like this – stable, quiet places. And here are the Mogs, carving out a normal life for their trueborn upper class, living the high life on a planet they’re only looking to exploit and destroy.

‘The grass is always greener,’ Malcolm says.

‘They do not appreciate it, if that’s any consolation,’ Adam says quietly, the first words he’s spoken since we started on these last few miles to Ashwood Estates, his former home. ‘They are taught not to enjoy something unless they can possess it.’

‘What’s that mean, exactly?’ Sam asks. ‘Like, if a Mogadorian went to the park …?’

‘ “One takes no satisfaction from that which one cannot hold,” ’ Adam recites, suppressing a sneer when he finishes the quotation. ‘That is from Setrákus Ra’s Great Book. A Mogadorian wouldn’t care about your park, Sam, not unless the trees were his to chop down.’

‘Sounds like a great book,’ I say dryly.

I glance over at Adam, next to me in the passenger seat. He’s staring out the window, a distant look on his face. I wonder if this is strange for him – it’s basically a homecoming, even though he’s not actually from Earth. Adam turns his head, notices me looking at him and seems almost embarrassed. His expression quickly changes to one I’m familiar with – cold Mogadorian composure.

‘Pull over here,’ he instructs. ‘It’s only a mile farther on.’

I pull the van over to the side of the road and kill the engine. Without the noise from the van, the constant chirping from behind me seems even louder.

‘Jeez, guys, calm down,’ Sam says to the box of excited Chimærae sitting on the bench between him and Malcolm.

I turn around to look down at the Chimærae, all of them in bird form. Regal, whose resting form is a stately hawk, perches next to a trio of more common birds – a pigeon, a dove and a robin. Then there’s a sleek gray falcon that must be Dust and an overweight owl that has to be Stanley. All of them have lightweight leather collars strapped gently around their necks.

This is step one of our plan.

‘Is everything working?’ I ask Sam, who looks up from the laptop resting on his legs and grins at me.

‘Check it out,’ Sam says proudly, turning the laptop to face me. Using the Chimærae in this way was his idea.

Tiled on the laptop screen are half a dozen grainy video feeds, each of them showing my face from a slightly different angle. The cameras are working.

On our way from Baltimore to Washington we stopped at a dark little storefront called SpyGuys that specializes in cameras and home-security gear. The clerk didn’t ask Malcolm why he needed to purchase more than a dozen of their smallest wireless cameras; he seemed grateful for the business and even showed us how to install the necessary software on one of our laptops. After that, we picked up the collars at a pet store. The others carefully attached the cameras to them while I drove south towards Washington.

The Mogadorians have spent so much effort running surveillance on us, stalking us. Now we’re going to turn the tables.

‘Spread out around Ashwood Estates,’ I tell the Chimærae, punctuating my command with a mental picture of the satellite photos of Ashwood that I’ve been studying since yesterday and sending that on to the flock telepathically. ‘Try to cover every angle. Focus especially on where the Mogadorians are.’

The Chimærae respond with enthusiastic cawing and a fluttering of wings.

I nod to Sam and he throws open the van’s side door. What follows is a wild flurry of activity, our half dozen shape-shifting spy birds taking off all at once, a funnel of squawking and flapping wings as they fly out of the van. As serious as our situation is, there’s something awesome about the sight; Sam is grinning and even Adam allows himself a small smile.

‘This is going to work,’ Malcolm says, patting Sam on the back. Sam’s smile increases just a little bit more.

The view on the laptop screen is disorienting, the Chimærae all swooping and gliding in different directions. The first to settle into some trees position themselves right above the wrought-iron gates of Ashwood Estates. A gate is built into a brick wall there; the wall stretches for a few yards and then, presumably once it’s no longer visible from the road, turns into a more sinister-looking barbed-wire fence.

‘Guards,’ I say, pointing out the trio of Mogadorians, two of them sitting in the gatehouse, one of them pacing in front of the gate itself.

‘That’s it?’ Sam asks. ‘Only three of them? That’s nothing.’

‘They do not expect a frontal attack. Or any attack, really,’ Adam explains. ‘Their purpose is mainly to scare off any drivers who might make a wrong turn.’

As the remaining Chimærae settle on to rooftops and tree branches, the video feeds snapping into focus, I start to get a clearer idea of Ashwood Estates’ layout. Beyond the front gate is a short but winding entrance road with very little cover. That road leads to what is essentially a very large cul-de-sac, about twenty well-appointed houses arranged around a central recreation area. Apparently, the Mogadorians have picnic tables, basketball hoops and a pool. All in all, it’s an idyllic swath of suburbia, except there’s no one around.