by Stuart Gibbs
“It’s an old espionage ploy,” Erica explained. “You don’t schedule only one meeting with your target; you schedule several over a few days. The first time you come in, the Secret Service is really on guard around you, because they don’t know you or trust you. So they go over you with a fine-tooth comb, scrutinizing everything you’re carrying, everything you’re wearing, and so on.”
“Right,” I said, recalling how aggressively the Secret Service had gone through my coat the day before.
“But then you come back again and again. By the second time, the Secret Service isn’t quite as concerned about you, and by the third or fourth, it’s getting routine, so they drop their guard around you. . . .”
“And that’s when you can sneak in a weapon?”
“Exactly. You convince someone that you’re not dangerous—and then you hit them.” Erica stepped onto the solid ground at the end of the balance beam.
I still had a few feet to go.
Behind me, Zoe was also edging her way along, muttering sarcastically the whole time. “Balance beams. That makes sense. I’m sure our guys in the field confront greased balance beams every day.”
Erica checked her watch impatiently, as though I were going slowly for no good reason.
“There’s one big problem with Gorsky,” I said. “Why would he do this? You said he’s a billionaire. Going after the president inside the White House is practically a suicide mission. What could SPYDER possibly offer him to get him to do that?”
“Maybe he doesn’t care about the money,” Erica replied. “Maybe he’s willing to do whatever SPYDER wants. Or maybe they can make him do whatever they want. He could be a sleeper agent.”
“You mean, someone who doesn’t even know he’s working for SPYDER until they activate him somehow?”
“That’s right.”
“Those really exist?”
“Yes. Are you ever going to get off that balance beam, or should I have your meals delivered there today?”
“I’m almost done.” I finally sidled off the end of the beam. “What about those other two people I sent you pictures of? Who were they?”
“Only aides to the French ambassador. They’re nobodies.”
“So? SPYDER likes nobodies. They don’t draw any attention. I’ll bet those guys are in and out of the White House with the ambassador all the time. Don’t you think SPYDER would rather pick them than some sketchy billionaire arms dealer?”
“It’s possible.” Erica set off on the course again, and I followed her. A narrow trail plunged into a thick copse of trees. “But I think there’s something significant to the fact that SPYDER’s plotting a hit on the president exactly when Gorsky shows up.”
“It could be coincidence.”
“There’s no such thing as coincidence.”
“Speaking of which, I happened to notice you in front of the White House yesterday.”
Erica gave me a sidelong glance as we darted through a maze of undergrowth. “You didn’t ‘happen’ to notice me. I wanted you to notice me.”
That explained why she’d been right out in the open. “Why?”
“So you’d know I was keeping an eye on you. In case you ended up in danger.”
I was quite sure that wasn’t the whole story. Knowing Erica, she probably thought I couldn’t handle the mission on my own. Even though I wasn’t sure I could handle the mission on my own, I still felt insulted, and this combined with my annoyance at having to run through a dangerous obstacle course with frozen mud in my underwear. Before thinking better of it, I said sharply, “You mean, you were keeping an eye on me in case I screwed things up.”
“No. I was there to protect you.”
“I was inside the most secure building in the United States! I had the entire Secret Service there to protect me.”
“The job of the Secret Service is to protect the president, not you. If anything goes wrong on this mission—and when SPYDER’s around, things always go wrong—the Service won’t give you a second thought. Heck, they’d throw you on top of a bomb like a human blast shield if they thought it would save the president.”
I clammed up, realizing Erica was probably right—as usual. Although I still wasn’t completely convinced she believed I could handle the job. “Does Cyrus know you were down there?”
“No. And you’d better not tell him I was.”
“Why not?”
Before Erica could respond, we exited the copse of trees to find the final obstacle on the course. It was a doozy. Yet another balance beam stretched over a watery pit, only this time Coach Macauley had rigged six enormous logs to pendulum back and forth across our path. Not one student had made it to the other side safely. As we watched, my friends Jawa O’Shea and Chip Schacter, both among the better athletes at school, got clobbered by logs simultaneously and went flying into the water.
Even Erica seemed daunted by this. She actually appeared to forget about my question so she could focus on navigating the obstacle. Or maybe she was simply using the obstacle as an excuse to not answer me. Whatever the case, she cautiously headed out onto the beam, ducking around the first swinging log.
Zoe emerged from the woods behind me and gasped in dismay. “Okay, this is completely ridiculous! There is no possible scenario where we are ever going to have to face giant pendulums! What’s Macauley think, someday we’ll to have to fight the enemy inside an enormous cuckoo clock?”
Below us, Jawa and Chip scrambled out of the pit, shivering from the glacial water, then staggered across the finish line and raced for the locker room, where they could towel off and change out of their soaking tracksuits.
I summoned my courage and set off after Erica.
The obstacle was even more terrifying than I’d expected. The logs were the size of tree trunks and whizzed past with surprising speed. There was barely any room—or time—to rest on the beam between them. I dodged the first with an inch to spare, then slipped past the second with even less leeway.
Ahead of me, Erica was being careful but still exuding incredible calm, as though she were merely avoiding feather pillows, rather than hurtling tree trunks. She strolled casually past one pendulum, paused briefly, then ambled past the next and reached the end of the obstacle course.
“Nicely done, Hale!” Coach yelled.
There were no other students at the finish line. Erica was the only one who’d made it through the entire course unscathed.
Erica looked back at me. There seemed to be a challenge in her gaze, as though she didn’t believe I could make it through the final obstacle on my own. The same way she didn’t believe that I could handle my mission without her. I steeled myself, determined to prove her wrong on both counts. I watched the pendulums carefully, using my gift for mathematics to assess the exact speed each was moving and deduce the timing I’d need to get past them. Calculating quickly, I realized that if I waited six seconds and then ran full out, I’d be able to avoid the remaining four pendulums without even having to stop.
I counted the six seconds, then bolted down the beam. The first pendulum whooshed right behind my back as the second swung out of my way. I squeaked past the third, then ran for the finish line.
And tripped over my shoelace.
My calculations had been perfect, but they didn’t mean squat if I couldn’t stay on my feet. I stumbled, nearly pitched off the beam, struggled mightily to regain my balance—and found myself directly in the path of the final pendulum as it raced toward me. It nailed me dead-on, sending me pinwheeling off the beam and into the icy water.
I emerged stunned, sputtering, and chilled, but surprisingly all right.
At which point, Zoe—who had also been clobbered by a pendulum—fell right on my head.
Zoe wasn’t that big, but she came in fast, driving me so far down in the water that I hit the squelchy, muddy bottom of the pit.
We both resurfaced, gasping for air, and floundered to the edge of the pit. As I clambered up the side, someone reached out to help me u
p.
Mike Brezinski. He, too, was at the end of the obstacle course, only unlike Erica, he was completely clean, unsullied by even a drop of mud.
“How . . . ?” I gasped. “How’d you get here?”
“I ran,” Mike replied, helping me out over the edge.
“Through the course?” I asked.
“Of course not!” Mike laughed. “I went around it. Why on earth would I go through the course? It’s dangerous.”
“But . . . ,” Zoe said, as startled as I was, “that’s what our mission was.”
“No,” Mike corrected. “Our mission was to get to the end of the course. No one said how we had to get here.”
“That’s not true!” Coach Macauley stormed over, looking extremely peeved at Mike. “This is my class, and I gave everyone a direct order to do this obstacle course.”
“Well, those orders were questionable,” Mike informed him. “If this were a real mission and our lead agent told us to take an incredibly dangerous route to a destination when there was a perfectly safe alternative, that agent would probably get booted out of the Agency for recklessly endangering our lives. Following orders doesn’t do us any good if they’re going to get us all killed. I realized there was another way to achieve the objective without putting myself in harm’s way, took the initiative to act on it, and successfully completed the mission.”
“Yes, but . . . ,” Coach began, but then seemed unsure how to argue his point any more. “You can’t . . . I mean . . . The whole point of this class is to get some exercise!”
“Oh, I did,” Mike said. “I had to run at a good pace to circle all the way around the course. I got my heart rate up and my endorphins flowing. Nice work.”
“Er . . . thank you,” Coach said, and then, not knowing what else to do, he wandered back to the obstacle course to yell at some other students who’d actually followed his orders and been knocked off the balance beam.
“Interesting thought process,” Erica said, and gave Mike one of her rare smiles.
I was instantly overcome with jealousy again. On Operation Snow Bunny, Erica had definitely been intrigued by Mike, and now it appeared to be developing into something more serious. I had just done everything I could to impress her and ended up looking like a nincompoop, while Mike had simply broken the rules and won another compliment and a smile. It didn’t seem fair. I found myself shaking violently, although I wasn’t sure if it was anger or hypothermia kicking in: I was soaked to the bone and it was below zero outside.
“Uh, Ben,” Zoe said. “You’re turning blue.”
Apparently, it was anger and hypothermia.
“You’d better go dry off,” Mike told me. “You too, Zoe.”
Zoe raced for the locker room before her fingers and toes froze off. I probably should have done the same thing, but I didn’t want to leave Mike and Erica alone together. Instead, I turned to Erica and said, “You never answered my question.”
“What question?” she asked, even though I was quite sure she knew exactly what I was talking about.
“The one I asked you right before the final obstacle.”
Erica weighed her options for a moment, then grabbed me by the arm and marched me toward the locker room. The moment we were out of Mike’s earshot, she lowered her voice and said, “I don’t want you to tell Cyrus I was at the White House because Cyrus doesn’t want me on this mission.”
“Why not?” I said, my teeth beginning to chatter. “He thinks you’re a way better spy than I am. He could have just as easily sent you in instead of me. He could have arranged a playdate between you and Jemma Stern. . . .”
“He thinks it’s too dangerous,” Erica said coldly, like she was offended.
“Too dangerous?” I repeated. “For you? Cyrus thinks you can handle anything.”
“Not this. Ben, Cyrus believes this mission is far more dangerous than he told you. He’s pretty sure you can handle it, but if you can’t . . . Well, you’re . . .” Erica turned away suddenly. “You’re expendable.”
Even though I was desperate to get into the warmth of the locker room, I stopped walking and stared at Erica. “You mean he thinks I could die?”
“Yes.” Erica seemed to realize how upset I was and made an attempt to comfort me. “Look, it’s not like he wants you to die. And if it happened, he wouldn’t be happy about it. . . .”
“Gee, that’s reassuring.”
“It’s the nature of the business. This mission is crucial to national security.”
“But not so crucial that Cyrus is willing to risk your life?”
“I’m his granddaughter,” Erica said bitterly. It was probably the first time I’d ever seen anyone angry about having their life not be in danger. “He’s always told me to never let emotions cloud my decisions, and now he’s doing it. I’m completely capable of handling this mission, but he’s refusing to activate me.”
“So you’re activating yourself? Without authorization?”
“I’m not sitting on the sidelines while you get all the glory. Now go inside and warm up, will you? You’re not going to be any use to this mission if you catch a cold.” With that, Erica shoved me through the doors into the locker room.
It was blessedly warm inside. In truth, it probably wasn’t really that warm at all—the heaters at spy school were barely functional—but it was still considerably warmer than it was outside. Plus, steam from the showers created a nice humid fog. Jawa and Chip were already cleaned up and happily swaddled in their school clothes.
I still felt chilled, however, and in a way that had nothing to do with the cold weather outside or my wet clothes.
The revelation of how dangerous the mission was had clarified things for me. What had seemed like the biggest flaw in Cyrus’s plan suddenly made sense. Cyrus had never suspected that I could actually move about the White House without SPYDER’s man inside noticing. In fact, he was probably counting on my being noticed. If SPYDER’s agents tried to get rid of me, then they’d reveal themselves.
I was being used as bait to flush out the enemy.
And bait was usually dead meat.
BOOMERANG
The White House
Washington, DC
February 11
1530 hours
“Oh, it’s you again,” said the Secret Service agent posted outside the EEOB.
I was back at the White House for my second “playdate.” Cyrus had even arranged for me to get out of my Advanced Self-Defense homework so that I could resume my mission as early as possible. He’d met me at school, given me a quick debriefing, then put me on the Metro down to the White House.
There was a crowd at the security checkpoint again—a new gaggle of politicians, bureaucrats, and aides—but today the Secret Service agents recognized me. They all seemed quite surprised I had returned. “I thought Jason didn’t like you,” said the one manning the magnetometer. “Seeing as he got you thrown in the holding cell yesterday.”
“That was just a prank that got out of hand,” I explained. “He didn’t realize you guys were going to lock me up. He felt really bad about it, so he invited me back today.”
That was the cover story. The truth was that President Stern had been livid to hear what Jason had done. (After all, it had derailed the mission designed to locate his potential assassin.) So Jason had been told that if he didn’t play nice with me, his spring break in Florida would be canceled in favor of digging latrines in Haiti as part of a Stern reelection publicity campaign. As further punishment, Jason was no longer allowed to hang out in his room playing video games until I arrived. Instead, he had been ordered to greet me personally at the EEOB—with Kimmy Dimsdale making sure it happened—which meant I was getting priority service. All the politicians, bureaucrats, and aides had to let me pass through security first, as the Secret Service didn’t want to keep a member of the first family waiting too long.
I was quickly checked off the official list, issued my White House ID card, and hustled through the magnetom
eter. However, the dogs didn’t understand protocol. Once again, they went nuts when they smelled me, barking and snarling like mad. The canine agents, Nasser and Fry, reacted with annoyance.
“Why are you wearing that stupid jacket again?” Nasser asked me angrily. “You know the dogs don’t like it.”
“It’s the only warm jacket I have,” I said truthfully. “And I washed it last night, I swear.” After I’d returned to campus, I’d used one of the two balky washing machines in the dorm to clean the jacket, and even combed through the pockets for any rogue pieces of beef jerky. The best I could figure was multiple trips to my father’s meat locker over the years had ingrained the smell of meat in it far more than any human could detect.
“Yeah, right,” Fry said skeptically. “My sons don’t even know what a washing machine is. They’ve worn the same clothes so many times in a row, the clothes could probably walk around on their own by now.”
The dogs were still snarling at me, teeth bared, saliva dripping ominously from their lips, signaling that they’d happily maul me if given the chance. “Can you get them to back down?” I asked nervously.
“If you don’t like the attention, maybe you should’ve gotten a new jacket,” Nasser replied. He seemed to find my fear amusing.
He probably would have happily kept me there a lot longer if one of the senators behind me in the security line hadn’t spoken up. “Can you move things along, please?” she asked. “Some of us have actual governing to do here!”
“Sure you do,” Fry mumbled sarcastically. But he jerked a thumb toward the EEOB and said, “Move it, kid.” As though I had been the one stalling.
I hurried toward the building.
“Next time you visit, wear something else!” Nasser yelled after me.
Kimmy and Jason were waiting on some benches right inside the doors, where it was still warm. Jason was slumped over an iPad, playing another video game. Kimmy leapt to her feet with a big smile, while Jason made a point of ignoring me.
“Hey there, Ben!” Kimmy said warmly. “It’s good to see you! Jason was really happy to hear you were willing to come over again after how awfully he treated you yesterday, weren’t you, Jason?”
