by Stuart Gibbs
“Exactly. You were right. Leo Shang didn’t go heli-skiing that day. He never got out of the helicopter. Instead, he used that chopper for something else. Some kind of reconnaissance, most likely.”
“Even though there was a pilot from Epic flying it?”
“Why not? Shang could have bribed the pilot to do what he wanted. Or maybe the pilot didn’t even know what was going on. He might have figured he’d lucked into an easy day, giving some rich guy a sightseeing tour instead of chasing skiers around.”
“So what do we do now?” I asked. “Tell your grandfather?”
“For starters.” Erica flipped the computer off and stuffed it into her pocket. “Plus, it looks like I’m gonna be flirting with you heavily tomorrow. There’s only two days left until Operation Golden Fist goes down. You need to get closer to Jessica Shang, and you need to do it fast.”
FLIRTATION
Northwoods Basin
Vail Mountain
December 29
1300 hours
“That’s what I want to see, Ben!” Woodchuck exclaimed enthusiastically. “Those are excellent turns!”
I slid to a textbook stop next to my fellow classmates, who had been waiting for me halfway down the run. They all cheered for me.
Jawa proudly fist-bumped me. “You’ve gotten ten times better since yesterday! How’d you do that?”
“I just practiced yesterday afternoon,” I replied, doing my best to sound humble. It was hard, though. Because I had finally found something athletic that I was actually good at.
Ever since I’d arrived at spy school, everyone else had constantly bested me at tests of skill and feats of physical prowess. Erica was capable of anything, from climbing a sheer rock face to beating up ninjas—often at the same time. Chip, Jawa, and Zoe were all impressive as well. Warren wasn’t, but he was so good at camouflaging himself that our instructors tended to overlook his other flaws. (They often overlooked him, period, because they couldn’t find him.) Meanwhile, I had been constantly humiliated: flattened by kung fu masters, winded from long runs, flunked off the artillery range for nearly wounding people. Sports had never been my thing.
But something had clicked with skiing. My ordeal coming down Simba the day before had pushed me to the next level. Vail had received more than two feet of snow overnight—and more was falling—and I had skied through it far better than any of the other beginner students. I had even managed to get down some advanced runs without wiping out.
Meanwhile, Erica was still struggling. She wasn’t bad, really. She simply wasn’t fantastic at it. But this was incredibly frustrating to her. Erica had the opposite issue with skiing that I did: It was the first physical activity she’d ever come across that she hadn’t mastered with ease. That morning, while I’d been getting cheers and kudos, she’d been getting sympathetic pats on the back and the occasional “Nice try.”
She hid all her frustration from Jessica Shang, though. Instead, for Jessica’s benefit, she remained in character, upbeat and harebrained, shrugging off each wipeout with a ditzy giggle.
She was also in full-on flirtation mode with me. Now, in front of the entire class, she came up beside me and blatantly fluttered her eyelashes. “You are soooo good at this!” she cooed. “Maybe you ought to be the one giving me lessons.”
Even though I knew Erica was acting, my face still flushed. I felt like it was a hundred degrees outside instead of snowing. “Sure. Maybe today after class.”
Over Erica’s shoulder, I caught a glimpse of Jessica frowning. I also got glimpses of everyone else in class, staring at Erica in shock. Seeing Erica flirt—even when they knew it was fake—was like seeing a flying cow. It simply didn’t seem possible.
“That’s very sweet,” Woodchuck teased, “but for right now, I’m still the instructor here. We’re going to all head down this run one at a time to the lift, and I want to see each of you make your parallel turns as well as Ben just did. Sasha, you first.”
“Okay. Here goes nothing!” Erica cried gamely. She pushed off with her poles and wobbled down the hill. She struggled through a few turns, making them without any of her normal grace, crying “Oopsie!” with each one.
The rest of us lined up to watch her. To my surprise, Jessica pulled up next to me. “Hey,” she said, nice and friendly, as though she hadn’t been giving me the cold shoulder for the past day and a half. “What is up with that girl? I thought she was all into your friend.”
“It didn’t work out,” I lied. “Mike met someone else.”
“Really?” Jessica seemed pleased that Erica had failed to land Mike. “So now she turns around and throws herself at you?”
“She’s not throwing herself at me. She only asked me for some help skiing.”
“Yeah, right.” Jessica laughed and shook her head. “She’s so sad.”
I turned to her, trying to hide my surprise. Mike had been right. Jessica wasn’t exactly fluttering her eyelashes at me the way Erica had done, but she was definitely being friendly again—and it all seemed to be in response to Erica’s interest in me.
Erica was now well down the run from us, so far we could barely hear her “oopsies” anymore.
“Okay, Warren,” Woodchuck announced. “Your turn. Rip it!”
“Check this out,” Warren told the rest of us proudly. He jammed his ski poles into the ground, intending to launch himself onto the slope. Instead, as he slid forward, he caught his ski tips on both poles. The skis stopped short, Warren’s boots popped out of his bindings, and he flopped forward into the snow.
Chip, Jawa, and Zoe all broke into laughter.
“Very impressive,” Chip teased. “Most people wait until they’ve actually skied a bit before wiping out. But you did it right out of the gate.”
Warren staggered to his feet, spluttering. He had a face full of fresh snow. Somehow, it had gotten into his goggles, blinding him. “It’s not funny,” he told Chip, although, since he couldn’t see, he said it to a tree instead.
“That’s right,” Woodchuck agreed, although it was obvious that he actually thought it was very funny. “Zoe, why don’t you head on down while I get Warren back on his skis?”
“Sure thing.” Zoe started down the slope. She was getting the hang of skiing herself and performed quite well.
Down at the bottom of the run, Erica snowplowed to a stop, then cheered for herself as though she’d just won the World Cup downhill. “I did it!” she yelled up to us. “No falls! Woo-hoo!”
Jessica sighed dismissively, then asked me, “You’re not really going to give that dingbat a lesson this afternoon, are you?”
“She’s not that dumb,” I said, acting like I was really into Erica—which wasn’t really acting at all. “She’s nice. And I don’t have anything else to do.”
“You could come by the hotel again,” Jessica said coyly. “I never did get to show you our suite.”
I turned to her, surprised. I didn’t like the games she was playing, but I faked enthusiasm anyhow. Like I’d forgotten all about Erica. “Sure!” I told her. “I’d love to!”
INFILTRATION
The Arabelle Hotel
Presidential Suite
Vail, Colorado
December 29
1600 hours
Jessica stayed close to me the rest of the day. Close enough that Erica and I didn’t have much time to discuss what I should do once I was in the Shangs’ suite. So, at the end of our lesson, in the bustle of storing our ski equipment, Erica deftly slipped what looked like a pack of gum into the pocket of my parka and jammed a radio transmitter in my ear. “I’ll be in touch,” she informed me, and then melted into the crowd.
Jessica took care of getting me into the suite. Dane Brammage and the other guards obviously didn’t want me there, but Jessica faced them all down in the lobby of the Arabelle. “I’m only taking Ben up to show him our place,” she said crossly. “That’s all. What’s the point of my father renting an entire hotel if I can’t bring guests into it?�
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Dane gave me a wary look, and then, to my surprise, spoke to Jessica in fluent Chinese. Obviously, it was done so I couldn’t understand him—and it would have served its purpose well had Erica not been able to overhear the entire conversation through my radio. Erica couldn’t translate everything to me as it happened—if she spoke to me, that overrode her ability to hear what the others were saying—so she told me, “Keep quiet so I can hear this,” and then eavesdropped as Jessica and Dane bickered back and forth. Through it all, Jessica grew angrier and angrier, until she finally stamped her foot and launched into a furious tirade, yelling at Dane for more than a minute. Even though I didn’t know what she was saying, it was still kind of scary. In fact, even Dane himself seemed frightened of her—and he was a professional criminal. “All right,” he conceded, speaking English once again—and looking a bit shaken. “You can go up. But only for a little while.”
He didn’t let us go up alone, though. And he frisked me first.
“For crying out loud,” Jessica snapped. “He’s a kid from my ski school, not an assassin.”
Dane kept patting me down anyhow. “It’s your father’s orders,” he told Jessica. “Anyone who comes into the suite gets searched.” Luckily, he was only looking for weapons and the pack of gum Erica had given me was small enough to escape his attention. Once he had confirmed I wasn’t packing heat, he crowded into the elevator with us and rode up to the top floor.
“Sorry about that,” Jessica told me, rolling her eyes. “My father can be way too overprotective sometimes.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Parents are the worst.” I didn’t really believe this, but I was doing anything I could to forge a connection.
“You’re lucky,” Jessica said. “You got to come out here without your family. I’ve got Daddy and all his apes tagging along with me.”
“Hey!” Dane said, sounding genuinely hurt. “I’m just doing my job.”
Jessica ignored him. “This is supposed to be a vacation and Daddy’s acting like it’s yet another business trip.”
The elevator reached the top floor and opened directly into the Presidential Suite. We stepped off into a beautiful entry hall lined with white marble.
“Maybe it is another business trip,” I said, as innocently as I could.
Jessica looked at me curiously. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I shrugged. “My dad never just goes on vacation. Instead, he drags us all along to these stupid conventions and works the whole time.”
Jessica frowned, like I’d struck a nerve. For a second, I was afraid she was angry at me, but then she started ranting about her father. “You’re probably right. My father never takes any time off either. He probably is here for some business thing. . . .”
While she talked, I quickly cased the suite. It took up the entire top floor of the building, and it was even more decadent than I’d expected. It had a wide-open floor plan with an enormous living room, a dining room with a table for twenty, and a gourmet kitchen. A hallway led off to my right, toward what appeared to be at least six bedrooms. It all seemed a bit excessive given that only two people were staying there. There were big windows with incredible views of the ski mountain, a wide wraparound balcony with a Jacuzzi that probably would have been great if it weren’t only fifteen degrees outside, two fireplaces—both with fires roaring in them—Tiffany chandeliers, and a grand piano. There were also two other guards posted there, one by the balcony door and one by the piano. Both wore suits and stood ramrod-straight, looking like they’d been at attention all day, even though no one but them had been in the suite.
Dane ushered us through the entry hall and into the living room. The other guards both glanced at me warily, obviously wondering what I was doing there. Dane subtly pointed to Jessica.
If Jessica noticed any of this, she didn’t let on. Instead, she was rambling on about her father. “Daddy promised me he wasn’t going to work on this trip,” she was saying, “but he’s doing it anyhow. He was on the phone doing business all last night. He didn’t even stop for dinner with me. I wonder if he’s really even been skiing during the day. For all I know, he’s been sneaking off to deals. . . .”
“Would you like anything to drink, Ben?” Dane asked. His tone was surprisingly kind, given how standoffish he’d been around me so far. I got the impression he was trying to divert us from talking about Leo Shang’s business.
It worked. At least where Jessica was concerned. “Hot chocolate?” she suggested, before I could answer.
“Sure,” I agreed. “If you have it.”
“We have anything we could possibly want,” Jessica told me. “We just have to call the restaurant and they’ll bring it up.”
“Then what’s the kitchen for?”
“People who like to cook, I guess.” Jessica picked up the room phone and dialed the restaurant. “Hey, this is Jessica. Can you send up two hot chocolates? Oh, and some graham crackers and chocolate and marshmallows too.” Jessica looked to me excitedly. “We can make s’mores in the fireplace!”
“Cool,” I said supportively, wondering what it was about the mountains that made people want to make s’mores.
“I hate to interrupt this awesome date you’re having,” Erica said, inside my ear, “but you need to can the small talk and get some work done. Ask if you can go to the bathroom.”
As usual with the earpiece, the conversation was one-way. I couldn’t argue to Erica that I was trying to get work done. I had to suck up the criticism, turn to Jessica, and ask, “Is there a bathroom here?”
Jessica laughed. “Only seven of them. There’s one in the hall.”
She pointed. So did Dane. He was standing right next to it.
“Thanks,” I said, and slipped inside.
The bathroom was more nicely decorated than my entire house. Every fixture was gold-plated. The toilet was fully automated. The lid rose automatically for me as I entered, which I found kind of disturbing.
“Sit down,” Erica told me. “Let them think you’re gonna be in there for a bit. We have a lot to discuss.”
I wasn’t exactly sure how to convey that I was going to be a while through the bathroom door, but I did my best. I dropped my pants to my ankles as loud as I could and sat down on the toilet with a loud sitting-on-the-toilet sort of sigh.
To my surprise, the toilet began to play music. It was probably supposed to be comforting, some sort of melody to soothe you while you pooped, but the whole idea of a musical toilet just weirded me out.
“Okay,” Erica said. “You don’t have much time in that suite. Here’s the basic gist of that showdown in the lobby: Dane didn’t want to let you up there, but Jessica told him that if he didn’t, she’d go outside the hotel and make a scene. It might seem like Dane gave in to her, but the whole goon squad definitely has their guard up. The moment you got in the elevator, the guys in the lobby called Leo Shang. I’m watching them right now, and from the way they’re behaving, I’ll bet Shang is on his way back—and he’s not going to be happy when he gets there. So . . . take out the gum I gave you.”
I did. The reason it had looked like a pack of gum was that it was a pack of gum. Or at least, it was the pack the gum came in. I opened it to find five small black objects. Each was a disc the size of an M&M.
“Those are bugs,” Erica explained. “There’s adhesive coating on them, so they’ll stick to anything. Each has a range of only about twenty feet, so you’ll need to spread them out through the suite. Place them as centrally as you can. They’ll cover more area that way. Understand?”
“Mmm-hmm,” I agreed, trying to make it sound like a toilet-related noise in case Dane was listening through the door.
“Good. And get Jessica back to talking about her father. Fast. Whatever you can find out is crucial. Once Leo catches you up there, he’s probably going to flip and block you from ever getting close to his daughter again. So stop sitting around and get to it.”
I wanted to point out that I was only s
itting in the first place because Erica had told me to. Instead, I kept quiet and hopped back off the toilet. It flushed automatically, the music stopped, and the lid closed again. I plucked the five bugs out of the gum pack and stuck them to my wrist inside the sleeve of my undershirt. Then I yanked up my ski pants, made a show of washing my hands—again, in case Dane was listening through the door—and exited the bathroom.
Jessica was now seated on a couch by one of the fireplaces. She had removed her parka and was leafing through a glossy magazine. “Hey,” she said. “You can take your jacket off if you want.”
“Thanks.” The heat seemed to be cranked up to the eighties in the room, and with two fires going, I was already starting to sweat under my ski clothes. Although it was very possible that I was sweating due to fear as well. It was incredibly nerve-racking to be in enemy territory with armed goons scrutinizing my every move. I shrugged off my jacket and looked for a place to hang it.
“Dane, can you take that?” Jessica asked.
Dane dutifully stepped forward and accepted my jacket, though it was clear he didn’t appreciate being made into a butler.
“Thanks,” I said again. Luckily, the sleeves of my undershirt were just long enough to keep the bugs hidden.
“So?” Jessica asked, waving around the suite. “What do you think?”
“It’s amazing,” I said. “Can I see the rest of it?”
“Sure!” Jessica hopped off the couch and led me back down the hall. Alarmed, Dane instantly moved after us. Jessica didn’t appear bothered that he was upset. If anything, she seemed pleased that she was rattling him.
There was a small table in the hallway by the elevator. It served no purpose except to hold an extremely large vase of flowers that had probably been flown in from halfway across the world at tremendous expense. As I passed it, I quickly stuck one of the bugs under the table, where it clung like a piece of gum on the base of a school desk. It was a move I’d practiced plenty of times in my Intro to Enemy Surveillance class, and I did it so fluidly, Dane didn’t even notice. Or at least, he didn’t appear to. I figured the bug would cover any conversation spoken around the elevator.
