Crossing the Line

by Meghan Rogers

  I glanced back at the real-life Agent Harper at the front of the room. His back was to us, his hands balled into tight fists pressing into the top of the wooden desk. If it were anyone else I would have felt sorry for him.

  On the screen, Agent Harper took the first swing at Travis. He threw three hard punches to his gut, which made Travis double over into a defensive position. But he recovered quickly and used his hunched angle to land a punch in Harper’s throat. It stunned him long enough for Travis to kick Harper’s legs out from under him. He slammed into the mat.

  Agent Harper tried to push himself up, but Travis stuck out his arm and knocked him down again. Then Travis jumped on top of him and threw punch after punch at Harper’s skull. He kept hitting him long after he should have. It was beyond defeat. It was beyond the point of embarrassment. The clip ended with Travis being dragged off Agent Harper by Cody and another agent.

  When the screen went black again, the room was dead silent. Agent Harper stood frozen with his back to us, but he was so angry I could see his shoulders shaking from the back of the room. No one dared to make a sound.

  “Samuel Lewis,” Agent Harper roared. “Get. Out. Of my room.”

  Sam shot me a victorious smile, grabbed his bag, and sauntered out of the classroom. He didn’t even act sorry.

  And I kind of loved him for it.

  Chapter Nineteen

  CODED

  Simmonds asked to see me before classes the next day. He was standing in the corner of his office when I got there, pulling a page out of the printer.

  “We got into the next file on the drive,” he said, handing the paper to me. It was similar to the last one. A single line of Korean, though this one was longer.

  “It’s another cipher.” I didn’t need to see it for more than a moment.

  “The fact that the Chinese didn’t decrypt it probably means they couldn’t,” Simmonds said. “And if it is more protected than the other one, there’s a very good chance it’s going to be a more sophisticated cipher.”

  I flicked my eyes up to him. I hadn’t considered that. “If it is, I’m not sure I can crack it,” I said. “The last one was a simple cipher. The kind KATO would have sent if they had to get a message to someone like me while we were out in the field. I know the more complex ones are layered, but they never taught them to agents at my level.”

  “Jocelyn.” His voice was pointed and strong, demanding my full attention. “We both know you were more rebellious than they ever realized. It’s the reason you got this far. You know more about their facility and their operations than they ever intended. I have no doubt you know something that will help.”

  I nodded. I still wasn’t convinced I could pull this off, but he was right—I did know more than I was supposed to. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  • • •

  My mind was running through every KATO meeting I had overheard, trying to piece together a technique. I remembered something from about a year ago about moving through multiple codes. It didn’t mean too much to me at the time, but now I was pretty sure that was exactly what I needed. And it would make sense that for highly sensitive information, agents would have to put the phrase though one cipher key, then put that result through another and another until the phrase had been through enough keys to crack the ultimate code.

  I was tempted to skip my classes and get started, but I didn’t want to draw any more attention to the situation than I had to. I went straight to Agent Lee’s room. I was early, but it meant I would have the room to myself for a little bit to play with the code.

  The class had filled in while I was working, and Agent Lee had started teaching, but I was too consumed by the cipher to pay attention.

  “I think I might be a bad influence,” Sam said, flopping into his seat next to me, staring pointedly at my paper.

  I flipped the page over and stuffed it in the back of my notebook. “How much trouble are you in?” I asked, not giving him a chance to question what I was up to.

  “What, for the Harper thing?” He shrugged. “Not too much.”

  I arched my eyebrow. “How much is ‘not too much’?”

  “I’m suspended from the tech lab for a week. It would have been worse if Agent Harper had the guts to tell Lee what the video was.” Agent Lee was in charge of the day-to-day operations of the school, which included disciplinary actions.

  “How did you even get a hold of that video?” I asked.

  Sam smirked, arching his lip enough to show a few of his teeth. “I have my ways.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Okay, fine. How did you know to use it?”

  Sam shrugged. “Everyone knows about the history between Travis, Harper, and Cody. It’s passed down from one spy class to the next. And that fight was legendary. Everyone said that Agent Harper had a black eye and a bruised jaw for the rest of the year. He even had to go to graduation that way. He spent the rest of Travis’s high school career trying to take him out in any way he could, but Travis always outsmarted him. Not that it was really that hard to do.”

  “Have you ever done anything like that before?” I asked.

  “What, you mean like the PowerPoint hack?”

  I nodded.

  “Nope,” Sam said, smiling. “It worked out better than I ever could have imagined.”

  Lee cleared her throat at us, and Sam pulled out his phone. We both got quiet for a moment.

  Once Lee looked away I turned back to Sam. “You know I don’t need you to stand up for me.”

  He snorted. “Trust me, it wasn’t only for you. He’s been an asshole to all of us at one point or another. He deserved it.”

  “How do you know I don’t deserve it?” I asked.

  Sam watched me for a moment, then shrugged. “I have a feeling.”

  I smiled at him, and was about to turn away when I realized something. With everything KATO was up to, I didn’t have the time to look into my mom like I wanted to. But I was staring at the person who had proven to be the best at digging up details other people didn’t want found. My smile widened. “Does that mean you would help me out with something?”

  His eyebrows knitted together. “What did you have in mind?”

  I brought him up to speed about my parents and where I was in the search—which wasn’t very far. His face got more and more serious as I went on. “You think Simmonds is keeping something from you?”

  I shrugged. “I think he’s told me all he’s allowed to, but there’s a major piece missing. My mom did more here than just fieldwork. She was involved in some level of development.”

  “And you think that’s connected to how she died?”

  I nodded.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll look into things.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “And thanks for the video. Even if I didn’t need it.”

  He flashed his mischievous smile. “Oh, that was my pleasure. And let me know if you ever want to fill me in on the rest of your story.” He tapped his pen on the back of the cipher. “It’ll be nice to see how right my gut is.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Chapter Twenty

  SAME PAGE

  My stitches kept me out of the afternoon workout that day, so instead I went back to my room after classes to work more on the cipher. I had been at it for hours, randomly trying different cipher keys, before a memory triggered. At the same meeting where I had first learned about the cipher combinations, three names were mentioned—names that I believed were code for various combinations. I wrote down the names along the bottom of the page.

  I stared at them, and then felt the spark of an idea. I did a quick count of the letters in each name. Each was six letters long—so it would make sense if this meant to put the phrase through six different cipher keys. Each individual cipher key that KATO used had a code name. They had to have made up the comb
ination name with the first letter of each key’s name. I worked the code through each of the combinations, and after the third one, the message made sense—or at the very least, it was something I could read.

  The snake is hidden in the frozen forest. The job is nearly complete.

  I studied the message, but I only understood half of it. The frozen forest is the code KATO commonly used for Russia. So, whatever the snake is, they’re keeping it somewhere in Russia. I pulled at my hair in frustration. I needed to figure out what the snake could be, or this whole message was meaningless.

  A knock at the door pulled me out of my thoughts. The last time anybody knocked it was because Travis was in trouble. This time, he was the one standing on the other side.

  “Hi,” he said. He had a plastic bag in his hand and looked a little breathless. The tension in his face told me something was off.

  I squeezed the doorknob. “Is everything okay?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, sounding stressed about something. He glanced around my room. “Your room’s different.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Nikki helped me.”

  He nodded, a little impressed. “It looks good. Better than sleeping on the floor.” He gave me a pointed look.

  “I’m getting used to it,” I said with a small smile. “What’s going on?”

  He rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. “Can I come in? I need your help with something.” He held the bag up. “I brought dinner.”

  I gave him a curious look, but stepped aside to let him pass. He gave me a nod of thanks and crossed the threshold. I moved my books off the table so Travis could set the food down, then sat down across from him. Travis busied himself with unpacking the bag, but the tension radiated off him.

  “I didn’t know what you liked,” he said, putting a Styrofoam container in front of me. “But I figured I couldn’t go wrong with some American classics.” He opened the box to reveal a big juicy cheeseburger. My mouth watered from the smell alone.

  “Burgers used to be my favorite,” I said. “I can’t even remember the last time I had one.” I knew it was before I was taken, but I couldn’t place the exact moment. And I was sure I didn’t appreciate it like I should have.

  Travis smiled and opened the other three boxes. One held his cheeseburger, and another had chicken fingers. “Just in case cheeseburgers weren’t your thing,” he said. “We can share them.” But it was the fourth box I couldn’t take my eyes off.

  “Are those fries covered in cheese?” I asked. I glanced away just long enough to see him nod. “I’ve never had those before.”

  Travis looked astonished. “How is that possible?”

  I shrugged. “I spent ten years in North Korea with missions focused mainly in Eastern Europe and Asia.”

  “But you were a kid in America before that, right?” He couldn’t seem to wrap his mind around the idea.

  “And at no point during that time did anyone put cheese-covered fries in front of me,” I said.

  He shook his head, still in a slight state of disbelief. “Well, here’s your chance to fix that.” He took a seat and pushed the container of fries closer to me. “They’re called cheesy fries, and they’ll change your life.”

  He was right. It was easily one of the most satisfying experiences I’d ever had.

  “What did you want to talk about?” I asked, finally taking a bite of the cheeseburger. It was even better than I remembered.

  He shook his head. “We’ll get to that soon enough. For now, just worry about eating.”

  I savored another taste, and it was nothing short of heavenly. “Where did all this come from?”

  “A diner near campus,” he said, finally digging into his own. “It was one of the first places I found when I started at the academy.”

  “How do you even end up in a school like this?” I knew how KATO got its agents, but the IDA undoubtedly had a very different approach.

  “I got recruited like everyone else,” he said, grabbing a chicken finger. “The IDA has access to every major educational testing company in the country. They find the scores and skill sets they want and then send a recruitment agent to judge how likely the student would be to come to the IDA if offered the chance. Parents are told their child is being given the opportunity to spend high school at an elite boarding school. Most can’t say yes fast enough. The students aren’t told the truth until they agree to come, but can change their mind if it’s a deal breaker.”

  “What happens if you go through the academy and you don’t want to be an agent anymore?” I asked. “You’re stuck because of a choice you made when you were a kid?”

  He shook his head. “Absolutely not. You can opt out at any point and go back to your old school. I’m sure you’d have to sign a bunch of confidentiality agreements, but you’re never stuck here. The IDA doesn’t want agents who don’t want to be here.” He rubbed his jaw, thinking. “Though, most people end up sticking it out, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the recruitment tests considered that too.” He looked down at my takeout box and saw my burger was gone. He nudged the fries closer to me. “Don’t hold back on my account.”

  I didn’t need any more convincing. And when I was done, I had eaten more food than my stomach could hold. I leaned into the back of my chair, shifting to find a position that would make me feel less full.

  “You okay there?” Travis asked, laughing.

  “I didn’t know it was possible to be this stuffed.” I shifted again. Travis surveyed me hesitantly, and I could see the question in his eyes. “Whatever it is,” I said, “just ask.”

  He held back for a moment, then squinted, the uncertainty more apparent than ever. “Did they starve you?” His face was curious but sympathetic, and his voice was soft.

  I shook my head. “No, they didn’t starve me. They fed me enough to keep me alive and strong, but none of it tasted like anything. I forgot food even had taste.” I lapsed deep into thought remembering everything. All ten years. The scars and burns and murders and missions played in my head, and I almost forgot his eyes were on me.

  “You came here for a reason,” I said. “And I know it has nothing to do with introducing me to cheesy fries.”

  He sobered even more. “I’m going to tell you something, and I need you to listen before you say anything, okay?”

  I sat up straighter. He was just cryptic enough to worry me. “Sure.”

  He took a deep breath, preparing himself, then he leaned forward. He kept his voice low even though we were alone. “About a year ago, there was a scientist in England, Dr. Craig Foster, who specialized in a certain kind of nuclear alternative chemistry. I don’t know the exact science behind it, but the point is, he was one of a handful of people who could revolutionize warfare. His device would make it possible to stage an attack that would take out a small target, but release a gas that would kill anyone who was in a given radius. This means it would be feasible to conquer a country without having to completely rebuild.”

  I nodded, following him. “Because targeting leaders and military officials would be easier than ever.”

  “Right,” he said. “At least, that was Foster’s theory. As far as I know, he hadn’t started building or testing anything yet. He kept his research private—his government didn’t even know all the details. The only reason he was conducting it at all was in case there was a threat.”

  I grimaced. Some of the most destructive plans started out that way.

  Travis continued. “KATO found out about him.” My esophagus felt like it got a little smaller. “They wanted him to use his research and threatened his two daughters to get him on board. He was ready to do whatever they wanted when the IDA got wind of it and stepped in.”

  “I remember this,” I said, struggling to find my voice.

  His eyes sharpened. “Were you involved?”

  “I didn’t get the
chance.” I couldn’t look him in the eye. I remembered being disappointed. It would have been one of my few assignments west of Russia. “I was supposed to kidnap him if he resisted, but I wasn’t needed.”

  Travis held my gaze for a moment before pushing on. “We sent three teams into the field—one to track KATO, one to watch Foster, and one to guard his daughters.”

  “Which team were you on?” I asked.

  “The daughters’.” He shifted in his seat. “They were the key to all of this. Foster wouldn’t cave as long as we could protect them.”

  “But he must have.”

  His eyes darkened. “Let me finish.” I backed away from him a little and nodded. He took another deep breath before continuing. “We had a team securing the safe house we were keeping them in. Abby, the older one, was sixteen. She put on a brave face to keep her sister, Eliza, calm, but I could tell she was scared.” A shadow of a smile crossed his lips. “I was pretty sure Eliza knew too. She was only two years younger. But she never said anything.” He spaced out for a minute, completely lost in thought.

  “Travis.” It was barely more than a whisper but it jarred him back.

  “Sorry,” he said. “They were asleep one night, and I was their primary guard. We got ambushed. But it wasn’t by KATO. It was the Chinese. We figured they had to want Foster for the same reason. We hadn’t heard any reports about China looking to build up their chemical weapons program but they couldn’t have been there for anything else.”

  He closed his eyes tight for a moment and swallowed. “I knew if they managed to get into the building, it was because they either killed or disabled the other agents. There was no way I’d be able to take all of them, and the only thing I could think of was the damage that would happen if anyone got a hold of those girls. So I tried to keep that from happening.”

  “What did you do?” I asked, finding my voice.

  The guilt and hurt was building in his eyes. He looked down at a napkin on the table, flipping the edge with his thumb. He was emotionally defenseless tonight and he knew it. “The only thing that made sense to me at the time was that if they weren’t alive to kidnap, then Dr. Foster wouldn’t do what KATO wanted.”