Bridget Wilder #3

by Jonathan Bernstein

  “If my captors’ demands are not met within twenty-four hours, you will never see me again,” says Jamie in a trembling voice, her terrified eyes staring straight into the camera. “Please, Dad,” she implores. “I want to come home.”

  Pacific stands next to me, arms folded. Both of us stare at the multiple images of Jamie.

  The scared expression leaves Jamie’s face, and she suddenly bursts out laughing.

  “Was that okay?” She giggles. “That ‘pleasssee, Dad’ was kind of cheesy.”

  “It was great,” offscreen voices assure her.

  “Thanks, you guys.” She smiles, and then the screens go black.

  Pacific and I look at each other.

  “What?” he says.

  “Double what?” I add.

  The pudgy guy’s phone starts playing the Star Wars theme. Pacific and I both jump in fright.

  “I wasn’t scared,” he says quickly. “I was doing an impression of you.”

  There is no start to this kid’s charm.

  The ringtone wakes the pudgy guy. Pacific goes for his knotted towel.

  “Let me,” I say. I aim Red at him. The pudgy guy sees the marble headed straight for him. He struggles to get out of his seat. Too late. Red pops him in the forehead, sending him back to sleep again.

  I fish the phone out of the slumbering pudgy guy’s shirt pocket. As I do, a text appears on the screen.

  Footage needs to be finished now. Font finishing up in hospitality then heading to Georgetown U.

  I search Pudgy’s phone. Not only do I find a floorplan of the Font Foundation showing the hospitality suite on the fourth floor, but my unconscious pudgy friend has also made a note of the passcode that unlocks the suite.

  “We struck gold!” I tell Pacific, only to catch him in the act of eating a deep-fried chocolate bar that I am certain he picked up from the floor.

  “What?” he grunts, his mouth filled with mutated chocolate. “I’m hungry.”

  “Save your appetite,” I instruct him. “We’re going up to hospitality.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Best Foot Forward

  “There’s a certain procedure spies follow when they’re venturing into unknown territory, like we are now. You probably don’t know what I’m talking about because you think you can rely on luck to get you through any given situation, but that’s not going to cut it in this . . .”

  Pacific drones on and on as we make our way up the stairs of the third floor of the Font Foundation, but I tune him out and concentrate on the thoughts crashing around inside my confused mind. One minute, I see Jamie screaming her head off at her own private L4E show just like in her fantasy. The next, she’s a scared, trembling wreck begging the president to rescue her—and then laughing about it. Like it’s a joke. Or not a joke. A game.

  “She’s playing a game,” I say out loud.

  “Are you even listening to the important spy advice I’m giving you?” says Pacific.

  “Of course not,” I reply. “This is all a game. Jamie vanishes. She pretends she’s been kidnapped and held for ransom. But she isn’t. She’s having the best day of her life with her favorite band in the headquarters of her father’s biggest rival.”

  “So what?” says Pacific, like a fool.

  “So think, Spy,” I shoot back. “Jamie hates life in the White House. She’d do anything rather than face another four years. So this is what she’s doing. She’s going to let Morgan Font go on live TV and tell the watching millions he saved the president’s daughter from her captors. And the president’s going to stand there with his mouth hanging open going, ‘Um, um, um,’ ’cause he didn’t even know she was missing in the first place.”

  “You’re completely wrong,” says Pacific.

  “Actually, she’s pretty much correct in every detail,” remarks a voice from behind us.

  We both turn to see Morgan Font, live and in the raven-like flesh, smiling up at us from a few steps below. “I’m impressed, Bridget,” he says.

  “I’d already figured it all out,” breaks in Pacific. “She was just repeating what I told her.”

  “You might be the worst person who ever lived,” I tell Pacific.

  “If you could have kept your mouth shut, this guy wouldn’t have been able to sneak up on us,” moans Pacific. “You gave him the element of surprise.”

  “Put them in a quiet place, and we’ll deal with them later,” says Font.

  Pacific and I both whirl around. Bearing down on us is a colossal beast of a man with tree-trunk arms. His big meaty paws grab both me and Pacific by our shoulders and lift us right off the ground.

  Pacific lets out a high-pitched waaah that drowns out my own scream of fear and pain.

  As I dangle, kick, and scream, I somehow have enough presence of mind to pull out my amnesia spray. The beast dangling me above the stairs smiles at the plastic tube in my hand. He keeps smiling when I squirt him. Then he falls forward and tumbles downstairs.

  I jump from his grasp. Pacific, who is still going waaah, scrambles out of the big man’s grasp.

  I hear a crash and a muffled scream behind me. I look around. The beast has fallen on top of his boss. Morgan Font lies trapped and struggling under the considerable weight of the giant man he sent to get rid of me. Ha!

  I walk downstairs.

  “Wilder, what are you doing?” I hear Pacific bleat.

  I ignore him and look down on Font’s thrashing legs.

  “I wouldn’t want to leave the Font Foundation without a souvenir of my visit,” I tell him.

  “Too heavy,” wheezes Morgan Font. “Can’t breathe.”

  “Maybe this’ll help,” I say. And then I pull off one of his shoes.

  I head back upstairs, Font’s strangled cries for help receding into the distance.

  “A shoe?” says Pacific. “Have you gone mental?”

  I walk past him and head toward the top of the fourth floor. I can already hear the music, the laughter, and the loud voices coming from inside the hospitality suite.

  “Wilder,” I hear Pacific attempt to whisper and shout as he hurries to keep up with me. “Procedure. Strategy. You can’t just . . .”

  I walk up to the locked doors and key in the passcode I retrieved from the pudgy guy’s phone. The doors open.

  No one in the spacious, luxurious hospitality suite sees me come in. They’re all too busy enjoying one another’s company. Beano and Lim from L4E are stuffing their faces with shrimp from the huge metal serving bowls that line the sitting room. Cadzo, Beano, and Kecks are talking, laughing, and filming Jamie doing the dance that I made famous when I was pretending to be her. They don’t notice me make my way across the room toward them. Jamie doesn’t see me because she’s basking in the attention of her favorite boy band. She’s so immersed in this dream scenario where she’s the star and L4E are her adoring audience that she doesn’t see me walk right up to her and throw Morgan Font’s shoe right in her face.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  True Colors

  “Owwwaaa!” screams Jamie, more in shock than pain, because she was fast enough to block the shoe just before it made contact.

  “B-Bridget?” she gasps, eyes wide. “But I thought you . . . How did you . . . ?”

  Her face reddens. I watch guilt and embarrassment shut her down. She looks at the ground while her hands open and close. I really liked Jamie. I still really like her, but I want her to know exactly what she’s done.

  “You set me up, Jamie,” I say, no emotion in my voice. “You made it seem like I had something to do with you disappearing . . .”

  “But Morgan said . . .” Jamie’s voice is far more fearful than it was when she was pretending to have been abducted. “He said it would be okay because he’d get elected and make everything right with the CIA. It had to look convincing . . .” Her voice trails off. Even she doesn’t believe what she’s saying.

  “You wanted out of the White House, and you didn’t care what you had to do or who
you had to do it to,” I say crisply. “You involved me, and my family, and my other family. So I’m taking you back before you can put your plan into action.”

  Jamie’s face changes. She’s clearly making calculations. “Let me fix this,” she says, moving closer to me, dropping her voice. “Let me clear your name, and your family, and your other family. I’ll say it was nothing to do with you. I’ll pull a name from the FBI Most Wanted list and put the blame on him.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t trust you, Jamie.”

  She gives me a sorrowful blink and touches a hand to her heart. “But we’re friends.”

  “We’re not friends. We like the same band, that’s it.”

  And right then, I become aware that L4E are surrounding us, engrossed in our conversation, and filming every second of it. Now it’s my turn to redden and stammer.

  “Come on, Bridget,” Jamie says, her voice turning harsh. “What do you care who’s president? Does it matter if it’s Chester Brennan or Morgan Font? Will it make that much difference to your life? The answer is, it won’t. But it’ll make a huge difference to mine—and you’ve been me, so you know what I mean. I can’t face another four years. So I found a way out. Why can’t you just be happy for me? Why don’t you help me instead of trying to make me feel bad? I can’t believe how selfish you are.”

  That last statement literally takes my breath away. I find some breath and say, “You know what, Jamie? I would like to take off my own shoe and throw it at you, but I like it too much to waste on your lying, selfish face. But just know this: my shoe hates you. You don’t care how bad you’re going to make your father look, you don’t care what you’re going to do to the country, you only care about the luxury you’re going to be forced to live in, the private jet you’ll fly in, the limousines you’ll ride in, and all the places you get to visit. It might seem like torture to you, but so what—shut up and suck it up.”

  Okay. I was not intending to be quite so forceful. Jamie looks like she’s on the verge of tears. I grab her wrist and start to pull her away from the hospitality suite.

  “No,” she says, and digs her heels in.

  A hand pulls us apart. Cadzo’s hand. Cadzo touched me! Oh my God!

  “Hey, hen, don’t come in here starting a rammy,” he says. “The wee lassie disnae wannae go wi’ ye. End of.”

  “Honestly, I’m not trying to cause trouble,” I manage to tell Cadzo. “I realize the young lady doesn’t want to leave with me, but it’s super important she gets back to the White House. I know you understand, because you’ve got such a huge heart and I love you so much.”

  Ah. That went a bit further than it should have.

  Cadzo takes my hand in his. His deep-blue eyes stare into mine. I can die right now.

  “I love ye, too, so I dae,” he says. “See, if I wiznae geein’ it laldy on stage every night, you’re the kind of lassie I could imagine . . .”

  His hand on mine. His eyes looking into mine.

  “Yes?” I hear myself say from what seems like a hundred million miles away.

  “Covering in shrimp.” He grins.

  “What?” I say.

  And then shrimp rain down on me. Hundreds of wet, slimy shrimp. In my hair. In my eyes and my mouth. A metal serving bowl drops over my head, covering my eyes.

  I hear loud shrieks of laughter. Someone bangs serving tongs off the top of the bowl, causing my head to ring. I don’t know what just happened. Or rather, I do know what just happened, but I can’t bring myself to acknowledge it because my heart would break a hundred times over. I will myself to turn to stone. To feel nothing, to be nothing, to summon up the strength to get through this.

  “Classic!” I hear Cadzo exclaim. “Signature shrimp gag!”

  And then I hear a whip crack, and the laughter turns to screaming.

  I push the metal bowl off my head and shake off the shrimp that continue to cling to my hair and my clothes.

  Adam Pacific, who I left behind when I came storming into the hospitality suite, is wielding his wet towels like whirling helicopter blades. Beano is doubled up on the ground. Lim stumbles in circles, groping blindly. “Ma contacts,” he moans. Kecks clutches his head, crying. Benj hides under a table, pretending to be dead. And Cadzo . . .

  Cadzo keeps trying to get up and fight Pacific, but every time he almost gets to his feet, Pacific whips his towels around Cadzo’s ankles and he falls back to the floor.

  “Aah, ya tube!” moans Cadzo. “Git aff us!”

  “That’s for the Dumpster,” growls Pacific, lashing Cadzo’s ankles with the towels.

  Cadzo tumbles to the ground.

  “I’m gonnae batter ye!” wails Cadzo.

  “That’s for stealing my passport.”

  Whip!

  Down goes the most beautiful boy in the world.

  “I’m gonnae . . . I’m gonnae . . .” Cadzo’s voice is choked with sobs.

  Pacific draws back his towels.

  “That’s . . . ,” he begins.

  “You’ve done enough, Pacific,” I say. “Time to throw in the towel.”

  With an effort, Pacific restrains his whipping arm. He inhales deeply and calms down.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  “Are you okay?” he asks, looking concerned. “These guys think they can get away with anything, but when they did that to you, something in me just snapped . . .” Pacific stops abruptly. His expression changes. “I wasn’t helping you. I was paying them back.”

  “I’m aware,” I assure him. Pacific’s jerkitude is nothing next to the horrifying shrimpy trauma I just endured. I’m definitely getting that haircut now.

  “So,” I say briskly. “Let’s get what we came for and get out of this place.”

  At the same time, Pacific and I become aware that what we came for—i.e., Jamie—is no longer in the vicinity of the hospitality suite. In the distance, we hear shoes running downstairs and a piteous voice screaming “Help! Help!”

  “Jamie!” I yell. I just found that treacherous little brat. She does not get to slip through my fingers again.

  I start running after her.

  Behind me, I hear the sounds of the hospitality suite doors being locked and heavy objects being shoved up against it.

  Pacific runs down the stairwell alongside me. “Wilder,” he growls. “This is all your fault.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  The Getaway

  The man-beast who collapsed on top of Font when I squirted him with my amnesia spray device is now conscious and trying to pull his dazed boss to his feet. Jamie stands on the third floor of the stairwell staring at both of them, her hands flapping in the air. “What happened to him? What did you do?”

  “I don’t know,” moans the man-beast.

  “I’ll be fine,” Font says through coughs. “I just need a minute.”

  Jamie suddenly lets out a piercing scream and points a finger at the stairs.

  She’s right to scream because Pacific and I are running down the stairs toward her.

  “She’s going to take me back to the White House,” Jamie whines. “Stop her.”

  I shoot Red at Morgan Font’s shoeless foot. Direct hit. He howls in pain and hops on his other foot. Pacific spins a towel over his head a couple of times and then lets it fly. The towel wraps around the man-beast’s eyes like a blindfold. The big man roars in shock and frustration. I jump down the last few steps, grab Jamie by the wrist, and pull her after me. Once again, she tries to resist. I turn to face her.

  “Don’t put up a fight, Jamie,” I say, through gritted teeth. “Look what I did to L4E, and I love them.”

  Technically, I didn’t do anything to them, but my tough tone works on her. She lets out a scared little gasp, and her wrist goes limp in mine.

  Pacific brings up the rear as we race downstairs.

  “You’re down a towel,” I shout to him.

  “One’s all I need,” he grunts.

  “Are you a spy, too?” asks Jamie, turning around to l
ook at Pacific.

  “Too,” he echoes. “I’m the only real spy here.”

  “So insecure,” I say in a singsong voice that I hope gets under his skin. “So desperate and needy.”

  “Three times, Wilder,” he retorts. “Three times now I saved you.”

  “Three times you were useful,” I fire back. “As opposed to all the other times.”

  “Are you two, like, broken-up exes forced to work together?” asks Jamie. “’Cause I’m getting that vibe . . .”

  “No!” I yelp.

  “What, me and that?” shouts Pacific. “Never in a quadrillion years.”

  “Never in a decillion,” I shout back. “That’s a lot more.”

  “Never in a . . .” I await Pacific’s brilliant comeback. I turn around to see him frantically searching the Font phone he confiscated from Starey Hayley.

  “Looking for higher numbers?” I say. “How about duodecillion? Or quindecillion? Or how about octodecillion?”

  “Shut up, Wilder,” he mumbles.

  I give Jamie a can you believe what I have to put up with? roll of the eyes.

  “Total vibe,” she says.

  “Wilder, stop,” Pacific says.

  He’s still looking at the Font phone. “Where are we going?”

  Good question. Finding Jamie has been my priority, but I should be thinking about the bigger picture. A whole battalion of Font Force volunteers might be lying in wait for us.

  “There’s a garbage chute on the first floor that lets us out behind the building,” he says, holding up a map on the screen.

  “I’m not sliding around in garbage,” protests Jamie. “It’s all right for you, you’re already covered in shrimp.”

  “Lead the way,” I command Pacific. I don’t want to go down a garbage chute any more than Jamie does, but it’s now just after four o’clock. I have less than an hour to get Jamie back to the White House before the first family departs for the debate.

  Pacific takes a right turn and pushes open a door leading us down a corridor festooned with Font paraphernalia.

  “Yes, it does matter to me,” I say.

  “What?” Jamie replies.