Prettyboy Must Die

by Kimberly Reid

  “Hold up. You can’t get me fired over that.” It doesn’t matter that I’m already close to being fired given my probationary status, but I’m not backing down from Berg on this because he’s wrong. “For one, it isn’t my fault. For two, I’m trending only in Denver. As long as I don’t take any future assignments out here, I should be—”

  “Only in Denver? Prettyboy, you’re trending in the whole goddamn country.”

  “Seriously?” I think back to chem class, when Duncan first told me about my growing popularity. That was probably the moment my career ended, long before Berg threatened to end it. “I could have taken down that photo, scraped Twitter clean of any mention of Prettyboy before it blew up. But I chose between protecting my cover and, oh, five hundred people. Or does that not count for something with you, Berg?”

  “This ain’t high school, kid. You don’t get a trophy for doing your job, especially when you created the problem. When thirty thousand people know your face, it’s a good bet your Company work is done. Rogers should have left you in a cubicle, where all hackers should be. Except maybe for the one who led us here. You owe her a slice of pizza, or Katy Perry tickets, or whatever kids consider returning a favor these days.”

  There is so much wrong in what he just said, but I can only refute one error at a time, so I start with the most important one. “You think the hacker is the good guy in all this? She’s the reason my best friend is missing.”

  “No, she’s the reason we even know about all this. She got word to us a few hours ago about an incursion happening here today.”

  “You’ve known about this for a few hours? Why didn’t you move in earlier?” I ask.

  “She provided irrefutable proof the lockdown had already happened. Said she could hack us inside if we give her some time. Took us an hour to mobilize, but we’ve been waiting to move in. She called me a few minutes ago to let me know this was the time to strike.”

  I bet she did. The moment Katie and I stepped out onto the roof.

  “The incursion is most definitely not a hoax. The hacker, on the other hand—”

  “If you’re aware of the incursion, why are you out here on the roof instead of inside doing something about it?”

  “I locked myself out,” I say, barely audible.

  “Say what? I didn’t hear you.”

  “I locked myself out.” This time, I almost shout it.

  The hacker has been playing me all this time, from long before she called Berg this morning right up until I got that alert from Bunker. She wanted me up here on this roof, messed up in the head about Bunk and locked out by my own hand, when Berg arrived. Because she wanted revenge on me, too—not to kill me like Marchuk wanted, but to wreck my life the same way I wrecked hers.

  “Because she wanted me to look like an idiot,” I say aloud without meaning to.

  “Well, if that’s true, she succeeded. Take a look,” Berg says, pointing toward the door, which an operative is holding open.

  He slaps me on the back like we’re old friends, laughing at me like this is all so hilarious. Berg has no idea, but if he keeps talking, it’s about to be on. Problem is, he’s armed and has a platoon of officers at his command. I have a Swiss Army knife and a sock of ball bearings in my backpack, which means unless I want to get dead, I have to use my words.

  “Because she just unlocked it.”

  “Sure she did.”

  “The breach happened in my sixth-period class, but I’ve neutralized three of the six known hostiles.”

  “Actually, you’ve taken out four of them. Don’t forget the one in the art supply closet,” Katie adds, giving me credit for her takedown of the groundskeeper. I guess her cover isn’t blown yet, and she’d like to keep it that way.

  Berg looks at Katie as though it’s the first time he’s noticed her. He looks at me as though he doesn’t believe anything we’ve told him so far.

  “You took out four highly trained terrorists? All on your own?” Berg asks, but doesn’t wait for me to answer. “That would explain that beating your face took, but not hers. Or did she help you?”

  “Peter rescued me, sir,” Katie says.

  Berg is silent as he circles Katie and me, his arms crossed. I hope it’s because he’s actually listening to what I’ve been trying to tell him.

  “Well, I know the hacker couldn’t have helped you, since she isn’t even in the country. At least you’re well-trained, then. So Rogers did get something right with her pet project.”

  I want to call him out on that dig at Rogers and me, but I’m more concerned about the other thing.

  “What do you mean, the hacker isn’t even in the country?”

  “Look, Smith, we have five hundred civilians in this building and by your count, we still have two hostiles unaccounted for. I should be the one asking you questions. Give me a quick assessment so we can get to work minimizing civilian casualties.”

  “There are no civilian casualties, thanks to Peter,” Katie says, forgetting she’s supposed to be playing a confused, terrified, and quiet Carlisle student. Her voice is full of attitude. English attitude still sounds too polite to be intimidating, but I appreciate her having my back.

  Berg is probably about to ask who the hell she is, but he’s interrupted by a phone call. His expression tells me he’s not happy about it. He steps away, trying to keep me from hearing his end of the conversation, but returns a minute later, smiling.

  “It’s your boss,” Berg says, putting Rogers on speakerphone.

  Finally, someone who isn’t out to get me and might actually want to hear what I have to say.

  “Peter, Officer Berg has already apprised me of the situation. It sounds like you’ve done an excellent job of containing the crisis, but it’s time to step back and let Berg and his team take over.”

  “Ma’am, I don’t know what Berg told you, but he seems to think the hacker is helping us, when she’s the one who set this whole thing up,” I say, trying to keep my voice even, because if I can’t convince Rogers to believe me over Berg, I’m going to lose this fight. “She jammed our communications so we couldn’t get help. She took over the school’s network and security system to turn Carlisle into a prison for five hundred hostages.”

  “But Berg told me the hacker is the one who saved the day,” Rogers says.

  “No, I saved the day, with help from some friends, one of whom is probably in trouble right now. Two of the hostiles are contained in my chem lab, another is in the art supply closet. And the main prize is knocked out in the office—Pavlo Marchuk. And by the way, boss, a memo that he was out of hiding would have been nice.”

  Berg gives me a weird look, and there is silence on the other end of the line. I can tell they’re both impressed. I know Rogers is trying to decide if she’s making the right call by taking me out of the action. I keep going, trying to sell her on the idea that this is my project to finish, and even if Berg takes the lead I should still be part of his team.

  “I did all of that without a single civilian casualty. Doesn’t that prove I’m capable of helping Berg see this thing through?”

  “Officer Berg, please take me off speakerphone and let me talk to Peter alone.”

  Berg does as he’s instructed, with a smile, because he thinks he just won. I snatch the phone from him, barely able to wait until Rogers gives me an order that will wipe that smile right off his face.

  “All of that is very impressive, Peter,” Rogers says as I start to walk away from Berg. He grabs my arm to stop me, and comes this close to getting knocked the hell out, but I let it go.

  “So I should be part of the team, right? He thinks the hacker—”

  “Enough with the hacker, Jake.” I know she’s getting ticked off now, since she’s using my real name. “Don’t you see that your obsession with the hacker is what put those five hundred people in danger in the first place? Your mission to chase down the hacker led you to Carlisle. Marchuk’s mission to take revenge on you led him to Carlisle. We called, tri
ed to warn you there was intel he may have surfaced, but you chose to ignore us.”

  “No way. I wouldn’t have ignored … the hacker must have intercepted the message—”

  “We all know why the breach happened in your classroom.”

  “Boss, just give me one more chance to prove—”

  “Jake, stop. It’s over. I truly appreciate you keeping the school safe until help arrived, but it’s time to step back. That’s an order.”

  She disconnects without even saying goodbye. I hand the phone back to Berg. He’s right. He has won.

  “Do what your boss says and don’t give me any trouble. Time to let the grown-ups take over.”

  CHAPTER 24

  I’m about to go off on Berg for the second time, but Katie jumps in front of me. I guess she knows me well enough to see what was about to go down, even if Berg didn’t. He’s too smug, too certain I’m a boy playing a man’s game, to think I could ever be a threat to him. Katie gives me a look that says, You won’t win this way, and I stand down. I let her lead me away from Berg and over to the spot where I’d left my best friend to guard a terrorist.

  “We need to convince Berg about Bunker,” I say.

  “He thinks the hacker is some knight in shining armor. There’s no way he’s going to believe us about Bunker. We’ll have to find them ourselves.”

  Now that the adrenaline rush of wanting to do serious damage to Berg’s face has subsided, I’m beginning to wonder if his assessment of me isn’t too far off the mark.

  “How am I going to do that, Katie? I should never have left him alone with her in the first place. I should never have—”

  “Chosen me over him?” Katie says, finishing my thought. “You didn’t choose. You did what we do. Analyzed the situation, ran a quick risk assessment, figured out which situation most required your action. At the time, you didn’t know I was an operative who could take care of herself. You left Bunker to guard a seven-stone girl who you’d already contained. You made the same call I or any operative would have.”

  I feel the walkie-phone buzzing again.

  “It’s Bunker!” I say, pulling it from my backpack.

  Again we hear a series of beeps.

  “Okay, that was Morse code, and it was the best thing I’ve heard all day,” I say. “You heard what I heard, didn’t you?”

  “Sorry, Peter, but she got away,” Katie says. “Though I’m not sure why this news has you smiling like that.”

  “Because Bunker is okay!” Capturing the hacker is all I’ve wanted for months, right up until the moment I thought my best friend was dead.

  “Why didn’t he just call you?” Katie asks.

  “When he first gave me the radio, he was worried Marchuk’s people might use the same channel.”

  “I guess we have to hope they don’t know Morse code. Come to think of it, why does Bunker?”

  “If you knew his father, you’d understand.”

  She doesn’t look nearly as relieved as I am about the message, but then she hardly knows Bunker. Also, I’ve never seen an operative with such singular focus as Katie.

  “Now that Bunker’s safe, I really need to get back inside to check on something.”

  “So … we’re still working together, then?”

  She hesitates before offering me her hand. Instead of shaking it, I grab Katie and hug her. Maybe it’s knowing Bunker’s okay, but I’m caught up in my feelings. I mean really caught up, because I don’t let go for a few seconds.

  “Whoa, Smith. Berg will probably consider that conduct unbecoming to an operative,” she says before I let her go.

  I don’t think she really minded the contact, but Katie reminds me I have other problems. I watch all the activity around me. Berg giving orders to his team leaders as they review Carlisle’s blueprints. Officers checking their gear and waiting for directives. Still more SWAT officers arriving over the roof’s edge.

  “Your package. Who is it really?”

  Katie is about to say something, but stops. We’re both quiet a moment and then she leads me to the edge of the roof. “Look. It’s begun.”

  And it has. The first wave of kids is being led out of the building, which means the hacker has released Carlisle’s security system, though Berg and my boss don’t know—and will probably never believe—that she was the one who hijacked it in the first place. Still, seeing the first of my schoolmates getting out safely makes me think it’ll all work out.

  “I’ll show you who the package is. At least, I hope he’s still there and that Koval hasn’t escaped with him. But that’s my mission. I won’t bring the CIA in on it unless I absolutely have to. I’ll tell only you because I could use your help.”

  “Whatever you need, Katie.”

  “First, we have to get back inside the school. And if the person I’m protecting isn’t where I left him, we’ll need to find the hacker and question her before Berg gets a chance. She may know something.”

  She nods in the direction behind me.

  “Look. That cop posted at the door just walked away to talk to Berg. Their backs are to us.”

  We quickly head for the unguarded door, and with Katie beside me I feel like we can do this. So of course, in keeping with the rest of this suck-fest of a day, someone tries to stop us. We’re just a yard away from freedom when Berg turns around and spots us.

  “Where do you two think you’re going?” he asks, blocking our way.

  Katie offers an explanation before I can. “We’re going—”

  “That was a rhetorical question. I know exactly where you’re both going. You’ll be evacuating with the rest of the school,” Berg says, pointing at Katie. “The media has just caught on to this and will be here any minute. The parents will be next to arrive, and you’ll be going home with yours. So say goodbye to your boyfriend.”

  “Say goodbye?” Katie asks.

  “He’s leaving town with us,” Berg announces, which is news to me.

  “Wait a minute, Berg. You can’t just run me out of town.”

  “Your boss says I can. She wants you on the next plane to Virginia the minute I finish debriefing you.”

  I have reached my breaking point with Berg. “I don’t give a damn what she said. I ain’t getting on nobody’s plane until—”

  Katie grabs my arm. “What do you mean, officer? Shouldn’t we both be evacuating with the school? Where are you taking him?”

  Berg looks at Katie like he might actually have a heart, but must change his mind because he snaps his fingers in the direction of an officer and orders him to take Katie away.

  “But I don’t understand,” Katie wails, turning on the waterworks instantly. “Where are you taking him?”

  It’s a wonder she didn’t go out for drama club. Only a girl as smart as Katie can be this brilliant at playing dumb. But I’m the only who knows, just like I’m the only one who can decipher the look she gives me before she disappears behind the door to the stairwell with the officer: Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.

  “She’s a bit dramatic. You sure know how to pick ’em. At least she’s hot. I guess I shouldn’t say that unless she’s eighteen.” Berg looks at me like he’s thinking about what he just said—I hope he’s regretting it. But no. “Wait, is she eighteen?”

  Dude is about to get the beatdown I never got the chance to give Marchuk or Koval, but I try to stay on point, no matter how difficult Berg tries to make that.

  “I can’t go anywhere until I find out … find my friend.” I almost said find out who the package is, but catch myself.

  “That’s your problem right there. Operatives don’t have friends. And the local PD will find him. Or is that one a girl, too?” Berg winks at me, but doesn’t wait for an answer. He gestures toward the edge of the roof. “Go take a look. Lots more of them should be rolling up right now.”

  “You can’t trust the local cops. Or at least not one of them—Officer Andrews. She’s in on it with Marchuk.”

  Berg stares at me for
a second before he laughs.

  “I’ll give you one thing, kid—you’re more paranoid than any spy I know, which is saying something. I never like the locals either, but calling them dirty? That’s just clichéd.”

  “This isn’t paranoia. This is truth. Soon as you talk to Headmistress Dodson, she’ll confirm—”

  “Operation Early Bird,” he says, shaking his head and waving over someone behind me. “How the hell did Rogers ever think that was a good idea?”

  I start to protest, but he whistles—drowning out my words—and signals another uniform to come over.

  Berg instructs, “Put him in your squad car and make sure he can’t get out.”

  The local starts handcuffing me but Berg stops her.

  “No cuffs. As much as I hate the idea of it, he’s one of us. He won’t fight you,” Berg says, giving me a look that says I better not even think about it. “Just make sure he stays put.”

  The officer ushers me downstairs and outside, where I’ve wanted to be ever since I realized the school had been turned into a prison. You’d think I’d feel relieved to finally be out of the building, even if I’m locked in a squad car. I feel anything but.

  I check my phone and find I have a weak signal. The car must be parked far enough from the hacker’s signal blocker, or else Berg’s team found and disengaged it.

  Rogers answers on the first ring.

  “Jake, we cannot have this discussion,” she says before I can even say hello.

  “It isn’t about Berg, or the hacker, or even about Marchuk. It’s about his father’s second-in-command.”

  “His son was second-in-command. We knew that even in Ukraine.”

  “But this other guy was supposed to have the job. He’s the really dangerous one, and he’s after something way bigger than me. I was just about to learn what—or who—it is when Berg—”

  “I’m not there, Jake, and this is not my operation. I have to defer to the team on the ground, and you do, too.”