Gallagher Girls 5 - Out of Sight, Out of Time (16 page)

“July.” Preston looked afraid again. And he was right to. “She showed up on the Fourth of July. I remember because I’d been wishing there were fireworks.” He looked at me. “Then you came and…well…I guess I got them.”

“She came here—to this embassy—in July?” Abby asked.

“No.” Preston shook his head. “She came to
me
.”

The room was cold and still. Outside, the sun was beaming. It was going to be a gorgeous fall day, and I tried to imagine Rome in summer.

“You said you were backpacking through Europe and missed a train, got separated from your parents. That’s what you said, at least.”

“But you saw through me?” I asked, genuinely embarrassed.

“Really, Cam…you didn’t even
have
a backpack.” He laughed and shrugged. “At first I thought…well, I don’t know what I thought. You were sick or something. You totally charmed Mom and Dad, though. They insisted you take the guest room across the hall from mine, and it felt like you slept for a week. You were so—”

“And you didn’t call me!” Macey shouted. I saw Townsend shift, annoyed, but Macey couldn’t be held back. “My friend shows up on your doorstep in a foreign country, exhausted and alone, and you didn’t think ‘Hey, maybe I should drop Macey a line’?”

“Macey,” Abby said, but Macey pushed her aside.

“She was alone!” Six months’ worth of worry and grief was pouring out of her. “She was sick and she was alone…all summer. She was alone,” Macey said one final time and backed away.

Everyone—Bex and Abby, even Townsend and Zach—stood staring. It seemed to take forever for Preston to drop into a chair. “Do you ever think about Boston, Macey?” he asked. “About what happened on the roof? I do. I think about it all the time.”

He ran his hands through his hair, then placed them on the table.

“I still dream about it sometimes.” He made a slow circular motion in the air with one finger. “I see the helicopter—the way the shadow spun on the roof. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that spinning shadow. And the way the two of you didn’t seem afraid. And that woman—” At the mention of his mother, Zach went horribly still. “I don’t think I’ll ever forget that woman.” Preston shook his head and looked at Macey. “I think about it all the time.”

“I know—”

“No,” he snapped, cutting her off. “You don’t. Because, if you did, then you’d know that when the girl who saved your life shows up on your doorstep hungry and exhausted, you take her in, and you bring her some food, and you wait for her to wake up. You want to know why I didn’t call you? Because when that girl shows up on your doorstep, you do exactly what she says to do, and she said not to call
anyone
.”

Preston pointed to me, then stood and paced to the windows that overlooked the front of the embassy where tourists and expatriates stood waiting for access to that small piece of American soil.

“Everyone comes here when they’re lost.”

It made sense, why I’d come there. The only question that remained was why I’d had to leave.

“Preston,” I said, “was I…dangerous?”

“What?” he asked and shook his head. “You were sleepy. That’s it. I thought you were just exhausted and needed a place to rest.” He wheeled on me. “Now it’s your turn to explain. What brings you back?”

“Preston, it’s sort of…complicated. You know what happened on election night and in Boston, but you don’t know about—”

“The Circle of Cavan,” Preston filled in.

“Yeah, I—”

“Ms. Morgan,” Townsend warned.

“It’s okay,” Preston told him. “These rooms are swept for bugs every day, and my dad doesn’t allow regular surveillance in the family quarters. We can talk here.” He looked at me. “You really don’t remember?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Don’t remember…what, specifically?” he asked.

I took a deep breath. “Summer.”

I expected him to ask questions, to give me the Cammie’s-lost-her-marbles or someone-is-playing-tricks-on-me looks, but they didn’t come. Instead, he reached into his pockets and pulled out a passport and a small book bound in the Gallagher Academy’s own library.

“I knew something was wrong,” he said. “I thought you would call or something after you left, but—”

“She left?” Bex asked.

“Yeah. I came home one day and your stuff was gone. I found a stained towel and an empty box of hair dye…and these.”

Zach reached for the passport and smiled. “I know this name. It’s one of Joe’s. You must have gotten it from his stash.”

He handed the passport to Abby, but it was the book I was afraid to touch, not because it was unknown to me, but because I could recite every word and knew it had no place within those walls.

Bex turned to the first page and read the opening line: “‘I suppose a lot of teenage girls feel invisible sometimes, like they just disappear…’”

“What is that?” Zach asked, and I shook my head. It felt so strange that he could know me and not know those words.

“It’s a report,” I said. “About what happened fall semester, sophomore year.”

I’d written those words so long before, they felt almost like ancient history. I wasn’t embarrassed, I realized, because in so many ways they had been written by another girl.

A silly girl.

A naive girl.

A girl who missed her father and longed for a normal life.

I didn’t want normal anymore. Right then, I was willing to settle for life. Period.

“I brought a fake ID and an old CoveOps report to Rome. To sleep,” I said, bewildered.

“No.” Preston shook his head. “After a week or so you woke up and…” He trailed off, looked at us all in turn. “You were here, Cammie, because you said you needed to rob a bank.”

T
he piazza was busy late the next afternoon. We stared down at it from the roof of a building across the way. I knew where the pigeons went when they scattered and what gelato stores were popular with tourists and which ones the locals preferred. But despite six hours of staring at la Banca dell’Impero, I still had no idea if I’d been there over my summer vacation. Or why.

All I really knew were the options.

Option one: forget what we’d heard and go back to school. Option two: call the CIA, the Marines, MI6, and the entire alumni association of the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women, and in the process, call a whole lot of attention to ourselves. Option three: we could watch and we could wait.

So option three was what we did.

“Guard change,” Bex said, her eyes never moving from the binoculars that had been a permanent part of her face for hours. Townsend made a note, and I remembered the immortal advice of Joe Solomon that, at its heart, being a spy is boring.

The older I got, the smarter my teachers became.

“Where’s Zach?” I asked.

“Working,” Townsend said from behind us.

“I want to work,” I told him. “Why can’t we work?”

“We are working, Cam,” Bex reminded me. “Just…safely.” Bex raised the binoculars again, and I thought about how neither she nor Macey had let me out of their sight all day. (I did, however, draw the line when Bex tried to handcuff herself to me before we napped that morning.)

It had been a full-time mission just staring down at the cobblestones, and I couldn’t help but remember that this too would pass. I wasn’t going to spend forever looking. Eventually, I had to get off that roof.

But I was still there an hour later when Zach and Preston climbed over the ladder that ran to the fire escape at the roof’s edge.

“You got it?” Townsend asked.

“Yes, sir,” Zach said, and I found it more than a little disturbing how fantastically the two of them were getting along. They were all monosyllables and perfect posture. I slumped against the stone railing, tired and annoyed.

“Don’t mind me,” I said. “I’m just the person who tried to rob the place last July.”

“No, you didn’t,” Abby said, appearing on the roof. She was wearing a trim suit and tall black boots. Her hair was pulled into a sleek ponytail at the nape of her neck, and either I was imagining things or Townsend wasn’t quite as good a spy as I thought, because I could have sworn I saw him drool a little.

Note to self: your aunt is a hottie.

“There was no break-in at that bank.” The cool wind blew the ponytail, splaying dark tresses across Abby’s fair skin, but she didn’t move to brush the hair away as she turned to look at Townsend. “If Cammie, or well…Summer Cammie…came to Rome to visit that bank—”

“It was that one,” Preston insisted, but Abby talked on.

“She either didn’t do it—”

“Or she did it so well it didn’t send up any flares?” Bex guessed.

Abby nodded. “Exactly.” She turned to me. “So I don’t think you did it.”

“Maybe she did,” Macey said, leaping to protect my honor. “Cammie could rob a bank.”

“Yes, she could,” Abby agreed.

I just sat there, craving gelato.

“But not that bank,” Townsend said, stepping closer to my aunt and giving her a knowing nod.

The building across the way looked like a church or a beautiful old mansion. I’d been staring at it long enough to know it also looked like a fortress.

Preston inched forward, as if part of him knew that he’d stumbled (or been dragged) into a conversation that was about ten times beyond the clearance level of an ambassador’s son.

“Like I told you yesterday and”—he looked at the group and then at me—“
you
last summer, my dad banks there. That bank is popular with a lot of diplomats. Foreign dignitaries…”

“Spies,” Aunt Abby finished for him.

“Your mom? Does your mom bank there?” I asked Zach, crossing the distance between us in three short strides. “Does she?”

He turned and stared into the distance. “I don’t know. It seems like her sort of place.” Then he turned back to me in a flash. “Which is why it’s time to let the CIA take over.” He cut his eyes at Townsend. “And MI6 if they want in.”

“Oh,” Townsend said slowly, “MI6 does.”

“But—” I started, and Zach cut me off.

“But now we get you out of here.” He reached for me.

“No,” I said, jerking away.

I looked to my best friends for backup, but Bex just shook her head. “I agree with Zach.”

“Big surprise,” I huffed.

“You don’t know what you’re walking into, Cam,” she told me. “You don’t know why or how or even
if
you’ve walked in there before.”

“I have to go,” I told them all.

“No,” Zach yelled. “You don’t!”

“He’s right, Ms. Morgan,” Townsend said. “We’ve come this far. There are channels, operations—”

“The same channels that told the Circle they should send an assassin to stake out Joe Solomon’s cabin?” I asked, but Townsend seemed indifferent to the point. “The last time we went through channels, I killed a man.”

“The Circle could be here.” Macey was beside me, pleading. “Did it ever occur to you that they have this place under surveillance just like the cabin was?”

“We’ve been staring down at that building for hours, Macey. Of course it occurred to me.”

“But did you think about why there’s no record of your having been there?” Bex said. “Did you think about—”

“What if
it’s
still there?” I shouted. “I came to Rome for that—” I pointed to the bank. “I came looking for whatever is in there.…And what if it’s
still
in there?”

“Ms. Morgan.” Townsend sounded like the cold, calculating operative he was.

“Would you die to stop them, Agent Townsend?”

“Yes.” He didn’t miss a beat.

I pushed up my sleeves, revealing the fading slashes on my arms. “Then think about what I would do.”

“Cam,” Bex said, easing closer.

“You need me,” I said, looking at Townsend and then Zach and Abby. “You never would have known about the embassy or Preston or the bank. You won’t know what I know until I get inside.” I breathed deeply.
“You need me.”

“Cam,” Zach said. “You don’t have to take this risk.”

“Rome, Abby.” I ignored him and turned to my aunt. “A month before my father disappeared, he needed you in Rome. Now
I
need you in Rome.”

“I know.” Abby’s voice was small and fragile, and immediately I wanted to take the words back. But then she straightened and turned to the bank. “Where do we start?”

Covert Operations Report


At approximately 0900 hours on Saturday, October 14, Operative Morgan was given a stern lecture by Agent Townsend, a tracking device by Agent Cameron, and a very scary look from Operative Goode. (She also got a tip that her bra strap was showing from Operative McHenry.)


The Operative then undertook a basic reconnaissance mission inside a potentially hostile location. (But it wasn’t as hostile as Operative Baxter was going to be if everything didn’t go according to plan.)


Walking across the square that morning, I should have been afraid. I looked down at my hands, waiting to see them shake a little, but they were steady; my pulse was even. I don’t know if it was my training or my gut telling me that I was prepared—I was ready. But more likely it had something to do with the voices in my ear, talking over one another, giving orders all the way.

“Very good, Squirt,” Aunt Abby said. “Now, stop at that corner and let us—”

“Keep walking, Ms. Morgan.”

“Townsend,” Abby snapped. “The southwest security camera is blinded.”

“I’ve got eyes on her from the southwest,” Zach said. “She’s clear.” I could see him on the far side of the piazza, reading a paper and staring through the morning crowds, looking right at me. “She looks great.”

“Okay, Squirt, you know what to do,” Abby said, and I walked on.

Agent Townsend was at my back, and Bex’s voice was in my ear. “So far so good, Cam. Just keep walking.” So I did. All the way across the square and through the bank’s heavy doors, into a lobby that I could have sworn I’d never seen before.

The only thing that was familiar was the way Macey walked twenty feet in front of me in her tallest heels, her hand draped through Preston’s arm. Every now and then she’d laugh and lean to rest her head on his shoulder. I wasn’t entirely sure if it was a part of her cover or her natural tendency for really effective flirting (or, perhaps, her cover as a really effective flirt?), but the effect couldn’t be denied.

No one in the lobby was looking at me.

“Okay, Cammie.” Aunt Abby’s voice was clear in my ear, and I heard her draw a deep breath. “What are you seeing?”

She didn’t just sound like a CoveOps teacher—she sounded like
the
CoveOps teacher. So I took a casual turn around the floor and tried to do what Joe Solomon had been asking me to do for years: see everything.

There were fresh flowers on a table, and the ceilings were at least thirty feet high. The floors were made of stone and looked as old as the city itself. It was the kind of place that was built on wealth and prestige and the ability to keep the masses out. But whether or not I’d made it past those heavy doors before was something I couldn’t say.

Across the room, Preston walked to one of the small tables and said, “I’d like to make a withdrawal, please.” He pulled a wallet from his inner pocket and handed a card to the teller, while Macey leaned against him, smoothing the lapel of his jacket. She looked like a girl in love. Preston looked like a boy about to vomit all over a two-hundred-year-old table. And I kept turning, scanning the room as casually as I could.

“It’s okay, Cam,” Bex said in my ear. “You’re just taking a look around. It’s just a recon.”

“Focus, Ms. Morgan,” Townsend said.

“I am!” I hissed in his direction.

“Cam, think,” Bex urged.

“It’s…” I started, then shook my head in frustration. “Nothing.” I felt like the least consequential person to ever grace that beautiful old building. “I’ve got nothing.”

I’d never been more ashamed of my memory in my life.

“Okay,” Abby said, “pull out. We’ll regroup and—”

But then Abby’s words didn’t matter—
nothing
mattered besides the woman who was walking toward me, hand raised, saying, “
Signorina
! It’s so good to see you again.”

See you again
…

For a moment I could have sworn I’d misunderstood—she must have been confused. But there was a smile of recognition on the woman’s face as she leaned closer and gripped my hands and kissed me once on each check, saying,
“Ciao, ciao.”

“Yes, yes,” I said when finally her hands left mine. “It’s so good to see you too.”

“I told you, Roma is lovely in the autumn, is it not?”

“It is.” I nodded, mirroring the woman’s stance and expressions, trying my best to make Madame Dabney proud.

“You’re here to see your box, no?”

Well, as a spy, needless to say, my first instinct was to lie. As a chameleon, what I really wanted to do was hide. But right then, more than anything, I was a girl who needed answers. So when the woman gestured to the stone staircase that spiraled down into the lower level and asked, “Shall we?” all I could think about were the words
your box
. And smile.

I had a box.

Across the lobby floor, I saw Townsend start my way, and Abby’s voice was in my ear, saying, “Cammie, wait for Townsend. Wait for Townsend!”

But I’d already done enough waiting for a lifetime. I turned and followed the woman down the stairs, to a long hall with arched ceilings. The woman led me to a heavy door, too glossy and modern to really belong in that ancient building, and I knew that we were leaving the part of the bank the public got to see.

“Please,” the woman said, gesturing to a small box beside the door.

“It’s a retinal scan,” I said.

“Sì,”
she told me with a smile.

Townsend had reached the bottom of the stairs and was heading our way. “We really should be—”

“There’s a retinal scan,” I told him. He seemed slightly taken aback, but not so much that the woman noticed.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said, staring right at me. “But we really should be leaving.”

“And who might you be?” the woman asked, looking Townsend up and down.

“My guard,” I told her.

“Of course,” she said, unfazed. “As I explained to the
signorina
last summer, privacy and security are paramount. You are welcome to wait here, but once we are through these doors—”

“No,” Townsend said just as, through my ear, Zach shouted, “Cammie, don’t!”

But it was too late, because the heavy doors were already sliding aside, and I was already inside.

The woman kept talking about the weather and banking laws. She said something about liking my shoes and the changes to my hair. It was small talk. Never in my life have I been a fan of small talk—especially not when so many more pressing questions were flooding my mind.

Like, when had I been there, and why? Like, how did they have my retinal image, and where were we going? As we walked, I felt the floor sloping steadily downward. Gradually, the voices in my ears dissolved into static, and I was alone with the woman and the thick stone walls, on a path I totally didn’t remember walking before.

As we turned a corner, I saw a man in a well-cut suit. The woman smiled at him, and he came forward.

“If the young lady will permit…” He reached for my hand and placed my forefinger into a small device that scanned my finger and pricked, pulling a tiny bit of blood.

“Ow!” I exclaimed, more out of shock than pain, and the man smiled as if he’d heard that before. Heck, he might have heard it from me.

Then the device beeped and another door swung open, and the man gestured me inside.

Number of minutes I waited: 20 Number of minutes it felt like I waited: 2,000,000 Number of times I wished I’d brought a book or something: 10 Number of tiles in the ceiling of that particular room: 49 Number of crazy scenarios that swirled through my head: 940

When the woman reappeared with a sleek metal case, she smiled and placed it on a small table, closed the door, and left me alone.

I knew it wasn’t a bomb, of course, and yet, reaching for the lid, I could have sworn I felt my heart stop beating.

Had I purchased that safety deposit box when I was there last summer? Had I left a clue inside? Or was it just an elaborate cover, a ruse I’d used to access the bank and run some other scheme?

Those were just a few of the thoughts inside my head as I reached for the lid and slowly lifted, expecting anything but what I saw.

“Dad’s journal?”

I’d wondered where it was for weeks, but holding it in my hands felt anticlimactic. “It’s Dad’s journal,” I said again, just as there was a knock on the door.

“Is everything okay?” the woman asked.

“Yes,” I called, shoving the journal into the back waistband of my jeans.

Looking down at the now-empty box, I tried to focus on the positive. “I was here,” I told myself.

The fact should have made me happy. There was another point on the atlas, a thumbnail on the map of the war room in Sublevel One. But then I had to admit that the box itself was worthless. We had come a long, long way for nothing.

There was a new attendant waiting for me when I finally opened the door and stepped outside. He glanced behind me and saw the empty box sitting on the table, then asked in Italian if everything was okay.

“Sì,”
I told him. I started to turn and go back the way we’d come, but the man gestured in the opposite direction.

“This way,” he said.

“But…” I pointed to where the main lobby lay.

“The exit is this way,” he said, so I followed.

I don’t know if it was some latent memory or just a sick feeling in my gut, but the comms unit in my ear crackled, and I felt alone with that strange man.

Way too alone.

The corridor slanted upward, and as we walked, I knew we had to be nearing the surface, and yet there was nothing but static in my ear.

Something was wrong, I knew it. And then the man leaned forward to push open a door. His blazer gapped, and that’s when I saw the gun beneath his arm, holster unclasped and gun ready to draw.

A primal, urgent cry was sounding in my head, and before the sunlight even hit me, I was already spinning, kicking him to the ground, knocking his head against the stone wall and starting to run.

“I’m in an alley southwest of the bank,” I said, but no one answered. Even the static was gone. I heard nothing but the revving of engines as two motorcycles started down the alley, coming fast.

I turned and bolted in the other direction. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that the bank had been compromised. My comms unit was silent. And the motorcycles were getting closer.

Soon they’d overtake me. My only hope was the street.

I had to make it to the street.

And then…

“Cammie!” a voice yelled. Ambassador Winters was parked in the mouth of the alley, throwing open the door of a car. “Get in!”