Spy School (18 page)

“I think that’d be wise.” Erica cased the principal’s office, decided it looked exactly as it had when we’d entered, then ushered me toward the door.

“What if the enemy suspects this is a ruse?” I asked.

“They probably will. But even then, they won’t be able to fully discount it.”

“Which means they’re coming after me no matter what.”

“Yes, it does.” Erica flashed the biggest smile I’d ever seen her give. “Exciting, isn’t it?”

The Mess

February 9

1310 hours

“I have one word of advice for you,” Murray told
me the next day at lunch. “Run.”

“Run?” I repeated. “Run where?”

“Anywhere. Back home. The Lincoln Memorial. Las Vegas. I don’t care. As long as you get away from here. Because if you stay here, you’re going to die.” Murray dug into a stack of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches he’d made himself. That wasn’t a bad idea, given that the mess was serving sloppy joes that day.

“He can’t run,” Zoe countered. “That’ll put him in
more
danger. Check out all the security.” She waved around the mess.

“Yeah,” Warren chimed in. “This place is locked down tighter than Fort Knox.”

There were, in fact, a dozen CIA agents in the room, all there to protect me. Some were actively stationed at the doors to the room, on alert, while others were more covert, pretending to be visiting faculty. Everyone knew they were really there to guard me, however; the academy would never have allowed visiting faculty to eat lunch in the mess for fear of poisoning them.

Erica’s ploy had worked amazingly well. Everyone at the CIA she’d e-mailed about Jackhammer had bought it hook, line, and sinker, which was a little disturbing given that many of them were the top spies in the country. They’d believed the message had actually been sent by the principal—after all, his account was on the mainframe and the mainframe was supposed to be impenetrable. Thus, they’d also believed Jackhammer existed and had to be protected at all costs. Security was arranged immediately. I’d been awakened at six a.m. that morning by a knock on my cell door. It was Alexander Hale, who’d been called in from another assignment (classified, of course) to oversee the operation. He’d come in so fast, he was still wearing a dashiki.

Unfortunately, the story had spread even faster than
Erica had predicted. The Academy’s information security was leakier than the
Titanic
. I hadn’t told my friends anything about Jackhammer, but they’d found out anyhow. The entire school had. Everyone knew everything before breakfast: that I’d invented the ultimate code breaker, that I was presenting it to the academy administration that evening . . . and that I was a marked man.

Alexander wasn’t currently in the mess himself. He was out checking on his troops, who were posted all along the perimeter of the property, as at well as at various points of tactical significance on campus. In all, he’d informed me, there were fifty-two CIA agents on duty that day, all charged exclusively with keeping me safe.

There was also Erica. She’d faded into the background, but she hadn’t let me out of her sight all day. (Even when I’d had to use the bathroom, which was a bit uncomfortable.) At the moment she was two tables away, theoretically reading Driscoll’s
User’s Guide to Southeast Asian Artillery
while eating a salad, but I knew she was even more finely tuned in to the goings on of the room than usual. Erica hadn’t set up Jackhammer just to let the CIA swoop in and steal her thunder; when the heat came down, she intended to be in the thick of it.

She and I had spent the morning attempting to track down the source of the leak, but to no avail. The mole had
covered their tracks well. Our investigation was an endless loop, everyone pointing the finger at someone else until we were right back where we’d started.

“Zoe’s right,” I said. “If I ditch this place, I’m a sitting duck.”

“And if you stay here, you’re a dead one.” Murray had a wad of sandwich crammed into his cheek so large, he looked like a chipmunk hoarding nuts. “Consider this: What happens
after
you make your little presentation tonight? Once you spill the beans on Jackhammer, you’re even more of a target. For good. You think the CIA’s gonna pony up this much security every day for the rest of your life?”

I swallowed a bite of sloppy joe, concerned. I
hadn’t
considered that. “But how does running away solve anything?” I asked. “Our enemies are still going to want Jackhammer whether I spill the beans or not.”

“Well, you don’t
just
run,” Murray explained. “You have to start a disinformation campaign first. Spread the word that you never invented Jackhammer. It was all a ruse to flush out our enemies. In fact, you’re not even Crypto Whiz Boy. You’re merely a patsy brought in by the CIA as bait.”

“Oh, yeah,” Zoe scoffed. “Like anyone would ever believe that.”

“Yeah,” Warren agreed, as he did with virtually everything Zoe said. “That’s ridiculous.”

It was the perfect indication of how complicated my life had become: that telling the truth about myself would now be considered a disinformation campaign. And that no one would buy it anyhow.

“The genie’s out of the bottle,” I said. “There’s no way to get it back in. The only way for me to be safe is for the CIA to nab whoever’s after me.”

“Ben’s right,” Zoe told Murray.

“Zoe’s right about Ben being right,” Warren agreed.

“Not necessarily.” Murray turned to me. “Suppose someone tries to take you out today, and the agency nails him. That’s not the guy running the operation. It’s just some poor schmo who got stuck with a lousy assignment. Or, heck, maybe he’s a freelance assassin who doesn’t even
know
who hired him. Yes, that’s a lead, but it could take the CIA years to figure out whom it leads
to
. And that’s only one enemy organization. I’ll bet there’s a dozen who’d like to get their hands on Jackhammer. You think they’re
all
going to strike today? You think the CIA’s ever going to bring them
all
down?”

I swallowed again. I hadn’t considered that, either. I glanced over at Erica, who was still riveted to her book. Had she thought of any of this? I wondered. It seemed unlikely she hadn’t. Erica thought of everything, which meant she’d knowingly placed me in great danger for her own gain.

Even Zoe looked concerned, though she tried to put
some positive spin on it. She gave me a pat on the knee that was supposed to be reassuring and said, “Smokescreen can handle it. Remember, he’s not just a brainiac. He’s a lean, mean fighting machine.”

“Well . . . he
did
abandon me in the heat of battle yesterday,” Warren countered.

Zoe frowned at him. “First of all, you totally screwed up your synchronization and attacked too early. Second, he was on a mission, tailing Chip. And finally, he
didn’t
abandon you. He only took off once he knew that Ice Queen had things under control.”

Warren pouted sullenly in response, though I had to admit, I’d have been upset if I’d been in his position too. He’d been pelted with so many paintballs that, despite an hour in the shower, his skin was still light blue.

“I don’t care how good Ben is,” Murray said. “Even Alexander Hale couldn’t handle everything that’s gonna come at him.” He crammed another half sandwich into his mouth.

“What’s with all the peanut butter, Washout?” Zoe asked. “Your cholesterol’s gonna go through the roof.”

“I hope so,” Murray replied. “I’ve got a physical to assess my readiness for the field next week. Speaking of which, I’m gonna go get pie. Who wants pie?”

“I’ll take some,” I said. “À la mode.” If people were going to try to kill me that day, at the very least, I felt I deserved dessert.

“You got it.” Murray hustled off to the lunch line.

Warren suddenly stiffened, looking behind me. “Oh.
That’s
why Murray split in such a hurry.”

I spun around and saw Chip Schacter, Greg Hauser, and Kirsten Stubbs making a beeline for me.

Virtually the entire mess hall went on alert. A hundred heads swiveled toward me. Everyone tensed, ready for another fight.

I felt unusually calm confronting Chip, however. Probably because there were twelve highly trained CIA agents close by, tasked with protecting my safety. If Chip so much as poked me too hard, he’d have been pummeled into pudding.

Chip took Warren’s chair—even though Warren was sitting in it. He simply tilted it forward, dumping Warren to the floor, and then sat down facing me.

“I thought you were on ultra-super probation,” he said. “What are you doing out here?”

I shrugged. “The principal changed his mind.”

“Why?” Chip asked. “Because of this Jackrabbit thing?”

“Jackhammer,” I corrected, wondering if there was
anyone
who didn’t know about it, given that it was supposed to be top secret. “Maybe. I’m not really sure why the principal does anything.”

“He’s not the only one who’s tough to figure out,” Chip said. “The way you were busting his chops yesterday, it
almost seemed like you
wanted
probation. And now today, it’s like nothing ever happened.”

“You busted the principal’s chops?” Zoe asked me, her eyes growing bigger than usual.

“He didn’t tell you?” Chip asked. “Ripley here had the principal so worked up, I thought the guy was gonna have an angerism.”

“Aneurysm,” I corrected.

Zoe gaped at me. “Are you psycho? Why would you do that?”

“Exactly my question,” Chip said, giving me a hard stare. “Why would you?”

I tried to casually shrug it off. “The guy was just asking for it. Haven’t you ever wanted to tell him what you actually thought of him?”

“Sure,” Zoe said. “But not so badly that I’d risk getting bounced out of school for it.”

“Well, maybe that’s the thing,” Chip said. “Maybe Ripley here
knows
he can’t get bounced out of school.”

The statement hung there for a moment. Zoe and Warren stared at me, partly wondering if this was true and partly stunned that Chip, of all people, had been the one to figure it out.

“Is this true?” Warren asked me. There was now a bit of suspicion in his eyes.

“Yeah, Ripley. What’s the deal?” Chip echoed, although there was a strange, mocking lilt to his voice, as though he already knew the answer.

“I might, uh, have some immunity because of Jackhammer,” I lied.

“Of course!” Zoe said. “You’re not just a coding genius. You’re
the
coding genius! They can’t boot you, no matter what!”

“Maybe. Or maybe not,” Chip said knowingly. He stood up, slapped a hand on my shoulder, then whispered in my ear. “I’m onto you, Ripley. Just thought you should know.”

Then he and his goons headed to the lunch line. Chip didn’t look back, though I noticed Hauser kept his eyes on me the whole time.

I realized my hands were shaking. The exchange with Chip had left me unsettled, my mind full of questions. How much did Chip actually know about me? Did he know the whole truth—and if so, did that make him the mole? Or had he found out some other way? Or did he only
think
he knew the truth, in which case, he wasn’t the mole at all, but simply the knucklehead we had suspected all along? And what did all this have to do with the bomb under the school?

“What was that all about?” Murray sat back down beside me and slid over a large slice of banana pie à la mode. I guessed he’d been waiting for Chip to take off before coming
back. For himself, he had two slices of pie and three scoops of ice cream topped by a mountain of whipped cream, all the better to boost his cholesterol.

“Just my daily dose of Chip Schacter intimidation,” I said.

“Not quite,” Zoe countered. “This was different. Chip seemed . . . Well, it’s weird but . . . it kind of seemed like he
likes
you now.”

“Really?” Murray’s eyebrows arched so high, they disappeared into his hair. “What’d you do, pull a thorn out of his paw?”

“He mouthed off to the principal yesterday,” Zoe said.

Murray’s eyebrows went even higher. “You did? I’m trying to be the worst spy on campus, and even
I
won’t do that. Are you psycho?”

“That’s what I said,” Zoe told him.

“Maybe he
is
psycho,” Warren whispered, thinking it was too low for me to hear.

I didn’t respond to it, though. Something else had grabbed my attention. There was something in the pocket of my jacket that hadn’t been there a few minutes before. I wasn’t sure
how
I knew exactly, as the jacket was slung over the back of my chair. I just had a sense that something was different, like there was the tiniest shift of weight. Maybe my spy senses were starting to kick in, I thought, giving me an
extra awareness of everything going on around me.

Without trying to draw attention, I slipped my hand into the pocket. Sure enough, there was a folded piece of paper under my phone.

“Chip realized that the principal
can’t
get rid of Ben,” Zoe was saying. “Now that he’s come up with Jackhammer, he’s too important.”