Spy School (19 page)

“Holy cow, Chip’s right.” Murray was impressed. “I hadn’t thought of that. Ben, you’re invincible! You need to take advantage of this! If you can’t get kicked out, you don’t have to do your homework. You don’t even have to show up for class! You could fill the principal’s car with shaving cream and he wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it!”

“Yes, he could,” Zoe shot back. “Just because the administration can’t boot Ben doesn’t mean they can’t punish him.”

“Yeah,” Warren agreed.

While they were distracted, I shifted the piece of paper under the table and unfolded it.

Meet me in the librery tonight. Midnight. Your life depends on it.

It wasn’t signed, but I was pretty sure it was from Chip. For one thing, it looked like an ape had written it, and “library” had been misspelled. Also, I was almost positive the paper hadn’t been in my pocket before I’d sat down to lunch—and Chip had just had the perfect opportunity to
slip something to me when he’d whispered in my ear.

Now a whole new set of questions cropped up. What could Chip possibly have to talk to me about that my life depended on? If he was the mole, why approach me like this? If he wasn’t, what did he know? Now that I thought about it, the note could be interpreted two ways: Either I had to meet up with Chip to discuss something that my life depended on . . . or he was threatening to end my life if I didn’t meet up with him.

If it was even Chip who’d written the note. I realized that both Hauser and Stubbs had also had the chance to slip something into my pocket; they’d both been looming behind me while I was talking to Chip. Both of them seemed capable of misspelling “library.” Maybe one of them wanted to talk to me without Chip knowing. Or maybe one of them wanted to lure me into a trap in the library.

Or maybe I was wrong and the note had been placed in my pocket
before
lunch. If so, practically anyone in the school could have slipped it to me.

Why couldn’t they have just signed the darn note?
I wondered.
Would it kill anyone at this school to be a little less cryptic for once?

Unfortunately, I knew the answer to that question was probably yes.

I realized there was still a conversation going on at the
table. I’d filtered it out while thinking about the note, but now it floated back through my consciousness. Murray, Zoe, and Warren were now talking about Chip.

“No way he likes Ben,” Murray was saying. “Even if it
looked
like he likes Ben, with Chip, there’s always an ulterior motive.”

“You weren’t here,” Zoe said. “You were hiding over in the dessert line until you knew it was safe to come back. I was right here, and I’m telling you, Chip was different. It actually seemed like he was trying to be nice.”

“He didn’t seem that nice to
me,
” Warren responded.

“Well, that’s because he hasn’t had much practice,” Zoe replied. “I think he was really trying to reach out to Smokescreen here. In a weird way, it was kind of sweet.”

“Oh no,” Warren gasped. “You
like
him, don’t you?”

Zoe recoiled, offended. “What?”

“You
like
him,” Warren said bitterly. “Just like all the other girls. You know he’s a jerk, but since he’s handsome, you keep hoping that deep down inside, he’s really a nice guy.”

“And deep down inside, you’re an idiot,” Zoe shot back. “I do not like Chip.”

“Well if you do, forget about it,” Murray said. “He and Tina are together.”

I sat up, unable to control my surprise—although neither
could Zoe and Warren. “They are?” we all asked at once.

“You didn’t know?” Murray replied. “What kind of spies are you?”

“Better than you,” Zoe snapped. “How’d
you
know?”

“I notice things.” Murray stuffed half a scoop of ice cream in his mouth. “They’re trying to keep it a secret, obviously, but I’ve seen them getting some face time now and then.”

My mind was racing now. If Chip and Tina were an item—and Tina was the one student given a hard copy of my file—then it would have been relatively easy for Chip to get his hands on it. Which would explain how he was the first one to show up at my door, knowing about my secret cryptographic abilities before
I
even knew about them. Erica had also kept Tina in the loop about Jackhammer, which explained why Chip had claimed to be onto me. And now he’d slipped a note into my pocket wanting me to meet him secretly. . . .

I had to tell Erica. I couldn’t believe
she
didn’t know about Tina and Chip—although, when I thought about it, if there was one thing the Ice Queen wasn’t particularly well tuned to, it was interpersonal relationships.

“I have to go,” I said, standing up from the table.

“Right now?” Murray asked. “You haven’t even touched your pie!”

“I’m not hungry anymore,” I said.

“Can I have it, then?” Murray asked.

“Sure.” I grabbed my jacket and started across the room toward Erica.

She seemed to sense me coming before I’d taken three steps. She looked toward me, on guard, and I wondered if I was breaking some sort of protocol by approaching her in public.

But then I realized it wasn’t only
me
she was looking at. She was taking in the whole room around me as well.

The CIA agents posted around the mess had all gone on alert. The two closest to me were rushing my way. One cut me off before I could get to Erica. The second swept in behind me, grasping my arm tightly and wheeling me toward the door.

“You need to come with us,” she said. “Right now.”

“Why?” I tried to hide the worry in my voice.

Alexander Hale burst into the mess ahead of us. A murmur of excitement rippled through the room, as though a movie star had entered. Alexander didn’t seem to notice. Instead, he seemed relieved to see I was all right.

“Your Jackhammer presentation has been cancelled,” he informed me. “We’ve just received some intel from the field. We have to get you somewhere safe right now.”

“Safer than a campus surrounded by CIA agents?” I asked.

“Yes,” Alexander replied. “The enemy’s coming for you.”

Security Room

February 9

1330 hours

Alexander Hale took me directly to the security
room, the command center of the entire academy.

It was a large bunker tucked away in the labyrinth of tunnels under the campus. Alexander insisted it was the most secure location for twenty miles in any direction, although I figured that was probably an exaggeration, since the White House and the Pentagon were both less than ten miles away.

It
did
look impressive from the outside, however. Two CIA agents bristling with weapons flanked a thick steel door with a high-tech entry system.

Alexander typed a code on a keypad, had his palm and retina scanned, then said “My dog has fleas” into a microphone that analyzed his voice.

“Entry approved,” a lush feminine voice replied.

The door didn’t budge, though.

Alexander pounded on it, annoyed. “Open up in there!” he yelled. “The stupid security door’s on the fritz again!”

There was a click, and an embarrassed-looking agent opened the door from the inside.

“Lousy high-tech entry systems,” Alexander muttered under his breath. “This is what happens when the government subcontracts everything to the lowest bidder.” Then he caught himself and smiled at me reassuringly. “It’s still secure, though! If it’s that much trouble for
me
to get in, imagine how difficult it’d be for the enemy.”

Although it hadn’t been an auspicious beginning, I had to admit the room
felt
safe. I could now see that the door was nearly a foot thick with a dead bolt as big as a tyrannosaurus femur. The room was surrounded by imposing cement walls plated with steel. When the door slammed shut again, it felt as though we were encased in an iron womb.

Along one wall was a panel of twelve video monitors linked to the campus security camera system. Two CIA agents sat at computer terminals before the panel, which allowed them to bring up the live feed from any camera they wished.
Two more agents—one of whom had just opened the door for us—flanked the entrance from the inside. Within the room itself were two more computer terminals and a passage to another area.

“What’s down that way?” I asked Alexander.

“Living quarters,” he replied. “In case anyone needs to stay down here for the long haul. Have a peek if you’d like.”

The passage led to a spare living space. There were eight cots and dressers, two showers, some imitation-leather couches arranged around a squat coffee table, a small kitchenette and—because this bunker dated back to the Cold War—a full bar. Alexander went to the refrigerator and got himself a neon yellow sports drink. It looked like a radioactive urine sample.

“How long do people usually stay down here?” I asked.

Alexander shrugged. “Not very long. This was all built quite some time ago, when the higher-ups expected the Russians might take over the country at any instant. I won’t kid you, there’ve been a few scares over the years, but never anything serious. All troubles were attended to with great dispatch. I think the longest anyone ever had to be sequestered down here was a week.”

“Have you ever had a situation like
this
before?” I asked.

Alexander hesitated for a half second too long before answering, then realized he’d done it and owned it. “Not
exactly. But don’t worry. We have the best of the best out there, working to protect you. And I’m in charge. I once had to protect the queen of Saudi Arabia from a horde of terrorists with nothing but a Swiss Army knife, and she made it through without a scratch. You’re going to be fine. Energy drink?” Alexander waved to the refrigerator.

I shook my head. My stomach was too jittery to handle anything. My lunch was already threatening to make a return trip—although this was routine for sloppy joe days. “When you said the enemy is coming for me, what did that mean, exactly? Do they want to capture me . . . or kill me?”

“I’ll be honest with you: We’re not sure.” Alexander sat on one couch and waved me to the other. “If I were a betting man, I’d say they’re looking to extract you. Someone with your talents is worth far more alive than dead. But I can’t guarantee that. You need to be on your guard at all times. Do you have a weapon on you?”

“Uh, no,” I admitted. It was recommended that students at spy school carry weapons at all times, even when they didn’t have an active threat against their lives—and many did. But even though I’d been putting in a lot of time on the shooting range lately, I’d somehow managed to get
less
accurate. The head instructor, Justin “Deadeye” Pratchett, had even suggested it was safer for me to
not
have a loaded weapon—although he had given me a realistic-looking toy
gun so I could bluff my way out of trouble without shooting myself in the foot. I told Alexander this and showed him the dummy gun.

Alexander tutted disapprovingly. “If the going gets rough—not that it’s going to, of course—you’re going to need more than a toy.” He thumped the coffee table, and a secret panel slid open, revealing a dozen guns crammed inside, ranging from pistols to assault rifles. “And just in case,” Alexander said, “there’s a portable missile launcher in a panel behind the bar.”

I eyed the guns warily, then glanced back down the hall toward the command center. Everything had been quiet since we’d arrived. Either the agents monitoring the security cameras hadn’t seen anything that concerned them, or they
had
seen something and done an incredible job of keeping calm about it. “What was the intel you got about the enemy?”

“We picked up some chatter. The Agency has several massive computers devoted solely to monitoring every bit of electronic communication,” Alexander said. “Land lines, cell phones, satellite links, e-mail, Twitter feeds . . .”

“We actually think the terrorists are going to Tweet their plans?” I asked.

“We don’t want to rule out anything,” Alexander cautioned. “I once was able to bring down an entire terrorist cell in Kandahar because one of them posted pictures of their
hideout on his Facebook page. Anyhow, we plugged the word ‘Jackhammer’ into the matrix this morning and got a hit right before I came to get you.”

I perched on the edge of the sofa, worried. “What’d it say?”

“The system doesn’t quite work like that,” Alexander explained. “It has to sort through an unfathomable amount of information. Trillions of bytes per second. All we know is when it picks up a lot of keywords at once. Which is what happened. We got ‘Jackhammer’ several times . . . in Arabic. And the phrase ‘Get Ripley’ once, also in Arabic. We have a hundred techs working on this right now, going through all that data, trying to find and decrypt the entire message—and hopefully, track it to its source. But that may take a while.”

“How long?”

“If we’re lucky, hours.”

“And if we’re not?”

Alexander averted his eyes. “Weeks.”