Spy Ski School (8 page)

Lionshead Village

Vail, Colorado

December 26

1700 hours

There was only one person
I could trust in this situation: Cyrus Hale.

Unfortunately, he wasn't answering his phone.

This wasn't really surprising. Cyrus hated cellular phones. He also hated computers, e-mail, and pretty much any technology invented over the last thirty years. “Takes all the sport out of spying,” he often grumbled. “In the good old days, we didn't need cell phones. If we got into trouble, we didn't call for backup. We just knocked a few heads together and then ran like hell.”

I tried Jawa next. He answered on the second ring. “Ben! Where are you?”

“In Lionshead Village. Do you know where Cyrus is?”

“Back at the motel, I think. But I'm not sure. We're all out at McDonald's.”

“Who's ‘we'?”

“Everyone.”

“Even Alexander?”

“Yes. We were all starving. Do you want us to grab you something?”

“No, thanks. I've got to go.” I yanked off the ice skates, pulled my shoes back on, and raced back to the Ski Haüs as fast as I could. It wasn't that far away—a few blocks through Lionshead, then across the pedestrian bridge over the highway—but it took longer than usual for me to cover the distance. It turned out that running at high altitude before you've fully acclimatized is really difficult. In fact, it can make you sick. I puked three times. Twice in the village and once over the railing of the pedestrian bridge. On the last one, I painted a minivan on the highway below me.

I ignored the pain and the nausea and kept going, though. Erica's life depended on it. I staggered through the parking lot of the Ski Haüs, my stomach cramping, my lungs on fire, and pounded on the door to the room Cyrus shared with Alexander. “Cyrus? Are you there? It's an emergency!”

I heard footsteps from inside. Then the door opened a crack and Cyrus peeked out, looking annoyed.

“Erica's been captured!” I told him.

“I know,” he said.

“We were at the Arabelle . . . ,” I began, and then realized what he'd just said. “You know? How?”

“Because I'm the one who captured her.” Cyrus opened the door a little more, allowing me to see Erica, sprawled on his bed. Then he yanked me inside and locked the door behind us.

Now that I was in the room, I could see he was still wearing the black outfit. Erica was slowly waking, groggy from being unconscious. “Why did you capture your own granddaughter?” I asked.

“To keep her from getting captured by Shang,” Cyrus said.

“I wasn't going to get captured,” Erica told him, already awake enough to be annoyed.

“You were darn close,” Cyrus shot back angrily. “That stunt you pulled was reckless and insubordinate. I am extremely disappointed in you.”

Erica cringed. “But I thought . . .”

“No,” Cyrus said curtly. “You didn't think at all. Because if you had, you would have followed my orders and done things the way I told you to. Instead, you decided to disobey me—and the entire CIA—and do things your own way.”

“My way was working!” Erica exclaimed. “I could hear Leo Shang and his men talking inside the room! They were discussing their plans! I might have learned everything we need to know if you hadn't interfered!”

“You would have been caught if I hadn't interfered!” Cyrus yelled. He held his fingers a millimeter apart. “You were this close to getting busted! Which would have torpedoed this entire operation! You're doggone lucky I was there doing recon myself and was able to bail you out!”

“How
did
you get back here so quickly?” I asked Cyrus, trying to change the subject before things got even further out of hand. “I mean, you beat me here, even though you were carrying Erica. And you had to get down off the hotel first.”

“I had my grappling hook at the hotel,” Cyrus explained. “I dropped down the far side while you were taking your skates off. And then I beat you here because, well”—he flexed an arm, displaying his bulging muscles—“I'm in much better shape than you are.”

I sighed. “I've been hearing that a lot lately.”

Erica sat up on the bed, pulling her phone out of her pocket. “By the way,” she told her grandfather, “I recorded the tiny bit of Shang's conversation I overheard. I would have gotten more, but you knocked me unconscious. Me. Your own granddaughter.”

“I did that for your own good,” Cyrus told her. “It was
the only way to get you out of there quickly. I couldn't risk starting an argument out on that balcony. Or having you struggle against me.”

“Maybe you should listen to this before you start accusing me of being reckless again,” Erica said, then pressed play.

The conversation wasn't easy to hear, as Erica had recorded it through a glass door. And it was impossible for me to understand, since it was in Chinese. Cyrus apparently knew the language, though. Despite his annoyance with Erica, he still listened to the recording intently.

Two men were talking, sometimes at once. They seemed to be having a heated discussion about something.

There were a few times when Erica's “Shhhh!” cut into the conversation. “That was for Ben,” she explained to her grandfather. “He wouldn't stop talking.”

“Only because the people you'd shoved me into were angry at me,” I pointed out. “And then I was trying to warn you that you were about to be attacked.”

“Shhhh!” Cyrus hissed at me, trying to listen.

On the recording, I heard a new voice. It was stern and commanding, and the other two people stopped speaking immediately to listen to it.

“Leo Shang,” Erica mouthed to me.

Leo continued a bit longer, but he was cut off by Erica asking me, “What part of ‘shhhh' don't you understand?”
And then there was the sound of Erica being knocked unconscious. After that, Leo Shang's voice faded away as Cyrus spirited Erica off.

“What did he say?” I asked.

“ ‘I want a helicopter tomorrow,' ” Erica translated, then gave Cyrus a hard stare. “Obviously he's planning some sort of aerial reconnaissance.”

“Or he just wants to go helicopter skiing,” Cyrus replied, unimpressed.

“What's that?” I asked.

“Skiers can have a helicopter take them out into the wilderness for the day,” Cyrus explained. “No lift lines, plenty of untracked snow. It's quite popular with those who can afford it.”

“That's not all Shang said,” Erica went on. “He also said, ‘If all goes well, everything is on track for the thirtieth.' ”

“You think he's planning Operation Golden Fist for that day?” I asked.

“It seems pretty obvious,” Erica replied. “Only, I don't have any idea what Operation Golden Fist is, because
somebody
knocked me unconscious before I could hear about it.” She glared at her grandfather.

If Cyrus felt bad about this, he didn't show it. Instead, he returned Erica's glare. “For all we know, he was making further ski plans.”

“The whole point of this mission is to find out what Shang's plotting,” Erica growled. “Based on
your
intel that he's plotting something. And now you're telling me that he's not plotting anything at all? He's simply here to go skiing?”

“All I'm saying,” Cyrus growled back, “is that you're jumping to conclusions based upon an insufficient amount of information.”

“Well, I would have had a lot more information if it hadn't been for you!” Erica yelled. It was the first time I'd ever heard her raise her voice in my life.

“Use that tone with me again,” Cyrus warned, “and you're grounded.”

Erica lowered her voice but remained impertinent. “What are you gonna do? Send me to my room?”

“Worse. I'll boot you off this mission.”

Erica's eyes widened in surprise. “You wouldn't. This mission would be a disaster without me.”

“It was almost a disaster tonight
because
of you,” Cyrus retorted. “Ben's the primary agent on this. He's the one who's crucial here, not you.”

“That's a mistake,” Erica said coldly. “He's not ready for this. He's already showed feelings for Jessica Shang.”

Cyrus wheeled on me, concerned.

Suddenly, the frigid room seemed like it was a hundred degrees. I could feel my face turning red in embarrassment. “That's
not true,” I stammered. “I've barely even seen her. I just thought she was cute is all.”

“Ben gets flummoxed around girls he's attracted to,” Erica told Cyrus.

“I do not,” I said.

“You get flummoxed around me,” Erica pointed out.

“That's because you're always doing things like shoving me onto a crowded ice rink to create a diversion for you without telling me first,” I shot back.

Erica started to say something else, but Cyrus held up a hand, silencing her. He kept his gaze locked on me, though, carefully assessing me. Finally, he said, “There's another reason we selected Ben as the primary agent on this mission, Erica: He's a team player. He follows orders, he works well with others, and he doesn't go running off half-cocked anytime an idea pops into his head. Now, you might have tons more raw talent than he does, but you could still learn some things from him.” He turned back to face her. “If you pull one more stunt like you did today, I will deactivate you and ship you home faster than you can say ‘jackrabbit.' ”

Erica didn't say anything in response. She just gave Cyrus a stare so cold it seemed to lower the temperature around us.

Right at this moment, Alexander Hale returned. He barged through the door, whistling happily, and completely failed to pick up on the tension in the room. “Great news!”
he cried, holding up a grocery bag. “I got everything we need to make s'mores!”

Cyrus squinted at him crankily. “Now, where the heck do you expect to do that?”

“The fireplace in the lobby,” Alexander suggested.

“The fire in the lobby's a fake,” Cyrus informed him. “Boy, your observation skills stink on ice.”

“That's right,” Erica told Cyrus tartly. “Everyone in this family's a lousy spy except you. And no matter how hard we try, we'll apparently never be good enough.” With that, she stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind her. A cheap framed ski poster fell off the wall and busted on the floor.

Cyrus rolled his eyes and muttered, “Teenagers.”

Alexander glared at him, still smarting from his insult. “See if I ever buy you campfire treats again,” he said, and then stormed out himself.

Somehow, with them gone, there was even more tension in the room. Cyrus was prickly on his best days, but now he seemed ready to blow. I edged toward the door, desperate to get out of there, hoping he might simply ignore me and let me go.

He didn't. His angry gaze now fell on me.

“I should probably be going too,” I said as cheerfully as I could. “I've got a big day tomorrow with the mission and all, so I want to turn in early and get a good night's sleep. . . .”

“Do you have the hots for Jessica Shang?” Cyrus asked accusingly.

“No!” I lied, selling it as hard as I could. “I don't even think she's that attractive. In fact, to be totally honest, she's kind of ugly. I actually feel sorry for her. . . .”

Cyrus didn't buy this for a moment. “Erica may have made a lot of mistakes tonight,” he told me, “but she was right about one thing: If you want to succeed on this mission, you need to keep your heart out of it. Once you let your emotions get involved, it's trouble. And I don't want any trouble. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Dismissed.”

I slipped out the door as fast as I could.

The parking lot had filled up with the cars of returning skiers, but Erica was nowhere to be seen. Neither were any of my fellow spies-in-training. As I passed the lobby, though, I could hear Alexander speaking to the guy who ran the motel. “I understand the fire's electric, but it still generates heat, right? I promise not to get any melted marshmallow on it. And I'm happy to share.”

I headed back through the frigid night to my room, worried about the mission. I was afraid that I really did have a crush on Jessica Shang—and that Erica was right that it would compromise my abilities. I was concerned that I might
fail to befriend Jessica, dooming our operation. I feared that Erica might go off and do something dangerous on her own, just to prove she was right, and get herself in trouble. The only thing I knew for sure was that things had gotten off to an extremely rocky start. If they continued like this, Operation Snow Bunny was going to be a catastrophe.

Schüss Ski Rental

Lionshead Village

Vail, Colorado

December 27

0830 hours