Undercover with the Hottie (Investigating the Hottie) (22 page)

“Sounds like a nice gesture,” I said.

He put his hands on my waist, and I put arms around his neck.

“You're not a bad dancer,” he said. “It's nice of you guys to help my little sister.”

“It's no big deal.”

“Yes, it is. You would have a date with your boyfriend tonight if you weren't helping her.”

I shrugged. “My boyfriend who everybody else thinks is my brother. Plus, we have to get back to Headquarters later.”

The Snack Pack of Daphne and West were also dancing, but mostly they were kissing. I guess they were still going strong.

We moved to the music and talked, and before I knew it, they were turning off the music.

I spotted Ethan for the first time. He was holding hands with a guy I hadn't met before, and both were smiling. “Ethan looks happy,” I said to Logan.

“Yeah,” he said. “We've got his back.”

“It's almost midnight,” Leah announced, turning up the volume on the television. “Time to watch the countdown.”

Logan and I went to stand next to Will and Sidney.

“Hey, man,” Logan said. “Is it okay if I kiss your sister at midnight, since you're kissing mine?”

“Logan!” I hissed.

Will ignored both of us.

“Will?” I said.

“If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.” Then he winked at me.

The ball started its descent, and Leah brought us a tray of drinks.

“Sprite?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said.

I took a cup to toast the New Year.

Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

I kept my eyes on the screen to avoid seeing Will kiss Sidney.

Then Logan stepped in front of me and lowered his lips to mine. “Happy New Year, Amanda.”  

As the others blew on their noisemakers and cheered and threw confetti, all I could think was that Will was going to kill him. I grinned and raised my glass. I clinked the plastic cup with Logan and Leah, then Will and Sidney. “To an amazing year,” Leah said. We each sipped our Sprite.

We hung out with them for another half hour, talking, eating snacks, and drinking soft drinks. Finally, we said goodnight and drug ourselves out the door.

My phone rang before we got to the elevator.

“We're out front,” Christie said.

“On our way.” I started to push the down button.

“No wait,” Will said.

“What?” I turned to face him.

“Don't push the button until we have our first kiss of the New Year.” He put his arms around my waist, like Logan had when we danced, but at the same time, so very different.

“Happy New Year,” I whispered as our lips met.

We gathered in a large conference room when we got to GASI Headquarters. I hadn't realized that some of those agent could smile, but the room hummed with excitement about taking down the terrorists.

Section Chief Jobson came into the room last. “If you all will quiet down, we have a very special video call coming in.”

He didn't have to tell us twice. Spies could do quiet like nobody's business.

Jobson turned on the television, and a call came through immediately.

The face of the President appeared there on the giant flat screen, and while I'd seen her on television many times, this time she was watching us too.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, her eyes alert and her hair and makeup flawless despite the late hour. “I want to personally thank you for your work over the last week, and the daring takedown earlier this evening. Chancellor Swank and Secretary-General Vargas have asked me to share their gratitude as well.”

She smiled. “Amanda, Will, and Brenda, I don't know that two teenagers and a senior citizen have ever before overtaken terrorists and saved the lives of not one, but three world leaders. We may never know the true value of the work that your teams did in tracking down these individuals and foiling their assassination attempt. If the terrorists had managed to target and kill us on American soil with that kind of international audience, I cannot imagine the resulting harm to the image of our country and that of the UN, to our relationship with the UN, Germany, and our allies. To our economy and the international economy. To the American public who deserve to feel safe as they work toward the American dream.

“As you can imagine, I have serious concerns about the state of our surveillance and the limitations to which we have been confined by the wishes of the international community. I have a great deal of work to do to repair our valued relationships without submitting to untenable  circumscriptions in intelligence gathering.

“I thank you for your service to your country, and I thank you tonight for my life. It is an honor to work with each and every one of you as we pilot this country into the new year.”

“Thank you, Madame President,” Jobson said.

She nodded and then disconnected.

“Let's give ourselves a hand,” Jobson said.

We all clapped, and the smiles continued.

“We'll be debriefing Will and Amanda shortly. However, I do want to bring everybody up to date on the developments tonight. We have tied the male terrorist to a terror organization that calls itself, TT23. Once we were able to find this connection, we have managed to place the woman with several of their leaders at various times. We didn't have a good shot of her face, but I do think that we can positively identify her in these pictures based on her build and the portions of her face that are revealed. We can trace her to the terrorist group, but we don't have a name for her at this time. She did not have any fingerprints, and there is a good chance that she has had one or more surgeries to alter her facial structure.

“As for Simon Bankwell, he has been released on the promise to cooperate fully as developments continue in this case. There will be an extensive discussion about charging Bankwell for his role in the attempt, or rather feigned attempt, on the Secretary-General. The Director of GASI will need to define our future relationship with Bankwell and the Avaritia Militia.

“Shortly after midnight, the Secretary-General allowed us to sweep the UN buildings and vehicles for bugs. We found devices from at least four different sources. Bankwell identified those belonging to his group. We were able to identify those of the terrorist organization by the location. Only those located at particular locations could have picked up anything related to the fake attempt on the Secretary-General. The terrorists obviously had this information, the information that prompted them to kill the sniper and then attempt to hang the entire plot around the AM's neck. We are still working on the others. A number of bugs were found in the Town Cars, which indicates that we weren't the only ones who utilized that avenue of surveillance. We isolated fingerprints on several of the devices, so we expect additional arrests after sunup.”

Jobson looked around the room. “Did I forget anything?”

A rumbling of “No, sirs” went through the room.

“You're dismissed. Everybody get some sleep and report in no earlier than 9:30. Will and Amanda, I need you guys to hang around so you don't have to come back tomorrow.”

The other agents made their way out of the room.

When only the five of us remained, Jobson came over to us. “Job well done,” he said. “I don't know when I've had a team that could transition so flawlessly from one task to another. I thank God for the day you decided to cause trouble on those internet sites, Brenda.”

We all laughed. Grandma was a handful.

Jobson debriefed us himself, with the help of Nic and Christie. Grandma had slipped away for a cat nap while we took care of business. On her way out, she'd said, “I bet I'm the only woman over the age of sixty-five who hasn't been to bed by two a.m.”

There certainly wasn't another woman over sixty-five who'd just saved the President.

We recounted the events of Tuesday, and in particular, Tuesday night. Then we signed our daily reports from the day after Christmas through Monday.

Jobson beamed at us when we finished. “So what are the big plans for tomorrow?”

Christie glanced at me. “Amanda gets to plan the day. We made a bet, and I lost.”

“Whatever you do, I know you'll have fun.”  He stood and shook each of our hands. “It's a pleasure working with you. I look forward to next time.”

Next time? I hadn't thought about it, but next time could come soon, like next week. How was I going to keep up my normal life and this one? And would my parents let me continue? Because I didn't want to hide this anymore. And besides, how many more weird and sudden trips could arise before they suspected something was up?

“Did you two ever eat?” Christie asked after we collected Grandma.

“Ham and cheese sandwiches and caramel popcorn,” I answered.

“It's something,” Christie said with a shrug. “What are we doing tomorrow?”

“Will and I are skating at Rockefeller Center.” I raised my brow in a silent question to Will.

“Sounds good,” he said.

“We could go to the observation deck at the Empire State Building,” Nic suggested. “You didn't exactly get the full tour.”

“I'll think about it.”  I wasn't sure I wanted to return so soon.

“Hey, Nic,” Will said. “Whose limo was that?”

He shook his head. “I'm not at liberty to say.”

“Did it belong to a celebrity?” I asked.

Nic just smiled.

Chapter Twenty

Rockefeller center was buzzing with people on New Year's Day. I'd always wanted to see the Christmas tree up close and personal, and I wasn't disappointed. The tree was gigantic, and I wasn't sure how they got it into the city.

As Will and I stood in line for skates, it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn't asked him if he knew how. I'd just assumed since he was from a northern state that he could. “Are you a good skater?” I asked.

He gave me his crooked grin. “I'm decent.”

“Decent like art-decent or decent like soccer-decent?” He was an excellent soccer player, and I was hoping he was at least adequate at skating.

“Almost but not quite soccer-decent. I would never say my art was decent!”

“Good to know,” I said, wishing we weren't wearing gloves so I could feel the reassuring touch of his hand on mine.

“What about you? Will you be able to sit down when we leave here.”

I huffed at his implication that I'd be falling a lot. “I'm not great, but I can stay on my feet. Way better than art.”

“I guess you'll be okay when I leave you alone to do my triple lutz for the crowd.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, right.”

He leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. “Don't underestimate me.”

“Fine. Then you can spin me around really fast with my head almost hitting the ground. You know, like they do at the Olympics.”

“No, we'd need more room, and I wouldn't want to hurt any of the other skaters.”

“You mean you wouldn't want them to slip in my blood when you smacked my head into the ice.” I put my hands on my hips and speared him with my harshest stare.

He stared me down for a few moments. Then he caved. “Okay, fine. I can do a single lutz though.”

“Do you even know what a lutz is?” I asked, threatening to punch him in the stomach.

“No.” He grinned at me. “How about we just hold hands and skate around the rink?”

I stood on my toes and kissed him on the lips. “Sounds perfect.”

After Will proved that he could skate, if not on a competitive level at least better than I could, we went looking for an indoor activity to warm up.

“Logan said we should do the observation deck,” Will said. “The Top of the Rock.”

The truth was that we hadn't seen much of the city. We'd been too busy working. “I'd like that. We didn't get to take advantage of the Empire State Building.”

We bought tickets and stood in line. Before long, we were on the observation deck looking out over Central Park.

“Someday I'll take you for a carriage ride through Central Park,” Will said. “Not in January though.”

I smiled up at him. “You are a romantic.”

“You didn't know that?”

I shook my head. “No.” I sighed. “I wish we didn't live so far apart.”

He put his arms around me and pulled me into his chest. Even though our heavy coats separated us by a good six inches, the gesture was reassuring. “Me too.”

Looking up into his eyes, I said, “We should ask GASI to give us our own plane.”

“And a pilot.”

“We did just save the President,” I whispered.

“True. Maybe they could give us a trillion frequent flyer miles,” he said. “Then we could take turns visiting each other.”

“Good idea.” I nodded. “Much more reasonable than our own plane. How could they say no?”

“They couldn't.”

“Will?”

“Uh huh.”

“I'd kiss you but I can't feel my lips.”

He laughed. “Neither can I. Let's go inside and find somewhere warm to eat lunch.”

“And maybe warm up our lips?” I asked.

His gaze dropped to my lips. “Amanda Peterson, are you flirting with me?”

I nodded. “I've got some lip balm.” I pulled it out and swiped some on my lips. “Want some?” I put the lip balm back in my pocket.

“Yes,” he said, holding out his hand.

I pointed to my lips.  “Come and get it.”

He blinked. Then he smiled.

“Race you inside,” I said, turning to run for the elevator.

After we'd eaten lunch, shopped, looked at the art at Rockefeller Center, and of course, shared quite a bit of lip balm, we met Christie and Nic for dinner.

“We have a surprise for you,” Christie said.

I looked around. “What? Is the President coming?”

“No,” she said. “But we decided that you and Will met when you were in Princeton. You played some scrimmages and then when you saw him again at the Mock UN, you guys started hanging out. You can take some pictures with your cell phones back at the loft. We just need to hide anything related to GASI. And we'll make some fake photos of you two at the Mock UN sessions.”

Was she seriously saying that I didn't have to hide Will anymore? “You mean I can tell people we're dating?”

“As long as you stick to the story, you can tell your friends and family about each other. Of course, we'll have to change a few details, but I figured it was better than nothing.”