“I don’t want to go on the run,” I said. “I want to prove my innocence.”
“That will be dangerous,” Catherine cautioned.
“I don’t care.”
“There’s also a chance you’ll fail and end up in jail here for the rest of your life. A tropical island would be much nicer.”
I hesitated for a moment, considering the wisdom of that.
“Ben’s not going to jail,” Erica said confidently. “We’re going to find the evidence to save him.”
Catherine looked to her, concerned. “You? I don’t think so. You’ve already risked far too much for Benjamin. Now, I’m sure that, with your grandfather’s help, we can arrange a cover story claiming that you were actually trying to capture Benjamin at the museum today, rather than abetting his escape, but it will take every bit of clout Cyrus has to get you back into the good graces of the CIA. If you put your neck on the line for Ben now and fail, your entire future will be in jeopardy.”
I expected Erica might pause to think that over, the same way I had. But she didn’t waver in her conviction for a moment. “I don’t care. Ben was framed by SPYDER and I’m not going to let them get away with it.”
Catherine appeared to have conflicting emotions about this. She seemed simultaneously proud of her daughter and worried about her. However, she couldn’t respond right away, as we had finally arrived at the British embassy.
There were actually two embassy buildings. There was the original: a large, beautiful, stately brick manor that looked as though it had been plucked right out of the Cotswolds and deposited in the middle of Washington. And there was the new embassy, which had been built in recent years to handle a much bigger staff. This one was boxy and dull and looked like a post office. (As one of our closest allies, Britain had one of the biggest diplomatic corps of any country—as well as one of the choicest embassy properties in the city.)
Catherine pulled up to the gate and put on a good show for the guard posted there, sweet as could be. “Morning, Tristam!”
“Good morning, Mrs. H,” Tristam replied cheerfully, then glanced through the window at Erica and me. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to recognize us. But then, the chance that one of Britain’s diplomatic employees might be harboring two fugitives was probably a stretch for anyone. “No school for the kids today?”
“No,” Catherine said with a motherly sigh. “It’s yet another one of those American holiday weekends. Presidents’ Day, I think. They’ve got a whole slew of days off and I have nowhere to send them. You’ve met Erica before, of course. And this is her friend Mortimer.”
“Hey, Tristam,” Erica said with a wave, slipping back into ditz mode for a second.
“My, my,” Tristam said. “Erica, you get bigger every day. And it’s a pleasure to meet you, Mortimer.” He nodded graciously to me. “Well, come on through.” He waved us through the gates.
As we rolled onto the property, Catherine resumed our conversation. “Erica, I know you consider Benjamin a friend, but I would be negligent as a mother if I didn’t point out the severe risks associated with helping him. SPYDER is as cunning and savage an organization as MI6 or the CIA has ever encountered. They have certainly planned for the possibility of Benjamin trying to prove his innocence and taken steps to prevent that from happening. Going up against them will be arduous, demanding, and potentially deadly. Plus, they’ve covered their tracks so well, we’ve never been able to develop a single lead to them. I wish I could be more helpful, but I don’t have the foggiest idea where you could even start tracking them down.”
“I do,” Erica said. “We need to talk to Ashley Sparks.”
Catherine slammed on the brakes as she pulled into her parking space. Then she wheeled on Erica, astonished. “Ashley Sparks?” she repeated, worried.
“You know about her?” I asked.
“Erica has kept me up to date on all your missions,” Catherine explained. “As well as all the miscreants you have encountered on them.” She returned her attention to Erica. “I don’t like this at all.”
I shared Catherine’s concern. Ashley Sparks had been a student at SPYDER’s evil spy school, a former gymnast who’d turned to crime after barely missing the cut for the U.S. Olympic team. She had originally come across as kind and friendly—if a bit misguided—but had ultimately proved to be fully committed to SPYDER and extremely dangerous. She was the only person I knew of who had ever come close to defeating Erica in a fight.
While Nefarious Jones, a fellow evil spy school student, had turned his back on SPYDER and helped thwart their plans, Ashley had been unrepentant. Both were now serving time for their crimes, although Nefarious had been given a far shorter sentence in return for his help. Since Ashley and Nefarious were minors, the government couldn’t send them to a federal penitentiary. And yet both had been deemed too important to send to a standard juvenile detention facility. (Especially after the CIA’s previous attempt to send a SPYDER agent to a standard juvenile detention facility had resulted in disaster.) So a new version of juvenile detention had been created solely for them, a place where they could still be educated while being kept under maximum security.
“Ashley Sparks is incarcerated at the Academy of Espionage,” Catherine said.
“I know,” Erica replied. “I’m the one who told you that.”
“And you want to talk to her?”
“I think she might know something.”
“You’re currently on the run from your government, and you want to go to the one place where everyone knows exactly who you are?” Catherine asked.
“Yes.”
“You want to break into a highly secure CIA facility to seek help from a known felon who absolutely despises you?”
“Yes.”
“And your plan is to get some crucial information about SPYDER out of that very felon, even though the entire CIA hasn’t been able to get her to reveal a single thing in the past six months?”
“I know how to get her to talk,” Erica said confidently.
Catherine sighed heavily, then looked to the sky, as if imploring the heavens. “How on earth did you ever get to be such a stubborn, presumptuous, bullheaded firebrand?”
“I learned it from my mother,” Erica answered.
A tiny smile creased Catherine’s lips. “Yes, I suppose you did.”
“So what’s the plan?” I asked.
INFILTRATION
The British Embassy
Washington, DC
February 13
0200 hours
The location of the relatively new juvenile detention center at the academy was supposed to be a secret, but of course Erica knew exactly where it was. Erica knew the academy grounds better than anyone—including most of the professors—and trying to keep a secret from her was like trying to hide candy from a kindergartner. It turned out, the holding area had been built inside the Cheney Center for the Acquisition of Information, down on a secret subterranean level of the campus.
Erica figured that the best time to infiltrate the academy would be in the middle of the night, when everyone was asleep, and her mother reluctantly agreed. So I spent most of the rest of the day recuperating at the old British embassy.
I had to keep a low profile, though. Despite Catherine’s assurances that MI6 and the British government owed me thanks, that didn’t mean they wanted her harboring me at the embassy. In fact, Catherine had gone rogue by rescuing me, and she warned me that if anyone realized who I was, they’d probably alert the CIA immediately. Luckily, the old British embassy was really only a showpiece: a place to hold fancy events like state dinners and charity balls, while the real diplomatic work was done at the new, modern embassy. There were plenty of nearly forgotten rooms in the aging building. Catherine found me a small bedroom up on the third floor, which looked as though it might not have been used since the Thatcher administration.
Despite its apparent neglect, it was warm and cozy with extremely stereotypical British furnishings like paintings
of the countryside, ceramic bulldogs, and a bust of Winston Churchill. After my recent adventures and my nearly sleepless night, I was exhausted, so I collapsed onto the bed and promptly fell asleep until well after nightfall.
When I woke, I was famished. Thankfully, Catherine had realized this would be the case; she had already made me a meal and left it on the dresser. There were several peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (no crust), two thermoses (one with chicken soup and one with tea), a package of English “crisps” (which turned out to be potato chips), and some unidentifiable puddinglike substance that I figured must be a British food I’d never heard of. Normally, I might have avoided it, but I was hungry enough to eat dingo kidneys, so I gulped it down with everything else.
There was a TV in the room, so ancient that it actually had an antenna attached to it, though it was also connected to cable. I flipped between 24-hour news channels as I ate.
Unsurprisingly, the news was all about me.
Even though it was well over a day since my “attack” on the White House, the ongoing manhunt for me was still the top story. This late at night, the news channels were mostly rerunning the same reports they’d had on all day. While there was a general consensus that I was now America’s public enemy number one, there was considerable debate about who I was working for. Each channel had a coterie of experts discussing this, and every last one of them had a different conclusion, all of which were wrong. Within fifteen minutes, I was accused of being connected to six different extremist terrorist groups, twelve hostile foreign governments, and three crackpot conspiracy theories, one of which involved the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, and NASA. Even the “experts” who suspected I was acting alone couldn’t agree on why. My attempted assassination was blamed on everything from video games to Facebook to a misguided crush on the president’s daughter.
Nobody mentioned SPYDER. But then, it was doubtful any of them knew about SPYDER at all.
Not a single person suggested the possibility that I might have been innocent and merely used by someone trying to assassinate the president. The closest anyone got to that was a severely deranged U.S. representative who suspected that I was a Soviet sleeper agent. The congressman then went on to suggest that most children who had been adopted from other countries were probably sleeper agents as well, and that the process of international adoption ought to be immediately terminated.
I terminated that interview instead, switching to a different channel, where I found Jason Stern mouthing off about me. It wasn’t an official interview; instead, Jason had been posting about me on social media—probably without his family’s permission—and the news was wantonly parroting everything he said.
Unsurprisingly, Jason was being awful to me—and very supportive of himself.
“My father would have been dead if it wasn’t for me,” Jason had proclaimed on his blog. “I suspected Ben Ripley was a possible assassin all along. The kid was real weird. So when he came over, I was on guard. When I heard his jacket ticking, I risked my own life to rip it off him. Sucks that it blew up the Oval Office, though. And that the Secret Service let him escape. Losers.”
On Twitter, he had been much more succinct: “Stopped #AssassinBenRipley from killing my father today. You’re welcome America.”
Since Jason wasn’t actually giving interviews, no one could ask him why he’d invited me over for a playdate if he suspected I was an assassin all along. Somehow, none of the news commentators thought to point this out either.
For about the thousandth time that day, I found myself thinking about my parents and wishing there was some way to contact them.
I flipped off the TV in disgust and wolfed down the rest of my food.
I had just finished it when there was a knock at the door. “Benjamin?” Catherine asked. “Are you awake?”
“Yes. Come on in.”
Catherine stepped in, carrying the sort of box that clothes from a fancy store came in. Only, there was no store name on the box. It was completely black. “Oh, good. You’ve eaten,” Catherine said. “Did you enjoy the trifle?”
“Er . . . yes,” I said, deducing that that’s what the puddinglike substance has been.
“Wonderful. I hate to disturb you, but Erica feels the time for your covert mission is nigh.”
“I figured as much.”
“Although, before you go, I thought you might want to wear something a bit more . . . appropriate.” Catherine handed me the box.
I opened it and gasped with surprise at what lay inside. It was a sleek black outfit, like the ones Erica always wore, except tailored for a boy. It even had its own utility belt. “Wow,” I said.
“Do you like it?”
“I love it. I’ve always wanted one of these.”
Catherine beamed. “It’s from the same top secret tailor where I get Erica her clothes. Unfortunately, the utility belts don’t come fully loaded and I didn’t have time to procure much for you. All I could get on short notice was pepper spray, cyanide capsules, and some chewing gum. Try not to get them all mixed up.”
“Thanks,” I said, and then, even though I barely knew Catherine, I gave her a hug. After being accused of treason and insulted in the press, I was feeling awfully emotional, and she gave off such a maternal vibe, I couldn’t help it.
Catherine hugged me back, comforting me. “There, there, now. Everything will be all right.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s all pretty messed up.”
“Yes, but you have my daughter on your side.”
“And the entire U.S. intelligence agency on the other.”
“Perhaps. But who do you trust more?”
I didn’t have to think about that too long. “Erica.”
“Exactly.”
I pulled away from Catherine, feeling better. Not a whole lot better, but at least a little bit. “Do you have any idea how my parents are handling all of this?”
“Ah. I suspected you might want to know that. I’ve done my best to keep tabs on them while you were asleep and . . . well, it’s probably no surprise that this has been very difficult for them. The best I could do to allay their grief was to send them an extremely secure e-mail claiming to be from the Secret Service, in which I stated that the U.S. government was well aware that you were actually not the assassin but merely happened to be at the White House at the time—and that the media has gotten the story all wrong.”
“Thanks.”
“I then went on to say that various crime-fighting agencies have found your mistaken accusation to be advantageous in the pursuit of the true assassins, so unfortunately, we have to request that your parents keep mum about your innocence until the government announces it publicly—although steps are being taken to rectify the situation as quickly as possible.”
“Do you know if that made them feel any better?”
“Sadly, I don’t. We can only hope. Of course, it will all be a load of poppycock unless you and Erica can actually rectify the situation. So, why don’t you try on that outfit and we’ll hit the road?” Catherine gave me a reassuring smile, then slipped out of the room to give me privacy.
I put the suit on. It was extremely snug, but besides that, it felt great. When I checked myself out in the bedroom mirror, I looked rather suave and primed for action. I performed a few test karate chops and jujitsu kicks, then modeled some debonair poses. “The name’s Ripley,” I purred smoothly. “Benjamin Ripley.”
It was at this point that I noticed Erica standing in the doorway.
“What on earth are you doing?” she asked.
“Nothing!” I said quickly. “Just testing out my suit.”
“Save it for the bad guys. We have to go.”
When I looked back at the mirror again, I no longer looked that suave. Instead, I was bright red from embarrassment. In my black suit, my head looked like a maraschino cherry atop a chocolate sundae. I wadded my old clothes into a ball and quickly followed Erica out the door.
By that time, most of the embassy emp
loyees had gone home. In the dark, the guard on duty didn’t even notice Erica and me hunkered down in the back of the minivan when Catherine drove us out.
The embassy wasn’t far from spy school. Catherine drove us to a residential street a block from the academy’s rear wall, where we all synchronized our watches. “I’ll pick you both up right here in ninety minutes,” Catherine said, as though she were a normal mother dropping us off at a movie. “If you’re not back by then, I’ll have to assume something’s gone wrong and come looking for you. . . .”
“Nothing will go wrong,” Erica said confidently. Like it was a fact, rather than a guess. “I know this place inside and out.” With that, she hopped out of the minivan and started down the street.
“Good luck!” Catherine called, then blew her a kiss good-bye.
“Thanks for everything,” I said, then followed Erica.
In our dark suits, we blended into the shadows perfectly as we made our way to the academy wall.
“You’re aware that what we’re doing here is insane, right?” I asked. “I’m wanted by every branch of law enforcement in the country, and now we’re breaking into a CIA facility.”
“It’s the last thing they’d ever expect us to do,” Erica replied.
“Unless they’re expecting us to do the last thing they’d ever expect us to do, in which case, this is exactly what they’d expect us to do.”
“Shhh,” Erica warned. “We need to be quiet. And your logic is making my head hurt.”
The wall was an imposing stone barricade, topped with electrified barbed wire and monitored by dozens of security cameras, but Erica felt we ought to go over it anyhow. Even though there was a secret tunnel under the wall that almost no one but us knew about.
“Why don’t we use that?” I asked.