Ahead of us, Erica, Ashley, and Mike were already scrambling across the balance beam over the pit of water—which was now a pit of ice. Luckily, the grease that had covered the beam in the daytime had frozen as well, so running across it was significantly easier now. It wasn’t easy—as we watched, Mike almost lost his balance and tumbled off the beam—but when people were coming to arrest and/or shoot you, it was always nice when the straightest route to retreat through wasn’t as slippery as a bucket of eel guts.
Zoe and I ran after the others. “Think about it,” I said. “Warren sets me up as the assassin. Then he catches me and turns me over to the CIA. He commits the crime and solves the case, which makes him look less like the assassin that he actually is—and more like the hero, which he isn’t.”
“But that doesn’t work if you can prove what he did.”
“That’s why SPYDER wants to take care of me before I get the chance.”
“You mean . . . kill you?”
“They already tried to blow me up with the president. I don’t think they like me very much.”
“I just can’t believe Warren planted the bomb on you.” Zoe looked queasy as we reached the far end of the beam and followed the others down the winding wooded path; the idea that Warren had turned traitor seemed to be taking a toll on her. “I can’t believe he set us up like this. Why would he turn against us?”
I didn’t answer—because I didn’t really know the answer. All I could think of was, Warren has always been a pinhead. But before I could say it, Mike piped up.
“Warren didn’t turn against us,” he said. “He turned against Ben.”
“I don’t understand,” Zoe said.
“You don’t?” Ashley chided. “I thought you guys were supposed to be a bunch of geniuses here!”
“Er . . . ,” Mike said, sounding uncomfortable, “Warren has a crush on you, Zoe.”
“He does?” Zoe asked, aghast.
“And . . . ,” Mike went on, sounding even more uncomfortable, “Zoe has a crush on you, Ben.”
“What?” I asked, stunned. I had just been thinking that Zoe was rather unobservant for never picking up on the fact that Warren liked her—and I’d apparently done the exact same thing. I turned to Zoe, who quickly averted her eyes in embarrassment, which confirmed that Mike was right—and nearly caused Zoe to run straight into a tree.
Now that Zoe’s crush was out in the open, a flood of memories came rushing back that I probably should have picked up on earlier: the time when Zoe had asked me to help her study for her History of Espionage exam when she turned out to know the subject better than I did; the time when she’d asked me to kill a spider in her room even though she could clobber a man twice her size; the time on Operation Snow Bunny when I’d made an offhanded comment that I would go to Disney World with her even though I wasn’t really into her and she’d suddenly become very annoyed at me.
I wondered if I hadn’t picked up on it because I’d been too focused on Erica, or if I simply wasn’t used to girls paying attention to me. For most of my life, not a single girl had shown interest in me, and now it turned out that, not only had I missed the signals from my closest friend at spy school, but I had missed signals so obvious that they’d driven Warren to frame me for a presidential assassination.
“You guys didn’t know any of this stuff?” Ashley taunted. “Man, for a bunch of spies-in-training, your social skills stink.”
“So this whole attack on the president . . . ,” Zoe said, still trying to get her mind around it all. “It was all about getting even with Ben?”
Ashley laughed mockingly. “You jidiots actually thought it was about killing the president? You don’t understand how SPYDER works at all, do you?”
“I’m beginning to,” I said. Every time I’d gone up against SPYDER, they had used misdirection, leading me—and the rest of the CIA—to believe they were plotting one thing when they were actually plotting something else. It seemed insane that they had targeted the president merely to frame me for his assassination (although his death might have been a nice side benefit for them), and yet it also fit the pattern of how SPYDER worked. They had a bone to pick with me for thwarting them so many times. However, if they killed me directly, the CIA would immediately suspect them: Who else but SPYDER wanted me dead? So SPYDER had come up with an indirect way to kill me—and ruin my reputation as well. Even though the plot hadn’t worked as well as SPYDER had intended, they were still manipulating things to their advantage. Now my only allies at spy school—Erica, Zoe, and Mike—were also on the run from the CIA, while the one person who really worked for SPYDER—Warren—would look like the hero for catching us, leaving him free to cause further chaos and mayhem in the future.
It was all quite confounding, clever, and devious. Classic SPYDER. And yet I still had the sense that there was more to their plan. It felt like I had missed something important, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. . . .
“Oh, crud,” Mike said suddenly.
His words snapped me back to the problem at hand: We were still on the run with the entire spy school closing in on us. Our ragtag band had emerged from the narrow wooded path to find ourselves facing the final obstacle on the course:
“Freaking pendulums,” Zoe muttered.
A strong wind was blowing, swinging the massive pendulums back and forth over the balance beam. To make matters worse, they were almost impossible to see in the darkness.
Erica didn’t hesitate. She ran right onto the beam and deftly dodged the hurtling logs. Ashley followed directly behind her.
“You go next,” Mike told me, glancing back toward the woods. The flashlight beams of the CIA flickered in the trees, growing brighter as they came closer. “You’re the one they want.”
I didn’t argue. It would have only wasted time. I gathered my nerve—and made sure my shoes were tied this time. (They were.) Then I charged onto the beam, trying to focus on the pendulums around me, rather than the people pursuing us. I had the sense of something enormous flying in toward me, hesitated, and felt a pendulum swing past an inch away. Then I moved on a few more feet and did it again. And again.
I was getting the hang of this. Though I warned myself to not get cocky, to concentrate and stay alert. . . .
There was a startled cry from ahead of me.
Erica.
To my surprise, she had lost her balance. She wobbled precariously on the balance beam.
And then a pendulum clobbered her. She sailed off the beam and thudded onto the ice below.
I was so astonished, I forgot all about my own surroundings.
Which was why I didn’t notice the pendulum coming at me until it was too late.
It seemed to appear out of nowhere. I had the sickening sensation of tumbling through the air, and then I thwacked onto the ice and skidded across it like a hockey puck. I came to a stop, gasping and winded, right next to Erica. She was already scrambling to her feet.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Ashley shoved me!” Erica pointed to the gymnast and shouted, “Stop her!”
Unfortunately, Ashley had already made it to solid ground at the end of the balance beam, with a big lead on Zoe and Mike, who still had several pendulums to get past. Ashley gave us a devious smile, her perfect white teeth gleaming in the darkness. “So long, doosers!” she shouted, and raced into the darkness.
“Dorks plus losers?” Mike asked.
“Give it a rest,” Zoe told him, then screamed as a pendulum smacked her off the beam.
Erica tried to go after Ashley, but she couldn’t get any purchase on the ice. Instead of going in a straight line, she skidded around wildly on the surface.
She was still doing better than me, though. I was struggling to merely get to my feet. I almost stood, then slipped and face-planted right back on the ice.
Four dozen flashlight beams lit us all up at once, coming from every direction. The beams were blinding. We couldn’t see who was aiming them at us, only tha
t they had us surrounded.
“Put your hands up, traitors!” someone shouted.
Erica did exactly as ordered. There was no way she could fight back against so many people from inside the pit.
I raised my hands too. So did Zoe and Mike.
I heard the sound of a weapon being fired, followed by a small grunt from Erica.
“Erica?” I called out. “Are you okay?”
“No!” she shouted back. “Some dipstick just shot me with a sedation darrrrppplthhhmmm.” She promptly sagged on the ice, unconscious.
We had been captured for good this time, by our own agency.
While Ashley Sparks, the very person we’d risked our safety to find, had escaped.
MORALE BUILDING
CIA Academy of Espionage
Hammond Quadrangle
February 13
0500 hours
Mike, Zoe, and I were handcuffed and marched across campus. Erica was carried, seeing as she was unconscious. Greg Hauser, who was one of the biggest kids at school, slung her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Professor Simon insisted on handcuffing her anyhow, in case she was merely pretending to be drugged to get everyone to drop their guard. Erica didn’t seem to be pretending, though. She was snoring softly and dreaming about arresting people; I could tell this because she was issuing the Miranda warning in her sleep.
“You have the right to remain silent,” she murmured drowsily. “Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law.”
Now that we weren’t blinded by their lights, I got a better look at our captors. I knew every one of them.
They were all fellow students and faculty. There were fifty of them, ranging from first-year students to Coach Macauley. As they had been roused to action in the middle of the night, most had dressed haphazardly. Some had thrown combat boots and Kevlar vests on over pajamas, while others had mismatched outfits of hastily gathered clothing. Nate Mackey’s shirt was on backward and his fly was gaping open. Coach apparently hadn’t been able to find his Kevlar vest, so he’d looted a baseball catcher’s chest protector and mask from the gymnasium. The only thing anyone had in common was the hateful glare they fixed on us. They probably were under orders to not speak to me, but most couldn’t keep themselves from hissing things like “Traitor,” or “You’re a disgrace.”
“Ben isn’t a traitor!” Zoe informed them defiantly. “He’s been set up by SPYDER! And now you’re doing SPYDER’s dirty work for them by capturing us!”
That didn’t convince anyone. It only provoked everyone to start hissing mean things at Zoe, too.
I didn’t see Chip Schacter or Jawa O’Shea anywhere among them and wondered where they could be. I could only hope they were lurking in the shadows somewhere nearby, ready to take everyone else by surprise and rescue us.
“You have the right to an attorney,” Erica said dreamily. “And to have her present while you are being questioned.”
Meanwhile, Mike seemed completely unfazed by our situation. He was walking beside me with his head held high and a broad smile.
“Sorry I got you into this,” I said.
“You didn’t get me into anything,” he replied cheerfully. “I chose to be here. I’m sure you’ll figure out how to get us out of it, though.”
I was at once impressed and disturbed by his confidence. “Uh, Mike . . . We’re in a huge amount of trouble here. There is no way out of it.”
“Well, there won’t be if you’re going to have a negative attitude like that.”
“I’m not being negative. I’m being realistic.”
“No you’re not. Why are you being such a downer about all this?”
I looked around at the several dozen people holding us prisoner, wondering if Mike was no longer occupying the same reality that I was. “Because there’s nothing to be optimistic about!”
“Of course there is. SPYDER tried to kill you.”
I considered that a moment, then asked, “Did you by any chance get hit in the head really hard out on the obstacle course? I’m worried you have brain damage.”
“Nope. My brain is working perfectly.”
“Really? Exactly how is SPYDER trying to kill me a good thing?”
“Think about it. SPYDER tried to kill you. Not Cyrus. Or Erica. Or anyone else. Only you. Why?”
“Um . . . because they don’t like me?”
“Yes!” Mike exclaimed. “But it’s not because of your personality or anything like that.”
“It’s because you’re a threat to them,” Zoe piped up, seeing where Mike was going with this. She suddenly sounded as excited as he did.
“Exactly!” Mike agreed. “You’re the one who always figures out their plans, Ben. You’re the one who thwarts them all the time. SPYDER, the most evil organization on the entire planet, wants you dead because they’re scared of you. Honestly, you shouldn’t be worried about all this. You should be flattered.”
I thought that over. Mike’s logic was more twisted than my small intestine, and yet it made a bizarre kind of sense. Which actually made me feel a tiny bit better. Not a whole lot better, but even that little bit helped.
“If you cannot afford an attorney,” Erica said quietly, “one will be appointed for you.”
“You guys are all full of crap,” Hauser growled. “You’re working for SPYDER. You’re not fooling any of us.”
“No offense, Hauser,” Mike said, “but you’re routinely outwitted by your own breakfast cereal. It doesn’t matter what you believe. It matters what the truth is. And the truth is, if anyone can figure out what SPYDER is really up to right now, it’s Ben.”
“We already know what SPYDER is up to,” I said. “They framed me for killing the president to make me look like a criminal. But no one’s going to believe it without any evidence. . . .” I trailed off, wondering about this. I suddenly had the same feeling that I’d had on the obstacle course, right before confronting the pendulum. The sense that I’d missed something important.
“What’s wrong?” Zoe asked.
“I think Mike’s right,” I said. “There’s more to all this. SPYDER might be plotting something much bigger than merely framing me.”
“Like assassinating the president?” Hauser asked. “ ’Cause that’s pretty big.”
“No,” I said. “It’s something else entirely.”
“What?” Mike asked.
I frowned. “I don’t have the slightest idea.”
“But you know it’s something, right?” Zoe asked. “And like Mike said, you always figure their plots out. So all you have to do is figure out this one, and then the CIA will realize what’s really going on here and let us go.”
I sighed, my confidence deflating once again. I wasn’t so sure the CIA would cop to its mistake that easily—and I was even less sure that I could figure out what SPYDER was plotting. I had almost no information to work from. All I had was a hunch. And even if I wanted to investigate SPYDER further, I couldn’t really do it as a prisoner.
The procession of captors led us into the Nathan Hale Building.
I glanced around the gothic foyer, looking desperately for Chip and Jawa. If they were planning to rescue us, they were running out of time. I paid particular attention to the shadowy nooks and crevices, hoping to see them lurking there.
They weren’t.
Meanwhile, Erica was still snoring away on Hauser’s shoulder.
To the side of the library, two secure steel doors stood open.
I had never seen them open before—although I had known of the room behind them. In fact, I had once prevented SPYDER from blowing it up, along with the heads of every intelligence division in the United States. But I had never been inside it. It turned out to be a large lecture hall, used only on rare occasions when big groups of important people had to gather at the academy.
“Do you understand your rights?” Erica asked sleepily.
A stage stretched across the far end of the lecture hall, where speakers could stand at a
podium and address the crowd. However, the podium had been removed, and now there was a table with seven people sitting at it. I couldn’t tell who any of the people were, as blindingly bright lights had been arrayed behind them, leaving them mere silhouettes.
Hundreds of seats faced the stage, but for now only the front row was being used. Two people sat there with their hands cuffed behind their backs.
My heart sank when I saw who it was.
Chip and Jawa.
TRIBUNAL
CIA Academy of Espionage
Angleton Meeting Room
Nathan Hale Building
February 13
0530 hours
“Hey,” Chip said, looking embarrassed.
“What are you guys doing here?” Zoe asked them.
“We tried to hold off all these bozos outside the dormitory,” Chip said, nodding toward our captors. “So you could have a little extra time to get away.”
“It obviously didn’t work,” Jawa said miserably.
“Sorry,” Chip apologized.
“Thanks for trying,” I told them. Although it was dispiriting to see them there, I was also flattered by their loyalty to me.
“Sit down!” a voice boomed from the center of the table. I recognized it instantly: Cyrus Hale. His voice echoed throughout the cavernous room, like the Wizard of Oz speaking to Dorothy.
Mike, Zoe, and I sat in the front row. Hauser looked to the stage nervously, unsure what to do with Erica. “Er . . . should I just leave her on the floor? Or do you want me to try to put her in a chair like she’s sitting?”
“What happened to her?” Cyrus demanded, sounding concerned.
“I shot . . . er . . . I mean, someone shot her with a sedation dart,” Hauser stammered.
“You sedated my granddaughter?” Cyrus shouted.
“She’s very dangerous when she’s awake!” Hauser said defensively.
“Aw, thanks,” Erica said dreamily, then looked to the stage and waved at Cyrus with her cuffed hands. “Hi, Grandpa.”