Jason didn’t even look up.
Kimmy kicked his bench to get his attention. “Jason, your friend is here. I’m sure your father would like you to treat him nicely today.” She then whispered, “Unless you like digging latrines.”
Jason looked up and pasted a fake smile on his face. “Hi, Ben. I’m so glad you’re here,” he said, in a way that made it very clear he wasn’t.
“That’s better.” Kimmy started through the EEOB toward the White House. I fell in beside her, while Jason plodded along behind us, returning his focus to his iPad once again.
“I am sooooo sorry about what happened with Jason yesterday,” Kimmy whispered to me. “And so is the president. He’s well aware what a”—Kimmy paused to think of the proper word—“rascal his son can be. In fact, he and the first lady are very concerned about it. They’re hoping that a nice, well-behaved kid like you might be a good influence on Jason.”
I figured this was the cover story the president had given Kimmy to explain why he had gone through so much trouble to get me back there. “I’m just hoping Jason doesn’t send me to jail again,” I said.
“Oh, he won’t,” Kimmy assured me. “The president asked me to stay closer to you today to ensure we don’t have any more unpleasantness. But there are lots of fun things for you and Jason to do together. How would you like to check out that White House bowling alley?”
If I had really been there to hang out, with a person who actually liked me, I would have immediately said yes. But I wasn’t there to hang out. And Cyrus had given me explicit orders to avoid the bowling alley at all costs. “It’s the worst possible place to keep an eye out for suspicious characters,” he had told me that afternoon. “It’s way down in the basement, and you won’t see another soul down there. Plus, the pinsetter never works properly. I think Nixon broke it.”
Then again, Cyrus didn’t want me getting stuck in Jason’s room watching him play video games all afternoon either. So he’d suggested something that would put me in the midst of everything. “Would it be possible to get a tour of the White House?” I said.
“A tour?” Jason looked disgusted, as though I’d suggested we spend the whole afternoon bashing ourselves in the heads with rocks.
“Yes.” I looked to Kimmy. “You told me so many fascinating things yesterday. I’d love to hear more.”
Kimmy broke into a huge smile, flattered by my praise—and thrilled to go back into tour-guide mode. “Why, that sounds like a great idea!” she announced. “Is there anything in particular you’re interested in?”
“Oh, I’m interested in everything,” I replied. “The history. The architecture. The décor. No detail is too small.”
“You’ve come to the right place!” Kimmy exclaimed. “I know a million small details about the White House! For example, did you know that the house was first painted white in 1798? They used a lime-based whitewash to keep the stone from freezing.”
Jason groaned. It seemed he was beginning to think that maybe digging latrines in Haiti over spring break would be preferable to a minutely detailed tour from Kimmy.
We passed out of the EEOB and across the blustery outdoor corridor toward the White House. I cased the area while pretending to sound interested in Kimmy’s recitation of each president’s favorite type of tree.
Once again, the photographers and press were camped under their canopy and the chauffeurs were all in their SUVs. Sadly, I didn’t have Erica’s photographic memory, but it seemed to me that there were many familiar faces from the day before. Erica’s explanation of the Bombay Boomerang came back to me. I wondered how many times each of those people had passed through White House security. Hundreds? Thousands? Did the platoon of Secret Service agents around the property even bother to consider that one of those people might be a threat? If SPYDER had turned any one of those reporters or chauffeurs, they could probably access the grounds with little inspection. Or perhaps none whatsoever. After all, I was only on my second day here and I’d waltzed through security pretty easily. Someone who was there day after day after day might get waved right in. . . .
Something about this line of reasoning worried me, as though I’d hit on something important but hadn’t quite grasped it. I glanced around the White House grounds, wondering what it was that had set me on edge.
At which point, Jason tripped me. He lashed out his foot for no good reason and sent me sprawling into a hedge.
“Jason!” Kimmy yelled.
“What?” Jason asked innocently. “It was an accident!”
I staggered back to my feet and glanced at all the photographers. Most of their cameras were now aimed my way. They had recorded my fall, probably because they had little else to do. Looking at all the enormous lenses, I had an unsettling thought: A weapon could probably have easily been smuggled in with all that equipment on any given day.
“I’m so sorry for that,” Kimmy said, coming to my side. “Although, if you’re curious, Ulysses S. Grant planted that hedge you just fell into.”
We continued on toward the White House. I locked eyes with Jason. He gave me a hateful glare that indicated I probably had many more stumbles to look forward to. I decided to not get anywhere near a staircase with him, then ran back over what I’d been thinking about before he’d tripped me, trying to pinpoint what it was that had worried me so much.
Two more Secret Service agents nodded obsequiously to Jason as we neared the White House, then held open the doors as we entered the West Wing.
If anything, it was even more of a madhouse than it had been the day before. Staffers and aides were racing about, shuffling papers and texting furiously on cell phones. Each of them had an ID on a lanyard around their neck, each had probably come and gone from the White House a hundred times or more, each had probably stopped being scrutinized by the Secret Service long ago. Any one of them would have been a perfect sleeper agent for SPYDER, determined to kill the president—and me, should I get in their way.
And yet . . .
Every time I had come up against SPYDER, they had always caught me—and the CIA—off guard by undermining our expectations. They never did what we were expecting them to. Instead, they were always several steps ahead of us. Which meant that if we thought they were going to have a mole inside the White House assassinate the president, then that was probably the last thing they were going to do. True, that logic was quite warped, but SPYDER’s own logic often seemed to be as twisted as a Möbius strip.
“Did you know that every year White House staffers eat more than ten thousand bags of pretzels?” Kimmy asked me.
“Big whoop,” mumbled Jason.
Across the West Wing, Vladimir Gorsky exited the Situation Room. He was with several high-ranking military officers. Since I’d actually had time to prepare for my mission that day, I had spent much of the afternoon boning up on important government employees, trying to memorize their names and faces. So now I recognized some of the people with Gorsky. There were the secretaries of the army, the navy, and the air force, along with their boss, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as the secretary of defense and a dozen aides and assistants.
Gorsky was shaking hands with all of the top brass, as though a deal had been concluded—but when he noticed me, he recoiled in alarm, as if my appearance had shaken him somehow.
I looked at the lanyard hanging around his neck, wondering how much scrutiny he’d been subjected to by the Secret Service that day and whether it was as lax as mine had been. . . .
Then I stopped in my tracks, suddenly struck by a terrifying thought.
“The staffers also use more than six million Post-it notes every year,” Kimmy announced cheerfully. “That’s enough to cover Rhode Island!”
Gorsky stepped back, away from me—and thus, from the military officers as well. Several of them seemed confused or concerned by his reaction, then looked toward me curiously, wondering if I could have possibly been the cause of his alarm.
A second later, not far ahea
d of us, the door to the Oval Office opened. Everyone in the West Wing immediately fell silent. Every Secret Service agent snapped to attention as President Stern himself entered the warren of cubicles, accompanied by an entourage of aides. Courtney, the tough Secret Service agent who’d driven our car, was posted right behind him, like a shadow. The moment Stern noticed Jason, he broke into a warm smile. “Son!” he exclaimed. “What brings you down here?” If there was still any tension between him and Jason, he did an impressive job of hiding it.
On the other hand, Jason put his anger on display for everyone to see. “You know exactly what I’m doing here,” he said acidly. “I’m having that stupid playdate you insisted on.”
President Stern’s smile flickered, then returned to its usual full strength. Rather than acknowledge Jason’s comment at all, Stern turned my way and greeted me graciously, pretending like we’d never met. “You must be Benjamin. I’ve heard so much about you. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He extended a hand to me.
I shook it, doing my best to act as though this was one of the most amazing things that had ever happened to me. Normally, it would have been—even if I hadn’t spent private time with the president the day before—but now my mind was awhirl with terrifying ideas.
My security had been lax. I’d been hurried through the magnetometer, and the canine agents had allowed me through even though the dogs had gone nuts when they smelled my jacket. . . .
But I hadn’t been lying when I said I’d washed my jacket. I had washed it, trying to remove whatever scent the dogs had picked up. And yet they’d still smelled something.
The entire West Wing remained focused on us. Because when the president was around, people stopped to watch him. Even people who saw him every day. They were all looking at me expectantly, except for Jason, who was staring at his shoes, making a point of letting his father know how angry he was. I tried to say something appropriately deferential, like “It’s a pleasure to meet you too, Mr. President,” but I wasn’t really sure what I said, because I was putting everything together and, at the same time, hoping it couldn’t possibly be true.
SPYDER never did what anyone expected. SPYDER was always several steps ahead of us.
So maybe SPYDER didn’t just know that I’d been activated; maybe SPYDER had wanted me activated all along.
I had the mortifying feeling that I was the Bombay Boomerang.
The president said something else to me that must have been funny, because everyone around us laughed, but I had no idea what it was.
My winter jacket was thick and heavy. If anyone had stuffed an extra few ounces of explosive inside, I probably wouldn’t have noticed. And now here I was, only a few feet from the president, easily close enough for a good-size blast to wipe him out.
Which would also wipe me out as well.
As I considered this, something clicked inside my jacket. Something very small. I barely felt it. If my senses hadn’t been heightened, I would never have noticed it—and it was completely possible that I was so keyed up that I was merely imagining things—but I knew that if there was ever a time to trust my instincts, this was it, because if I didn’t, then I wouldn’t have much more time left, period. So even though almost every person in the West Wing was already looking my way, I had no choice but to behave like a total maniac.
I suddenly bolted past the president, shrugging off my jacket as fast as I could.
In any other building, I would have headed for a window, hoping to open it and toss the jacket outside. But I knew the windows inside the West Wing were made of bulletproof glass and probably didn’t even open for security reasons. Meanwhile, there were too many people between me and the door I’d entered through to return that way, so the only real option—the only place in the West Wing that appeared devoid of people—was the room that the president himself had just exited.
The Oval Office.
There were Secret Service agents posted between me and the office, but they seemed perplexed by my sudden run, rather than concerned by it. After all, their job was to keep people from running toward the president and I was running away from him. So they, and pretty much everyone else, seemed to think I was sprinting toward the Oval Office because I desperately wanted to see it.
In their defense, this probably made much more sense than the idea that I was running there to dispose of a bomb that had been slipped into my jacket because I’d been used as a patsy by an international consortium of evil agents dedicated to causing chaos and mayhem.
So instead of tackling me or pistol-whipping me, they merely stepped into my path with their hands up, like school monitors. “Whoa there, kiddo,” one said.
I didn’t stop for them. I had my jacket mostly off by now—only my left wrist was still caught in the cuff—and I yelled, “Look out!” and plowed right through them.
“Ben!” Kimmy yelled. “Come back! That room isn’t on our tour!”
The Secret Service agents grasped at me as I slipped between them, then spun around after me.
My stupid watch was caught on the cuff of the jacket.
I arrived at the Oval Office itself, catching a glimpse of the famous blue carpet and the red-striped couches and the big oak desk and the portraits of Lincoln and Washington.
It was smaller than I’d expected.
And yet it was still going to be a shame to blow it up.
At the moment, however, I was still far more concerned about blowing myself up along with it. My watch remained caught on the jacket. I yanked as hard as I could, ripping the jacket off my left arm, then flung it into the Oval Office, over the closest couch, and right onto the giant seal of the United States in the center of the carpet. Then I slammed the door shut just as the Secret Service grabbed me.
“Everyone get down!” I yelled, pulling free from them and diving behind the president’s secretary’s desk.
No one else took cover.
My jacket didn’t explode, either.
Instead, there was an awkward, excruciating silence. Everyone in the West Wing, including the president of the United States of America, stared at me like I was a moron.
I had never been so embarrassed in my entire life.
Jason Stern seemed even more mortified than I was, given that I was supposed to be his friend. “Ben has mental problems,” he told everyone. “I’ve only invited him here as an act of charity. You know, to help the deranged.”
At which point, the Oval Office exploded.
There was a deafening blast, and the walls trembled as though an earthquake had hit. The office door tore off its hinges and flew into the West Wing, nailing both the Secret Service agents near me hard enough to knock them on their butts. A ball of fire rolled through the gap where the door had been.
Now everyone dove for cover. Four Secret Service agents tackled the president, knocking him to the floor. Two more tackled Jason Stern.
The fireball sailed over their heads, scorching the furniture, setting memos on fire, and singeing our hair.
The sprinkler system came on, dousing everyone with water and shorting out all the computers. Several exploded in sprays of electrical sparks.
I glanced toward the president. His face was blackened from smoke and one of his eyebrows appeared to have been charbroiled, but other than that, he was alive and well.
So was everyone else in the West Wing.
The Oval Office wasn’t doing as well, though.
The windows had blown out, the furniture was decimated, and despite the gushing sprinklers, a fire was blazing in the middle of the room.
“Oh my God!” Kimmy screamed. “Jacqueline Kennedy picked out that carpet! And now it’s ruined!”
Around the West Wing, people scattered every which way. Some were running for their lives, fleeing the burning building. Others were rushing toward the fire, hoping to help put it out. Secret Service agents were swarming the president. From my position, facedown on the carpet, I could no longer see Vladimir Gorsky. It appeared he had fled.
Jason Stern lay on the floor close to me, no longer anywhere near as cocky as he had been before the explosion. Instead, he was crying like a baby.
I got to my feet, hoping to catch a glimpse of Gorsky, but I’d barely been up for a second before a team of Secret Service agents flattened me. They shoved me right back down into the soaked carpet and aimed a dozen guns at me at once.
“Stay right there, kid,” one of them warned. “You’re under arrest.”
APPREHENSION
The White House
Washington, DC
February 11
1600 hours
This time I was deemed too big a threat to be left in the White House jail. Instead, the Secret Service decided to remove me from the property immediately. I was yanked back to my feet and hustled away amid a scrum of agents.
“I’m not an assassin!” I protested. “I’ve been set up!”
“You just tried to blow up the president,” an agent growled in my ear. “That looked like an assassination attempt to me.”
I cased the West Wing desperately, searching for the president, hoping he would come to my rescue and admit that he’d brought me on board as a covert agent, but Courtney and another set of Secret Service agents had already rushed him off somewhere else. Either they were concerned that another bomb might go off, or they simply didn’t want him to get wet from the sprinklers and catch cold.
I was rushed outside, into the wind tunnel between the White House and the EEOB. The photographers and journalists were no longer merely lounging around. The explosion was big news, and they were doing all they could to record it. A hundred cameras were documenting the flaming wreckage, though they quickly shifted to me as the Secret Service dragged me past.
“I didn’t try to blow up the president!” I argued. “Someone else did. I saved his life!”
No one responded. It was possible no one had heard. The agents were all talking among themselves and were now being barraged with questions from all the reporters: “What happened?” “Was that boy responsible?” “What’s his name?” “Is the president hurt?”