The bulldozer plowed onward, heading in a different direction from us, trailing strings of barbed wire and other detritus. A toilet was perched atop the cab like a little porcelain hat. The opossum was seated on it, seeming to enjoy the ride.
We reached the roadside and scrambled into the RV. Cyrus Hale was at the wheel. Cyrus was in his seventies but could have passed for twenty years younger, if not more. He was dressed more like Erica than Alexander, wearing clothes designed for action rather than any pretense of being a tourist. His reaction to seeing me was closer to Erica’s too: cool and unemotional. He didn’t so much as nod hello. “Buckle up, everyone,” he said. “This could get hairy.”
“I call shotgun!” Alexander cried. In the Hale family, this didn’t merely mean you got the seat next to the driver. You also had to use an actual shotgun.
Erica and I grabbed the rear seats as Cyrus hit the gas.
The RV swerved onto the road—and rolled along at exactly the speed limit.
“Uh, Dad?” Alexander asked. “Shouldn’t we be going . . . er, faster?”
Cyrus shot his son a disdainful look, which happened quite a lot. “An RV tearing along the road here at ninety miles an hour will look suspicious. We don’t want to draw any attention right now. There’s still a chance we can decoy our way out of this without resorting to gunplay.”
I scoped out the interior of the RV, hoping that, perhaps, it was some sort of high-tech surveillance vehicle designed to merely look like an RV. Instead, it was just an RV—and an old one at that. The Naugahyde seats were stained, the linoleum floor was peeling, and the whole thing smelled like a boys’ locker room. A lot of surveillance equipment had been installed inside, but not in a way that made it look sleek or cool. Instead, it was jury-rigged and haphazard. A great deal of duct tape had been used. Which meant Cyrus had probably done it; he was a big fan of duct tape.
To my surprise, there was also a cat in the RV. A scraggly calico with mismatched eyes bounded into Alexander’s lap.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Mr. Wigglebottom!” Alexander exclaimed.
“It’s the cat I threw over the wall to distract Joshua from you the other night,” Erica explained. “Daddy wouldn’t let us take him back to the pound.”
“Because he loves me.” Alexander gave the cat a scratch behind the ears. “Don’t you, Mr. Wigglebottom? Yes, you do! Yes, you do!”
Cyrus rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath.
Behind us, SPYDER agents began to pour through the hole in the wall around Hidden Forest. Now that Mr. Seabrook and Coach G were out of commission, Mrs. Henderson was leading the charge. Thankfully, no one took any notice of our rickety old RV. Instead, they all ran after the bulldozer, which was still chugging across the lettuce patch. A few SPYDER SUVs raced out of the front gates of the community, but they all went after the bulldozer too, quickly veering off the road and driving through the dirt.
Cyrus watched them all in the rearview mirror, then shifted his gaze to Alexander. “See what I mean? Those dinks didn’t know Ben had backup close by. They still think he’s on his own . . . for now.”
I watched as all the SPYDER agents closed in on the bulldozer, ignoring us completely. Just as they were about to catch up to it, we rounded a bend in the road and they disappeared behind a stand of trees. Now that we were out of their sight, Cyrus hit the gas.
It turned out, the RV had been slightly modified. The engine had been souped up, and the RV shot down the road with surprising speed. Given that it was an RV, however, it still wasn’t going to outrun an SUV—and it wouldn’t be long before SPYDER realized there was only an opossum driving the bulldozer and figure out I’d hitched a ride.
“How long do you think the decoy bought us?” I asked.
“A minute, if we’re lucky,” Cyrus replied, then glanced back at me. “So what’d you find in the safe?”
“It was a trap.” I pulled out the note Joshua had left for me and handed it to Erica.
Erica read it: “ ‘Ben, I guess we can’t trust you after all. Joshua.’ ” She frowned, looking as defeated as I’d ever seen her.
Alexander took the note from her and sagged as well. “They were onto us the whole time.”
“Well, they were suspicious, at least.” Cyrus pounded the steering wheel angrily. “Dang it! We tanked an inside man for this?”
He suddenly veered off the road. The RV lurched into the parking lot of a diner. Mr. Wigglebottom pitched out of Alexander’s lap and landed on the floor with a yowl. Cyrus swerved around to the back of the restaurant and skidded to a stop by the trash bins. The Hale family unbuckled themselves and leapt from their seats.
“Whoa,” I said. “We’re eating? Now?!”
“We’re ditching the RV,” Cyrus grumbled. “SPYDER’s agents must’ve seen it just now—and they’ve certainly realized you’re not in that bulldozer anymore—so they’re gonna be looking for it.” He grabbed a steel case off the floor and shoved it into my hands. “Take this—and skedaddle. We don’t have much time.”
Erica and Alexander were already slipping out the door with similar steel cases, heading for a nondescript sedan parked by the trash bins. Mr. Wigglebottom scampered after them. Alexander opened the passenger door and shouted, “Shotgun!” again.
I followed them, piling into the backseat with Erica. Cyrus slid into the driver’s seat and told Alexander, “Leave the cat.”
“He can’t come?” Alexander asked, upset.
“No pets on missions,” Cyrus stated flatly. “You can come back for him if we survive.”
Alexander sadly set the cat on the ground. “Don’t worry, Mr. Wigglebottom,” he said. “I’ll come back for you. I promise.”
Mr. Wigglebottom strolled away unconcerned, like he had already forgotten about us.
Alexander sniffled and wiped away a tear.
Cyrus muttered under his breath again and motored slowly around to the front of the restaurant.
Sure enough, two SPYDER SUVs came flying down the road, going double the speed limit. The RV was hidden well enough behind the diner that they didn’t notice it and shot right past us.
Cyrus gave them a thirty-second head start, making sure they hadn’t spotted us, then pulled out of the parking lot and started down the road behind them. “Ben, during your period undercover in SPYDER’s compound, did you learn anything about this plot of theirs, other than when it’s happening?”
I met his gaze in the rearview mirror. “No,” I admitted.
Cyrus’s gaze hardened. “Well, that’s just great,” he grumbled. “We all took a big risk on you, kid. Bigger than you can imagine. And for what? Nothing.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled, feeling completely useless.
Cyrus floored the gas angrily. We shot past two gated communities that, save for their names, looked exactly like Hidden Forest.
“Where are we going?” I asked meekly. “Back to the CIA?”
Cyrus gave a derisive snort in response.
“We’ve gone rogue from the CIA on this mission,” Erica told me. “The Agency doesn’t like rogues. If we go back there with no intel, they’ll have our heads.”
“Then where . . . ?” I began.
“To our only lead so far,” Erica said. “Sandy Hook.”
NAUTICAL EXERCISES
Lower New York Harbor
September 17
1700 hours
It took us most of the day to get back to Sandy Hook. Since there was only one road leading there, Cyrus didn’t want to use it. “Too dangerous,” he explained. “Know why they call them dead-end roads? ’Cause you end up dead on them. It’d be way too easy for SPYDER to cut off our escape route. If they’re waiting for us there, we might as well kiss our keisters good-bye.”
However, since Sandy Hook was a peninsula, there were plenty of ways in and out across the water. That was the much safer option, as far as Cyrus was concerned. The problem was, coming in by water required a boat—and we d
idn’t have one.
Cyrus had some ideas how to get one, though. So we worked our way through the suburbs of New Jersey to the waterfront in Jersey City. This took several hours, because even though we appeared to have shaken the SPYDER agents, Cyrus was certain they were still hunting for us. He stuck to back roads, made huge detours to avoid potential ambush sites, and every time he heard a helicopter, he’d pull over under the cover of trees and wait for it to pass.
“C’mon, Dad,” Alexander chided the fifth time this happened. “You really think SPYDER has choppers in the air, looking for us?”
“I didn’t get to be this old by letting my guard down,” Cyrus snapped. “As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing I’d put past SPYDER.”
Once we finally arrived in Jersey City, Cyrus ordered us to drop him off near a high-end marina. It was located in front of some shiny new condos on the waterfront, and the slips were full of expensive watercraft: fancy wooden sailboats, gleaming motorboats, and a few yachts that were bigger than my house.
The rest of us headed south to the docks where the container ships unloaded. Cyrus had pinpointed one that was under repair, so we parked there, hiding the car in a maze of rusted old shipping containers, then went to the water’s edge to wait. It was possibly the least beautiful place I’d ever been. The water’s surface was slick with oil and choked with garbage, while the abandoned ship cranes loomed over us like the skeletons of dinosaurs.
A half hour later, Cyrus arrived, driving a cigarette boat. It was built for speed: thin and aerodynamic, with a pair of six-hundred-horsepower engines in the back. The cockpit was small and uncovered. There were only four seats. The boat was painted neon blue with flames on the sides.
The rest of us quickly climbed into the cockpit. There was barely enough room for us and our four steel cases.
“Where’d you get this?” Erica asked.
Cyrus chuckled. “I liberated it.”
“You mean it’s stolen?” Alexander demanded.
“The owner doesn’t deserve it.” Cyrus motored away from the dock into the Hudson River. “He’s a criminal.”
“What’d he do?” I asked.
“It’d be faster to list what he hasn’t done,” Cyrus replied. “The guy’s dirty as they come, though the government’s never been able to nail him on anything. I figure, at the very least, the guy can let us borrow his boat for a few hours. For all we know, the jerk’s off on the French Riviera anyhow.”
Erica looked over the paint job. “It’s a little garish, don’t you think?”
Cyrus shrugged. “Yeah, it’s tacky. But since we’re heading for the Jersey Shore, we ought to fit right in.”
He took us through the channel between the mainland and Staten Island, then hugged the shoreline. He did his best not to draw attention, driving at moderate speed and falling in with other recreational boaters. The warm weather had kept up, and lots of people were out on the water, many in boats just as ostentatious as ours.
We arced along the Jersey coast, then approached Sandy Hook from the west, keeping the setting sun at our backs.
“Is anyone going to explain to me what’s going on?” I asked. I’d posed the question in varying ways at several other times that day, only to be rebuffed.
Erica and Alexander both looked to Cyrus, who nodded imperceptibly that it was finally all right to fill me in on what was going on.
“Sandy Hook isn’t just a beach,” Erica explained. “It’s also an extremely important military site.”
“Since when?” I asked.
“Since 1812,” Erica replied. “It’s perfectly situated for defending New York City because it overlooks the main route there from the Atlantic. The United States first built a fort at Sandy Hook during the War of 1812 to protect New York from the British Navy, and it’s been used for defense ever since. In the 1950s, they installed Project Nike missile silos there to fend off Soviet nuclear strikes.”
“Is that what those buildings were that Murray was taking pictures of?” I asked. “Old missile silos?”
“Yes. Sandy Hook was Nike site fifty-six.” Erica handed me a pair of binoculars.
I zoomed in on the peninsula ahead. Before, I had only been on the eastern side of it, my view of the west blocked by the dunes. Now I could see there were quite a few buildings on the western side: squat cement bunkers and rusted metal silos.
“I thought all the Nike missile sites were shut down after the Cold War,” I said.
“Not true,” Erica replied. “The military just told the public that to throw off our enemies. They even let the silos look like they’re going to seed. But they’re still completely functional—and there are still missiles stored inside to protect the city.”
“And SPYDER’s trying to steal them?” I concluded.
“That’s our best guess,” Cyrus said. “It’s all we’ve got, seeing as you didn’t learn any other information for us.”
I sighed. Cyrus Hale might have been one of the finest spies our country had ever produced, but he could also be a real jerk. I was feeling ineffectual enough without him reminding me how ineffectual I was every few minutes.
“So . . . you suspected SPYDER was after the missiles when Murray first brought me here?” I asked.
“Of course,” Cyrus said. “Why else would they be sniffing around Sandy Hook?”
“What do you think SPYDER intends to do with them?”
“I have no idea,” Cyrus replied curtly. “That was what you were supposed to find out.”
In the shotgun seat, Alexander glanced back at me, looking a bit embarrassed about his father. “You know, Ben actually did quite a good job, under the circumstances,” he said. “This was only his first undercover mission, and it wasn’t an easy one . . . .”
“What would you know about doing a good job?” Cyrus snapped.
Alexander recoiled, looking wounded. “I did save your life once.”
Instead of acknowledging this, Cyrus said, “We’re almost there. Time for you to get out of those ridiculous clothes.”
Alexander nodded sadly, then opened the steel case he’d been carrying. Erica opened hers as well. I figured this meant I ought to open mine, too.
Inside it was everything I’d need for my mission: a black outfit that matched the ones Cyrus and Erica were wearing, night-vision goggles, and a small grappling hook. But while Erica had a gun in her case, I’d been given only a bottle of chloroform and a handkerchief.
There wasn’t any place in the boat’s small cockpit for Alexander or me to change clothes in private, so Erica turned away while the two of us stripped down to our underwear and pulled on our new black outfits. The clothes were sleek and practical, though they weren’t as suave and cool as the suits Alexander usually wore. Instead, the four of us looked more like a renegade circus troupe. Instead of pockets, we each had a utility belt. There were also bulletproof Kevlar vests for protection, which was nice, though I would have liked Kevlar pants and a Kevlar helmet as well.
I doused my handkerchief with chloroform, then tucked the bottle into one pocket of my utility belt and left the hankie sticking out of another, where I’d have easy access to it. Figuring out where to put the grappling hook was a little more difficult. I still hadn’t had any formal training with grappling hooks—you didn’t cover them until your second year at spy school (Intro to Grapples, Rappels, and other Vertical Access Methods)—and they weren’t the type of thing you encountered in normal life. I’d never had much use for grappling until being recruited to the CIA. There was a revolver-size air gun that fired the hook, which had a coil of thin steel cable attached to it. I fitted the hook into the gun, then struggled to figure out how to clip it onto the utility belt.
“Here,” Erica said. “Let me help you with that.”
I pulled away from her. “Oh, now you want to help me?”
My own words caught me by surprise. I hadn’t realized how angry I was at Erica until then.
Erica seemed surprised as well. She loo
ked at me curiously. “What’s that supposed to mean? I’ve been plenty of help to you on this mission.”
“A mission you put me on without even asking if I wanted to do it,” I said bitterly. I knew I probably should have been keeping my thoughts to myself, bottling them up the way Erica did, but I couldn’t help it. “Instead, you just manipulated me into it. You got me booted from spy school . . . .”
“You’ll be reinstated if all this works out.”
“And I could get killed if it doesn’t! You put me in serious danger here!”
“Danger is part of life at the CIA. I thought you wanted to be an agent.”
“And I thought you were my friend.”
Erica pursed her lips. For a moment, I thought I saw the slightest hint of emotion in her eyes. But then it was gone. “You can’t afford to have friends in this business,” she said coldly. “Personal connections compromise your ability to perform.”
“Personal connections?” I repeated. “You’re on this mission with your whole family! This is like a road trip for you!”
“That’s not by choice,” Erica said. “The unauthorized nature of this mission required using this particular team.”
“So, that’s all I am to you?” I asked. “Someone who you work with when you have to?”
Erica fixed me with a blank stare. “Emotions can severely complicate a mission. It’s best not to form attachments. Suppose SPYDER is plotting to kill millions of people and you have the chance to destroy their operation—but Joshua Hallal takes me hostage? Now, you have a choice: Save me—or complete the mission. Which would you choose?”
I frowned, knowing what the right answer was, but not wanting to say it. “That won’t happen.”
“It could,” Erica warned. “And if it does, you have to sacrifice me for the mission, not the other way around. I’d do the same thing. And so would Granddad and my father. You can’t have millions of people die to save one person.”