I’d been to New York City once before, on a family vacation when I was eight. I’d wanted to see the Statue of Liberty then, but my parents hadn’t thought to get tickets in advance and it had been sold out. I’d had to settle for taking the Staten Island Ferry past the island and jealously staring at the tourists whose families had planned ahead. Now I was getting a private tour of the statue itself. True, I’d been duped by SPYDER, pursued by the CIA, and nearly drowned in the harbor, but for a few minutes, life was pretty sweet.
After picking out a T-shirt and fashioning a beach towel skirt for myself, Erica and I took the elevator up through the statue’s base, then climbed the rest of the way. The inside of Lady Liberty was a web of steel struts going in every direction with a double staircase spiraling through it all like a coil of DNA.
We arrived at the viewing platform inside the crown to find Alexander and Cyrus pressed against the glass, keeping an eye on the goings-on outside. Both wore T-shirts and beach towel skirts as well. Alexander smiled warmly upon seeing me. The effects of the chloroform appeared to have worn off. “Ah, Ben!” he exclaimed. “You’re looking well, all things considered.”
Cyrus, on the other hand, glowered at me. “Glad to see you’ve finally decided to join us.”
“He wasn’t slacking off, Granddad,” Erica protested. “He was unconscious.”
Cyrus waved this off, as though there wasn’t a big difference. “You’d never catch me losing consciousness in the middle of a mission,” he grumbled.
Erica frowned. “He almost died because of that stunt you pulled.”
“I did what I had to do to shake our pursuers,” Cyrus said. “I didn’t know he was going to get tangled up in the anchor line.”
“You could have at least given us some warning,” Erica retorted.
“Wait,” I said. “You blew up the boat? Not them?”
“I didn’t have any other choice,” Cyrus replied. “They had us surrounded. So I faked our deaths.”
“Did it work?” I asked.
Cyrus shot me a nasty glance. “Do I look like an amateur to you? Of course it worked. I must’ve faked my own death fifty times over the years. I once convinced the entire KGB that I’d been buried in an avalanche in Kamchatka. No one can die like I can.”
“The Feds are still searching the area,” Alexander said. He waved us over to the windows, then pointed almost directly down, to where five boats were sweeping the water with spotlights. “But Dad chose the perfect spot to blow the boat. The water’s quite deep right there. Very tough to drag for bodies.”
“Looks like they’re searching the island, just to make sure,” Erica observed.
Sure enough, a few teams of men were moving about the perimeter of the fortress at the statue’s base, scanning the island with flashlights.
“Of course they are.” Cyrus sniffed. “But they won’t search here. The front doors won’t show any sign of a breach, because we didn’t come through them, and they don’t know there’s any other entrance. They’ve been hunting for hours now and haven’t found diddly-squat. Pretty soon they’ll decide this is a goose chase and draw down till daylight. That’s when we’ll make our move.”
“How?” I asked.
“That depends.” Cyrus turned me away from the window to face him. “Right before the boat blew, you said you knew what SPYDER was up to. Care to finally share that with us?”
With all the excitement, I’d forgotten all about my revelation. Almost dying can have that effect.
“Oh, right,” I said. “SPYDER’s going to launch missiles at targets in New York City.”
The Hales looked from one to another, then back to me.
“You’re sure?” Erica asked.
“Ninety-nine percent,” I told her. “You were right. SPYDER did want me for something, but they were so sneaky, I didn’t even realize what I was doing for them. The whole time I’ve been there, they’ve been giving me all these math problems involving missiles. I thought they were for class, because they were tucked away with a whole bunch of other evil math problems about ballistics and projectile parabolas and stuff like that—but they weren’t for class at all. They were for real missiles.”
“What kind of problems were they?” Cyrus asked.
“Complex targeting issues, mostly. Like, really complex. I gave SPYDER everything they’d need to program their missiles to hit precise targets around here.”
Cyrus scowled, not quite convinced. “And they recruited a kid to do that?”
“Ben isn’t a normal kid,” Erica told him. “When it comes to math, there’s not many adults who can do what he can. And we practically gift wrapped him for SPYDER.”
I blushed. This was the closest thing to a compliment Erica had ever given me. “Plus, I had the added bonus of secretly working for you. Not only did they use me to feed you information, but they also got me to do their dirty work for them.”
Erica frowned, angry at herself. “They’re always one step ahead of us. If not twenty.”
I felt angry at myself too, upset at being used. But I was determined not to let SPYDER get away with it. “We know what their plan is,” I said hopefully. “So that’s something, right?”
“We only think we know what their plan is,” Cyrus muttered. “I haven’t heard much evidence to support this idea yet.”
Erica turned to me. “What else do you have?”
“I’m pretty sure Joshua Hallal programmed the missiles himself,” I said. “I think that’s what he was doing in the underground lair the night I saw him there, when he was using Russian. SPYDER got Russian missiles before. They could do it again.”
“But you don’t speak Russian,” Cyrus reminded me. “So you can’t be sure.”
“True.” I nodded, then thought of something. “But I do remember numbers well. Two of the ones Joshua entered were 40.7057 and 73.9964. If he was really programming missiles, then those are probably coordinates.”
“Let’s see.” Erica whipped out her phone, which was sealed in a waterproof pouch, and typed the numbers into it.
“Wait,” I warned. “Can’t SPYDER or the Feds find us if you go online?”
“I scrambled the GPS function,” she told me. “Anyone tries to track us through this and they’ll think we’re in Parsippany. Okay. Got a match.” Her face suddenly filled with concern. “You were right, Ben. They’re coordinates, all right . . . for the Brooklyn Bridge.”
We all reflexively looked out the windows and across the harbor, to where the Brooklyn Bridge was lit up in the night. Cyrus now looked far more convinced I was right—and far more worried as well.
“They had me do problems about how much explosive was needed to blow up bridges too,” I said. “I worked out the payloads and the best places to strike the targets to provide maximum damage . . . .”
“Why would you give them that?” Cyrus demanded angrily.
“It was for class!” I snapped back. “I was trying to be a good student! You wanted me to fit in, so I was doing it! I didn’t ask to be sent undercover to evil spy school! That was your idea!”
Cyrus recoiled angrily, unhappy with how I’d spoken to him. But before he could reply, Erica stepped between us. “Ben’s right, Granddad. About everything, I think. That day at Sandy Hook, Murray wasn’t only taking pictures of the missile silos. He was also photographing the bridges in Manhattan.”
“Oh,” I said. “I thought he was taking pictures of you and the other girls.”
“So did I,” Erica admitted. “But he was only pretending to do that to hide what he was really taking pictures of: SPYDER’s targets. SPYDER just destroyed the NIKE missiles designed to protect New York City. So now there’s nothing to stop them from attacking the bridges here. Except us.”
“I can’t believe this,” Alexander said, stunned.
“It has to be what they’re planning,” I said. “All the evidence adds up.”
“Oh, I get that,” Alexander replied. “It’s just that SPYDER used missiles in t
heir last big scheme. And now they’re using them again? That’s not very creative.”
“Maybe they got a good deal on missiles last time and had a lot left over,” Erica suggested.
“This isn’t about creativity!” Cyrus barked. “There’s no rule that says bad guys can’t use the same weapons two times in a row. This is about causing chaos and mayhem, and nothing does that better than a missile.” He swung back toward me. “So please tell me you know where they are.”
“Back at Hidden Forest,” I said.
Cyrus narrowed his eyes. “That’s not possible. We’ve been watching that place for weeks.”
“The missiles have been there the whole time,” I told him.
Alexander looked skeptical as well. “You’re telling us that SPYDER hid a bunch of stolen missiles in a suburban housing development?”
“It’s not a real housing development,” I explained. “It’s camouflage for the missiles. SPYDER’s hiding them in plain sight.”
“But there’s no silos,” Erica told me.
“There are,” I countered. “They’re just disguised as septic tanks.”
Cyrus and Erica were taken aback for a moment, but then nodded understanding. Alexander didn’t. “What are you talking about?” he asked.
“There are huge holes all over the property,” I explained. “Easily big enough to hold missiles underground. They’re marked as being for septic tanks—and they even look like there are septic tanks in them—but the other night, I was on top of one, and there was a big hinge on the edge of it. The only reason you’d have a hinge there is if the top was supposed to swing open, and you don’t need the top to swing open on a septic tank . . . .”
“But you do on a missile silo,” Cyrus concluded, shaking his head in amazement. “You have to hand it to SPYDER. They’re clever. I looked at the satellite photos of that place a dozen times and never thought twice about the septic tanks.”
I said, “I’ll bet if you pulled up the sewer grid for the area, you’d find that Hidden Forest is attached to it and that they don’t need a septic system at all.”
“I don’t think that’s necessary. Your logic sounds right on this.” Erica brought up an image she’d saved on her phone. “This is a satellite photo of Hidden Forest from two days ago. Looks like there are ten separate septic tank holes, meaning they’ve got ten missiles.”
“Ten bridges down means a lot of chaos and mayhem.” Cyrus stared out the windows at the city. “Far more than anything SPYDER has done before. It’ll bring New York to a standstill for months.” He glanced downward and checked the scene at the base of the statue. “We can’t afford to waste another moment. Let’s move.” He headed for the stairs.
Alexander glanced out the window himself. “But there’s still a search party down there.”
“That’s only the shadow force.” Cyrus started down through Lady Liberty’s head. “Looks like most everyone else has been sent home. Besides, we need at least one team here so we can get off this island.”
“How so?” I asked, following him.
“Because we’re gonna steal their boat,” Cyrus replied.
Erica fell in behind me. “How are the four of us supposed to infiltrate Hidden Forest by ourselves? The security there was tight enough to begin with, and I can guarantee you SPYDER’s going to jack it up for D-day. The control center is in the middle of the whole complex, two stories underground. It’ll be impossible for us to penetrate that.”
“Plus, most of our weapons are now at the bottom of the harbor,” Alexander added.
“We’d need a whole platoon of agents to even make a dent in that place,” Erica said morosely. “Is there any CIA agent we can trust? Anyone we can explain the situation to?”
“Not that I can think of,” Cyrus muttered.
I stopped on the stairs halfway through the Statue of Liberty’s neck, struck by a thought. “I don’t think we need to explain anything,” I said. “I know how to get the CIA there. We just need the right bait.”
“And what would that be?” Erica asked.
“Us,” I said.
BAIT
Liberty Island
September 18
0000 hours
Our clothes were all hanging in the bathrooms in the museum in the base of the statue. Cyrus had dismantled the hand driers and rejiggered them to blow hot air constantly over our things. It had been only moderately effective. The shoulders and lower legs of my outfit were still cold and damp, while the area around my crotch was so overheated, I could have baked a potato in my pants. However, there was no option but to suit up and move out. There was little chance of escaping the island and overthrowing SPYDER while wearing beach towel skirts.
The secret passage out of the statue began in a long-forgotten storage room and tunneled to a trapdoor hidden deep in the largest clump of trees on the island. We emerged and set off after the lone crew of CIA agents still hunting for us. There were six of them, but they were spread out in three groups of two, and after hours of repeatedly wandering the same fifteen acres without finding so much as a trace of us, they had decided this was a pointless assignment and dropped their guard. The island wasn’t well lit and there were plenty of shadows to lurk in, so Cyrus and Erica were able to quickly reduce the number of conscious agents to four, then two, and then none.
Alexander and I tied them all up, then stripped them of their weapons, badges, and communications devices.
Their boat was moored at the ferry dock. The CIA had commandeered a Coast Guard vessel along with a Coast Guard captain, who didn’t look very happy about the assignment. He was sitting in the bridge, playing a game on his phone. He didn’t pay much attention when Alexander wandered onto the boat, looking like any other CIA agent, until Alexander jammed his stolen gun in the guy’s ear and ordered him to take us to the mainland. The captain quickly agreed and even dismantled his radio himself so we understood he wasn’t going to try anything stupid and get himself killed.
The few boats still trying to find remnants of us in the water were on the other side of the island, so no one noticed when we pulled away from the dock.
New Jersey isn’t far from Liberty Island. Parts are so close that, if the water hadn’t been full of garbage and toxic waste, we could have swam it. The trip back to where we’d left our car didn’t take long.
On the way, I borrowed Erica’s phone and dialed Zoe Zibbell. I never forgot a phone number. Especially that of the one person in the whole world I was certain I could trust.
She answered groggily, roused from sleep. “Hello?”
“Hey,” I said. “It’s Ben.”
“Smokescreen?!” Zoe was instantly awake. She had lowered her voice to a whisper, but I could still hear the mix of excitement and concern in it. “What’s happening out there? The word is you and the Hales have joined the dark side. I don’t believe it, of course, but the rest of the CIA seems to.”
“Believe it,” I said. “I have joined the dark side.”
“No, you haven’t. If you’d really joined the dark side, you certainly wouldn’t be telling me that you had. You’d be telling me that you hadn’t.”
“So if I said I hadn’t joined the dark side, then you’d think I had?”
“Never. I know you, Ben. Better than any of these other idiots do. No matter what you tell me, I know you’re not a traitor.”
“I am, Zoe. I swear. I’m a traitor to my country and very, very dangerous. So I need you to alert the school administration that you know exactly where I’m going to be two hours from now.”
Confusion now edged into Zoe’s voice. “I’m not going to do that. You’re my friend. Why would I turn you in?”
“Because I’m working with SPYDER now, and we’re about to launch missiles at New York City.”
“What?!”
“Get a pen. I’m going to give you the exact coordinates.”
I heard Zoe fumbling around her desk for a few moments. “Okay.”
I gave her the exact
latitude and longitude of Hidden Forest, which Cyrus had calculated while keeping an eye on the place. Then I had her read it back to me, just to make sure she had it right. I didn’t want her to send a CIA team to attack an innocent gated community by mistake.
“I need you to report this right away,” I told her. “Tell your resident adviser and have her wake the principal and every professor she can find. Don’t tell them that I asked you to turn me in, though. They’ll be suspicious of that. Tell them that you figured out where I’ve been. Tell them you always suspected I was no good, and so you put a tracer in my old phone. You’ve known where I’ve been all along, but you didn’t know I’d joined the enemy until you heard the news a few hours ago. And now you’re tracking me and you know I’m heading back to SPYDER’s secret headquarters.”
“They’ll never believe that I was suspicious of you,” Zoe argued. “I’m always going on about how great you are.”
“Which you only did so that I’d drop my guard around you and let you get close to me. Very sneaky of you, really. Probably worth some sort of commendation when the CIA follows up on your tip and captures me. By the way, just so the CIA doesn’t get confused when they get there, SPYDER’s top-secret headquarters looks like a gated residential community.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope. You know how sneaky they are.”
The boat was pulling up by the dock where we’d left the car. It was deserted.
Cyrus thwacked the captain on the back of the skull with his gun and the man collapsed in a heap. Erica trussed him like a rodeo calf.
Zoe said, “Ben, this is crazy.”
“Not really.” I thought back to everything that had happened since I’d had to steal a bulldozer that afternoon. “Honestly, it’s not even in the top three craziest things I’ve done today. But I need you to do it. You have to convince everyone you know where I am and that they need to send a big force out there to stop me. Let them know the Hales and I are holed up inside the compound and that we’re plotting something very big with SPYDER. Something that’ll make everything else SPYDER’s tried look like a Sunday school picnic.”