An armored car now entered the tunnel: the vehicle that had been represented by the red dot on the map. The doors were marked with the seal of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Ashley staggered toward it, waving her arms wildly, acting like a desperate car wreck survivor. “Help!” she cried. “Help us!”
The armored car slammed on the brakes. The driver and the federal agent from the passenger seat leapt out. Although both had weapons in their holsters, neither one removed them. They both looked concerned, rather than on guard, which made sense. After all, Ashley didn’t look remotely like an enemy agent. She looked like a terrified teenage girl who’d just been in a car wreck.
She sounded like one, too. She was so convincing, I almost bought her act myself. “Please!” she screamed. “My brother’s hurt! He needs help!”
The armored car’s driver grabbed a medical kit and raced toward Nefarious. Meanwhile, the other agent tried to calm Ashley. “I need you to relax,” he told her. “You might be hurt, too.”
“I’m not!” Ashley said, faking hysteria. “I’m not hurt at all!”
“You could be,” the agent warned. “Try to calm down.”
The driver reached Nefarious, who remained slumped in the driver’s seat. Concerned, the driver set the medical kit down and leaned in to take his pulse.
Nefarious suddenly lashed out, spraying him in the face with a small vial of aerosol. The driver gasped in shock, then collapsed to the ground.
The agent with Ashley turned toward the driver, startled. “Jim?” he asked. “What’s . . . ?”
Before he could even finish the thought, Ashley gassed him the same way. He reached for his gun, but the spray acted too fast and he went down on the road, too.
“I told you I wasn’t hurt,” Ashley said, dropping the scared-little-girl act. Then she raced toward the armored car.
Two more agents burst out of the rear doors. These guys knew what had just happened to their partners and were ready for trouble.
But Ashley got the jump on them. Literally. She attacked with a martial arts style I had never seen before. It was part karate, part Olympic gymnastics: a mix of handsprings, flips, chops, and kicks. Even though she was only half the size of the agents, she quickly overwhelmed them. Within seconds, both were out cold on the ground.
Nefarious came running, only to find that Ashley had handled everything fine without him. Rather than congratulate her, he awkwardly looked at the ground and said, “Mneh.”
“I’d like to see any of those little twits who made Team USA do that,” Ashley muttered, then checked her watch. “Twenty seconds to rendezvous. Let’s get the package.”
Nefarious nodded, then climbed into the back of the armored car. Ashley followed him.
Twenty seconds after Ashley had spoken, a minivan squealed to a stop beside the armored car. I couldn’t see the driver, but I had no doubt it was another SPYDER operative, driving the most innocuous vehicle possible. Hiding in plain sight.
Ashley and Nefarious emerged from the back of the armored car. The “package” wasn’t a thing. It was a person: a federal prisoner, wrists and ankles cuffed together.
The passenger door of the minivan slid open for them and they bundled the prisoner inside. As they did, one of the cameras caught his face, revealing the identity of the fourteen-year-old boy they’d gone through so much trouble to rescue.
It was my nemesis. Murray Hill.
REUNION
SPYDER Agent Training Facility
Student Housing
September 12
0830 hours
Murray made his dramatic entrance back into my life during breakfast.
I was having cereal. Ashley was drinking a shake. Nefarious was cramming Pop-Tarts into his mouth while he played video games. We were all trying to act normal, like we hadn’t been doing things in secret the night before. Ashley and Nefarious were pretending like they hadn’t subdued four federal agents and sprung Murray Hill, while I was pretending like I had no idea that they had subdued four federal agents and sprung Murray Hill.
I was the one who had caught Murray in the first place. In fact, I’d caught him twice. The first time was right after I had figured out he was SPYDER’s mole at spy school—although he hadn’t gone to jail then. SPYDER had intercepted him on the way, freeing him to participate in their next plot. I’d thwarted that one too, capturing Murray again (with a little help), and this time, the CIA had made absolutely sure he ended up in prison. But now, after only three months, he was out once more.
After watching Murray’s rescue, I had hustled back home and climbed into bed, though I’d been too amped to sleep and was still awake when I heard Ashley and Nefarious return at five a.m. I faked being out cold when Ashley peeked into my room to check on me, and didn’t really doze off until almost six, but to allay any suspicion that I’d been up all night, I’d pried myself out of bed at eight and headed down to breakfast.
Ashley and Nefarious had done the same thing. Despite the events of the previous night, neither looked tired at all. In fact, Ashley was humming with more excitement than usual. She couldn’t sit still or keep the self-satisfied smile off her face.
“Why are you in such a good mood?” I asked.
“I rocked an exam yesterday.” Ashley took a big gulp of probiotic sludge.
“What exam?” I demanded. “How are you taking exams that I’m not taking?”
“Surprise!” Murray yelled from the top of the stairs, then slid down the banister. He tried to hop off suavely at the bottom, but he wasn’t nearly as coordinated as Ashley. Instead, he tripped over his own feet, clocked his head on the foosball table, and collapsed on the floor.
As nemeses went, Murray wasn’t particularly imposing. His hair flopped over his eyes, he had the posture of a question mark, and he believed physical exertion was something that should be avoided at all costs. In addition, he’d never come across as particularly devious or malevolent. Instead, he behaved more like a criminal fanboy, raving about the brilliance of SPYDER’s plots—or giving me respect when I figured them out. Murray had cleaned himself up since his rescue, but he still looked disheveled, wearing a stained T-shirt, torn jeans, and mismatched socks. Now he hopped back to his feet with a flourish, acting like he’d meant to crash into the foosball table all along. “How’s it going, Ben?”
I did my best to look stunned. I stared at him in fake astonishment and did some Oscar-quality stammering. “What . . . ? How did . . . ? I thought you were in prison.”
“I was—until last night. The Feds were transferring me to a new maximum-security penitentiary, but your pals here sprang me en route.”
I spun toward Ashley and Nefarious, letting my jaw hang open in shock. Nefarious didn’t look up from his game. Ashley shrugged and blushed.
I stared at her accusingly. “You sprang Murray? And you didn’t tell me?”
“I asked her not to,” Murray explained. “It wasn’t any sort of top-secret, hush-hush, for-your-eyes-only kind of a thing. I just wanted to surprise you. You should have seen your face! I totally got you!”
“You sure did,” I admitted, then dug back into my cereal.
Now it was Murray’s turn to look surprised, only his was genuine. “That’s it? That’s the welcome I get? How about, ‘Hi, Murray. Long time no see. Sorry I sent you to prison. Twice.’ ”
“I’m not sorry about that,” I said. “In fact, I’m kind of upset you’re out.” I’d given a lot of thought to what my reaction to seeing Murray again should be. It was one of the many things that had kept me awake the night before. Acting was a big part of being undercover. The wrong emotion might make everyone suspicious. I’d rejected excitement, anger, sadness, guilt, and joy, finally opting for mild annoyance.
It worked. Murray sat across from me, looking hurt. “I thought we were friends.”
“You only pretended to be my friend while working for SPYDER.”
“It wasn’t all pretend. I really did like you.”
/> “You locked me in a room with a ticking bomb!”
“That wasn’t personal. You were a good spy; I was a bad spy. That’s how the business works. But we’re both working for the bad guys now! We’re on the same team! We should be friends. You’re friends with Ashley, right?”
“Yes,” I said. “But Ashley never tried to kill me.”
“And yet she works for the organization that ordered me to kill you,” Murray countered. “In fact, you’re working for the organization that ordered me to kill you. So, if you’re going to be angry at anyone, it should be yourself.”
I hated to admit it, but there was a bizarre logic to Murray’s argument. “It’s not that simple.”
Murray started to reply, but Ashley cut him off. “Give Ben a break. You know what they taught us in Psychology of Evil. Transitioning to being a bad guy is morally complex. It’s hard enough to do without the person you sent to prison surprising you at breakfast all of a sudden. I told you that wasn’t a good idea.”
“Only like a thousand times.” Murray rolled his eyes. “So you know, Ben, I don’t bear any grudge against you. Although I am a bit ticked at Erica Hale for giving me this.” He pointed to his right front tooth. It was made of gold, to replace the real one. “There was no point in her knocking it out. She did that just to be mean.”
“Well.” I sighed. “You’d tried to kill her, too.”
“And seeing as she’s on the other team, I’d do it again if I had to. But as far as you and I are concerned, everything’s copacetic. No ill will on my part at all. Do you guys have any bacon?”
“Sure!” Ashley nodded. “We’ve got tons. Help yourself.”
“Thanks!” Murray hurried to the fridge. “They didn’t have any real bacon in prison. Only that weird veggie bacon junk.”
“Why?” Ashley asked. “For health reasons?”
“No. Cost cutting.” Murray dug through the deli drawer. “They don’t give a hoot about your health in prison. They’ve got guys serving life sentences in there. The longer they live, the more it costs. Frankly, it’d make financial sense to give them more bacon. They’d die much sooner, which would be a substantial cost savings, but they’d be happier. It’s a win-win for everyone.” He gave a cry of joy and pulled out a fresh packet of bacon. “Ooh! Thick cut! Excellent!”
“Why’d SPYDER spring you?” I asked.
Murray flashed a smug grin. “ ’Cause I’m a nice guy.”
I shook my head. “Springing someone’s a big risk, right?” I turned to Ashley. “I’ll bet whatever you did last night, it wasn’t easy.”
“It wasn’t,” Ashley said proudly. “If it wasn’t for my swawesome fighting skills, Nefarious and I could’ve ended up in jail ourselves.”
“SPYDER never takes risks it doesn’t have to,” I told Murray. “They wouldn’t have gone through all the trouble to get you out unless they had to.”
Murray laughed, then shook a finger at me. “You always were a smart one. Man, I’m glad you’re working for us now. You’re right. I wasn’t sprung just for my sparkling personality.” He set a pan on the stove and turned the flame on under it. “There were two other reasons.”
“What?” I asked.
“Aw, come on, brainiac. I’m sure you can guess at least one of them.” Murray dumped the entire package of bacon into the pan at once.
“Hey!” Nefarious snapped. “Don’t eat all of it! Some of that’s mine!”
Everyone turned to him, startled he’d spoken.
“Cut him some slack,” Ashley said. “He’s been in jail.”
“Darn straight.” Murray opened the cabinets and poked through our food. “While you guys have been living it up here in the burbs, I’ve been suffering for our cause. The least you could do is let me have a nice breakfast. Ooh! Doughnuts!” He pounced on a pack of powdered ones he’d discovered in the cupboard.
Nefarious turned back to his game, muttering under his breath. “Fine. Eatallthebacon. Butyou’dbetterkeepyourhandsoffmyCheetos.”
The interruption had given me time to think about the answer to my own question. I told Murray, “SPYDER was worried the CIA would get you to talk.”
“Ding, ding, ding! Give the kid a prize!” Murray grinned, his lips now ringed with powdered sugar. “I didn’t talk, of course. But your pals were gonna keep trying to crack me. It’s not easy doing the old clam routine. Sooner or later, everyone blabs. It might take a couple years, but they do it. And as you’re certainly aware, SPYDER has plenty of secrets.”
“What’s the second reason?” I asked.
“The government has plenty of secrets itself.” Murray shuffled the bacon around in the pan with a wooden spoon. “And sometimes, the only way to get those secrets is from the inside.”
I stiffened in surprise. “Are you saying SPYDER wanted you to get captured?”
Murray laughed. “You mean, like the thing that happens in practically every spy movie, where they catch the bad guy halfway through, and they’re all proud of themselves, but then it turns out that getting caught was part of the bad guy’s plan all along? That he wanted to be in jail because then he could attack the system from the inside?”
“Yes.”
“No, that’s just something they do in the movies.” Murray had the heat on too high and was now enveloped in a cloud of bacon smoke. “And if you ask me, it’s a pretty lousy plan. Jail stinks. The food’s bad, the accommodations are cramped, and the service is deplorable. Any evil scheme that involves sending you there needs to go back to the drawing board. Our last plan was much better: We blow up Camp David, we get paid a lot of money, and everyone’s happy. Only, you screwed it all up. Believe me, I did not want to end up in the can. But since I did end up there, thanks to you, SPYDER figured I might as well nose around and see what I could turn up.”
“What were you supposed to find out?” I asked.
“How much the CIA knows about our current plans.”
“And what do they know?”
“Nothing.” Murray flashed another powdered-sugar grin. “Zilch. Nada. Zippo. They don’t have the slightest idea what we’re up to.”
“That’s it?” I asked. “That’s all you learned?”
“What else did I need?” Murray asked.
Ashley polished off her shake with a loud slurp. “Well, I can see you guys have a lot of catching up to do. So I’m gonna go work out.” She plunked her dirty glass in the sink and headed for the gym.
“Thanks for springing me last night,” Murray told her.
Ashley waved this off. “I’m sure you would have done the same for me.”
“Probably not,” Murray said. “Rescues are dangerous.”
Ashley laughed, thinking this was a joke, although I was quite sure it wasn’t. She disappeared into the gym, and a few seconds later, her workout music began to filter through the door, a mix of upbeat dance tunes.
“She’s amazing,” Murray said. “Maybe not quite as gonzo as your girlfriend Erica . . .”
“Erica isn’t my girlfriend,” I corrected.
“ . . . but she’s still pretty darn awesome. And, unlike Erica, she’s actually nice.”
“Erica can be nice when she wants.”
“How often is that? Once a decade? I went to school with her for two years and she never so much as smiled at me. Not once. And she knocked out my tooth!”
“You were the bad guy! She was taking you into custody!”
“It was malicious. Ashley’s not malicious at all. She’s sweet. That girl wouldn’t hurt a fly—unless she had orders to hurt it. Have you ever seen her in action?”
“No,” I lied.
“It’s unbelievable. SPYDER developed this whole gymnastics/kung fu kind of thing for her. It’s why she was recruited, but she’s turned out even better than we’d hoped. She’s like Bruce Lee in spandex.” Murray used a pair of tongs to fork the entire load of bacon onto a plate. He tested a piece and groaned in ecstasy. “Oh, man, have I missed this! I have no idea what vegetaria
ns are thinking, saying no to bacon. Want some?”
“Sure,” I said.
Murray grabbed the plate of bacon, the box of doughnuts, and a can of Dr Pepper, carried it all over to the Ping-Pong table, then waved to it graciously. “Help yourself.”
I plucked a piece of bacon off the stack. Now that I had Murray alone—Nefarious was riveted to his video game—it seemed like the perfect time to question him about SPYDER’s current plans. But I realized I had to proceed with caution. If I was too nosy, he’d get suspicious. Then again, he might also get suspicious if I wasn’t nosy enough. After all, the only person who wouldn’t ask any questions would be an undercover agent trying to act like they weren’t interested. Luckily, it wasn’t terribly hard to get Murray to talk. He loved to hear the sound of his own voice. If I led him to the subject, he might simply tell me everything I needed to know.
“So, you’re now living in the fourth bedroom here?” I asked.
“That’s right. We’re housemates!”
“And you’re going back to school with us?”
Murray frowned. “No. Although, SPYDER might ask me to sit in on your courses, just to brush up on a few subjects. My skills have gotten a bit rusty, seeing as I’ve been in jail and all, but I’m not a student like you guys.”
“It sounds like you’re gonna be a student like us,” I said, knowing that the best way to get under Murray’s skin was to wound his pride.
It worked like a charm. “I’m not,” he snapped. “I’m well beyond being a student. I’ve been sent on a mission for SPYDER! Twice!”
“I’ve defeated your missions,” I pointed out. “Twice. And I’m still a student.”
“That’s different. You were working for the good guys. Now you need to unlearn everything the CIA taught you and relearn everything SPYDER’s way. And Ashley and Nefarious haven’t been activated at all, save for last night. Meanwhile, I’ve been out in the field for SPYDER. I’ve been a mole. I’ve planted bombs. I’ve arranged for the smuggling and delivery of stolen missiles. I’ve even been shot at, for Pete’s sake!”