by Stuart Gibbs
“Well, here we are!” Kimmy announced, stopping outside the door to Jason’s room. I could tell it was his, because there was a handmade sign taped to it proclaiming JASON’S ROOM. KEEP OUT!
From behind the door came the sounds of gunfire and ominous action music, the telltale soundtrack of a first-person shooter video game.
Kimmy knocked. “Jason!” she called out. “Ben’s here!”
“Cool!” came the reply. “Send him in!”
“Looks like my work here is done!” Kimmy said. Ignoring the homemade warning sign, she opened Jason’s door and ushered me inside.
The room was that of a quintessential teenage boy, albeit a teenage boy with access to pretty much anything he wanted. The walls were plastered with posters of professional athletes and rock bands (all autographed) and the floor was covered with sports equipment and dirty laundry. The shelves were stacked high with books, games, and model airplanes. There was a small air hockey table, a keyboard, two electric guitars, and a large television, currently displaying the video game I’d heard. I recognized it as Target: Annihilation, a game in which you were supposed to be a spy. It was nothing like my experience of being a spy had been. Jason’s avatar was running through a rail yard filled with heavily armed enemy agents, mowing them down with a gun the size of a small cannon. Jason himself was slumped in a tatty beanbag chair, his back to me, the game controller clenched in his hands.
If it hadn’t been for the stellar view of the South Lawn and the Washington Monument out the window, I might have forgotten I was even in the White House.
“Have fun!” Kimmy exclaimed, then closed the door to give us privacy.
Jason was so engrossed in his game, he didn’t turn around. All I could see of him was a mop of unkempt black hair.
“Uh . . . hi,” I said.
Jason didn’t respond. He kept blowing away enemy agents.
I tried again. “What are you playing?”
There was still no answer.
“Mind if I play too?”
“Yes, I mind!” Jason snapped angrily. “My father might be able to force me to hang out with some loser I’ve never met, but he can’t make me like it. So sit down, shut up—and don’t touch any of my stuff.”
“Hey now . . . ,” I began.
“What part of ‘shut up’ did you not understand?” Jason yelled. “I don’t want you here, okay? The sooner you leave, the better, get it?”
I sighed, realizing that the friendly, smiling kid I’d seen by the president’s side on TV apparently was an act. Instead, the real Jason Stern was a raging jerk—and now I was stuck with him.
CONFRONTATION
The White House
Second Floor
February 10
1730 hours
I gave Jason a minute to calm down before I tried speaking to him again. “You know why I’m here, right?” I asked. “It’s for your father’s safety. We think his life is in danger.”
Jason snorted, annoyed. “People always think he’s in danger. They think all of us are. I can’t even go to the bathroom without having sixteen Secret Service agents follow me.”
“This time is different,” I said.
“Yeah, this time it’s screwing up my life worse than usual.” Jason blasted a few enemy agents indiscriminately. “I was supposed to have a real friend come by today. But now that’s been canceled and I have you instead.”
I looked around for a place to sit but couldn’t find one. The bed and the only chair were buried under Jason’s things. A pair of rancid socks was slung over the back of the chair; they reeked so badly, they could have killed a canary.
So I remained standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. “Look, I’m not thrilled I have to be here either. . . .”
“Yeah, right. I’ll bet they really had to twist your arm to get you to hang out with me at the White House.”
“If you don’t want me here, the fastest way to get rid of me is to help me find whoever is after your father.”
Jason blew a few pixelated birds out of the sky just to watch them explode into clouds of red mist. “If there really was some evil organization smart enough to get an assassin into the White House, how is some lame dork in secondhand clothes supposed to find him when the entire Secret Service can’t?”
I looked over my clothes, which were indeed mostly secondhand. I was dying to tell Jason exactly what I’d done before, so he’d understand what I was capable of: I had saved his own father’s life from a missile attack; I had engineered the destruction of SPYDER’s headquarters; I had prevented half of Colorado from being nuked. Only, I couldn’t tell him any of that, because all that information was classified. Sometimes security protocols really blew.
Instead, all I could offer was, “They wouldn’t have sent me if they didn’t think I could help.”
Jason gave another snort of disgust, then returned his full attention to his game, done speaking to me. His secret agent avatar was now moving through an abandoned warehouse, trading potshots with bad guys.
I was starting to get quite warm. The heat was cranked up to subtropical temperatures and I was still wearing my winter jacket. I shrugged it off and set it gingerly on the bed.
“I SAID DON’T TOUCH MY STUFF!” Jason roared. He threw his controller aside and whirled around, allowing me to see his face for the first time since I’d arrived. He was at an awkward spot in puberty where his nose had ballooned, his hair was getting greasy, and his skin was blotchy with pimples. “Are you too stupid to understand English?”
A year before, I probably would have turned tail and fled the room. But I’d learned a few things at spy school. First and foremost: When in an uncomfortable situation, imagine what Erica Hale would do.
So I stayed rooted to my spot and fixed Jason with as hard a stare as I could muster. “I know you’re very busy pretending to be a spy, but I actually have to be one. And real-life espionage isn’t anything like that game you’re playing. In the first place, no evil organization worth its salt would set up shop in an abandoned warehouse. And they’re not going to sic three hundred minions on you without teaching them to shoot straight. Meanwhile, any agent idiotic enough to run blindly into a place like that without backup would last thirty seconds tops before he got blown to pieces, no matter how lousy his opponents’ aim is. A real enemy organization is clever, elusive, and always trying to be three steps ahead of you, so if you want to beat them, you have to be smarter than they are. Which is why I’ve been sent in. I might not be the best shooter or the best fighter at the CIA, but I am not stupid. I have level-sixteen math skills, I can speak three languages fluently, and frankly, compared to me, you have the IQ of a hamster.”
Jason’s jaw dropped open. “Urk” was all he could manage. I couldn’t tell if he was cowed by my response, or stunned because people usually didn’t talk to him like this. Either way, I appreciated the effect.
“So,” I went on, “I’d really appreciate it if you’d can the pathetic ‘woe is me’ attitude and help me out. I could give a hoot about a stuck-up brat like you, but I’d really like to prevent these guys from killing your father.”
In response to this, Jason appeared to think about his behavior. He took a moment to consider how he’d treated me—and then went right back to being a jerk again. “That makes one of us,” he spat. “If anyone whacked my father, they’d be doing me a favor.”
With that, he picked up his controller again and resumed the game.
I walked out of the room. I wasn’t turning tail, though. I was just so annoyed at Jason Stern that I didn’t feel like being anywhere near him. Plus, I had to use the bathroom. It had been nearly two hours since I’d gone back at school.
Unfortunately, I was so distracted by Jason’s obnoxious behavior that I didn’t notice that something very important had changed about my surroundings.
The bathroom door was now closed.
It wasn’t locked, either. So the door opened when I turned the knob, and I barged right i
n on the fifteen-year-old daughter of the president of the United States as she sat on the toilet.
Jemma Stern was an awkward, gangly girl who had often seemed ill at ease when I’d seen her on television, so interrupting her in the most personal of moments didn’t go over well at all. She promptly screamed at the top of her lungs, a shrill, bloodcurdling shriek more attuned to someone who’d been physically attacked than merely caught with her pants down. Every Secret Service agent within earshot promptly came running. The closest one, a thickly built fireplug of a woman who’d been posted outside the presidential bedroom, charged around the corner and, before I could even try to explain what had happened, nailed me with a flying tackle.
We sailed into the wall by the stairs, hitting it hard enough to fracture the plaster and dislodge a stuffed eagle mounted there. The eagle toppled, landing on the Secret Service agent, piercing her back with its beak. Now she screamed. Then, perhaps mistaking the strike as an attack from behind by another assailant, she whipped around, grabbed the eagle, and flung it into the wall, where it burst into a cloud of stuffing and feathers.
Unfortunately for Jemma, all of this prevented me from doing what she probably wanted most: simply closing the bathroom door. It now swung all the way open, so that Jemma was still fully visible on the toilet when three more Secret Service agents came charging up the stairs. All of them had their weapons drawn, ready for action.
Jemma screamed again, then kicked the bathroom door shut in their faces.
The agents now shifted their attention to me, yanking me off the floor and shoving me up against the wall. Several pairs of hands roughly frisked me at once. I tried to explain what had happened, but the first Secret Service agent had knocked the wind out of me when she’d tackled me. All that came out was a wheeze of air.
“Miss Stern?” the biggest of the agents called through the bathroom door. “Miss, is everything all right in there?”
“No, everything isn’t all right!” Jemma yelled back. “That little pervert walked in on me!”
“It was an accident,” I gasped. “She hadn’t locked the door.”
“I shouldn’t have to lock the door in my own house!” Jemma cried. “This is the most secure building in the country! I wasn’t expecting a pervert to be on the loose here!”
The Secret Service agents all looked at me accusingly.
“I’m not a pervert,” I said quickly. “I’m a friend of Jason’s, here to hang out.”
This didn’t seem to convince the agents of anything. “I wasn’t informed of any playdate today,” the big agent said.
“It’s not a playdate,” I said quickly. “And it was kind of last-minute. Maybe they forgot to tell you.”
“Or maybe you’re a pervert who snuck in here to see Jemma Stern on the toilet,” the agent replied suspiciously.
The agent who’d tackled me was massaging her back where she’d been gouged by the stuffed eagle. She pounded on Jason’s door and said, “Jason, could you please come out here?”
“I’m busy!” Jason shouted back. I figured he had certainly heard all the commotion in the hall but was willfully ignoring it.
“It’s a matter of national security,” the wounded agent said.
Jason groaned, and then the sound of his video game paused. His footsteps slowly thumped across the floor.
“Could you all possibly handle this somewhere else?” Jemma asked through the bathroom door. “I could really use some privacy.”
“We’re taking care of this as quickly as we can, miss,” the female agent informed her. “Feel free to go on with your business.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” Jemma groaned.
Jason yanked open his door dramatically, as though we’d been asking a great deal of him to walk all the way across his room. “What?” he demanded.
The big Secret Service agent pointed at me. “We just caught this young man attempting to peep on your sister while she was on the toilet. . . .”
“I wasn’t peeping!” I protested. “I needed the bathroom and the door wasn’t locked!”
The agent ignored me and spoke to Jason. “He claims he’s a friend of yours, rather than an intruder. Can you confirm that?”
Jason looked at me, then turned to the agents and shook his head. “Never seen him before,” the little creep said. “Looks like a pervert to me.” Then he gave me a quick, smug smile and shut the door, leaving me at the mercy of the Secret Service.
POSSIBLE SUSPECTS
Eisenhower Executive Office Building
February 10
2000 hours
I got to see another part of the White House that people on the regular tour normally miss: the holding cell. In fact, I got to spend two solid hours there, while all the confusion was resolved.
Ultimately, Kimmy Dimsdale was tracked down to explain that I was actually a friend of Jason Stern’s, rather than some young, psychotic Jemma Stern fanatic who’d somehow infiltrated the White House with the intention of catching her on the toilet—and that Jason had merely pretended not to know me to cause trouble.
This didn’t seem to be much of a surprise to the Secret Service agents. Apparently, Jason Stern had a reputation as a nuisance around the White House. (His Secret Service code name was Hades.) Furthermore, my visit had been listed in that day’s official memo, but some of the agents had missed it. By this point, however, it was nearly eight o’clock on a school night. Even if I had actually wanted to continue my playdate—which I didn’t—it was time for me to go home. There was a formal dinner at the White House that night to honor the teachers of the year, and Jason Stern, being a student, was expected to be there on his best behavior. So Kimmy called “Grandpa Cyrus” to come pick me up.
I was allowed to leave the White House holding cell and wait in the lobby of the EEOB with Kimmy, who spent most of the time making lame excuses for Jason’s behavior, apparently worried that I might blab to the press that the president’s son was a jerk—or worse, that I’d seen the first daughter’s panties. “Jason has been under a lot of pressure lately,” Kimmy explained weakly. “It’s tough to be a kid when the public is watching you all the time.”
“Know what else is tough?” I asked. “Getting falsely accused of being a pervert in front of the Secret Service.”
“Er . . . yes,” Kimmy conceded. “I suppose it would be. Would a souvenir White House key chain make you feel better?”
“A little,” I admitted.
By the time Cyrus arrived fifteen minutes later, I had scored an additional four White House key chains, three White House reusable water bottles, a model of Air Force One, a set of fancy pens with the presidential seal on them, and three dozen packets of official White House jelly beans. I figured my father would be thrilled.
There were many people still at work, either in the EEOB, or funneling back through it from the White House. Overall, a staggering number of people had access to the “Twelve Acres” of the White House property. The Secret Service probably kept most of them at a distance from the president, but if anyone was a SPYDER agent, they could still probably find an opportunity to get close enough to take a shot at him.
I spotted the shifty businessman from when I had come in that afternoon now leaving with several high-ranking military men. The businessman grew nervous when he noticed me, as though surprised to see a kid in the lobby of the EEOB so late at night. Or maybe he was a covert SPYDER agent who knew my true identity and was unsettled to see me.
My phone buzzed with a number I didn’t recognize. I cautiously answered it. “Hello?”
“Hey, hey! Is this my big-shot grandson who got to visit the White House today?” The voice was definitely Cyrus Hale’s—although the tone caught me by surprise. He sounded like an actual doting grandfather, rather than his usual cranky self. I assumed he was acting for the benefit of anyone who might overhear the call—or be eavesdropping on it.
“Hi, Grandpa!” I said cheerfully, doing a bit of acting myself. “Are you close?”
“Approaching the building right now.”
“Okay. I’m coming out.” I hung up and informed Kimmy, “My grandfather’s here.”
“Great!” she said, then thought to add, “In the interest of national security, I hope I can trust you to not share certain stories about what transpired here today?”
“You don’t have to worry about me,” I assured her.
Kimmy heaved a sigh of relief, then ushered me out the door. Cyrus was pulling up in front of the building in a well-worn sedan that looked exactly like the sort of car a normal grandfather would drive. The Secret Service agents were going on alert when Kimmy yelled to them, “He’s okay! He’s just picking up a friend of Jason’s!”
Cyrus rolled down the window and shouted, “Hey there, champ! Did you have fun?”
“Sure did, Gramps!” I replied, then slid into the passenger seat.
Kimmy waved good-bye enthusiastically. “So long, Ben! Hope to see you again soon!”
Cyrus rolled up the window, drove away, and immediately dropped the kindly old grandfather act. “You didn’t waste any time screwing up this mission, did you?”
I sank back in my seat. “It wasn’t a total loss. . . .”
“From what I understand, you were with Jason Stern a whole three minutes before everything went sideways. You were supposed to lay low and keep an eye out for trouble, not make a ruckus and spend the whole afternoon in the lockup!”
It suddenly occurred to me that, although I’d been on several missions with Cyrus Hale, I hadn’t spent more than thirty seconds alone with him. Cyrus was as curmudgeonly as anyone I’d ever met, but I’d either had Erica around to calm him—or Alexander to draw his disdain. Now that it was only the two of us, the ride back to school promised to be as much fun as dental surgery.