by Stuart Gibbs
I had maybe three seconds, if that, to get the jump on them.
So I ran.
EVASIVE ACTION
The Knickerbocker Hotel
Washington, DC
February 12
0200 hours
I had already planned out an escape route on my way into the hotel. It was one of the first lessons I’d learned at spy school: Never let yourself get boxed in.
There was a staircase close to the phone bank. I raced down it to the lowest floor. This was the hotel’s service area, a warren of cement tunnels that led past the kitchen, laundry, and storage rooms. At this time of night, they were almost empty.
I was far enough down that I could no longer hear the agents who had come for me, but I presumed they had blocked the main exits and gone straight for the phones, hoping to ambush me there. My main advantage was that they probably thought I was only a normal kid. A kid who’d tried to blow up the president . . . but still a kid. My status as a spy-in-training was classified and my mission at the White House had been unauthorized. So they wouldn’t expect me to have the skills and know-how to elude a manhunt.
In truth, I wasn’t completely sure I had the skills and know-how to elude a manhunt either, but I was going to give it my best shot.
Even though Erica didn’t believe me, even though she was coming after me herself, I still had to fight. If I got caught, I was done for. SPYDER had set me up too well. I’d be charged with their crime and locked up for the rest of my life—if they didn’t figure out a way to kill me first. But if I could stay free . . . Zoe still had faith in me. And so did some of my friends. Maybe there was a way we could all work together to prove my innocence and nail SPYDER.
Of course, that wouldn’t be easy.
I snatched a jet-black waiter’s jacket from the hotel laundry and slipped it on. Not to blend in, but to stay warm. My old jacket had been used as a bomb and it was still cold outside. The new jacket was big on me, but in theory, that would provide even better insulation.
One of the service tunnels led to the loading dock, where hotel supplies were delivered in bulk. The two enormous garage doors were open, leading to an alleyway around the corner from the main entrance to the hotel.
The law enforcement agents, thinking I was a normal kid, hadn’t bothered to cover this route. They had focused on the public entrances instead.
I raced outside, dashed to the corner—and slowed to a walk. Someone running down a city street in the middle of the night would get more attention than someone walking. I still kept to the shadows, but did my best to behave in a calm and collected manner, as though I had a perfectly rational reason for wandering around the city at two in the morning.
As I rounded the corner, I noticed that there were, indeed, several black Secret Service SUVs parked in the street in front of the hotel, each with an agent at the wheel. The agents were all a good distance away from me, though, and were focused on the main entrance rather than on me. I only allowed myself a quick glance in their direction—staring too long might have looked suspicious, as well as revealed my face—then turned away and continued down the street in the opposite direction from the hotel.
I had no idea if any of the agents noticed me or not. I didn’t look back. I crossed the street at the light and casually slipped around the corner of the enormous federal building, disappearing from the agents’ line of sight.
Then I started running again.
In the distance behind me, back by the hotel, I heard shouting. I couldn’t make out the words, but it had the urgent tone of federal agents who’d realized that the suspected assassin they were hunting had given them the slip. I heard the SUVs’ engines start up again, followed by the squeal of tires.
There was a Metro station entrance ahead of me, an escalator angling down into the subway tunnels far below. I almost went that way, but decided not to at the last second. It would have taken me off the street, but it would have been too obvious an escape route. At another time of day, when subway trains were running every few minutes, it might have worked. But now, in the middle of the night, it could be an hour before the next train, and until one came, the station was a dead end. Yes, I could have fled down the tunnels, but then I’d have to worry about oncoming trains and stepping on the third rail, both of which meant instant death. I wasn’t a big fan of instant death.
So I did something that felt riskier, although I’d been taught that it wasn’t (in theory, at least). I kept running along the sidewalk, right out in the open, even though the Secret Service was coming. I hauled down the street as fast as my legs would carry me, darted across Constitution Avenue onto the grounds of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History . . .
Then I dropped to the ground on the lawn and hid in plain sight.
There was plenty of dense landscaping behind me, but people expected you to hide in dense landscaping. They didn’t expect you to flatten yourself down on a lawn in front of the landscaping, but when the lawn was cast in shadow and the night was dark, it was amazing how well you could blend in. Plus, you could see a lot better when you were out in the open than you could when you were crouched behind a bush.
Two seconds later, tires screeched around the corner by the federal building. One of the Secret Service SUVs came flying down the road, on the hunt for me. I figured that the other vehicles had fanned out in different directions.
The SUV skidded to a stop by the Metro station and discharged two agents, who raced down the escalator into it.
It appeared I’d made the right call not going that way.
The SUV then sped on toward me, but slowed when it approached the museum. By now it was close enough for me to see there was one agent driving and another in the passenger seat. The passenger aimed a klieg light out the window and cast a blindingly bright beam into the landscaping behind me, scrutinizing every last shrub. The beam swept right over my head, lighting up the plants like it was daytime, but didn’t dip down to the lawn. In its glare, I could see the face of the agent holding it: Nasser, one of the guys from the White House. He was in an even fouler mood than usual.
“See anything?” the driver asked. I recognized the voice as that of Fry, Nasser’s partner.
Nasser squinted in my direction for what felt like another minute, but which was actually only a few seconds. Then he shook his head. “Nothing. This is a goose chase. There’s no chance the kid got all the way over here before we could. He must’ve gone some other direction. Or into the Metro.”
“Let’s check around the Natural History Museum.”
“I’m telling you, he’s not over here. We’re gonna be wasting our time, poking around in the trees while someone else gets the kudos for finding that little punk.”
“And if he really is over here and we let him get away, then we’ll get booted from the Service. We’re already on thin ice for letting him get past us with that bomb today.” Fry pulled a U-turn and drove across the wide street toward the Natural History Museum. Nasser swept the landscaping there with the klieg light as well.
I stayed put on the lawn, watching them hunt for me, trying to figure out what to do next.
This was the first time since hanging up the phone that I’d had a chance to really process my call with Zoe and Erica.
My first instinct was to cry.
Erica thought I had gone to the dark side. She had declared herself my enemy, and Erica was as formidable as enemies got. She wasn’t merely the best spy-in-training at the academy; she was one of the best spies in the CIA, period. She was smarter than me, more capable than me, knew a whole lot more about spying than me, and she could kick my butt in a fight while reading a book at the same time. (I knew this last part for a fact. Erica had actually defeated me in a self-defense class without ever looking up from her copy of Carpenter’s Practical Guide to Knives and Blades.)
As if that wasn’t bad enough, Erica had a grudge against me too. She wasn’t merely looking to capture me for glory. Instead, this was personal. Erica
had been devastated when she learned that Joshua Hallal had defected to SPYDER. Now SPYDER had manipulated things so that she thought I’d betrayed her trust as well.
The more I thought about it, the more devious SPYDER’s plan was. They hadn’t merely made an attempt on the president’s life: They had also convinced Erica that I was responsible. True, I had thwarted their ultimate plan and saved the president, but serious damage had still been done. My reputation was ruined. Even worse, Erica might never trust a fellow agent again. Despite her insistence that she didn’t need other people, I knew she was wrong. A spy who didn’t trust anyone could never succeed. So SPYDER had framed me and possibly handicapped Erica’s promising career in one shot.
Now Erica would be coming for me. She had said so herself, claiming it was her mission to hunt me down. For all I knew, she was already on her way. If the Secret Service could trace my phone call, then so could she. . . .
I suddenly felt cold in a way that had nothing to do with the weather. My hiding in plain sight might have fooled the Secret Service, but it wouldn’t fool Erica. Erica had taught me the trick in the first place. In fact, she had taught me every single thing I had been planning to do to keep from getting caught. For all I knew, she was watching me at that very moment.
Erica also knew where the secret tunnel under the Washington Monument was, so I couldn’t go back and hide there again. I was lucky she hadn’t found me while I was there. . . .
Something about that struck me as odd.
Why hadn’t Erica come looking for me in the tunnel? If she was so determined to catch me, what was she doing back at school, eavesdropping on Zoe, rather than actively looking for me?
I tried to remember my conversation with her, straining to recall every last word. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed there was something important in what she’d said. Something I hadn’t interpreted properly.
“You’re the one who needs to find hope,” she’d told me. “You’re going to need it. Because I’m coming for you, Ben. There’s nowhere you can run. There’s nowhere you can hide. I’m going to make it my life’s mission to hunt you down. I will not rest until I find you.”
It had all been very scary when she’d said it, which made sense, because Erica had been trying to sound scary. But if I really reflected on her words, she had never said that she was going to capture me. She had merely said that she was coming for me.
So maybe she wasn’t really angry at me at all. Maybe she had only been pretending to be angry.
If the government could trace the call, they could also eavesdrop on it, and since I was a fugitive, Erica couldn’t say anything that would make her sound like she was on my side. The best she could do was leave hints for me.
Then again, I might have had things all wrong. Maybe Erica really was against me, and I was merely grasping at straws, desperately trying to convince myself she wasn’t.
Along Constitution Avenue, the Secret Service SUV was still creeping along, Nasser and Fry scanning the landscaping outside the Natural History Museum with their klieg light.
You’re the one who needs to find hope.
Even though I was supposed to be lying still, I snapped my head up in surprise. I had just understood what Erica had really meant. Or what I thought she’d meant.
For the first time in hours, I felt a smile creep across my face. If I was right, then maybe I wasn’t as alone in this ordeal as I’d thought.
I knew what I had to do.
RECONNECTION
The National Mall
Washington, DC
February 12
0300 hours
It was a long wait until morning.
I watched Nasser and Fry continue on along Constitution Avenue, searching fruitlessly for me, until they got fed up and drove away. Then I spent another hour on the lawn, keeping an eye out for any other law enforcement agents. I spotted a few in the distance over the first fifteen minutes, but eventually they all seemed to give up the search. So I got to my feet and skulked back across the National Mall to the secret tunnel. I didn’t know where else would be protected enough—or warm enough—for me to hide out. True, Erica could find me in the tunnel, but by this point I was relatively sure she was on my side. And if she wasn’t on my side, well . . . I was screwed anyhow.
Once back in the tunnel, I made another fire. This time it only took me thirty-five minutes to get it going. Then I made a pillow out of my stolen hotel jacket, covered myself with the silver jacket, and tried to get some sleep. That didn’t work out so well: The floor was stone, I was cold, and my mind was racing, coming up with thousands of scenarios of how things could go wrong. When I actually did nod off, I was plagued by nightmares about SPYDER that startled me awake.
By seven a.m. I had given up. I spent the next two hours pacing around the tunnel before feeling it was finally safe enough to reemerge. I had spent so much time underground that I was starting to feel like a mole. I was almost blinded by the sun after going so long without seeing it.
It was a surprisingly warm day for winter. I didn’t even need my stolen hotel jacket, so I left it in the tunnel. There were already lots of people out: tourists visiting the monuments and locals jogging around the Reflecting Pool and the Tidal Basin. Around the Mall, thousands of schoolkids poured out of tour buses. They were from all over the United States, on their annual winter pilgrimage to the nation’s capital. It was easy to blend in with them.
I worked my way around the Tidal Basin to a Starbucks, intending to grab a quick bite, but as I was about to enter, I spotted my face on the TV mounted above the counter.
I was on the morning news. The crawl at the bottom of the screen read: HUNT CONTINUES FOR TWEEN SUSPECT IN WHITE HOUSE BOMBING. Even worse, they were displaying the lousy photo from my fake St. Smithen’s student ID. So not only had I been outed as the assassin, but it had been done with the least attractive picture of me possible.
Lots of people were watching the TV—and those who weren’t were reading the newspaper. The same photo of me was on the front page of the Washington Post and the New York Times, above the fold. So pretty much everyone in the coffee shop knew who I was and what I looked like. Given that the bombing had occurred close by, all of them seemed on the alert for any sign of trouble. I quickly turned away before anyone spotted me and called the authorities.
I decided to pass on breakfast altogether. Even though I hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before, my stomach was now so knotted up that I doubted I could keep anything down.
I wondered what my parents must be thinking. I was pretty sure they knew I would never have done such a horrible thing and suspected that I’d been named by mistake, but whatever the case, they must have been dismayed that I’d been named at all. I desperately wanted to reach out to them to let them know I was all right, but the government surely would be waiting for me to try. Any line of communication into our home was certainly tapped. Any attempt I made to reach my parents—e-mail, phone calls, texts—would be intercepted and traced. It was a risk I couldn’t afford to take. Sadly, for the moment I had to let my parents suffer and focus on proving my innocence.
The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History opened at ten o’clock. By nine thirty, crowds of schoolkids had already amassed on the front steps. I blended back in with them, trying to keep a low profile. Thankfully, that wasn’t hard. The kids were all too busy goofing around with one another—and their chaperones were too busy trying to wrangle them all—to pay any attention to me. At ten, I joined the crush as everyone piled around the museum entrance, jostling to get indoors. I let most everyone else go through first, wanting the crowds to build inside before entering myself.
The museum was free, so there was no need to buy a ticket, and while there was security, the guards were far more focused on the adults than the kids. None of them seemed concerned that the most wanted bomber in America might want to spend the day at the Natural History Museum. I passed through the metal detectors with ease and found mys
elf in the great, soaring rotunda. Most of the tourists had gone directly to the famous taxidermied elephant in the middle or, being kids, made a beeline for the dinosaurs. I headed up the stairs to the second floor, then circled the rotunda on the mezzanine level to the gems and minerals collection.
Given that the museum was full of amazing things like dinosaur bones, stuffed whales, and mummies, the gems and minerals weren’t most people’s top priority. The crowds thinned greatly as I entered the Harry Winston Gallery.
The entrance passed through an exceptionally thick wall, which concealed a sliding metal safe door. The gallery was actually an enormous vault, as the gems on display inside it were among the most valuable in the world. I passed the Hooker Emerald, the Logan Sapphire, the Rosser Reeves Star Ruby . . . and found the Hope Diamond.
You’re the one who needs to find hope.
It sat on a pedestal in the center of the gallery, encased in three-inch-thick glass. One of the world’s largest cut diamonds, more than forty-five carats in size, it was an ethereal blue. The few tourists who’d chosen to come here first were all gathered around it, gaping at the enormous gemstone in amazement. Everyone spoke in hushed, reverent whispers—if they were even speaking at all. The room was amazingly quiet compared to the clamor of the echoey, crowded rotunda.
Erica wasn’t there.
Did I make a mistake? I wondered. Was it possible that I had misinterpreted what she’d said? Maybe she hadn’t been giving me a coded message to find the diamond at all. Or had I simply come too early? Erica hadn’t specified a time, but I had assumed she’d meant to get there as soon as I could. Was it possible that some misfortune had befallen Erica herself? Had the government caught her, suspecting that she was helping me? Or worse, had SPYDER gotten to her? My heart began to race as panic gripped me.
“Hey,” a voice behind me said.
I whirled around, startled, to find Erica standing there. As usual, she had approached without making a sound. It took me a fraction of a second longer than normal to realize it was Erica, though, because she didn’t look like Erica.