by Stuart Gibbs
Erica smiled. “Hi, Mom,” she said.
FOREIGN RELATIONS
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
Washington, DC
February 12
1100 hours
“It’s very nice to meet you, Mrs. Hale,” I told Erica’s mother as we hurried through the Smithsonian employee parking garage.
“Please, call me Catherine.” When she wasn’t beating enemy agents senseless, Erica’s mother was the least spylike person I could possibly imagine. Instead, she came across as the world’s most chipper and enthusiastic soccer mom. As far as I could tell, it wasn’t an act. She was gracious, kind, charming—and unlike Erica’s father, she appeared to be extremely competent. Her lilting British accent was so delightful, she made Mary Poppins sound like a troll. “And it’s a pleasure to meet you as well, Benjamin. Erica has told me ever so much about you.”
I glanced at Erica, surprised by this. It was hard to tell in the dark garage, but it seemed as though her face might have had a tinge of embarrassment. “It was for the mission,” she informed me. “I told you I had to make additional arrangements? That was Mom. I couldn’t very well bring her in without briefing her about you.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Catherine said, in a way that merely seemed to be humoring Erica. “All our conversations about you were purely for work, Ben.”
We arrived at her car, a well-used, completely nondescript minivan that she’d somehow managed to procure an official Smithsonian parking pass for.
I started to ask one of the dozens of questions I had about Catherine, but she put a finger to her lips and cautioned, “I know there’s much to discuss, but at the moment we really ought to focus on our escape. I’m afraid I need both of you to keep mum for a bit.” Catherine clicked her key fob. The minivan side door slid open, and the rear seats tilted back, revealing a hidden compartment in the floor of the vehicle. “I’ll also need you to get in there.”
The compartment wasn’t very big. It would be a very tight, cramped fit for Erica and me.
Erica frowned. “No way. Ben’s the one who’s wanted.”
“Both of you are wanted now,” Catherine informed her. “You aided a known felon in broad daylight and you destroyed the entire Smithsonian gallery of ocean life.” She sighed. “I did so love that whale. I hope it isn’t too badly damaged. Now, no more chitchat. In you go.”
Erica disgruntledly climbed into the compartment and then I got in with her. The only way to fit was to lie on our sides, face-to-face. Except for the part about being fugitives from justice, I found myself quite excited about being in such close quarters with Erica. Despite all our exertion, she smelled fantastic, as usual: her customary heady aroma of lilacs and gunpowder, with only the tiniest hint of formaldehyde mixed in.
Meanwhile, Erica looked like she’d rather be locked in a medieval torture device.
“Now, no kissing in there, you two,” Catherine teased. “Our safety is at risk.”
“Mother!” Erica gasped, horrified. She flushed red as Catherine shut the compartment, casting us into darkness.
I had never seen Erica like this before. Being around her mother was bringing out a part of her she’d always managed to keep hidden: the normal teenage girl.
There was a heavy clunk above our heads as Catherine slid the rear seats back over us.
We kept silent as she drove out of the employee parking garage and headed into the city streets. It was hard to hear anything over the sound of the minivan’s engine and the road passing beneath us, but Catherine updated us as she drove along. “Oh my, they’ve set up quite an impressive dragnet for the two of you. Looks like everyone’s coming to the party: FBI, CIA, SWAT . . . I say, you Americans certainly love your acronyms, don’t you? They’ve evacuated the museum and barricades are being erected everywhere. I’m about to hit a checkpoint, so stay silent, children.”
The minivan stopped and we heard Catherine lowering her window, followed by the gruff voice of a federal agent. “Sorry, ma’am, but we have to search all cars exiting this area. And I’ll need to see some identification.”
“Certainly,” Catherine agreed graciously. “Here you go, sir. Is all this commotion about those hooligans who caused the ruckus in the museum?”
“That’s classified.” There was a pause, during which the agent was probably scrutinizing Catherine’s driver’s license. Then he said, “Can I ask what your business is here?”
“I work for the British embassy as a liaison to the Smithsonian. Helping organize exhibits of British artists, arranging loans of paintings, that sort of thing. I just delivered a rather fascinating item from the British Museum, one of Darwin’s original notebooks. . . .”
“Mmm-hmm,” the agent said, like he couldn’t care less. “Could you open the rear doors of your vehicle for me?”
“Happy to oblige.” There was the sound of the automatic door sliding open, and then we could feel the presence of the agent inside the van, snooping around for us. He didn’t take long. He simply checked behind the seats and in the back, never expecting that someone as sweet and disarming as Catherine would have a secret hatch for harboring fugitives built into her vehicle.
“All right,” the agent said, sliding the door shut again. “You’re clear. Sorry for the inconvenience.”
“No inconvenience at all. I hope you catch whomever you’re looking for. Ta-ta.” Catherine rolled up her window and drove away.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to stay down there a bit longer,” she informed us. “I know it’s cramped, but this whole area is crawling with federal agents. It looks like the D-day invasion out here and I’m afraid that if I pull over to let you up, it might raise some suspicion. I do think it’s safe to talk, though.”
“So you’re a spy?” I asked before I could stop myself. I was so desperate to learn more about Catherine, the question practically jumped off my tongue.
“Why, yes,” Catherine replied. “I work for MI6. British Intelligence. Although I must caution you, that is extremely privileged information. Very few people have been allowed knowledge of my true identity. Including Erica’s father.”
I gasped in surprise. “Your own husband doesn’t know you’re a spy?”
“Ex-husband,” Catherine said quickly. “We parted ways several years ago.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t realize. Erica never said anything. . . .”
“Yes, Erica tends to be rather tight-lipped about her family. I suppose that’s my fault, in a sense. There have always been so many things to keep secret.”
“Still,” I said. “I can’t believe Alexander doesn’t know.”
“Really?” Erica asked from the darkness. “You’ve met Alexander. I’m surprised he knows he’s a spy.”
“Now, now,” Catherine chided. “Your father may have a few faults . . .”
“A few?” Erica echoed testily.
“. . . but he’s not nearly as awful as you make him out to be either.”
“Why are you defending him?” Erica asked. “He was a lousy father and an even worse husband.”
Catherine suddenly slammed on the brakes. I had a feeling she was trying to stop this bit of the conversation as well as the minivan. “All right. I think the coast is clear now. You little moles can come out of your hole.”
I heard the seats sliding back above us and then the hatch clicked open. Erica scrambled out as fast as she could, like she’d been suffocating inside.
I pried myself out a bit slower, my muscles already cramped from being in the confined space.
We had made it a few blocks from the Smithsonian and were now parked on the street near the International Spy Museum.
Erica helped me replace the hatch and slide the seats back, then called shotgun and climbed into the front passenger seat.
I let her have it. In Erica’s family, sitting in the shotgun seat occasionally meant you had to use an actual shotgun.
I buckled myself into the back and Catherine pulled
into traffic again. As usual, it was bumper-to-bumper in the middle of the city.
“I expect you’re famished, Benjamin,” Catherine said to me. “So I brought you some homemade blueberry muffins.” She passed a foil-wrapped paper plate back to me.
The muffins smelled incredible. Now that the danger was over and my stomach had calmed, I was so hungry, I probably would have eaten the dead squid from the museum. I tore off the foil and quickly inhaled a muffin.
It tasted even better than it smelled. Even if I hadn’t been ravenous, it would have been the single best muffin I’d ever eaten.
“You never made me homemade muffins,” Erica said, failing to hide the bitterness in her voice.
“I tried,” Catherine countered. “Back when you were a very little girl. But you argued that carbs were bad for you. Along with ice cream, bangers, saturated fats, and pretty much everything else in the world that’s tasty. You always claimed your body was a temple.” She met my gaze in the rearview mirror and gave me a conspiratorial grin. “On her third birthday, she actually requested trail mix instead of a cake.”
“I did not,” Erica said.
“Oh yes you did. And then when we tried to play pin the tail on the donkey, you insisted on using your Chinese throwing stars. After that, we couldn’t have any more parties.”
“Mother.” Erica groaned again. “Please stop sharing.”
“Benjamin!” Catherine said suddenly. “I almost forgot. I also made you some tea.” She handed back an old-fashioned tartan-plaid thermos bottle with a cap that doubled as a cup. “I know it’s very stereotypical for a British person to make tea, but the fact is, it’s chock-full of antioxidants and has far less sugar than that Gatorade that Alexander is always swilling.”
“Thanks,” I said, pouring myself a cup. “By the way, these muffins are delicious.”
“That’s very sweet of you to say,” Catherine replied. “My secret is, I use just a hint of lavender.”
“Would you like one?” I asked Erica.
Erica wavered a moment, seeming torn between accepting something made by her mother and consuming carbohydrates. Finally, she said, “I guess.”
I handed one to her, then devoured another.
Several police cars shot past us, sirens wailing, heading toward the Smithsonian, joining the manhunt for us.
“So did you meet Alexander through work?” I asked Catherine, my mouth full of muffin.
“Yes,” she replied. “In a sense. When I was quite a bit younger, MI6 became aware that the CIA was withholding information from us. Information they should have been sharing. So I was sent over here to find alternative ways to gather it. Alexander was one of my targets. I wasn’t supposed to fall for him, but as I’m sure you know, he makes quite a good first impression.”
“He does,” I agreed, recalling the first time I’d met Alexander. I had been extremely impressed by him. It might have taken me much longer to figure out what a lousy spy he was if Erica hadn’t tipped me off.
Catherine sighed. “He was so handsome and charming. He just swept me off my feet.”
“Ick,” Erica said, under her breath.
“Of course, I could never tell him that I’d been sent here to gouge him for information,” Catherine went on. “Revealing the truth would have ruined the bond of trust that is integral to any marriage. So I kept everything secret. And then, as the years went on, I began to realize that Alexander had concealed some things from me.”
“Like the fact that he sucked eggs as a spy?” Erica asked.
“Well . . . yes.”
“So how long have you known about your mother?” I asked Erica.
“I’ve always known,” Erica replied.
“I never hid it from her,” Catherine told me. “It was very difficult to live a secret life around my husband. I simply couldn’t do it to my daughter.”
“And Cyrus?” I asked. “Does he know?”
Catherine considered this for a while before responding, “I don’t believe so. Cyrus might be greatly invested in Erica, but he’s awfully blinkered where women are concerned. He comes from a time when women weren’t supposed to be spies. Which made it quite easy for those of us women who were spies to run circles around the men.”
“But, then, if Grandpa did know, he might never have let on,” Erica pointed out.
“I suppose not,” Catherine agreed.
It occurred to me that having a family in the spy business was far more complicated than having a family in the grocery business. The biggest intrigue we ever had in my family was when Mom got upset with Dad for coming home smelling like baloney.
We arrived at Dupont Circle again. Sometimes, it seemed like there was no way to get from one part of Washington to another without going through Dupont, which was probably why the intersection was almost always a nightmare. Today, however, the traffic was surprisingly mild. There were still plenty of cars, but we were actually moving forward.
“As much as I’d love to discuss our family and all its foibles,” Catherine said, “I’m afraid we ought to put the kibosh on this conversation.”
“You mean, there are other things to discuss?” I asked.
“Yes,” Catherine said. “Plus, this is all highly classified. We’ve taken you into great confidence here. I’ve only done it because Erica swears you’re trustworthy. But I’m afraid I still must warn you, you can’t share any of this with another living soul. If you do . . .”
“You’ll have to kill me,” I finished. I’d heard this refrain from Erica plenty of times before.
Catherine was taken aback. “Kill you? Goodness, no. That’s a bit drastic, isn’t it? I wouldn’t kill you, dear. I’d only maim you a little.”
“Oh,” I said, unsure if that was actually better.
“But you’re right,” Catherine pressed on. “There is another, far more serious issue we must discuss: You’ve gotten yourself into quite a pickle, Benjamin. And we need to figure out how to, er . . . unpickle you. Now, Erica claims you believe that SPYDER is behind all this trouble, is that correct?”
I glanced at Erica, unsure what to say. We had always been told that SPYDER’s existence was highly classified and that we weren’t supposed to discuss it with anyone.
“It’s all right,” Erica told me. “We won’t get in trouble for sharing agency secrets. Mom already knew about SPYDER way before this.”
“As you may recall, one of our MI6 spies-in-training, Claire Hutchins, was there when you thwarted SPYDER’s attempt to blow up Camp David while the prime minister was visiting it last summer,” Catherine explained. “She filled us in on everything she’d learned. By the way, Benjamin, the prime minister is very thankful to you for saving his life. MI6 has been authorized to extend you every courtesy we can in return for that.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Well, then, yes, I’m quite sure SPYDER was behind framing me. I think they planted the chatter to get Cyrus to place me inside the White House, got White House security used to seeing me, and then slipped a bomb into my jacket on the subway yesterday afternoon and made me a Bombay Boomerang.”
“And the Secret Service didn’t detect the bomb on you?” Catherine asked.
“They did,” I said. “But the bomb dogs had gotten all excited the day before when they smelled my jacket, and there was nothing in it. So the second day, when the dogs went nuts, the agents figured it was a false alarm.”
“The dogs got all excited about you the first day?” Catherine asked suspiciously. She and Erica shared a look.
“SPYDER must have planted something on you then, too,” Erica told me. “Something to provoke the dogs. Like a tiny bit of meat. Or a trace of explosive so small that the sensors couldn’t detect it, even though the dogs could. They wanted the dogs to make a big deal about you, so when it happened again the second day, the agents would think it was another false alarm.”
I shrank back in my seat, disturbed by how easily SPYDER had manipulated me—and the Secret Service. “I took the subway to t
he White House the first day too. Someone must have slipped the bait into my jacket then.”
“Not necessarily,” Erica said. “They could have planted it quite a bit earlier. Even a few days ahead of time. Those dogs would have still smelled it.”
Catherine nodded agreement. “Nice deductive work, children. From what I know about SPYDER, that sounds like the sort of devious plot they’d attempt. Unfortunately, most people—including those in our own agencies—haven’t even heard of SPYDER, and therefore, this will sound exceedingly far-fetched to them. I don’t suppose you have any evidence to back up your speculation, Benjamin?”
“Er . . . no,” I admitted.
“Then you’ll have to get some,” Catherine said. “It’s the only way to clear your name. And if you can’t prove your innocence, you’ll have to flee the country.”
“Flee the country?” I repeated.
“Why, yes. Even with Erica helping you, there’s no way you’ll be able to stay ahead of the entire American intelligence force for long. However, should you choose to, I could arrange for you to be spirited away to one of Britain’s many territories and establish a new identity for you.”
“Like where?” I asked.
“It’d be up to you. The British Empire still controls some very lovely islands in the Caribbean: Bermuda, Anguilla, Turks and Caicos, Virgin Gorda. We could set you up as an orphan on one and perhaps get you a nice internship with one of the many scuba diving operations. It would be a rather nice life—although you wouldn’t ever get to see your family or friends again, which I suspect might put a damper on things.”
I had never been to a Caribbean island—or any beach beyond the Atlantic Coast for that matter—which made this more intriguing than being relocated to many other places. Afghanistan, for example. But I certainly didn’t want to spend the rest of my life as a fugitive without ever being able to see my parents, my friends . . . or Erica. I looked to Erica and thought I caught the slightest glimpse of emotion in her eyes, indicating that she wasn’t thrilled with this prospect either.