by Stuart Gibbs
“Crikey, she’s doped to the gills,” Cyrus said, then ordered, “Just set her on the floor and clear out. That goes for everyone who isn’t a prisoner here!”
Hauser placed Erica on the floor by our feet and scurried toward the exit as quickly as he could. It was strange to see someone his size scurry, but he managed it. So did everyone else in the hunting party, including the faculty. They all seemed relieved to get far away from Cyrus when he was angry.
“Don’t worry,” Mike whispered to Chip and Jawa while everyone else was evacuating the room. “Ben’s going to get us all out of this.”
“How?” Jawa asked.
“I don’t know,” Mike replied. “Ask Ben.”
Jawa looked to me. “How?” he repeated.
“I don’t know either,” I admitted.
Jawa sighed morosely. “This is terrible. I’m going to be kicked out of school. I’ve spent the last two years slaving away for a perfect grade point average and now I’ve completely squandered it.”
“Silence!” Cyrus yelled.
We all fell silent and straightened up in our seats. Except Erica, who had nodded off to sleep again on the floor, and Mike, who remained casually slumped in his chair, like this was no big deal.
Cyrus banged a gavel on the table. “Benjamin Ripley, you stand before this tribunal accused of collaborating with SPYDER to assassinate the president of the United States of America, while the rest of you are accused of criminally abetting him.”
“What?” gasped the silhouette seated next to Cyrus. I recognized that voice as well: Alexander Hale. “Erica too?”
Cyrus sighed heavily. Then he turned to Alexander and said, “She helped Ben escape our agents at the museum yesterday. Not only did she aid a known criminal, but she also destroyed a prized model of a humpback whale in the process.”
“I know,” Alexander said. “But she’s your granddaughter.”
“Being a blood relative of mine doesn’t entitle her to preferential treatment,” Cyrus said coldly.
“She’s also a blood relative of mine,” Alexander protested. “I don’t want her going to jail.”
“Neither do I,” Cyrus said. “But she broke the law, so she must suffer the consequences.”
“But . . . ,” Alexander began.
“That’s enough!” Cyrus snapped.
Alexander’s silhouette shrank in what looked like embarrassment.
Cyrus returned his attention to us. Even though I couldn’t see his eyes, I got the distinct sense they were boring into me. “Agent Ripley, how long have you been working for SPYDER?”
“I’ve never worked for SPYDER,” I replied.
“Ha!” barked another person on the panel. Given the sharp tone and the silhouette of what looked like a dead badger perched on his head, I knew it was the principal. “You’re not fooling anyone, Ripley! I’ve known you were a bad egg since the moment I first laid eyes on you! You’ve been working for SPYDER the whole time you’ve been at this academy, haven’t you?”
“I thwarted SPYDER right after I came to this academy,” I pointed out, “when I kept them from blowing up this very conference room and everyone in it. Why would I have done that if I was working for SPYDER?”
“Er . . . ,” the principal said dully, “ah . . . um . . . It was obviously a fiendish plot to convince us that you weren’t a mole for them.”
“So . . . ,” I said, “your theory is that SPYDER exposed Murray Hill as a mole—when you didn’t even know about him—in order to convince you that I wasn’t a mole—when you didn’t suspect me at all?”
“Yes!” the principal declared, then seemed to think better of this. “Uh, well . . . possibly. SPYDER is extremely devious. It’s impossible to fathom what they’re ever thinking.”
“It’s impossible to fathom what you’re ever thinking,” Cyrus muttered. “Or if you’re even thinking at all.”
“I think plenty!” the principal said defensively. “My mind is a constant whirlwind of thinkery!”
Cyrus groaned, then spoke to the other people on the panel. “Careful analysis shows that Ripley was not a mole upon his recruitment to this institution but was most likely turned by SPYDER during his undercover mission at their evil spy school.”
“The mission that you initiated without authorization, Agent Hale?” one of the other silhouettes asked. It was a woman with a stern voice I didn’t recognize.
“Yes,” Cyrus answered, without a trace of shame. “I felt it was an appropriate decision at the time, and I still believe I was right. However, I will also fully accept responsibility for placing Agent Ripley in a situation where he could be brainwashed.”
“I wasn’t brainwashed!” I argued. “In fact, I thwarted SPYDER on that mission too. I blew up their base!”
“We consider it likely that the base may have blown up due to missile malfunction,” Cyrus informed the panel.
“It didn’t!” I exclaimed. “It blew up because I defeated SPYDER, and their missile system was designed to blow up their own base in order to destroy any evidence. All these guys were there to see it—except Mike.” I tried to point to my friends, then remembered that my hands were cuffed.
“That’s right!” Zoe said supportively. “We saw Ben engineer the whole thwarting!”
“I’m aware of your version of the story,” Cyrus said to me. “However, I find it extremely suspicious that the people who can corroborate that tale are the very ones now on trial for treason with you. The only exception would be Warren Reeves, who not only engineered your capture, but who also reports that the story of your thwarting of SPYDER at their evil spy school did not play out as you claim.”
“Warren’s the one working for SPYDER!” I said. “Not me!”
“Warren didn’t blow up the White House,” Cyrus reminded me. “Nor did he spring Ashley Sparks from jail. You did.”
I frowned, realizing this was a hard point to argue. All I could come up with was, “You’ve worked with Warren before. You weren’t very impressed by his abilities then. Do you really think he could have engineered our capture all by himself?”
“Just because someone is often incompetent doesn’t mean they’re completely incompetent,” Cyrus said. “My own son is evidence of that.”
“Hey!” Alexander yelped, offended.
“Meanwhile,” Cyrus went on, “your competence is no argument against your being corruptible.” I started to interrupt, but he cut me off. “There is nothing to be gained by continuing to lie to us, Benjamin. However, there is much to gain by admitting the truth. If you tell us everything you know about SPYDER, we will be lenient with your punishment.”
“That’s a laugh,” Chip said under his breath. “He means he’ll only send you to jail for fifty years instead of life.”
“I can hear you, Mr. Schacter,” Cyrus said. “May I remind you that telling the truth is in your interests here as well?”
“We’re all telling the truth,” I argued. “Warren Reeves is the only one who’s lied to you. What makes more sense: that all of us are moles for SPYDER—including your own granddaughter—or that only one person at this school is?”
Cyrus hesitated briefly before answering. When he spoke again, his voice was tinged with regret. “Sadly, SPYDER has turned several students at this school before you, as well as many respected agents at the CIA. So yes, I do think it’s possible that all six of you might be working for them—and I am even willing to condemn Erica if the evidence points to her.”
“This is Erica,” I reiterated. “The best spy-in-training at this academy . . .”
“And before her, Joshua Hallal was the best spy-in-training at this academy,” Cyrus reminded me. “As you are well aware, SPYDER turned him, too.”
“That doesn’t speak very highly of this academy,” the stern woman said.
“SPYDER is unlike any organization you have ever encountered,” Cyrus told her. “But I assure you, we will find out who is working for them and root out that evil once and for all. St
arting right . . .”
Cyrus trailed off suddenly, listening to a faint sound in the room.
My friends and I all listened too, trying to pinpoint it. I heard a series of squeals and squelches, with tinny music in the background.
“What is that?” Jawa asked.
“Flapjack Frenzy,” Zoe answered.
Cyrus suddenly wheeled on the principal. “Are you playing a game on your phone?”
The principal’s head snapped up so quickly, his toupee almost flew off. “No!” he said, although it was obviously a lie. He desperately fumbled with his phone, trying to turn the sound off.
“You are!” Cyrus roared. “You’re playing a game in the midst of a tribunal!”
“I was only checking my e-mail,” the principal said weakly. “And the game came on by mistake.”
“You shouldn’t be checking your e-mail in the middle of a tribunal either!” Cyrus snapped. “Give me your phone right now.”
“No,” the principal said. “It’s mine.”
“Alexander, take his phone,” Cyrus ordered.
Alexander snatched the phone from the principal and handed it to his father, who promptly smashed it with his gavel.
“Hey!” the principal yelped. “I had critical information on that!”
“I’ll bet.” Cyrus rubbed his temples with his fingers, like he was fighting off a major headache. “Sorry for the interruption,” he told the other members of the tribunal. “Where were we . . . ?”
“You were going to root out SPYDER once and for all,” the stern woman said. “Starting now.”
“Right.” Cyrus swiveled back toward me. “I am running out of patience, Benjamin. If you do not freely own up to what you know about SPYDER, we will be forced to use less friendly methods to find out what you know.”
“Oh no,” Jawa whispered to me. “He means torture.”
“I’m telling you what I know!” I exclaimed. “But you’re not listening to any of it!”
“Because I’m not an idiot!” Cyrus exploded. “So stop playing me for one! You were the one who walked a bomb into the White House! We have dozens of witnesses!”
“I was tricked into doing it,” I said. “The same way SPYDER tricked you into authorizing the entire operation in the first place.”
“What’s that?” the stern woman asked.
“SPYDER planted chatter about the potential assassination to fool Agent Hale,” I explained. “They used channels they knew he was monitoring and made him think there was a mole in the White House so that he’d send me in to investigate. Then SPYDER had Warren Reeves plant a bomb on me. . . .”
“There is no evidence to support that,” Cyrus stated, sounding a bit defensive.
“If I was actually trying to kill the president,” I argued, “why would I throw the bomb away from him? If I hadn’t tossed it into the Oval Office, he’d be dead right now.”
“You didn’t do any such thing,” said another voice from the panel. It was a thin, reedy voice I didn’t recognize.
“I did so,” I replied.
“That’s not what my agents say,” the reedy voice countered. “They claim that they were the ones who threw the bomb into the Oval Office.”
This caught me by surprise. I was trying to figure out what was going on when Jawa stepped in.
“Are you the director of the Secret Service?” he asked.
“Yes,” the reedy voice answered.
“Your agents are lying to you,” Jawa told him. “Probably to make up for the fact that their negligence allowed the bomb into the West Wing in the first place.”
“Yes!” Zoe agreed. “They were probably embarrassed about screwing up so badly, so now they’re lying to you to make themselves sound better.”
“My agents would never behave so unprofessionally,” the reedy voice insisted.
“They allowed the bomb to enter the premises,” the stern woman argued. “That wasn’t very professional.”
“Now, wait a minute!” the Secret Service director cried. “I’m not the one on trial here!”
“Well, maybe you should be,” Mike said.
“What?” the Secret Service director gasped.
“Cyrus just said he suspects SPYDER has turned lots of people at the CIA,” Mike explained. “Why couldn’t they have turned agents at the Secret Service, too? Including you. Maybe you and all your agents were in on the plot and let the bomb get through on purpose.”
All the heads on the panel turned toward the director of the Secret Service suspiciously.
“That is an erroneous accusation!” the director howled. “My agents are incorruptible!”
“That’s exactly what I would expect someone who’d been corrupted by SPYDER to say,” Mike said.
“Yeah!” Chip chimed in. “Maybe you’re the one who planted the bomb on Ben!”
“That’s preposterous!” the Secret Service director spluttered.
“It’s not any more preposterous than suggesting Ben is working for SPYDER,” Mike argued. “If being tricked into bringing a bomb into the White House is enough to condemn Ben, then why isn’t it enough to condemn you? Or Cyrus Hale?”
“Me?” Cyrus asked, caught by surprise.
“Yes, you,” Mike said. “You authorized this mission in the first place. And you authorized the mission where you sent Ben to evil spy school and claim he was flipped. Maybe you’re the one working for SPYDER, and they ordered you to do all that in order to frame Ben.”
“Hey,” Alexander Hale said thoughtfully. “That’s a very good point.”
“You’re actually buying this?” Cyrus exclaimed. “I’m your father! You can’t possibly think I might be working for SPYDER!”
“You accused my daughter of working for SPYDER,” Alexander replied testily. “So apparently being a Hale doesn’t free you from suspicion.”
“Maybe you’re working for SPYDER!” the principal shouted, pointing at Alexander accusingly.
“Well, maybe you are,” Alexander said, pointing back at the principal.
The panel erupted into chaos, everyone shouting at once, pointing fingers at one another, accusing each other and defending themselves.
Mike sat back in his chair, grinning from ear to ear, enjoying what he’d wrought.
“That’s enough!” Cyrus exploded. He pounded his gavel on the table so hard that the head cracked off and clattered to the floor by my feet. “This tribunal hasn’t been called to condemn any of us! It has been called to condemn them!” He pointed at my fellow students and me. “They’re turning us all against one another on purpose!”
“I’m simply pointing out that the logic you’ve used against us can easily be used against all of you,” Mike said.
“Shut your trap, you impudent scamp!” Cyrus yelled at him. “There is no concrete evidence to condemn any of us on this panel, whereas there is ample evidence against all of you, particularly Agent Ripley! Thanks to his actions, the Oval Office was blown up and the president of the United States was nearly killed, along with half a dozen other high-ranking government officials!”
I snapped upright in my seat, struck by a thought. Cyrus rambled on, accusing me of several other crimes, but I didn’t hear any of it. Something that Ashley Sparks had said right before she escaped came back to me.
You actually thought it was about killing the president? You don’t understand how SPYDER works at all, do you?
“Which other government officials?” I asked.
Cyrus paused in the midst of his litany of accusations. “Excuse me?”
“Which other government officials were nearly killed?” I asked.
Zoe now sat up next to me, as intrigued as I was. “I know that look,” she told me. “You’re onto SPYDER’s plot, aren’t you?”
“Maybe,” I said.
Now Mike, Jawa, and Chip sat up, intrigued as well.
The stern woman consulted some papers in front of her. “The secretary of defense was nearly killed,” she read. “Also the secretaries o
f the army, the navy, and the air force, along with many of their aides and assistants. And, as we all know, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had to be hospitalized due to severe smoke inhalation.”
“He did?” I asked. Apparently, the news channels had been too distracted by the story of the manhunt for me to give that story much coverage.
“Yes,” the stern woman answered. “In fact, he had to resign from his position only a few hours ago due to health concerns.” She looked to the other people on the panel. “That hasn’t been made public yet.”
“Oh no,” I said, worried.
“You did it, didn’t you?” Mike asked me. “You’ve figured out SPYDER’s plot!”
“I think so,” I said. “It was never about killing the president at all. It was about the chairman.”
“Hold on a second,” Cyrus said. “Are you honestly suggesting that SPYDER tried to kill the president of the United States merely to distract us from the fact that they were really trying to kill the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff?”
“Yes,” I replied. “Or at least, to get him to step down.”
The tribunal erupted into chaos once again.
“Silence!” Cyrus ordered all of them. He tried to bang his gavel on the table, but since he’d broken it, all he could do was bang the handle, which didn’t work so well.
“This is how SPYDER works,” I explained. “They’re never doing what we think they’re doing. They’re always using misdirection, trying to throw us off. Think about it: If they simply assassinated the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, then we’d know that was their plan. But if they take out the president, who’d ever think they were really going for the chairman, even though he has just as much power over our military as the president does?”
“Even more power, in certain areas,” Jawa put in.
“Way to go, Ben!” Mike crowed. “I knew you could figure this one out!”
“He always does,” Zoe said proudly.
The people on the panel didn’t seem quite as convinced. They looked from one to another for a bit, then finally seemed to settle on all looking at Cyrus expectantly. Cyrus kept staring right out at me. He stayed riveted on me for a few long, uncomfortable seconds.