by Stuart Gibbs
Even Mike got into the act. When Felicia DuVray realized the tide had turned against her team and tried to flee, Mike tripped her.
Felicia sprawled onto the floor. Alexander Hale quickly grabbed a gun that one of the soldiers had dropped and pointed it at her. “You were actually prepared to torture my daughter,” he snarled.
“It was your father’s idea!” Felicia whined, not sounding so stern anymore.
“He was leading you on,” Alexander spat. “And you were only too happy to help him.”
Meanwhile, I did my standard “get low and stay out of the way” tactic, crouching by the wall and making sure no one punched or shot me by accident. It wasn’t exactly manly, but it didn’t mess anything up, either.
As it was, my team had things covered. In less than thirty seconds, the soldiers were all piled on the floor, unconscious, and my friends were all looking very pleased with themselves.
Cyrus didn’t bother to even say so much as “good job.” Instead, he told us, “We need to move,” then looked to Alexander. “Get all these guys cuffed so they can’t sound the alarm if they wake up.”
“With what?” Alexander asked.
“These,” Erica said, tossing him the cuffs she’d been wearing, then unlocking mine as well. She and Cyrus quickly freed Mike, Zoe, Chip, and Jawa. We piled the cuffs at Alexander’s feet, then helped ourselves to the weapons of the unconscious soldiers.
Alexander knelt to cuff Felicia DuVray.
“You’re making a huge mistake,” she hissed. “You’ll never get out of here. This building is crawling with soldiers. And when you get caught, I’m going to make sure they bring you right back down here to me, so I can make you pay for what you’ve—”
“Alexander, shut her up,” Cyrus ordered.
“Gladly,” Alexander replied. He yanked a sock off an unconscious soldier and stuffed it into Felicia’s mouth.
“The room where Finch will come to activate the portable nuclear launch unit is this way,” Cyrus said, then took off down the hall as fast as he could go—which was surprisingly fast.
The rest of us did our best to keep up with him. We raced through the endless maze of basement corridors.
“So, you believed Ben about SPYDER’s plans after all?” Chip asked Cyrus.
“You wouldn’t be down here if I didn’t,” Cyrus replied.
“But you actually thought we were working for SPYDER up until then,” Erica pointed out.
“What of it?” Cyrus asked curtly.
“An apology might be nice,” Zoe suggested. “Like, ‘Sorry I thought all of you were betraying your country. I realize SPYDER tricked me into it. My bad.’ ”
“The room is right up here,” Cyrus said, completely avoiding the conversation.
We rounded a corner into another hallway.
Ahead of us was the room in question.
It didn’t look particularly important. It merely had a nondescript door with a random number on it. But then, in my experience, important rooms rarely looked important. They were often designed to be overlooked.
As we approached, the door opened. Elmore Finch, the brand-new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stepped into the hall. He was squat and bald, with a gray goatee. Six armed soldiers flanked him, along with an aide who carried a thin steel briefcase.
Up until that very moment, I hadn’t been completely sure that Finch was a covert SPYDER agent. But a few things immediately convinced me that I had guessed correctly and that the thin steel briefcase was, in fact, the portable launch system for our nuclear arsenal.
First, Finch was very startled to see us. He apparently recognized Cyrus and realized he had just been caught with his hand in the nuclear cookie jar.
Second, he ordered the soldiers to open fire on us.
And third, the aide holding the briefcase was my nemesis, Murray Hill.
PURSUIT
The Pentagon
Arlington, Virginia
February 13
0815 hours
I almost didn’t recognize Murray. He had really cleaned himself up so he could infiltrate the Pentagon. Normally, Murray was slovenly and unkempt, his clothes covered in food stains, his hair looking as if he had forgotten to wash it for the past few months. Now he wore a military uniform, had a crew cut, and stood ramrod straight. He had even grown a thin mustache, making him look much older than his actual fifteen years. However, he completely failed to hide his astonished reaction to my presence. “Ripley!” he gasped. “Not again!”
Then he turned and ran away while the soldiers started shooting at us.
I was pretty sure the soldiers weren’t in league with SPYDER. They were simply normal soldiers who believed that Elmore Finch was the legitimate new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, rather than a highly placed stooge for an evil organization, and thus they obeyed his orders.
We didn’t fire back at them. We didn’t want to kill any innocent men. Instead, we scrambled for cover, racing around the corner while bullets tore up the hall behind us.
“Get them!” Elmore Finch roared, and then we heard the clomping of combat boots charging after us.
“You know another way through down here?” Jawa asked Cyrus.
“Of course,” Cyrus replied. He shot a pipe as we ran past it. A burst of steam vented through the hole, clouding the hallway behind us and hiding us from the pursuing soldiers.
Alexander Hale rounded a corner ahead, running to catch up to all of us. “Hey, guys!” he exclaimed. “I cuffed everyone and was hoping I could join you. . . .” It suddenly dawned on him that us running back his way probably wasn’t a good sign. “Oh dear. Have things gone bad?”
“Extremely,” Cyrus told him, then led us around another corner and into a stairwell.
“What’s the plan?” Mike asked as we sprinted upward, taking the stairs two at a time.
“We do whatever it takes to get that briefcase,” Cyrus said. “As long as Finch has it, nothing can stop him from launching a nuclear strike wherever and whenever he wants. If he gets out of here with it, the entire planet will be at SPYDER’s mercy.”
“He’s now the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and we’re in the Pentagon,” Erica pointed out. “There are twenty-six thousand employees here who’ll shoot us if he tells them to.”
“Yeah, that’s a problem,” Cyrus admitted.
We burst out a door onto the main floor and found ourselves in the innermost ring of the Pentagon, the one with the windows onto the central courtyard. Two of the souped-up golf carts I’d seen before idled close by, right outside a Starbucks, waiting for several high-ranking military officers to get mocha lattes. An aide sat at the wheel of each cart . . . until Cyrus and Erica grabbed them by the collars and tossed them to the floor.
“We need to commandeer these,” Cyrus informed them, taking the wheel of one cart. “National security.” Chip, Jawa, and Zoe leapt into the cart behind him, while Alexander, Mike, and I got into the one driven by Erica.
Cyrus and Erica each pounded the gas pedal and we took off. The vehicles were designed to go much faster than regular golf carts, so we moved with surprising speed, especially considering that we were inside a building. We sluiced through the crowds of Pentagon employees and swerved around the museum displays—which, as Erica had deduced, were all about the Revolutionary War.
“If I recall correctly, the closest stairwell to where we left those criminals is right up here,” Cyrus announced. “Aha!”
Sure enough, Elmore Finch and Murray Hill had just exited the stairs. Their own souped-up golf cart idled close by. Only two soldiers now accompanied them; the other four were probably still searching for us in the basement. Both SPYDER operatives were acting as if nothing unusual was going on, trying not to attract attention. Murray kept the silver briefcase clutched to his chest, but to most people, it would have looked like an average, everyday briefcase rather than something that could be used to end all life on earth.
This time we got the drop on them.
They expected us to still be down in the basement, rather than barreling toward them. Chip, Jawa, and Zoe sprang from Cyrus’s cart, pouncing upon the military men before they could do anything. They all tumbled to the floor in a tangle of arms and legs.
Murray Hill did what he always did in situations like this: He fled. Elmore Finch did exactly the same thing. They leapt into their nearby cart, Finch taking the wheel while Murray protected the briefcase, and sped away.
Our high-speed drive through the Pentagon became a high-speed chase. Now, instead of two carts careening wildly through the building, there were three. Pentagon employees scattered out of our paths as we raced around the inner hallway.
“Hand over the briefcase!” Cyrus yelled.
“These people are terrorists!” Elmore Finch yelled to the crowd. “Somebody shoot them!”
Thankfully, even though we were in the military headquarters for the United States, no one in the immediate vicinity was carrying weapons. However, some exceptionally fit soldiers chased after us on foot.
Cyrus pulled up on one side of Finch and Murray’s golf cart while Erica pulled up on the other, boxing them in.
“I’ve got this!” Alexander yelled, and sprang from our cart onto theirs.
Or at least, he tried to. He timed his jump wrong, missed the cart completely, and ended up bowling over three women exiting yet another Starbucks.
Murray whipped out a gun.
Before I even knew what I was doing, I had leapt at him myself.
Normally, I wasn’t one for leaping at people with guns. Experience had taught me that it usually made far more sense to leap away from them. But during my time at spy school, I had apparently developed some new instincts. Plus, we were running out of spies-in-training—and if there was any enemy agent I stood a chance of beating in a fight, it was Murray Hill.
I slammed into him and caught his gun hand before he could fire. Mike jumped into the cart as well, grabbing Elmore Finch. And then a few things happened very quickly.
I wasn’t sure exactly why they happened, as I was busy fighting Murray when everything went wrong.
Maybe Erica or Cyrus attempted to run Elmore Finch into the wall, or maybe someone swerved to avoid an innocent pedestrian. Whatever the case, the carts all slammed into one another and spun out of control. Finch, being in the middle, had the least room to maneuver. Another museum display loomed in our path, and there was no way to avoid it. Instead, we plowed right through it, smashing the glass and destroying everything inside. The display featured three mannequins in traditional Revolutionary War dress: a British regular, a member of the Continental army, and a gassy-looking George Washington, which we hit head-on. The soldiers and their armaments all went skidding across the hallway, while the father of our country immediately burst apart upon impact, pieces of him flying far and wide. His disembodied head ricocheted off the wall and decked a three-star general.
The cart I was in spun sideways and toppled. It wasn’t as dangerous as a car wreck would have been, but we still went flying. Murray and I tumbled across the linoleum floor for twenty yards. We both lost our grip on the gun, which discharged as it bounced away, blasting a hole in the ceiling, severing a power line, and shorting out the lights. Several hundred people who had been too far away to notice the cart chase heard the gunshot and, being military, either dropped into defensive postures or took cover. Murray lost his grip on the briefcase as well; it slid much farther than we did, eventually clonking into another display case.
The severed power line dropped through the hole in the ceiling, sparking wildly and writhing like an angry snake. It blocked the hallway, cutting Murray and me off from everyone else.
Meanwhile, Mike somehow managed to hang on to our cart even as it fell over, so he ended up landing atop Elmore Finch. Cyrus and Erica crashed their own carts into the wall. Before they could run to Mike’s aid, the angry soldiers who’d set after them on foot arrived. Cyrus and Erica had no choice but to fight them off hand-to-hand, leaving Mike to handle Elmore Finch by himself.
I was banged up from the wreck and hurting in twelve different places, but I scrambled to my feet anyhow, determined to get to the nuclear briefcase before Murray could. Normally, Murray had the reflexes of a koala bear, so I figured I could beat him. Unfortunately, Murray was already between me and the briefcase—and he had a bayonet.
It had been in the museum case we had destroyed, part of the British regular’s uniform. It was more than two hundred years old, but it still looked sharp enough to cause serious harm. Murray waved it menacingly, keeping me at bay. “Back off, Ben!” he warned.
“You’re not going to get away with this,” I told him.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said dismissively, backing toward the briefcase. “Let me guess: You figured out our devious plans once again and now think you’re going to thwart us. Well, you’ve thwarted our plans enough. Frankly, I’m getting a little tired of it. It’s not happening this time.” There was a menace in his voice that I’d never heard before. He might have been scary if his mustache hadn’t come off in the wreck. It turned out to be a fake, and it now dangled from his chin like the world’s lamest soul patch.
“Don’t you want to hear how I figured it out?” I asked, edging closer. Murray had always shown interest in that topic when we’d faced off before.
“You mean the old ‘distract-Murray-with-my-brilliance-so-I-can-get-the-jump-on-him’ routine? No thanks.” Murray jabbed his bayonet at me. “Come any closer and I’ll gut you like a fish.”
“I thought you didn’t like killing people.”
“I’ve changed my mind where you’re concerned! You’re a menace, Ben! You’ve defused my bombs, you’ve rerouted my missiles, and you totally messed things up with me and my girlfriend.”
“You’re not seeing Jenny Lake anymore? What happened?”
“You pointed out that I’d lied to her!”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have lied in the first place.”
“Maybe you should keep your nose out of other people’s business for once!” Murray slashed at me with the bayonet, forcing me to leap back. “Would it kill you to not thwart just one of my plans?”
“Er . . . possibly,” I said. “Given that they usually involve killing people. You’re going to use that briefcase to start a nuclear war!”
“Wrong!” Murray exclaimed. “We’re going to use it to get countries to pay us not to start nuclear wars. There’s a difference.”
“You’re going to blackmail the entire planet?” I asked.
“Exactly. Now, if a country doesn’t think their own citizens’ survival is worth a few million dollars, well . . . that’s their problem.” Murray had almost reached the briefcase now, but there was no way I could get past the bayonet.
Something gleamed on the floor to my right. An honest-to-God sword. Since Murray had a weapon, I figured I needed one too. So I dashed over and grabbed it. To my astonishment, there was a plaque on it indicating it had belonged to George Washington himself.
Meanwhile, Murray grabbed the briefcase. He tried to make a run for it, but I was faster, cutting off his escape and waving the blade.
Murray held up his bayonet defiantly. “Back off, Ben. Don’t make me hurt you.”
“Drop the briefcase,” I said.
“Fine. Be that way.” Murray lunged at me with his bayonet. I parried it with Washington’s sword.
Back by the wrecked golf carts, Elmore Finch was screaming at everyone to take us out. Or, he was trying to scream. Mike had gotten the upper hand and was smushing him face-first into the floor, so everything he said sounded like gibberish.
Erica and Cyrus were still fighting the soldiers. While Erica and Cyrus were amazing fighters, the soldiers were no slouches—and more were coming. Every time Erica or Cyrus knocked one out, another arrived.
Meanwhile, Murray and I were having a good old-fashioned swashbuckling sword fight. Neither of us was particularly adept at swordplay, but that made us evenly matched. Our bl
ades clanged off each other as we struggled for the upper hand.
Pentagon employees began to gather around us, though all of them seemed extremely confused by what was going on. In their defense, even I found the whole thing confounding, and I was part of it.
“I thought you weren’t working for SPYDER anymore,” I said, deflecting an attack. “I thought you hated them after they left you behind to die in New Jersey.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Murray said for the benefit of the crowd. “I’m just a normal, regular military aide.” As he came in closer, however, he whispered, “What can I say? They offered me a great deal and apologized.”
“You mean you sold out,” I said.
“Yes. Honestly, the potential earnings are incredible. You should have joined us when you had the chance.” Murray made a sudden stab that nearly shish-kebabed my spleen.
I dodged it at the last second, then whipped my sword around. Murray had no choice but to use the briefcase to defend himself.
Washington’s sword was still awfully sharp after all those years. It sheared right through the briefcase handle, letting the case tumble free again.
“Dang it, Ben!” Murray yelled in frustration. “That case is expensive!” He made a grab for it, but I was faster. I kicked the briefcase away before he could reach it, sending it sliding across the floor toward the writhing electrical wire.
The wire whipped into the metal briefcase, sending a powerful electrical surge through it, frying the circuits and instantly destroying the deathly machinery inside.
Or, that’s what I had hoped would happen.
Instead, when the briefcase was only a few feet from the electrical wire that would have fried its circuits, Elmore Finch stepped into its path.
He was no longer fighting Mike. He hadn’t won the battle fairly, though. Instead, several soldiers had subdued Mike, while a dozen more had subdued Erica and Cyrus. Behind them, Alexander, Chip, Jawa, and Zoe had also been overwhelmed. There were simply too many soldiers to fight.