by Stuart Gibbs
“Yes.”
“It’s the altitude. We’re more than eight thousand feet above sea level here. There’s far less oxygen. Your body isn’t used to it yet. It might take a day or two.”
“You don’t seem to be affected.”
“I’m using ashanti-veda yogic breathing techniques to modulate my oxygen intake. And, of course, I’m in much better shape than you are.”
“You can actually control how much oxygen you’re breathing? How?”
“It’s very complicated. You have to harness your chi energy, align your chakras, and then—” Erica stopped so suddenly I almost slammed into her from behind. “The target is approaching,” she whispered.
I glanced around me, trying to pick up on what Erica had. But everything looked completely normal. We had now reached the front of the Arabelle, where a semicircular driveway passed the main doors. Skiers were streaming across the road, returning to other hotels that were farther from the slopes. “How did you . . . ?” I began.
“Check the front doors,” Erica hissed.
I looked that way. Some very large Chinese men had exited the Arabelle. Of the dozens of people within view, they were the only ones who weren’t wearing ski clothes. Instead, they wore three-piece suits, each of which had the telltale bulge of a weapon under the jacket. Bodyguards. “Oh,” I said, feeling like an idiot for missing them before.
Two of the bodyguards, each the size of a professional linebacker, stepped into the path of the skiers, holding up their hands to stop the crowd, like extremely well-dressed crossing guards. They didn’t say a word, but something ominous in their demeanor froze everyone in their tracks. Both guards had radio wires curling from their ears. One said something in Chinese into his.
“That’s the ‘all clear,’ ” Erica informed me.
A second later, three vehicles came down the road. I’d never seen anything like them. Each looked like someone had crossed a car with a tank. They were big and boxy, with all-terrain tires and what appeared to be armor plating. The windows were heavily tinted, so we couldn’t see a thing as they rumbled past us.
The first looped past the front doors of the hotel and stopped, blocking the exit of the driveway. The second parked in front of the hotel doors. The third stopped short, blocking the driveway’s entrance. No one got out of the first or third car-tank.
Jessica Shang got out of the second.
Leo Shang also got out of it, but I didn’t see him. In the first place, he had exited on the far side of it, closer to the hotel doors, so the car-tank was blocking my view of him. And after that, he was instantly surrounded by a scrum of bodyguards.
But the real reason I didn’t see him was that I couldn’t take my eyes off Jessica.
The single picture I’d seen of her before hadn’t done her justice. Either it had been too grainy, or she’d blossomed since it was taken. Probably a bit of both. Whatever the case, she was equally as beautiful as Erica—only, there was something different about her. Erica always had an aura of danger about her that made her alluring but also incredibly intimidating. Meanwhile, Jessica, despite being surrounded by armored vehicles and menacing guards, appeared to be completely the opposite. As opposed to Erica she seemed . . . friendly. I couldn’t explain how, but I immediately got the sense that she’d be extremely kind and good-natured. She had wide, luminous eyes and an endearing little smile, and she was wrapped in a big, fuzzy pink parka that made her look like she was wearing a giant Hostess Sno Ball.
Jessica quickly slipped around the car-tank and disappeared into the pack of bodyguards before being shunted through the doors of the hotel. My entire glimpse of her had lasted five seconds. If that.
I kept my eyes locked on the hotel doors, hoping she might exit again.
“Oh, great,” Erica muttered. “One look at the target and you already have a crush on her.”
“No, I don’t,” I said, way too defensively.
Erica heaved a disdainful sigh. “The moment you saw her, you stopped breathing.”
“It wasn’t because of her. It was because of the lack of oxygen up here.”
“Well, you’re definitely not getting enough oxygen to your brain. You can’t develop feelings for the target. She’s the enemy. If you bring emotion into this, you’ll screw everything up.”
“I’m not going to get emotional,” I said heatedly.
“You’re getting emotional right now,” Erica pointed out.
I started to argue that I wasn’t, then realized this would be exactly what Erica was talking about. So I fell silent, embarrassed and annoyed.
The bodyguards in the street in front of us seemed to have received a new message over their radios. They stood down at the same time, allowing the crowd of skiers to cross the street again. Every single person around us was now talking about the Shangs, impressed by their car-tank convoy and wondering who they were. Even in a community as wealthy as Vail, they had just made a very big impression.
Erica fell in with the flow of tourists and I followed her. As we neared the guards who’d stopped traffic, Erica instantly changed her entire demeanor, shifting from spy surveillance mode to behaving like an actual teenage girl. Even her voice changed, ratcheting up a few octaves. “I am so psyched to hit the slopes tomorrow!” she exclaimed, taking a bite of pizza. “Aren’t you?”
“Definitely,” I replied, trying my best to play along.
“I hear there’s some major freshies coming in this week,” Erica proclaimed, leading me between the guards and across the street. “Maybe a foot. Twelve inches of pow-pow! How radical is that?”
“Er . . . very radical.” I had no idea what Erica was talking about, but suspected it was skier-speak for something to do with snow.
Erica shot me a peeved glance, as though she was annoyed I wasn’t holding up my end of the charade very well, and then decided to handle everything herself. She launched into a long, purposefully vapid diatribe about how much she loved skiing while we continued our circuit around the hotel.
A pedestrian walkway cut past the lobby, heading back toward the ice rink again. One of Shang’s guards remained in position at the front doors as we wandered past. Unlike the others, he was Caucasian, with pale skin, bright blue eyes, and a white-blond mullet. He was one of the largest human beings I’d ever seen in my life. His arms were so muscular, he’d had to rip the sleeves off his suit to accommodate them. Apparently, the cold didn’t bother him. He stood still as stone as we passed, although his eyes followed us suspiciously.
Erica acted as though she didn’t even see him, rambling on about hucking off ledges and pulling kangaroo flips in the terrain park, until we were well past him and at the ice rink again. Then she turned to me, fluttered her eyelashes, and announced, “Let’s go ice-skating!”
I stared at her, thrown. There weren’t any bodyguards around for her to be acting in front of, and yet “Let’s go ice-skating!” was one of the last things I would have ever expected to hear Erica Hale say, along the lines of “I love scrapbooking,” or “Unicorns are awesome.”
“Ice-skating?” I repeated. “You mean, like, for fun?”
“Of course for fun, sillypants,” Erica chirped, giving me a playful swat on the shoulder. “Why else would we do it?” Then she took me by the hand and led me into the skate-rental area.
I stopped breathing again. Only for a second, but I was aware of it this time. This was the first occasion in months that Erica had touched me in any way that didn’t involve demonstrating martial arts. I was relatively sure she was merely playacting, but still, it was human contact. Between this and my glimpse of Jessica Shang, I was a mess.
We wound through a few benches where people were in the various stages of putting on or taking off rental skates. As we passed among them, I leaned in close to Erica and whispered, “You don’t do anything for fun. Are Shang’s men around?”
“Check out the ice cream parlor,” she whispered back, finally sounding like herself again.
I glanced
back the way we had come. The ice cream parlor looked perfectly normal, though. There were no hulking men in suits there. Only a long line of families with small children and a guy reading a newspaper on a bench. “What do you mean?”
“Who reads a newspaper outside when it’s twenty-two degrees?” Erica asked.
I looked back, feeling like an idiot again. Now that I knew what to look for, the guy didn’t appear to be reading his newspaper at all. He was only pretending to read it, while really keeping his eyes on the crowd, carefully assessing anyone headed toward the hotel lobby. Thankfully, he didn’t seem interested in us. Between the pizza place, the ice cream parlor, and the ice rink, there were dozens of other kids our age around and we were blending in perfectly.
“There’s another guy by the pizza place,” Erica informed me. “And a third by the skate-rental booth. I clocked them all the first time we came through.” Rather than waiting in the long line for rental skates, she plucked a pair off the ground that a kid my size had just changed out of and shoved them into my arms. “Here, put these on.”
I instantly did as she’d ordered, figuring that questioning it would only annoy Erica. I sat and yanked my shoes off. “Aren’t you going to skate too?”
Erica didn’t answer me. Instead, she looked up at the Arabelle and said, “Looks like Shang’s staying on the fifth floor.”
I looked up too. Sure enough, on the top floor, high above us, lights were flicking on in several rooms.
“Nice recon.” I slipped my foot into an ice skate and started lacing it. “So what’s the plan?”
Erica sat beside me and looked at me adoringly, which made me stop breathing again. Then she tenderly ran her fingers through my hair, which nearly gave me a heart attack. And after that, she secretly slipped a radio transmitter into my ear, confirming yet again that the only reason she ever touched me outside of a dojo was as part of an act.
We had used the radios on missions before; I could hear anything Erica said to me, while no one else could—and mine could pick up anything I said and transmit it back to her. At the moment, though, we were close enough not to need them. “You’re going to be my lookout,” Erica told me. “If you see any sign of trouble, let me know.”
“Trouble?” I repeated, slipping on my second skate. “What are you planning to do?”
“Find out what Shang’s up to.”
“Now? How?”
“I’m going to infiltrate his hotel room.”
“What?” I gasped. “You can’t do that!”
“Sure I can. I’m good at this stuff.”
“I meant, you’re not supposed to do it. The mission is for me to befriend Jessica and use that connection to get close to her father.”
“The mission is for us to find out what Operation Golden Fist is, period.” Erica was back to her normal, cool self; only somehow, she seemed even cooler than usual. Her attitude was icier than the skating rink. “The other plan is too complicated, the other students aren’t ready for activation yet, and like I said, you’re too emotionally involved where Jessica is concerned.”
“Emotionally involved? I saw her for five seconds!”
“It was enough. Your ability is compromised. I’m going with Plan B. Which should have been Plan A all along. If you just do your part, this will all be over within ten minutes.” Erica stood again and started toward the ice cream parlor.
I followed her. Only, since I now had ice skates on, I couldn’t follow very quickly. “Wait!” I called.
Erica stopped by the entrance to the ice rink. We were now close enough to the guy with the newspaper that she had to resume her teenage girl act again. “What is it, pumpkin?”
I lowered my voice. “The hotel is crawling with guards. You’ll never be able to get into Shang’s room.”
Erica smiled at me in a way I knew was pretend but that still melted my heart. “Oh, sweetie.” She sighed. “You’re so cute when you worry about me. But I’ll be fine. They won’t see me because of the diversion.”
“What diversion?” I asked, suddenly feeling very worried.
“This one,” Erica said, and shoved me onto the ice.
I had ice-skated a few times before, so I might have been all right if Erica hadn’t caught me so off guard.
Or shoved me so hard.
Or sent me onto the rink backward.
But the combination of all three was impossible to overcome. I sailed out onto the ice in reverse and completely out of control. The first thing I did was give out an involuntary yelp of surprise, which drew the attention of everyone around—including the three undercover guards.
The second thing I did was slam into another skater. And after that, I slammed into three more people. I sent each of them careening wildly across the ice, where they promptly slammed into other skaters, who slammed into still others, sparking a chain reaction of wipeouts all around the rink. Adults face-planted. Teens crashed. Small children caromed off the railing. I tried to stop myself before I caused any more trouble, digging a skate into the ice, but succeeded only in tripping myself. I swiveled around, landed flat on my stomach, and promptly cut a rather large father off at the knees. He landed right on top of me. And then his entire family landed on top of him. I was pancaked beneath all of them. For the fourth time in the last few minutes, I stopped breathing, but this time it wasn’t due to a girl. It was because the air had been crushed out of me.
I could no longer see what was happening on the rink, as I was buried beneath a pile of humanity and my face was smushed into the ice. But I could still hear what was going on, and it didn’t sound good: a cacophony of crashes, thumps, yelps, and screams.
It took me a while to wriggle out from under the pile. The rink was now strewn with upended skaters; it looked as though an earthquake had struck in the middle of the Ice Capades. Lots of children were crying, although thankfully, none appeared to be seriously hurt. Around them, their parents and the other skaters were struggling to get back to their feet and wiping ice shavings off their parkas. Most were glaring angrily at me.
The guy with the newspaper was watching us all, completely distracted from his job. So were the other two guards, both of whom were laughing at me. The diversion had worked perfectly.
In the midst of the chaos, I glanced upward, toward the fifth floor of the Arabelle. Each floor had a balcony on the corner, overlooking the ice rink. To my astonishment, Erica was already to the fourth. The building had provided little challenge for her incredible rock-climbing skills. Within another two seconds, she nimbly scrambled up to the fifth floor and swung lightly over the railing onto the balcony.
No one but me was looking up. Everyone else was still focused on the carnage I’d caused. I was the only one on the ground aware that Erica was high above us.
There was a sliding glass door leading from the fifth-floor balcony into the Shangs’ suite. Erica quickly flattened herself against the wall. I could hear distant voices speaking Chinese, filtering through the glass door, then through Erica’s radio and into my earpiece.
Someone suddenly grabbed me from behind. It was the big father I’d knocked over. He was now back on his feet and hopping mad. “What the heck were you thinking?” he demanded. “You could’ve killed someone!”
“I . . . ,” I began.
“Shhhhh!” Erica hissed over the earpiece. “Your radio is live! I’m trying to listen to Shang!”
I clammed up, not wanting to interfere with the mission.
The angry father took this as insolence. “Well?” he demanded. “Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?”
“No hablo inglés,” I told him.
“Shhhh!” Erica hissed again.
A lot of other angry skaters were coming toward me. So I did the only thing I could think of: I skated away from them as fast as I could. I shot across the ice, managing not to knock anyone over this time, and scrambled back through the gate into the prep area.
The angry skaters seemed pleased with this. At least I couldn’t
cause any more damage off the ice.
I chanced another look upward. Erica was now tucked against the wall of the building by the sliding glass door, almost hidden from sight. Unless they knew where to look, no one down on ground level could see her. Shang’s three guards around the ice rink obviously had no idea she was up there.
Unfortunately, there was also someone on the roof of the Arabelle, crouched right above the balcony. He was dressed completely in black, and he was obviously aware of Erica’s presence, as he was staring right at her.
“Erica!” I said.
“Shhhh!” she snapped.
“There’s—”
“What part of ‘shhhh’ don’t you understand?”
“Someone’s above you on the roof !”
By the time I said this, though, the guard wasn’t on the roof anymore. He had dropped to the balcony behind Erica.
Through my earpiece, I heard her gasp in surprise.
Which was followed by the sound of her being knocked unconscious.
PUNISHMENT
Lionshead Village
Vail, Colorado
December 26
1700 hours
There was only one person I could trust in this situation: Cyrus Hale.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t answering his phone.
This wasn’t really surprising. Cyrus hated cellular phones. He also hated computers, e-mail, and pretty much any technology invented over the last thirty years. “Takes all the sport out of spying,” he often grumbled. “In the good old days, we didn’t need cell phones. If we got into trouble, we didn’t call for backup. We just knocked a few heads together and then ran like hell.”
I tried Jawa next. He answered on the second ring. “Ben! Where are you?”
“In Lionshead Village. Do you know where Cyrus is?”
“Back at the motel, I think. But I’m not sure. We’re all out at McDonald’s.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“Everyone.”
“Even Alexander?”
“Yes. We were all starving. Do you want us to grab you something?”
“No, thanks. I’ve got to go.” I yanked off the ice skates, pulled my shoes back on, and raced back to the Ski Haüs as fast as I could. It wasn’t that far away—a few blocks through Lionshead, then across the pedestrian bridge over the highway—but it took longer than usual for me to cover the distance. It turned out that running at high altitude before you’ve fully acclimatized is really difficult. In fact, it can make you sick. I puked three times. Twice in the village and once over the railing of the pedestrian bridge. On the last one, I painted a minivan on the highway below me.