by Stuart Gibbs
Beyond the tree, the incline of the slope increased quickly—and so did Erica’s speed. She began cannonballing downhill.
“Sasha!” yelled Woodchuck. “Just fall down! That’ll stop you!”
I’m sure Erica heard him, but falling down simply wasn’t her style. It would have made her look foolish and it would have been admitting defeat, two things Erica simply didn’t do. Instead, she stubbornly stayed upright, determined to solve this problem with her usual finesse. And so she only made things worse, gaining more and more speed.
The slope below her was crowded with skiers, many just learning how to ski. Erica sliced right in front of one group, forcing them to wipe out, then bowled another group over like tenpins. She began making a noise I’d never heard from her before—although one I’d made myself quite a lot at spy school—a kind of uncontrollable, panicked scream: “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!” Her arms were pinwheeling wildly as she tried to figure out a way to stop.
She couldn’t, though. Despite the large number of skiers on the slope, Erica seemed to be on a path to hit nearly every one of them. She cut some off, making them wreck, and caromed off others, knocking them down. One skier crashed into a tree trying to avoid her, while yet another clanged into a ski-lift pole. Several others went sprawling and ended up spinning down the slope on their bellies, taking out still more skiers on the way. A line of small children in a ski class toppled over like dominoes. And yet, somehow, Erica stayed upright through it all, gaining even more speed.
And then she hit the jump.
It wasn’t a huge jump, like in the Olympics. It was really only a medium-size lump of snow to the side of the run. But it did the trick. Erica launched into the air and flew several feet.
It turned out, in addition to not knowing how to stop, Erica also didn’t know how to land.
Her skis bit into the ground and came to a sudden stop—but Erica didn’t. Instead, she sailed right out of her bindings and began tumbling down the mountain. Her equipment flew off her as she went, leaving a trail of belongings strewn across the slope. (Later, I learned skiers referred to this as a “yard sale.”) One pole landed high in a tree. The other nearly impaled a passing snowboarder. One ski ended up embedded in the ground like a fence post—and yet another unsuspecting skier promptly crashed into it.
Eventually, Erica stopped tumbling and started sliding, her arms and legs stuck out around her like she was a giant starfish. She took out a few more skiers this way until she finally sailed off the run into the woods and plowed headfirst into a snowbank, hitting so hard that she wound up embedded all the way to her shoulders.
“Whoa,” Woodchuck gasped. “That was the most epic wipeout I have ever seen.”
I nodded agreement. My wreck at the ice rink the day before had been embarrassing, but it was a mere ripple compared to the tsunami of destruction Erica had caused. On the slope below me, skiers and snowboarders were strewn everywhere, groaning in pain or shouting after her in anger. Luckily, no one had been badly hurt, but there were plenty of sprains, sprawls, and busted ski equipment. It looked as though a panzer tank division had come through, rather than only a teenage girl. Far below us, Erica extricated herself from the snowbank, saw what she had done—and turned so red with embarrassment that we could see it all the way uphill.
Beside me, Jessica was laughing so hard, she could barely breathe. So were many of my fellow spies. Even Dane—who had seemed genetically incapable of even smiling—seemed to find the whole thing funny. But then, I couldn’t blame any of them; I was having trouble keeping a straight face myself.
“Man, oh, man,” Jessica gasped. “That Sasha is a case of baskets.”
“You mean ‘a basket case’?” I asked.
“That’s it! She’s . . . uh, is ‘nuts’ the right term?”
“Yeah. She’s nuts, all right,” I agreed.
Jessica gave me a conspiratorial grin in response.
I found myself smiling back. Mike might have really messed things up for me, but for the moment, Jessica and I had at least one more thing in common.
REASSESSMENT
Eagle’s Nest Dining Area
Vail Mountain
December 27
1200 hours
Three hours later, when we broke for lunch, Jessica was still laughing about Erica’s wipeout. “Did you see her when she slammed into that snowbank?” She snickered. “She practically buried herself alive!”
Jawa, Chip, Zoe, and Warren cracked up along with her. The dining area was a large, serve-yourself cafeteria, and Erica was still off getting her food. My fellow spies-in-training were just as amused by Erica’s disastrous run as Jessica was—if not more. After all, while Erica had let her guard down with me only on rare occasions, she’d never done it with any of them. All they’d ever seen of her was the icy, distant, perfect Erica who was constantly making everyone else look bad, so it was a thrill for them to witness her actually failing at something for once—and failing spectacularly, at that.
To make things even better, Erica hadn’t improved much at all during the next few hours of ski school, while the rest of us had. (The rest of us who weren’t faking being beginners, at least.) I had actually turned out to be pretty good at skiing—“a natural,” according to Woodchuck—but everyone else was getting better as well. Even Warren had made progress. He had obviously lied when he’d boasted that he wasn’t so bad at it the night before, but then, he wasn’t terrible, either. Meanwhile, skiing was like Erica’s Kryptonite. She couldn’t seem to do anything right. When she was supposed to turn, she’d go straight. When she was supposed to go straight, she’d turn. And she’d been falling constantly: on the slopes, on the magic carpet, even while merely standing still. According to my calculations, she’d actually spent more time on her butt that morning than on her feet.
All of which made her more frustrated, which made her more determined to show us up, which made her take more chances, which made her crash even more. She didn’t even have to be on skis; she’d wiped out three times so far in the cafeteria alone.
“She must have taken out fifty people on that first run.” Jessica laughed. “She was like a cow in a Chinese restaurant.”
“You mean ‘a bull in a china shop’?” I asked.
“Right! That’s what I meant!” Jessica agreed.
“Can you believe she honestly thought she could ski right off the bat?” Zoe giggled. “Without even a single lesson?”
“What a nut job,” Chip said, and Warren and Jawa chimed in with agreement.
Then Erica emerged from the cafeteria line and everyone immediately stopped laughing. Erica seemed fully aware of what had been going on, though. Behind Jessica’s back, she narrowed her eyes at everyone else for a split second, but then fell right back into character. She stumbled over to the table with her salad and hot tea, collapsed into a chair, and heaved a sigh of relief. “Whew! Made it! These ski boots sure are hard to walk in!”
“And even harder to ski in,” Jessica whispered to me.
Even though we were on the opposite side of the table from Erica in a very loud room, Erica turned our way anyhow, like she’d heard this.
Jessica instantly grew uncomfortable. “I, uh . . . need to visit the ladies’ room,” she said, then stood and headed that way.
Dane dutifully rose from his seat and followed her.
Jessica grew embarrassed. “I can handle this on my own,” she told Dane.
“Father’s orders,” he insisted.
Jessica groaned and headed off to the bathroom with him in tow.
The moment both were out of earshot, Erica returned to her normal self. “First off,” she told the table, “I admit, I’m having a bit of trouble skiing, but it’s only temporary. You’re not going to be laughing so much tomorrow when I put you all to shame. Second, we need to figure out this Mike Brezinski situation now.”
“Now?” I repeated, glancing back toward the bathroom warily. “Jessica might not be gone that long.”
“Yes, she will,” Zoe informed me. “She’s wearing a one-piece ski suit and she has at least three layers on under it. It’s going to take her five minutes just to get her pants down, let alone go to the bathroom.”
“Plus, I spiked her drink with a laxative,” Erica added. “So tack a few extra minutes on to that estimate.”
I swung back to Erica, stunned. “You drugged her?”
“Only a little,” Erica replied. “What was I supposed to do, wait for her to have to go to the bathroom?”
I started to argue that this wouldn’t have been such a bad idea, but then realized no one else seemed to have a problem with it, so I kept silent.
“Now, then,” Erica went on. “Mike’s presence here is a huge problem. Something that could derail this entire mission.”
“Not necessarily,” I pointed out. “I’ve been thinking about it. If Jessica likes Mike and I’m her connection to him, she still has to keep me in the picture, right?”
“Wrong,” Erica countered. “Jessica will only keep you around as long as it takes her to cozy up to Mike, and my bet is that won’t be long at all. If you and Mike drop by for hot cocoa with her this afternoon, within thirty minutes she’ll be asking him to take her on a date, just the two of them—and you’ll be tossed aside like a used Kleenex. Once that happens, you won’t get diddly-squat out of her, and Operation Snow Bunny will be dead.”
Everyone else nodded agreement with this.
“Leo Shang is plotting Operation Golden Fist for December thirtieth,” Erica continued. “That’s only three days from now. Ben, you need to find out what it is as soon as possible. Which means we need to get Mike out of the picture.”
“You mean, like, kill him?” Warren asked.
Chip whacked him on the back of the head with an open palm. “We’re not gonna kill an innocent kid,” he chided. “We only have to maim him a little.”
I gagged on my soda. “Maim him?”
“Nothing permanent,” Chip assured me. “Just enough to send him off to the hospital for a few days.”
“You can’t maim Mike,” I pointed out. “He’s my best friend.”
“He’s a threat to this operation,” Jawa said pointedly.
“We don’t need to maim Mike at all,” Erica said. “There’s a much simpler way to get rid of him.”
“Poison him?” Warren asked.
This time Zoe whacked him on the back of the head.
Erica sighed, disappointed the rest of us hadn’t figured out the answer. “We make sure Mike isn’t interested in Jessica anymore.”
“How?” I asked.
“By giving him someone even more interesting to fall for,” Erica replied.
It took another few moments for us all to realize who she was talking about. “You mean you?” I asked.
“Of course.” Erica took a sip of tea. “I tag along for hot cocoa with you guys today. Mike falls for me instead of Jessica. Then we take off, leaving the two of you alone. . . .”
“Just like that?” Jawa asked skeptically.
“Just like that,” Erica said.
“And then,” Zoe joined in, “Jessica feels rejected by Mike, so she’s more vulnerable, which makes it easier for Ben to connect with her and win her affection.”
Erica seemed slightly confused by this line of thought, as it concerned human emotions, but she nodded agreement anyhow. “Exactly.”
“It might not work out so easily for you,” Chip warned. “Jessica Shang has a lot going for her. She’s pretty, she’s nice, she’s fun—and she’s rich.”
“Yes,” Erica agreed. “But I’m me.”
Chip laughed dismissively. “I’m just saying, given the choice between two girls, if one of them’s a billionaire, that’s gonna mean something. This Mike character’s gonna show up to the hotel, find out Daddy Shang rented the whole darn thing, and be gobsmacked. And once Jessica starts batting her eyes at him, he’s gonna think he hit the mother lode.”
“Mike’s not that shallow,” I argued.
“We’re all that shallow,” Chip retorted. “Whether we want to believe it or not. Mike’s on a weeklong vacation. He’s not looking to fall in love. He’s looking to have fun! And who’s he gonna have more fun with? The girl he can only afford to take to McDonald’s—or the girl who has an entire hotel and a private jet and all the free food they can eat?”
“Good point,” I conceded.
“I can compete with that,” Erica said confidently.
“How?” Jawa asked. “No offense, but you’re not exactly the warmest person in the world. Your own family doesn’t even think you can make friends with Jessica. So what do you know about winning over a boy’s affection?”
“I know it’s easy,” Erica replied. “Much easier than making friends with someone. To make friends with another girl is work. You have to be nice and pretend to like the same things and have all these excruciatingly dull conversations about your feelings. To get a guy to fall for you, you barely even need to use your brain.”
“That is not true,” Jawa argued, offended.
“Really?” Erica came around the table to Jawa, kneeled close to him, batted her eyelashes, and purred, “Would you like to go somewhere quiet and explain why you’re right to me?”
Jawa looked as though his brain had shorted out. Face-to-face with Erica, his fourteen-year-old mind was completely overwhelmed by her beauty. “Sure!” he said eagerly. “Let’s go right now!”
Erica pulled away from him, dropping any hint of interest she’d just shown. “And that’s how you win over a boy,” she said.
Jawa sagged as he realized he’d allowed Erica to toy with him so easily.
Zoe shook her head, looking disgusted.
I couldn’t judge Jawa too harshly, though. I’d been close to Erica like that several times and been just as smitten. In fact, only a few seconds before, even though I’d been fully aware that Erica was simply leading Jawa on, I’d still felt jealous of him—and a glance at Chip and Warren confirmed they’d felt the same way.
Erica returned to her seat, sat down, and dug into her salad. “So it’s settled, then?” she asked me. “I’ll come with you today, distract Mike, and get this mission back on track.”
I hesitated before agreeing, because I wasn’t very happy with this plan.
First, I wasn’t pleased that, after I had been doing so well with Jessica on my own, Mike had come along and messed things up, forcing Erica to intervene and bail me out on yet another mission.
Even more importantly, I didn’t like the idea of Erica flirting with Mike. Because I was afraid that once she got to know Mike, the flirting would stop being pretend. Erica had never seemed like the type of girl who’d fall for a guy easily, but I knew that she had developed a crush on someone once before. (Someone who’d turned out to be evil, no less.) Which meant it could happen again. And it seemed to me that if anyone could charm the Ice Queen, it was Mike. I’d already had him steal one girl’s attention from me that day, which was rough enough. To have him win over Erica would be devastating.
There was, however, one legitimate argument against the plan. So I put it on the table. “There’s a chance Mike might recognize you,” I told Erica. “He’s seen you before.”
“When?” Zoe asked.
“Back when I first got to spy school,” I explained. “While we were investigating the mole. Mike spotted Erica and me sneaking back onto campus at night.”
Erica waved this off. “It won’t be an issue. That was nearly a year ago, it was dark, and he was really far away.”
“Mike never forgets a girl,” I pointed out.
“He won’t make the connection,” Erica said. “He saw Erica Hale. But today he’s going to meet Sasha Rotko. They’re two entirely different people.”
She was so confident, I knew I wasn’t going to convince her otherwise. And to be honest, I believed her. There were a few times that morning when I had forgotten that Sasha Rotko was actually Erica Hale. I considered making another argumen
t against the plan, but I couldn’t really come up with one. Plus, I was forced to admit there were bigger things at stake here than my schoolboy crushes. My life, for one thing. I didn’t have a better plan—and I didn’t want to say what my problems were with Erica’s proposal—so I gave in. “Sounds great.”
“Good. Now, there’s also this to deal with.” Erica slid her phone across the table to me.
The selfie she’d taken of herself with Jessica and me was on the screen.
“Nice picture,” Warren remarked. “Are you gonna post that?”
“I don’t post,” Erica said coldly. “That’s a surveillance photo, you moron.”
Warren shrank back in his seat while I took a closer look at the photo. I now realized what Erica was talking about. She hadn’t really been taking a selfie at all. Her real target was behind us: Dane the bodyguard.
I picked up the phone and zoomed in on him.
“I sent that to Hank while we were on the gondola,” Erica went on.
“Not your grandfather?” Chip asked.
“He was busy tailing Leo Shang,” Erica replied. “Anyhow, Hank got some intel for us. This guy’s no mere bodyguard. His name’s Dane Brammage. He’s Danish, and he’s a real piece of work. The CIA didn’t even know he was working for the Shangs until Hank sent this over. Last they knew, he was working for an international arms dealer named Paul Lee.”
“Polly who?” asked Zoe.
“No,” Erica corrected. “Paul Lee. Two words. ‘Paul’ as in ‘McCartney.’ ‘Lee’ as in ‘General Robert E.’ ”
“What kind of arms does he deal in?” Jawa asked.
“You name it, they move it,” Erica replied. “The badder, the better. Bombs, tanks, torpedoes, rocket launchers. Everything. If you’re wondering where SPYDER got all those Russian missiles they had, there’s a good chance Paul Lee was the middleman. Real scum of the earth, that guy.”
I looked back toward the bathroom, making sure Dane Brammage wasn’t on his way back. “What did Dane do for him?”
“Bad stuff,” Erica said. “Sometimes he moved weapons, but he mostly worked as muscle. If Paul Lee had a problem with someone, Dane made that someone disappear.”