by Stuart Gibbs
“I don’t feel like it anymore.” Jessica didn’t even look back at me as she spoke. She continued on into a hallway where the hotel elevators were.
Dane lumbered down the hall behind me. He was so big, I didn’t even have to look back at him. I could feel his presence.
At the far end of the hall, beyond Jessica, was the hotel lobby. To my surprise, Leo Shang was coming through the doors. He was back from helicopter skiing. Through the windows behind him, I could see his caravan of car-tanks parked in the roundabout. Leo himself was surrounded by a cluster of bodyguards. All of them appeared unhappy to see me in the hotel—although none seemed as unhappy as Leo Shang himself.
Everything around me was indicating I should leave, but I felt I still had to make one last attempt to get back into Jessica’s good graces. It wasn’t going to be easy, though; she was so angry, she hadn’t even noticed her father yet.
“I don’t understand,” I told her. “Did I do something wrong?”
“You invited her,” Jessica spat.
“No, I didn’t! She invited herself !”
“Which she wouldn’t have done if you hadn’t told her what we were doing. You might as well have given her an engraved invitation.” Jessica stabbed the button for the elevator.
“Jessica,” Leo Shang said sternly.
Jessica froze. She turned to him, startled he was there, then looked back at me. Her anger shifted into something closer to worry. “Hi, Daddy,” she said. “How was your skiing?”
Leo pointed toward me and demanded, “Who is this?” As he came closer to us, I got a better view of him. He looked like a Chinese version of Alexander Hale. He was handsome and suave, wearing a designer ski jacket over an expensive button-down shirt. His attitude was extremely different from Alexander’s, though. Alexander had always been friendly and charming, while Leo Shang appeared forbidding and mean. He stared at me with disdain, like I was a rat that had somehow gotten into his hotel, rather than a fellow human being.
Although every fiber of my being wanted to shrink away from Leo, I knew that probably wasn’t the best choice. Instead, it seemed that I should behave exactly how Mike would in my situation. Mike would be confident and brave, like he had every right to be there.
“I’m Ben Coolman,” I said, extending my hand toward Leo. “I’m a friend of Jessica’s from ski school.”
Leo Shang made no attempt to shake my hand. Instead, he recoiled from it in disgust, as though I had just blown my nose in it. Then he looked back at Jessica. “I thought I made myself clear: You are not to have any visitors at the hotel.”
“I didn’t invite him into the hotel,” Jessica said. “I invited him into the restaurant. He followed me into the hotel just now.”
“Don’t split hairs with me,” Leo said through gritted teeth. “The restaurant is part of this hotel and you know it.”
“I can’t go out anywhere and I can’t have anyone visit me here?” Jessica asked petulantly. “That’s not fair! This is my vacation too!”
“Your daughter only invited me over for hot chocolate,” I said, as charmingly as I could. “That’s not a crime, is it?”
Leo ignored me and shifted his attention to Dane. “This is unacceptable.”
The big blond man actually cowered under Leo’s gaze. “I’m sorry, sir. It won’t happen again.” With that, he clamped a massive hand on my shoulder and said, “You heard him. Let’s go.”
I raised my hands in mock surrender. “No need to rough me up. I’m leaving.”
Jessica stared bullets at her father. Even though she’d been angry at me not long before, her anger at her father had trumped that. “You can be a real jerk sometimes,” she said, then stepped into the elevator and let the doors close on Leo Shang.
I let Dane lead me back down the hall, trying to make sense of everything that had happened. Two minutes before, Jessica had wanted me to get out of her sight, and now she was mad at her father because he wanted the exact same thing.
I could feel Leo Shang’s eyes on me the whole way to the restaurant, but I didn’t look back. I returned to my table, grabbed my ski parka, and slipped it on.
As I did, though, something occurred to me. My memory lessons were paying off. I’d observed something about Leo Shang that was important.
He was wearing a button-down shirt under his ski jacket.
I’d been out on the mountain only one day, but I’d had the opportunity to observe thousands of fellow skiers. Under their jackets, they had worn thermal underwear or fleeces or sweaters or combinations of all three, but not a single one of them had worn a button-down shirt. Button-down shirts were what people wore to business meetings, not to go skiing.
Which meant Leo Shang probably hadn’t gone helicopter skiing at all. And he’d either lied to his daughter about it—or she’d lied to me. Either way, it indicated he was up to something.
“See you tomorrow,” I said to Dane, trying to appear unfazed by my unsettling encounter with Leo Shang. As though it were perfectly normal to meet a mean, insensitive billionaire who treated me like pond scum and then had his Danish thug evict me from his private hotel. I quickly slipped out the door to the ice-skating plaza.
Erica was already out on the rink with Mike. To my surprise, she didn’t seem to notice me. Normally, Erica was so attuned to her surroundings that nothing got past her, but at the moment, her eyes were locked on Mike’s. And his were locked on hers. Each had a dreamy smile on their face that I found almost as disturbing as the disdainful glare Leo Shang had given me. I hoped it was all part of her act—but worried that it wasn’t.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to deal with Mike and Erica. I hurried through the plaza, heading back to the Ski Haüs.
I had to talk to Cyrus Hale.
ANALYSIS
The Jackalope Cantina
Vail, Colorado
December 27
1730 hours
Cyrus, Alexander, and all my fellow students weren’t at the motel, but Zoe had left a note in a simple arabesque code that I easily translated. It informed me they were at a restaurant down the street.
The Jackalope Cantina, being on the wrong side of the highway from most of Vail, wasn’t designed in the same fake-Tyrolean style as the rest of town—and it didn’t have a random umlaut in its name either. Instead, it was a standard, blocky strip-mall restaurant on the outside, with a cheesy Western theme on the inside. The walls were lined with neon beer signs and the mounted heads of local wildlife: deer, elk, peccaries—and lots of jackalopes. Jackalopes were fake animals: stuffed rabbits with antlers grafted to their heads, apparently some sort of joke cooked up by Rocky Mountain taxidermists.
I found everyone in a private back room, where they could eat and talk without worrying about anyone spotting them or overhearing them. The kids, including Hank, were all seated at one table, scarfing down burgers and fries. Cyrus and Alexander were at the next table over. Even though it seemed like a breach of protocol, I sat with the adults, wanting to lay out my case against Leo Shang as quickly as possible.
Cyrus barely looked up from his food, but Alexander welcomed me heartily. “Hello, Ben! How did things go with Jessica today?”
“All right,” I said, not wanting to admit that they’d really been disastrous. “But then Leo Shang showed up and ran me off.”
Now Cyrus looked up. “You interacted with Shang?”
“Yes,” I said, and quickly filled them in on the entire encounter, proudly explaining how I’d deduced Leo hadn’t really gone helicopter skiing that day.
Unfortunately, Cyrus wasn’t as impressed by it as I’d hoped. “I saw him get on that helicopter,” he told me.
“But you didn’t see him actually ski, right?” I countered. “Because you didn’t have your own helicopter to follow him. This is proof he was doing something else. . . .”
“A button-down shirt isn’t proof,” Cyrus said dismissively. “You’re making wild speculations based upon scant evidence.”
&
nbsp; “It’s not a wild speculation, Dad,” Alexander argued on my behalf. “There’s sound reasoning behind it. No one likes a nice, well-tailored button-down shirt more than I do, and even I wouldn’t ski in one.”
“What’s to say Shang skied in it at all? He could have easily changed clothes after he landed.” Cyrus sank his teeth into his double bacon cheeseburger. He was very old-fashioned when it came to food. I’d never had a meal with him that didn’t involve red meat. His burger was so rare, I was afraid it might walk off his plate.
Alexander, on the other hand, wasn’t used to places like the Jackalope Cantina. His taste ran toward expensive five-star restaurants, and he’d made the mistake of ordering as though he were in one: French onion soup, braised salmon, and oysters, even though we were a thousand miles from the nearest ocean. The food obviously didn’t look anything like what he’d hoped. The oysters had actually been deep-fried, the salmon was greenish, and the cheese atop the soup had congealed into the dairy equivalent of a hockey puck. Alexander was poking at it all gingerly with a fork, as though afraid of it.
“Would you bring a button-down shirt to change into right after skiing?” I asked Cyrus. “You wouldn’t just wait until you got back to the hotel?”
“We’re not talking about what I’d do,” Cyrus pointed out. “We’re talking about what Leo Shang might do. For all we know, Shang’s the kind of guy who wears button-downs every chance he gets. Maybe he even went skiing in one today.”
“I doubt that,” I said.
“But you can’t prove it’s not true,” Cyrus countered. “Meanwhile, here’s what I know to be facts, because I observed them myself: One, Leo Shang had his men drive him to the helipad of the Epic Heli-Skiing Company this morning. Two, Leo Shang brought his skis with him and loaded them into the helicopter. Three, the helicopter remained in the backcountry ski area all day.”
“How can you be so sure if you couldn’t follow him?” I asked.
Cyrus sighed, as though he was growing annoyed with me. “I had the Agency track the chopper via GPS. Its pattern of movement was consistent with helicopter skiing: It landed on mountaintops for several long stretches, which is exactly how a ski copter would set down to allow its clients to ski. And it never ranged out of the designated backcountry ski area in the White River National Forest. No side trips over to the North American Aerospace Defense Command or the Cheyenne Mountain Complex or any of the other strategic military facilities in Colorado.”
The kids’ table perked up at the mention of this.
“You think that’s what Golden Fist might be?” Chip asked. “Leo Shang is really targeting one of those places?”
“I thought that’s what Golden Fist might be,” Cyrus corrected. “But I don’t anymore—as he didn’t go anywhere near any of those places. They’re all at least sixty miles from where he was.”
“Well, maybe he was doing reconnaissance on something else,” I suggested.
“Yeah. Snow,” Cyrus grumped. “And rocks and trees. That’s all there is to see back where he was today. If the CIA learns he was only skiing, they’re gonna think this whole operation’s a bleeding snipe hunt.”
“What’s that?” Warren asked.
“A ‘snipe hunt’ is Agency terminology for a mission which is investigating a plot that doesn’t actually exist,” Alexander explained helpfully. “Sort of like a wild-goose chase. There’s a very interesting story behind the name. You see, back in the early days of the Agency, under Roscoe Hillenkoetter, a lot of the first agents were avid hunters. . . .”
“No one wants to hear a damn history lecture,” Cyrus snapped, even though everyone else probably did.
Alexander clammed up and sullenly dug into his deep-fried oysters.
“I don’t think it’s a snipe hunt,” I said quietly. “I’ve seen Leo Shang twice now, and I definitely think he’s up to something.”
“Well, your hunch and a penny are worth a penny.” Cyrus crammed the last of his french fries into his mouth. “The point of an operation is to obtain solid evidence. So you’d better step up your game and get me some.”
“I don’t think Jessica knows anything about Golden Fist,” I pointed out.
“Well, we never expected she would. Kids are rarely the brains of the operation,” Cyrus told me, in a way that made no secret he was talking about me, too. “The idea here was never to shake her down. It was to use her to get close to her father and find out what Operation Golden Fist is. So get to work. You’ve already been on the case a day and all you’ve got for me is a button-down shirt.” He shoved away his empty plate, stood, and grabbed his coat, ready to go.
I frowned, frustrated with Cyrus—and myself. I was annoyed that he hadn’t given my report on Leo Shang more credit, but I also realized he had a point. I hadn’t brought him much. And to make matters worse, I didn’t know if I could get any more. Jessica had seemed pretty much done with being friends with me.
“Ben’s doing his best,” Zoe told Cyrus as he headed for the door. “But there was a complication today.”
Cyrus froze in his tracks and wheeled on her. “What kind of complication?”
I desperately signaled Zoe to be quiet. I knew she was only trying to help, but I also knew Cyrus much better than she did. Telling him about Mike’s presence in Vail would only make things worse.
Zoe noticed me and got the picture. “Um,” she said, trying to think on her feet. “Jessica Shang’s really mean. Very hard to get to know.”
“So?” Cyrus asked.
“She has terrible breath, too!” Warren added, trying to be helpful. “Like, the worst breath ever. It smells like dirty diapers.”
Cyrus glared at everyone. “What’s the real complication?” he demanded.
“Ben ran into his best friend from back home while he was with Jessica on the gondola today,” Hank reported.
Chip turned on his brother. “Hey! I told you that in confidence.”
“Yeah. That was stupid of you,” Hank said, then returned his attention to Cyrus. “In addition to potentially blowing Ben’s cover, this kid also attracted Jessica Shang’s affection, which has threatened the objective of the mission.”
Cyrus shifted his angry gaze back to me. “This is your friend Mike Brezinski?”
I gaped in surprise. “You know who Mike is?”
“Of course I know who Mike is!” Cyrus snarled. “This wouldn’t be the first time that friend of yours has compromised one of our missions. How on earth did he end up here?”
“It was a coincidence,” I said weakly.
“There’s no such thing,” Cyrus informed me.
“Well, to be honest, that’s not true,” Alexander put in helpfully. “Once, when I was undercover in Istanbul, I ran right into my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Jenkins, at a falafel stand. Luckily, I was disguised as a nun, so she didn’t recognize me. . . .”
“Shut up,” Cyrus ordered.
Alexander clammed up again and resumed eating his oysters.
“You don’t need to worry about Mike Brezinski,” Jawa told Cyrus. “We developed a plan to distract him so that he won’t be a problem anymore.”
Cyrus took a step back, growing even more concerned, putting things together before we could explain them. “Where’s my granddaughter?” he demanded.
“I’m right here,” Erica said.
We all spun around to find her leaning against a stuffed grizzly bear nearby. Once again, she’d managed to arrive without anyone noticing. Even Cyrus seemed surprised to see her there.
“You were the distraction?” Cyrus asked.
“Yes,” Erica answered.
“And were you successful?” Cyrus added.
“Mike Brezinski is no longer going to be an issue where Jessica Shang is concerned. He has set his sights on someone else.” Erica slipped past her father, took a seat at the junior spies’ table, and began perusing the menu.
“But he could still blow Ben’s cover?” Cyrus asked.
“Yes, that’s still
an issue,” Erica said. “But I have it under control. He’s skiing with his family during the day, and in the afternoons, I can divert him so that he doesn’t go anywhere near Jessica.”
“How are you going to divert him?” Alexander asked suspiciously, more like a worried father than a spy.
“I’m going to invite him to be lots of places where Jessica is not,” Erica replied calmly, then asked her father, “How’s the French onion soup?”
“Inedible,” Alexander replied.
“I figured as much.” Erica sighed.
“I don’t like this,” Cyrus muttered. “I don’t like it at all. Erica, you’re supposed to be Ben’s handler on this operation, not running around with some hoodlum.”
“First of all,” Erica said, “my ability to handle Ben hasn’t been compromised. And second, not every teenage boy is a hoodlum. Mike’s not so bad.”
Zoe dropped her fork into her mashed potatoes in shock. “Oh my gosh,” she gasped. “You like him.”
Erica recoiled as though Zoe had just electrocuted her. “I do not!”
“You just said he’s ‘not so bad,’ ” Zoe informed her. “That’s the nicest thing I’ve ever heard you say about a boy. Or anyone. In fact, it’s the nicest thing I’ve ever heard you say, period.”
“Erica,” Alexander said, intrigued, “if this fellow is special to you, do you think I ought to meet him?”
“No!” Erica gasped, horrified. “I don’t like him! Any interest I have shown him is solely acting, and once this mission is over, I will have no interest in ever seeing him again!”
“You sure sound like you like him,” Chip taunted.
“Well, I don’t!” Erica snapped. “Not one bit!”
This was about the most emotionally worked up any of us had ever seen Erica, which only seemed to confirm that she really did like Mike. Normally, I would have loved to see Erica unsettled like this, especially when she was being subjected to almost the exact same grilling she’d given me about Jessica Shang the day before. But this was different. Because I liked Erica. The last thing I needed was her developing a crush on someone else. Especially my best friend.