by Stuart Gibbs
Something Erica had said right before we’d evacuated finally sank in. “Did you say we have one other place to visit before you trade me for the hostages?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Erica asked. “We have to find out if Murray Hill is really in jail or not.”
Before I could ask her to explain exactly why we needed to do that, however, the woods caught fire.
TRANSPORTATION
Wardensville, West Virginia, and vicinity
June 14
1500 hours
The woods around us were a tinderbox waiting for a match. It only took one flaming bit of paper to land in just the right spot, and the next thing we knew, we were surrounded by flame.
However, there is one good thing about a forest fire: It gets the attention of every search-and-rescue squad for a hundred miles.
Luckily, the woods that went up were a relatively small patch surrounded by a great deal of open space. We were able to get out of the flames with only a small bit of singeing and then camped out on a bald peak a good distance away. The first patrol helicopter soon appeared on the horizon.
“Why is it so important to investigate Murray now?” I asked, waving my arms wildly to get its attention. “Shouldn’t rescuing the others be our priority?”
“No, taking SPYDER down is the priority. We have to figure out what they’re up to: Why do they need you so badly? And what’s going on with Murray Hill?” Erica unzipped a flap on her camouflage. There was a large patch of silver material sewn into the other side, which she used to reflect the sun at the helicopter. It was much more effective than my arm waving. The helicopter quickly spotted it and banked toward us.
“Murray might just be the key to all of this,” Erica went on. “And if we can learn what SPYDER’s plans are, then maybe we won’t have to exchange you for your friends after all.”
“Sounds good,” I said. I hadn’t been too keen on the whole being-traded-to-SPYDER plan.
“One more thing,” Erica warned us as the copter lowered toward us. “Don’t tell anyone anything about what’s going on here.”
“I’m not sure that’s the best policy,” Alexander said. “If this Murray Hill thing doesn’t pan out, we’re going to need a great deal of help to rescue your friends. . . .”
“First of all, they’re not my friends, they’re my schoolmates,” Erica snapped. “And second, you’re an idiot. SPYDER told us to come alone or they’d kill everyone else. The moment we breathe so much as a word about what’s happening to one person, we’ll lose control of the situation. They’ll call the police, who’ll call the sheriff, who’ll call the FBI, and before you know it, there’ll be a thousand people swarming the countryside. SPYDER has ears and eyes everywhere. We mess with their orders and they’ll know.”
“If we can contact the right people at the CIA, SPYDER won’t hear a peep,” Alexander countered.
“As far as we know, SPYDER is monitoring all communication with the CIA right now,” Erica told him. “They picked us up on a ham radio, for Pete’s sake! That’s prehistoric communication. There’s no way we can contact the Agency without SPYDER knowing.”
“Looks like we’ll just have to agree to disagree then,” Alexander replied.
Erica couldn’t argue the point any further because the helicopter was so close it was deafening. It landed near by, its rotors kicking up a spray of grit and gravel that sandblasted our skin. We jumped in and it whisked us away.
Inside the copter cabin, the roar of the rotors was like having a jackhammer in each ear. We all clapped on headphones to mute the noise, but we still had to shout to communicate.
“You folks okay?!” the pilot yelled.
“Yes!” we yelled back.
“You’re awful far from civilization!” the pilot said. “What were y’all doing way out here?!”
“Hiking!” Erica replied, before Alexander could say anything else.
“Y’all know what started that fire?!” the pilot asked.
“No—” Erica began, but then Alexander slapped a hand over her mouth.
“It was an enemy missile!” he said. “I work for the CIA, and the enemies of democracy are swarming these hills. I need to use your radio to contact headquarters immediately. . . . Oof!”
He fell silent as Erica jabbed him in the solar plexus with an elbow, knocking the wind out of him.
“Unfortunately, my father was struck on the head by a piece of burning debris,” Erica told the pilot. “He’s been talking crazy ever since. He’s not in the CIA. He’s an orthodontist.”
As this sounded like a far more likely story than enemies of democracy blowing up random lookout towers with missiles, the pilot chose to believe it. “Don’t worry!” he assured Erica. “We’ll get your daddy medical help as soon as we land!”
Although it had taken us eight hours to reach the lookout tower between the bus, the swimming, and the hiking, we were only ten minutes from civilization by air. The helicopter alit by a reservoir, where the forest fire combat effort was already well under way. Tanker planes were scooping up water and hauling it away to bombard the fire. Other rescue personnel were also on the scene: smoke jumpers, park rangers, and an assortment of law enforcement officials ranging from sheriff’s deputies to local police. The pilot had radioed in Erica’s request for medical attention, and there was already an ambulance with two paramedics standing by. They raced to Alexander’s side as he clambered off the helicopter.
“How’s your head, sir?” one asked, checking Alexander’s vital signs.
“My head is fine,” Alexander told them. “It’s the safety of our country that’s in jeopardy. I need to borrow your phone to call the CIA immediately.”
“He’s been saying things like this ever since that debris hit him,” Erica said, and then pretended to break down in tears.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” the second paramedic said. “He’ll be all right. He doesn’t seem to have a concussion. Sometimes, a traumatic experience like this can cause temporary delusions in people.”
Then each paramedic seized Alexander by an arm and hustled him toward the ambulance.
“I am not delusional!” Alexander roared. “I am a highly decorated CIA agent!”
“Of course you are,” the first paramedic said soothingly. “I’m sure you’ve saved the world several times.”
“Don’t placate me!” Alexander snapped. “I can prove I’m an agent!”
“Really?” Erica asked. “Do you have some sort of official ID?”
“You know I do,” Alexander replied, and then flushed as he realized something. “Only it washed down the river. But if we call the CIA, they can verify who I am.”
The paramedics shared a skeptical look, then bundled Alexander into the back of the ambulance.
“Mind if we ride back there with him?” Erica asked, putting on her best daughter-in-distress face.
“Sure,” the second paramedic said. “Just be sure not to touch anything.”
“I wouldn’t think of it,” said Erica.
We hopped into the back of the ambulance and the paramedics locked us inside. Alexander kept yelling at them as they climbed into the front seats, imploring them to call the CIA. While everyone was distracted, Erica quickly opened one of the cabinets in the back of the ambulance, located a vial of sedative, filled a syringe with it, and lightly jabbed it into Alexander’s backside.
“Yow!” he yelled and wheeled on Erica. “Did you just stick me with something?”
“It was a mosquito,” Erica said, and then slapped her neck, as though she’d caught a bug biting her as well. “Ouch. One just got me, too.”
Alexander wobbled. The sedative was acting quickly. “You did give me something,” he said, slurring his words. “How dare you, Erica? I’m your . . . your . . . fathhhhppbble.” He fell asleep before he could even finish the thought, pitching forward into our arms. We laid him out on a gurney and buckled him in for the ride.
“Yes,” Erica replied. “My father just fell asleep. I think all the stress of this has been too much for him.”
“Don’t panic,” the paramedic said. “We’ll be at the hospital soon.”
The town was small and, with its sirens wailing, the ambulance had us at the local medical clinic in less than ten minutes. The paramedics wheeled the gurney with Alexander inside and parked it in the hall by the emergency room. They asked Erica a few questions about her father’s insurance, all of which she claimed not to know the answers to. She then gave them a false name and social security number for her father. They handed her some paperwork, left us with a nurse, and took off.
The clinic was surprisingly busy for being in a small community. “It’s the beginning of summer vacation,” the nurse told us. “Kids are arriving for camp. City folk are coming out to their summer cabins. Everyone’s injuring themselves in imaginative ways. We’ve got sprains, burns, broken bones, sunburn, poison ivy, dehydration, two near-drownings, and one guy who got attacked by a rabid chipmunk. Your father there is merely delusional, so it might be a while until we can see him.” With that, she ran off to take care of a man who had somehow managed to impale himself on his own fishhook.
Erica cased the hallway. Everyone was so busy tending to their own injuries or trying to get the attention of a nurse that no one was paying any attention to us. “Grab my dad’s feet,” she told me. “We’re getting out of here.”
Before I could even begin to protest, she had already unstrapped Alexander from the gurney and hooked her arms under his. I grabbed his feet and we lugged him down the hall. “What exactly is your plan here?” I asked.
“I don’t really have one at the moment,” Erica admitted. “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to sedate Dad, but sometimes the man just won’t listen to reason.”
One of the clinic’s wheelchairs sat, unused, around the next corner. We plunked Alexander into it, and Erica quickly steered him toward the exit. “As far as I can tell, we’re in Wardensville, West Virginia,” she said.
“How do you know . . . ?”
Erica handed me some of the paperwork she’d been given. At the top, it said: VICEROY MEDICAL CLINIC. WARDENSVILLE, WEST VIRGINIA. Erica led me out the sliding glass doors into the parking lot. “Right now, we need some transportation. Stand guard for me.” Erica parked the wheelchair behind a rickety old car. Within three seconds she had jimmied the driver’s-side door open and ducked under the steering wheel.
I cased the parking lot to make sure no one was watching. No one was. The only other people were all racing into the ER. “You’re stealing this car?” I whispered.
“Borrowing it,” Erica corrected. “Temporarily. I know it’s not exactly the staunch moral thing to do, but like Alexander said, our country’s safety is in jeopardy.” The engine roared to life as Erica hot-wired it. “Okay, get Dad in the car.”
“Erica, are you sure this is the right thing to do?”
“Absolutely. Now stop questioning me. I swiped plenty of sedative from that ambulance. If I have to, I’m willing to knock you out too.”
I opened the rear door, toppled Alexander into the backseat, and then hopped into the front with Erica. There was no point in asking her if she could drive. Erica had once taken out three SPYDER agents while steering a moving van. She had the pedal down before I was even buckled in.
“Remember where Murray is incarcerated?” she asked.
“The Apple Valley Reformation Camp for Delinquent Teens.”
“Right. That’s located near a town called Vaughn, Virginia. Is there a map in this car?”
I popped open the glove compartment. There was a map, along with some spare change and a half-eaten candy bar. I was actually hungry enough to consider eating the candy. I didn’t, though this had less to do with my self-control than my fear of looking like a pig in front of Erica. I consulted the map and found Vaughn. “Looks like it’s about an hour or two away.”
Erica took the map and memorized the route in a few seconds. Then she cautiously drove through town, taking care not to exceed the speed limit or roll through any stop signs. Alexander snored in the backseat.
“Any idea how long he’ll be out?” I asked.
“Long enough to get to Vaughn, I think.”
“Do you think SPYDER knows we survived the missile attack?”
“Definitely. There’s no question they do.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because they weren’t trying to kill us.”
“They launched a missile at us!”
“The velocity of a missile like the one they used is approximately half a mile per second—whereas the range is only about thirty miles. Therefore, it can’t be aloft more than sixty seconds. And yet, that one didn’t hit the tower until over a minute after I’d ended the radio call. . . .”
“Meaning they knew where we were long before they launched it,” I concluded.
“Exactly. They gave us time to escape.”
“Then why launch the missile at all?” I asked.
“To let us know they mean business,” Erica said. “It’s a warning: They can take us out whenever they want, no matter where we are, so we’d better just do what they say and not try anything tricky.”
We reached the city limit of Wardensville. The main road turned into a state highway, and Erica hit the gas.
I asked, “If SPYDER knows we’re still alive, do you think they know where we are right now?”
Erica stared through the windshield thoughtfully for a few seconds before answering. “I’d doubt it—although I don’t want to take anything for granted where that organization is concerned. Still, they can’t have men everywhere. They might know we got on that helicopter, but chances are, they didn’t have anyone on the ground when it landed. We’ve kept moving pretty quickly—and no one seems to be following us right now.”
I reflexively checked the rearview mirror to make sure. The road we were on was long and empty. There was no one behind us.
Even so, I couldn’t relax. Having an evil enemy organization threaten to kill you has that effect. I kept wondering what the point of it all was. Why could SPYDER possibly need me so badly that they were willing to go through all this trouble? What could I possibly do for them? What on earth were they up to? I started to ask Erica another question, but she cut me off.
“I’m trying to work all this out, Ben. I just need some time to think. The moment I come up with something, I’ll let you know.”
I nodded and returned my attention to the open road ahead, trying to figure everything out myself. In truth, I didn’t just want to figure out why SPYDER wanted me; I wanted to figure it out before Erica did. I wanted to impress her. For the past few hours, she’d been the hero, and I’d been the damsel in distress, constantly needing rescuing. It would be nice to remind her I wasn’t merely deadweight.
Sadly, I couldn’t come up with anything. Worse, Erica couldn’t either—or if she did, she kept it to herself. She didn’t say a word for the rest of the drive.
We reached Vaughn in an hour and thirty minutes. It turned out to be a bucolic farming community nestled in a valley between two forested mountain ridges. There was only one place to stay in town, a small motel that looked like it had just reopened for the summer. “Keep an eye on my father,” Erica told me. “I’ll get us a room.”
“How?” I asked. “We don’t have any money.”
“No,” she replied. “You don’t have any money. I do.” She pulled out a wad of cash.
“Where’d you get that?” I asked.
“Our paramedics,” she replied.
“You pickpocketed them?”
“I had to, Ben. This is a crisis.” Erica gave me a smile and ducked into the motel office.
I watched her through the window. The motel clerk seemed a tiny bit suspicious that a teenage girl was renting a room, but that subsided when Erica pointed ou
t the window at her father in the backseat. Within two minutes, Erica was back at the car with a room key and a roll of duct tape. “The manager let me have it,” she said. “I told him we needed to tape the bumper back on.”
“What’s it really for?” I asked.
“Isn’t it obvious?” she replied. “Security.”
INTERROGATION
Vaughn, Virginia
June 14
1800 hours
Lots of spies will tell you that there is no single item as useful and effective as duct tape. It can be used to splint broken bones, repair weapons, pick up evidence, patch clothing, staunch bleeding, attach explosives, seal electrical wiring, remove warts, waterproof tents, and yes, even tape ducts. Professor Crandall, my self-preservation teacher, had said that if you wrapped enough around your body, you could make yourself bulletproof. (It was much bulkier than Kevlar, but considerably easier to find in the event that people were trying to kill you.)
Erica and I used it to bind Alexander Hale to a chair in our motel room. I had some qualms about this, but Erica was insistent. “I need to go out to do some reconnaissance, and I don’t want Alexander going anywhere without my permission,” she explained. “He’ll only cause more trouble.”
So we sat him in the chair, taped each of his ankles to one chair leg, and then wound the rest of the duct tape around his torso and the back of the chair so that his arms were pinioned at his sides. He slept soundly through it all.
“Stand watch over him,” Erica ordered me. “I’ll be back later.” With that, she started for the door.
“Wait!” I said. “Where are you going?”
Erica paused. “Where do you think?”
“The Apple Valley Reformation Camp for Delinquent Teens.”
“Good guess.”
“Can’t I come? Your father’s not going anywhere.”
“No, but he could still be a problem. He could shout for help. Or thrash around trying to get free and end up hurting himself. Plus, he’ll probably be hungry and thirsty when he gets up, and someone will need to feed him.”