by Stuart Gibbs
“Well, shouldn’t you do that? You’re his daughter, after all. And it was your idea to sedate him and tape him up, not mine.” The truth was, I really didn’t want to be around when Alexander came to and found himself prisoner. “I could go do the reconnaissance, and you could stay here with your father, get some rest, and, uh . . . work out any issues that you two might have.”
Erica’s eyes narrowed. “Do you have any idea how to infiltrate a penal institution with level-four security?”
“Not exactly,” I admitted.
“That’s why I’m doing the recon. Don’t worry, I won’t do anything fun without you. I shouldn’t be too long.” Erica slapped some crumpled bills into my hand. “This ought to be enough to cover a pizza and some drinks. My father’s probably going to do everything he can to convince you to cut him free. No matter how charming he is, don’t let him go.”
“What if he has to go to the bathroom?” I asked.
“According to Alexander, once when he was on a mission in Djakarta, he refrained from going to the bathroom for three days straight, so he ought to be able to handle another few hours. Don’t wait up for me.”
Before I could utter another word of protest, Erica was out the door.
I considered my surroundings. Our motel room wasn’t exactly a fleabag, but it was awfully close. Apparently, people didn’t really come to Vaughn on vacation. Instead, they stopped there because it was on the way to someplace else and they were too exhausted to drive any farther. There were two beds, both of which had ancient mattresses that bowed in the center, as though rhinos had slept on them. There was a small wooden dresser in which two of the three drawers were jammed. (This was of little concern, however, as we didn’t have any spare clothes to put in them anyhow.) And atop a spindly little table, there was a small TV that predated the invention of the remote control.
The bathroom was barely big enough to turn around in. There was a chipped toilet with a SANITIZED FOR YOUR PROTECTION band on it that was obviously a lie. The shower didn’t look much better, but as I was filthy and still a bit damp and had nothing else to do to occupy myself, I used it. For about four minutes, it was actually nice and therapeutic. Then the hot water shut off abruptly and I was instantly doused with an icy stream that felt like it had been piped in directly from the North Pole. I leapt from the shower and discovered, to my dismay, that the motel staff had neglected to place any towels in our room.
I used the bedcovers to dry off. Then I called the front desk and discovered there was no pizza delivery place in town. There were, however, vending machines by the lobby, and I could get change at the front desk. So dinner turned out to be a random assortment of chips, nuts, and crackers, many of which had resided in the vending machine well past their expiration dates.
I had nothing to read and no phone to amuse myself with. The motel claimed to have cable TV, but while this may have been true, the TV in our room couldn’t actually display it. Every channel showed only static.
So I decided I might as well go to bed. It wasn’t that late, but the day had been exhausting and tomorrow promised to be more of the same. I nestled into the crater in the center of one of the sagging mattresses and fell asleep instantly.
Quite some time later, I was awakened by the sound of Alexander groaning.
“Ohhhh. My head.”
I slowly came to and discovered it was nearly four a.m. To my surprise, Erica wasn’t in her bed.
Alexander wasn’t fully awake yet. He was merely coming out of the sedation haze. “My head is killing me. What happened?”
“You, uh . . . got knocked out.” I felt that was technically true, so it wasn’t exactly lying to him.
Alexander opened his eyes, although this seemed to be a considerable effort for him. He looked around the room with confusion. “Where am I?”
“A motel in Vaughn, Virginia.”
“Is that near Washington?”
“No. It’s not near anything, really.”
Alexander yawned. He tried to cover his mouth with his hand, and it was only now that he realized his arm was taped to his torso. He was suddenly wide-awake, although he actually seemed even more confused than he had when he was groggy. “What the . . . ? What’s happening? Why am I tied up? Benjamin! Are you a double agent with SPYDER?”
“No,” I said.
“That’s just the sort of thing I’d expect someone from SPYDER to say,” Alexander sneered. He struggled wildly against the duct tape. It held firm. “Cut me loose at once! Or I’ll have the entire brunt of the U.S. armed forces brought down upon this motel!”
“Alexander, I know that’s not true. And I’m not a double agent. I’m on your side.”
“Then why have you taped me to a chair?”
“It was your daughter’s idea. She felt you’d cause less trouble this way.”
Alexander stopped struggling. All the fight went out of him in an instant. The anger in his eyes was quickly replaced by sadness and shame. “She did? Really?”
“Really.”
“Why?”
I tried to think of a way to explain everything delicately, but couldn’t. The best I could do was: “I think you know why.”
Alexander’s sadness deepened a bit more. “Where is Erica right now?”
“Out doing some reconnaissance at Apple Valley.”
Alexander looked at me blankly.
“It’s where Murray Hill is being held. In theory.”
“How long has she been gone?”
“Quite a long time, actually.”
“She might be in trouble. You should cut me loose so we can go look for her.”
“I don’t think she’s in trouble,” I said, although secretly, I wasn’t so sure. Erica had been gone a lot longer than she’d said she’d be.
“Well, cut me loose anyhow,” Alexander said. “Please. I assure you I won’t cause any trouble.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t. Erica told me not to.”
“I have to go to the bathroom.”
“I heard you once held it for three days in Djakarta.”
Alexander swallowed. “Er, yes. Well, that was a little different. You see, for a few weeks before that, I’d been on a special training regimen to get my kidneys to retain water. . . .”
“Before you go on, you should know that Erica told me everything about you.”
Alexander looked as though I’d punched him. It took him a while to figure out what to say next. “What do you mean?”
“She says you’re a fraud.”
“And you actually believe that?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“For starters, you stole the credit for capturing Murray from me.”
“That’s not true. I did what we call a ‘double blind.’ It only looked like the CIA believed what I said, to fool the enemy . . .”
“Alexander, if you keep lying to me, I’m going to put this tape over your mouth.”
“Did my daughter tell you to threaten that?”
“No, I came up with that on my own just now. For once in your life, could you please be honest?” My own anger at Alexander surprised me. It had probably been simmering deep within me ever since he’d first taken the credit for nabbing Murray. Now, on the heels of Alexander putting my life in jeopardy, it came boiling out.
Alexander mulled over his options. “If I am honest, will you set me free?”
“No. Erica would kill me.”
Alexander nodded, conceding the point. “My daughter does have her ways.”
“Why is she so angry at you?” I asked.
“Well, the relationship between teenage girls and their fathers can be very difficult. I suppose I wasn’t around much when she was a little girl, so she might harbor some animosity toward me. . . .”
“That’s why she’s generally annoyed with you,” I said. “But right now, she’s at a whole different level. She hates you. Why?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Alexander said, alth
ough he couldn’t keep eye contact with me as he said it.
“I’m pretty sure you do,” I told him. “Please. I need to know. Agents from SPYDER are out there somewhere trying to get me. The CIA has sent you to protect me, and Erica’s trying to do the same thing. It’d be nice if the two of you could work together.”
Alexander frowned. His desire to do the right thing seemed to be battling his general tendency to make himself look good at all costs. Finally, he broke. He stared at the floor and said, “A few weeks ago, I sort of lost a briefcase full of important classified documents.”
“How? Did the enemy steal it?”
“Er . . . No. I think I left it in the bathroom at a McDonald’s. These documents were quite important, and I, well . . . It wouldn’t have looked good if I’d simply admitted the truth. So I . . . um . . . I kind of blamed their loss on Erica.”
I winced for Erica’s sake. “What did you say?”
Alexander met my eyes. He didn’t look anything like his normal self. Rather than debonair, he looked pathetic. And his usual glib cadence had been reduced to meek stuttering. “I, er, I . . . I told the top brass that she’d broken into my briefcase to see what was inside and then, um . . . that she’d spilled a glass of milk on the documents and destroyed them.”
I hadn’t thought it was possible that I could be angrier with Alexander. But now I felt myself grow enraged on Erica’s behalf. It took a tremendous effort for me to remain calm. “And what did the top brass do?”
“They, uh . . . They put a black mark on Erica’s school records.”
“Which means what?”
“Her chances of going into the field after graduation are, er . . . seriously diminished.”
I was clenching my fists so tightly I could feel the knuckles go white. “So first, you took all the credit for capturing Murray Hill when really, Erica and I had done the lion’s share . . .”
“Well, I did give you two a special commendation in the appendix of my report. . . .”
“And then, rather than take the blame for your own screwup, you sabotaged your own daughter’s future.”
“I didn’t realize they were going to ding her!” Alexander whined. “I thought they’d just let it slide.”
“You thought no such thing.” The voice startled Alexander and me, as it was coming from inside the room. We wheeled around to find Erica standing in the corner in the darkness. Somehow, she was on the far side of the room from the door. We hadn’t even heard her come in. “You knew exactly what they would do to me, but in your panic to protect your own reputation, you sacrificed me anyway. Your own flesh and blood.”
“How’d you get in here without us seeing you?” I asked.
“I’ve been here for hours,” Erica replied. “I was sleeping on the floor until you guys woke me up.”
“Why were you sleeping on the floor?” I asked.
“Because that bed stinks,” Erica replied.
“Sweetheart,” Alexander pleaded to her. “I told you I was sorry . . .”
“And I told you not to call me ‘sweetheart.’ Or ‘kitten.’ Or anything else cute and familial. If you’re going to put your career before me, you don’t get to act like my father.”
“It was a simple mistake,” Alexander wheedled. “I’m working on cleaning it up. It’s my number one priority.”
“Obviously, that’s a lie,” Erica shot back. “Because if it was your number one priority, you’d have already admitted the truth about what happened, and the black mark would be on your record, and instead of sending you out here, the CIA might have sent someone competent. But now we’re both stuck with you, and there’s nothing we can do about it.” With that, she whipped out the knife she always kept strapped to her ankle and came at Alexander.
Alexander shrieked in fear, thinking she was about to go psycho on him, but instead, she jammed it into the tape holding his torso to the chair.
“You’re cutting me free?” Alexander asked.
“Unfortunately, we need you,” Erica admitted.
“Ah,” Alexander said. “See? I’m not as incompetent as you say.”
“No, you are,” Erica told him. “We don’t need you for any spy skills. We need you because you’re old. The detention center won’t let us in unless we’re accompanied by an adult.”
“Oh.” Alexander looked so dejected I almost felt sorry for him.
Erica paused halfway through slicing the tape. “There are a few stipulations to your release, however. Otherwise, we can leave you here and find someone else to help us. One: You admit that I am in charge. You only do what I tell you to. You don’t speak unless I say so.”
Alexander returned his gaze to the floor, ashamed at what he’d been reduced to. “All right. What else?”
Erica tilted her father’s chin up so that he could look her in the eye. “When all this is over, you call the head of the CIA himself and admit what you did to me.”
Alexander took far longer to give in on this. Apparently, he was much happier to be treated as a subordinate by his daughter than he was to admit the truth about what he’d done. “Fine,” he said finally. “I’ll do it.”
“Okay then,” Erica said. “Let’s get to the bottom of this Murray Hill business.”
REFORMATION
Apple Valley Reformation Camp for Delinquent Teens
June 15
0800 hours
Before I visited Apple Valley, the only penitentiary I’d ever been to was Alcatraz. I imagined Apple Valley would look somewhat the same: lots of iron gates and concrete. I expected to see the inmates chained together by the ankles, breaking rocks with sledgehammers while the guards broke their spirits. It didn’t look like that at all. In fact, it looked far nicer than spy school.
It was set in a beautiful green valley at the end of a long, forested road. A cluster of sleek, modern white buildings sat in the center of some well-tended gardens. Boys and girls in T-shirts and shorts ran about, completely unshackled. They played soccer, touch football, and croquet. And in the distance, I was quite sure I could make out tennis courts and a polo field.
The only thing that even made it look remotely like a detention facility was the fence around it, and this was merely a plain old chain-link one without any razor wire at the top. It didn’t even appear to be electrified. On the road in, there was a tollgate and a guardhouse, but instead of an armed guard, there was only a cheerful college girl who seemed to be working a summer job. She set down the Vogue magazine she was reading as we drove up.
“Hello!” she chirped. “How’re y’all doing today?”
“We’re fine, thanks,” Alexander replied. So as not to draw any attention, Erica had begrudgingly allowed him to drive. “How are you?”
“I’m doing awesome, thanks.” The girl gave Alexander a blushing, somewhat smitten smile. “What can I do for you today?”
“The name’s Alexander Hale. CIA agent number 2364. I’m here to see one of your inmates. A Murray Hill.”
“Murray!” the girl beamed. “Oh, he’s such a sweetie. He made me the nicest paperweight in his pottery class the other day. I’ll let the office know you’re coming.” The girl reached for a red button on her console, but then hesitated at the sight of Erica and myself in the backseat. For the first time, it occurred to her that our presence might be a bit odd. “Um, are you delivering these children here for incarceration?”
“No, these are my children,” Alexander replied. “Today’s Take Your Kids to Work Day at the CIA.” Before the girl could question this, he flashed her a smile that made her go weak in the knees. Alexander might not have been the most competent spy, but when it came to flirting, he was extremely talented.
“Oh, that’s adorable!” the girl cooed. “Okay, go on through. Have fun, kids!” She pressed the red button, and the flimsy gate opened.
Alexander drove onto the property. We crossed the wide, open lawn toward the main building complex, passing a large group of prisoners playing Ultimate Frisbee.
&n
bsp; “I thought you said this place had level-four security,” I muttered to Erica.
“No, I didn’t,” she replied. “I only asked if you knew how to infiltrate a penal institution with level-four security. Thanks to my reconnaissance last night, however, I learned that this place actually has a security level of negative three.”
“How can they keep a criminal as bad as Murray Hill here?” I asked. “This isn’t punishment. It’s like sending him to a spa for five years.”
“Murray is only fourteen,” Erica said with a shrug. “There aren’t a lot of maximum-security options for kids. So they just lumped him in here. Most of these inmates probably haven’t done anything worse than shoplifting. However, I suspect that Murray may be under a bit more scrutiny than most of the others.”
Alexander parked in the visitor’s lot and we walked up to the main entrance, which was surrounded by burbling fountains and an edible garden. As we reached the front doors, a cheerful woman exited. She wore a bright pink pantsuit with matching high heels and was so chipper, I half expected to see an animated bluebird land on her shoulder. “Hello there, Agent Hale!” she exclaimed. “Hello, kids! I’m Brandi Russell! Thanks for coming here to see us at Apple Valley! I understand you’re here to see Murray.”
“That’s right,” Alexander said. “I’m from the CIA and . . .”
“Oh, I know exactly who you are,” Brandi told him.
“You do?” Alexander asked.
“We’re not hicks here,” Brandi said with a laugh. “We’ve got a computer, for goodness’ sake. I looked you up while you were coming up the drive, just to make sure you were on the level. It’s an honor to have an agent of your esteem visit us.”
Alexander smiled at the flattery. Now that he had someone to play to, he was back to being his old self, charming and debonair. “Well, it’s an honor to visit this fine establishment. And a pleasure to meet a woman as devoted to helping wayward children as you. Unfortunately, we won’t be here long. I just have a few questions to ask Mr. Hill.”
“Certainly,” Brandi said. “I’ve already arranged for him to be brought to our visitation center. I think you’re going to be very impressed with his progress. He’s been doing extremely well here. Not an ounce of trouble. But then, Murray was never all that difficult. In fact, it’s hard to believe that boy did all the things he’s been accused of doing. Would either of you kids like a lollipop?” She proffered some for Erica and me.