by Jillian Dodd
When I get to Lorenzo's, I'm immediately greeted by Chauncey.
"Huntley!" he yells, jumping into my arms. "I started school and met a bunch of new kids, and it's really fun!"
"I'm so glad you like it."
He takes my hand and leads me to the kitchen. "We were just going to bake some cookies. Will you help us?"
"I need to change first--" I start to say, but he whips an apron off a chair and hands it to me, so I put it on. "What kind are you making?"
"Triple-quadruple chocolate chip," he says, grinning from ear to ear.
"Well, I'm sure glad I got here when I did because chocolate is my favorite."
"Mine, too," Lorenzo says, sneaking up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist, and greeting me with a kiss on the side of my cheek. "How were the matches?"
"Fun to watch, but they did not have cookies."
Lorenzo's cook helps Chauncey add ingredients in a bowl. Then I laugh as I watch him trying to stir the dough.
"Would you like a little help, Sir Chauncey?" Lorenzo asks him.
Chauncey gets a determined look on his face, narrowing his eyes at the bowl and biting down on his lower lip. "No, I can do it myself," he says.
Lorenzo pulls me down into a chair with him. "Good. That means all Huntley and I have to do is lick the bowl when you are done."
A few minutes later, the dough is mixed, formed into cookies, and put onto a baking sheet. I take a full raw cookie and pop it into my mouth, causing Chauncey to giggle and do the same.
"Hey!" Lorenzo says. "No fair!" He rolls dough into a big ball and shoves it into his mouth.
"All right, you lot," the cook says, "out of my kitchen. I will bake the cookies and bring them to you in the garden when they are ready."
"That sounds like a fabulous idea," Lorenzo says. "Will you please send out a bottle of the '95 Krug Clos d'Ambonnay?"
"Of course, Your Highness," she replies as Chauncey races out to the garden in front of us.
"Are we celebrating something?" I ask.
"Possibly. Have you heard today's news?"
"No, I haven't," I tell him as we take a seat in the courtyard. "What happened?"
He pulls a printed article from his jacket pocket and hands it to me.
Former United States President Found Dead
WASHINGTON - Former president John Hillford Sr. was killed in what officials are calling a hunting accident. Hillford, who was a practiced hunter, was pronounced dead on the scene at his Texas ranch. No further details have been released.
"You know what this means," Lorenzo says.
"That our former president wasn't good with a gun?" I quip.
He looks at me with concern. "I have a lot to tell you. But this just came in, and I thought you would be excited. It could mean that Chauncey's father is still alive."
"Or it could have actually been an accident. If he were shot with a long-range rifle, like his son was, they wouldn't have deemed it as an accident."
"Well, I'm hoping for the best. Or did you change your mind? Do you wish the boy's father to be dead?"
"What? No! I would never wish that." I close my eyes. "Please don't tell him. I just don't want him getting his hopes up. I know what that's like."
"What do you mean?"
"My parents told me that, if something ever happened to them, my uncle Sam would take care of me. But he didn't. He stashed me at Blackwood. I kept thinking it was just to keep me safe for a little while, but he only came back once to see me. Chauncey is a lot younger than I was. I just worry about him."
"Chauncey is doing really great. He's being taken good care of."
"I know; I'm sorry. Actually, this isn't about Chauncey at all. I don't want to get my hopes up."
"How do you feel about the former president being dead?"
"Lorenzo, the man has a family. Children. Grandchildren. It's not about him. When someone dies, it's about the people they leave behind--regardless of the circumstances for their death. Do you think I haven't thought about that? When I saved you and Ari, I killed men. As bad as they might have been, they probably had families, too. As much as I appreciate the champagne gesture, I can't toast to the man's death."
He wraps his arm around me as a steward brings out the champagne. "Then we will toast to the fact that we are back together again."
I smile at his sweetness. "That, I will drink to."
We're just finishing up dinner and enjoying watching Chauncey play in the garden when Lorenzo's press secretary scurries outside.
"Your Highness, we have a situation."
"Come on, Chauncey," his nanny tells him. "It's your bedtime."
"I want Huntley to tuck me in and tell me a story," he says, pushing his bottom lip out in an effective and adorable pout.
I pick him up, give him a kiss on the head, and say, "You go get ready for bed, and I'll be in shortly."
He smiles at me and then takes the nanny's hand.
I follow Lorenzo to his press secretary's office in the back of the home. "Ophelia and Clarice's mother is holding a press conference."
"About what?" I ask.
"About His Highness," she answers. "We tried to stop it, but the press loves sensationalism."
"I'm not about to give in to that," Lorenzo says. "You can give me the condensed version in the morning. Unless there is a serious threat to our nation, I am not to be disturbed for the rest of the evening. Thank you."
He takes my hand and leads me out of the room.
"Let's tell Chauncey good night, and then I'd like to show you my secret lair."
"Oh, Lorenzo, you do know how to sweet-talk a girl," I tease.
After a way-too-long story and too many sleep-stalling hugs, Chauncey finally drifts off. Lorenzo takes me to his bedroom and then through a secret door that leads into a private study. From there, we take a concealed elevator down. The doors part, dropping us into a small foyer. Lorenzo enters a code and puts his hand on a scanner.
"Do you have gold and supplies down here, too?" I ask him.
He leans his head in the opposite direction. "How do you know about that?"
"I was in a very similar vault today with Peter."
"Peter probably doesn't have this," he says as a set of steel doors part, allowing me a view of the war room spread out in front of us.
Inside the room are two men, one of whom I recognize.
Admiral Philipe Lamonte, the joint chief of the Montrovian armed forces, stands up to greet me. "Miss Von Allister," he says. "I have to say that I encouraged Lorenzo not to get you involved in all this, but he trusts you implicitly."
I look Lorenzo in the eye, worried that he told them all about me. He imperceptibly shakes his head.
"And I am Gabriel Lavin," a lethal-looking man says, holding his hand out to shake mine.
"It's nice to meet you," I reply, not sure exactly what to say. "Um, Lorenzo, might I have a word with you in private?"
"Of course," he says, leading me back outside the room. "What is it?"
"You didn't tell them about me?"
"I did not. I would never break your trust."
"And these men, why do you trust them?"
"Philipe is my father's most trusted confidant. They were friends for many, many years."
"And the other guy?"
"Mossad. He saved my father's life a few years ago."
I nod. "Then let's go back inside."
The two men are pouring over stacks of printouts, and there are numerous data points on various screens across the wall. I'm not sure what all they are researching, but I'm assuming it has to do with the Olympics, a possible coup, or a terrorist attack.
"Look," I say, taking a seat across the table from them, "I'm going to level with you. The reason Lorenzo trusts me is because the British agent didn't save his life; I did. At the time, I didn't know if I could trust Gallagher, so I knocked him out and took care of things myself. It wasn't until the threats were cleared that he came to and entered the warehouse."
"Actually, she's saved my life more than once," Lorenzo interjects. "From the armed men in the castle, to noticing my drink had been poisoned, to when I was nearly shot at the docks."
"Are you suggesting that you took out seven highly trained and armed men?"
"They weren't well trained. More like hired muscle with guns. I had been at the Queen's Ball, so I didn't have any weapons on me. I was lucky enough to find a pair of gloves on the ground, fashioned a garrote from a piece of wire, and used it to kill one of the two men guarding the perimeter. I relieved him of his holster and gun but didn't want to alarm those inside by gunfire, so I used a brick to smash the second guard's head and then broke his neck.
"Now that I was armed with two guns, I made my way inside. I watched three men and a woman go into what appeared to be an office. Two other men stayed with Lorenzo and my brother, Ari. The first one died by a single shot to the forehead. As well as the second.
"Of course, at that point, the men in the office heard noises and sent a man out to see about it. He fired at me, missed, and then took cover behind the captives."
"That's when she took off running, straight at us," Lorenzo says. "She ran up onto Ari's shoulder and then catapulted herself onto the guard, knocking him over."
"He got a round to the head," I add.
"That's when things got a little out of control," Lorenzo says. I can tell he's been eager to talk about all this. And he sounds, well, proud of me. "The other two guards came out of the office. One fired a shot at the ceiling."
"Idiot," I say, shaking my head.
"Yes, ceiling tiles rained down on them. Then you should have seen her. It was like something out of a movie. She somersaulted out from behind us--a gun in each hand--fired the guns simultaneously and with only two shots killed both men."
"And what about the girl? Was she caught in the cross fire?"
"No, she was behind the kidnapping--had hired the men, was going to feed Lorenzo to the sharks, and then become queen. After that, she wanted to sell the Strait of Montrovia to the highest bidder and rename the country Arcadia. I slapped an exploding pore strip on her head and then kicked her out of the way just as she went boom."
"Lorenzo," the admiral chastises, "you should have told us this."
"At that point, Gallagher showed up. I didn't want to blow my cover, so I let him take the credit. I guess I assumed you all knew about Ophelia."
"I didn't tell anyone," Lorenzo says, gazing into my eyes. "You trusted me with the truth."
I take his hand in mine. "I really appreciate that, but it's important they know now because we need help with trying to figure out just what is going to start in Montrovia."
"Wait, what did you just say?" the Mossad agent asks.
"British intelligence picked up some kind of chatter that led Gallagher to Montrovia in the first place--it starts in Montrovia."
"Who do you work for? And how old are you?" the admiral asks me.
"I just turned nineteen. I've been trained for the last six years." Then I tell them the rest--starting with my mother's death to the death of everyone at my school to finding out that Ari and I are really brother and sister. I don't hold back any details, save for one. I don't tell them that The Priest might still be alive and that the cute little kid upstairs is really his son.
When I finish, both men sit in stunned silence, trying to take it all in.
MISSION:DAY THREE
I wake up early and alone in Lorenzo's bed. A quick glance at the clock on the bedside table tells me it's four in the morning. My sleep was plagued with dreams of Blackwood, probably the result of telling the men everything last night. I don't know if I should have confided in them, but I can't trust Black X to tell me the truth.
I flip on the television, thinking the news might lull me into going back to sleep, but I wake up fully when I see a story about how the United States is considering military action against Syria in retribution for the recent death of the president.
But that's wrong. Black X invented the story about Josh and Syria. They can't let our government act on it.
I think about the dean of Blackwood. How he gave me my father's watch. How he must have wanted me to know my parents had been spies. Even though he's been lying to me, maybe I can get him to tell me some of the truth.
I call my emergency contact number.
"Hello, Dean?" I say when someone picks up.
"Are you in danger?" he asks with a surprising amount of emotion, almost sounding worried.
"No, that's not why I called. I want to know why the media is still saying that Josh killed the president. Why aren't they telling the truth about The Priest? I just saw on the news that our military is considering a strike on Syria in retribution. How can you allow them to do that? To kill innocent people? I want to know who runs Black X."
"I am not authorized to share that information."
"That means you know."
"Yes, I do."
"And do you agree with their tactics?" I inquire.
He lets out a tired--or maybe an exasperated--sigh. "Not always, but I believe in their cause."
"I know what they did to my friends," I tell him.
"What are you talking about?"
"I can't and I won't continue to work for someone who does nothing but lie to me. I know what you did to my schoolmates. I was there. Everything and everyone was gone--well, except for Josh."
"You saw Josh?"
"I sure did. And he told me everything. What I don't understand is why Black X killed them all."
"That's easy to answer--because of you."
"Which is hard to make sense of. Huntley Von Allister isn't even my cover. It's who I really am. Black X has lied to me at every turn. You, the one person in this world who I thought I could trust, lied to me."
"Why do you think I told you to trust no one?" he counters.
"Interesting that you were spared."
"Sometimes, I wish I hadn't been," he says with another sigh.
"If you hate Black X and what they did, why do you continue to work for them?"
"Because I don't have any other choice."
"Will they kill you if you try to quit?"
"No, but they just might kill you. Consider those from Blackwood who perished as patriots who volunteered for duty but were lost in battle."
"A battle against what?"
"Evil."
"My mother figured out what was going to happen, didn't she? That's why she was killed."
"I believe so, yes."
"And what did you do before you were the dean?"
"I was your mother's handler."
"Her spy handler?"
"Yes, and I have no idea what she was on to. The last two weeks of her life, she was on vacation. Once she was killed, Black X came to me, said I would be in danger by default. Black X kept us both alive by stashing us at Blackwood Academy. We owe them our gratitude."
"So she died before she could tell anyone what she'd learned?"
"I spoke to her that night. She told me you were outside, climbing the tree in your backyard. Do you remember that?"
"I didn't until recently. Since then, I've had a few flashes. Like I remember, after she called me inside, I was sitting on her bed, folding laundry from our trip, while she finished unpacking. That was when we heard a noise out in the living room, and she told me to hide in the closet."
"Have you remembered anything else?"
"Other than what happened after that, no. I can't remember where we had been. What did she tell you when you spoke?"
"That she hadn't really been on vacation, that she believed there was a conspiracy to, and I quote, 'end the world as we know it,' and that she would fill me in on everything she had learned when she arrived at the office the next morning."
"That's why all the therapists focused on what had happened before my mom died rather than the trauma of the event itself. Because it might have shed some light on what she'
d discovered."
"That's correct."
"And my mother's real name is Kelley Bond, and Ares Von Allister really is our biological father?"
"Yes."
"And Blake, the man who I thought was my father? Were he and my mother married?"
"On paper, yes. A family is a good cover."
"The CIA covered up what had happened to them by saying we all perished in a car accident. But the CIA doesn't know what happened to me because they never found my body. I overheard the CIA director talking about it. He said he prayed that whatever the assassin had done to me was over quickly."
"When did you hear that?"
"At a party. Believe it or not, I'm pretty good at this whole spying gig."
"That's because I taught you well."
"Does the CIA think you are dead, too?"
"Yes."
"Blackwood is not a black CIA operation?"
"No, it is not. It operates independently and prefers it that way. No bureaucracy. I'm afraid I've answered too many of your questions. I must say good-bye now."
"Wait! I have one more question. Did Ares Von Allister tell my mother that my twin brother died and then give him as a bribe to General Bradford?"
"Yes, he did. I'm sorry, X."
"Don't ever call me that again. My name is Huntley," I say before hanging up the phone.
I wash my face, reeling. I never suspected that the dean was my mother's handler. But now I understand why he treated me differently from the other students. Why he was harder on me. And, as horrible as it is, I get why they killed everyone.
Ari is right. Something bigger is going on. Something that someone has been planning for years. But what I don't understand is why my mother went off on her own. Why not tell someone why she was going in case something happened, especially if it was truly that big of a deal? My dad--well, the man who I thought was my dad--hadn't gone with us. Don't ask me how I know that, but I do.
I close my eyes and try to remember more. Nothing comes, so I decide to get ready for the day. Once I am showered, blow-dried, and freshly made up, I look for Lorenzo. When I don't find him in the usual places, I sneak into his private study and attempt to go down to the secret room in the basement.
To my surprise, when I put my palm on the glass, I'm prompted to enter a six-digit passcode. It takes me a second to realize that Lorenzo must have kept a scan of my palm when he opened my account at the Royal Montrovian Bank.