I gave him my best blank stare, trying hard to suppress any micro expressions that would give away my wild range of conflicting emotions or my motive for going out in the first place. “Jogging.”
He arched a brow. “Really? Right by the crash site. That’s a strange coincidence, isn’t it?”
“Is it?” Two could play this spy game. “Rumors abound that you’re in hot water with Rockford over the crash.” I bit my lip as I thought up a quick half truth. “I feel responsible. I didn’t mean to get you in any trouble. I should have maintained control when the tire blew. I went back to the site to see if I could figure out what went wrong.” I stopped short of voicing my real concerns.
He studied me closely. I got the distinct impression he knew I wasn’t telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Sins of omission, I’m good at those.
He squeezed my arm tighter. “I appreciate the loyalty. But I don’t need your help.” He wasn’t looking into my eyes anymore, but staring at my shiny, plumped lips like there was a kiss in my future.
I blushed in the dark, unsure how to react. Was this another game of his? Another blasted test? If so … well, I was in no mood. I shook my arm loose and slid out of the Jeep.
“Dom, don’t go sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.” His tone was neutral.
I turned once more to face him. “Is that a warning … or another test?”
“Yeah,” he said and put the Jeep in Drive. “Now get in the building.”
I huffed off while he played gentleman hero and waited until I was safely inside before pulling away.
Emma was in the shower with the water running full force when I came in basically dazed and confused. Not to mention peeved at both Fry and Torq. What were the dynamic duo really trying to prove out there tonight? Game? Cover-up? Subtle spy dance? Had I been too close to the truth about something, say, about the crash not being accidental? Why didn’t they want me out there? What didn’t they want me to see so badly that they felt the need to scare me within an inch of my life?
I hugged myself, trying to fend off a shudder. If my theory was correct, I’d almost been killed today. And in reality, narrowly escaping death isn’t nearly as fun as they make it look in the movies. There’s no stunt double to take the blows and no new story line to resurrect your character.
Frustrated with my inability to solve the puzzle, I collapsed on my bed.
The shower shut off. I heard Emma humming and the rustle of toweling off before she knocked on the door my room shared with the bathroom.
“Come on in. It’s unlocked,” I said.
She poked her toweled head in.
“There you are! I was getting worried and about to send a posse out after you. Where were you?”
The clean, reassuring smell of mountain-fresh soap and herbal shampoo wafted into the room as she opened the door full out and stepped into the room. She wore a short robe and that fresh-scrubbed glowing pinkness of a nice, hot shower. Frankly, the normalness of the scene was comforting and I felt the Twilight Zone eeriness of the past hour begin to melt away.
“After you all left, I was feeling better and got bored, so I went for a jog. Torq found me and gave me a ride back. How was the game?”
She shrugged, but I could tell she was dying to tell me about it. “We gave those boys on the other team the what-for, that’s for sure.” She launched into a detailed description of the teams and the strategy, finishing up by saying, “I can hold my own. Just wait until the desert ambush tomorrow. I’d like to see those ambushers mess with me.”
She lifted her robe sleeve to reveal a welt on her left arm. “The other guys only got the one good shot at me.”
“Brutes!” I’d been listening, but only with half an ear. The rest of me had been working on trying to unravel the mysteries of camp.
What was really going on? What was real and what was Memorex, a reasonable facsimile of real? What was subterfuge, playacting, and outright deceit?
I made a mental list of things I wanted to know, things that would help me get to the truth—Max’s true identity would be a start. And everyone else’s. A good look at the accident report wouldn’t hurt. I’d bet the bank’s last dollar that Rockford had a copy in his office….
“Hey!” Emma said. “You’re a million miles away. What are you daydreaming about?”
I told her about Torq and Fry, omitting my suspicions and that I’d been at the crash scene when Torq found me.
“I’m tired of being tested and surprised. Bond wouldn’t sit around waiting for the next test. He’d infiltrate.”
“Infiltrate,” Emma said slowly. “What do you mean?”
I spoke without thinking. “Break into FSC’s central command center—Rockford’s office.”
Chapter Thirteen
“Break into Rockford’s office?” Emma took less than a second to digest the idea. “Brilliant! I’ll do it!”
Her immediate enthusiasm stunned me. I guess I’d expected more resistance. I paused, waiting for her cynicism to show. When it didn’t, I supplied it for her. “Rockford keeps it locked tight. This is a former CIA training center chock-full of security cameras. And if he catches us, we’ll be toast. Are you sure you’re in?”
“Second thoughts already?” Emma rolled her eyes. “The very beauty of the plan is its audaciousness. Has anyone ever broken into his office before?”
“Not that he’s mentioned, but—”
“Rockford’s got all his important papers stashed in his office, including schedules and plans. If the information about who’s going to be kidnapped is anywhere, it’s in his office. So how do we get in?” Emma’s eyes shone with anticipation. “How good are your lock-picking skills?”
“Don’t get your hopes up.”
We sat in thought a minute.
“How about a diversion?” Emma took the towel off her head and shook out her damp hair, finger fluffing it. “It works in the movies.”
“You mean like pull the fire alarm?”
“Yes, exactly.” She set the towel down and grinned widely. “And when he runs out of his office to check on it, we sneak in and reconnoiter.”
“It’s sophomoric, but it could work,” I said, thinking it sounded more like a prank than a spy move. “But what about Rockford? He pulls his door closed whenever he leaves his office, even for just a second. And what if there are security cameras in his office?”
“We’ll fix the door beforehand so that it won’t latch. I doubt he has a camera in there. Why would he want to be watched as he works?”
“No one wants to be watched while they work; some of us just are.” I was still worrying about cameras.
“We’ll be wearing disguises.” She sounded unconcerned.
“Okay,” I said, giving up on the topic. “How are we going to fix the latch?”
“With a piece of tape over the latch plate. I saw someone do that on TV once, too.”
I gave her a skeptical look. “Like they take no poetic license on TV?”
“Where are we going to get the tape?” Emma continued, unperturbed by my cynicism. “It’s not like I carry it around in my handbag, though I’ve got practically everything else.” She paused. “Hey! Maybe a bandage would work. I have a few of those.” She jumped up and got a bandage.
We put it on the door.
“Kind of obvious, isn’t it?” I inspected it, unimpressed.
Emma closed the door. The bandage crumpled. The door latched.
“Looks like a bandage is a no-go.” I peeled it off and tossed it in the wastebasket. We both returned to my room to come up with Plan B.
“Packing tape would do it,” I said. “Too bad we don’t—” Inspiration struck. “Wait a minute. I saw some empty boxes by the recycling cans outside. I bet we could lift some packing tape off them. If the tape had enough stickum left …”
Emma volunteered to go. She changed into shorts and was off, returning in a flash with a two-foot-long strip of tape.
“No one saw you
—”
“Of course not!” She grinned and tore off a four-inch strip.
We tested it out on the bathroom door.
“Whoohoo! Look at that. Stopped the door cold. And it’s barely noticeable,” I said, impressed. “He’ll never see it, especially if we install it just prior to pulling the alarm.”
We decided to scope out the building before morning and choose a fire alarm to pull. But before we went, we firmed up the rest of the plans.
“Most fire alarms will spray invisible ink that shows up under a black light on the person who does the pulling. We’ll have to use gloves and maybe some sort of long stick to do the dirty work. And we’ll have to dispose of the gloves where they won’t be noticed.”
“Have lots of experience pulling alarms, do you?” Emma was looking at me with admiration, like I was Prank Girl or something.
I hated to disillusion her. “That’s what the installation guys told us when we had new alarms installed at—” I caught myself before I said “the bank.”
“At the place where I work.”
Emma looked disappointed with my response and shook her head with that “I’ll just have to work with what I have” motion. “Whoever goes into the office needs gloves, too. I don’t suppose you brought any rubber gloves with you?”
“No, but the kitchen has some.”
We agreed to raid the kitchen for some of the disposable food-handling gloves. That settled, we moved on.
“We’ll only have a few minutes in Rockford’s office,” I said. “We need a search plan.”
“Did you see that spy reality show on TV last fall?” Emma asked. “The one that was kind of a last-spy-standing thing?”
I had and I knew what she was getting at. “We’ll search his desk and the garbage. Any available surface. Taking only things that won’t be missed.”
She nodded her agreement. “Okay, back to disguises. We’ll both need to wear masks and alter our appearances as much as possible. Just in case they check the security video.”
“I brought panty hose,” I said and we both cracked up at the mental image of our panty hose-covered heads.
“I’ll do the searching,” Emma said.
I tried not to panic. I had to do the searching, otherwise, what was the point of the whole exercise? “It’s my idea, I’ll search.”
“You?! I’m the bolder one,” she argued.
“Which is exactly why you should pull the alarm,” I countered.
We bickered for nearly ten minutes before she gave in. “Fine, you go. But you have to promise to share everything.”
This lack-of-trust business was the pits. I nodded my agreement. “But of course.” I’d share exactly everything she thought I was looking for.
Emma sized me up. “You’re about Ethan’s size. Play this right and we could pin it on Ethan and Bishop. Wouldn’t that be lovely fun?”
I grinned at her. “I like that plan.”
We consulted the camp schedule and selected the morning break between classes as our operation time. Most of the CTs would stop by their rooms to freshen up and Rockford was usually in his office then. It was a daring plan. But my heart pumped with excitement at the thought of finding out what was really going on.
“Let’s go gather our supplies and pick our fire alarm target,” I said.
We took it as a good omen that as we sneaked down the corridor we found Ethan’s door wide open and him out. We snatched two dirty T-shirts from a pile of clothes in the corner. They reeked of sweat and body odor. We wrinkled our noses in unison and giggled. Being on a mission with Emma was almost as much fun as hanging with Logan.
“We’ll wash them in the sink and hang them to dry. Things dry in an instant down here,” I whispered to Emma as she stuffed the shirts up her own shirt and into her sports bra for cover, giving herself some bonus T-shirt cleavage.
“What do you think?” she asked as she profiled for me. “Think the boys will notice?”
I eyed her two newfound chest lumps and cracked up. “Definitely. But socks generally give a smoother line.”
She held her nose and grimaced. “No way am I putting his socks next to my skin. Yick.”
“Hey, what’s that?” I grabbed a prescription bottle from Ethan’s nightstand.
“Viagra?” Emma giggled.
“No, but look at this.” I turned the bottle label toward her. “Ethan is really Evan Jones.”
“Good work!” Emma took the bottle from me and read the label for herself.
“Yeah. And you owe me how much now?” I rubbed my fingers together, indicating my money-grubbing intentions. “Ethan blew his cover before Wade.”
“Nothing doing.” She set the bottle down.
“Uh-huh. Leaving a prescription bottle out in the open pretty much constitutes a cover blow.”
“It was in his room. That can’t count.”
“Wanna bet?” I said as we sneaked out with our ill-gotten goods.
“Yeah, as a matter of fact.” Emma gently pulled the door closed behind us. “Let it ride.”
“Still betting on Wade?” I asked.
“Why not?” She wrinkled her nose. “Now let’s get back to the room before Evan/Ethan’s shirt contaminates me for life and I have to take another shower.”
Breakfast, oh-seven hundred hours. Desert ambush day. Tension and excitement ran high. Emma and I filled our trays and slid into a table next to Ethan and Bishop.
Ethan was bragging. What else was new?
“If I like it, I’m going to get me one of these fast attack vehicles when I get home,” Ethan said, thinking ahead to the afternoon’s activities. “How many Joes you know got an FAV? Ten to one I could stand out in one.”
Emma flashed him a look and laid her Aussie accent on thick. “One hundred to one you couldn’t stand out floating naked on your back down the river.” Before Ethan could think of a comeback that involved something other than four-letter words, she picked up her fork and began eating.
My stomach was fluttery, and not from thoughts of desert assaults. With our ten o’clock mission looming, I could barely eat. “An FAV would be a poor investment. No odds needed,” I said to Ethan, who shrugged like he didn’t care.
“How much did you win in the lottery again?” I asked him.
“A cool two mil.” He grinned like he’d just impressed my socks and my most intimate undergarments right off me and he was liking the thought of that sight.
But frankly, that sum didn’t impress me much.
“Lump sum or annual distribution?”
“Annual, baby. I’m a millionaire.”
I gave him my deadpan look, like who was he kidding? “No, you’re a guy who takes home roughly eighty thousand a year for the next twenty. If you invest that money, in time you’ll be a millionaire. The lump sum would’ve been a better deal. I hope you didn’t quit your day job.”
“You crazy or what?” He grinned. “I can live on eighty thou a year.”
I had a bad feeling about his finances. “Yeah, and assuming you’re not already borrowing against that money,” which many lottery winners do, “you’ll run out of capital by the time you’re forty-five.”
He shrugged with the impunity of youth. As if forty-five could never happen to him.
“In the meantime I got plenty of free time for fun. You and me should get together after camp’s over, Domino. I got a thing for brunettes.”
“Good idea. I’ll whip you into financial shape.”
He gave me a lecherous grin. “You whipping me. I like that mental image.”
Yeah, well, let him dream. He wouldn’t like my financial whipping. I guarantee it.
The morning class began promptly at eight. Rockford led, passing out a thick sheaf of papers and lecturing through them with a PowerPoint presentation. Today’s topics: how to communicate secretly in an enemy environment; how to recognize booby traps and bombs and navigate minefields; how to survive a hostage situation; how to survive, and escape, when bound; how to jump fro
m a moving car, with its corollary, how to escape from a trunk; and how to navigate without a compass.
Rockford was probably a dynamic enough speaker, if you preferred those military, commanding personas, but my mind wandered even as I wondered about the topics. Obviously, he was preparing us for the afternoon ambush and the eventual kidnapping. I should have been paying close attention. But instead I was going over Operation Break into Rockford’s Office.
At the stroke of ten, Rockford dismissed class. Emma dashed off to make her quick change while I tailed Rockford to his office. Max kept hanging with me, making conversation with a monosyllabic me while I tried to shake him.
“That was some lecture. What do you think it means, Dom? Are they going to tie us up? Blow us up? Make us walk a minefield?” He matched me stride for stride.
“I dunno. Maybe.” I wasn’t really listening to him. I took a quick glance at my watch. I had six minutes before Emma pulled the alarm and not a second to waste.
I made my way to the main lobby with Max still at my elbow and watched as Rockford ducked into his office.
“Thirsty? Want to get a soda from the cafeteria?” Max pulled some loose change from his pocket and flipped a coin in the air for me to see. “It’s on me.”
“Another time.” I had my gaze fixed on Rock-ford’s office.
“Yeah. Fine.”
Max’s tone made me turn and look at him. Dang! I’d hurt his feelings.
“Hey. Sorry. I’m not blowing you off. Really.” I hadn’t wanted to announce my visit to anyone, but I had to spare Max’s feelings or feel like a heel. “I need to talk to Rockford.”
Max’s face creased into a frown.
“Just a few questions about my liability in yesterday’s accident,” I said, seeing his look of concern. “I’ll catch you later.”
Somewhat appeased, he nodded and walked off, glancing back over his shoulder at me several times before disappearing into the cafeteria. The CTs were slow in emptying the hall. I took a deep breath and headed for Rockford’s office. I’d stuck a piece of tape to the inside hem of my tank top. As surreptitiously as possible, I palmed it.
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