Yaakov gave a frightened yelp when I pushed open the cabin door. The others, who were hunched over his bed, turned sharply in my direction and jumped to their feet, forming a human wall in front of the bed.
An awkward second passed, and then Rylee said, “Matt?”
“Captain?” Angie asked. “Is that you?” One of her thin eyebrows rose, and she laughed. “Look at you. Was the challenge some kind of art project? You’re filthy.”
The others didn’t smile.
“What happened?” Rylee asked.
“It didn’t go well,” I grumbled.
“Clearly,” Juno said. “Just tell us we’re not starting out with the lowest ranking.”
“How would he know how everyone else ranked?” Rylee snapped. “It was a preliminary challenge.” She turned to Yaakov; his gaze was fixated on his computer screen. “Yaakov?”
“I’m already on it,” he said.
“What happened?” Rylee asked again. This time her voice was much less agitated.
“I just want to take a shower.” I plodded my way to my storage bin and pulled a set of clean clothes from my bag.
When I turned around, Amara was blocking my path. I tried to move around him, but he grabbed my shoulder and held me in place. His eyes narrowed as he scanned me up and down, all the while muttering in a language I couldn’t understand and was pretty sure I’d never heard before.
“Land mines,” he said finally. “Right? Poppers, probably. Modified to disperse paint, obviously.”
“That’s … that’s right,” I said. “Probably. Except—”
“Except for a couple of them,” Amara cut in. “Your hair looks singed.”
He ran a thumb over my eyebrow, and I smacked it away. Then he touched my hair, and I smacked his hand away again.
“A couple of them were only directionally modified,” he said.
“Not a couple,” I snapped. “Three. And I don’t know what they were, but if I hadn’t been on the ground when they exploded I could’ve been … really hurt.” I hesitated to say “killed” because I didn’t want to seem dramatic, yet that’s what I was thinking.
“Hurt?” Yaakov asked without looking up. “Don’t you mean killed?”
“Not likely,” Angie said. “Probably just maimed.”
“Oh, that’s loads better,” I said fiercely.
“How big were they?” Amara asked.
I couldn’t tell if they were just giving me a hard time or if they were serious. I also wasn’t sure which would be worse, their trying to scare me, or being unaffected that I’d nearly died.
Juno sidled up beside Amara. “I’m with Angie; he’d have been maimed. Now, seriously, how big were the mines?”
I groaned. “The size of a hockey puck, I guess.”
“Hockey puck?” Amara asked. He made a circle with his hands as if I had no idea how big a hockey puck was.
I nodded, and Juno whistled.
“I’ve seen those in other camps,” Juno said. “They’re pretty messy if they hit you right.” He grimaced, and I had a sick feeling he wasn’t talking about paint when he said messy.
“Argh,” Yaakov growled at the computer. “You think you’re so smart I can’t get around that?” He hunched over his computer, and his fingers became a blur on the keyboard.
While he had the attention of the rest of the team, I slipped around Amara and Juno and crept for the door.
“Hurry up, Yaakov,” Juno said. “I know hackers who’d already be in and out without leaving a footprint.”
Yaakov gave an annoyed sigh. “No, you don’t. You have no idea the system they have in place. We’re talking quadruple redundancies, state-of-the-art anti-hacking programs, and tracker bots that could find an infiltration in a trillionth of a second. I’ve already set up a—” He glanced up at what I’m sure were blank expressions from the rest of the team and shook his head. “You know what? If anyone else were doing this, they’d have already been discovered and would probably be dead.”
I cringed at the second mention of death and slipped through the door. The sound of the bickering vanished when I was a dozen feet away from the cabin. I made it twice that distance before Rylee called my name and jogged up from behind me.
“Sorry about that,” she said. “I know it’s rough when a challenge doesn’t go as well as you’d hoped.”
“What would you know about it, Rylee?” I snapped without slowing down. “When were you ever on a Delta team? Huh? Try never.” I wasn’t sure if I was angrier that I’d almost been killed, or that I’d likely made a fool out of myself for not knowing there was more to the challenge than just kicking a ball.
Rylee kept pace with me and didn’t seem taken aback in the least by my anger. “Don’t worry about it, Matt. If we start out in last place, who cares? We’ll make up for it. I’m telling you, we have a good team.”
I stopped abruptly and pointed toward the cabin. “That’s a good team? Them? In what universe are they good? This is the first time any of them have been on a Delta team. If they were so great, why haven’t they been picked before?”
Rylee eyed me carefully. “You said you’ve never been to one of these camps before, but your scores say you’re a liar.” I opened my mouth to speak, but she continued before I got a word out. “Your body language says you’re not a liar, and your questions make me think you’re really sincere in your ignorance.” She waved her hand. “You’re an enigma, Matt Cambridge. But that’s an asset here, so let me put your mind at ease about your team.” Rylee held up one finger. “Juno is a fighter. A really great fighter. There’s no one in camp who will be able to beat him. I promise. He’s been training since he was crawling.” She lifted another finger. “Amara is an explosives genius. He can make them, and he can disarm them. Trust me, he’ll be useful.” A third finger went up. “Yaakov doesn’t look it, but he’s the best hacker in the camp. Better than any of the instructors, I bet. If we need to hack into something, he’s the one to do it.” She put her hand against her chest. “I am really good at reading people. My friends back home call me Six because they think I have a sixth sense.”
I rolled my eyes. “A sixth sense? Give me a break.” I gestured back to the cabin. “And don’t get me started on those weirdos. They seem like a bunch of punks.”
Rylee shrugged. “They are. But they’ll be good in competitions when the time comes. You can trust them.”
“What about Angie?”
Rylee’s face scrunched up. “Angie’s a bit … different.”
“Meaning?”
“She’s a sociopath.” She frowned. “Or maybe a psychopath, depending on who you ask.”
“I’m asking you.”
Rylee waved her hand. “Do I look like a psychologist? Just know that when the time comes, she’s the person you want on your team because she’ll do … anything. She doesn’t really have a … well, a conscience.”
I shook my head. I wasn’t in the mood to be teased, or played, or whatever it was that Rylee was doing to me. I might not have known a lot about the camp, but I knew Angie was no psychopath. She couldn’t be, because kids can’t be psychopaths. My chest hurt when I breathed, and I could feel the paint drying on my arms and face. “I need a shower.”
I headed for the bathrooms, and Rylee called out behind me. “Just don’t get bummed out about the preliminary rankings. They don’t usually count for much anyway.”
Anger flashed inside me. I’d nearly been blown up, and Rylee thought I was bummed out? I turned around to really give her a piece of my mind, but she was already jogging back to the cabin. I considered hollering after her, but what was the point? I stormed into the showers and slammed the door behind me.
My face, neck, and forearms were burned pink; scrubbing them wasn’t an option. I put my head against the wall of the shower and let the water clean the dirt and paint off my skin and soothe the nicks and scratches that must’ve been caused by shrapnel.
Shrapnel. The word made my entire body tense.
Plus, why had Dalson told everyone to treat this place like a regular camp? I couldn’t think of a single explanation for why anyone would say that. Under what circumstances would a camp want to look like a regular camp, but not be a regular camp?
For a half second, I thought about calling Dad to see if he’d consider bringing me home. But no—he’d be disappointed in me, and I’d probably end up in Alaska. A three-week camp experience was a lot better than a year in Alaska, no matter what happened. Plus, the longer I stood under the shower, the more my curiosity bloomed. Questions piled on top of questions. I cursed myself again for the broken cell phone. If I could call Jason, he would help me figure things out.
It was only Day One, and already I’d been beaten up and nearly blown sky-high.
By the time I’d toweled off and put on clean clothes, I had made two resolutions. First, to do whatever it took to get to the bottom of this place, and second, to devise a plan of escape—a backup plan—just in case this turned out to be a camp of near-death experiences.
Chapter 12
I’d barely taken half a dozen steps out of the shower building when I heard, “Captain Cambridge, sir.”
I turned. A round-faced boy with short blond hair, who was at least six inches shorter than me, stared back. I guessed he was about ten or eleven years old. A boy and a girl, about the same ages, stood a step behind him and had similarly blank expressions.
“It’s, um, Matt,” I said. “You can call me Matt.”
The boy shrugged. “Of course, Captain. I mean Matt.” He gestured to the camp. “I keep forgetting we’re supposed to be getting into the habit of being regular campers. I’ll call you Matt from now on.”
I gave him a look that I hoped said, What do you want?
“Sorry,” he continued. “My name’s Rob Tendres.” He gestured behind him to his friends. “This is Alexis Greenwood and Duncan Brooks.”
The girl had short, inky-black hair and seashell-white skin. The boy beside her had a shaved head and coffee-colored skin. He also had a scar at least an inch long that ran just beneath his left eye. Neither of them spoke.
“We’re on Team Grizzly,” Rob added. He touched the figure of a bear on his T-shirt as if it were a piece of identification. I must’ve looked confused, because he added, “Your team, sir, I mean, Matt.”
“Right,” I said with a sigh. “I know what team I’m on. It’s wonderful to meet you. But I was nearly blown up a few minutes ago, so if you’ll excuse me …” I turned and started to walk away.
“Wait, sir, I mean, Matt.” He caught up to me and kept pace. “Could we talk to you for a second?”
I stopped and looked up at the sky. This kid didn’t seem the type to give up. “Fine.” I turned. The trio stood shoulder to shoulder with stiff soldier-like postures. It made my skin crawl to see a bunch of preteens acting with such discipline.
Rob glanced at his two friends, and they gave almost indistinguishable nods. Then he turned back to me and blurted out, “We’d like to be involved in the challenges.”
I thought about almost getting blown up on the soccer field and forced a laugh. “No offense, kid, but you don’t know what you’re asking.”
“I know we’re young,” he added quickly, “but we’re a lot more experienced than some of the fifteen-or sixteen-year-olds. We’ve been to a lot of these camps, sir; a lot. We could be really useful. More useful than people give us credit for.”
“I’ll keep it in mind, kid,” I said.
Rob sighed and turned to his friends.
“Sir,” Alexis said, “we just want to be utilized. We’ve been coming to these camps for years, participating in the same training exercises year after year, but we know we won’t be taken seriously until we participate as members of a Delta team.”
“Years?” I asked. “You’re not even teenagers, and you’ve been coming here for years?”
The three of them looked at me as if I’d just said a made-up word.
“Not here,” Alexis said hesitantly. “Camps like this one.”
Rob nodded toward a group of cabins to his right. “This is the first year for Camp Friendship, sir.”
This was my chance. I had to be smart about it, but if I could get these kids to tell me more about this camp or others like it, I’d be able to figure out what I was involved in better.
I drew in a breath and straightened, doing my best to look captain-like. “All right, tell me what training exercises you’ve done.”
Duncan cleared his throat. “We’ve been mostly limited to the standard ones,” he said. “But we’ve excelled in those.”
I lifted my chin. “And the standard ones would be …”
Duncan looked at me like he wasn’t sure I was serious. Then he shrugged and said, “Tactical firearms, principles of dynamic entry, barricade situations, and defensive tactics. Plus, we’ve had our share of the standard surveillance and counter-surveillance. You know, just the standard stuff.”
I wasn’t even sure I knew the words he was saying, let alone what he meant by them. I was once again reminded of the SWAT shows I watched back home on TV and thought for sure some of those terms he’d used were ones I’d heard on those shows.
“It’s just,” Rob continued, “you can’t learn, or do the cool stuff, unless you’re on a Delta team. No one considers you until you’re older.”
I considered my team and wondered if that was why none of them had been on Delta teams before. Because they were still pretty young.
“Of course not,” I said, trying my best to sound like I knew what I was talking about. A dozen questions sprang to mind, but I forced them back. I needed to sound like a leader. I didn’t need any rumors about how clueless I was getting back to Dalson or Smith. I decided I could ask them one more thing. “And if I were to ask you who runs this camp, what would you say?”
“Well,” Rob began, “obviously the agency runs—”
Alexis lunged out and punched Rob before he could finish his sentence. He spun around glaring and then seemed to realize he’d said something wrong.
“Idiot,” Alexis muttered. “He was testing you. We’re supposed to be regular campers. What would regular campers say?”
Rob turned back to me and sighed. “I’m sorry, sir. I wasn’t sure what you were asking.” He cleared his throat. “Camp Friendship is run by a group dedicated to cultural awareness and friendship.”
The Agency? Which agency was he talking about? The teach-kids-to-avoid-land-mines agency? Or was this some kind of camp run by social services? At least that might explain why all the kids looked so mean, but it wouldn’t explain why the adults tried to blow them up on soccer fields.
I was just about to ask Rob more about the agency when Alexander Bratersky came into view down the path. He had a towel over his shoulder and a few clothes in his hand. I smiled, thinking at least I wasn’t the only one who needed a shower after the soccer ball challenge. But any notion of a smile wilted when I caught a glimpse of the Arctic Fox Delta. He had paint on only one part of his body: his face. It was the color of blood and splattered in such a way it actually looked like war paint; he looked absolutely murderous.
I knew better, of course. He’d obviously been blasted by one of the mines.
He gave me a careful up and down look as he neared, as if he were assessing my level of risk to him. On a scale of one to ten, if I were being really generous about myself, I’d be a risk factor two. And that would only be the case if I landed a couple lucky punches.
Bratersky
grunted something as he shoved past and disappeared through the shower doors. I wondered what position he’d been in to get splattered across the face like that, but maybe more importantly, how he had managed the challenge with only one hit.
“Captain,” Rob said, pulling me back into the conversation, “all we’re asking is that you use us. And then tell people you used us.”
They must’ve seen my confusion because Alexis added, “If you win, and people know we helped you, next year we’ll be picked for full Delta team members.”
“Or at least we’ll have a better chance,” Rob added.
Nothing at this place made any sense, and all I wanted to do was call Jason and pick his brain. He’d be able to help me figure it out. A couple hours on his computer and he’d probably know everything there was to know about this place. I cursed Chase for the fight on the bus. Because of him, my cell phone was useless.
“A cell phone,” I said suddenly.
Rob nodded. “They’re supposed to be turned in to the directors before camp. It’s not easy to find one here.”
“But not impossible,” Alexis added.
“So you can get one?” I asked.
Rob nodded. “Some campers keep ’em despite the rules. We could find out who has one and get it for you.”
I nodded. “Great. Do that. Consider it a test.”
“Any team in particular you want it from?” Alexis asked.
I smiled. “Yeah, Squirrel.”
Rob smiled. “I thought you’d say that.”
Clearly word had spread of my fight with Chase on the bus. I decided not to care.
“We do this,” Alexis said, “and you’ll use us for real missions? And you’ll tell people that you used us?” Her eyes narrowed, and she took a step closer. I drew back. For a little girl, she was sure aggressive.
“Get me a phone,” I said forcefully, “and I’ll think about it.”
I turned again and started off toward the cabin. I expected more badgering, maybe one of them jumping on my ankle and throwing a fit, like any number of kids I’d seen who didn’t get their way, but after a dozen steps in silence, I glanced over my shoulder to see them heading in the opposite direction.
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