by Stuart Gibbs
“No one said anything about parachuting,” I said.
“I said we would have to hit the ground running in Paris,” Erica told me. She was already wide-awake and calmly strapping on her parachute, with the facility most girls her age would put on a pair of shoes. “What part of that didn’t you understand?”
“All of it, apparently,” I replied. “I thought you meant we’d need to move fast. Not actually hit the ground. I’ve never parachuted before!”
“You haven’t?” Catherine asked, amazed, as though I had said I had never had a glass of water. “But you’re already into your second year.… ”
“MI6 students take parachuting early in their second year,” Erica explained. “Spy school students don’t get Rudimentary Airdrops until our third year.” She returned her attention to me. “It’s not that hard. All you’re really doing is falling. Gravity handles most of that for you.”
“I still have to jump out of the helicopter!” I reminded her. “That’s terrifying!”
“So is being shot at,” Erica said. “But you’ve done that plenty.”
“Not because I wanted to,” I pointed out. “In fact, I would be perfectly happy to never get shot at again. Or to never jump out of a helicopter, for that matter. Why didn’t anyone tell me about this part earlier?”
“Because we were hoping to avoid this reaction you’re having for as long as possible,” Erica replied.
“Sorry, Benjamin,” Catherine said. “It’s the only way. Thankfully, Orion had this helicopter nicely stocked with parachute gear for everyone.”
“It all came as a package,” Orion said, by way of explanation. “I also got two years of free maintenance!” He was still wearing his robe, pajamas, and slippers, looking very out of place in the helicopter. He was not putting on a parachute, as his service was done.
“When we jump out, what happens to Alexander?” I asked.
“He’ll be staying with the helicopter,” Catherine said. “There’s no other way. He’ll have to fly off and leave us to our own devices.” There was a hint of sadness to her voice, as though she had been enjoying having her husband along and didn’t want him to go.
There didn’t seem to be anything else for me to do except suit up. I reluctantly got to my feet and let Catherine help me into my jumpsuit. I did my best to act calm, cool, and collected in front of her, but my heart was racing and my stomach was threatening to get rid of that morning’s scone via the way it had come in.
On the other side of the helicopter, Mike looked much calmer than me. In fact, he seemed downright excited about the upcoming jump.
Zoe didn’t look so good. She was a shade of nauseous green I feared I might be as well.
Murray was also suited up, but he was seated in a yoga pose on the floor, doing his best to relax. The Murray I knew hadn’t seemed much like the yoga type, but I figured maybe he’d picked it up during his month of incarceration at spy school.
Once Catherine had me dressed, she informed me, “You’ll be doing a tandem jump with Erica to guarantee you pinpoint your landing. I’ll leave you two to work out the details.”
A tandem jump would involve Erica and me being strapped into the same parachute, most likely with my back to her chest, so she could be in control. I was torn about this. On the one hand, I was relieved, as I trusted Erica far more to work the chute and guide us to the proper landing spot than I trusted myself. On the other hand, if I panicked on the way down and started crying in fear, Erica would be strapped to me for the whole show.
“This is really quite easy,” Erica assured me. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
“I suppose not,” I said quietly. “I guess you’ve got your eyesight back.”
“Oh, not at all,” Erica replied. “I can barely see my hand in front of my face.”
I gaped at her, startled she could be so calm under the circumstances. “You’re still blind?”
“Mostly blind,” she corrected. “My sight is starting to clear up slowly.”
“But you put your parachute on without any trouble.”
“Yes. Because I’ve practiced doing it blindfolded.”
“Why?!”
“In case a situation like this ever came up. You have to be prepared for any eventuality in this business, Ben. I can also scale a brick wall while blinded, fight two enemy agents at once, or put on a scuba tank while surrounded by sharks.”
“You practiced with sharks?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s almost impossible to get your hands on live sharks. So I had to use grouper. Anyhow, since my sight’s wonky, I’ll need your help targeting our landing spot.”
“And where is that?”
“The roof of the Musée d’Orsay.”
“Right,” I said with resignation. The Musée d’Orsay was yet another museum that I had always wanted to visit, the finest repository of Impressionist art in the world. Of course, I had always imagined that I would be entering it through the front door and possibly even paying admission, rather than parachuting onto the roof, but this was the way my life seemed to be working out. I could only hope that we didn’t end up destroying any priceless Monets.
“Which way is my mother?” Erica asked me. “I need to discuss some tactics with her.”
“Fifteen steps to your left,” I said.
“Thanks.” Erica headed across the helicopter without giving away that she couldn’t see.
I noticed Zoe was still looking as nervous as I felt, so I headed over to talk to her. “How are you feeling about this?” I asked.
Zoe glared at me angrily. “Oh. Now you want to know how I’m feeling?”
I took a step back, caught off guard. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You didn’t seem to care much about my feelings when you and Erica decided to hold hands back in the palace.”
“You saw that?” I asked, surprised. Which, in retrospect, was probably the exact wrong response.
“Of course I saw it! You two were running along, right in the open, like it was a date.”
A date where her ex-boyfriend was trying to kill us, I thought, though this time I had the presence of mind not to say that out loud. Instead, I said, “It wasn’t what you thought it was.… ”
“You held hands with me back in Mexico,” Zoe reminded me. “Was that not what I thought it was either?”
“Um,” I said, unsure how to answer that, in part because I wasn’t even sure what to make of the fact that Zoe and I had held hands. We had never done it in any remotely romantic situation. Instead, we had always found ourselves holding hands when we were in danger. I was never even quite sure how it had happened.
“You can’t just hold hands with me and then go off and hold hands with her and expect me to be okay with that,” Zoe said.
“Hey!” I snapped back. “I’m not the one flirting with Mike every chance I get!”
At the time, I actually knew that was the wrong thing to say. But I couldn’t help myself. My own jealousy just spilled out before I could stop myself.
Thankfully, the rotors of the helicopter were so loud, no one else overheard us—as far as I knew. But they could all see Zoe’s reaction. She stood up and glared bullets at me. “How dare you?” she demanded. “I’m not flirting with him! I’m just being friends! And you don’t have any right to be jealous. I told you I couldn’t wait around for you forever to make a decision about us. But given the hand-holding, it’s pretty clear you’ve picked Erica.” Then she stormed away. She couldn’t storm very far inside the helicopter—only a few steps—but it got the point across.
Mike came up alongside me. “Was that about you holding hands with Erica?”
I turned to him. “You saw that too?”
“No. But Zoe told me. She was awfully upset about it.”
“It’s not what she thinks… ,” I began, although this time I didn’t get far in my explanation, because Catherine announced, “Five minutes to drop zone! Let’s get prepared!”
&nbs
p; This news set my stomach roiling again. I glanced out the window and saw the city of Paris coming up quickly ahead of us.
“This probably isn’t the best time,” Mike told me, “but you need to make things right.” Then he headed over to Zoe, who was his tandem jump buddy.
Catherine took her place beside Murray. She didn’t look pleased about being teamed up with him, but then, if he tried anything crazy, she was probably best equipped to handle him.
A phone started ringing.
Whoever had their ringer on had it set to the highest level, so the phone rang out loud and clear and echoed inside the helicopter, even with the noise from the rotors. We all looked at one another, wondering whose phone it could be, until we pinpointed the noise and settled on Alexander.
He sheepishly fished the phone from his pocket and answered. “Alexander Hale speaking.” He then listened a moment and, somewhat confused, looked to me. “Benjamin, it’s for you.”
Everyone now looked at me curiously, wondering who could possibly have been calling me there. I could only shrug in response. I went to Alexander’s side, figuring that whoever had gone through that much trouble to reach me must have had a good reason.
“Hello?” I asked.
“Ben! It’s Jawa!”
“Jawa?” I repeated, shocked. Jawaharlal O’Shea was one of my good friends back at spy school, an excellent student and future spy. Even so, there was no way he should have had Alexander Hale’s phone number. “How did you… ?”
“I hacked the call logs off your phone a couple of weeks ago. Nothing personal. It was for class. Alexander had called you before and forgotten to block his caller ID. I’ve been trying to call you, but your phone seems to be turned off.”
“It is,” I lied, because I couldn’t admit it had been destroyed on a top secret mission, seeing as that was what “top secret” meant.
“Three minutes to drop zone,” Catherine announced.
We were now dropping lower over Paris. I could make out many of the famous landmarks: the iron spike of the Eiffel Tower, the blocky arch of the Arc de Triomphe, the sprawling mass of the Louvre. The Seine River curled through it all, with the Île de la Cité and Notre Dame sitting in the center.
Jawa asked, “Where are you, Ben?”
“I’m spending spring break at school, working on a project.” That was the official story I was supposed to give to everyone.
“Then why are you wanted for breaking into the British Museum?”
“Ah,” I said. “That’s a case of mistaken identity.”
“And Erica, Mike, Zoe, Alexander, and Murray Hill all happen to be wanted for the same thing?”
“Er…It’s a very complicated case of mistaken identity.”
“You’re on a mission, aren’t you?”
“No.”
“I knew it! You are on a mission!”
“I just said I wasn’t!”
“Because you’re not allowed to say that you are. Which means you’re on a mission!”
“It could also mean that I’m not.… ”
I heard the sound of the phone being grabbed from Jawa, followed by the voice of Chip Schacter, another friend from school. Chip wasn’t quite as bright as some of the other spies, but he was still loyal and true. “Ripley! You guys all went on a mission without us? You suck!”
“I’m not on a mission, Chip!”
“Liar. Would you be cool if I went on a mission without you?”
“Yes,” I said, thinking that I would have been very happy at that moment if Chip and Jawa were the ones about to jump out of a helicopter rather than me.
“Well, if I was on a mission, and you asked me if I was on it, I’d at least tell you the truth.”
“No, you wouldn’t. You’d be under orders not to.”
“One minute to drop zone,” Catherine said.
Alexander slowed the helicopter. The city of Paris now radiated out around all sides of us.
It was still disturbingly far below us though, given that we were about to leap out of a helicopter.
Erica suddenly snatched the phone from me and spoke into it. “Chip, this is Erica. Ben has to go. We have a very important study session right now. But I have a favor to ask first.… ”
That last part surprised me. Erica wasn’t the type to ask anyone for favors.
I didn’t get to hear what it was, though, because Catherine threw the side door to the helicopter open.
The craft now filled with the whirr of its own rotors. Wind howled through the chopper, chilling us and making Orion’s bathrobe flap behind him like a cape.
Murray presented himself at Catherine’s side. He didn’t say anything cocky or ask if she had any snacks on her. He seemed resigned to his fate.
Catherine quickly buckled her harness to his, so she was strapped to his back.
Mike followed her lead and did the same thing to Zoe.
Erica handed the phone back to Alexander and said, “Thanks, Daddy. See you soon.”
As far as I knew, that was the first time she had ever called him “Daddy.” Or “Dad.” Or anything that would have acknowledged he was her father.
Then she clipped her harness onto mine.
Catherine and Murray leapt out of the helicopter.
Then Mike and Zoe went.
One second they were all there, and the next they had dropped out of sight.
Erica and I shuffled to the open door.
I made the terrible mistake of looking down. Directly below us, my friends were plummeting toward Paris at sickening speed.
“Ready?” Erica asked.
“Not really,” I said.
“Too bad,” Erica said, and then yanked me out of the helicopter.
13 BLENDING IN
High above the Musée d’Orsay
Paris, France
April 1
1230 hours
Parachuting out of a helicopter turned out to not be nearly as bad as I had expected.
Then again, I had been expecting it to be horrible, so my expectations were quite low.
The first few seconds were pretty bad. Watching the ground rush upward to meet you is simply not my idea of a good time. But then Erica yanked the cord on our chute and suddenly, instead of plummeting to our doom, we were gently drifting downward toward Paris.
It was far nicer than suddenly dropping through the glass floor of the Tower Bridge and plummeting into the Thames had been.
And it was even nicer than parasailing with Erica back in Mexico, because while that had been part of a plan to infiltrate a stronghold full of enemy agents, our target this time was one of the finest art museums in the world.
All in all, I had been through a lot worse lately. Even though Erica was semi-blinded, I still trusted her to land us properly, so I wasn’t too concerned about that. The view of the city was quite lovely as well. My only real concern was that lots of people could see us coming down, as it was very hard to camouflage ourselves against a blue sky in the middle of the day—and quite a few of those people who could see us were police. It’s illegal to parachute into the middle of most major cities, and Paris was no exception. As we got closer to the ground, I noticed many patrolmen watching us intently. As they determined we were heading for the museum, they began heading there too. In droves.
The museum was a large target. It had once been a train station, so the roof was wide and flat, and since the building was right on the edge of the Seine, it was easy to keep track of. That didn’t mean I could have directed myself there alone, but Erica had little trouble getting us to it—although I did have to give her some guidance, given that her eyesight still wasn’t fully recovered. We stuck the landing right in the dead center of the roof.
The others were already down. Catherine had parked herself and Murray perfectly, and even though Mike had never parachuted before, his innate athletic ability had served him well. He and Zoe hadn’t executed a flawless landing, but they had made it to the proper building and had not injured them
selves.
The roof of the museum was seven stories up, high above much of the surrounding city, affording us a gorgeous view of Paris. It was a beautiful spring day. The temperature was perfect and the rooftop was warm after baking in the sun. It would have been a lovely place to sit if we hadn’t just flagrantly broken the law and attracted the attention of every policeman in Paris.
Sirens wailed in the streets below. Dozens of squad cars were racing toward the museum. The cops probably didn’t know we were the same fugitives wanted for the attack on the British Museum yet—but parachuting onto a national landmark was already enough of a crime for them to be coming en masse.
“We need to move fast,” Catherine said.
We quickly unhooked ourselves from one another and shed our jumpsuits. Erica tightly knotted the silk from two parachutes together, then wrapped the harness from one around a safety railing and tossed the rest over the northern edge of the roof.
Shortly beyond the rail, the roof curved gracefully downward. “Follow me,” Erica ordered, then hopped over the rail and used the parachutes as a rope to rappel down over the curve.
The rest of us obediently fell into line even before she was off the end of the parachutes, with Catherine bringing up the rear. There was a time when rappelling off a roof might have seemed scary to me, but I had done things like this in school several times by now, and as far as frightening activities were concerned, it paled in comparison to everything else we had done that day.
I stepped aside to allow Zoe the chance to go ahead of me, thinking she might at least appreciate my chivalry. She responded with a hard glare that indicated she was still angry at me, then got on the chute and disappeared over the edge of the roof.
I went next. Beyond the curve, the roof grew much steeper, but we weren’t heading all the way down to the street. Instead, there was only a ten-foot drop to a long, broad terrace on the sixth floor that served as outdoor dining for a museum café. Since it was a nice day and lunchtime, the terrace was crowded with tourists, most of whom were surprised to see us rappelling down from above.
Erica set the tone for how to handle this; she acted like our unorthodox arrival was no big deal at all. She didn’t even so much as say “Bonjour” to anyone. This was a perfect example of Bernetti’s Third Principle of Going Unobserved: If you pretend like your behavior is perfectly normal, most people will assume it’s perfectly normal, even if it’s not. The tourists watched us as we descended one after the other, but they didn’t make a fuss or alert security. If anything, some seemed jealous that we were doing this. I observed a few Americans desperately searching their guidebooks for rooftop tours of the museum.