Spy School British Invasion

by Stuart Gibbs

  Erica hadn’t accepted the éclair from her mother.

  “You’re sure you don’t want this?” Catherine asked. “I know you don’t like carbohydrates and refined sugars, but you could really use the energy boost right now. And it tastes divine.”

  There was a scream of rage behind us, coupled with several screams of terror.

  I spun around to see that Dane Brammage was coming after us, clutching a large kitchen cleaver. He was even more coated in icing than Catherine, and a large dollop of raspberry cream on his face made it look as though he had suffered a nasty head wound. The sight of him scared the pants off many unfortunate tourists.

  Erica shot her mother an annoyed look. “I thought you said he wouldn’t be bothering us anymore.”

  “I thought I’d taken care of him,” Catherine said apologetically. “That man is bloody hard to stop.”

  “Tell me about it.” I groaned.

  Dane charged down the stairs toward us, the cleaver raised over his head like a battle-ax. With his enormous bulk, it was as though a train were bearing down on us.

  Catherine took the remaining éclair and squeezed it as hard as she could, firing a stream of cream filling onto the stairs. Either Dane didn’t see it due to the raspberry jam dripping into his eyes, or he did see it and simply couldn’t stop himself in time. He stepped right in the slick cream, and his feet went out from under him. We leapt aside as he tumbled past us and smashed right through the protective grating at the next landing. He passed from our sight after that, but we heard a few clangs and Danish curses as he bounced off the iron struts and then the distinct sound of a very large cream-slathered thug crashing through the roof of the ticket office.

  This was followed by a great number of screams. Probably the people in line for tickets.

  “We’ve ruined the vacations of a whole lot of people today,” Erica observed as we started running back down the stairs.

  “We did save the world again,” I pointed out.

  “True,” Erica admitted. “But none of them know that.”

  Above us, we could hear more people charging down the stairs after us. Whether they were police or SPYDER agents, I couldn’t tell.

  We arrived at the base of the stairs, reaching the great plaza in front of the tower. The plaza was teeming with souvenir sellers, caricaturists, mimes, and tourists, although everyone seemed to be distracted by the various bodies that had fallen from the tower. I was thrilled to finally be back on solid ground, but there was no time to celebrate.

  A dozen police cars were coming toward us, lights flashing and sirens wailing. They swerved off the road along the bank of the Seine and raced across the plaza.

  Despite the éclair I’d wolfed down, I had almost no energy left. It was taking almost every ounce of strength I still had to remain standing. There was simply no way I could keep running—and from the looks of it, Catherine and Erica weren’t in much better shape.

  Just as I was about to give in to despair, however, salvation arrived.

  With a roar, our helicopter came zooming in from the other direction, almost at ground level. Alexander piloted it right under the tower and directly over our heads. The wash from the rotors upended the cheap souvenir shacks in the plaza and sent a flurry of caricatures flying toward the police cars, which had to slam on their brakes.

  The helicopter dropped to the ground in the gap between us and the police. The door swung open, revealing Zoe and Mike, who waved for us to climb aboard.

  We clambered inside as quickly as we could.

  Orion was in one of the jump seats, still in his pajamas.

  Ms. E was bound and gagged with duct tape in the seat next to him.

  “Alexander shook the other copter and came back to get us!” Mike explained.

  “We brought SPYDER’s computer!” Zoe added. “We’ve got the list of double agents and a ton of other evidence. They’re going down for good… ”

  She didn’t get to finish the statement, as her eyes suddenly went wide in terror.

  Jenny Lake was standing only a few feet away from us. Unlike the rest of SPYDER’s agents, she had remained on the ground, perhaps waiting for a moment just like this to ambush us.

  There was a gun clutched in her hand, and it seemed to be aimed directly at me.

  But before she could fire it, she gasped in pain, then pitched forward and face-planted in the plaza. A sedation dart was sticking out of her neck.

  We slammed the door shut, and Alexander lifted the helicopter into the air.

  “Which of you fired that dart?” I asked.

  No one answered.

  “None of us did?” I asked.

  “Guess not.” Erica sank into a jump seat, exhausted, then looked to her father. “Nice timing, Dad.”

  “Nice work taking care of that EMP!” Alexander replied. He gave Erica a proud grin and, to my surprise, she returned it. Which was the first time I could recall Erica smiling at her father.

  I wanted nothing more than to sit down, but I stayed pressed against the window, looking at the ground as it dropped away below us, wondering who had come to my rescue and taken out Jenny Lake.

  The police were pouring out of their cars and shaking their fists in rage at us. The souvenir salespeople and caricaturists and mimes all looked annoyed too. Hundreds of tourists were watching the show.

  Although one person in particular caught my eye.

  It was the one person who wasn’t watching us. Instead, he was walking away from the plaza where Jenny Lake was sprawled, unconscious—and away from the police as well, heading for the cover of the trees at the edge of the plaza.

  The person had a very distinct, shambling gait.

  The police helicopter that had been hovering around the tower all along now dropped in beside us.

  Catherine slid into the seat next to Alexander, beaming at him. “Think you can lose these guys too?”

  “Sure,” Alexander said. “This is all coming back to me. It’s just like Karachi all over again. Although I don’t have enough fuel to get us back to England.”

  “Then get us to the French countryside,” Catherine said. “I’m sure we can find a safe place to lie low and keep a close eye on Ms. E until all this bother gets straightened out. It might take a few days, but I think we could all use a nice vacation.”

  Everyone else chimed in enthusiastically.

  “Hey!” Orion exclaimed. “I think I own a château in the French countryside. Or maybe it’s in Switzerland. Anyhow, you’re all welcome to lie low there for a few weeks.”

  “Really?” Zoe asked.

  “Sure,” Orion said. “I know you broke into my house and threw my life out of whack and all, but honestly, my life was boring. Being forced to lie low because I was working for criminals was lame. I only want to work for the good guys now. You guys are awesome!” He paused a moment, then added, “Er…you’re not planning to arrest me for working with the bad guys, are you?”

  “I suppose we could keep you out of jail in return for helping us take down SPYDER,” Catherine said.

  The helicopter was now quite high above the ground.

  The person I was watching was just a dot down below us, although right before he stepped into the trees, he looked up toward me. And even though I couldn’t possibly see his face from that height, I had the distinct sense that he’d winked at me. And maybe even grinned.

  Murray Hill.

  I wasn’t sure what Murray was up to. Maybe he was plotting something devious once again. Or maybe he was just slinking off to lie low himself for a while. Knowing Murray, it was probably something devious, but there was nothing I could do about it at the moment, seeing as we were all fugitives from justice ourselves.

  Alexander suddenly banked the helicopter to the left, making an evasive maneuver.

  We all had to grab on to the sides of the helicopter to keep from falling over.

  Ms. E tumbled out of her seat, rolled across the floor, and banged painfully into the wall.


  We raced above the city of Paris with the police in pursuit.

  I grabbed a jump seat in between Erica and Zoe. Mike strapped in across the helicopter next to Orion.

  Orion was right. My friends were awesome. We might have had our issues on occasion, but overall we were an incredible team. We had tracked down and captured Ms. E, and we now had the evidence to bring down SPYDER once and for all as well. Which was something the entire CIA had failed to do.

  I was still bothered that Murray Hill was on the loose, wondering how he had managed that and what he might be plotting now.

  But I had something much more important to focus on first.

  I sat back against the wall of the helicopter, placed my head against Zoe’s shoulder…

  And fell fast asleep.

  April 4

  [Redacted X X X X], France

  Dear Cyrus,

  I hear that you are recovering from your concussion and no longer believe that you’re in the Revolutionary War. Or that you are a giant chicken. (I’m not sure if you ever believed that last part, to be honest. Erica told me that and she might have been joking. Anyhow, I’m glad you’re feeling better.)

  I hear you have been in touch with Alexander about the success of Operation Screaming Vengeance, but I wanted to bring up a few things with you:

  1) I am still worried about my parents’ safety. I know that, thanks to the evidence we recovered on Ms. E’s computer, we have revealed who all the double agents are in the CIA, the FBI, MI6, and lots of other spy agencies—as well as governments all over the world—and that those people have all been arrested. And I know that SPYDER has been destroyed once and for all, and that Ms. E is in jail, and that all the other leaders of the organization are being hunted down and captured. But I fear that not everyone will be caught, and even if they are, there are plenty of other bad guys out there in the world. If SPYDER can threaten my parents, so can they.

  Jawaharlal O’Shea and Chip Schacter might not be able to protect my family next time someone wants to use them to get to me. So is there any way we can protect them? And while you’re at it, can we get word to them that I’m safe and sound and that anything they might have heard about me being wanted for breaking into the British Museum and destroying artifacts was a case of mistaken identity…again?

  2) While I’m at it, it’d be nice if I—and everyone else on Operation Screaming Vengeance—could be cleared of the charges against us. I know we destroyed parts of several museums and monuments, but that was all done in the name of bringing SPYDER down. Catherine tells me that people are working to clear our names, but that it’s bogged down because the English and French are still really annoyed about the trouble we caused. So as a respected spy with government connections, anything you could do to expedite the process would be greatly appreciated. We are having fun here in [Redacted X X X X] for the time being, but it’d still be nice to not be wanted criminals.

  3) Murray Hill seems to be on the loose again. The more I think about it, the more I am sure that it was Murray himself who tipped the French police off that we were coming to Paris. Yes, it grabbed the attention of the police when we parachuted onto a national museum in broad daylight, but there are some things about their response that now seem suspicious to me. They seemed to be looking for us, rather than some random parachutists, as they recognized us when they saw us. There is no way that could have happened without them knowing we were coming—and almost no one knew we were coming to Paris. Also, I know Murray Hill. There is no way he would ever sacrifice himself for other people unless he had something to gain from it.

  I am guessing that he got ahold of Alexander’s phone at some point on our flight, alerted the police, and then possibly made some sort of deal with them for his freedom in return for the information. I’m aware that I don’t have any facts or evidence to back this up, but I’m positive I saw Murray going free just as we were leaving the Eiffel Tower.

  Well, I’m 95 percent positive it was him.

  4) This isn’t exactly official CIA business, but since you’re still down in Mexico recovering, do you think you could get me another T-shirt from Aquarius? The one I wore on my mission got all torn up and still smells like sewage. Boys medium. I’ll pay you back. It’d just be nice to have something to remember the mission by.

  Thanks,

  Agent Benjamin Ripley

  acknowledgments

  This book, like Spy School Goes South, started with a vacation. My family and I went to England and France, where we visited many of the locations in this book, and quite often my kids would tell me, “This would be a great place for an action sequence.” Since my children are both very smart, I listened to them. We even spent quite a bit of time working out that final sequence on the Eiffel Tower. (They were not so pleased when I took them down to explore the Paris sewers, however.)

  So thank you to my children, Dashiell and Violet, for your great ideas, and to my in-laws, Barry and Carole Patmore, for accompanying us, and to Sir David and Lady Gillian John for hosting us at their home in the Cotswolds, which was not quite as big as the palace in the book, but was still quite magnificent and incredibly fun to play hide-and-seek in. (By the way, I did not make up most of those names of towns in the Cotswolds. They really exist. Even Upper and Lower Slaughter.) Finally, thanks are due to my wife, Suzanne, who passed away tragically last year, but who accompanied me on several trips to London and Paris, all of which provided inspiration for this book.

  In the wake of Suzanne’s death last year, I foolishly omitted thanking a few dear friends in the acknowledgments of Spy School Goes South, so I wanted to make up for that here. I am so thankful to Jenny Grin, Sheryl Gibbs, Tom and Brooke Krasnoff, Danna Young, Marti Noxon, Jeff Bynum, Meeghan Holloway, Carey and Greg Lesser, Barbara Raymond, Deb and Beny Levy, Jeff Still—and, of course, Georgia Simon, who has always been an incredibly loyal and trusted friend (although many people consider her my third child). And thanks to my main support crew throughout the year: Alan Patmore and Sarah Cradeur, David and Tara Stern, Ken Parker and Carol Normandin, Garrett Reisman and Simone Francis, Christopher Heisen and Laura Diamond, Cheryl Bosnak and David Bosnak, Rachel BenDavid and Jon Steinberg, HJ Paik and Bill Johnson, Adam Zarembok, and Kevin Maynard.

  Thanks are also due to a few fellow authors and members of the writing community who have continued to provide friendship and support over the last year: Christina Soontornvat, Varian Johnson, Ally Carter, Karina Yan Glasser, James Ponti, Rose Brock, and Sarah Mlynowski. And I simply couldn’t have made it through this last year without the help of my parents, Ronald and Jane Gibbs; my sister, Suz; her husband, Darragh; and my niece, Ciara; and our amazing family helper, Andrea Lee Gomez.

  My intern, Kelly Heinzerling, did some fantastic research for this book. Plus, I am deeply indebted to everyone on my team at Simon & Schuster: Liz Kossnar, Justin Chanda, Anne Zafian, Lucy Ruth Cummins, Milena Giunco, Audrey Gibbons, Lisa Moraleda, Jenica Nasworthy, Chrissy Noh, Anna Jarzab, Nicole Benevento, Devin MacDonald, Christina Pecorale, Victor Iannone, Emily Hutton, Caitlin Nalven, and Theresa Pang. And as usual, I must give massive props to my incredible agent, Jennifer Joel, for making all this possible.

  Finally, I would like to thank the hundreds of readers (and parents of readers) who wrote to me offering support over the last year. When I wrote in the acknowledgments of Spy School Goes South about my wife’s death, it never occurred to me that I would hear from so many of you. (I guess more of you read the acknowledgments than I realized.) Thanks so much for taking the time to write to me. Every single message means a great deal.

  about the author

  STUART GIBBS is the New York Times bestselling author of the FunJungle, Moon Base Alpha, and Spy School series. He has also written screenplays for movies, worked on a whole bunch of animated films, developed TV shows, and researched capybaras (the world’s largest rodents). He has never worked as a spy—but then, if he had, he couldn’t tell you anyway, because it’d be classified. Stuart lives with
his family in Los Angeles. You can learn more about what he’s up to at stuartgibbs.com.

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  Also by Stuart Gibbs

  The FunJungle series

  Belly Up

  Poached

  Big Game

  Panda-monium

  Lion Down

  The Spy School series

  Spy School

  Spy Camp

  Evil Spy School

  Spy Ski School

  Spy School Secret Service

  Spy School Goes South

  The Moon Base Alpha series

  Space Case

  Spaced Out

  Waste of Space

  The Last Musketeer

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2019 by Stuart Gibbs

  Jacket design and principal illustration by Lucy Ruth Cummins, copyright © 2019 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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