0062120085. (C) (9 page)

I
T TOOK ME ABOUT FIVE MINUTES TO GET DOWN TO THE TRACK. I
wasn’t sure when exactly they’d expected me to find the message, so I had no idea if I was late or not. When I got down there, I saw two adults standing next to each other at the starting line.

One of them was Short Jensen. I was guessing that this would be about them trying to explain away what I’d witnessed the past few days. I wondered what kind of ridiculous story they’d try to spin.

“Carson,” Short Jensen said as I approached, “right on time.”

I smiled and then looked at the other guy. I did a double-take just to make sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. The other guy was also Mr. Jensen. The other Mr. Jensen. Tall Jensen.

“What’s he doing here?” I asked.

“We work together,” Short Jensen said.

“You’re a secret agent, too!” I said to Tall Jensen before I could stop myself. “You mean I could have delivered the package to either of you that whole time?”

“Yeah, about that,” Tall Jensen said. “What on earth motivated you to open it? You could have hurt someone.”

“Sorry,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

“Anyway,” Short Jensen said, “thank you for meeting us. And getting down here so quickly. I bet you’ve had . . . a pretty
strange
couple of days, right?”

I nodded. He smiled. He was acting slightly different from the way he did in class. I mean, still friendly but in a more formal sort of way. Professional. Almost cold.

“Well, it’s about to get even stranger,” he said, the smile quickly disappearing. “Carson, we need your help with something. Something important.”

“What kind of help?” I asked.

Short Jensen didn’t answer right away. He looked at me for a moment and then took something metal out of his pocket. I almost flinched, but then I saw it was just an old pocket watch, the kind that are round and flip open and closed. He opened it and looked at the face.

“Let me ask you this,” he said as he put the watch back into his pocket. “What would you guess is going on right now? Regarding Olek and myself and the package and the other Mr. Jensen?”

I considered my answer carefully. It seemed pretty obvious to me what was going on, but I wanted to think about it first to make sure I got it right. I wanted to prove to them that I wasn’t just some dumb kid.

“I’m guessing you’re secret agents of some kind,” I said. “Working for a government agency like the CIA, but I bet it’s not the CIA. I bet it’s some agency the public doesn’t even know exists. And the package clearly held top secret information, and Olek is someone you’re protecting for some reason that deals with national security.”

I’d learned a thing or two from Dillon over the years, that was for sure. Of course, I actually knew a little more about Olek’s situation than I was letting on, but I didn’t want to reveal that. I didn’t want to get Olek in trouble
for telling me too much yesterday. Plus, they might get suspicious if it seemed like I already knew too much.

The two Jensens exchanged a look.

“There’s more to it than that of course, but that’s actually pretty close,” Short Jensen said. “We
are
protecting Olek. There are certain people who are looking for him, and we’re trying to keep him hidden. Olek’s safety is directly tied to our national security, as you guessed.”

I shook my head. Not in disagreement but in general disbelief that this was actually happening. That Dillon might have actually been right about some of the things he claimed. That any of this could be true, here, now, in North Dakota. There actually had been big and cool and important stuff happening right under my nose the whole time. The question now was, how big was this exactly?

“Is it just you two? I mean, is the whole school full of secret agents?” I asked.

“There are more of us here, yes,” Tall Jensen answered. “But it’s not the entire faculty. It’s only a select handful of us. Most of the school’s employees don’t know any more about what is going on than you did four days ago.”

I nodded. “And you need . . . my help?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes,” Short Jensen said.

“Doing what? And why me? I mean . . . I don’t know how to be a secret agent. Plus, I’m a kid! How could I possibly be helpful?”

I obviously had no idea how to be a secret agent. But just the same, the idea of working with a couple of real-life secret agents sounded way cooler and bigger than anything I ever could have dreamed of happening in North Dakota. And so I couldn’t help but grin as wide as I probably ever had, even before they answered me.

They didn’t smile back. To them, this was serious business. So I tried my best to make my grin go away, and I think I mostly succeeded.

“There are a lot of reasons why we need your help,” Short Jensen started. “And
if
you agree to do so, then we can tell you more about what those reasons are. What I
can
tell you right now is that you can provide something that our other agents simply can’t. I’m not going to lie to you: This could get dangerous. I wouldn’t ever ask you to help us if our plans were to send you into harm’s way, of course, but as you learned yesterday, sometimes danger and trouble have ways of putting
themselves
in
your
way.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. So I just blinked.

“Please consider this request carefully,” Tall Jensen added. “This job is not something that can be taken
lightly. There are lives at stake, Carson. You can help save them.”

“What about my family and school? Will I have to leave them behind or something like that?”

“No. Your family will not be made aware of your involvement. As far as anyone will know, you’ll still just be Carson Fender, school troublemaker.” Short Jensen gave me the slightest smirk before checking his watch again.

“Olek already thinks I’m a secret agent,” I said. “Did you know that?”

“We know,” Tall Jensen said.

“So what happens if I say no?” I asked, testing them. “Will you guys, like, memory wipe me or something?”

Neither Mr. Jensen even so much as cracked a smile.

“Nothing quite like that,” Tall Jensen said. “We’ll simply deny any of this ever occurred. You know as well as I do that nobody would ever believe you anyway.”

That wasn’t technically true. Dillon would believe me. But his point was well made just the same.

“Carson,” Short Jensen said. “We don’t want you to answer us right now. We really want you to take a night to think it over. This shouldn’t be a quick decision. You really should weigh the pros and cons, because once
you say yes, you’ll be privy to information that you can’t unlearn. You’ll likely never look at your hometown the same way again. You need to consider all of these things. This meeting will end in twenty-five seconds, at which time you will go back into the school and go on with your day. Please take the night to think this over. Then meet us right here tomorrow morning at eight o’clock sharp and let us know your decision. If you decide not to help us, this conversation never happened. Are we clear?”

Nothing that ever happened to me in my whole life had prepared me for working with secret agents and spies on some sort of covert mission. I mean, a kid in North Dakota has about the calmest, safest life imaginable. How could anyone living here be ready for something like this?

“Mr. Jensen,” I said. “How can I really make this decision? I mean, I’m just a kid.”

Once again, he didn’t hesitate before answering.

“Yes, Carson, you might be just a kid . . . but if you shouldn’t be making this decision, then who should?”

With that, both Jensens turned and walked away, across the football field inside the track. The lunch bell rang behind me. I watched them for a few more moments
and then headed back toward the school. The whole thing was still too surreal to even take seriously. I mean, it was like the plot of some ridiculous movie on the Disney Channel or something.

T
HE REST OF THAT DAY PASSED IN A BLUR. I COULDN’T EVEN TELL
you half the things I did or said or saw. All I could think about was the Jensens’ offer.

On the surface, the decision was still a no-brainer. What kid could possibly say no to getting to work as a real-life secret agent? The choice wasn’t even much of a choice at all the way I saw it: I could help them and finally do something extraordinary in North Dakota, finally be a part of something bigger and more exciting, or I could say no and go back to being so bored that I let herds of
goats loose on school property just to keep things interesting.

The more I thought about it that night, though, the more uncertain I became. Based on what I’d already seen go down, I knew being a secret agent wasn’t like in the movies. It wasn’t all fun, cool action scenes where you know everything will be okay in the end. If I did this, I could get killed. I might have to kill. People die doing this. I hadn’t even needed to see the Jensens’ stony facial expressions to know that. And quite frankly, I wasn’t sure if I wanted any part of a responsibility as big as someone else’s life. The most stressful decision I’d made up to that point in my life was whether to run my cafeteria prank on pizza day or taco day. It was hard to imagine being responsible for a whole country’s safety.

But then . . . it wasn’t just another person or a country that needed my help. It was Olek. If I were to choose to do this, it couldn’t be
only
because I thought it would be cool to be a secret agent, and that it would finally add something awesome and exciting to living in North Dakota. Olek needed my help.

And it would be my choice. My entire life, I’d been used to everyone making decisions for me. My parents decided where we lived. They bought all my food and all
my clothes. I did most of my homework myself, but it was still teachers deciding for me what I was going to study, what I was going to learn. I had even let Gomez decide what I would be doing after school every day, with the whole detention game we played.

The only decisions I had really made for myself, I realized, were the ones about my pranks. That had been my big contribution to the world: messing with people in a humorous fashion. I was finally old enough to start making my own choices, finally smart enough to start figuring things out for myself, and that’s what I was spending my time doing? Gluing stuff to teachers’ desks?

My whole life I’d always thought I hated responsibility, but maybe that’s what had always been missing? Maybe that’s why everything in North Dakota had always felt so empty to me? Because nothing I’d ever been a part of made me responsible for anything significant. The only decisions I’d ever made for myself carried no weight of responsibility with them at all. No weight of anything that mattered.

I felt a bit sick to my stomach. There were big things happening in the world. And the people who dealt with them, the people who decided if the world got better or the world got worse, they weren’t doing it because
someone forced them to. They were doing it because they chose to.

The world, and especially North Dakota, it seemed to me in that moment, was full of people who avoided making big decisions. Now I had a chance to make one myself. What would I do with it?

I
CRAWLED OUT OF BED AT 7:30 THE FOLLOWING MORNING, WHICH
is a really hard thing to do on a Saturday, even if you slept well the night before, which I hadn’t. I ate breakfast, got dressed, and told my mom I was heading to Dillon’s. But of course that’s not where I was headed at all.

I rode my bike to the school’s football field, right where I’d met both Mr. Jensens the day before during lunch. I checked my watch as I arrived, I was right on time, just like they’d said to be.

Both Mr. Jensens were there again. Standing in the
exact same spot on the track that they had been yesterday. Short Jensen actually smiled briefly when he saw me pedaling toward them. Tall Jensen gave me a head nod.

“I’m glad you’re here,” said Short Jensen as I dismounted my bike. “Have you made your decision?”

“I have,” I said. “I’m in.”

“Good.”

“So how does this work? Do I have to go to Agency Headquarters and get some microchip implanted in my leg or something?”

The Jensens glanced at each other.

“No, not exactly,” Short Jensen said. “Like I said yesterday, we have a very specific mission for you, one that neither of us would be able to do ourselves. One that only someone like you could do.”

“Okay,” I said, not sure what he was getting at.

“What he’s trying to say is that you’re not becoming a full agent,” Tall Jensen said. “You’re just going to be assisting us with a special assignment.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling a little stupid.

“But you’ll still be doing official Agency business,” Short Jensen said. “Let’s head inside to my office, where it’s secure. We have something we need to show you that will help explain everything.”

I locked up my bike at the bike rack near the football field parking lot and then followed them toward the school. Short Jensen turned and spoke to me as we walked.

“We’ll first give you a bit of background on what we’re doing here. Just the things you need to know in order to complete the mission we’ve laid out for you. Your involvement is on somewhat of a need-to-know basis within the Agency, so most directives will be carried out through back channels. We’ll have you back home by later this afternoon. Do you need to call your parents to let them know you’ll be gone past lunch?”

“No, that’ll be fine. She thinks I’m at my friend’s house.”

The Jensens walked a little faster as we neared the school, and it was getting hard to keep up with them. I almost had to jog.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” I said. “Is the janitor in on this? Is he an Agency employee?”

“You’re wondering if he’s okay, I assume?” Short Jensen said.

“Yeah. That guy hit him in the head pretty hard.”

“Yes, he’s fine. He’ll have a headache for a few days but no permanent damage.”

I nodded but noticed he hadn’t answered my first question.

“So, let’s assume he’s not an agent, because I don’t think he is,” I said. “Then what? I mean, wasn’t your cover blown in front of him?”

The two Jensens looked at each other. Then they stopped and turned around to face me just as we reached the edge of the basketball courts adjacent to the school’s east entrance.

“It’s a valid question, Carson,” Short Jensen said. “One that I think deserves an honest answer.”

“Okay,” I said, suddenly feeling sick to my stomach, sure that they were going to tell me he’d been sent to a holding facility in Siberia for the sake of national security. Tall Jensen spoke first.

“Do you remember yesterday when you asked about us wiping your memory if you declined to work with us?”

“What? Are you serious!?” I said, more loudly than I’d intended. “You really do that kind of thing?”

“Yes, Carson, we have to do that kind of thing from time to time. The janitor will be just fine. It’s for his own safety that he not remember what happened. It’s much better if he thinks he simply fell off a ladder and hit his head while changing a light bulb in the school that night.”

I didn’t say anything right away. I just looked down at their feet. They had wiped what happened from his memory. I didn’t even know there was a way to do that. It was crazy, and scary. Though, deep down, in a place I didn’t really want to listen to, I had to admit it was kind of cool.

“But how? How can you erase only a specific portion of his memory? Do you have some cool sci-fi gadget like in
Men in Black
or something?”

“Not quite,” Short Jensen said. “There’s a certain chemical we can administer. The right dosage erases certain amounts of a person’s short-term memory by increasing the production of GABA, which inhibits neuron activity in the hippocampus, interfering with short-term memory formation.”

“You’re talking about a drug?” I said.

“Yes, it’s a heavily modified form of a drug named Gabapentin. Other side effects are minimal, and if dosed correctly, will not affect long-term memory production or retention.”

“You say all that like it’s memorized,” I said.

Short Jensen smirked. “Yes, Carson, I did memorize that. I’m not a chemist, after all. I only know as much as our team of pharmaceutical scientists tell me. Every cog
in the Agency is made up of the most talented and intelligent individuals in their respective fields.”

“I hate to interrupt,” said Tall Jensen, “but if we stop to answer every question, this might take all day.”

“Yes, you’re right,” Short Jensen said. “No more questions until we’re inside.”

I nodded.

Then we continued through the empty student parking lot up to the school’s east entrance, making our way to Short Jensen’s music room office. It was a fairly normal office, I guess, with a desk, computer, two chairs, and small filing cabinet. But it was also different from most teachers’ offices in that it had a bunch of old instruments strewn about, including a small piano in the corner.

“Kind of cramped for all three of us, isn’t it?” I said.

Short Jensen merely glanced at me and then leaned over the piano keys. He bent down and played a short tune that I didn’t recognize. A few seconds later, part of the office wall next to the piano slid away to reveal a narrow metal door.

“That was Agent Hambone’s idea,” Short Jensen said with a faint smile. “The piano thing. He’s our assistant security director. A quirky guy, but good at what he does.”

I didn’t know what to say to that so I just nodded
dumbly. A secret office within an office? This was getting pretty cool already.

Then I noticed a small digital pad on the front of the metal door. Short Jensen placed his index finger on it and then leaned his face in close. A red line of light passed over his eye and the pad under his finger blinked green.

The door slid open.

“Carson, welcome to my real office,” he said as he stepped aside.