Agents of the Glass (17 page)

Winter beamed at Andy. “Howard Twopenny is your
father
? That is so…cool. Why didn't you tell me? My mom loves his show. He's so…honest, you know what I mean? He says what everybody else is thinking. And he's
famous.
”

“Um, yeah,” he mumbled. “That's my dad. Tellin' it like it is, even when he has no idea what he's talking about.”

“My, this is an interesting turn of events, don't you think?” Silas said in Andy's ear as the audience rose, ready to move on to the mini-seminars scattered throughout the four conference rooms on the sixty-fifth floor. “Your father working for the very company that you're trying to stop. You'd better go congratulate him and introduce everyone.”

“Do I have to?” Andy murmured softly.

“Can you introduce me to your dad?” Winter asked.

“There's your answer,” Silas said.

Howard was charming a group of NTRP flunkies as Andy approached, with Jensen and Winter a half step behind. His shocked expression at seeing his son in that setting quickly gave way to a bewildered smile.

“Hey, look who's here!” he bellowed in his Radio Dad voice. “This some kind of school trip?”

“I guess this is the surprise that Mom mentioned. Why didn't you tell me that you got a new job?”

Ignoring the question for the moment, Howard looked over Andy's shoulder. “These friends of yours?”

Winter stepped forward, hand outstretched. “Mr. Twopenny, so nice to meet you. My name is Winter Neale. I
love
your show. I was just telling Andy that we listen to you at home all the time.”

“Thank you, Winter. That's a great name, by the way. You're obviously a young woman with impeccable taste.” He turned to look at Jensen. “And you are…”

No gushing, no offer to shake his hand, not even a smile. “Jensen. Huntley. Hihowyadoin'?”

Howard grimaced and placed his hand over his heart as if he'd been shot. “
Ouch.
I guess you're
not
a fan.”

Jensen shrugged and shook her head ever so slightly. “Yeah, no.”

Howard roared with laughter. “That's all right. That's why there's a dial to change stations. If you don't like me, you don't have to listen. Well, until we put the competition out of business, that is.” Making a show of checking his massive gold watch, he added, “Time for me to hit the road. Big meeting with some creative types. What do you think of this watch, An? Gift from Victor. Hey, speak of the devil, there he is! And…there he goes.”

Andy twisted around in time to see Victor Plante nod and half smile at Howard before turning and heading for the exit, where a thin man, all in gray, waited for him.

As Winter was taking a selfie with Howard, Jensen whispered to Andy, “Did you see who that was, over by the exit?”

“Uh-huh. The guy from the pictures. Ponytail. You see where he went?”

“Sort of. Let's go—maybe we can get an interview.”

Andy waved at Howard. “See you at home, I guess.”

Howard pulled him close. “We'll talk later,” he whispered in his ear.

“Let's
go,
” Jensen insisted, jerking Andy away.

“Where are you two going?” Winter asked.

“We'll be right back,” said Jensen.

“Well…shouldn't I come with you?”

Jensen summoned her bossy producer voice: “No. Go set up some interviews. Important people. No lackeys. I want to talk to somebody who actually knows what goes on in this dump—and is willing to talk about it.”

Winter looked suspicious, but let them race off without further argument. Silas had his own doubts about the decision to ditch Winter for the moment, but he was curious to see where the trail led them, so he didn't try to stop Andy.

“There!” cried Jensen, spotting the heel of a man's shoe disappearing around a corner. By the time they got to that corner, though, he had slipped through one of the three unmarked doors that lined the hallway. Andy, sensing an opportunity, executed a feetfirst slide in an attempt to get (literally!) a foot in the still-closing door. He missed by inches, and the door clanged shut.

“Yer out!” cried Jensen in a perfect impersonation of an umpire. She reached down and yanked him to his feet. “Gutsy attempt, though, Jeter. Half a point for the effort.”

“Now what?” Andy asked. He tried the door handle; it was locked, and so were the other two.

“I guess we find Winter and shoot some interviews—get that out of the way. There's got to be somebody willing to tell the truth about this place. It can't be that hard. We just have to find that person and ask the right questions.”

“All right, but I need to find a restroom first. I think I saw a sign back there. Meet you in the big auditorium.”

“Okay, Howie.”

“Hilarious.”

A few minutes later, as he was about to exit the restroom, with its expanses of polished marble and dark wood paneling (probably cut from an endangered species of tree, he decided), Andy noticed something odd. On the wall to the right of the door, one edge of a single section of the paneling looked as if it had sprung loose from the rest. What really caught his attention, though, was the sliver of light sneaking out from behind the wall. He ran his fingers down the long edge and then gently pulled the panel toward him. To his surprise, the panel swung open; it was a hidden door—no knob, no visible hinges, absolutely nothing to give away its true identity. If it had been properly closed, he never would have seen it.

He leaned his head and shoulders inside to see where the door led.

“What do you see?” Silas asked.

“It's kind of like a deep closet. Looks like it goes back about ten feet. After that, I can't tell if it ends or makes a—Uh-oh, someone's coming into the bathroom.” He stepped all the way inside and pulled the door closed with the handle on the back.

“What are you doing?” Silas asked, slightly panicky at the thought of him getting stuck. “I've lost the picture. Did you turn the light out?”

“It went out by itself. There must be a switch here somewhere.” There was a pause of a few seconds while Andy groped around in the dark, looking for it.

“Use your phone,” said Silas.

“Good idea…Ah!”

The picture returned to Silas's screen as Andy flipped the light switch. “Much better. Just wait until whoever it is leaves, and then get out of there.”

“Mm-hmm. Hold on.” Andy crept silently to the end of the “closet.” “Hey, it's not the end,” he whispered. “It turns and goes about ten feet, and then I can see stairs going up.”

“Say that again.
What
do you see?”

“Stairs.”

It was too soon, Silas felt, to ask Andy to do what he was about to ask, but these were extraordinary circumstances that he simply could not ignore. An agent—one who was unknown to anyone outside the Agents of the Glass—was
inside
NTRP headquarters, and he had stumbled into a secret passage that appeared to lead to the sixty-sixth floor, home to the offices of the leaders of the organization. To stop him now was to waste an opportunity that the Agency might not see again for years, if ever. If Andy were an experienced agent, Silas thought, he wouldn't even hesitate, but he had to face the facts. Andy was a kid with zero experience at this sort of thing. It would be foolish to put him in danger without knowing more about what
might
lie beyond that staircase; maybe it would be worth it, maybe not. Andy had already proven himself to be a valuable asset, but if he went forward and was caught snooping, his spying days would likely be over.

In the end, Andy made the decision easy.

“You want me to go up?” he asked.

“I do but I don't,” Silas said. “I'll be honest. I would be thrilled if you went, but I don't want you to go if you don't feel ready. There's no way of telling what you might be walking into. If you get caught…”

“I won't. And if I do, I'll tell them I got lost.”

“It may not be that”—but Andy was already halfway up the stairs—“easy.”

A right turn at the top, another short passageway, and then a dead end and almost complete darkness. Andy used the light from his phone to search for a switch for the fixture directly over his head, but no luck.

“I can feel a handle,” he said. “I'm going to open the door and peek out.”

“Peek quietly.
Please.
And do me a favor—hold the pen in front of you so I have a better view. Keep the lens pointing out.” Andy pushed gently on the door, opening it no more than an inch, and held the pen up to it. “Good, that's perfect. It looks like a small library. A few nice reading tables, bookcases all around. You'll have to be careful. Directly across from you is a glass door….I can't see much so you're on your own.”

“Okay, I'm going in,” said Andy, slipping through the door.

“Wait! Don't close the door all the way, or you might not be able to open it. Block it open an inch or two. Just don't make it obvious.”

Andy glanced around the room for something to prop the door open with as the aroma of musty leather-bound books hit him. There was nothing else within reach, so without a glance at the title, he pulled a thin volume from the nearest shelf, wedged it against the doorframe, and pushed the door closed. As he tiptoed around the perimeter of the room, he noticed two things about the books that filled every inch of shelf space: They were ancient, and almost all the titles he could read were foreign-sounding.

“Which way?” he asked, opening the glass door and looking up and down the hallway.

“Do you hear anything?”

He stuck his head out a bit farther. “Nothing. It's weird how quiet it is in here. Maybe everybody's downstairs at that boring conference.” He turned left out of the library and hurried down the hall to the next glass door. “Empty office. Door's locked.”

The next three doors were the same, so he kept going until he reached a set of sliding glass doors that caught him by surprise when they opened automatically, triggered by his approach. He ducked through the opening, cringing and waiting for the inevitable
clank
that would give him away as the two doors converged. But they came together with barely a
whishhh,
and he took a couple of deep breaths, trying to calm himself.

Spinning slowly where he stood, he counted six walls around him. The room was a perfect hexagon, and at the center of each wall was a set of doors exactly like the ones he had come through.

“They're all the same, and there's no numbers or marks on the doors or the walls. How am I going to find my way back?”

“You must have some way to make a mark. Use your shoes to scuff up the floor.”

“It's not working. Hey, I know:
bread crumbs.
”

“What?”

“I stuck a bagel in my pocket earlier. You know, in case I got hungry later in the day.” He tore it into pieces and scattered them around the door in front of him.

“Good thinking, Hansel. Are you sure you haven't done this before?”

“I think I'd remember….Hey, I just saw something. I'm going to check it out.”

He edged up to a set of glass doors, dashing through them as they opened. Halfway down the hall, he heard footsteps ahead and flattened himself against a windowless wooden door. Reaching behind his back, he twisted the brass handle, holding his breath and praying that it was unlocked and that there was no one inside. To his relief, the door clicked open, and he backed himself into a dark storage closet—or at least that was his first impression as he turned around to investigate, almost face-planting into a stack of cardboard boxes, marked with the years from 1967 to 1979. The room itself was maybe eight feet square, low-ceilinged, uncomfortably warm, and quite dark. The only light flickered through a narrow opening in one wall, about a foot high and four or five feet wide, in front of which was parked a pair of enormous film projectors, the kind you would find in a movie theater. They were covered in dust and long unused, but like nosy neighbors peering over a fence, their lenses continued to poke through the slot in the wall and onto the private screening room below.

When Andy peeked through the opening, he couldn't believe his eyes. The scene below him was like something from a movie star's home: a ceiling-mounted digital projector, a screen that took up an entire wall, five rows of plush leather seats, a popcorn machine on wheels, and every kind of liquor imaginable lined up on the shelves behind a glistening wooden bar.

“What's going on? Where are you? I can't see anything,” Silas said. The lens of the spy pen, back in Andy's shirt pocket, was pressed against the wall.

“It's cool, like a miniature movie theater. I'm above it, in the projector room.”

“Is there anybody there?”

“Five, no, six people. Looks like two women, and then two men right behind them, and then two more men by the door. Two
big
guys. The lights are on; there's nothing on the screen. They're just talking.”

“I need to see them. The camera.”

“Oh, right. I forgot.” As he aimed the pen out through the opening, he recognized the girl on the right. “Hey, that's
Winter.
What is she doing up here?”

“Are you positive? My picture is a little grainy.”

“Yep, that's her. She just turned around and said something to a guy with a beard. And a bow tie.”

“Great. I know who he is. How about the other two…Wait…come on, turn a little more. That's it….Why, hello, Fallon.”

“Who's that?”

“An old friend. Remember when I told you about someone betraying us? You're looking at her. Fallon Mishra. Among other things, she's a ninth
dan
black belt in kendo. She's fascinating and brilliant and beautiful…and utterly treacherous. You and Jensen should try to get an interview. Just be careful.”

“Sounds like you have a crush on her.”

“No, but I
respect
what she's capable of doing. Now, how about the other man? He could be important. Try to get me a—What just happened? Why did my picture go dark?”

“Um…I kind of…dropped the pen.”