Only the Good Spy Young (Gallagher Girls) (4 page)

O
ver the next six nights the Baxters and I slept in five different safe houses.

There was a seemingly abandoned gardener’s shed on an old estate in Scotland, an apartment with a view of Big Ben, a cottage in Wales, and something that could best be described as a small castle, which came complete with a suit of armor and a peacock.

Every morning we would drive. Every second there were guards.

Sure, you might think that having full access to that many covert strongholds would have made Bex and me the envy of the entire student body; but as a rule, we Gallagher Girls don’t envy anything that involves guards (when you’re the guard
ee
) and spiders (and MI6 safe houses have
a lot
of spiders).

On the sixth night I woke in a narrow bed to the peaceful sound of Bex’s breathing and something else—a muffled word: “Cavan.”

For a moment, I lay there, then I slipped out of the lower bunk.

The floorboards were surprisingly quiet beneath my bare feet. It was freezing, but I didn’t stop to rummage through the duffel bags and suitcases that sat open but neatly packed, ready for a quick escape. Instead, I walked out to the hall and eased toward the narrow, crooked staircase that led from the second story to the small landing outside the kitchen.

Perched on the landing, I could see Mr. Baxter’s legs as he sat at the kitchen table, shifting slightly as he spoke. “Have you seen Rachel?”

“Yes,” a woman said in a hoarse whisper.

“I’m surprised that was possible,” Mrs. Baxter said.

The woman laughed softly. “Well, I wasn’t in the mood to hear that it was
impossible
.”

“I see,” Mrs. Baxter said.

“Grace, how is she?” the woman asked.

“Fine,” Mrs. Baxter said. “Should I go get her?”

“No.”

I stood in the dark listening, while the wind blew and the castle moaned and the woman said, “Let the squirt have her sleep.”

There was only one person in the world who had ever called me Squirt, so I didn’t think—I just stood, ready to bolt down the narrow stairs toward my aunt Abby. But then an arm was around my waist, and a hand clasped over my mouth. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Bex’s wide eyes gleaming in the dark.

She shook her head once, quickly.
No
, she was telling me.

Think. We might not get this chance again.

My best friend’s smile was especially mischievous (which, believe me, is saying something) as she whispered, “I have a better idea.”

Three minutes later I was standing on the top floor of the castle, looking at a small wooden box and a less-than-sturdy rope, listening to my best friend insist, “You should do it.”

“Why me?” I whispered, watching as the ancient box dangled in midair over a dark, empty shaft that disappeared into the cold stone of the castle walls.

“You’re shorter,” Bex said. (Which I am.) “And I’m stronger,” she said. (Which she totally might be.) “And I’m . . .”

“Afraid of spiders?” I guessed.

But Bex plowed on, “. . . still a little deaf from the percussion grenade incident during finals week.”

So, yeah, that’s how I ended up in the dumbwaiter.

I felt myself descending through the castle walls, lower and lower, while the noises in the kitchen grew louder and clearer.

“Are you sure you don’t want some tea?” Bex’s father asked.

“No thanks, Abe.” My aunt’s voice sounded weak—almost frail. “I haven’t been sleeping all that well, to tell you the truth.”

“Neither have we,” Bex’s mother added.

The kettle began to whistle. A chair scraped across the floor.

“How close was it really, Grace?” Aunt Abby asked. “Was she in any danger?”

“Cammie is in constant danger,” Mrs. Baxter said as the whistling stopped.

“You saw him, Abe?” Abby asked. Even though there wasn’t a doubt who
he
was, it seemed to take forever for Mr. Baxter to answer.

“Yes.”

“How was he?” Abby asked.

“Desperate,” Bex’s father answered.

“Do you believe it?” Abby asked.

“This is the way the Circle has worked for more than a hundred years. . . .” Mr. Baxter started.

“But, Abe, we
knew
him,” Abby pressed again.

After another long pause, Mr. Baxter said, “I believe Joe Solomon is the sort of man that no one will ever truly know.”

Three seasoned and decorated operatives sat on the other side of the wall. Between them they’d probably mastered a hundred identities in a dozen countries. Names were just covers. Just legends. Hanging in the darkness, I wondered if anything about Joe Solomon was ever real at all.

It felt as if the truth were slipping away from me, falling, until...

Wait, I realized too late.
I
was slipping—literally.

Through a crack in the top of the dumbwaiter, I could see Bex holding the fraying rope, trying hard to pull me back up, but the rope slipped again.

Outside, the adults kept talking. I heard Mrs. Baxter saying, “We can’t tell Cammie until we’re absolutely certain. . . .”

“We can
never
tell Cammie,” Aunt Abby said.

“Hold on!” Bex’s frantic whisper echoed down the shaft as the dumbwaiter dipped again.

This is not good, I told myself. This is not . . .

But outside the shaft, Mrs. Baxter’s voice was calm. “She’s almost seventeen, Abby. And the more she knows, the safer she’ll—”

“Cammie will never be safe!” Abby said, and I remembered that a semi-stable dumbwaiter was the least of my problems.

“Hang on, Cam,” Bex whispered from above. “I’m—”

“We don’t know that Cammie would do something foolish,” Mrs. Baxter went on.

“Of course she would.” Aunt Abby laughed. “
I would
. Trust me, Grace, Abe. Cammie can
never
know—”

Before she could finish, I felt the bottom of the dumbwaiter dropping out from under me as, ten feet up the shaft, the old rope broke and I went hurtling toward the kitchen.

There was a sharp crack as the dumbwaiter reached the base of the shaft, splintering into a million pieces and sending me sprawling onto the kitchen floor.

“What the—” Mr. Baxter started to yell.

With a groan, I rolled over and found myself staring at a pair of gorgeous high-heeled boots, long legs, and a familiar face looking down at me, saying, “Hey, Squirt.”

“C
ammie can never know what?” I asked.

Bex was sitting beside me, the two of us in the hard, straight-backed chairs, looking up at her parents and my Aunt Abby. Bex’s hands were rope burned. My elbow was bleeding. But my only concern was what had brought my mother’s only sister to England and, most important . . .

“Cammie can never know what?”

“See?” Abby said, gesturing at the two of us. “This is exactly what I’m talking about.”

“It’s true.” Mr. Baxter crossed his arms and eyed us both. His voice wasn’t even a little bit playful as he finished, “They are a liability.”

“What can’t Cammie know?” Bex asked, choosing, I guess, to let the
liability
thing slide for the time being.

“Go to bed, Cammie,” my aunt ordered, sounding exactly like my mother.

“No,” I said, sounding exactly like my aunt.

I was pretty sure there was about to be a hole in the time-space continuum, when Abby snapped, “Cameron!”

I was already on my feet. “So you know what
you
would do if you were me, and you knew this big secret . . .” I leaned across the table, almost daring her as I finished, “Now, imagine what you’d do if there was something you
didn’t
know.”

As threats go, it was a good one. I could see it in Abby’s eyes. After a moment, she pulled out the chair on the other side of the table and sank into it. I tried not to notice the stiffness in the movement or the way she held one arm carefully by her side. I tried not to think about the fact that she’d almost died.

She’d almost died.

She’d almost died.

“We caught one of them.” Abby’s voice brought me back. “Election night . . . you were out, and I was . . .” She trailed off.

She’d almost died.

“From the grab team that came for you, we caught one.” My aunt gestured to the place where she’d been shot. “We caught the one who did
this
. A week ago he decided to start talking.”

Beside me, I felt Bex shaking, her impatience coming to a boil. “What’s this have to do with Mr. Solomon?”

Her father warned, “Rebecca,” and Abby carried on.

“The Circle works in cells—small, isolated groups. Two Circle operatives could be sitting right beside each other and not know it. So the man in custody has some knowledge of cell operations, but he doesn’t know much. He doesn’t even know why they want you, Cammie.”

She looked right at me, and I felt my heart fall.

“He only knows the people he’s worked directly with and...”

As my aunt trailed off, I saw Mrs. Baxter tense. Mr. Baxter brought his hand to his mouth as if he couldn’t bear to say the words aloud.

“And he knows the people he was recruited with,” Abby said slowly. Her gaze fell to the floor. “When he was at Blackthorne.”

For days I’d wanted answers—I’d begged and pleaded for the truth. But now we were there and I didn’t want to hear it.

“No. That’s just what MI6 thinks, for some reason, but they’re wrong. There’s been some kind of mistake.” I tried to push away, but Abby leaned closer.

“Joe’s a double agent, Cam. He was recruited by the Circle a really long time ago.”

“How can you say that?” I snapped back. “He’s your friend.”

“He was also friends with the man who did this!” she yelled, pointing to her injured shoulder. She looked so angry and betrayed, and when she spoke again her voice was more like a plea. “We have to believe it, Cammie.
You
of all people
need
to believe it.”

“But . . . he was CIA. . . .” It sounded childish, and yet I had to say it. I was, after all, still a child. “He was our
teacher
. He couldn’t have been working for the Circle.”

Mrs. Baxter was calm as she took the seat next to Abby. “Think about it, girls. You know having operatives deep inside the Agency would be a high priority for the Circle. And an operative
at
the Gallagher Academy—an operative with so much access to Cammie . . .”

“You’re wrong,” Bex said.

“It’s an old and effective practice,” Mrs. Baxter said softly. “Recruit operatives who are young, encourage them to spend their breaks training with the Circle, working with the Circle. And then send them back to school.” She was so poised—so good and wise and beautiful that it was almost impossible to doubt her as she looked at us both and said, “But make no mistake, girls. We know what Joe Solomon did over his summer vacation.”

“What if he’s changed?” Bex challenged. “People change. Maybe he’s not working with them anymore.”

“It’s not the Boy Scouts,” Abby answered. “It’s not that easy just to walk away.”

We sat in silence for a long time before I finally turned back to my Aunt Abby. “Why did you come here tonight?”

“I was worried about you, Squirt. I was—”

“Where’s
my mom
?” I heard my voice rising, but I didn’t try to stop it.

“She’s fine, Squirt.” Abby looked at me. “She couldn’t come herself, so I came. She’s fine.”

“
Why
couldn’t she come?” I blurted. “What’s so important that—”

“All right, then.” Mr. Baxter pushed up from the table, signaling that the Q&A portion of our night was officially over. “It’s best you two get some sleep. Big day tomorrow. We’ll have to get up early to get you back to school.”

Tomorrow. School. Bex and I looked at each other. Wordlessly, we both stood and started for the door. Roseville felt a million miles away.

“Abby?” Bex stopped and turned in the doorway, waited for my aunt to look up. “How old . . . When he joined them . . . how old was he?”

Abby’s smile was soft but sad. She swallowed hard before she said, “Sixteen.”

HOW TO RETURN TO SCHOOL
(A list by Cameron Morgan and Rebecca Baxter)

• Do laundry. This is far easier, by the way, when you’re at your grandmother’s house and not an MI6 safe house (because, while the latter might have far cooler defense mechanisms, the former has a way better laundry room).
  
• Pack. Which is where living in a series of safe houses comes in handy, because you’ve never actually
  un
  packed.
  
• Set alarms. Because even a Gallagher Girl’s internal alarm clock has a tendency to get wonky when you’re dealing with vast amounts of stress and jet lag.
  
• Dress in layers. Because planes are always cold. And
  also, it’s far easier to change your appearance and
  lose a tail if you can also lose your sweater.
  
• Double-check that you have the essay you wrote for
  Culture and Assimilation, the codes you broke for
  Practical Encryption, and the research paper you did for Covert Operations.
  
• Take the CoveOps paper out of the bag. Stomp on
  it. Kick it. Throw it in the trash.
  
• Take it out of the trash and pack it again. Just in case.
  

* * *

It took three planes, two SUVs, and at one point, a very questionable-smelling VW van, but sixteen hours later I found myself staring through bulletproof glass at the bare trees and patches of half-melted snow and ice that lined Highway 10 as it cut through the forest like a snake. After three weeks of living like a gypsy in a foreign land, it felt especially strange to be coming home.

Home.

“Whatcha thinking about, Cam?” Bex poked me and smiled.

“Oh, you know...
the usual
,” I said as calmly as possible while sitting in the back of a limousine that was as
un
usual as possible. (I’m pretty sure it used to belong to the president.)

“Have you covered vehicular surveillance yet?” Aunt Abby asked.

Bex shook her head.

“Really?” Mrs. Baxter said. She sounded genuinely surprised. “I thought you would have covered that in . . .”

She trailed off, but I knew what she was going to say: Covert Operations. CoveOps. Mr. Solomon’s class.

“Oh well. I guess there’s no time like the present.” She crossed her legs. “Tell me, Cammie, what do you see?”

“Two cars ahead of us.”

“Lead cars, yes.” Mrs. Baxter nodded her approval, then turned to her daughter. “Bex?”

“One tail vehicle.”

“Right,” Mrs. Baxter said. She went on, citing the origins of moving surveillance and protection, something about the chariots of ancient Rome and the death of Caesar, but my mind was drifting. I was watching the dozens of other cars—limousines just like ours (though slightly less bulletproof) that filled the road, waiting to carry my classmates back through our towering gates.

“I’ve never seen the line so long,” Bex said, and I’d been thinking the same thing. “Guards must still be on vacation time,” she joked.

Aunt Abby shifted in the seat beside me, but she didn’t say anything.

I expected the car to slow and wait its turn in line. But instead, Mrs. Baxter asked, “What’s the second rule of countersurveillance?”

“Resist routine and expectations,” Bex and I replied just as Mr. Baxter jerked the limo into the passing lane. I felt the car moving faster and faster, flying by the long line of cars waiting to carry my classmates back to school.

Mrs. Baxter sounded just like Bex when she said, “
Exactly
.”

I
know
the Gallagher Academy. I mean, a person doesn’t ruin as many white blouses as I have without spending
a lot
of time crawling through filthy sewer lines and secret passageways. So as we flew farther and farther from the gates, I felt pretty certain that we were actually speeding toward . . . nothing. Or so I thought until Mr. Baxter jerked the wheel again and we found ourselves on a narrow lane that, I swear, I’d never seen before.

The good news was that the car was bulletproof and missile proof and had tires that were filled with solid rubber instead of regular air, so they could never, ever go flat.

The bad news was that I was starting to figure out why Bex was such a bad driver, because the rougher the road got, the harder Mr. Baxter pressed on the gas.

“Shortcut,” Aunt Abby offered.

“
To where
?” Bex and I both asked.

The car was barreling down the narrow path, tires plunging in and out of rough gorges, mud slamming against the undercarriage. Barren limbs scraped against the sides of the car, and it felt as if we were being swallowed by the forest, driving straight toward an electrified stone wall and at least a dozen of the most highly calibrated security cameras in the world.

“Now?” Mr. Baxter asked from the front seat.

“This’ll do,” Abby told him.

Mr. Baxter pushed a button on the dashboard and floored the accelerator.

And for the second time during my winter vacation, I saw my (relatively short) life flash before my eyes. I gripped my best friend’s hand, waiting for a crash that never came.

Believe it or not, I’ve never actually been in the Gallagher Academy lake. Well, I hadn’t been. Until then.

I still don’t know what was most shocking—the feeling of the car hitting some kind of ramp at eighty miles an hour, the sensation of flying through the air and soaring over the fence in a limousine, or the sudden splash that comes when a two-ton car dives nose first into water, seat belts snapping, holding us in place.

I felt the heavy car sinking. Water was over the hood and rising above the windows, but not a drop was seeping inside as we sank below the surface, into the murky darkness of the lake. Fish swam past the windows as if limos drop out of the sky every day—and neither Aunt Abby nor Mrs. Baxter seemed the least bit concerned that our bulletproof car was sinking.

But wait, I realized a second later. We
weren’t
sinking.

Bex and I both leaned forward, watched the way the limo’s headlights sliced through the water as a propeller emerged from the trunk and began churning, pushing us through the murky haze like a submarine.

“WARNING: RESTRICTED AREA. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY,” a shrill mechanical voice ordered in stereo, echoing through the car’s speakers.

“Mom . . .” Bex started, but her mother merely shushed her.

“ACQUIRING RETINAL IMAGES NOW,” the voice said just as an orange light flashed through the car like lightning. I squinted, and it felt like a thousand tiny flashbulbs were going off inside my eyes.

“PRESENT VOCAL RECOGNITION, PLEASE,” the voice commanded, and my aunt responded, “Abigail Cameron. CIA.”

“Abraham Baxter, MI6,” Bex’s father said from the front seat. Beside me, Bex’s mother gave her own name, then nudged me softly in the ribs “Um ... Cameron Ann Morgan ... Gallagher Girl?” I didn’t have a clue what my official title was or should be. International terrorist target? Teenage girl? Spy in training? Person who really, really wants to know what’s going on?

I heard Bex reply in the same way I had, and then the movement stopped. Water fell away as if the car were emerging from the lake, but there was no sunlight streaming through the windows. I peered through the bulletproof glass and saw the headlights sweep over solid stone. Then the car doors popped open automatically, and Abby stepped out, and nothing in my sixteen (almost seventeen!) years of living, or five and a half years of training, had fully prepared me for what I saw.

“There are caves under the lake?” I guessed, but Bex’s mother was already out of the car and walking toward the trunk.

I’d heard of underground waterways, caverns, and caves my whole life, but I’d never known I was living right beside one. I stared at the stalactites and stalagmites that covered the cave’s floors and ceiling. The ground sloped down behind us, toward the water of the lake while my best friend and I stood on an underground shore, and I remembered that I didn’t know all of my school’s secrets—not even close.

Before I knew it, Mr. Baxter had our bags out of the trunk and Mrs. Baxter was hugging Bex, whispering in her ear. I was still taking in the long, dark cave that stretched far beyond the headlights’ glare.

I stepped to the wall, and ran my fingers along the Gallagher Academy crest that was carved into the stone.

“Good-bye, darling,” Mrs. Baxter said. I turned, and she hugged me. Mr. Baxter kissed my cheek. And then Aunt Abby’s hands were on my shoulders.

“Cammie, stop for a second. Before you go any farther, I need you to promise me something.”

“Okay.”

“I need you to be careful this semester.” She didn’t sound like herself, I realized. She sounded like Mr. Solomon. “Cam, do you hear me?”

“Yes... I know.”

“Do not take unnecessary chances.”

“I know.”

“And, Squirt, you need to be . . . strong.”

I started to tell her again that I knew, but something came over me. “You aren’t coming, are you?” I asked.

Abby looked from me to the Baxters and back again. “This is as far as I go.”

“But I thought maybe you’d . . . We won’t have a CoveOps teacher.”

“Sure you will, Squirt.” She smiled slightly. “Sure you will.”