Sealed with a Lie (20 page)

Gustav “walks” the walls and ceiling of his glass cube with his hands, every inch, probably to see if he can find any sign of weakness. There is none. Dispirited, he drops to the floor again, looks at us, and raises his hands, palms up, clearly saying wordlessly, “What do we do now?”

I wish I knew.

Gustav and I try to develop a way of communicating silently through the glass, but between the language barrier and the sound barrier, it’s tough.

He points at my brother and mouths, “Charlie?”

I nod. Then I point at the older gentleman with a questioning look.

It takes a while, but I finally understand that it’s Gustav’s grandfather who’s in the cell across from us—and now it makes sense that Gustav was so willing to help these monsters steal the
jungbrunnen
. Like me, he had no choice: A family member’s life was at stake.

The glass cells are virtually airless. They’re also smelly and humiliating—the bathroom facilities consist of a sturdy bucket and a roll of rough paper towels. Fortunately, Charlie stands in front of me and shields me when I have to use the bucket.

The ship rolls back and forth—not dramatically, since it’s a big enough vessel—but enough to make me nauseous. I really hope I don’t have to puke in that bucket of fun on top of everything else.

A guard wearing a ski mask comes to deliver basic meals: a tasteless, runny stew of mystery meat, potatoes, and carrots; some bread; and two bottles of water.

“Who are you guys? Why are you holding us?” I ask him.

He totally ignores me.

“How long are you going to keep us here?” I try again.

Nothing.

Gustav and his grandfather mime back and forth, but I have no idea what they’re saying. It’s hard to read lips in English, much less in French, and their hand gestures make no sense to me. Charlie doesn’t understand either.

Twenty-four hours have passed, with nothing more than another bad meal—chicken smothered in a brown sauce—and an additional blanket. I use it to cover the scary pillow while Charlie spoons against me and we try to sleep.

“Kari?” he says before drifting off.

“Hmmm?”

“This still sucks, but I’m not as scared now that you’re here.”

“Me either, Charlie Brown. I was terrified when those guys made you scream on the phone.” I can’t bring myself to ask what they did to him. I don’t know if I can handle it.

“They pulled my hair really hard and almost chopped
off my fingers with garden shears,” he says in a small voice. He snuggles closer.

I hug him, trying to hold back my fury. “I’m so sorry.” I tell myself silently that they could have done much worse. But I’m in a rage at how they’ve treated him. And I still don’t understand
why
. And why we’re imprisoned. Imprisoned is better than dead, though.

“It’s not your fault,” Charlie murmurs. Then he adds, “I bit one of them. Hard.”

“Did you? Good for you.” I stroke his hair and listen while his breathing deepens and slows. I probably shouldn’t encourage violence in my little brother, but in this case I think the circumstances require it.

About seven hours later, I startle awake from a fitful sleep. The lights blaze on, and the guards shove two blindfolded people into the room. Two people I never wanted to see again: Cal and Irina Andrews. My parents.

It sounds melodramatic, but my heart stops. My whole body freezes. I just lie there, paralyzed, my eyes fixed on them. I don’t know what I feel. Shock? Revulsion? Anger? Hurt? All of the above?

In my last clear memory of my mother, she’s got a gun trained on me. I will never forget it, and I’ll never get over it.

They’re arguing with the guards, but of course we can’t hear a word. My mother hands over a list of some kind. She hasn’t seen us yet. And suddenly I know with cold clarity
exactly
how I feel.

My parents are the reason that we are in this mess. It’s a given.

As former spies for the Agency, they have lied, cheated, stolen, and quite possibly killed people. They’ve made enemies all over the world . . . and it looks like they’ve double-crossed the wrong people. There’s no other explanation for why we’re here.

I’m shaking because I can’t contain my rage.

The guards remove their blindfolds, and my dad notices us first—he grabs Mom’s arm and points to our cell. She turns, and the expression on her face is one of classic motherly love and concern—but she’s a great actress. I know that now. She takes two steps toward our glass cage.

I spit. Yes, it’s gross. But nothing else will communicate my disgust for her right now. So I hock up a big loogie and shoot it right at the glass wall of the cube.

Mom and I stare at each other as it slowly drips down. Her face has gone ashen, and she’s shaking her head, saying something to my father.

My father has the nerve—the nerve!—to look disappointed in me. This, from the guy who walked out the door on me and Charlie, who boarded a flight to Russia without looking back. This, from the man who left his kids to the foster-care system. He has no right to be disappointed in me. None.

Dad rubs at a scar on his hand. Charlie bit him as well, during that last happy family reunion. And he deserved it.

Beside me, Charlie spits, too.

Dad closes his eyes and drags a hand down his face. He looks at Mom, whose expression is devastated, then takes
her hand and squeezes. That’s their last moment together, though, because the guards, who’ve been on their comm units, drag them each separately to empty cubes.

The doors slam on them, and we’re all left to stare at one another. Or look away, which is what I do. I turn my back on them. I don’t want to see parts of us in them: my dark hair, from my mom, though hers is cut shorter and styled nicely. My eyes, though hers are expertly made up. My dad’s angular jaw and the strawberry blond hair and brown eyes that Charlie inherited.

I want no part of these people, and I’m still afraid, somehow, that they’ve infected me with their immorality. Their treason.

Next to me, Charlie can’t help himself. He swivels to look at Mom. “Mom wants you to turn around,” he says. “She’s trying to sign something to us.”

“I don’t care.”

“But—”

“Don’t even look at her, kiddo. She’s poison.”

“I think it might be important.”

I shake my head. “No. She’s trying to manipulate us. Ignore her.”

“O-kaay . . . ,” Charlie says. He turns his back on her again.

We sit for maybe half an hour. Then a weird crackling noise comes from one corner of our box. I peer up at it and see a small, camouflaged speaker that I didn’t notice before.

“Welcome aboard, Andrews family,” says a smarmy American voice. It’s male and sounds like a used-car
salesman’s. “And of course, young Mister Duvernay.”

I exchange a glance with Charlie. Are we supposed to respond to this jerk? Can he hear us?

“Welcome aboard the USS
Revenge
,” he continues.

I
so
don’t like the sound of that. . . .

“Thank you for the, uh, hostess gifts you brought.” The voice chuckles. “Those pass-codes to the Agency headquarters will come in very handy, Cal and Irine. Too bad I can’t give you Charlie in return for them after all.”

Oh, God. I put my arms around my brother and tuck his head under my chin. Slowly, I turn my head toward my parents. This doesn’t redeem them, because we wouldn’t be here if not for them. I’m still sure of that. But it explains why they’re here. They did try to rescue Charlie, same as me.

The smarmy voice goes on. “And the
jungbrunnen
—well, you kids are smart. I assume you’ve been wondering about that. A rival . . . colleague, shall we say? Yes, a rival colleague has been using Jolie to move a very rare and highly combustible agent through their face powder. No drug-sniffing dogs, no surprise security checks—perfect! So simple. It’s all been almost too easy, I have to tell you. And a quarter teaspoon of this stuff, mixed with another ingredient that for obvious reasons I won’t share with you, packs the power of about a hundred sticks of dynamite.”

Oh. My. God.
These people are terrorists.

And we’ve unknowingly helped them in their plans for an attack on the Agency.

I stare, horrified, at Gustav. The blood has drained
from his face as he’s realized how we’ve been used.

Besides its explosive nature, I wonder just how toxic this substance is—the
jungbrunnen
—considering that a vial broke and the powder scattered not only across his bare arm, but into the cuts from the broken glass vial. He must be wondering the same thing.

Gustav fixes a long, agonized gaze on his grandfather. Then he draws up his legs, clasps his arms around them, and rests his forehead on his knees.

I can feel his anguish. I wonder to myself what choice I’d make if I had to steal the
jungbrunnen
personally all over again, but knowing what it was and what it would be used for. If that was the only way to rescue Charlie . . . make sure he wasn’t tortured. What would I do?

I can’t even think about it, much less answer the question. It’s too awful.

Charlie, still tucked against me, begins to tremble. “Kari?”

“Yeah, kiddo?”

“They’re not going to let us go, are they.” He says it as a statement of fact, not a question. “That guy wouldn’t tell us this stuff if he wasn’t going to kill us.”

I open my mouth to reassure him, but it turns out that the smarmy man on the PA system can hear us.

“What a clever little boy you are, Charlie,” he says in cheery tones, as if he’s telling us we’ve just won a free toaster. “It’s very possible that you won’t survive the day. But . . . you might. It all depends on your parents.”

Charlie’s head rears back, hitting my chin on the way. “Don’t let them cut off my fingers, Kari!” he begs.

“Well, it’s messy, Charlie my boy,” the voice muses. “With the blood and bone fragments spraying the glass of the cubes and all . . . not that my men don’t have plenty of Windex aboard.”

My brother whimpers and hides his head against my chest while my fury grows again. What kind of people terrify small children like this?

I turn my head toward my parents again. Their faces are sheet white, paler even than Gustav’s. They’re terrified for Charlie. This is exactly the reaction the smarmy guy wants—he’s trying to hurt
them
more than my brother.

I feel a burning need to know what this is all about. The USS
Revenge
? Passcodes to the Agency? Explosives set in the building?

“Who are you?” I shout. “What is this about? Why do you hate us so much?”

“I don’t hate you, per se, Karina,” the voice says. “You’re a quid pro quo.”

“A what?”

The voice tsks. “Should have studied your Latin.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

The big main door that we originally came through opens, and a man wearing a headset steps into the passage between the two rows of glass cells.

He’s got thinning dark hair combed back into a sparse ponytail; small, ice-blue eyes; and virtually no lips. His skin is a dark olive, and he sports one small diamond stud earring. He’s wearing army fatigue pants and an olive T-shirt with combat boots.

I glance at my parents to gauge their reaction.

My mom closes her eyes and bangs her head against their glass wall. My dad drops his head into his hands. Oh, yeah. They know this dude.

“My name is Rafe,” he says, as if we’re all meeting at a tennis match or something. “Your parents and I used to work together. And they are responsible for the deaths of my own children.”

My dad shakes his head.

“Don’t you deny it, Cal,” Rafe growls. “On that last job, you—and the goddamned Agency—painted a target on their heads and left them unprotected.”

Both of my parents speak at once, but of course I can’t hear what they’re saying. Only Rafe can. But he overrides them.

“Your incompetence, Irine—oh, don’t like that word, do you? Your
incompetence
let the target escape. And you, Cal, are worse than incompetent. You placed seeing to your wife’s injuries over pursuit and takedown of the target. You prioritized that
bitch
over the job you were sworn to do, the job that I invested five years undercover to set up . . . and it cost me my kids.”

My parents are both shaking their heads now.

“Admit it!” Rafe roars. “You
will
acknowledge your guilt. You
will
confess. And you will do it in front of your own children, so that they know exactly who you really are: traitors, selfish screwups, the kind of lowlifes who leave
innocent minors
holding the bag for their crimes.”

Huh. I can’t say the shoe doesn’t fit here.

Are my parents traitors?
Check.

Selfish?
Check.

The kind of people who dodge out on kids?
Big, blinking, neon-red check.

Rafe is breathing heavily now, his anger a palpable thing. “Do you know that the target sent me a home movie, afterward? Of what he did to my Sarah and Ben? Do you have
any idea
what it’s like to see something like that? How it plays like a satanic movie reel in my mind every night? Over and over . . . the screaming, the begging, the calls for Daddy to save them . . .” His face contorts and his mouth works. He’s unable to go on.

He walks to my dad’s cube and slams his fist down on the top. “So now perhaps you all understand why you’re here.”

Dad stares stonily ahead.

My mom is trembling worse than Charlie—I can see it from three yards away. She’s shaking her head and saying no, over and over again.

“Shut up!” Rafe screams at her, running to her cube and kicking the glass.

She freezes, looks him dead in the eyes.

“Say it,” he hisses at her. “For once in your life, be honest. Take the blame.
Own it
.”

Mom doesn’t open her mouth.

So Rafe turns back to Dad. “You’d better start talking for her.” Venom oozes from Rafe’s voice. “Or I’ll turn Irine over to the ship’s crew. They haven’t seen a woman in months.”