Spy School (4 page)

“I’ve counted forty-one. So far. Those I’ve seen are very professional, heavily armed, and extremely dangerous.”

I gulped. “I’ve been here only five minutes, and I’m supposed to face an entire platoon of deadly commandos with only a Taser?”

For the first time since I’d met her, the girl smiled. “Welcome to spy school,” she said.

Nathan Hale Administration Building

January 16

1710 hours

Thinking you might be ambushed by enemy
operatives at any second is a lousy frame of mind to be in for your first school tour. Although I followed the girl past many locations that would be important to me if I survived, I couldn’t focus on any of them. Meanwhile, the girl remained amazingly composed given the circumstances, even pointing out things of interest along the way, as though this were the standard orientation.

“This is the only dormitory for the school,” she informed me as we crept through the first-floor hallway, weapons at
the ready. “All three hundred students live here. It was built over a century ago, so as you’ve probably noticed, its enemy defense systems are lousy. Plus, the plumbing is prehistoric.

“The mess hall is over there. Mealtimes are promptly at 0700, 1300, and 1800 hours . . . Now we’re heading into the south passage between the dorm and the admin building. It’s usually faster to go outside, but this way is better when the weather’s bad—or when there are enemy snipers on the property.”

There was the distant sound of gunfire outside. Even though it was taking place more than one hundred yards away on the other side of a thick stone wall, I ducked reflexively. This provoked yet another sigh from the girl.

“Wait!” I said. In all the excitement I’d forgotten something. “We’re not alone here. I came with Alexander Hale.”

I’d expected her to be relieved, maybe even thrilled. But to my surprise, she seemed irritated instead. “Where is he?”

“Outside. Fighting those snipers. I think he saved my life earlier.”

“I’m sure he’ll think that too,” she said.

We reached a fork in the passage where windows opened onto the snow-covered lawns. The girl signaled me to stay low, then peered through the glass. It had grown too dark for me to make out anything other than the silhouettes of buildings, but she seemed to see something. “They have the
entire campus perimeter covered,” she frowned. “We’re not getting off the property. So here’s the plan: There’s an emergency radio beacon on the top floor of the administration building.” She nodded toward a five-story gothic structure that loomed immediately south of us. “It’s a direct link to Agency headquarters. So old school, the enemy probably doesn’t even know it still exists. If we can make it there, we can probably call for backup.”

“Sounds good.” I tried my best to sound calm, even though I was growing more terrified by the minute.

“Stay close and do what I tell you.” The girl started down the left fork of the hall but paused to point to the right. “The gym’s down there, by the way. And the firing range, just for future reference.”

I followed her, my head ducked below the windows, fearing imminent attack. My first gunfight wasn’t going the way I’d expected at all. Where were all the bad guys? I wondered. Were we cleverly circumventing them, or were they waiting to ambush us? Where was Alexander Hale, and why hadn’t the girl been happy to hear about him? And perhaps most important . . .

“Is there a men’s room anywhere nearby?” I asked. “I really have to pee.” This would be the first time I experienced what is generally referred to in spy school as “Hogarth’s theory of fear-based urination”: The amount of danger you are in is
directly proportional to your need to pee. Abraham Hogarth was one of the CIA’s first operatives and, thus, one of the original professors at spy school. He’d written the essential espionage textbook based on his experiences (and he was rumored to always wear an adult diaper, just in case trouble arose).

The girl sighed once again. “Why didn’t you go before the gunfight?”

“I didn’t know there was going to be a gunfight,” I explained. “In fact, I believe I have to go
because
of the gun-fight.”

“Hold it in, Buttercup. We can’t afford to drop our guard.”

I did my best to comply.

We soon reached the Nathan Hale Administration Building, which turned out to be the center of campus. Outside, all other buildings radiated around it, like it was the hub of a wheel. Inside, the passage we’d come down funneled into a towering entry hall flanked by sweeping grand staircases. Thick oak doors on one side of the room led outside, while on the other, two significantly larger doors stood open, revealing the school library beyond.

The girl started toward the closest staircase, then suddenly lashed out a hand and clenched my arm. I froze.

She placed her lips a millimeter from my ear and spoke so softly, I almost couldn’t hear it. “Two enemy agents.
Upstairs.” The words were among the most terrifying I’d ever heard, and yet her warm breath on my ear almost made the danger seem worth it. “I’ll have to hold them off. Cut through the library and take the rear stairs up.”

“To where?” I tried to be as quiet as her but couldn’t. Even my whisper seemed to echo through the room.

On the mezzanine level, a human shape emerged from the shadows.

“The principal’s office!” the girl hissed, shoving me forward. “Run!”

I might not have been able to shoot a gun or fight hand to hand, but running, I could handle. I’d had to flee from Dirk Dennett plenty of times. However, I’d never run with a full-on, life-or-death adrenaline surge before. It was like having afterburners. I covered the twenty yards to the library in the blink of an eye.

Gunfire raked the carpet behind me and splintered the doorjamb as I lunged for safety.

The library was cavernous, four floors of wide balconies ringing a central open space. On the main floor was a maze of shelves. Normally, I would have been thrilled by the sheer acres of books, but at the time the library only looked like a gigantic booby trap to me; there were a thousand places for assassins to hide.

In each corner a staircase spiraled up. I zigzagged
through the shelves toward one on the far side of the room and bounded upstairs while the sounds of a gunfight echoed from the entry hall.

A bullet pinged off the banister just as I reached the third floor.

I hit the deck.

On the first floor a black-clad man clutching a machine gun darted toward my staircase.

My Taser wasn’t going to do me a damn bit of good from that distance.

But there was a shelf full of reference books nearby.

I snatched the heaviest I could find—
Cooper’s Pictorial Guide to Soviet Era Weaponry
—quickly estimated the speed of my attacker in relation to the force of gravity, and determined the exact right moment to drop the book over the railing.

From below came the distinct thud of book colliding with skull, followed by the grunt of the assassin collapsing.

Contrary to everything Mike Brezinski had ever claimed, I had just found a real-world application for algebra.

I dashed up to the fourth floor and found a door that looked as though it hadn’t been opened in years. It led to a dingy old stairwell. One more flight up brought me into a long, wide hallway lined with imposing office doors. I dashed down it, scanning the nameplates on each: Dean
of Student Affairs; Vice Dean of Risk Assessment; Director of Counterespionage. Finally, in the center, I found a door marked “Principal.”

From the direction I’d come, I heard footsteps pounding up the stairs. More than one set.

I threw myself against the principal’s door.

It was locked. I bounced off it and landed on my ass in the hall.

There was a computerized keypad to the right of the door, a tiny screen above it reading
ENTER ACCESS CODE
.

No one had said anything about access codes.

I glanced back toward the dingy stairwell. The footsteps were louder, as though my enemies were almost to the door. They’d emerge within seconds, far too little time for me to race to the safety of the far end of the hall.

The principal’s door was the only escape route, and I could think of only one way to get through it.

I flipped on my Taser and jammed it into the keypad. The tiny screen flickered as I shocked the system. Then the electricity overloaded, and every light in the hall blew out, plunging me into darkness.

That had not been my plan.

There was a thump from the end of the hall as an enemy agent banged into the door, followed by what I assumed were curse words in a language I didn’t know.

Two seconds later three high-powered flashlight beams flicked on at that end of the hall.

At the opposite end, three more flicked on.

Which meant I was now flanked by six heavily armed men in total darkness.

So I did the only other thing I could think of: I prepared to surrender.

I raised my hands over my head and backed against the principal’s door, accidentally bumping the handle.

It lowered with a click.

Apparently, I’d unlocked it.

All six flashlight beams swung toward the sound.

I slipped into the darkened office, slammed the door shut, and promptly ran right into a coffee table. It cut me off at the knees, and I face-planted on the carpet.

The lights snapped on again.

I reflexively tucked myself into a ball and yelled, “Please don’t kill me! I don’t know anything! I just started here today!”

“Begging for mercy?” said a disappointed voice. “That’s D-quality performance for sure.”

There were murmurs of assent.

I slowly lifted my eyes from the deep-pile carpet. Instead of a horde of assassins aiming guns at me, I found myself facing a conference table. Two middle-aged men and one
middle-aged woman sat on the far side of it, shaking their heads as they jotted notes on legal pads. To the side stood Alexander Hale.

I heard an electronic hum behind me and glanced over my shoulder. There, a bank of monitors presented views of every place I’d been on campus.

I winced as understanding descended. “This was a test?”

“Lucky for you,” said the man in the center of the table, the owner of the disappointed voice. He was a stocky man who seemed to think he was more roguish than he truly was. His suit was dotted with food stains, his waistline stretched the fly of his pants to the breaking point, and though his hair was thick and perfectly coiffed, it was also quite obviously a toupee. “If this had been a real incident of external aggression, we’d be mailing your remains home in a doggie bag.”

“But I haven’t learned anything yet,” I countered. “I just got here.”

“I’m well aware of that,” the man snapped. “The SACSA exam is standard for all students upon arrival.”

I looked to Alexander for help.

“Survival and Combat Skills Assessment,” he explained, then turned to the panel. “I thought that trick he did with the reference book in the library was rather clever.”

“It was a lucky shot,” Bad Toupee said dismissively.

“And using the Taser on the keypad?” Alexander asked. “We’ve never seen that before.”

“For good reason. It was moronic.” Bad Toupee stood and fixed me with a hard stare. He had a slight tic—a twitch in his left eye—which seemed to be exacerbated by his anger. “I’m the principal of this academy. These are the vice principals, Agents Connor and Dixon. You’ve already met Alexander Hale . . . and, of course, Erica.”

I turned around. The girl was behind me. She had entered without making a sound.

I gave her a half wave hello but got nothing in return.

“I think we’re all in agreement that your performance today was deplorable,” the principal continued. “You’ve displayed amateur-level skills or worse in virtually every arena: unarmed combat, elusiveness, savoir faire . . .”

“Is there an essay portion of this test?” I asked hopefully. “I usually do well on those.”

The principal glared at me, his left eye twitching wildly. “You’re not so hot at knowing when to keep your mouth shut, either. Frankly, if you hadn’t done well on your STIQs and shown an extraordinary aptitude for cryptography, I’d be sending you right back home to Mommy and Daddy. But we’ll just have to see what we can make of you. You have a lot of work to do, Ripley. And, as of now, a D-minus average.”

With that, he waved me away dismissively.

I left the office, feeling hollow inside. I’d never had a grade lower than a B in my life—and that was an 89 in handwriting back in third grade.

I was also slightly confused by something the principal had said. I’d never known I had extraordinary cryptographic ability. In fact, despite my gift for math, I’d always found cryptography rather difficult. Math and logic will get you only so far with many codes; you also need to be good at wordplay. Which was why I could calculate exactly how many seconds I’d been at spy school so far (1,319) but still be stumped by the newspaper’s daily jumble on a regular basis.

There had been a few cryptography games on the CIA website. I was under the impression that I’d utterly failed at them, but perhaps they’d been designed to detect some latent skills that even I didn’t know about.