Spy Ski School (23 page)

“He was duped into that.”

“And yet he still did it. Despite numerous signs around the campus perimeter indicating that trespassing on that property is against the law. His actions then mandated a
major disinformation campaign to dissuade him of the truth about our facility. Given your conversation with him on the slopes yesterday, however, I think we can assume that campaign was a failure.”

“You heard that?” I asked, concerned.

Cyrus tapped the hearing aid in his ear. “I don't wear this because I'm deaf. I wear it because it's actually a unidirectional long-range listening device.”

Everyone in the room had stopped eavesdropping on the Shangs and was now eavesdropping on us.

“What's this all about?” Zoe asked. “Is Mike onto us?”

“He's had some suspicions,” I told her. “But I think I've put them to rest.”

“You have done no such thing,” Cyrus informed me. “If anything, you're directly responsible for his suspicions. After all, you have repeatedly failed to hide your spy skills and maintain a proper non-espionage persona in front of him.”

“I've done my best,” I argued.

“Then your best leaves a great deal to be desired. As I'm sure you're aware, academy policy is that friendships with civilians are discouraged, and your egregious handling of this one is a prime example of why that policy exists. And then, as if Mr. Brezinski weren't already enough of a threat, you allowed him to come here and jeopardize an active mission.”

“I didn't
have anything to do with him coming here. It was a coincidence.”

“Poppycock!” Cyrus exclaimed. “There is no such thing as coincidence! Every action is the result of another action—and in this case, your actions, such as your ill-thought-out discussion at the zoo with him the other day, led to this debacle.”

“Wait,” I said. “How'd you know I went to the zoo with Mike the other day?”

“I'm a spy. It's my job to know things.”

“Were you spying on me then?”

“I don't have to detail my personal schedule to a second-year student,” Cyrus huffed. “Your friend is a significant threat to the CIA and the Academy of Espionage. We do not take threats lightly at the CIA. Instead, we assess them and determine the appropriate action to take.”

“What kind of action are we talking about here?” I asked warily.

“That's classified.”

“You can't do anything bad to him!” I exclaimed. “He's only a kid!”

Cyrus glared at me, fire in his eyes. “I'm fully aware how old he is! I'm not an idiot! And frankly, there are plenty of other things I would much rather be spending my time on than this fiasco. But I'm stuck with it, because I have taken
responsibility for you and you have repaid me by bollixing this up. You may have performed adequately on the missions you have served on so far, Ben, but where your life outside the academy is concerned, you have been cavalier, foolhardy, and feckless. I've been forced to work overtime to ensure this doesn't all blow up in our faces, which I do not appreciate one bit. So now, if you'll excuse me, I have some actual spy work to do for once, and I'd like to take care of it.”

He yanked on his jacket and stormed out of the room.

Everyone averted their eyes from me, pretending like they'd been too busy eavesdropping on the Shangs to witness my dressing down. Everyone, that is, but Warren. He sang gleefully under his breath, “Oooh. Looks like golden boy's in trouble.”

“Shut up, Warren,” Zoe said. “Ben's ten times the spy you are.”

“Not according to Cyrus,” I said, slumping into a chair. “He said I've ‘performed adequately.' That's it.”

“That's it?” Alexander Hale echoed. “That's the nicest thing I've ever heard my father say about anyone who wasn't Erica. My whole life, he never told me I performed adequately at anything. Even when I did. I know I've had my share of mishaps, but there have been plenty of things that I was perfectly adequate at. And did I ever hear one bit of praise? No. The nicest thing he ever said about anything
I
did was ‘at least you didn't kill anybody.' And that was about a math test in fourth grade.”

I turned to Erica. She seemed unusually on edge, as though she was concerned about Mike herself. “Do you know what he's planning for Mike?” I asked.

“I don't have any idea what my grandfather's thinking,” she told me coldly. “As you can see, I'm not a particularly crucial part of his plan.”

“Yeah, you're just a cog in the machine,” Jawa said curtly. “Like the rest of us, for once.”

“Cram it,” Erica muttered.

“It's not so fun when someone treats you the way you always treat us, is it?” Jawa pressed.

“Lay off her, will you?” Zoe asked. “We're supposed to be working as a team here.”

“A team?” Hank laughed. “We're not a team. We're a bunch of lackeys doing busywork for Cyrus Hale while he goes and gets all the glory.”

“My father isn't going to steal all the glory,” Alexander said defensively.

“Oh, right, that's your move,” Hank told him.

With that, everyone started bickering back and forth at once, their frustrations bubbling to the surface: frustrations with their place on the mission, with how they'd been treated over the years, with everyone else in general.

I walked outside. It was rude, but I needed to get out of there. The room was too hot, too stuffy, too full of people with grudges and issues and competing agendas. Plus, it smelled like wet ski socks. I needed a breath of fresh air.

I stepped into the parking lot, took a deep breath, then exhaled a cloud of frozen vapor and watched it float away. When I'd first been told about Operation Snow Bunny, it had sounded like great fun: an adventure with my friends in an exotic location. But nothing had gone the way I'd hoped. Our accommodations were crummy, our team was constantly squabbling, Cyrus was never pleased, and my best friend was now considered a threat to the CIA. There was only one day left until Operation Golden Fist and we still hadn't achieved our objective: figuring out what Operation Golden Fist actually was. All I'd done was earn the wrath of Leo Shang.

I looked toward the pedestrian bridge over the highway, expecting to see Cyrus making his way across it toward the Arabelle, but he had already vanished from sight. Although I was annoyed at Cyrus for the way he'd treated me—and everyone else, for that matter—I hoped he would be successful in infiltrating the Shangs' suite and finding out what was in the mysterious case. I actually found myself wishing it would be something incredibly dangerous, like a nuclear bomb or a few hundred vials of some infectious disease,
because then it would be concrete proof that Leo Shang was up to something evil and he could be immediately arrested. Then the case would be closed, I'd be safe again, and the whole mission would be wrapped up so we could all go home and get back to our normal lives. Well, our abnormal lives, at least.

Only, Cyrus's breaking and entering didn't work out the way anyone hoped.

Blue Sky Basin

Vail Mountain

December 30

1000 hours

Breaking into the bedroom of
a target in a heavily guarded hotel wasn't easy. It took Cyrus four hours of surveillance and plotting, followed by ninety minutes of grueling physical exertion in subzero temperatures, pinpoint timing, and nerve-racking stealth. Ultimately, he managed to infiltrate Leo Shang's room as Shang slept and access the mysterious silver case—only to discover it was full of dirty underwear.

He wasn't pleased about this.

I was relieved of mission duties the next day. I probably wouldn't have had anything to do as it was, since Jessica, my target, had been grounded at her hotel and banned from ever seeing me again, but Cyrus made it
feel
like I was being punished. I was sent off to ski school, as usual, but he made it clear this was to get me out of the way. “As long as the CIA sank all the money for this snipe hunt, we might as well have you learn something,” Cyrus groused, then booted me out of the motel room.

Zoe, Warren, and Erica were sent with me, as they all needed to work on their skiing more than I did. Meanwhile, Hank, Chip, and Jawa were kept back, assigned to surveillance of the Shangs. Erica protested, of course, insisting that she would be of far more use on the investigation than she would on the slopes, but Cyrus wouldn't be persuaded.

“It's December thirtieth!” Erica argued. “D-day for Operation Golden Fist! You need every person you have on this and you're sending me out to take some stupid ski lesson!”

“You need another ski lesson,” Cyrus told her. “You ski like a wounded cow.”

“So why not let me do something I'm good at? Like everything besides skiing? I'm the best agent you have on this mission!”

“
I'm
the best agent I have on this mission,” Cyrus
corrected. “And I'm in charge of it, not you. You're learning to ski today and that's final.”

Erica backed down, though she made no secret she was unhappy about it. She joined the ski lesson with Zoe, Warren, and me, but she remained sullen and peevish the entire time, making her perhaps the first person ever to view going skiing as a punishment, rather than a reward.

Meanwhile, Woodchuck was as upbeat as ever. If he knew things weren't going well, he didn't let on. Instead, he was determined to have us enjoy our day.

Woodchuck felt we were now good enough to head to one of his favorite places at Vail, an area called Blue Sky Basin. It was the most distant section of the resort, butting up against the wilderness of the White River National Forest, so far from town that you had to take multiple lifts and ski runs to get out there. Because of the trek, though, Blue Sky tended to be much less crowded than other areas of the resort.

Under most other circumstances, we probably would have considered it a fantastic ski day. The snow had finally stopped falling, but two feet of fresh powder lay on the ground, creating what Woodchuck referred to as “radical conditions.” The sun was out, we were surrounded by gorgeous mountain views, and the snow sparkled like fields of diamonds. All around us, we could hear whoops of joy as skiers encountered virgin swaths of powder.

I wasn't feeling particularly joyful, though. I was still upset about how everything had fallen apart on our mission. And to make matters worse, Warren kept needling me about it. My failure was like a Christmas present for him.

“You sent Cyrus Hale to uncover a suitcase full of dirty underwear!” he exclaimed, laughing hysterically. We were riding up the main lift at Blue Sky, which took eight minutes. Zoe and Erica were on the chair in front of us, so I was stuck with Warren and Woodchuck, riding thirty feet above the ground.

“It wasn't a suitcase,” I muttered.

“Sounds like a suitcase to me. I mean, it had clothes in it. Dirty clothes. Not a nuclear bomb, like
you
thought.”

“I never said it had a nuclear bomb in it. I said it
looked
like the kind of case that a nuclear bomb might be in.”

“Well, you were wrong.” Warren laughed again. Even Warren's laugh was annoying. It was very high-pitched, making him sound like a hyena on helium.

“Just because Cyrus didn't find something in that case last night doesn't mean there wasn't something important in it earlier,” I pointed out. “Think about it. Dane Brammage
knew
I'd seen into that room. Leo Shang was freaked out that I was in the hotel at all. So they easily could have moved whatever was in the case. They have an entire hotel to hide it in.”

“Then why'd they put dirty laundry in the case?”

“To throw us off. If the whole case vanished, that'd be suspicious. But dirty clothes made it look like it was just a suitcase.”

“Yeah, but why would they go through all that trouble? As far as they know, you're only a kid. They don't have any idea you're CIA.”

I swallowed, not liking the only good answer to that question. “Well, maybe they
do
know I'm CIA.”

Warren snickered again. “If that's true, then you've screwed up even worse than I thought.”

The sound of an explosion suddenly echoed through the air. It was muffled, meaning it wasn't too close, but it was still near enough to startle all of us. Most kids our age probably wouldn't recognize the sound of heavy artillery exploding, but we were quite familiar with it from school. On the lift chair ahead of us, I saw Erica stiffen alertly, ready for an attack.

“Relax!” Woodchuck called to her. “It's just the ski patrol.”

“The ski patrol uses a howitzer?” Erica yelled back suspiciously.

“Yes. To trigger avalanches!” Woodchuck explained. “There's been a ton of snow over the past few days. That creates perfect avalanche conditions. So the ski patrol goes
out and triggers them
before
unsuspecting skiers do. See?” He pointed to our right, where a large basin known as Earl's Bowl was roped off to keep people out. In the distance, along a steep ridge, we could see a white cloud rising from where the howitzer shell had hit. As we watched, a large patch of snow sheared off at the top of a cliff and poured down into the woods at the bottom. “If it weren't for the ski patrol, that might have taken out some innocent people,” Woodchuck said solemnly.