Spy Ski School (26 page)

“I'll bet he's already aware.” Woodchuck helped Warren to his feet. “That emergency alert we got right before the helicopter attack was probably from him. But even so, we need to reestablish contact. There'll be cell reception in town. So let's move out.” He led the way down the valley.

Warren wobbled after him. “Are we going for a hike?” he asked dazedly. “Cool! I've got some granola bars if anyone wants one!” He dug one out of his pocket, only to find it had been crushed in the avalanche. “Shoot. Looks like my granola is no longer in bar form.”

The rest of us dropped in behind Woodchuck, and we worked our way down the canyon. The avalanche zone ended shortly, the huge pack of snow sloping back down to earth, and we entered a thickly wooded area. Less snow lay on the ground there because it was all caught up in the tops of the trees above, but it was still deep enough to have to trudge through. There was also a semi-frozen creek meandering along the canyon floor. This made for slow progress, and being in ski boots didn't help. They were painful enough to walk a short distance in; a prolonged march was torture. Plus, now that we were in the shade, the temperature had dropped like a rock.

“Everyone, be extremely alert for hypothermia and
frostbite,” Woodchuck warned. “Ball your fists inside your gloves or put them in your pockets to keep them warm. And if you have any chills or shivering, let me know immediately so we can stop and warm you up.”

We all nodded obediently.

It surprised me to see Erica following anyone, rather than assuming the lead, but she seemed far more concerned about her inability to contact her grandfather than about who was in charge. It occurred to me that she was worried about him. And possibly her father, too.

“I'm sure Cyrus and Alexander are all right,” I told her. “If anyone can handle himself against the Shangs, it's your grandfather.”

“Well, he couldn't have handled them
worse
than I did,” Erica muttered.

“What are you talking about?” I asked. “You blew up their helicopter! If it hadn't been for you, we'd be dead!”

“They should never have gotten as close as they did. My mission today was to protect you.”

“It was? I thought you were just supposed to be learning to ski. . . .”

A cold look from Erica stopped me in midsentence.

“That was all just a cover?” I asked.

Erica nodded. “Grandpa thought there was a chance they were onto you.”

“Why didn't you just tell me?”

“He thought you might freak out if you knew your life was in danger.”

I considered that, then nodded agreement. “He was probably right.”

“Only, I screwed up,” Erica said, livid at herself. “I should have been aware that helicopter was incoming much earlier. But I allowed myself to get distracted.”

I noticed Zoe grimace at this, feeling bad for being the one who'd distracted Erica.

“There wasn't anything you could have done differently,” I said. I was directing my words to Erica, but I was really speaking to both of them. “We were on the lift. We couldn't have gotten off any faster than we did.”

“I should never have allowed us to come this far toward the wilderness,” Erica said. “That was a grave mistake. I was thinking I could keep a better eye on our surroundings if there were fewer people around. It didn't occur to me there might be an aerial attack. . . .” She trailed off, staring at me thoughtfully. Then she said, “Take off your jacket.”

“Now?” I asked. “It's freezing.”

“Take it off.”

I did and handed it over to her. Erica quickly examined it, working her hands over every seam and rifling through the pockets. “Aha,” she said, and with a flourish, she removed a
small black square with a curl of wire sticking out of it.

“What's that?” Mike asked.

“A GPS transmitter,” Zoe replied.

“They must have planted it on you last night,” Erica told me. “While you were bugging
them
.”

I groaned, feeling like an idiot. “Which means they were onto me the entire time.”

“Not necessarily,” Erica corrected. “But you were definitely getting Dane worked up while you were with Jessica. And that was probably my fault too. I was making you push the boundaries. So I'm guessing he tagged you just to be on the safe side.” She smashed the transmitter on a rock, then threw my jacket back to me.

I quickly zipped it back on.

“There's one other possibility,” Zoe suggested to me. “Maybe Shang doesn't suspect you of being a spy at all. Maybe he just wants to kill you because you hugged his daughter and he's a really overprotective father.”

As ridiculous as that seemed, I couldn't quite discount it. To my surprise, Erica didn't either.

“Maybe,” she agreed. “If there was anyone evil enough to want to sentence someone to death for hugging, it's Leo Shang.”

We reached a section where the canyon walls closed in until it was almost claustrophobic. There was little room
left on the bank alongside the stream, occasionally forcing us onto rocks that poked through the water. My heels were starting to blister in my ski boots. And to make matters worse, Warren insisted on singing “Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall.”

“So . . . ,” Mike said. “Can someone tell me exactly what's going on here?”

“No,” Erica said. “It's classified.”

“Aw, c'mon,” Mike pleaded. “I nearly got killed because of you guys!”

Erica gave him a suspicious glance. “Come to think of it, how'd you end up exactly where we were today?”

Mike looked away, his usual confidence wavering. “I . . . uh . . . followed you guys.”

“Why?” Erica asked.

“Because of
you
,” Mike told her. “I've been calling you. But you never called me back.”

“You gave him your phone number?” Zoe asked Erica.

“Of course not,” Erica said tartly. “I don't give anyone my real number. For security reasons. I gave him a fake. It calls a CIA dumping box for incoming messages.”

“Ah,” Mike said. “Well, that explains why I didn't hear back from you. But I wanted to see you again, so . . . I sort of tailed you guys today.”

“Why didn't you just call
me
?” I asked.

“Well, we left things in a weird place,” Mike explained. “I thought you were being a dink for lying to me about being a spy. Although, given the helicopter attack and all, I'm guessing you were trying to protect me.”

“Yes,” I said.

“I had no idea you were on a real mission,” Mike replied. “With real bad guys and everything. I thought, when you were asking for my help with Jessica, you were just trying to date her, not infiltrate some terrorist group.” Mike looked away sheepishly. “I guess I really screwed things up when I surprised you on the gondola the other day.”

“You did,” Erica told him, before I could figure out a nicer way to say it.

Mike picked his way across some rocks in the stream, then suddenly looked back at Erica, his mouth agape. “Oh my God.”

“What now?” Erica asked.

“You're not Sasha Rotko,” Mike said. “You're
Erica
.”

“I know that,” Erica replied.

“I mean, you're
the
Erica,” Mike tried to explain. “Ben's Erica. From school. The one he dated.”

Erica gave me a pointed look.

Zoe burst into laughter. “What are you talking about? Ben and Erica never dated!”

“That's not what Ben told me,” Mike said. And then he
suddenly understood. “Wait. Was that some sort of cover story?”

“No.” Zoe giggled. “Just wishful thinking on Ben's part.”

“Oh.” A sly smile crept across Mike's face. “Wow, Ben. I guess
everything
you told me about school was a lie.”

“It wasn't a lie, exactly,” I explained. “You misinterpreted something, and it was easier to let you believe it.”

“Yeah, right,” Mike said.

Thankfully, before he could tease me any more, a pair of helicopters roared overhead. They were painted red and heading up the canyon, toward the avalanche site. Zoe started waving her arms to flag them down, but Erica stopped her. “What are you doing?” she demanded.

“Signaling for help,” Zoe said. “That's the ski patrol. They could rescue us!”

“For all we know, those are Shang's men,” Erica warned.

“Those are ski patrol choppers,” Mike said helpfully. “They're red.”

“Shang's men already stole a helicopter from the heli-skiing company today,” Erica pointed out. “What's to say they didn't steal the ones from the ski patrol too? And even if they didn't, they're certainly listening in on the patrol's radio. If we get in those copters, the moment we get back to town, we'll be ambushed again. For now it's better to let everyone think we were buried in that avalanche. At least that gives us
the element of surprise, and right now we need every advantage we can get.”

“Now, now,” Warren said dreamily. “No need to be such a Gloomy Gus.”

“I'd say there is,” Erica replied. “Operation Golden Fist is going down today, but we still have no idea when or where—or what the plot even is in the first place. So far, all our mission has done is get us in trouble. We've learned nothing from the Shangs, while we just got caught with our pants down in a surprise attack. We're cut off from our team, we're cold, we're wet, and we're a long way from civilization.”

“We still have some granola, though!” Warren added enthusiastically. He whipped out the smashed bar to show us, but lost his grip on it. It plunked into the stream and was quickly swept away. “Oh, crud,” Warren whined. “
Now
we're screwed.”

“Then we'd better pick up the pace,” Woodchuck advised. “The sooner we get out of this canyon, the better.”

I was already exhausted from the day's adventure and trudging through the wilderness in ski boots. I could tell Zoe and Warren were struggling too. Even Mike, who was normally a fountain of energy, looked sapped. But we pressed on down the canyon anyhow, going as fast as we could, hoping we could get to civilization again before it was too late to stop the Shangs.

Minturn, Colorado

December 30

1300 hours

Like Erica had said, there
was a town at the mouth of the canyon, several miles downstream. It wasn't much of a town—a few run-down buildings lined along a narrow road—but as we were exhausted, starving, and chilled to the bone, it looked like paradise to us.

There was only one restaurant, but thankfully, it was open. It looked straight out of the Old West, a wooden structure with a wide front porch that you could imagine outlaws ambushing the sheriff from. The parking lot behind it was still so thick with snow that most of the clientele had come
by snowmobile. There were dozens parked there, along with some cross-country skis and snowshoes in a rack by the door, as well as one honest-to-God horse. It was tied to the ancient hitching post, drinking from a trough filled with icy water.

“It feels like we're in some sort of time warp,” Zoe commented.

“I have coverage!” Erica announced triumphantly, looking at her phone. “I'll call Grandpa and give him the update. The rest of you head inside, get warm, and grab some food.”

We didn't need to be told twice. We quickly funneled into the restaurant, shed our damp jackets, and unbuckled our ski boots. I felt an incredible sense of euphoria as the pressure was finally relieved on my blistered feet.

The restaurant was decorated with the standard array of stuffed dead animals—there seemed to be a law in the Rockies mandating at least one jackalope per bar—as well as a hundred years of historical detritus nailed to the walls: yellowed photos of the town from the time of its founding, thousands of license plates,
NO HUNTING
signs with bullet holes blown in them, and random items like wagon wheels, busted skis, and ancient bicycle parts. The patrons were equally random: They wore everything from cowboy gear to Day-Glo snowmobiling suits. Everyone stopped talking briefly to check us out as we entered, then resumed their conversations.

Suddenly I got the strange feeling that there was
something important in the restaurant. I cased it again, wondering if there were any spies for the Shangs there. Then I wondered if I was just being paranoid. Getting ambushed has that effect on you.

Woodchuck pointed all of us to a table and went directly to the waitress. “What's the fastest thing you can make for us to eat?”

“Eggs, I guess,” said the waitress.

“Right. We'll have six dozen eggs, please. Scrambled will be fine.”

“And bacon!” Zoe added.

“And sausage!” Mike put in.

“And pickles!” Warren suggested.

“Bacon and sausage,” Woodchuck told the waitress, then said, under his breath, “Forget the pickles.”