Covert transportation
En route through Washington, DC
February 13
0700 hours
My friends and I were all bundled into the back of a paddy wagon, strapped into jump seats along the walls, and locked inside. Chip, Jawa, and Zoe sat on one side; Mike, Erica, and I were on the other. There were no windows. The only light came from a single bulb in the ceiling, so feeble that I could barely see Mike beside me.
Erica slumped against my shoulder, remaining stubbornly asleep.
Many people were speaking outside, but their voices were all muffled through the thick, bulletproof walls of the truck. I tried to eavesdrop, but couldn’t understand anything. Plus, someone inside the truck was crying. At first I thought it might have been Zoe, but then realized it was Jawa. “My own agency thinks I’m a criminal,” he sobbed softly. “My parents are going to kill me.”
I finally picked up a sliver of conversation. Cyrus Hale said he would provide protection during our transfer, then climbed into the passenger side of the paddy wagon. Someone else got into the driver’s side, after which the engine started.
That made it even harder to hear, although I thought I detected a few other engines starting, indicating there was a convoy of vehicles escorting us.
The paddy wagon lurched forward and headed out into the city.
The sudden motion jolted all of us. Erica’s head jounced against my shoulder roughly, startling her awake. She was still drowsy, though, her eyelids drooped at half-mast. “Hey,” she murmured. “This looks bad.”
“It is,” I agreed. “Cyrus just arrested us all for collaborating with SPYDER.”
“Grandpa?” Erica asked. In her drugged state, more emotion crept into her voice than she normally would have allowed. She sounded startled and worried. “He arrested me?”
“Because you tried to help me,” I explained. “And you freed Ashley.”
Erica glanced around the interior of the paddy wagon, then frowned. “She got away?”
“The CIA was too busy nabbing us instead,” Zoe said bitterly, then added, “Morons.”
The paddy wagon hooked a sharp right turn. I knew that meant we had pulled out of the main gate of the academy and were heading into the city.
Erica shook her head violently, trying to clear the cobwebs from her mind. When she looked back at me again, she seemed much more lucid. “Where are they taking us?”
“Some military facility where they’re going to torture confessions out of us,” I answered. “I don’t know where it is.”
Erica blinked in surprise. “Military?”
“Your grandfather handed us over to them,” I explained. “He said he didn’t trust the CIA to handle the job.”
“He doesn’t usually trust the military, either. Who’d he hand us over to?”
“Some woman. We never saw her face.”
“Did you hear her? Could you imitate her voice?”
“Um . . . maybe.” I tried my best to imitate the stern woman and said, “You kids are in big trouble.”
“Ben,” Chip said, “I don’t want to hit you while you’re down, but you stink at imitating people. That didn’t sound anything like that woman.”
“Oh?” Zoe challenged. “And you can do better?”
“Definitely,” Chip said. And then, to all of our amazement, he repeated the same words I had, sounding so much like the stern woman that for a moment I thought she was in the paddy wagon with us. “You kids are in big trouble.”
“Holy cow!” Mike exclaimed. “That was you? How’d you get so good at that?”
“It just comes naturally to me,” Chip said. “It’s one of my many awesome talents.”
“Actually, Chip secretly takes an acting class three nights a week,” Erica announced.
There were several gasps from the other side of the truck: Jawa and Zoe expressing disbelief; Chip expressing surprise that he’d been found out.
“You told me you were going to a martial arts class!” Jawa said.
“I am,” Chip insisted.
“No you’re not,” Erica said. “In fact, before Chip was recruited to spy school, he was at an arts academy, where he specialized in acting, singing, tap dance, and playing the oboe. I have to admit, he’s quite good. His acting instructor wants him to play the lead in their upcoming production of Guys and Dolls.”
Chip was so astonished now, he didn’t even try to hide it. “How did you . . . ?”
“I’m studying to be a spy,” Erica said. “It’s my job to know things. By the way, that woman you imitated is Felicia DuVray, assistant director of information acquisition for the U.S. Army. She’s as tough as they come. Three minutes in the room with her and you’ll be telling her everything you’ve ever done wrong in your entire life.”
“Which lead are you up for?” Zoe asked Chip. “Nicely-Nicely or Nathan Detroit?”
“I don’t know,” Chip admitted. “I didn’t even know I was being considered for the lead.”
“Nathan Detroit,” Erica told him.
“Really?” Chip asked excitedly. “Cool!”
“As thrilling as that may be,” Erica went on, “we need to focus on the task at hand. Letting DuVray take a crack at us won’t be fun and it’s going to waste valuable time. We have to figure out what SPYDER is up to right away.”
“Oh, Ben’s already done that,” Mike said.
“He has?” Erica asked. “Then why are we still in this paddy wagon?”
“They didn’t believe him,” Jawa replied.
“SPYDER wasn’t going after the president,” I explained. “They were really targeting the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was in the West Wing at the exact same time.”
“So they merely tried to make it look like a presidential assassination to distract from the real objective,” Erica said, putting everything together quickly. “Of course. Typical SPYDER. But why go after the chairman?”
“I haven’t worked that part out yet,” I admitted. “But I figure it has something to do with SPYDER’s general mission to cause chaos and mayhem.”
“If that’s all they were up to, they could have caused plenty by simply taking out the president,” Erica said. “There has to be something more to this, Ben. Think back to the explosion. Use your memory training. Is there anything else you can recall?”
I did my best to think back, but the events leading up to the explosion were a jumbled blur. “Not really. Everything happened so fast. . . .”
“I need you to try,” Erica said. “It’s important. I know it’s difficult, but you can do it. I believe in you.”
“Erica?” Zoe asked. “Did you actually just say that? You sounded like a greeting card.”
“It’s this stupid sedative I got hit with,” Erica said with a sigh. “It’s dampening my usual tendency to play down my emotions, making me far more honest than I normally feel comfortable with. It’s really annoying.”
Zoe giggled. “So, if I asked you if you considered us friends . . .”
“I’d say yes,” Erica replied, then cursed under her breath. “Ugh! Stupid honesty. I hate it!”
Meanwhile, I was struggling to recall the moments before the explosion. I closed my eyes and tried to re-create the scene in my mind, imagining the West Wing exactly as it was.
I had been passing through with Kimmy Dimsdale and Jason Stern. Then Vladimir Gorsky and all the military officers had exited the Situation Room. There was the secretary of the army, the navy, and the air force, the secretary of defense, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs himself, an older man with a steel-gray crew cut and a chest full of medals.
“Do you consider me a friend?” Jawa asked Erica.
“Yes,” Erica conceded, in a tone that made it sound as though her honesty was actually causing her pain.
Gorsky had responded with surprise upon seeing me, which had startled the chairman and the other officers with him. And then the president had emerged from the Oval Office, tailed by several Secret Service agents.
“What about me?” Chip asked Erica. “Do you like me as a friend?”
“Not really,” Erica said honestly. “I’ve always felt you were kind of a jerk.”
An image suddenly came to me, a freeze-frame from moments before the bomb went off. Gorsky and the other military officers were all staring at me, Gorsky appearing surprised I was there, the others wondering why he was reacting to me in that way. . . .
Except one.
One of the high-ranking officers had his back to me as he was hurrying into the Situation Room. I couldn’t remember his face—it was possible I’d never seen it—but he was definitely in a rush. Like he was trying to get away from me as quickly as possible.
My eyes snapped open again. I had an insight. A very scary insight.
I said, “If Cyrus is right, and SPYDER really does have operatives deep inside all branches of the government, what’s the chance that they have a high-ranking agent in the defense department?”
“Anything is possible where SPYDER is concerned,” Erica told me. “How high?”
“Vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” I said.
A hush fell over the paddy wagon as we all considered that. We swerved through another turn. The vehicle was moving surprisingly fast for Washington, DC; we must have been out before morning rush hour had begun.
“It makes sense,” Jawa said. “The chairman and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs are positions assigned by the president. If you’re vice chairman, you’re not guaranteed to become chairman . . .”
“Unless the chairman dies or steps down,” Zoe concluded. “Who’s the vice chairman?”
“Elmore Finch,” Erica answered. “He’s had a sterling service record, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t have been a SPYDER operative all along. Which means SPYDER might now have control over the highest-ranking military officer in the entire U.S. armed forces. . . .” She trailed off, as though struck by a frightening thought. “Oh no.”
“What?” I asked.
“The chairman of the Joint Chiefs controls the launch overrides for our entire nuclear missile system,” Erica said.
“You mean he can start a nuclear attack?” Mike asked, astonished. “I thought only the president could do that.”
“No,” Erica corrected. “The president can authorize a launch, but that still has to be confirmed by the military. The ultimate authority lies with the chairman.”
“Um . . . ,” Jawa said nervously. “That’s not the way the military claims it works. They’re not supposed to have that sort of control over the nuclear arsenal.”
“I know,” Erica agreed. “But they do. The military doesn’t want everyone to know the truth because, well . . . it’s a pretty stupid system. But the military has always felt they should be able to make the ultimate call on this, not the president. I don’t think it ever occurred to them that maybe, someday, a sleeper agent from an international consortium dedicated to causing chaos and mayhem would actually become the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and gain the ability to launch a nuclear strike anywhere, anytime he wanted to. Which seems to have happened.”
“So how does the system work?” I asked worriedly. “Does Elmore Finch just get handed some sort of launch button?”
“It’s not quite that simple,” Erica said. “There is a portable control system kept in a secure briefcase, but there are several layers of security to authenticate the identity of the chairman before he can initiate an attack. Thumbprint readers. Retinal scans. Voice-recognition software. All that has to be set up before the portable system can be used, and the only place that can be done is in a secure room at the . . .” She trailed off once again, only this time it wasn’t in fear. This time she seemed pleased. In fact, she actually started laughing.
“Is the idea of thermonuclear war funny to you?” Mike asked. “Because I’ve always found it pretty terrifying, myself.”
“The secure room is at the Pentagon,” Erica said.
“I still don’t see the humor in this,” Mike told her.
“The military’s information-extraction facilities are also at the Pentagon,” Erica explained. “That’s why Grandpa handed us over to the military! He isn’t suspicious of us anymore! He’s getting us through Pentagon security!” She broke into gleeful laughter again.
This was unsettling. Erica rarely laughed, and she was almost never gleeful. Hearing her do it seemed as bizarre as a cat barking.
“Erica,” Zoe said cautiously, “I know you missed the whole tribunal, seeing as you were unconscious and everything, but your grandfather didn’t seem like he was on our side at all.”
“Well, he couldn’t admit that, could he?” Erica asked. “He knows SPYDER has people everywhere. He already suspects the CIA is corrupted, and he probably suspects the same thing about the military—rightly so, I might add, given Ben’s current revelations. Plus, if you aren’t familiar with SPYDER, the idea that they’d assassinate the president simply to hide the fact that they were really trying to kill the chairman of the Joint Chiefs in order to install their own mole as the head of the entire military would probably seem a bit far-fetched. You’d be accusing the second-highest-ranking person in the military complex of being corrupt—and plotting to kill his superior. There’s no guarantee Cyrus could convince anyone else he was right, and if he suspected that’s what SPYDER was up to, he would have known he didn’t have time to waste. So he had to pretend he was still on their side.”
“Just like you did when you spoke to Ben on my phone the other night,” Zoe said.
“Yes,” Erica said. “We Hales can be very devious. It’s our thing. But Grandpa had one other reason for playing along. Have any of you ever been to the Pentagon?”
“My family took a tour once,” Jawa said.
“How long did it take you to get through security?” Erica asked.
“An hour,” Jawa replied.
“Exactly,” Erica said. “And that’s after Pentagon security has already run a dozen background checks on you, because you normally have to apply for access months ahead of time. In addition, most people can only visit the official public levels, not the top secret levels down below. Now, imagine that my grandfather wants to get all of us inside the Pentagon quickly. If he has to go through the proper chain of command, it’ll take hours to get approval, and it’ll probably tip off SPYDER that we’re onto them. But if he turns us over to the military . . .”
“They walk us right through the door themselves,” Chip finished. “You have to hand it to that old coot. He’s as sneaky as they come.”
I wasn’t convinced as quickly as Chip, but as I mulled over Erica’s argument, it began to make sense. I was pretty sure Cyrus hadn’t been on our side throughout the tribunal; it seemed he’d truly suspected we were working for SPYDER for at least the first half of it. But once I had explained what I thought SPYDER’s plan was, things had changed. Cyrus had remained suspicious and crusty on the outside, but he’d suddenly been in quite a hurry to end the proceedings and hand us over to the military.
Beside me, Mike wasn’t completely convinced himself. “Are you positive that’s what your grandfather is up to?” he asked Erica. “Because if you’re wrong, we’re all about to have a really terrible morning.”
“I’m ninety percent positive,” Erica said. “First of all, if SPYDER has gone through all this trouble to elevate Elmore Finch, then they probably want him to take control of the portable launch system as soon as possible. Which would be first thing this morning. Second, given the pattern of turns we’ve been making, this paddy wagon is definitely heading for the Pentagon.”
“You’ve been keeping track of every turn this vehicle has made?” Jawa asked, astonished.
“Yes,” Erica said. “As well as timing how long we’ve spent on every road to assess how far we’ve gone on them and then comparing all that to the complete map of the city that I’ve memorized. Haven’t all of you been doing that too?”
“Er . . . yes,” Chip lied. “That’s exactly what we’ve been doing. And you’re right. We’re heading for the Pentagon.”
We all quickly agreed with him, pretending to be equally as talented as Erica.
The paddy wagon suddenly slowed to a stop. From the front, we could hear the driver talking to someone outside the vehicle.
“We’re at the security checkpoint for the Pentagon’s eastern gate,” Erica said. “Since we’re prisoners and they’re taking us to an information-acquisition complex that isn’t even supposed to exist, seeing as it violates the Geneva Conventions, they’re bringing us in through the secure zone, rather than any of the official entrances.”
“There’s one more thing,” I said. “Even if we are getting inside past security, we’re still prisoners.” I jangled my handcuffs. “What are we supposed to do about that?”
“I’m guessing Grandpa has a plan,” Erica told me.
All we could do after that was hope she was right.