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“Winston? The punk from the game?” I groaned in dismay. More bad news to finish off a terrible day. “Are you sure?”
“Sorry, I saw him myself,” Trinity affirmed sympathetically. “I thought you guys might want a little warning.”
“Yeah, thanks,” I said grimly. Not that it could do much good if he was on the same floor as us. There'd be no getting away from him. “We’ll see you in the morning.”
“Right. And good luck with Winston.” Trinity smiled at me as she turned to go. “Oh, yeah, I forgot. Since you guys don’t believe in luck, maybe your God will make him go away for you.”
“Maybe if we pray hard enough, He will,” Matt grumbled as we entered the dorm. “Now we have to deal with that spoiled brat every day. Just what we need.”
“Not only that, but he’ll be in our unit, too,” I reminded him. Each floor of both the girls’ and boys’ dormitories made up a different unit. A senior was appointed unit commander and was responsible for making sure that all the rules were obeyed within his or her unit. Students were required to march with their unit in morning and evening formations and to participate with their unit for any intramural competitions. If Winston was on our floor, he was now part of our team.
“Maybe if we leave him alone, he won’t bother us,” I said, not even really convincing myself.
“Sure,” Matt answered dryly. “Maybe he’ll be the picture of kindness, too.”
“It is a bit too much to expect.” I smiled weakly as we climbed the carpeted stairs to the second floor. “The important thing is that we don’t let him get to us.”
“I’ll try,” Matt promised, looking at me seriously. “You know that.”
I looked down the hall warily, in no mood to deal with Winston tonight. “I don’t see him.”
“Quick,” Matt whispered. “Duck into our room before he can see us.”
We dashed to our room just across from the stairs and closed the door behind us. I glanced around our sparsely furnished room as if I thought Winston were going to pop out of one of the two bunks against the back wall or one of the desks or dressers pushed against each of the side walls. I stopped myself just short of throwing open one of the mirrored closets on either side of the door. This day was really getting to me.
“At least we don’t have to deal with him until morning,” Matt said, sitting down on the side of his bunk. He stripped his uniform jacket off and tossed it on the floor.
“I hope dealing with Winston doesn’t interfere with our investigation,” I commented as I changed my clothes. I carefully removed all the pins and insignias from my blue uniform shirt and tossed it into my laundry hamper. I hung my jacket on the back of my desk chair to keep it from becoming wrinkled. I hated to iron, but wrinkles could be serious trouble during morning inspections. “Maybe tomorrow we can find out more about that name we found.”
“Yeah,” Matt said halfheartedly as he kicked off his shoes. “I suppose we could.”
My fingers brushed cool plastic as I checked my pants pockets. “I almost forgot. I found something else, too.” I pulled the silver card out and showed it to Matt as I flipped my khakis into the hamper.
“Where did you find this?” Matt asked with surprise. He snatched the card out of my hand and looked it over carefully.
“On the ground outside the wreck.” I answered, a bit taken aback by his reaction. “Why? Do you recognize it?”
“I’ve only seen one of these before.” Matt answered, handing the card back to me. “I thought for a moment it might be Chris’s, but his has a different number on it. I think its some sort of ID card. One of the agents investigating the crash probably dropped it.”
“Maybe,” I said doubtfully. Finding an ID card like Chris's at the scene of my parents’ crash seemed to confirm my theory. Whatever agency Chris worked for, I was willing to bet that there weren’t too many agents who went around dropping ID cards. “Maybe not. What if my parents really were working with Chris? It could be one of theirs.”
“Scott,” Matt said wearily, pulling back the covers on his tightly made bed and crawling in. “If your parents were real law enforcement agents, don’t you think you would have known by now?”
“Probably not. You're not even exactly sure what Chris does,” I snapped, tired of Matt constantly trying to discourage me.
He was silent for a moment, and I thought he'd decided to go to sleep. “Look, Scott.” Matt rolled over and looked at me with pain in his eyes. “I remember how it felt when Mom died. I spent nearly a year waking up every morning expecting to find her making breakfast like she always did, expecting to find out that, somehow, everyone had been wrong. And every morning for nearly a year, I relived her death when I realized she wasn’t there.”
“What happened after a year?” I asked gently. Matt didn’t usually talk about his Mom. She'd died when he was little and his family had been stationed overseas, but he'd never told me any more than that. I hadn’t stopped to consider that my tragedy was causing him to relive his.
“I accepted the fact that she was dead.” He grunted and rolled away from me again. His next words were nearly inaudible. “Maybe it'll be easier if you just accept it now.”
I sat on the edge of my bed tracing the raised numbers on the card with my thumb. Matt’s words had hit a nerve. I didn’t want to spend my life in denial, but was it denial to want proof? Was it denial not to give up when I felt in my heart that they weren’t dead? I had to be sure, or I would be plagued the rest of my life not by denial, but by the feeling that I never really knew what happened to my parents. Or worse, that I could have done something to find them.
“What’s Chris’s number?” I asked with renewed determination in my voice.
“What?” Matt sounded surprised by my question.
“His cell phone number. What is it?”
“You’re not going to call him, now?” Matt rolled back over and stared at me. “It’s late!”
“Come on, you know Chris doesn’t get to bed before midnight anyway. Please, just give me the number.”
Matt gave in, and I punched in the numbers on the phone sitting on the table between us as quickly as I could. I was right; Chris was still up. I told him quickly what I’d found.
“What was the number on the card?” Chris asked.
“Six-three-one-one,” I read.
“Six-three-one-one,” Chris repeated. His voice sounded strangely grim. “Are you sure?”
I double checked the number on the card, even though I'd memorized it by now. “Yes, why?”
“I’ll come for it first thing in the morning,” Chris said sharply. “Don’t lose it and don’t show it to anyone else.”
“Whose is...” It was too late, Chris had already hung up.
“What was that all about?” Matt asked as I hung up the phone.
“I don’t know.” I answered, looking thoughtfully at the phone. “He’s coming over for the card first thing in the morning. He acted like it was really important.”
After we exchanged “good nights,” I switched the light off and lay down to sleep. Sleep couldn’t come. I played over and over in my mind the many times my parents came home late, always with an excuse. Excuses I had never questioned, until now. Like the fact that they wouldn’t let me stay home alone. Or the time Dad had an “accident” and Mom wouldn’t let me leave the house for three weeks. That was when they’d sent me to the Academy.
I had always thought they were just being paranoid, but what if they really feared for my life? I never had understood exactly why they’d sent me to a military school, instead of any other boarding school if they just didn’t want me home alone. If they were more than just regular security guards, maybe they had thought I would be safer at the Academy.
It also made me wonder even more what Chris's job was. If the danger they faced came from work, did he face that kind of danger, too? Matt was already snoring, so I couldn't pump him for more details about Chris's work. Not that I was even sure he could give me any more details. He hadn't seemed all that curious about what his brother did. To be honest, until today I hadn't been all that curious about my parents either.
Lord, help me to figure out what’s going on. It was going to be a long night.
I awoke at 0600, dragged myself out of bed, showered, and pull my clothes on. As I buttoned the gold buttons on my blue jacket, I glanced at myself in the mirrored closet door. I adjusted my belt to make sure my gig-line - the line made by my jacket buttons, belt buckle, and pants zipper - was straight. I was in a hurry, but I didn’t want to get demerits for being out of uniform. A wrinkle in my sharply pressed khaki pants or a scuff in my highly polished black shoes could be enough to get me three demerits.
Grabbing the silver card from off the nightstand, I looked at it carefully. I wonder if it could be my Dad’s. I scowled as I stuffed it into my back pocket. I wonder if Chris will actually tell me the truth, not just play games with me.
I made my bed and prepared my room for inspections mechanically. The time it took to make everything suitable for morning inspections made me impatient, but I forced myself to take the time to clean my room right. If an Academy student received more than one demerit in any given week, he could be restricted to the campus over the weekend.
I can’t risk that. I sighed as I smoothed a wrinkle out of my bed sheets. I can’t afford to lose one day that I might be able to use to find my parents.
Matt finished long before me and went down for breakfast. His side of the room was always messier than mine, but somehow he always finished faster than I did. I wasn’t in the mood for breakfast, but I made my way slowly across the campus to the student commons anyway. My head ached, and I was tired from my sleepless night. The buzz of conversation as I entered the cafeteria made my head hurt more.
Finding an empty table, I sat down to a bowl of cereal, picked at it moodily, and finally went down with the other students to the parade grounds for morning formation. My mind miles away, I went through the routine like a robot, focused instead on my parents and what I was going to do to get them back.
“Cadet McCully!” Sergeant Mason barked.
“Sir, yes, sir!” I snapped to attention and saluted. My eyes went wide with both fear and confusion at being called out.
“Didn’t you hear me?”
“No, sir.” I gulped. Actually, I hadn’t heard a word he had said all morning.
“You and Cadet Marshall have a visitor in the Superintendent’s office. Now march!”
I marched double time until I was out of sight and then ran as fast as I could to the Superintendent’s office. Matt arrived shortly afterwards, panting from his attempt to keep up with me.
“Hello, Scott, Matt,” Chris greeted us wearily. He was leaning back in Superintendent Hinkly’s chair. His tired eyes glanced at the chairs in front of him, indicating that Matt and I were to take a seat. He looked like he’d slept less than I had.
“Hey, Chris.” I pulled the card out of my back pocket. “This is the card I found.”
“Where did you find it?” Chris asked. He took the card from my hand and pocketed it without even glancing at it.
I hesitated before answering. “At the crash site, under a fallen tree limb.”
“I’m not even going to ask what you were doing at the crash site,” Chris said, apparently too tired to reprimand me. “I think I can guess.”
“What’s so important about that card?” I steered the conversation back on track, and me away from trouble.
“It’s kind of like a badge,” Chris explained. The leather chair creaked as he leaned back. He looked at Matt and me carefully, as if trying to make a decision. He finally sighed. “It’s not really what it is that’s important, but who it belonged to.”
“Someone important?” I asked, leaning forward expectantly.
“You could say that.” Chris frowned as if second-guessing his choice to talk. “It belonged to Agent Eric McCully. It probably fell to the ground when our men removed his belongings from the plane.”
“So Scott’s dad did work with you?” Matt turned to me apologetically. “You were right!”
“His dad and mom, actually,” Chris answered, watching my reaction carefully “They were two of our top agents.”
“So you work for Global Security Services as well?” I asked slowly, my eyes challenging him to lie to me.
He pulled a business card out of his wallet and laid it on the table in front of us. It read, “Global Security Services, Agent Christopher Marshall.”
So he did work with my parents. I'd known him for three years and no one had felt it necessary to mention that fact?
“What, exactly, is Global Security Services?” I pushed the words through my clenched teeth. “And don't even think to tell me it's a security firm.”
Chris stood abruptly from the chair, crossed to the door, and locked it. I glanced over at Matt and met his raised eyebrow. Perhaps now we were going to get some answers.
“Global Security Services is a security firm.” Chris sat back in the chair, rested his elbows on the desk and templed his fingers. “It is also one of many covers for SATURN.” He laid a second card beside the first, a near duplicate of the one I'd found by the wreck.
“And that is?” I tried to keep the exasperation from my voice, but failed. Could he be any more vague?
“Secret Agent Training University and Reconnaissance Network.” Matt breathed in awe. “I thought it was a military myth.”
“A spy agency?” I said doubtfully. “You're telling me that you and my parents are spies?”
“Secret agents,” Chris corrected, inclining his head. “Your parents headed up the most elite team in the organization.”
I didn’t feel as elated by the revelation as I had thought I would. Instead, I felt confused and hurt that my parents would hide such a large part of their lives from me. They’re spies. It’s part of their jobs. As if that made their double lives all right. I wasn’t going to allow my feelings about their secrets to get to me. I could deal with that after I found them.
“I was beginning to suspect that they worked with you,” I admitted, my thoughts returning to the day before. “You were too upset yesterday when you told me about their crash.”
Chris drew a deep breath. “Eric and Marisa – your parents – were my mentors. More than that, they were my friends.” His Adam's apple bobbed and he dropped his clenched fists to the desk. “Someone suspected they worked for SATURN.” A hint of anger threaded his voice. “I'm doing everything I can to find out who.”
“If Matt and I think of anything else that might help, we’ll let you know,” I promised smoothly.
“Absolutely not. Under no circumstances are you to get involved in this.” Chris's expression hardened as he stood to leave. “I know you want to help, but the people who did this are not like your average school bullies. They mean business. We’ve got this under control; just leave it to the professionals. Okay?”
Matt and I were silent. I didn’t want to do or say anything that might make Chris angry, but there was no way I was making that promise, not when I was only now beginning to find out who my parents really were.
Our silence didn't go unnoticed. Narrowing his eyes, Chris pressed his hands on the desk and leaned toward us. His brown eyes held a haunted look. “I will find out what happened to them, but I couldn’t stand it if either of you got hurt. For your own good, stay out of the way.”