Authors: Robin Benway
Also Known As (26 page)
“Don’t you need more gadgets?” Jesse said. “You don’t have anything that looks very impressive.”
(Honestly, I loved Jesse and Roux dearly, but I was starting to understand why most spies worked alone.) “Gadgets?”
“Yeah, for hacking.”
“I’m not the hacker,” I protested. “That’s my mom’s job.”
“Your mom?” Roux said. “Wow, it’s always the quiet ones, isn’t it.”
“And I’m not going to break into his computer,” I told Jesse.
“You’re not?”
“Nope. You’re going to do it for me.”
“I am?”
“Yep,” I said, then passed the laptop across the table to him. “What’s your dad’s e-mail password?”
“How am I supposed to know?” Jesse asked. “It’s his e-mail, not mine.”
“Okay, we’ll have to guess.”
“E-mail is so archaic.” Roux sighed, but Jesse and I ignored her.
“It’s usually kids’ names and birthdays,” I told him. “Or a combination of that. Or maybe an anniversary.”
“Can’t you just plug something into the computer that’ll download it?” Jesse asked.
“That’s not exactly how it works,” I replied, taking over the keyboard. “Our jobs would be a million times easier if it did.”
We tried several combinations of Jesse’s name and birth date that we could think of, but they didn’t work. “Told you,” Jesse said after our fourth attempt.
“What’s your mom’s name?” I asked him, and he looked stricken. “I’m serious. What is it?”
“Meredith,” Jesse said. “Meredith May Oliver.”
I typed “Meredith May” and the in-box opened up.
“People are so predictable,” Roux said, as if she had spent her life trying to crack passwords. “Good job, Mags.”
“Thank you, thank you,” I said. “Okay, let’s start searching.”
We were a trio obsessed.
At first I couldn’t find any e-mails about any article. I searched “Collective,” “Maggie,” “Angelo,” “spy,” whatever I could think of that might give us a hit. Nothing came up. But when I tried words like “story,” “cost,” or “secret,” it gave me thousands upon thousands of hits. “Your dad really needs to organize his in-box,” I told Jesse at one point. “He’s an electronic hoarder.”
“This is way more exciting in the movies.” Roux yawned after the clock passed five and we didn’t have anything. Tiny tendrils of panic were starting to wind their way around my throat, and I knew that if we didn’t find anything, this whole deal was over. I had blown my parents’ cover, Angelo’s cover, and my cover, all within the span of a day, and pretty soon, the rest of the world would know who we were. There would likely be government inquiries, arrests, and I’d probably be separated from my parents and put—
“What’s that?” Jesse asked, interrupting my depressing train of thought. (I guess he had a point with the whole apocalyptic-thinking thing.) “Go back, go back.”
I scrolled back up and saw an e-mail titled, “Re: auction.” “My dad was talking about an auction on the phone the other day,” Jesse said. “He was angry that someone was trying to sell a story after they said he could have it.”
“That would have been good to know two hours ago!” I said, clicking on it as fast as I could.
“Sorry, I didn’t think it was important! We don’t all do this for a living, you know.”
I let it slide because, fair enough. At that point, I was just glad that Jesse was still talking to me.
The e-mail was short and to the point: “‘Due to your request, I can no longer participate in our discussion regarding the International story. We at Meredian Media—’ Did he name it after your mom?”
“Yeah,” Jesse admitted.
“Awww!” Roux and I both squealed.
“Where was I?” I continued. “Oh, yeah. ‘We at Meredian Media have a longstanding policy not to pay for information relevant to our articles. To do so would violate our journalistic integrity, as well as our moral code.’” I paused again. “Your dad has an eloquent way of telling people to take a hike.”
“He does,” Jesse said. “Where’s the trail, though? No forwards, no replies.”
We searched for the recipient’s e-mail address next and found a slew of e-mails, nearly thirty in all. “Gotcha!”
Roux said, sitting up so she could squint at the screen. “Can you guys even read that? I think I need glasses.”
I shoved over and pulled the computer onto my lap so that all three of us could look at it. “He was selling the story,” I realized. “Your dad agreed to run it at first, but then the guy turned around and offered it to another magazine to try and get a bidding war going. He wanted your dad to pay for the info.”
“
How
much did he want for it?” Roux asked. “That’s a lot of zeroes.”
“That’s
Egalité
magazine,” Jesse said. “My dad hates their publisher because he used to work for my dad and then left and took half of his reporters with him. Seriously, don’t say
Egalité
around my dad.”
“But it doesn’t say that he bought the story, just that he wanted to buy it.”
“Can’t you look at his bank accounts?” Roux said. “See if he made any big withdrawals?”
“I could if I were working at the Collective’s headquarters right now.” I sighed. “They have all the technology for that. But out in the field, all I do is open the safes.” I was starting to realize how far out of my depth I was.
“Roger didn’t buy it,” Jesse said. “Trust me.”
Roux and I turned to look at him. “If he bought it, two things would be happening. One, my dad would be ripping his hair out and swearing up and down the halls. He hates
Egalité
so much that, trust me, we’d know if they got the story.”
“I recommend anger management,” Roux said.
“And two,” Jesse continued, ignoring her, “if they did
already buy the story, everyone would know. He’d be leaking bits and pieces to the press on a daily basis.”
“He didn’t buy it
yet
,” I clarified. “He still might.” I saw an attachment on another e-mail and opened it up.
The first thing I saw was my face.
“Holy shit!” I gasped. “That’s me.” I leaned a little closer to inspect the image. “Is that what I look like?”
It was a dossier about me, I soon realized, and it was just one of about a dozen. My parents, Angelo, different spies that had come and gone over the years—we were all there. Someone had put them all together, and I felt the cold wash of terror start to seep into my skin. “This isn’t just someone out to get the Collective,” I whispered. “It’s someone from
inside
the Collective. Oh my God.” I had never considered the possibility before, but now I was looking at old passports, addresses, and birth dates. There were snapshots of me and Angelo outside Gramercy Park—me barely tall enough to reach the lock that I was picking—and a copy of my actual birth certificate. Only a Collective insider could have had this much information.
The e-mail was much worse.
“They have used minors to commit international espionage,” I read aloud, “and have operated outside the law for scores of years.” I sat back and put my hand to my mouth. I was the minor, I knew it.
“You’re shaking,” Jesse murmured.
“You think? That’s my family they’re talking about! They’re talking about me! There are a lot of people who could be in a huge amount of danger right now!” The room felt too hot and small. “If this person’s selling this
information to the highest bidder, he’s basically selling a hit list and …” I couldn’t even finish that sentence.
“Well, you can’t be the only one who’s gone rogue, right?” Roux said. “Even the best companies have a few disgruntled employees.”
“Well, I’m sure people leave the Collective, but no one who does this would sell anyone else out.”
And then it hit me.
“I know who it is,” I said. “It’s Oscar Young.”
Roux and Jesse stared at me. “Are we supposed to know who that is?” Roux asked. “Because I’m behind on a few issues of
People
magazine.”
My mind was going so fast that I felt a little dizzy. “Angelo told me about him.” (I would have to explain Angelo to Jesse at a later time.) “He tried to kidnap me when I was four years old.”
It took a few minutes to peel Roux off the ceiling after that revelation. “It was a million years ago!” I assured her as she ranted about the FBI and sloppy police work and the importance of self-defense classes for women. “And Angelo said that his body washed up on shore in South America a few months later.”
Jesse looked unsure. “So you think a man has risen from the grave and has decided to sell your story to the highest bidder. Not really plausible.”
“People fake their deaths all the time, though!” Roux protested. “Don’t you ever watch TV? It’s really common, actually.” She crossed her arms like she was suddenly the authority on the subject. “Can we go to the police now?”
“No police,” I told her. “Spies, remember? We’re trying to keep this quiet.”
“Right, right.”
“Oscar must have the documents and is trying to sell them.”
“Oscar is dead,” Jesse said. “You said so yourself.”
“Nothing else makes sense, though,” I protested. “And he’s tried terrible things before. Now we just have to find out where the documents are.”
“You mean you have to figure out where Oscar
lives
,” Jesse corrected me. “And there are about ten billion places where he could be.”
You went to Gramercy Park by yourself at night?
Do you realize how dangerous that can be?
He was no knight in shining armor, that much I can assure you
.
“I need a map,” I said, grabbing the laptop and pulling up Manhattan, searching until I found what I needed. “There,” I said, pointing at the screen. “He lives there.”
I was pointing at 36 Gramercy Park East.
It was a tall, imposing building with an actual red carpet that stretched down its front steps toward the street, and two oversized suits of armor standing at attention. “Trust me,” I said when Roux and Jesse just blinked at me. “I know this is it. I told my parents that we went there on our date and they
freaked out
.”
“Your parents are so cute,” said Roux, who has clearly never seen my parents freak out.
“Well, if I’m still alive at the end of this, I’ll tell them
you think so,” I said, then started googling Oscar’s address. At that point, I would have given a million dollars to see Angelo and ask for his help, but I would have to make do with all the advice he had given me over the years.
“Hey, are you two willing to ditch school tomor—?”
“Yes,” Roux said. I knew I could count on her. I looked over at Jesse and he nodded. “Good. Because we’re gonna do some breaking and entering.”
That night, I was a nervous mess, pacing in my bedroom and claiming that I had a ton of homework. “You know, honey,” my mom said at one point, “you don’t have to do the homework.” Both my parents had been super nice since I had come back home. Our fight seemed like it was eons ago, but they clearly remembered it.
“Just keeping up appearances, Mom,” I told her, holding up my graphing calculator. “I can’t flunk out. And it’s not difficult, just voluminous.”
I even waved off dinner, saying that I was swamped, but in truth, I couldn’t bear to look either of my parents in the face. They had no idea what I was planning, and I knew that if I were with them too long, I would blurt it out. It was better to hide away in my bedroom and pretend I was a regular, stressed-out student.
At nearly midnight, my civilian phone rang. I glanced at the Caller ID: Jesse.
“Hi,” I said, keeping my voice down and pulling the
covers over my head so that my parents wouldn’t hear me. “I miss you.”
“I miss you, too. Here’s my question. Why would Oscar Young still be alive, in the same apartment, and no one in your Collection—”
“Collective.”
“—can find him?”
“I know.” I sighed. “That’s been eating at me all night.”
“It doesn’t make sense.”
“I’ve been here all this time in the city and he hasn’t tried anything?”
“Exactly!”
“Hold on, Roux’s calling me.” I clicked over to the other call. “Hi.”
“Hi. I’m so exhausted that my eyes hurt. Like, my
actual
eyeballs. Does that ever happen to you?”
“Roux, it’s midnight. What do you want?”
“Why the hell would Oscar Young still live in that apartment? Like, isn’t that the most dumbass thing he could possibly do?”
“Jesse just called me and asked the same thing. He’s on the other line right now.”
“Three-way me, baby.”
So I did. “Jesse?” I said. “Roux’s on with us.”
“Great.” He didn’t sound thrilled.
“So, here’s my thought,” Roux said, and suddenly she sounded wide awake, like she was heading a corporate board meeting. “Oscar Young was working for someone, and when he botched the whole kidnapping thing, they killed him and decided to take over.”
“She’s right,” Jesse said.
“I am?”
“You are.”
“She is?”
“Yes. Listen. There’s probably a mole in the Collective.”
“What? Are you—?”
“Think about it, Maggie! It’s the perfect cover! They can still monitor what everyone’s doing, including you; they have all this training and these resources; and then when they blow the whistle, they make a shitload of money.”
My brain was racing to catch up. “But then why would they even bother trying to sell the story to your dad?”
Roux’s voice came down the line. “To make more money.”
Thoughts were crashing together like train cars, each one causing a small explosion behind my eyes. I remembered Angelo’s words back at the museum.
There is always danger. And there is always money to be made
.
“And then they could just kidnap you afterward,” Roux theorized. “Win-win. I mean, um. Win-win for
them
, not win-win for you. Never mind.”
“They could have gotten me anywhere, though,” I said. “Why didn’t they—?”
And then I sat up in bed, a cold sweat starting to form along my spine. Buenos Aires and Luxembourg. Two major cases that had gone completely wrong: empty safes, missing blueprints, my parents and I literally running for our lives and barely making it to the airport.