Disruption (25 page)

“Oh, this is going to be great,” Juno whispered.

The video montage played out, complete with soundtrack.

It started with the soccer ball challenge and paid special attention to Becca and her explosion. It turned out she’d stepped on a mine on the sidelines behind the goal. The explosion had thrown her into the goal. She’d ricocheted off the post and then settled in the netting unconscious. You could almost hear her bones crunching. I glanced across the room. Becca was as red as a beet.

Scenes from the paintball game played out next. From a bird’s-eye view we got to see how the teams had moved. It was as if they’d received months of military training. The scene cut in a number of times to images that could only have been recorded by cameras in the woods. It made me wonder just how safe I’d been calling Jason, but then the paintball course was a different part of the camp, and they probably planned on using that section all the time. They either knew about my calls to Jason and didn’t care, or didn’t know. I decided not to worry about it.

The next series of images was a montage of Butler pounding the stuffing out of us in the interrogation. It was nice to see that I wasn’t the only one who’d gotten pummeled. The final scene that played out was one of me:

“Okay, okay,” the screen version of me said. “I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you everything.”

The room went silent, and everyone’s attention fixated on the screen. I felt my cheeks heat up.

“I’m Chase. Chase Erickson. I’m just some punk wannabe. A real loser. I’m not the kid you want. But that’s the truth. Please. I’ll tell you everything.”

The mess hall erupted with laughter, none louder than Team Grizzly, but even several members of Chase’s team chuckled.

“Two and a half,” Butler’s voice said from the screen above.

“What? No!” I shouted and thrashed in my chair. “Please, Butler, no! I told you, the camp is run by the CIA. Please!”

More laughter from the campers.

“Three!”

The sparks shot up from the bowl at my feet, and the screen went black. Laughter was reignited, as was a smattering of applause.

“Well done, Cambridge,” Juno said. “I can’t believe they couldn’t break you. I heard everyone breaks.”

But I
had
broken. What was he talking about? I’d given my real name half a dozen times, and then spilled everything about the CIA involvement in the camp.

“For obvious reasons,” Mr. Dalson said from the front of the room, “Team Grizzly took first place in that competition. Well done, Mr. Cambridge.” He turned back to the campers and began talking about how the last couple days of camp would work.

His voice faded into the background. I didn’t really hear what he was saying. His
Well done, Mr. Cambridge
was all I could think about.

Well done? What part of that interrogation had I done well? The crying? The begging? The spilling of my guts? The only thing I might have done well was giving a false name, but that was only after I’d given my real name a dozen times.

That feeling I’d had days earlier—the gnawing, scratching feeling in my gut about Camp Friendship and the CIA—returned full force. I glanced around the room, and then around my table. It was as if my mind was screaming that the answer was right in front of me, but I just wasn’t connecting the dots.

“Good luck!” Dalson’s words rocked me out of my daze. “Buses leave in fifteen minutes.”

“Buses,” I said. “So we were right about it being off-site.”

My teammates nodded. The nervous tension at the table was palpable.

“All right,” I said. “Let’s grab our bags and get going. We have one more competition to win.”

Everyone pushed away from their tables and made for the doors, but I hesitated. It seemed every time I thought I had a handle on things, something else swept my feet out from under me and reminded me that I was an uninformed trespasser in this camp. It made absolutely zero sense that I’d won the last event for
not
breaking when clearly I had broken down in a child-like fit. I considered the options. There really were only two. Either “not breaking” meant not breaking
first,
which might have been true since we didn’t get to see clips of how Chase or Becca had done. Or what I’d said to Butler wasn’t true.

A chill of panic settled over me like a wet blanket, and the thought that everything I thought was true about the camp really wasn’t true just about got away from me. Butler was a CIA interrogator, I reminded myself. Rylee had told me that, and Dalson had mentioned it as well, right after the interrogation. If Butler was CIA, this camp was CIA. As if to confirm my thoughts, my gaze fell on the back of one of the chairs at our table and I spotted the familiar
PCIA
etched carefully into the wooden backrest.

Since Juno had pointed out the first
PCIA
at the archery range I’d seen hundreds of the etched letters. They were on doors and handles and plates. Almost anywhere those letters could be etched without being obvious, there they were.
Property of the Central Intelligence Agency
. It was, as Juno had put it, a reminder, and that reminder was exactly what I needed to put my mind at ease. Nerves were getting the better of me, and I had to get it together.

I followed my team to the cabin where we grabbed our things. When we opened the door to head to the buses, Alexis, Rob, and Duncan were standing there, bags in hand.

“Where do these little twerps think they’re going?” Angie asked.

I looked at the trio.

Rob stood straight. “You said we’d be part of the team if you were allowed to bring more players.”

“You’re allowed,” Alexis said. “For the final Delta event, you can bring as many more players as you want.”

I turned to Rylee. “Is that true?”

She nodded. “Yeah, but you shouldn’t. No one does. This is when the Delta teams stand on their own.” She nodded in the direction of the parking lot. “No one else is going to bring anyone other than their main team.”

“They’re especially not going to be bringing a bunch of children,” Amara said.

Angie leaned forward and put her hands on her knees, and when she spoke, it was in a voice a mother might use when talking to an infant. “Is this your first camp, little ones?”

The trio didn’t respond. They just stared at me with eyes that seemed to frost the air between us.

“Sorry, guys,” I said. “Maybe next time.”

I took a step, and Rob grabbed my arm roughly and jerked me toward him. Instinctively, I turned and punched him in the chest, knocking the younger camper to the ground.

Alexis and Duncan helped their teammate to his feet and then turned to me. Alexis looked like she’d just been told someone had melted her favorite doll.

“You said . . .” Alexis said. “You said if we . . . we could come along.”

“What did they do for you?” Yaakov asked.

“Nothing.” I felt my cheeks flush. “If other teams were bringing extras, then I’d bring you along. But they’re not, so we’re not.”

“You did promise,” Duncan said. He didn’t look upset, but his tone felt like a warning.

Juno must’ve heard the tone too, because he stepped forward and poked Duncan in the chest. “Stand down, camper.”

Duncan glared at Juno for a beat and then fell back in line with Alexis and Rob.

“This is why you never involve such little kids in your events,” Rylee said. “They just lack any trace of maturity to know their place.”

The muscles in Alexis’s face flexed, and Rylee rolled her eyes.

I blew out a breath and started walking toward the bus. “Let’s go, guys.”

Counselor Clakk stood at the door to the bus, tapping a clipboard impatiently against the side of her leg. The other two buses were already being driven away, kicking up dust behind them.

“About time,” she said. “Guess you wanted to give the other teams a fighting chance, huh?” She smiled and rested her hand on my shoulder. “Very, very well done with the interrogation, Matt. I’m not convinced you’re going to be able to bring ’er home for a win, but you have succeeded in making me think you’re not entirely incompetent. That’s no small feat.”

“Um, thank you, ma’am . . . I think.”

She shook the clipboard at me and said, “This is the directive for this Delta event.” I reached for the board, but she pulled it back behind her. “You have to pick a target. Tell your driver where to take you. You must then execute your plan before three o’clock. Miss that deadline and you will be in last place. Understand?”

I didn’t have a clue, but I nodded all the same. She pulled the clipboard from behind her back and handed it over. It held a single piece of white paper with a single word typed in the center of the page:
Disrupt.

I looked up at Ms. Clakk and felt my eyebrows draw together. “Disrupt what?”

She stared at me stone-faced. “That would be the target you need to come up with.”

“So, then,” I began, “we’re just supposed to . . .”

“You are to
disrupt
something, Mr. Cambridge. Or cause a disruption. Or cause something to be disrupted. It is not a difficult concept. Believe it or not, this is not a difficult task. Show the judges that you can execute a mission in broad daylight, without being compromised. This challenge,” she continued, “is all about adapting.”

“Disrupt and adapt,” I said, under my breath.

Counselor Clakk blew out a breath. “Get on the bus. Pick a location before you get into town.” She started to walk away and then turned back to us. “Three o’clock.” She held up three fingers. “Don’t blow it by being late.”

I climbed the steps along with the rest of the team and made my way to the back of the bus. I plopped myself into one of the seats and waited for everyone else to get on board. The bus started moving as soon as we were all in our seats.

“Thoughts?” I said.

“Disrupt,” Amara said. “
Disrupt
is a term that gives us a lot of leeway. I can think of a dozen ways to implement that directive.”

“Can you?” I asked.

“I’m sure we all can,” Amara said.

“That’s not the point,” Rylee said. “The idea is originality. If we don’t win, this event will be key to us getting into the fall session. And if we want to win, the disruption has to be original.”

“I think scale is more important than originality,” Amara said. “Think infrastructure.”

I scratched the back of my head. “Infrastructure?” The word sounded familiar, but I couldn’t remember the meaning.

“Yeah,” Amara said, “infrastructure. You know, transportation, communication, power . . .” He looked at me expectantly.

“What if we disable the city’s sewage system?” Yaakov asked.

“That would work,” Amara said, nodding thoughtfully.

“Eww, no!” Angie said. “I’m not messing with sewage.”

“I’m with Angie on that,” I said. I wouldn’t have had the first clue how to disable a city sewage system anyway.

Rylee nodded. “It has to be something obvious. Something that is a clear disruption. Something that happens between now and three o’clock.”

“We could blow up a bridge,” Amara suggested. “That wouldn’t be so hard, and it would be really disruptive.”

I laughed. “Yeah, that would be real great.” The rest of the team didn’t laugh, and I looked at Amara. He seemed almost offended that I’d dismissed his suggestion so quickly. “No!” I said more forcefully. “We’re not blowing up a bridge.”

“A building, then?” Juno asked. “Or mess with a transportation hub?” He pointed a finger at me. “Oh, we should go to the airport. It’s easy to cause a disturbance there. Everyone’s on edge all the time. We could cause a pretty bad panic with some minor effort.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Rylee said. The rest of the team nodded.

I shook my head. Messing with flights was crossing a line. People were freaked out about flying enough as it was. “We need something more original,” I said.

“True,” Angie said. The bus bounced over a cattle guard and then pulled onto a paved road.

“What then?” Yaakov asked. “A disruption isn’t rocket science.”

I leaned forward and pressed my palm into my forehead. A disruption. A disruption. I could do this. I was the king of disrupting stuff. Heck, the reason I was in this camp in the first place was basically because of a disruption. That’s when it hit me. A disruption. “Like a prank.” I spoke without meaning to.

“A prank?” Rylee shrugged. “Sure, I guess so. We’re not setting whoopee cushions under your teacher’s chair or anything. It has to be a significant disruption. As long as it’s a particularly disruptive prank, you can think of it however you’d like.”

I rubbed my hands together and felt my mouth spread into a grin. All limits were off. This was the CIA. I could pull any prank I wanted and face no risk of jail, since the people who arrested me were probably going to be CIA anyway. And if they weren’t, the CIA would swoop in and rescue me.

It suddenly became very obvious what the disruption had to be. “Driver,” I called down the aisle.

The man at the front glanced at me through the rearview mirror.

“Central Subway Station,” I said.

He nodded, and I turned to the rest of the team. “It’s a transportation hub,” I said, “and I have just the disruption in mind.”

Jason and I had already formulated the plan. We’d discussed it dozens of times. I made a checklist in my head. I’d need to use my phone, and I’d need Jason to make some calls for me, but, yeah, I could do this. My hand went to my pocket, and I felt the cell phone—battery still separate. I was just about to pull the pieces out and call my friend, but I remembered the bus driver and thought better of it. Also, for all I knew, if my teammates heard me call Jason, they might get suspicious and think it was cheating. They hadn’t wanted me to bring any extra campers. They probably didn’t want me using outside help either.

I’d make the call privately as soon as I had the chance.

I smiled as the bus turned off the side road and onto the highway. This was good. It would work. No one was going to cause a bigger disruption than the mass evacuation of the central train station.

“I like that look,” Angie said. “Do you have a plan?”