Disruption (34 page)

Agent Chen had come up with a very simple story, which was good, since the only lesson I learned getting beaten up by Butler during my interrogation session was that all fake stories must be simple, and layered with more truth than lie. Mine went like this:

The security guard who had tackled me at the station had done so because he was working in the surveillance room at the time of the explosions and had seen me throw the pylon onto the tracks. While Agent Chen got rid of the footage, Butler sat down with the guard and somehow convinced him that he hadn’t seen what he thought he’d seen. I’m not sure how he did it. Maybe some interrogation technique, maybe hypnosis, maybe he injected him with a drug that made people forget stuff.

Next, Agent Knox spread the word that, indeed, I was Gunnar Konstantan from Sweden, and that I had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I was not at all responsible for the bombing at the station. The police and FBI hit the streets again, following up leads and searching for those responsible.

Butler, Agent Knox explained, wasn’t difficult at all. Once everything was out in the open, there was nothing he could do but deal, and the deal was that he would help bring the organization down. If anyone asked how I’d gotten away from the police, I was to say, “Butler helped.” And leave it at that.

“Have you ever heard the expression, ‘Those who can’t do, teach,’ Matt?” Agent Knox had asked. “Butler is a prime example of that expression. He teaches operatives how to handle themselves in interrogation settings, but after twenty minutes and a couple of threats, he folds like a piece of origami.”

Butler seemed smaller to me after that.

Getting me out of the hospital and back to the camp was also pretty easy. Agent Knox had given me a wallet that I was to say I’d stolen from another patient. I was supposed to use the money in the wallet to get a taxi back to camp. They’d put microscopic trackers on me and promised they’d be watching from a distance. All I needed to do was finish out the next two days.

As for actually getting out of the hospital, that was the easiest part of the whole thing. I’d imagined that they’d plan some kind of diversion, and then I’d jump into a laundry cart that would be pushed by a bribed orderly. I figured a car would be waiting to whisk me away from a back exit or at the bottom of a fire escape or somewhere similar. But I guess that stuff only happens in movies, because it wasn’t like that at all.

Not even close.

With all the destruction in the city, the hospital was overrun with patients, and the doctors and nurses were overwhelmed. I ate the breakfast the candy striper brought, got dressed, and then did exactly what Agent Knox told me to do: I walked out. No one tried to stop me. No one even noticed me. I wasn’t even trying to be sneaky about it.

Once outside, I walked over to the taxi stand and got a cab. Wave after wave of exhaustion hit me during the drive, but I couldn’t bring myself to sleep. I kept going back and forth, one second so excited I was actually a CIA spy heading out on my first real mission, and the next, I wanted to tell the driver to turn around and take me back to the hospital. Back to Agent Knox so I could tell her I’d changed my mind, that I wanted the witness protection option. But while I had a back-and-forth argument with myself, the minutes ticked by, and before long, it had been just over an hour, and the taxi was heading up the driveway to Camp Friendship.

The experience of driving up that gravel stretch for a second time is difficult to explain. I’d gone to Universal Studios with my parents when I was younger, and I remember getting to tour a movie set. Things looked totally real on that set. The trees, the buildings, even the people. But none of it was real. It was all just a veneer. A fake exterior to impress tourists. That was how the camp felt to me now. Nothing I saw was as it really was. It was all just an intricate distraction.

I paid the cabbie and made my way down to Team Grizzly’s section. There were campers everywhere, each scampering around like they’d just been assigned the world’s most important task. I made it halfway through the section before anyone really noticed me.

“Captain?” a younger girl asked. The three campers with her jerked around at her words and stared at me, openmouthed.

“Yeah,” I said without slowing down. “Sorry, I don’t have time to stop.”

After that, almost everyone I passed noticed me.

“Sir!” another girl blurted out. “You made it back?”

“Uh-huh,” I said, picking up speed.

There were sighs of relief and kids shouting my name. It was all very uncomfortable, and I wondered if maybe losing a Delta in an event meant that everyone on the team had some kind of punishment. The crowd of kids following me only grew as I jogged the rest of the way to the cabin. I glanced over my shoulder as I climbed the steps to the door and cringed. There were at least twenty campers smiling and calling out to me.

I turned away, shoved open the door, and slammed it shut behind me.

“Captain?” Angie stood up from her bed and eyed me carefully. “It
is
you!”

Juno laughed and clapped his hands. “I told you he’d make it back.”

Rylee stepped up and bit her lip. “We’ve been worried.”

“What happened?” Amara asked. “And how’d you get away from the police?”

I pressed my back against the door and stared at my team. I had expected that seeing them again, knowing what I knew about them, would make being in the same room with them uncomfortable. But for some reason, it didn’t. I thought about that for a second, and I realized that I’d always found them intimidating, and being around them had never been comfortable. The only difference was that now I wasn’t entirely clueless.

That Juno was the son of a yakuza crime boss or that Amara’s mom was some South African freedom fighter didn’t make them any more intimidating than they’d already been. I did wonder, though, about Rylee and Angie, though I figured Angie was the psychotic daughter of someone really nuts. An escaped mental patient from a hospital in Europe, no doubt. It wouldn’t have surprised me if her mom or dad had a nickname like
the Berlin Psychopath
or
Sociopath Steve.

I snapped out of my daze and realized my team was staring at me. “Sorry,” I said, “it’s a long story.” I plopped down on my bed. “I’ll tell you about it when I get up.”

“Just give us the CliffsNotes version,” Rylee said. “We know we won; we just don’t have any idea how.”

They weren’t going to let me sleep, at least not without some answers. “All right,” I said, thinking fast. “The CliffsNotes version, huh? I got blown up by Chase’s bomb, got tackled by security when I was running away from the building, and got hauled to the hospital, where the freaking FBI showed up because they thought I was the bomber. Then Butler came just in the nick of time and convinced everyone I was who I said I was: a kid on a foreign exchange in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s a good thing I took all the fake IDs I’d made for my Swedish counterpart, because I technically sabotaged Chase’s plan; but if we won, I must’ve gotten credit for the bombing.”

Juno nodded his head at me. “Nice.”

“Butler?” Rylee asked. “You’re kidding. I can’t believe they sent in Butler to help you out. I mean, we won, so maybe you’re more valuable than an average Delta, but Butler?”

I closed my eyes and then snapped them open and pointed at my teammates, who were still crowded around my bed. “You guys remember those three campers? Rob, Alexis, and Duncan?”

They all nodded.

“Your little lackeys,” Juno noted.

I harrumphed. “Well, they’re not on our team at all. They’re impostors. They were working with Chase all along. I want you to spread the word: if they step one toe off the path while they’re in our section . . .” I looked around at the faces again and drew back my lips. “Hurt them.”

“I’m impressed,” Angie said. “I didn’t think you’d ever tell us to hurt a trio of eleven-year-olds.”

“They’re not
regular
eleven-year-olds,” I said. “And they deserve it.”

“Chase planted those little brats?” Rylee asked. “I knew I should have objected more when I saw you talking to them. I knew something wasn’t right.”

“Sleep,” I said, settling back into my bed. “I need some. Bad.”

I was tired. Exhausted. All I wanted was a couple hours of sleep. Then I’d deal with all of this. Just a couple hours.

My eyes had been closed for maybe ten seconds when the door to the cabin crashed open. I was too tired and too sore to jump to attention but did, miraculously, find the strength to roll out of bed and stand. Though Ms. Clakk was already halfway across the room when I did.

“Cambridge,” she said in a much-too-pleasant tone, “you’re back. I heard you were but wanted to see for myself.”

“I’m back, ma’am,” I said.

“Decided to take a tour of the city while you were out, did you?”

“A tour of the hospitals anyway, ma’am.”

“Since you pulled off a win and made me look good, all is forgiven.” She slapped my shoulder and then looked around the cabin. “Put on one of your team shirts and get moving. You’re to be outside doing your best to look like campers enjoying the last day of camp.”

“Last day?” I asked. “I thought tomorrow was the last day.”

“Keep up, Cambridge,” Clakk said with a sigh. “Tomorrow you guys are shipped out first thing. Today’s the last day that matters.” She snapped her fingers. “All of you. Get out there!”

Chapter 52

We weren’t out of the cabin for five minutes before Chase wandered up the path toward us. He didn’t stop walking, but as he passed us, his eyes narrowed and he bared his teeth. “We’re not done, Cambridge,” he said, seething. “I’ll get you for what you did. I promise you I will.”

Part of me wanted to throw back a snappy comeback, but another part of me wanted to puke on my shoes. Chase was certifiable. Really nuts. He’d tried to blow up a train station. If he said I was going to pay, I had a feeling that’s exactly what was going to happen.

“Stop being such a baby, Chase,” Angie said. “You lost, fair and square. You’re clearly not Delta material.”

Chase didn’t turn around. He just dropped his chin and kept trudging down the path.

We came to the archery range and spotted Dalson talking to a woman near one of the targets. Instinct told me to stop, turn, and go the opposite direction. But as soon as I stopped, Dalson looked up, spotted me, and signaled me to come down.

“Good luck,” Rylee said as I stepped off the path and headed to the range.

“Mr. Cambridge,” Dalson said with a grin that looked entirely sincere. “Good timing.”

He gestured to the woman on his right, and it took me a minute before I recognized her. The camp accreditation lady. The one I’d met the very first day in the parking lot. I tried to think of her name.

“Ms. Sani,” I said.

The woman nodded. “I was hoping I’d run into you, Matt.” She grimaced and gestured to my face. “I heard about your accident when I was reviewing the first aid logs. How are you feeling?”

I shrugged and wondered what the logbook said about my injuries. “I’m fine. I’m sure it looks worse than it feels.”

She smiled. “Glad to hear it.” She waved her hand around the camp. “So? How was your camp experience?”

“Matt was captain of one of the teams this year,” Dalson said before I could answer on my own.

Ms. Sani’s eyes widened. “Really?”

“More than that,” Dalson said. “He led his team to victory.”

“Is that a fact?” Ms. Sani said. “Then you had a good time, Matt? You’ll be back next year?”

I laughed and blurted out, “Not unless my parents hate me.”

Dalson’s eyes narrowed for a fraction of a second.

Ms. Sani smiled. “Then you didn’t have fun?”

I cleared my throat. “It was, um, better than I expected, but I’d have more fun at home with my friends.”

Dalson put his hand on my shoulder. “He’s still got a bit of an attitude, but I think, deep down, he’s had a wonderful experience. It’s what we strive to give our campers here at Camp Friendship.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It was wonderful.”

Ms. Sani smiled. “I’m sure it was, Matt.” She turned to Dalson. “I’ll get the last bit of paperwork from my car and meet you back at your office.”

When Ms. Sani was on the path, Dalson turned me around. “Not bad, Matt, not bad at all. Your scores were impressive, of course, but you did an excellent job making people underestimate you this summer. I don’t know how you came up with the plan to both cause a disruption and sabotage Mr. Erickson’s team, but it was out-of-the-box thinking like that that got you the win. The city will be cleaning up that mess for months.”

Dalson nodded knowingly and then reached into his pocket, pulled out a small cell phone, and handed it to me. “Here’s your reward. You earned it.”

The cell phone was small and black and had a touch-screen display.

“Keep it handy,” Dalson said. “Your team’s numbers are already programmed in. When you get a mission, you set the rendezvous location and carry out the plan.”

The CIA was watching, I reminded myself. I wondered if they were close enough to hear what we were saying. It was my chance to get a bit more information and show the real CIA that I was a capable spy.

“It’s just me?” I asked. “I don’t have to report to anyone else?”

“Ms. Clakk is your advisor,” Dalson said. “Any questions or concerns go to her, but you don’t need her permission.”

“And the call,” I asked, “the one I get with the missions? That comes from . . .”

“The Agency, of course. We are the middlemen, Matt. We handle payments, as well. Our fees are taken off the top, but don’t worry; your share will be deposited into accounts we’ve set up for you.”

I shook my head. “Of course. I knew that. I just wanted to make sure.” I bit my lip. “And the missions. What sort of things should I be prepared for?”

He slapped my shoulder. “I wouldn’t worry about that, Matt. After your display at the station, I’d say you’re ready for anything they’ll throw at you.”

Great, I thought. That narrows it down. So blowing up a train station filled with people is the upper limits of what I might be expected to do. Just perfect. At least they’re not going to make me do anything really crazy.