Spy to the Rescue (13 page)

Sam replays the recording of me saying “Oh-ley-ah na-ga-su moo-manay.” I cringe at the way I sound all shrill and breathless. It's like when you accidentally see your reflection in a window when you're not prepared. I look like that?

“That's Trezekhastani,” says someone who's approaching our table.

I hear the voice, but I'm still shuddering at the thought of my squeaky tone.

“It means ‘Say good-bye to the memories of your youth,'” says the voice as it gets closer to us.

I see Sam glance up. He seems momentarily surprised, and then he smiles. “The Squirrel knows everything,” he says.

“Not everything, apparently,” says the owner of the voice.

I'm not thinking about how squeaky I sound anymore. I'm thinking that I know who's talking. I'm thinking that my heart is banging its way out of my chest. I look up to see someone I didn't think I was going to see again.

Dale Tookey.

“H
i,” I say, or rather squeak, as I gaze up at the boy standing a foot from our table holding a white plastic bag and confirm that, yes, this is Dale Tookey. Hacker for hire, double agent, someone I kissed twice and never heard from again: Dale Tookey is all those things. But what is he doing here?

“Hi,” says Dale Tookey. His voice also comes out a little higher than he probably wanted. He looks legitimately stunned to see me. Sam gets up, takes the plastic bag from Dale, reaches inside, and hands two prepaid phones to Ryan and me. Sam pulls an empty chair from
a nearby table and motions for Dale to sit down.

“Hacker,” says Sam to the rest of us, by way of explanation. “He's a superhero in his own universe, but around flesh-and-blood, non-digital life forms he gets a little squirrelly, hence the name.”

Dale doesn't smile. He darts sidelong looks at me and swallows hard.

“You're that guy,” Joanna suddenly says. “Bridget, he's that guy. Your guy, you know, from that time . . .”

She beams at me and points at Dale like I don't know who he is.

“Hold up,” says Sam, looking from Dale to me and back, his confusion evident. “You two know each other?”

“Of course they do,” Joanna trumpets. “They're both spi . . .”

I see the small burst of panic on Dale's face. Suddenly, I get it. He's undercover.

I grab what's left of my fried fish ball and ram it in Joanna's mouth.

“Bwwi
www!”
Joanna tries to shout.

Sam stares at me and then at Dale. I didn't really help the situation there.

“You're both . . . ?” Sam says.

“Spi . . . der . . . ,” I start.

“Lovers,” Dale completes.

“Spider lovers,” I say. “Lovers of spiders.”

“When did you ever love spiders?” says Ryan.

“Oh my God, you know nothing about me,” I snap. “Spiders are my passion. I spend all my free time on spider websites like . . . like . . .”

“The web dot com,” says Dale, giving me a
that's the best I could do
shrug.

“That's where we met,” I tell Sam. “I was a big fan of the . . . of the . . .”

“Green jumping spider from Australia,” says Dale. “And she wanted to know about the Goliath bird-eating spider indigenous to South America.”

“Yeah, I'm over that one,” I say. “I thought he was cool, but he's a self-obsessed spider who doesn't care about anyone else's feelings.”

“You don't know the Goliath as well as you think,” Dale says. “He likes hanging out with certain other breeds of spiders and he wishes he could do that all the time, but he's got a whole other life it's best you know nothing about. When you think he's ignoring you, he's actually protecting you.”

“If the Goliath spider knew anything about . . . the people who study him, he'd know we don't need protecting, we just need a little acknowledgment that we exist.”

“The Goliath spider knows the people who study him exist,” says Dale.

“Well, if he knows, then . . .” I stop talking. He hasn't forgotten me. He's here doing a job. I need to respect that.

Joanna swallows the fish ball and glares at me. “Stop doing that. I could choke to death.”

“We're talking about our mutual love of spiders,” I say to Joanna, staring straight into her eyes. “That's how I know the Squirrel. That's the only way I know him.”

Joanna nods and then, right in front of me, she mouths “It's not” to Ryan.

Sam is focused on his phone. He looks up at Dale. “Okay, I got the files you sent. I know too much human interaction makes you break out in hives, so I'll let you bounce out of here. I'll text you if I need anything else.”

I don't see Dale for months and now he's going to disappear again? After two minutes. Just like that?

“Um . . . can I talk to the Squirrel for a second?” I say. I stand up and head out of the diner. “It's spider talk, you wouldn't be interested. I'll just be a minute.”

I motion for Dale to follow me. Sam, Joanna, and Ryan all watch us shuffle out of the diner.

We walk in silence past a fish stall. I turn to him. “Listen,” I say.

“Not here,” he says.

Dale picks up his pace. I follow him to the corner of Mott Street, where the traffic is at its busiest and loudest.

“In case anyone's listening,” he says.

I nod.

“I didn't know it was you,” he says. “I don't ask questions. Sam wants something, I try to get it.”

“What are you doing here?” I say, attempting to make myself heard over the roar of cars, buses, and garbage trucks.

“What are
you
doing here?” he asks.

The Saturday morning traffic is so loud, I have to shift closer to Dale, close enough that I need to hold on to his arms for balance, so close I have to lean in and whisper in his ear. I tell him about Strike's van, about the Forties, about Irina, and about Vanessa's plan. I finish talking and stay in the same position, my mouth close to his ear, my hands on his arms.

I had to travel three thousand miles, get attacked by Tasers, menaced by bikers, hit by a door, and hung on a hook but I've got that feeling again. The I-hate-to-say-it-but-I'm-going-to-say-it squishy feeling I had the first time Dale Tookey smiled at me. The same feeling I had when . . .

“Did you say Trezekhastani?” I yell in his ear. He jumps in fright. I grip his upper arms.

He nods. “‘Say good-bye to the memories of your youth.'”

“Sam's mom drove us from the airport. It took forever. She said it was because the kid of some high-up from the Trezekhastan government is having some sort of party.”

Dale checks his phone. “‘Nurik Tubaldina, Trezekhastan secretary of state, and his wife, Valla, American-raised daughter of Savlostavian parents, celebrate the passage into manhood of their son, Atom, at two o'clock in the Trezekhastan Orthodox Cathedral.'”

The dots start to connect. “Vanessa called herself a chameleon. She said she could change her look and her accent. Why would she learn Trezekhastani? What use would she have for it? Unless . . .”

I don't want to say the words.

He stares at me. “Trezekhastan and Savlostavia have been at war for decades. There's been a shaky cease-fire over the past few years . . .”

I hear Irina's words.
I don't eliminate children.

“But the assassination of the son of the Trezekhastan secretary of state in a church full of Savolostavians would end that cease-fire big-time,” I say.

God, Irina
, I think.
Why did you have to get into this line of work?

God, Vanessa
, I think.
Why did this have to be the job you chose to get your daddy to notice you?

“Call the cops,” says Dale.

“The cops?” I repeat. The words feel alien in my mouth. Spies don't call cops.

“They've got the manpower,” says Dale. “They can search every guest and every car. They can cover every inch of the cathedral.”

“Yeah, but—” I start to say.

“This is big,” says Dale. “This is starting-a-war big. Too big for you, even with Joanna and Ryan in tow.”

“And Sam,” I say.

“Nothing's too big for him,” Dale says. “Or so he'd like to think.”

“What? Is he in trouble?” I ask. “Is that your job here? Busting Sam Gunnery?”

“Nope. He's just the bottom step on the ladder I'm climbing. A multinational corporation hired me to test its security. I needed to establish myself as the new hacker on the block. I got Sam to find me a place to crash and an untraceable IP address. But that's small potatoes next to what you're wrapped up in. That's big potatoes. Call the cops, Bridget. The cops will get the FBI involved.”

“Really?” I say. “That's what you think I should do? Is that what Strike would do?”

Dale takes both my hands. “We know that's not what Strike would do. But there's too many people involved.
Too much that could go wrong.”

He hands me his phone.

“Hey, spider lovers!” shouts Ryan. “We doing this or what?”

I whirl around. Ryan, Joanna, and Sam are walking toward us.

“Yeah,” calls out Joanna. “When do we start the stupid mission?”

“What's the deal with you and the Squirrel?” Sam yells. “Why are you standing so close to him?”

I turn back to Dale. “You can't get them involved,” he says. “I can't believe you told them anything.”

The look on his face. The phone in his hand. The voices of my brother, my best friend, and Sam Gunnery getting louder as they get nearer. I can be a good friend and sister or a good spy. I can't be both. They can't get involved in this.

“What are you going to do, Bridget?” says Dale. “Time's running out.”

What am I going to do?

I
call the cops. Anonymously on my prepaid phone. I give the barest of bare details. I say the son of the Trezekhastan secretary of state's life may be in danger. I end the call but I keep talking. I report a missing person. Abigail Rheinhardt, sixteen years old, around five foot four, gray eyes, unique dress sense. I do this for Ryan's benefit and then I drop the phone into the sewer. Dale's paranoia is infectious.

“Out of my hands,” I say to the others. “The ball's in the NYPD's court.”

Ryan, Joanna, and Sam all look disappointed.

“This trip is turning into a compete washout,” whines Ryan. “I get dumped, I don't get to stop an assassination. . . .”

“You did the right thing,” says Dale.

Sam walks up to me and positions himself between me and Dale. “Are you warm enough in my hoodie? Do you need me to get you something else?”

“I'm toasty, thank you,” I reply.

“Good,” he says. But he doesn't move. He just keeps standing with his back to Dale.

“Okay,” Dale finally says. “I should probably . . .”

“Get out of here and back to doing whatever weird illegal stuff you do,” says Sam, a little curtly.

“Okay,” says Dale, again. “See you in the spider-lover forums.”

“Arachnophiles unite!” I say, and make a five-legged spider gesture with my wiggling fingers. Dale does the same, and then he walks away.

“It was nice of you to humor him,” says Sam. “I don't know if he's ever spoken to an actual girl before.”

“Next thing, he'll be kissing one,” smirks Joanna, shooting a knowing look in my direction.

Sam takes my wrist in his hand and starts to pull me toward the nearest subway station. He turns to me and grins. “If Big Log hadn't fallen downstairs, we'd
never have met,” he says.

“Yes,” I agree. “I'm also thankful for her near-death experience.”

His hand tightens around my wrist. “You,” he says, “are something else.”

What's happening here?

I must not
be the sharpest spy in the knife drawer, because it's not until we're sitting in the F train headed back to Brooklyn and Sam suddenly says, “So . . . do you have a boyfriend back home?” that alarm bells start clanging.

“Tons of them,” I joke. “One for every day of the week. Two for weekends. There's never been a better time to be Bridget Wilder. The demand is staggering.”

“Who else would say something unbalanced like that?” he says, his hand touching my wrist again. “You're different. That's why I like you.”

Oh no. Oh no no no no no.

“IreallyhavetotalktoJoannarightnowit'sreallyimportant,” I gasp, and scamper across the train to the seat beside Joanna.

“I think Sam likes me,” I say through gritted teeth.

“This is a moving train,” she announces. “If you want to be understood, you have to speak up.”

“Sam,” I say, a little louder. “I think he likes me.”

“You think Sam likes you?” Joanna repeats at the top of her voice.

I look around the subway car to see if any passengers have food I can ram in her big mouth.

“I don't think so,” she says. “He can do much better than you.”

“I hope so,” I say. “Because now I'm uncomfortable around him, plus I've known him for like five minutes.”

“And you do not make a great first impression,” Joanna reminds me.

“I know!”

“So you're still into that Dale guy?” she asks.

“I think I am.”

Ryan slumps down in the seat opposite us. “That's great,” he says. “I lose one girl, you get two guys. How is that fair?”

“I don't want two guys,” I exclaim.

Sam comes over to sit next to Ryan. “Let's get our stories straight for
la madre
,” he says. I feel a burst of gratitude toward Sam for deflecting the conversation away from his interest in me, and I throw myself into brainstorming titles for the homeless-clogging dance contest movie, which, even though it does not exist, has become my favorite film of the year.

“
Clog Up
,” I suggest, brilliantly.

“
Woodfoot
,” says Ryan.

“
K-Clog's Last Dance
,” says Joanna, making it about her.

We discuss how we're going to maintain this incredible lie. “Won't Alex be Googling
homeless-clogging dance contest movie
every six seconds?” I say.

“If it comes to that, I can probably get the movie made,” says Sam casually. I stare at him to see if he's joking. He is not joking. I am suddenly very confused. This guy I barely know who has decided he likes me has just said he can make my favorite movie, and he didn't even say it like he was trying to impress me. He simply doesn't think anything's beyond him. Which is in itself impressive. But I remember the knot in my stomach when I saw Dale. There's no knot with Sam. I'm not saying there's never going to be a knot, but the knot I have with Dale is the only knot I need in my life right now.

“Stop those two guys,” screams a passenger. “They stole my phone!”

Two hulking teenage boys jump off the train as the doors open. I look out the window. Three uniformed cops are huddled on the platform, all deep in conversation. They don't even notice the two boys boarding the train on the opposite side. The passenger who was robbed rushes over to attract their attention. What do I
do here? Nothing? Or something?

As the doors begin to close, I leap up from my seat and run out. I hear Sam and Joanna coming after me. “Go back to Brooklyn!” I shout at them. “I'll call you.” I turn and hurl Red at the closing doors of the subway car the two teenagers have just ducked into. He wedges in between the two doors.

“Stand clear of the closing doors, please,” the metallic subway announcement voice commands.

I shove my hands into the gap and try to pull the doors open. Two hands insert themselves above mine.

“I always knew I was your role model,” says Ryan. “Are we going to steal the train?”

I laugh in relief that it's not Sam. Then I laugh again because Ryan, when he's not mourning the loss of Blabby, can be fun to be around.

“Stand clear of the closing doors, please,” the metallic voice insists.

Ryan and I lever the doors apart. I spring inside and search the subway car. Right at the back end, I see the two hoodie dudes surround a lone female passenger, lost in the music in her headphones. One of them leans close to her. The other dips a hand inside her bag and starts to pull out a tablet.

“Go, Red,” I say, and throw my last remaining marble
the length of the subway car. Red hits the hand of the dipper. The guy yells in pain and drops the tablet back inside the bag. The dipper tries to grab Red, but of course he's way too slow. The little marble flies inside the second guy's hood in the general direction of his mouth. A muffled howl of pain emerges. So does a fragment of tooth. The female passenger rushes away. The dipper starts to give chase. He loses his footing and falls onto his back. I walk up to the fallen criminal and slip a hand inside the pocket of his hoodie. I pull out the stolen phone.

“Thith ithn't over,” I hear his partner say.

I turn around. The hood is down. The boy, who doesn't look any older than fifteen, is massaging his jaw.

“Lose a tooth?” I say sympathetically. “Maybe the tooth fairy'll leave you thomething nithe.”

The kid lurches toward me, menace in his eyes.

I open my hand. Red bounces up onto my palm. The kid stops in his tracks.

“Or maybe you'll lose a few more if I ever see you on the train again.”

I watch the kid trying to construct a threatening comeback. Luckily, the train comes to a halt and the two perps make their exit.

I turn and walk back to Ryan, holding my favorite marble between my thumb and forefinger.

“Say hello to Red.”

“I want one,” he says.

“That can never be allowed to happen.”

“My sister's a spy,” he says, and he actually looks proud.

“Not a good spy,” I say. “I let myself be talked out of my mission. I'm walking away when I shouldn't.”

Ryan stands in the middle of the subway car, hanging on to the silver pole with one hand, swinging in a semicircle. “Listen,” he says. “Nancy Wilder, aka our mom, walked out of a secure job to start her own courier business. Jeff Wilder is completely unqualified to shop in a Pottery Barn, yet he manages one. My record speaks for itself. I don't deliberately go out of my way to cause trouble. I just see the rules other people live by and I don't believe they apply to me. My point is, we're Wilders. We go our own way. We don't do what we're supposed to do. We do what we feel like doing. We may not always get it right, but when we make mistakes, they're our mistakes.”

He continues swinging.

“Cool speech, bro,” I say quietly. That actually might be the most Ryan's ever said to me in one spurt and it was worth the wait.

“I didn't mention Natalie because then the whole
Wilders-live-by-their-own-rules thing sort of falls apart,” he says.

“I figured,” I reply.

The train comes to a halt.

“We're going back, right?” says Ryan, with way too much enthusiasm. “We're going to stop the assassination.”

“I'm going to try and sneak into the ceremony and make sure the police don't miss vital clues,” I tell him. “You have all of New York to explore.”

“Seriously?” he says, his face falling.

“You got hung on a hook,” I tell him. “That's an awesome vacation story.”

“Fine,” he sighs.

I get off the train. Ryan stays. As I go, he yells, “Good luck with the spying.”

I act like I don't hear him and hurry up the subway steps. I stop thinking about Ryan and start worrying about how I'm actually going to get into the cathedral now that I've alerted the city's police department to a possible attempt on the life of a prominent foreign politician's son.

Once I'm out in the street, I duck into a sneaker store and consider my next move. I wish I could talk it over with Dale Tookey, but he was the one who filled me with
doubt. I can't call Dale now and tell him I'm going to back to the scene of the potential crime.

I take out my phone—oh wait, it's not my phone, it's the one I retrieved from the two hoodie dudes on the train; I brilliantly forgot to return it to its owner. Oops. I use this borrowed phone to make another call. I need to talk to someone I really do not want to owe a favor.

“Hi, Joanna? Can you put Sam on?”