The Doublecross (2 page)

Wait.

It was me.

Step 5: Win

I wanted to whoop, to leap, to pump my fist into the air, but since I still felt a little like dying, I settled for grinning. The rest of my class stumbled down the hall, ponytails and shoes askew, looks of fury on their faces. It was hard to care—I had won, after all.

“You
cheated
,” Walter snapped.

“What?” I said, but I was all wheezy so it came out: “Hhhhhut?”

“He cheated!” Eleanor seconded, and Jacob folded his arms, nodding in agreement.

“He didn't run the whole route,” Walter said.

“And he used a trip wire,” Eleanor said.

“And I ran into a bunch of water jugs. I bet my trigger finger is broken,” Sophie said, rubbing her hand for good measure. For the record her trigger finger looked just fine.

“And,”
Walter said, glowering at me (I swear, the guy never glowered when we were friends), “he distracted me at the end. You heard him, Agent Otter, right? He cheated.”

I hauled myself to my feet with the help of a nearby table. I tugged my shirt down over my stomach, tried to slick the sweat off my forehead. The bubble of victory was still swelling in my chest, but I could feel how delicate it was becoming.

“I didn't cheat,” I said, spitting the words out between pants. “Agent Otter said first one across the finish line wins. He didn't say we had to take the path.”

“It was
implied
,” Sophie said, and everyone—literally, every single one of my ten classmates—nodded in agreement.

“Quiet down, all of you,” Agent Otter said gruffly, letting the whistle fall from his mouth. He pressed his tongue against his teeth, looked at the other students, who were clustered together like a pack, then at me. “That true, Hale? You cheated?”

“No!” I said, hitching up my pants and walking toward him. “I didn't cheat!”

“Then what would you call it?”

“I . . . I assessed the situation and strategized accordingly,” I said, like I was reading an SRS textbook. Not that there's an SRS textbook, of course, but if there was, it'd say something like that.

“Sure, kid,” Agent Otter said. “Pushups, everyone. Hale, my office,
now
.”

I guess, in the end, I got out of doing pushups. So that was something.

It was little consolation, however, as I sat in Agent Otter's office. The room, much like Otter himself, was covered in hard surfaces and the color taupe. Taupe walls. Taupe desk. Taupe computer. Taupe flowers. I suppose the flowers had been yellow once, maybe pink, but they were dead and keeled over and had become crispy and, well . . . taupe. I'd probably keel over too, if I lived with Otter.

There was a quiet rap on the door.

“Ah,” Otter said, glowering at me. “That'll be your parents now. Can't wait to tell them about
this
one. Come in!”

You know all those sayings? Ones like “The apple doesn't fall far from the tree!” and “What a chip off the ol' block!”? I can
promise
you they 're not true. Because I am slow and fat, and as graceful as a potato, and my parents . . . well.

My parents are known around here as “The Team.” Not “a team”—“
The
Team.” They were the first choice—sometimes the
only
choice—for highly dangerous missions. My mother speaks seven languages and had recently developed a new style of martial arts. My father is a master fencer and once hacked a terrorism ring's network using a calculator. They have so many awards and medals that turn up
in weird places in our apartment—the linen closet, the pantry, dropped down behind the refrigerator . . .

The door clicked open and my parents walked in—I had my mom's dark hair and brown eyes, and my dad's broad shoulders, which looked manly on him but just made my waist look even wider. They both smiled briefly at me, and the sick feeling in my stomach subsided a little. Dad sat down on the left, Mom on my right; she put a hand on my arm gently, and even though it's a little embarrassing to be comforted by your mom when you're supposed to be becoming an elite spy, I was grateful for it.

“Mr. and Mrs. Jordan,” Otter said, drumming his fingers on his desk.

“Please, Steve. There's no need for formalities,” Mom said, all but rolling her eyes at Otter. They knew each other well because they'd all grown up together, just like Walter and I and the others. At SRS it was impossible to be a stranger—but that didn't mean it was easy to be friends.

Otter looked at me. His beady eyes would be charming on a gerbil but were terrifying on a full-grown man. “It seems we've had yet another incident with Hale.”

“Oh?” Dad asked, unfazed. His hair was gelled and flawless, like mine in color, perhaps, but nothing else.

“Indeed. At the end of today's training session, he won a race by cheating,” Otter said.

Mom frowned at me. “That doesn't sound like you, Hale.”

“That's because it
isn't
like me,” I said. “I didn't cheat.”

“And now he's calling me a liar, I see!” Otter exclaimed.

Instead my Dad made his eyes steely and leaned toward Otter. I knew this position—it was the “getting answers” position. Hard stare, strong shoulders, firm jaw. That position could get everyone from my little sister to a criminal mastermind talking. Otter didn't stand a chance. He leaned back a bit in his taupe office chair and folded his hands together. He was trying to hide it, but I could tell he was nervous.

“Tell me what happened, Steve. Exactly what happened,” Dad said coolly.

Otter stumbled through the story—he didn't know the details, really, so it wasn't much of a tale. Then my parents asked me to tell my side.

I went through the whole thing, lingering perhaps a little too long on the beauty of the green screen floating down on my classmates' heads.

They listened intently and then looked at each other. My parents did this thing—I guess it was a throwback from being partners long before they got married—where they had entire conversations without saying a word. I could tell they were having one now from the way their eyebrows lifted and fell, like their mouths were moving even though they weren't.

“Steve,” Mom finally said aloud. “It sounds to me like Hale got the best of your trainees. I have to admit, I'm a
little surprised. I mean, they couldn't jump over those water jugs? Couldn't see the trap in the production room? And Walter Quaddlebaum—my goodness. Didn't he just become a junior agent a few months ago? Yet he was thrown by the sound of his mother's voice? How embarrassing. For everyone.”

“Walter's mother is the assistant director. It's not a bad thing for someone to stop when they hear her voice. But this isn't about my other students. It's about Hale. He knew the rules. Same rules they always have been—”

“Then you should have explained them the same way you always do,” Dad said. “SRS agents are supposed to notice subtle variations in day-to-day behavior.” Dad laughed and shook his head. “I don't know why I'm telling
you
that, Steve—of course you know! How foolish of me to forget the Acapulco incident.”

I had no idea what the Acapulco incident was—I guessed something from back when Otter was a field agent? But the mention of it made Otter go totally silent and grit his teeth.

Dad continued to smile and then said, “Steve, I think it's important to remember that you, Katie here, Hale, and I—we all have the same goals. We're on the same team. Right?”

“Of course. But regardless,” Otter said, his voice twisty, “I think it would be best if Hale saved his scheming for someplace else.”

Ah. I knew someone would use the word “scheming.”

Dad wanted to continue, I could tell, but Mom spoke first. “Of course, Steve. I'm sure he's learned a valuable lesson. Right, Hale?”

I looked at her, about to protest, but then sighed. “Sure have.”

“Right. Well, I guess we're done here—” Dad began.

“Not quite. He still owes me fifty pushups,” Otter interrupted as my parents and I rose.

“Not today, right, son?” Dad said, clapping me on the shoulder. “He won the race, after all.”

And before Otter could argue, we swept out of the taupe office. The door drifted shut; we were only a few steps away when we heard an angry grunt come from inside.

Large-brutish-man language for “I hate Hale Jordan,” if I had to guess.

Like everyone who worked at SRS headquarters—agents, secretaries, even the custodians—my family lived there as well, in our own apartment. This whole wing was full of families like our own—Walter and his mom were just a few doors down, actually. I'd never lived anywhere but apartment 300, and even though I was sometimes jealous of regular, non-spy kids who got backyards and swing sets, I have to admit, I couldn't picture anywhere else feeling like
home
.

We walked silently down the hall to our door. Dad unlocked it and stepped in first.

“Aha! Got you!” a tiny voice screeched.

I sighed, but Mom smiled. We stepped inside.

“Nice try, Kennedy,” Dad told her, chuckling. “But I heard you snickering before I even took the keys out.” Kennedy jumped down from her perch above the door, where I guess
she'd balanced herself between the frame and the ceiling. Kennedy landed, forward-rolled, and sprang to standing like she expected applause.

“Did you really cheat and do an impression of Mrs. Quaddlebaum to beat Walter?” she asked me immediately.

“I didn't cheat!” I protested. “And how did you already hear about it?”

“Everyone knows about it. Including Mrs. Quaddlebaum,” Kennedy said, tipping forward into a handstand. She followed me, walking on her hands. “You'd better watch it. You're seriously In the Weeds with her.”

“Everyone's In the Weeds with Mrs. Quaddlebaum,” I muttered, opening my bedroom door.

“Quiet, both of you. No one is In the Weeds with anyone. And neither of you is supposed to know that term,” Dad called from the kitchen.

“Everyone knows about that too!” Kennedy shouted back, and it was true. It was code. An “In the Weeds” status meant the person was supposed to be eliminated on sight. I'd never seen a mission file that actually contained an In the Weeds target. These days, the only target SRS consistently eliminated on sight was my dignity.

“And if everyone jumped off a cliff, would you do that too?” Dad asked.

“That doesn't even make sense!” Kennedy said, groaning.

I used the distraction to step into my room. I shut the door just as Kennedy reached it.

“Hey!” she whined from the other side. “I wanted to show you a new cheer I learned!”

“You're not a cheerleader!”

“Yeah, and you're not Walter's mom, but you still pretended to be,” she snapped.

“Kennedy, leave your brother alone!” Mom's voice boomed.

Kennedy sniffed, but then I heard her bound off, probably to scale some piece of furniture.

Kennedy wouldn't have any problem passing the physical exam when she tested for junior agent. I was actually surprised her teacher hadn't recommended she take the test already—she was only nine, but there wasn't an age minimum. Most people just didn't have the skill set to pass the exams before they were eleven or twelve. But Kennedy? She could pass it.

My little sister could be a junior agent before me. Great.

There were plenty of alternatives, of course—SRS had dozens of jobs for people who didn't become junior agents and then field agents. I could choose just about any specialty that didn't involve the physical exam, like becoming an agent in the Disguise Department, Tactical Support, or Research and Development. I could be a teacher, maybe,
or an Explosives Analyst. I could easily pass the exam to get into Home Intelligence Technical Support—we called it HITS—which basically meant becoming one of the computer guys. Sit in the control room and shout at agents through a headset, then race office chairs, waiting to hack a security system or forge a clearance card or book a hotel room. They weren't bad guys, the HITS. We played video games in the control room when there wasn't an active mission, and unlike my classmates and the junior agents, they never once called me Hale the Whale, Haley's Comet, or Fail Hale.

But I didn't want to be in HITS. I wanted to be a field agent. I'd
always
wanted to be a field agent. They were in the thick of it—the danger, the excitement, the adventure. SRS teachers had a whole spiel about how “Everyone at SRS is important! Everyone has a role to play, from the teachers to the tech guys to the research crews!” but it never swayed me. I mean, field agents were the real heroes. Who wouldn't want to be a hero?

I stared at my ceiling for entirely too long, then rose and changed out of my training clothes. I could hear my parents clattering around, making fajitas—they always made fajitas when they'd had a “long day”—and any day where they had to talk with Otter usually qualified as long.

I opened my door and padded down the hallway.

“This is insane,” my mother said, her voice unusually
rocky, even barely audible over the sound of food crackling on the stove. I froze, tilted my head, and listened like an antenna.

“We can't just do nothing, Katie,” Dad said, voice grave. “Think about what it means.”

“It doesn't matter,” Mom said. “You don't just quit SRS.”

I pressed against the wall, trying to creep closer. Who wanted to quit? Every now and then you'd hear a rumor about an agent wanting to retire and become a baker or something. But Mom was right—you couldn't just leave SRS. It sounds harsh, but we couldn't exactly have top-secret spies retiring to lives of pie making, you know? It was dangerous for everyone.

They argued in hushed voices for a moment, until I finally heard Dad hiss, “Project Groundcover is going to make SRS even more powerful!”