The Doublecross (7 page)

“You know that five-second rule thing isn't true, don't you?” I asked.

“Says the person who isn't getting any cookies,” the boy answered, his words muffled as bits of sugar cookie fell from his mouth. I realized his shirt had a picture of a robot fighting a dinosaur on it.

I did not know how to assess this situation. The boy stooped for another cookie.

“Ben . . . ,” the girl said. “They're his.”

“He dropped them!”

“That doesn't mean—”

“Who are you?” I asked. I meant for the words to be sharp, hard—more of a demand than a question, but I sounded more confused than anything.

The girl stepped forward. Her eyelashes were so long, they brushed against her glasses, and she had little heart-shaped stud earrings in. We weren't allowed earrings at SRS—no tattoos, piercings, or anything that would make it easier for an enemy agent to identify us. The girl must have realized I was staring, because she reached up and touched one of the earrings absently, and then shrugged.

“I'm Beatrix,” she said. “He's my brother, Ben. Our uncle's an analyst. Do your parents work here?”

“My . . . uh . . . they . . .”
Quick—think, Hale, think
. These
two weren't agents—or if they were, they had
incredibly
good cover characters. I stood a better chance with the cover characters than in a fistfight, though, so I decided to play along. “They work in intake.”

“Intake?” Beatrix asked, squinting at me.

“Prisoner transport,” I clarified. “My dad. He just started the other day.”

“Huh,” Ben said. “Weird. Uncle Stan didn't say anything about hiring new people. That's sort of a big deal.” I waited, expecting him to press me further, ask questions I didn't have the answers to. Instead he shrugged and said, “So why are you dressed like a Campfire Scout?”

“Because I am a Campfire Scout.”

“You don't have any badges.”

“I just joined.” I cursed myself for not spending more time coming up with a cover character of my own. I aced the class in false identities earlier this year, and there I was, totally bombing at it in the field.

“Want to see my machine?” Ben asked brightly.

“What?”

“My machine. I call it the RiverBENd,” Ben said, motioning to the deliberately ordered collection of gym things. “It pours me a glass of water.”

I looked at the row of things—there was a broken trampoline and a janitor's water bucket among the chaos—and frowned. With a grin, Ben dashed over to one end, where
a yoga mat lay curled up atop a rolling cart. He slowly, carefully placed a finger on the mat, then nudged the mat forward.

The mat unfurled. When it flipped down, the edge caught the end of the bicycle tube. The tube snapped forward, sending three hand weights rolling down a ramp made of towels stretched tautly. The final weight flipped off the end, triggering a seesaw that bounced a yoga ball up into the air. The ball, in turn, slapped the end of a jump rope, which swung forward then back, spiraling itself around a mop. The mop tilted to the front of its cleaning bucket, upsetting a broom. To my amazement—shock, wonder, delight, even—the broom handle fell forward, striking the button on the water fountain.

The fountain turned on and an arc of water shot up into the sky, missing the drain by a mile. It cascaded beautifully down toward a plastic cup on the ground. I held my breath as . . .

It missed. By an inch, give or take. We all exhaled in disappointment.

“Oh, come on!” Ben yelled in frustration, turning around and kicking a basketball so hard, it bounced back off the wall and whizzed by my head.

“I told you,” Beatrix said. “I told you the pressure was wrong. You tested it when you were pushing down on the water fountain thing, but the broom doesn't push as hard as you.”

To prove her point, she turned the cell phone contraption around so that we could see the screen. On it was a fancy drawing of the arc of the water fountain, an X where the cup should have been placed.

“Trust the Right Hand,” she finished sagely.

“The what?” I asked, worrying this was a code name for a weapon.

“The
Right Hand
. My phone? 'Cause it's always in my hand? Get it? It's a joke.”

I tried to laugh, but it came out as sort of a weird
huckhuck
noise.

“Okay, hang on. I can fix it,” Ben muttered, and walked to the water fountain. He repositioned the cup, and then began to meticulously backtrack through the machine, putting all the parts in their original positions. Beatrix helped him rebalance the weights.

“So . . . um . . . anyway,” I said. “So, my dad works in prisoner transport, and I was supposed to check in with him after I gave away the rest of those cookies . . .” I glanced at the floor.
Lie, Hale, remember how to lie.
“I can't think of where it is, though.”

“We don't have anything like that,” Ben said, shrugging. “I think we used to? Maybe? Maybe we could ask the receptionist?”

“Oh, I don't want to bother him,” I said. “Maybe you call it something different, something I'm not used to. Holding?”

Beatrix shrugged, and Ben just returned to lining up the yoga balls.

They knew. They
had
to know, and the fact that they weren't telling me made me more convinced than ever that they were agents undercover. It also convinced me more and more that they were stalling. We were in a race of wits, and I needed to stay ahead. The only way to do that would be by beating them to a confession.

I firmed my jaw, stood up straight, and tried to make my eyes all coal-like, same as on Dad's “getting answers” face. I reached down and tugged at my shirt, stretching the neck down far enough that my uniform—and the SRS logo on it—was revealed. Telling the truth was definitely
not
something I learned in training, but desperate times called for desperate measures, right?

“Enough,” I said coolly. “No more charades. Where's intake?”

Ben frowned, looking from the uniform and then back to me. “I really, really think we should ask the receptionist—”

“Intake,” I cut him off, waving a hand at him. “Don't play dumb—I know exactly who you are and who you work for. I'm an agent with the Sub Rosa Society, and you have five seconds to tell me where intake is before I signal my support team!”

I yelled this. I didn't mean to yell it, exactly, but as the words left my mouth, they climbed higher and higher until
I was shouting and shaking and angry. I didn't cut up a pair of pants and sneak a tray of cookies just to get stalled by two kids in an outdated training facility. My hands were clenched into fists, my eyebrows knitted together, and I glared at Beatrix, then Ben, then Beatrix again, until finally Ben spoke.

His voice was a little quieter now, more like his sister's. “I think you should lie down for a little bit.”

“Show me where intake is!”

“Oh, we will!” Beatrix said earnestly. “In a second. Do you have blood-sugar problems? Lie down, and . . . Ben, how about you go get—Oh, good, he's already gone—” I turned to see the door of the gym swinging, marking Ben's exit.

This wasn't working. Even if these two weren't junior agents or agents in training, surely, whomever Ben went to get
was
—and I probably couldn't handle myself against a fully trained League operative. I shook my head, turned, and ran. I shoved through the gym doors and took a hard right, away from the way I came. The hall was echoey and bare, and I could hear Beatrix padding along behind me.

“Where are you going? Wait, come on—maybe we can talk about this!” she shouted. Her voice was getting farther away.

I looked over my shoulder—I was faster than she was.

This was crazy; I was
never
fastest.

But Beatrix was panting like she rarely ran, and her glasses kept slipping down her nose as she gasped behind
me. I sped up, even though my overworked shins were cramping. There was a door ahead—unlabeled—but I didn't exactly have the time to worry. I smashed through it and into another hall similar to the one I just came through.

Beatrix was still behind me. I could feel the sweat slicking down my back. The stickers holding the sash together gave in. It fell to the floor.

Where are all the people? All the field agents? Their computer guys? Their analysts?
A staircase ahead—I ran up it. When I looked back, Beatrix was still close behind, her hair fuzzy and cheeks blotchy red.

“Hey . . . look, he just went to get our uncle . . . You're not in trouble . . . How many stairs . . . Oh . . .” She was fading fast as we moved up the staircase.

In all honesty I was fading too, but I was fueled by the fear of failure—I had to find my parents today, because The League would inevitably be on even heavier lockdown after a breach. I flung open another door, spun, and pushed my back against it. I looked around; I was back on the main floor, by the offices I'd snuck through earlier. This was not good—even office people would notice if a Campfire Scout went tearing down their hallway.

I reached over and grabbed the red fire alarm, yanking it down.

A shrill blare ripped through the building.

No one moved. I heard a few people sigh and then
grumble about the alarm going off; one person rose and slammed her door.

Run, people! Why don't you run?
I heard Beatrix's footsteps drawing closer and closer to the stairwell door.

I hadn't come this far to get caught. I looked for ideas. Above me was a copper sprinkler head. It had a little bit of red glass in the center—when broken, it would signal the water to start flowing. I knew this because of an unfortunate incident involving me, Walter, and our clever idea to build a full-size catapult in the SRS sparring ring.

I swung into the nearest office—where the guy was playing golf with a putter and a coffee cup. He stared at the fire alarm, frowning, like it was a radio turned up too loud. I shook my head at him, grabbed the putter from his hands, and ducked back out before he had a chance to react.

Beatrix pushed the stairwell door open just in time to see me swing the putter hard at the sprinkler head.

The sprinkler head cracked off the ceiling, breaking the red glass. Beatrix and I stared in unison for a brief second and then, just as the golf club owner whirled around his door, water began to gush down. The other sprinklers obediently kicked in.

Now, finally, there was action. Screaming, shouting, and squealing rang out. People dashed from their offices, papers or purses above their heads. From the end of the hall I could
hear the receptionist shouting for people to “run for their lives!”

I questioned this receptionist's threat-response training.

I dropped the golf club and sprinted back toward the stairwell, brushing past Beatrix, who looked dumbfounded and maybe a little impressed. The door slammed behind me as I slogged upstairs, leaving a trail of puddle-footsteps. My street clothes were slowing me down; I shimmied out of them as I ran, darkly grateful for the waterproof SRS uniform underneath.

Now I needed a hiding spot—any hiding spot—where I could wait until I figured out where intake was. I reached the next floor and grabbed the door handle.

Locked.

I tried the next floor.

Also locked. Wheezing, I leaned back against the railing and looked straight up. The stairwell wound up and up and up above me so high, it made me dizzy.

The bottom door flung open and staring up at me were Ben, Beatrix, and two adults. One was tall and skinny and looked like a stretched-out version of Ben. The other was a tall blond woman wearing a pantsuit that was dripping water. She pointed to me.

“An SRS uniform, I see. Grab him, Clatterbuck,” she said.

“Uh . . . okay,” said the tall man—Clatterbuck, I guessed—sounding like he'd been woken from a nap and
thought he might still be dreaming. He blinked back the water from his eyes and started toward me.

I swallowed. I couldn't even beat my own classmates in a fistfight. I didn't stand a chance against a real agent—much less a League agent. I tried not to look terrified as Clatterbuck approached. I had to say something, anything to stall them, to confuse them.

“Groundcover! I'm working on Project Groundcover!” I shouted, saying the first mission name that came to mind—the only mission name on my mind lately.

Behind Clatterbuck, the suit lady froze.

“What did you say?” she whispered. Clatterbuck stopped. He tried to look back at his boss without taking his eyes off me, which only caused his eyes to cross.

“Groundcover,” I repeated, trying to puff my chest up. I deflated when the seams of my uniform sounded seconds from popping.

The suit lady smiled, the kind where it was all glossy lipstick lips and no teeth. She folded her hands at her waist.

“Relax, Clatterbuck,” she said. Then to me: “Do you like pepperoni pizza?”

“I . . . what?”

“Pepperoni,” the suit lady repeated. “We can order whatever you like. Just so long as you're telling us everything we want to know about Project Groundcover.”

Clatterbuck was Beatrix and Ben's uncle. He didn't look impressive, but I opted to believe that he was—for all I knew, he was one of those assassin-type guys who could kill me with his pinkie or something. Those guys always looked weird. The suit lady didn't introduce herself, so it wasn't until they'd escorted me through the waterlogged hallway and back to her office that I read her name off the door: PAMELA OLEANDER: DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS.

The League's director—its version of SRS's Dr. Fishburn.

So, double terrifying.

Oleander sat behind her desk, where Clatterbuck had just set three boxes of pizza. Oleander opened up the nearest box, and steam rose from it. She lifted a slice and took a bite, dodging a few drops of grease just before they hit her pantsuit. Clatterbuck took the seat beside me and reached
forward to steal a slice for himself. He mangled it into a lump of cheese and dough as he tried to open a can of soda without putting the pizza down.