Surely the CIA had some intelligence on his resurfacing. Doesn’t matter that I’m basically a burned spy, a heads-up from Rogers on that little development would have been nice.
I hear the shuffling of feet inside the office. They must be leaving for the auditorium, which means I don’t have a lot of time to put together a plan. I crouch low and move as quickly as I can away from the office and into the closest alcove, out of sight but still with an eye on them thanks to the periscope from my supply stash. From around the corner, I see the two hostiles are dressed in street clothes, like detectives, I suppose. I’m able to count four members of the office staff, including Dodson. All women. Jonesy’s headache must have sent him home. He must have gotten out just before the hostiles arrived. I’m glad someone did.
As soon as they’re out of sight, I run back around the corner, into the office, and begin checking every drawer, every purse hanging on the back of a chair, hoping to find a working cell phone. It must be the hacker who cut the landlines, but I’m hoping it was only my cell phone they blocked. They wouldn’t risk anyone in the building using their cells to call the police, but at this point, I’m guessing the only people who know there are bad guys in the building are in my chem class.
No luck. None of the office staff’s cell phones work either. The hostiles have somehow blocked the nearest cell-tower signal. I shove one of the phones into my pocket just in case the signal blocker is close, and the phone might work in another part of the building. Next, I start checking every computer in the office for network connectivity. I know it’s probably useless, but it gives me something to do while I think through the facts I know so far.
My chem lab must be the only individual class they took over. They’re probably still in there now. In order for the hostiles to take over each class in the same manner, they would have had to assign at least one agent to thirty classrooms, so that each breach happened simultaneously. They’d need another platoon of agents. While I was in Ukraine, I’d only counted a team of nine, and after the raid-gone-bad, our side left theirs nine men short. Or so we thought. Obviously Marchuk got away. He must have taken on some new team members.
I’m hoping there are only the four of them—two in chemistry, Andrews, and the grieving son.
Four operatives would probably be overkill if their original plan had worked: infiltrate Mr. Velasquez’s room, extract me, and get out. My good luck of being in the supply room meant everyone else’s bad luck. Now they’re going to use all those hostages Andrews spoke of to draw me out. Just thinking about it makes me want to puke. But I got work to do.
Not a single one of these office computers is online. I have to get help some other way. If I’m right and there are only four of them, this may be my only chance to move freely through the school. It’s a long shot, but maybe they haven’t put the security doors down on the rear exits. Since I’m closest to Corridor C and it’s the farthest point from the auditorium, I make my way to that exit first.
Like the side and back exits of a movie theater, the rear doors at Carlisle can’t be opened from the outside during the day. They can only be used to exit the building, and only in an emergency. If they’re opened, an alarm will go off and the hostiles will know someone has made their escape. They’ll likely assume that that someone is me, but it’s a risk I’ll have to take. I just hope the alarm won’t set them off and make them do something stupid to one of the kids in chem or one of the office staff in the auditorium. I couldn’t take it if they hurt someone else just because they’re after me.
I’m feeling hopeful when, from the end of the hall, I can see blue sky through the window of the south door. I run hard toward the light.
All that risk assessment I just did turns out to be useless. There is no alarm because the door doesn’t open, no matter how many times I throw myself against it. Hoping the signal is better here, I check the bars on my phone.
Nothing.
I’m getting jittery; the panic starting to set in. I’m feeling a lot like every time I met yet another foster family for the first time, wondering if they’d be decent people, or if I’d be better off back on the street, already planning my escape before the social worker drove away.
To push it down, I make my way back around to the other arm of the U, taking the stairwell to the second floor, running through all three corridors and back downstairs again, checking both phones all along the way. Once I get around to the other rear exit, I find this door is locked too, and the signal is blocked on both phones here as well.
Then I remember the window-breaker in my backpack. It’s a little orange hammer with a pointy metal end and a blade like a box cutter in its neck, designed to break water-jammed windows and cut stuck seat belts to escape a sinking car. You can buy them anywhere, but they make a perfect spy tool. I can feel the jitters beginning to subside as I pull off my blazer and use it to shield my eyes from shattering glass.
That precaution proves just as useless as my earlier risk assessment. The glass doesn’t shatter. All my hammer does is leave an impression, something like a bullet would leave in bulletproof glass. It would take a sledgehammer to break this window. I peer through the glass, hoping there’s someone out there—maybe one of the soldiers-turned-school-employees—anyone, really, who might notice me and understand my plea for help. But the only thing I see out there is the student parking lot and cottonwood trees just beginning to yellow.
I slide down the door into a sitting position, feeling déjà vu. Yes, I’ve been here before, in this exact moment, except it was in Ukraine, just before I passed out. I want to give up, curl myself into a ball and hope that somehow help will come soon, like it did then. All that training they gave me at Langley doesn’t make me feel like anything other than what I am—a scared kid who wishes he’d never said yes to the Company’s offer.
If I’d said no, I’d probably be in jail right now serving a sentence for hacking the National Security Agency, and not a juvie sentence, either. I would be doing some real time. But at least there’d be no chance of having blood on my hands. Or maybe I’d have found a way to hack myself out of it—destroyed all the FBI’s evidence before my trial. If I’d said no, maybe I wouldn’t blame my latest foster parents for not being my real parents. I wouldn’t be such an ass about it. I’d be grateful they said yes to me. I’d only be worried about grades and making varsity track. Maybe I’d be going out with a really dope girl.
But I didn’t say no.
And in ninety seconds, all of Carlisle is about to be rounded up in one place, making it easier for Marchuk and his team to control them.
I said yes, so now it’s my job to stop the bad guys. I’m not sure how I’m going to do that by myself with what’s in my backpack, but one thing I can do right now is keep everyone from reaching the auditorium. Even if I don’t know how to beat the hostiles, I can at least make it hard for them.
I run like hell for the office and arrive forty-five seconds later, nearly out of breath.
When I switch on the PA system, I’m so relieved to find it’s still working. Hopefully, people won’t think I’m some panting, raving lunatic, if they even know who I am at all. About ten people in all of Carlisle have a clue who Peter Smith is, thanks to my skills at flying under the radar. No, I need to assume another persona if I want people to hear me.
“Listen up, Carlisle. This is Prettyboy. Abort the assembly. Repeat: Abort the assembly. Follow Red-Level procedures—now! Dodson, those two people with you are not real cops. There are no bank robbers on the loose, just the two hit men with you and two others holding sixth-period chem hostage. They’re here to kill me. Don’t believe anything they—”
The audio suddenly cuts out. I’m only talking to myself.