It’s Dodson, and she’s clearly given up trying to sound calm. Her frantic words are followed by indecipherable noises, the screech of feedback on the PA system, and then a now-familiar voice.
“Pupils of Carlisle Academy,” begins Marchuk, no longer trying to tone down his thick Ukrainian accent, “what headmaster is trying to tell you is, school has been taken over by me.”
There is a murmur of voices at the front of the library, and probably all over the school, as people try to digest this information.
“We are here for only one reason. We are here for person you know as Peter Smith.” He stops for a second, and there is muffled conversation on his end before he resumes. “Or perhaps you know him as Prettyboy. Sooner we find him, sooner we leave. You can help—”
He’s stops talking and begins moaning like someone is killing him. Then we hear a thud, followed by his voice sounding far away: “Вона брикатися мене!” which translates to “She kicked me!”
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out where, considering all the moaning. Score one for Dodson.
There are some indecipherable sounds on the other end, more squealing feedback from the PA system, and then Dodson’s voice, sounding way past frantic.
“Don’t believe him! They won’t just leave. We must protect Prettyboy for all our sakes, because the minute they find him, they’ll—”
The next sound through the PA system is clear, at least to me: the sound of a fist hitting bone. Dodson’s down. A second later, the only thing I hear are the screams inside the library, including the one coming from my mob’s leader, who runs off toward the front of the library.
“Just as I suspected,” I say. “He’s the type who only jumps bad until the shit hits the fan.”
“Uh, he’s the type who will turn you in to the bad guys to save himself,” calc girl offers. “He was talking about doing that even before Dodson’s announcement.”
Next thing I know, Bunker takes off after him, but not before yelling back to me, “Keep working! Find a way to get help.”
I’m worried whether Bunker might have taken on more than he can handle, but he’s right, and so is Dodson. Even if a mob hands me over—or I do it myself—Marchuk isn’t just going to walk away from this. Dodson and her people have seen his face. I remember what he said in that shelled-out house back in Ukraine. He’ll use kids as human shields if that’s required to make his escape. Turning myself in will save many more lives than we’ll lose, but that isn’t a cost-risk assessment I’m willing to concede. Not yet. I don’t plan on losing a single person.
“We aren’t going to stop you,” calc girl says as she puts up her hands and looks around at what remains of the mob, who nod in agreement. “Do what you gotta, Prettyboy.”
She turns to leave and the group follows their new leader.
I know the police are on their way, but it’s taking too long. Maybe they’re having trouble breaching the security doors. I need a backup plan, and getting CIA-grade help might be the only thing that saves us, so I get to work, hoping Bunker can deal with whatever’s happening up front.
Come on, Jake, you can do this. You’ve stopped hackers from taking down Wall Street.
First, I need to figure out whether the hacker is blocking communication by spoofing radio frequencies or jamming GPS signals. He—or she—would need some mad skills to pull off the first thing, skills I probably can’t match, so I’m hoping it’s the signal jamming. I’d have a chance against that.
No, man. Either way, you got this. The reason you’re only seventeen but work for the best spy shop in the world is because you’ve hacked into the Defense Intelligence Agency just for kicks.
Okay, I am this close to locating the system partition the hacker is working behind. Once I find it, he—or she—is toast.
Yeah, but when you breached the DIA, your life wasn’t on the line then. Worse, you weren’t the reason a whole school’s worth of people are on lockdown.
Al. Most. There. Aha! Found you, phreak. I’m coming for you now. You can’t hide from the great Jake Mor—
And then the system crashes. That ain’t good.
A second later, the walkie-talkie phone vibrates.
“Bunk?”
“Yeah. It’s chaos up here.”
“What did you do to that guy?”
“Well, right now I’m sitting on him, because he’s threatening to escape the library and turn you in. But after Dodson’s announcement, I think the rest of them are on your side. Any luck with the hacking thing?”
“Uh … I think the hacker knows what I’m up to, which means he—she—probably knows my location in the school. I have to get out of here,” I say, scanning the walls and ceiling of the library for an air vent.
“I’m coming with you.”
“Don’t think so, Bunker. I’m going through the air shaft.”
“Tell me where you’re going and I’ll get there.”
“Ms. Flagler’s bio classroom. I can drop through the vent there to reach the supply room,” I say, grateful I memorized the building’s blueprints before I even landed at the Denver airport. “There’s an old desktop.”
“But you said the phone was dead in there.”
“I don’t think the hacker took down connectivity wholesale; she’s just taking off-line any PC she thinks I might access.”
Saying the words and naming Katie as the culprit sounds so wrong, like saying Lois turned on Clark and joined forces with Lex Luther, but I can’t deny what’s happening.
“Doesn’t that include the supply-room computer?” Bunk asks.
“That PC has a phone line plugged into the wall,” I explain as I drag the table closer to the nearest vent. “It uses dial-up on a separate dedicated landline, and it’s so infrequently used I’m hoping she doesn’t even know about it.”
“I won’t ask you to explain all that, but I am coming with you.”
“That computer is a long shot, but it’s the only shot I have. It’s a risk you don’t need to take, so just—”
“No, sir. I’m not going to just hang out in the relative safety of this library and let my first best friend also be my last. I’ll get there. I’ll find you, and then—”
And then the line goes dead.
CHAPTER 14
I pull my Swiss Army knife from my backpack before climbing onto the table and removing the screws holding the vent to the wall. Once inside the air shaft, it’s easier to move through than I expected. The ducts are wider than I thought, and look brand new. Air-shaft-crawling was part of the syllabus in my Breach and Incursion class at tradecraft school. The ducts we practiced in were the usual flimsy sheet-metal type that buckle and groan as you move through them. Thanks to Carlisle standards requiring state-of-the-art everything, these ducts are not only wider than most, but they’re made of a heavier stainless steel, allowing me to move through them noiselessly.
It doesn’t take long before I’m in the shaft above my chem class. Through slats in the air vent, I can see down into the room where my classmates are still being held by the hostiles. Only one is within my view. But I can’t slow down to determine whether the second one is still in there, so I continue on toward Ms. Flagler’s bio classroom, which is when I hear voices on a radio. It only takes a few seconds of chatter before I recognize the radio is tuned to a police band. The hostiles must be listening in, trying to see if their location has been made by the cops.
“Unit thirty-one, please check in with a status on Carlisle Academy.”
The kids in the room below let out a collective sigh, but no one is more relieved to have heard those words than I am. It’s confirmation that my 9-1-1 call lasted long enough to register as a hang-up call and for the system to give my location, forcing the PD to roll a unit to check on us. Yay for landlines. Bunker is right. Sometimes old-school is better.
But my relief is short-lived.
“Thirty-one. Carlisle is an all clear,” says a voice I recognize as fake-cop Andrews. I can only imagine what she’s done to the real Unit 31. “Just a kid high on something, so messed up he threatened to prank us again if he isn’t allowed to skip an exam.”