“No cuffs. As much as I hate the idea of it, he’s one of us. He won’t fight you,” Berg says, giving me a look that says I better not even think about it. “Just make sure he stays put.”
The officer ushers me downstairs and outside, where I’ve wanted to be ever since I realized the school had been turned into a prison. You’d think I’d feel relieved to finally be out of the building, even if I’m locked in a squad car. I feel anything but.
I check my phone and find I have a weak signal. The car must be parked far enough from the hacker’s signal blocker, or else Berg’s team found and disengaged it.
Rogers answers on the first ring.
“Jake, we cannot have this discussion,” she says before I can even say hello.
“It isn’t about Berg, or the hacker, or even about Marchuk. It’s about his father’s second-in-command.”
“His son was second-in-command. We knew that even in Ukraine.”
“But this other guy was supposed to have the job. He’s the really dangerous one, and he’s after something way bigger than me. I was just about to learn what—or who—it is when Berg—”
“I’m not there, Jake, and this is not my operation. I have to defer to the team on the ground, and you do, too.”
“If Berg would just let me talk to—”
“Be careful, Jake. Berg is gunning for me. He’s anti–Operation Early Bird in general, and anti-you in particular.”
“Yeah, he made that pretty clear.”
“Then you know you have to stand down.”
“But—”
The line goes dead.
I stare out at the stand of Russian olive trees Berg and his team hid behind, feeling as abandoned as that old shed I’d seen from the roof.
Then my phone vibrates in my pocket.
The text is just a single sentence.
If you want him to live, come to the sub-basement.
CHAPTER 25
So the hacker still has Bunker after all. It has to be her. Something felt off about that Morse-code message, but I was so happy to hear he was okay that I immediately dismissed it. And now I know what it was. The message said, Sorry, Peter. Even though he was worried about the bad guys using the same channel, in a stressful situation like that, I think Bunker would have called me Jake. Back in the library, he said from now on, I was going to be Jake Morrow to him.
Berg stopped Katie before she could tell me why she’s really at Carlisle, then took my mission away. Rogers was so worried about her stupid career she wouldn’t even listen to what may be the biggest piece of intel she’ll ever receive. Well, they can both go straight to hell and take my job with them, because I don’t need to be a CIA employee to save my best friend.
That’s exactly what I’m going to do, if I can just figure out how to get out of this police car.
All I have in my pockets are a cigarette lighter and the Sharpie. Koval took the switchblade, and my Swiss Army knife was in my backpack. Even if Berg hadn’t confiscated my bag and I had all my tools with me, I don’t think the locks on police cars are pickable. At least my hands are free, not that they’re doing me any good. Next I try kicking the door open, but I can’t get enough leverage to build sufficient force. I consider kicking out the glass, but Berg would probably lose any patience he had left with me and have me taken into lockup, and then I would have zero chance of saving Bunker.
Shouldn’t this have been on the syllabus at Langley? Freeing Yourself From a Locked Squad Car 101 would have been just as useful as those classes on dirty bombs and money laundering. I have been frustrated too many times to count today, but not being able to escape this stupid car seems to be the straw that will break my back.
All I can do is sit on the wrong side of the squad-car window, freezing in the air conditioning thanks to the officer who left the engine running, watching my freed classmates stream past me. I hope they don’t think I’m some kind of criminal, that I was part of this whole thing. I raise my hands to the window, hoping they notice I’m not wearing cuffs. A few people smile at me even if they can’t do anything to help, but not everyone’s a fan. Through one of the windows the officer cracked open to keep me from dying of carbon monoxide poisoning, I hear one guy yell out, “Prettyboy sucks.”
Oh, it’s that guy. The one from the library.
Just when I’m about ready to give up, I notice Katie is part of the current line of people streaming past me. Rachel is walking ahead of her, and I see them whispering.
Rachel yells, “No, you suck,” at the library dickhead before she hauls off and hits him. When he acts like he might hit her back, I see Duncan come to her defense. And as is the way of high schools everywhere, suddenly everyone is circling the two guys, chanting, “Fight! Fight!” which sends my guard over to break it up.
No one even notices Katie sneak over toward my makeshift prison, slip around to the other side of the car, out of sight, and open the door.
“Now that the civilians have been evacuated, they’re going to a hard lockdown so they can look for the remaining hostiles,” Katie says to me as though we’ve never been separated. I appreciate her not mentioning I’d basically been foiled by a child-safety lock.
“The hacker texted me. She’s inside. She has Bunker,” I tell her.
Katie stays in her crouched position outside the car and looks at me for a second. I expect her to say she was right to question Bunker sending a message in Morse code, but all she says is, “Do you think Koval is with them? I’m still worried he’ll get to my asset before I do.”
I appreciate that, too.
“There’s a good chance he is. So let’s stop him before he does,” I say, starting to feel the confidence I had on the roof now that Katie and I are together again.
“It’ll be hard getting in. There will be a guard at every entrance.”
“What are your feelings on air ducts?” I ask, crouching down beside her as we use the squad car for cover. “Carlisle’s are pretty nice. Heavier gauge steel, extra wide so they’re easier to crawl through.”
“I’m sold. The place is crawling with police. But trying to access one of the air shafts from out here won’t be cake, either.”
“The hacker has Bunk in the basement, so we just need to find a vent leading there and drop down.”
Katie looks at me like she is no longer sold on the idea, but says, “At least it’s only one floor.”
“Too bad Rachel’s not around. We’ll still need a distraction and she’s pretty good at creating them. I’m sure Berg’s team is keeping a close eye on all exit points.”
Katie pulls the ponytail thing from her hair and shakes it out, like a girl in a shampoo commercial. “With some slight modifications to my uniform—hike up the skirt a few inches, undo a button or two—I could probably provide the distraction.”
I cosign a hundred percent, but I don’t tell her that, or mention she could keep her uniform at dress code requirements and still cause a distraction if she does that hair thing again in front of the right cop.
“We still need tools to open the vent cover,” I tell her. “This line of squad cars will provide enough cover to reach the groundskeeper’s shed. We can grab some tools and go from there.”
We’re able to reach the shed undetected. The whole place smells of creosote.
“Hey, you know you still owe me some intel, right?” I remind her.
“I don’t owe you anything. I was going to offer you intel,” she says, sounding like she’s had a change of heart.
“And now?”
“We need to find our way into the building to see whether it even matters anymore. Maybe the pretend groundskeeper hid some weapons in here?” Katie says, looking around the shelves.
I’m about to call her out on reneging on an agreement, but something else distracts me.
“Or maybe he was planning to make some. There’s a lot of fertilizer stacked in this corner.”