Spy School: Chapters 21–25

I was asked to sign dozens of forms filled with confusing legal jargon.

Instead, I consistently pressed everyone to stop asking me questions and giving me forms to sign and just listen to me.

For a while I shouted at the people on the other side of the one-way mirror that they were squandering precious time, but when no one responded, there was nothing for me to do except sit on the couch and make a show of being annoyed.

“Oh, yeah. It's a regular Who’s Who in Espionage here today,” Erica replied. “We’ve got the directors of the CIA, FBI, and NSA; the congressional chairs of the Intelligence Committee; a couple White House liaisons; and, of course, no party would be complete without my father....”

Every now and then, she fired a cursory glance over her shoulder, but these were so quick, I don’t think she would have noticed me unless I was wearing a gorilla suit.

“On the one hand, he wasn’t sure it was a bomb. A real one, at least. He thought it might be a test. That’s the type of quality paranoia four years of spy school instills in you. On the other hand, Chip feared that, if the bomb was real, and his first reaction was to merely tell someone else, the administration might consider him ineffectual.”

He was also really impressed when you mouthed off to authority. He thought you were trying to toady up to him.

“A good amount of evidence. Hard stuff: e-mails, photos, and such. Tons of it. I haven’t had time to go through it all, but I think he can prove she planted the bomb downstairs. Plus, he’s got some other circumstantial stuff. I’m following up on it.”

“I nearly got killed last night! Because I tried to spring you for a party!”
“I know,” I said again. “And I’m sorry. But they’ve had some security issues on campus, and I guess the patrol got a little overzealous.”

You and some hot chick were going into an ATM vestibule.

I expected Erica to chastise me for not following her, but Erica seemed to be distracted by something on the other end of the radio link.

Explicit directions followed. The precise location to jump the wall. What route to take to the dormitory. A warning to avoid the cameras.

There were two levels below the library—and those were only the ones I knew about. It was possible there might have been another ten down there. And each level was a warren of tunnels, shafts, and locked rooms.

I wasn’t even sure exactly where the conference room was in the Hale Building, which was a massive edifice, the biggest on campus, with a footprint the size of a football field.

I did my best to sound reverential, hoping it would get him to drop his guard.

“I admit that was a little sloppy. But let me tell you, it is not easy to sneak this much explosive material into a CIA facility. I dropped a little down in the tunnels. Thankfully, it was that lummox who found it and not someone intelligent.”

Well, we don’t refer to it as 'evil’ per se, but yes.

I work for an international consortium of independent agents who cause chaos and mayhem for a price.

I was shocked by how blasé he seemed about everything. It was as though he were discussing an after-school social club rather than a criminal organization that had enlisted him to plot the deaths of dozens of people.

What’s it matter, as long as the checks clear? Now, I know what you’re thinking: I’m a callous and selfish jerk.

Look at good old America, bastion of democracy and freedom, right?

Look at good old America, bastion of democracy and freedom, right? Except for all the coups we’ve funded in the third world, the useless wars we’ve waged, and the environmental degradation we’ve caused.

Know what you’ll make as a CIA agent, traipsing around third world cesspits, doing the dirty work for politicians? Diddly-squat.

There were hundreds of wires snaking about the C4 explosive, in hues ranging from sea green to magenta to cerulean blue.

It was another insidious move on his part. Not only did he plan to kill me, but he planned to frame me as well.

There’s a bomb in the furnace room under the library....Whoa, don’t freak out. It’s been neutralized.

It was lunchtime, and I could hear the usual cacophony of the mess hall around her.

“Okay, math whiz,” Erica said. “Murray’s probably heading from Bushnell toward the closest point on the perimeter, and he has a two-minute jump on us. So what vector gives us the best chance of intercepting him?”

A revelation hit me. “He’s not going for the wall! He’s doubled back!”

A few small glaciers calved free and rocketed off the roof, knocking a dozen massive icicles loose from the eaves en route.

She stared across the snow at the prone body of the mole, taking everything in.

In that instant all my misgivings about the Academy of Espionage flitted away. Sure, the place was poorly managed, run-down, and occasionally life-threatening, but I now felt like I belonged there.

Alexander set one foot upon Murray’s haunch and posed dramatically, as if Murray were a grizzly bear he’d downed.

I am fully aware of the inherent dangers in doing so, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

If SPYDER is not neutralized soon, this could portend the end of the intelligence community—and perhaps even the United States of America—as we know it.