agent breaches our perimeter, knowing exactly where to find you and possessing intimate details of your file.”
“So . . . there’s a mole?” I asked.
“Wow,” Erica said sarcastically. “Figured that out already, did you?”
“Who is it?”
“That’s the million-dollar question . . . which is where you come in.”
Click. Another piece of the puzzle fell into place. The reason my file said I had talents I didn’t know about was because they didn’t exist. “Oh no! I’m the bait?”
I couldn’t quite tell in the darkness, but for once, it looked like Erica might have been the tiniest bit impressed by my deductive abilities. Which provided only the slimmest comfort, given what I’d just learned. “You got it,” she said. “You were brought in as part of Operation Creeping Badger.”
“Creeping Badger?” I asked, incredulous.
“I think they’re under the impression that badgers hunt moles,” Erica explained. “They don’t, really, but the guys who named it are spies, not biologists. Anyhow, it appears the plan was to bring you in, make you out to be a big-time crypto whiz boy, and draw out the enemy . . . only the enemy moveda lot faster than the school expected, because the principal and everyone else were caught with their pants down tonight.”
My heart was beating even faster, but it wasn’t because of Erica now. “The school set me up to have an assassin come after me?!”
“Well, they probably weren’t counting on an assassin. But, yes, that’s the general idea.”
Another puzzle piece clicked into place. Only, the more I saw of the big picture, the less I liked it. “So . . . my recruitment was a sham?”
“Yes.”
“Am I even qualified to be a spy?”
“Not really,” Erica said. “I think they picked you because you have strong math skills—so on paper, you look like you could be a crypto genius. And because you live close by.”
I hung my head. There had been a lot of heavy things to deal with today, but this was the heaviest. To go from the euphoria of learning I could be an elite spy to discovering it was all a setup—and one that could have gotten me killed, no less—was devastating. But the more I considered it, the angrier I got.
I thought back to the principal grilling me in Tina’s room. “The principal dragged me into this, then acted like I was the one who screwed up,” I said. “But he’s the one who dropped the ball. I almost got killed tonight!”
“He probably didn’t expect that our perimeter could be breached so easily,” Erica said with a sigh. “The idiot. If the enemy knows what’s in our top secret files, why wouldn’t they know how to get around our security system? This assassin took out every single camera he had to. He knew exactly where they all were. The enemy probably knows more about this campus than the principal does.”
“At least your father’s involved now,” I said. “He won’t make any mistakes like that.”
To my surprise, rather than agreeing with this, Erica stiffened at the mention of her father. The already-cold temperature in the room seemed to drop a few degrees. “Yes. Alexander’s involved,” she said noncommittally.
It seemed best to try to change the subject. “He spent a lot of time trying to get me to figure out the sequence of what happened in my room. Why?”
“To assess who the enemy might be. We know almost nothing about them, other than that they have access to our information. So here’s how the mole hunt works: They bring in a patsy—that’d be you— who they make out to be an amazing new recruit, a prodigy at cracking codes. This makes you a game changer. Not only is all their coded material at risk now, but you’ve invented something—code-named Pinwheel—that’s going to change everything as far as cryptography is concerned. Pinwheel is what we call a ‘hook.’ They don’t specifywhat it is, only that it’s revolutionary, to get the enemy interested. Then they sit back and
“So . . . there’s a mole?” I asked.
“Wow,” Erica said sarcastically. “Figured that out already, did you?”
“Who is it?”
“That’s the million-dollar question . . . which is where you come in.”
Click. Another piece of the puzzle fell into place. The reason my file said I had talents I didn’t know about was because they didn’t exist. “Oh no! I’m the bait?”
I couldn’t quite tell in the darkness, but for once, it looked like Erica might have been the tiniest bit impressed by my deductive abilities. Which provided only the slimmest comfort, given what I’d just learned. “You got it,” she said. “You were brought in as part of Operation Creeping Badger.”
“Creeping Badger?” I asked, incredulous.
“I think they’re under the impression that badgers hunt moles,” Erica explained. “They don’t, really, but the guys who named it are spies, not biologists. Anyhow, it appears the plan was to bring you in, make you out to be a big-time crypto whiz boy, and draw out the enemy . . . only the enemy moveda lot faster than the school expected, because the principal and everyone else were caught with their pants down tonight.”
My heart was beating even faster, but it wasn’t because of Erica now. “The school set me up to have an assassin come after me?!”
“Well, they probably weren’t counting on an assassin. But, yes, that’s the general idea.”
Another puzzle piece clicked into place. Only, the more I saw of the big picture, the less I liked it. “So . . . my recruitment was a sham?”
“Yes.”
“Am I even qualified to be a spy?”
“Not really,” Erica said. “I think they picked you because you have strong math skills—so on paper, you look like you could be a crypto genius. And because you live close by.”
I hung my head. There had been a lot of heavy things to deal with today, but this was the heaviest. To go from the euphoria of learning I could be an elite spy to discovering it was all a setup—and one that could have gotten me killed, no less—was devastating. But the more I considered it, the angrier I got.
I thought back to the principal grilling me in Tina’s room. “The principal dragged me into this, then acted like I was the one who screwed up,” I said. “But he’s the one who dropped the ball. I almost got killed tonight!”
“He probably didn’t expect that our perimeter could be breached so easily,” Erica said with a sigh. “The idiot. If the enemy knows what’s in our top secret files, why wouldn’t they know how to get around our security system? This assassin took out every single camera he had to. He knew exactly where they all were. The enemy probably knows more about this campus than the principal does.”
“At least your father’s involved now,” I said. “He won’t make any mistakes like that.”
To my surprise, rather than agreeing with this, Erica stiffened at the mention of her father. The already-cold temperature in the room seemed to drop a few degrees. “Yes. Alexander’s involved,” she said noncommittally.
It seemed best to try to change the subject. “He spent a lot of time trying to get me to figure out the sequence of what happened in my room. Why?”
“To assess who the enemy might be. We know almost nothing about them, other than that they have access to our information. So here’s how the mole hunt works: They bring in a patsy—that’d be you— who they make out to be an amazing new recruit, a prodigy at cracking codes. This makes you a game changer. Not only is all their coded material at risk now, but you’ve invented something—code-named Pinwheel—that’s going to change everything as far as cryptography is concerned. Pinwheel is what we call a ‘hook.’ They don’t specifywhat it is, only that it’s revolutionary, to get the enemy interested. Then they sit back and
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