Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover

"We're
moving." The man beside me spoke into the microphone in his sleeve, and I
knew the words weren't for me.

The
August air was hot and thick with the smell of sea salt and bus exhaust. The
roads were packed for miles, and everywhere I looked I saw shades of red,
white, and blue. Everywhere I turned, I felt the eyes of trained professionals
staring, seeing, recording every word, analyzing every glance within a dozen
miles.

Part
of me wanted to break free of the big men in the dark suits who flanked me on
either side; another part wanted to marvel at the bomb-sniffing dogs who were
examining boxes twenty meters away. But most of all, I wanted to lie when
another man, with a clipboard and an earpiece, asked for my name.

After
all, I've spent a lot of time learning how to whip out false IDs and recite
perfectly crafted cover stories in situations just like these, so it was harder
than I thought

to say, "Cammie. Cammie
Morgan."

It
was weirder than I would have guessed as I waited for him to scan the clipboard
and say, "You can go right in."

As if I were simply a
sixteen-year-old girl.

As if I couldn't possibly be a
threat.

As if I didn't go to a school for
spies.

Walking
through the hotel lobby, I couldn't help but remember the first assignment my
covert operations teacher ever gave me:
Notice things.
Lights and cameras shone from
every angle. A massive net full of red, white, and blue balloons snaked through
the cavernous space like a patriotic python. Up on the mezzanine level, the
Texas delegation was singing about yellow roses, while a woman walked by wearing
a big foam hat shaped like a Georgia peach.

I
scanned the masses of old women and young girls. Husbands and wives. College
kids and senior citizens. The last time I'd been in a crowd like this was in a
different season and a different city, so maybe it was the hotel's frigid
air-conditioning or just a memory of a chilly day in D.C., but for some reason,
I shivered and fought against a serious case of deja vu as I looked around and
said the name I hadn't spoken in weeks. "Zach."

Then
I blinked and wondered if a part of me would always worry that he might be on
my tail.

"This
way," the man beside me said, but we didn't stop at the end of the line,
which twisted and turned in front of the marble-covered registration desk. We
didn't even slow down as we passed between two rows of elevators. Instead we
turned down a narrow hall that seemed half a world away from the bright lights
and tall ceiling of the lobby. Plush carpeting gave way to chipped linoleum
tiles until finally we were standing before an elevator I'm pretty sure hotel
guests were never intended to see.

"So,
you're a friend of peacocks?" the Secret Service agent asked while we waited
for the doors to open.

"Excuse
me?" I asked, because even though I'd never been in a really nice hotel, I
was pretty sure they wouldn't have exotic birds on the penthouse level.

"Peacock,"
the agent said again as we stepped into the service car that was soon carrying
us, nonstop, to the top floor. "See, we use code names," he explained
as if I were … a sixteen-year-old girl, "when we talk about the protectee.
So you and Peacock, you're …
friends
?" he asked, and again I
realized that he wasn't looking at me the way a well- trained, well-armed
security professional looks at a potential threat (because I know a thing or
two about well-trained and well-armed security professionals!). Nope. He was
looking at me like I was … a Gallagher Girl.

Of
course, if you're reading this you must already know that there are two types
of people in this world—those who know the truth about what goes on inside the
walls of the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women, and those who
don't. Something in the way the agent was trying to weigh my slightly
out-of-style clothes against the snooty reputation of my school told me that he
was definitely the second type—that he assumed we were all rich; that he
thought we were all spoiled; and that he had no idea what it
really
meant to be Gallagher Girl.

And that was
before
I
heard the screaming.

As
the elevator doors slid open, a high-pitched "I am going to kill
someone!" echoed from behind the double doors at the end of the hall.

And
then I was one hundred percent certain that the man beside me didn't know the
truth about my sisterhood, because he didn't draw his weapon; he didn't even
flinch as a second Secret Service agent opened the double doors and whispered,
"Peacock is angry."

Instead,
he walked
toward
the
screaming girl—even though she was a Gallagher Girl.

Even though her name was Macey
McHenry.

Before that day, I'd never been
to Boston. I'd never had a Secret Service escort. And I'd definitely never been
a VIP (or the friend/roommate/guest of a VIP) at a national political
convention. But walking into what I'm pretty sure was the hotel's second-nicest
suite, I added another first to the list: I'd never seen Macey McHenry as mad
as she was then.

"Really,
Macey, I think it's an adorable little puff piece." Cynthia McHenry's
cool, mannered tone could not have been more different from her daughter's.
"He's the only son of a future president…You're the only daughter of a
future vice president. … If people want to read about the possibility of a
White House wedding eight years from now, I don't see any reason to stop them.
Really, I don't know why you have to be so dramatic."

Right
then I made a mental note that if Mrs. McHenry thought Macey was too dramatic
then she should probably never be left alone with the better part of our junior
class.

"If that boy—"

"That
boy,"
her mother corrected, "is Governor Winters's son—"

"—tries
to flirt with me—" Macey went on, but Mrs. McHenry talked over her.

"And
if appearing with that boy is going to give us a two- percent bump in Ohio, then
you
will
appear
with that boy."

"Percentages."
Macey gave an exasperated sigh. "You know I don't do math."

Well,
I have personally seen Macey McHenry do linear algebra without a calculator
(after mastering our roommate Liz's system, of course), but the girl in front
of me wasn't the Macey I knew from school. She wasn't the girl on the suite's
TV either, smiling and waving and holding hands with her father on the national
news. Instead she was the
other
kind of Gallagher Girl—the kind
the agent had been expecting: the snobby kind, the spoiled kind, the kind who
had crawled out of her parents' limousine and into our school nearly a year
before with combat boots and a diamond nose stud.

"This
was the scene this morning as Senator James McHenry and his family arrived here
in Boston to join Governor Winters and officially accept the vice presidential
nomination," the TV anchor was saying. But I doubt that Macey or her
mother were even listening as they stared daggers at each other.

"You
will do this, Macey," her mother said. "You will—"

But
then my escort cleared his throat, and Mrs. McHenry turned. I expected her to
gush like she had on the phone when Macey had called to invite me to join them,
but instead she waved in my direction and said, "There, your little friend
is here."

Something
in the way her mother spoke about me made Macey draw a breath. I was relieved
that no one else noticed how my roommate's fists clenched tighter for just a
moment before she spun around and snapped, "We're going for a walk."

"Don't
forget the rehearsal!" her mother called, but Macey was already pulling me
through the double doors.

I
caught the agent's eye one final time as he tried to figure out what I could
possibly have in common with the girl who was pulling me along. On the TV,
someone said, "Cynthia McHenry is a well-known businesswoman and
philanthropist. The couple has one daughter, Macey, a student at the Gallagher
Academy for Exceptional Young Women, in Roseville, Virginia."

Our school.

National television.

A
thousand thoughts raced through my mind before Macey slammed the doors behind
us, as if trapping my worries on the other side. She smiled a mischievous
smile, and for the first time that day I recognized my friend in the girl who
stood before me. "So, how do you like my cover?"

S
pies have covers for every occasion: aliases and phony
passports, pocket litter and fake IDs. A great operative can become someone
else at the drop of a hat (and sometimes, actual hats are involved), but I'd
rarely seen someone as deeply undercover as Macey McHenry was then.