Spy Ski School (33 page)

“I suppose,” Erica said.

“Honestly, I've never defused a bomb in all my years in the Agency,” Cyrus admitted.

I looked to Erica, who seemed just as surprised as I did.
“Never?”
she asked.

“It's not like this kind of thing happens every day,” Cyrus replied.

“Well, maybe all these other wires are just a busted goose,” I suggested. “They're only there to distract us. You know, so we waste time trying to figure out which wire's the right one, until it's too late.”

Erica considered this. A few more seconds ticked by. We were down to only twenty-five.

The snow groaned and shifted more. A large chunk only three feet from us fractured off and fell away.

“I don't have any better ideas,” Erica admitted. “Let's pull all the wires.”

“Really?” I asked.

“It's better than doing nothing. If the bomb's gonna blow, it's gonna blow.”

“I agree,” Cyrus chimed in. “Yank them.”

So we did. We ripped every last wire out of the bomb.

It didn't blow up.

But the timer didn't stop, either. It kept on ticking down. Eight seconds. Seven seconds. Six.

I looked to Erica helplessly, out of ideas.

She was looking at me the same way.

And then, to my astonishment, she kissed me.

I had encountered a great number of startling things since coming to spy school, but this rocked my world more than all of them put together. It was very quick—after all, the world was about to end—but it was definitely the greatest few seconds of my entire life. I was terrified of dying, but at the same time, oddly thrilled that I was getting this experience in right under the wire.

The timer ticked to zero.

Nothing happened.

Erica pulled away from me, looked at the bomb curiously, then rolled her eyes. “Oh, man,” she muttered. “We disconnected the bomb, but not the timer.”

It took me a bit longer to recover. “So . . . we're not going to die?”

“Not from the blast. Plummeting is still a likely option, though.” She glanced up toward the helicopter and spoke over the radio. “We need that tether ASAP.”

“We're getting it there as fast as we can,” Cyrus replied.

“Well, get it here faster,” Erica said. She was behaving as though the kiss had never happened, back to her normal, rational, unemotional self.

But then, I needed Erica to be her normal, rational,
unemotional self in that moment. Because I was on the verge of freaking out.

The snow we were on was definitely sliding toward the edge of the cliff. And even though the bomb we were with hadn't exploded, it was still a nuclear bomb. Dropping it from a great height might very well still set it off.

The helicopter hovered fifty feet above us, as close as Cyrus dared get. Any closer and the rotors might have clipped the steep slope. Alexander was lowering the tether as fast as he could. The big reinforced loop at the end dangled just above our heads.

Erica stood to reach for it. The snow shifted ominously with her movement.

She was about to grab the tether when a wind kicked up, jostling the helicopter. The loop swung past her fingertips.

“There's a spool of filament wire on my utility belt,” she told me. “Tie one end to the bomb, then get ready to move out. We're going to have to act fast.”

I grabbed one end of the filament and did as ordered. It wasn't easy, though. My hands were growing cold without my gloves, and the thin wire was hard to handle with my numb fingers. Plus, the bomb and I were both sliding toward the edge of the cliff. I raced to get the wire looped around one of the yellow canisters, then tie a knot.

More snow dropped away into the chasm, only a foot
away from us. The chasm was now so close I could see down to the bottom of it. It was like standing at the top of a skyscraper.

The tether swung back over us. Erica lunged and grabbed it. “Ben! Time to go! Now!”

“One more second,” I said, struggling to cinch the knot.

“Now,”
Erica ordered.

I pulled the knot tight, then stood. The snow under us heaved and rushed toward the edge of oblivion.

Erica already had the tether's loop around her torso. She quickly swung it over my head and brought it up beneath my armpits.

A second later, we slid over the edge of the cliff.

Only, we didn't drop. The tether held us in the exact same place, as though we'd stepped onto some invisible platform.

The bomb dropped, though. It toppled over the edge of the cliff and plummeted until the filament snapped taut with a twang. Erica grunted in pain from the sudden extra weight. But that was all the discomfort she allowed herself. “We're good,” she told Cyrus over the radio. “Get us out of here.”

“Roger.” The earth dropped away below us as the helicopter lifted us up.

The tether was pinioning Erica and me together, face-to-face. We were now dangling several thousand feet above
the ground, in a freezing wind, with a nuclear bomb tied to us. But we were still alive, and we'd saved a good section of Colorado from nuclear annihilation. So we had that going for us.

Erica plucked the microphone out of her ear and indicated I should do the same.

As we were face-to-face, this seemed like a perfectly good time for another kiss. A much longer one, maybe.

Only, I didn't get it.

“That kiss didn't mean anything,” Erica told me. “We were in a tight spot, and you were about to lose it, and I didn't want your last moments on earth to be terrifying.”

“Okay.” I was disappointed that a second kiss hadn't come, but at the same time, I couldn't help smiling. Because for once in my life, I knew something that Erica was trying to keep secret. I'd overheard her on the lift with Zoe. And Mike, who knew far more about girls than I did, had provided confirmation.

Erica Hale liked me.

Maybe she didn't have a massive crush on me, the way I had a crush on her. And maybe she was way too focused on becoming a spy to even consider having a boyfriend. But she at least liked me enough to be jealous of Jessica Shang, which was something.

Which meant she was lying. She hadn't kissed me merely
to calm me down in my final moments alive. Erica had thought those were her final moments too. She'd
wanted
to kiss me.

“Why are you smiling?” Erica asked.

“I'm just happy to be alive,” I said.

Erica gave me a hard stare, like she didn't believe me. “You can never tell
anyone
about what happened here. If you do, I will find you . . .”

“. . . and you'll kill me,” I finished. “I know the drill.”

We were rising slowly as Alexander winched the tether into the helicopter. In a few seconds, we would be back inside, safe and warm again.

But despite the cold and the height and the nuclear bomb and the fact that my feet were in agony after way too much time in ski boots, I found myself savoring those moments, dangling high above the mountains with Erica. Because I knew Erica as well as anyone. Once we got back home, she would do everything she could to avoid a relationship with me—and to be honest, I now understood why. As Operation Snow Bunny had just proved, emotions could severely complicate missions. And Erica and I had many more missions ahead of us.

So that kiss was probably all I was going to get from her for a long, long time.

And yet . . . she'd still kissed me.

It was a start.

January 1

To:
                                      

CIA Director of Operations

RE: Operation
                      

As I'm sure you're aware by now, despite your concerns, our junior agents performed exceptionally well on their recent mission. Not only did they uncover
                                    
, but they also were of invaluable assistance in
                                                                                                     
. Due to their efforts, Leo Shang has been captured, along with several associates (although once again, that rapscallion Murray Hill appears to have escaped).

Therefore, I recommend commendations—as well as high grades in Undercover Work and Bomb Defusion—for agents
                     
and
                          
on this endeavor. I also recommend passing grades for young agents
                                                                   
and
                                  
. As for agent
                     
, the less said about his performance, the better. We might consider holding him back a year.

One final note. An issue I have expressed concern about before came back to haunt all of us on this mission:
                          
. However, while young
                             
appearance at first threatened to derail
                                           
, he ultimately proved himself surprisingly capable and resilient in the face of danger. To that end, please disregard my previous recommendation that we deal with Mr.
                    
by termination. Instead, I believe we should recruit him to the
                                           
. He would make a welcome addition to our ranks, and given his performance, possibly even rival
                           
as a young agent someday.

Sincerely,

Cyrus Hale

P.S. My sources indicate that
                    
may not only still be in existence, but fully recovered from
                            
and plotting
                                                              
. In the very near future, we may have to activate agents
               
and
             
for Operation Muskrat.

Also by Stuart Gibbs

The FunJungle series

Belly Up

Poached

Big Game

The Spy School series

Spy School

Spy Camp

Evil Spy School

The Moon Base Alpha series

Space Case

Spaced Out

The Last Musketeer

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