The Terminals (36 page)

The room was classic Mason—spotless, organized, practically symmetrical—with one notable exception: the Stratego board was sitting out with only four pieces on it. Cam looked closer. The blue Spy and blue Scout stood together in the lake at the center of the field. Two red Bomb pieces sat in the far corner squares. And when Cam tried to move the Spy, he found it was glued to the board. All the pieces were. It was odd, but then Cam's game-loving buddy was an odd guy.

It was no use. Mason was out. Cam slid from the room and closed the door. When he turned, a girl was standing at her door across the hall staring at him.

“Have you seen Mason?” he said quickly.

“No.”

“Okay.” Cam started to walk off.

“Not for like a week,” she added.

Cam stopped. “What?”

“Yeah, he kinda disappeared. Must have gone home or something.”

“In the middle of the term?”

She shrugged and closed her door. Cam spun, suddenly alert. He eyed the elevator, then ducked back into Mason's room. Mason's wrinkled shirts hung on a three-foot-long wooden dowel in the closet. He dumped them, removed the dowel, and ran for the stairs.

Cam descended rapidly, checking over the rail at each landing, and when he reached the second floor, he climbed through a window and dropped to the ground outside.

The ridiculous sunglasses should have been a dead giveaway. No college student in rainy Bellingham would wear sunglasses during fall term. Cam circled the building, returning to the front entrance, where he peeked inside. Sunglasses boy was gone.
Probably up the elevator.
The girl who'd been hiding behind the book was still there, but she was watching the stairwell intently, not the front door. Cam eased it open and snuck up behind her.

The dowel made a loud
crack
when it hit the side of her head, and she went down hard. Cam didn't make the same mistake Donnie had made with him on the beach his first day. He was on her instantly, the wood pressed against her larynx, keeping her quiet.

“You know who I am?”

“Yeth,” she hissed.

“Then you know how dangerous I am.” He pressed the dowel against her throat hard, until her eyes bulged, then he let up. She didn't have to answer. He could see that she got the point. “Funny how every minute becomes more precious when you only have a finite number of them left. You still don't want to go early. Now I'm going to let you talk, but if you scream or lie you're done. Are you the only one here?” he said, baiting her.

“Two”—she gasped—“of us.”

Cam nodded. She'd passed the first test; she wasn't lying. “Where's my friend?”

“We don't know.”

Cam pressed on the dowel.”

“We don't know!” She wheezed with an accent he couldn't place.

“Where are you from?”

“Sydney.”

Cam recoiled, surprised, releasing the pressure on her throat. “Australia?”

“You think your site was the only one?”

Cam's head spun. She was a recruit. He'd realized that. She'd been sent to find a defector the way his own team had hunted Siena. He'd realized that too.
But she's from an entirely separate operation.

Cam almost didn't blame her. She was clearly new, not yet well trained, and had been dropped into a foreign country for her first mission.
I'm her first mission.
There would be eight more. Some of them would be looking for Mason.
And Siena
, Cam realized. Others might be visiting Jules's sister.

He heard chatter outside. Someone was coming. Students. Cam wrangled the girl into a nearby broom closet and broke off the door handle.

God bless Mason
, Cam thought. His brilliant friend had sensed trouble and fled, but he'd left Cam a clue from their childhood. Stratego. He'd put the pieces in the wrong places, something only Cam would understand. Cam was the blue Spy, clearly. Mason was the blue Scout—he'd been a Boy Scout in middle school. Besides, the Scout was the vulnerable piece in Stratego, and it could run. The red Bomb pieces were the two recruits waiting in the lobby. The other player.
The enemy.

He walked out of the Buchanan Towers dormitory as three students walked in. When the girl in the closet heard them, she started screaming, “Assault!”

And he fled.

The enormity of it all began to sink in as he hurried across the Western Washington University soccer field. The company was here. The company was in South America. The company was in Australia.
They're everywhere.

He felt stupid and horrible for getting Mason involved. If the Stratego board was correct, Mason would be on the lake cowering in an empty cabin at the scout camp, which was closed off-season. Cam would find him there, then go after Siena.

We'll run
, he thought.

Cam was a good runner, and he had a feeling he might be running for the rest of his life.

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I'd like to thank my editor, Brendan Deneen, for working with me on this project. Here's to the first of several. May it sell, entertain, inspire, and sit proudly on our shelves, generally in that order. And my best to Mike Kuciak for making the introduction.

 

 

Also by Royce Scott Buckingham

DIE KARTE DER WELT

DER WILLE DES KONIGS

DEMONKEEPER

DEMONEATER

DEMONOCITY

GOBLINS

THE DEAD BOYS

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ROYCE SCOTT BUCKINGHAM is a fantasy author with a degree in English from Whitman College and a Juris Doctor in Law from the University of Oregon. Buckingham's middle-grade novels include
The Dead Boys
,
Goblin Problem
,
Demonkeeper
,
Demoneater
, and
Demonocity. The Terminals
is Buckingham's first young adult thriller. Buckingham lives with his wife and their two sons in Bellingham, Washington, where he still works at the prosecuting attorney's office.

 

 

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

 

THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS
.

An imprint of St. Martin's Press.

 

THE TERMINALS
. Copyright © 2014 by Royce Scott Buckingham. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

 

www.thomasdunnebooks.com

www.stmartins.com

 

Cover designed by Young Jin Lim

 

Cover photographs by
Shutterstock.com

 

eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].

 

The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

 

ISBN 978-1-250-01155-8 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-250-02105-2 (e-book)

 

e-ISBN 9781250021052

 

First Edition: October 2014