Crossing the Line (13 page)

Scorpion ran his hands through his hair. “But how do we know any of this is true?” He looked at Simmonds. “How do you know this isn't just some story she's feeding you?”

I shot Simmonds a pleading look, begging him not to give away any more.

“It's my job to know,” Simmonds said, not so much as glancing in my direction.

Scorpion shook his head. “No offense, sir, but when it comes to her I don't take anything for granted.”

Simmonds leaned closer to him. “Agent Elton, I think you know by now what my word is worth.” They were talking about something else now, and I didn't completely understand what.

Based on Scorpion's expression, it looked like the weight of Simmonds's words hit him. “Of course I know.”

“She's proven herself to me,” Simmonds said. “If you respect me, you'll respect that.”

Scorpion shook his head, like he couldn't wrap his mind around any part of this conversation. His eyes came to rest on me, taking me in. And for the first time, his face wasn't filled with the pure hatred I was accustomed to. It looked more like Nikki's had the first time she came over to me in the gym. He rubbed the back of his neck, still in a state of slight disbelief. “All right, sir. I hear you.”

Simmonds relaxed back into his chair. “You can't tell anyone else. This is clearance-level-seven material.”

“I understand,” Scorpion said. “You know I can keep things to myself.”

“I do.” He buzzed the other agents back in. “You both can go.”

Neither of us needed to be told twice.

I blew past the agent holding open the door and walked briskly down the hall, trying to get away from Scorpion. But he kept pace.

“So,” he said, a hint of disbelief still in his voice. “All of that's true? You're
our
double agent?”

“Are you
kidding
me?” I pulled his arm, spinning him around to face me. “You just promised to keep your mouth shut!”

“No one's here,” he said gesturing. “And clearance level seven doesn't mean I can't talk about it with you. It only means I can't talk about it with people who don't know. And I won't.” He was too calm. “All of this is true?” he asked again.

“
Yes.
” I kept my tone short.

“I guess that'll make our training sessions better.” He flashed a smile, clearly thinking he was joking.

Anger burned in me but I pushed it down enough to keep from completely lashing out. “We're not going to do this.”

I continued to move down the hall. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him turn to me. “Do what?”

“You don't get to ask me questions just because Simmonds managed to convince you I'm telling the truth,” I said. “We're not friends. And you spent the better part of the past month making sure I knew it.”

He looked away from me, and if I didn't know better I would have said he was ashamed. “What do you want from me?”

“I don't want anything from you.” I turned, waiting for him to look at me again. “Don't get in my way and I won't get in yours.”

He held my eyes, as if he was expecting more. But eventually he nodded. “Fine.”

“Good.” I pushed open the door and headed to my room without looking back.

I
was startled to find Nikki waiting for me when I got to my floor. Then I remembered we had plans after the classes I never made it back to.

“Is everything okay?” she asked, meeting me halfway between the stairs and my door. “I talked to that tech kid Sam and he said you only went to one of your classes.”

“It's fine,” I said, moving past her to open my room. “Just a minor issue with Scorpion. But he knows more about me now, so I guess it worked out the way you wanted it to.”

“What does he know?”

“Nothing I can talk about.”

Her lips formed a silent O. “That kind of stuff.”

“Yeah.”

“I'm sorry,” she said.

I shrugged. “It's fine. Simmonds helped fill him in. Maybe he'll at least leave me alone now.”

I opened my door and dropped my notebook on the small square table with the rest of my books. Nikki followed, dragging behind her a few big bags that had been sitting outside my room. “Do you still want to decorate?”

I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. “I never
wanted
to
decorate. You told me I had to.”

She laughed. “Okay, fair enough.” She pulled the bags in farther. “I'm taking that as a yes.”

I rolled my eyes but didn't stop her when she started pulling off my sheets and unpacking the things she had brought for my bed. She unfolded new sheets and tossed a corner at me, then showed me how to make the bed. I did my best to mirror what she was doing on the other side.

“So,” she said as we finished tucking in the fitted sheet. “You didn't have your own room at KATO?” She glanced at me cautiously.

“No,” I said. KATO kept me in a dark underground room with anywhere from six to fifteen others. The hard concrete floors and pointlessly thin mats couldn't be compared with the IDA's setup. “I definitely didn't.”

Nikki nodded, taking my short answer in stride. “It's not at all surprising that the countries who are responsible for creating child spies are the least equipped to handle it.”

I stopped tucking the top sheet to look at her. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” she said, as she continued to work, “KATO, and other similar organizations, are basically the reason the IDA exists. They're the ones that started training kids and putting them into the field, which meant they would have younger, stronger, faster, and more experienced operatives, whose careers would last at least twice as long as the average CIA agent's, assuming nothing happened to them.”

“So the U.S. was looking for a way to keep up,” I said.

“Exactly.” Nikki nodded. “The IDA was designed to maintain a balance and combat drastic agencies like KATO.” She smoothed the
sheets on her side and gave me her full attention. “There are a whole host of practical and ethical issues that come with teen spies—issues countries like North Korea are less concerned with. Training teenagers to be agents in a partly independently funded initiative, but keeping them out of the field until they are legally adults seemed to be the best compromise.”

“I never thought about it that way.” I knew KATO was radical and self-interested, but I didn't realize what their actions would mean for more responsible agencies.

“Yeah, it's a tough balancing act trying to keep up with the crazies without crossing too many lines.” Nikki came around to my side of the bed and tucked in the sheet I had left incomplete. “And from what I've heard, it wasn't easy getting the other countries on board. The U.S. had to agree to supply both the base and the initial recruits, which is why all of the agents we have are American. Once the IDA is considered to be ‘successful,' the other countries are supposed to open themselves up to recruiting as well.”

“This place has been around for a sixteen years,” I said. “I would think that counts as success.”

Nikki shrugged. “Governments have a history of moving entirely too slowly.” She started rooting through the open bag. “The comforter must be in another bag. Let's get everything else finished and then we can come back.”

She dropped the spy talk after that and dove into the task, walking me through hanging curtains, and pictures, and the various other things she had brought. Before long, I found myself surprisingly absorbed in the process. Nikki had gone with a dark blue theme
for the curtains, lamp shades, and area rugs. “You can always change it if you want,” she said when we had almost everything in place. “But I thought this would be a good place to start. You can adapt it as you figure out what kind of style you like.”

I stood in the door, taking it in as Nikki put the finishing touches on the bed by adding the dark blue ruffled bedspread. “No,” I said, trying to wrap my mind around the transformation. “I like it.”

She beamed. “I thought you might. It seemed very
you
.” I didn't know how she could possibly know what
me
was when I didn't even have a clue, but I kept that to myself.

That night, I slept in my bed without a problem for the first time since I got to the IDA.

 • • • 

I was pretty surprised when I showed up at the gym the next morning to find the entire academy class sitting with the older agents on the floor. Fortunately, Nikki ended up next to me at exactly the right moment.

“You look lost,” she said.

“What's going on?” I asked her, noticing Cody, Rachel, and Scorpion over her shoulder. Rachel and Cody scowled at me. Scorpion's expression was unreadable.

“It's some mandatory presentation from a CIA agent,” she said. “Since the IDA was started by former CIA agents, this happens every once in a while. We even have to sign in.” She pointed at the table by the door that Agent Lee was manning. “Which I'm guessing you didn't do.”

“I should go handle that,” I said. I left Nikki and approached Agent Lee.

She smiled when she saw me. “Jocelyn. Don't worry, I saw you come in and I already have you checked off.”

I thanked her and found a seat on the floor by the door. I had no intentions of sitting through this presentation. The rest of the agency was occupied, which made it the perfect chance to sneak up to the computer rooms and see if KATO had responded to my post.

I sat next to the door with my back resting against the wall. I gave the speaker ten minutes to get started before I gently shifted over so I was sitting in front of the swinging door. I put myself as close to the opening as I could get, then pushed back just enough to have room to slide out. I shut the door, slowly and gently, and waited until it was still before getting to my feet. I made it all of five steps before someone stopped me.

“Where exactly do you think you're going, Viper?” It was Agent Harper.

I wasn't afraid or panicked. I was annoyed. “I didn't realize the bathrooms were restricted during special presentations. Then again, this is my first one, so I guess I'm still learning.”

He rolled his eyes. “Right. You're just looking for the
bathroom
.”

I readied a comeback, but Agent Lee came out of the gym before I could use it. Her eyes moved from me to Harper; her expression remained neutral. “Is there a problem here?” she asked.

“I just caught Viper trying to sneak off,” Agent Harper said with a note of triumph. “Given her reputation, I figured that wasn't the best idea.”

Lee nodded a few times, digesting this. “I see.” She didn't sound at all concerned. “I'll take it from here, Agent Harper.”

Harper's victorious smile dropped. “What? No, she needs to pay for this.”

“Pay for what?” Lee asked. “Cutting a mandatory assembly isn't something we like, but we usually don't punish people for walking in a hallway, especially when they're full-fledged agents.”

Harper fumed, but was clearly outranked. He opened and closed his mouth a few times before storming off down the opposite hall, away from us and the presentation.

“Thank you,” I said to Agent Lee.

She nodded in acknowledgment, then considered me. “I think you should know that I'm leading the team tasked with locating your father.”

I stopped breathing for a beat, taken off guard. “I didn't know you—did things like that.”

“I don't,” she said. “But he's an old friend. He'd want to be found for this.”

I hadn't done any real research on my parents lately. It didn't feel that pressing, with KATO's threat level rising. Besides, as much as I wanted information on them, I wasn't prepared to deal with the reality of my living, breathing father. I shifted uncomfortably, desperate to change the subject. “Does that mean you've read my file?”

“It does,” she said.

I nodded, taking this in. “I guess that explains why you were nice to me on the first day. And why you're covering for me now. Of course, I could just stop getting caught, and do my job.” I tugged at
my hair in frustration, wanting to disappear so she wouldn't know how much everything in this conversation was bothering me.

She looked me dead in the eye. “You're doing great, Jocelyn. Better than even I expected, and I never doubted you.” She tilted toward the second-floor stairs. “Go handle whatever you need to handle. I'll deal with Agent Harper.”

She didn't give me the chance to thank her again.

 • • • 

KATO didn't have much to say about my report, though they reminded me yet again to keep them aware of any new intel the IDA might have on them. My chest tightened every time they did. I hadn't heard from Simmonds about what that date from the cipher might mean, and we were getting closer and closer to it. I did my best to keep my attention on my classes to avoid thinking about what it was that KATO could be so intent on keeping secret.

Global Dynamics that day proved to be much more of a distraction than I was looking for. It was the only other class where Sam sat next to me, and I often took comfort that he seemed to have as much hostility for Agent Harper as I did. And that he was so open about it made it even better.

Though not even Sam could help when Harper decided to make an example out of me, which that day he had. And he was out for blood.

“As you know,” he said, “we make it a point to study the history of different intelligence agencies.” His eyes landed on me for a moment and my guard went up. “One of the best ways to understand an agency is to look at the case file of an individual agent.” He sat at the computer, which was attached to an overhead projector, and
pulled up an automated presentation. My stomach twisted with anger and anxiety. “Today, we're going to look at the mission history of the KATO agent code-named Viper.”

“You can't be serious.” I gripped the end of the table. The only person in the room who dared to look at me was Sam, and I couldn't bring myself to meet his eyes.

“What was that, Steely?” Agent Harper asked. “Something you wanted to add?”

I held back my response. I had a feeling this was his way of punishing me for leaving the presentation that morning.

“That's what I thought.” He smirked. “As far as we can tell, Viper first came onto the scene four years ago. She was young, like all KATO agents, and raised to be a heartless, cold killer. Something she seemed to have particular talent for.”

I breathed as slowly as I possibly could, trying to keep anyone from seeing how affected I was. I knew I did what I had to do to survive at KATO, but I wasn't proud of it. And while I knew my history was no secret to these kids, the last thing I wanted was for them to see the damage I'd done firsthand.

I opened my mouth to say something—anything—to distract from the situation, but Sam got to me first. “Don't,” he said. I finally looked at him. “Anything you say is going to make this worse. The best thing you can do is take it.”

He was right. I tightened my hold on the chair, squeezing enough to leave an impression deep in my hands. It felt like my insides were being shredded.

“Her first mission,” Harper said, changing slides. A picture of an Indian palace filled the screen and I went rigid. “Was in India.
She was sent to assassinate the eight-year-old daughter of an Indian prince. She completed the mission in less than six hours.”

I closed my eyes and little Nakini's face flashed in my mind.

“Of course,” Agent Harper said, “that's nothing compared to the South Korean orphanage.”

My eyelids snapped open and I looked at Harper, focusing every piece of anger I had on him. I could feel the rest of the class watching me, waiting to see when I'd reach my limit. And I knew that's what Harper wanted too.

“Don't do it,” Sam whispered. “Keep together. He'll get what's coming to him.”

Agent Harper pressed the space bar and a picture of a medium-size building popped up. “After a failed invasion attempt, North Korea wanted a message sent. In order to send that message, they sent Viper to burn one of the bigger South Korean orphanages to the ground.”

I shifted in my seat, but I couldn't bring myself to look anywhere but at the screen. The orphanage was one of the worst assignments I ever had. Not all of the kids died, but those who survived were homeless. I still didn't let myself think about it completely.

“Steely,” Harper said. I shifted my gaze to glare at him. “What do you think it tells us about this agent that she easily completed two missions involving the murder of innocent children?”

I leaned forward, moving my grip to the table. My heart was pounding so hard I might as well have been on an assignment. I couldn't see or think straight. White-hot rage burned in my chest, while guilt and humiliation churned in my stomach. I lifted the table
slightly, ready to throw it across the room. Sam shoved it back down.

I looked at him. His face was straight and more serious than I thought him capable. I didn't know why it mattered to him what I did, but I was grateful. I was ready to fly off the handle. “Take a breath and answer the question,” he whispered.