Spy Ski School (19 page)

“Yes,” I agreed. “When did you learn all this about helicopter skiing?”

“The other night, after I learned that Leo Shang was doing it, I spent a few hours familiarizing myself with the sport. Research is very important in our line of work.” Erica brought up another screen full of coordinates. “Now, these are from yesterday: the day you saw Leo Shang wearing that button-down shirt. Notice anything interesting about them?”

I stared at the screen as Erica scrolled through the numbers. It didn't take long to notice what she meant. “The coordinates for the skiers and the helicopter are exactly the same.”

“Exactly. You were right. Leo Shang
didn't
go heli-skiing
that day. He never got out of the helicopter. Instead, he used that chopper for something else. Some kind of reconnaissance, most likely.”

“Even though there was a pilot from Epic flying it?”

“Why not? Shang could have bribed the pilot to do what he wanted. Or maybe the pilot didn't even know what was going on. He might have figured he'd lucked into an easy day, giving some rich guy a sightseeing tour instead of chasing skiers around.”

“So what do we do now?” I asked. “Tell your grandfather?”

“For starters.” Erica flipped the computer off and stuffed it into her pocket. “Plus, it looks like I'm gonna be flirting with you heavily tomorrow. There's only two days left until Operation Golden Fist goes down. You need to get closer to Jessica Shang, and you need to do it fast.”

Northwoods Basin

Vail Mountain

December 29

1300 hours

“That's what I want to
see, Ben!” Woodchuck exclaimed enthusiastically. “Those are excellent turns!”

I slid to a textbook stop next to my fellow classmates, who had been waiting for me halfway down the run. They all cheered for me.

Jawa proudly fist-bumped me. “You've gotten ten times better since yesterday! How'd you do that?”

“I just practiced yesterday afternoon,” I replied, doing my best to sound humble. It was hard, though. Because I had
finally found something athletic that I was actually good at.

Ever since I'd arrived at spy school, everyone else had constantly bested me at tests of skill and feats of physical prowess. Erica was capable of anything, from climbing a sheer rock face to beating up ninjas—often at the same time. Chip, Jawa, and Zoe were all impressive as well. Warren wasn't, but he was so good at camouflaging himself that our instructors tended to overlook his other flaws. (They often overlooked him, period, because they couldn't find him.) Meanwhile, I had been constantly humiliated: flattened by kung fu masters, winded from long runs, flunked off the artillery range for nearly wounding people. Sports had never been my thing.

But something had clicked with skiing. My ordeal coming down Simba the day before had pushed me to the next level. Vail had received more than two feet of snow overnight—and more was falling—and I had skied through it far better than any of the other beginner students. I had even managed to get down some advanced runs without wiping out.

Meanwhile, Erica was still struggling. She wasn't bad, really. She simply wasn't fantastic at it. But this was incredibly frustrating to her. Erica had the opposite issue with skiing that I did: It was the first physical activity she'd ever come across that she
hadn't
mastered with ease. That morning, while I'd been getting cheers and kudos, she'd been getting
sympathetic pats on the back and the occasional “Nice try.”

She hid all her frustration from Jessica Shang, though. Instead, for Jessica's benefit, she remained in character, upbeat and harebrained, shrugging off each wipeout with a ditzy giggle.

She was also in full-on flirtation mode with me. Now, in front of the entire class, she came up beside me and blatantly fluttered her eyelashes. “You are soooo good at this!” she cooed. “Maybe
you
ought to be the one giving me lessons.”

Even though I knew Erica was acting, my face still flushed. I felt like it was a hundred degrees outside instead of snowing. “Sure. Maybe today after class.”

Over Erica's shoulder, I caught a glimpse of Jessica frowning. I also got glimpses of everyone else in class, staring at Erica in shock. Seeing Erica flirt—even when they knew it was fake—was like seeing a flying cow. It simply didn't seem possible.

“That's very sweet,” Woodchuck teased, “but for right now,
I'm
still the instructor here. We're going to all head down this run one at a time to the lift, and I want to see each of you make your parallel turns as well as Ben just did. Sasha, you first.”

“Okay. Here goes nothing!” Erica cried gamely. She pushed off with her poles and wobbled down the hill. She
struggled through a few turns, making them without any of her normal grace, crying “Oopsie!” with each one.

The rest of us lined up to watch her. To my surprise, Jessica pulled up next to me. “Hey,” she said, nice and friendly, as though she hadn't been giving me the cold shoulder for the past day and a half. “What is up with that girl? I thought she was all into your friend.”

“It didn't work out,” I lied. “Mike met someone else.”

“Really?” Jessica seemed pleased that Erica had failed to land Mike. “So now she turns around and throws herself at you?”

“She's not throwing herself at me. She only asked me for some help skiing.”

“Yeah, right.” Jessica laughed and shook her head. “She's so sad.”

I turned to her, trying to hide my surprise. Mike had been right. Jessica wasn't exactly fluttering her eyelashes at me the way Erica had done, but she was definitely being friendly again—and it all seemed to be in response to Erica's interest in me.

Erica was now well down the run from us, so far we could barely hear her “oopsies” anymore.

“Okay, Warren,” Woodchuck announced. “Your turn. Rip it!”

“Check this out,” Warren told the rest of us proudly. He
jammed his ski poles into the ground, intending to launch himself onto the slope. Instead, as he slid forward, he caught his ski tips on both poles. The skis stopped short, Warren's boots popped out of his bindings, and he flopped forward into the snow.

Chip, Jawa, and Zoe all broke into laughter.

“Very impressive,” Chip teased. “Most people wait until they've actually skied a bit before wiping out. But you did it right out of the gate.”

Warren staggered to his feet, spluttering. He had a face full of fresh snow. Somehow, it had gotten into his goggles, blinding him. “It's not funny,” he told Chip, although, since he couldn't see, he said it to a tree instead.

“That's right,” Woodchuck agreed, although it was obvious that he actually thought it was
very
funny. “Zoe, why don't you head on down while I get Warren back on his skis?”

“Sure thing.” Zoe started down the slope. She was getting the hang of skiing herself and performed quite well.

Down at the bottom of the run, Erica snowplowed to a stop, then cheered for herself as though she'd just won the World Cup downhill. “I did it!” she yelled up to us. “No falls! Woo-hoo!”

Jessica sighed dismissively, then asked me, “You're not really going to give that dingbat a lesson this afternoon, are you?”

“She's
not that dumb,” I said, acting like I was really into Erica—which wasn't really acting at all. “She's nice. And I don't have anything else to do.”

“You could come by the hotel again,” Jessica said coyly. “I never did get to show you our suite.”

I turned to her, surprised. I didn't like the games she was playing, but I faked enthusiasm anyhow. Like I'd forgotten all about Erica. “Sure!” I told her. “I'd love to!”

The Arabelle Hotel

Presidential Suite

Vail, Colorado

December 29

1600 hours

Jessica stayed close to me
the rest of the day. Close enough that Erica and I didn't have much time to discuss what I should do once I was in the Shangs' suite. So, at the end of our lesson, in the bustle of storing our ski equipment, Erica deftly slipped what looked like a pack of gum into the pocket of my parka and jammed a radio transmitter in my ear. “I'll be in touch,” she informed me, and then melted into the crowd.

Jessica took care of getting me into the suite. Dane Brammage and the other guards obviously didn't want me there, but Jessica faced them all down in the lobby of the Arabelle. “I'm only taking Ben up to show him our place,” she said crossly. “That's all. What's the point of my father renting an entire hotel if I can't bring guests into it?”

Dane gave me a wary look, and then, to my surprise, spoke to Jessica in fluent Chinese. Obviously, it was done so I couldn't understand him—and it would have served its purpose well had Erica not been able to overhear the entire conversation through my radio. Erica couldn't translate everything to me as it happened—if she spoke to me, that overrode her ability to hear what the others were saying—so she told me, “Keep quiet so I can hear this,” and then eavesdropped as Jessica and Dane bickered back and forth. Through it all, Jessica grew angrier and angrier, until she finally stamped her foot and launched into a furious tirade, yelling at Dane for more than a minute. Even though I didn't know what she was saying, it was still kind of scary. In fact, even Dane himself seemed frightened of her—and he was a professional criminal. “All right,” he conceded, speaking English once again—and looking a bit shaken. “You can go up. But only for a little while.”

He didn't let us go up alone, though. And he frisked me first.

“For crying out loud,” Jessica snapped. “He's a kid from my ski school, not an assassin.”

Dane kept patting me down anyhow. “It's your father's orders,” he told Jessica. “Anyone who comes into the suite gets searched.” Luckily, he was only looking for weapons and the pack of gum Erica had given me was small enough to escape his attention. Once he had confirmed I wasn't packing heat, he crowded into the elevator with us and rode up to the top floor.

“Sorry about that,” Jessica told me, rolling her eyes. “My father can be
way
too overprotective sometimes.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Parents are the worst.” I didn't really believe this, but I was doing anything I could to forge a connection.

“You're lucky,” Jessica said. “You got to come out here without your family. I've got Daddy and all his apes tagging along with me.”

“Hey!” Dane said, sounding genuinely hurt. “I'm just doing my job.”

Jessica ignored him. “This is supposed to be a vacation and Daddy's acting like it's yet another business trip.”

The elevator reached the top floor and opened directly into the Presidential Suite. We stepped off into a beautiful entry hall lined with white marble.

“Maybe it
is
another business trip,” I said, as innocently as I could.

Jessica looked at me curiously. “What's that supposed to mean?”

I shrugged. “My dad never just goes on vacation. Instead, he drags us all along to these stupid conventions and works the whole time.”

Jessica frowned, like I'd struck a nerve. For a second, I was afraid she was angry at
me
, but then she started ranting about her father. “You're probably right. My father never takes any time off either. He probably
is
here for some business thing. . . .”

While she talked, I quickly cased the suite. It took up the entire top floor of the building, and it was even more decadent than I'd expected. It had a wide-open floor plan with an enormous living room, a dining room with a table for twenty, and a gourmet kitchen. A hallway led off to my right, toward what appeared to be at least six bedrooms. It all seemed a bit excessive given that only two people were staying there. There were big windows with incredible views of the ski mountain, a wide wraparound balcony with a Jacuzzi that probably would have been great if it weren't only fifteen degrees outside, two fireplaces—both with fires roaring in them—Tiffany chandeliers, and a grand piano. There were also two other guards posted there, one by the balcony door and one by the piano. Both wore suits and stood ramrod-straight, looking like they'd been at attention all day, even
though no one but them had been in the suite.