Only the Good Spy Young (Gallagher Girls) (14 page)

Covert Operations Report


(Translation by Operatives Morgan and Sutton)


Day 1


Joe’s nightmares are back.


He says they’re nothing, but I can hear him screaming down the hall—something about Blackthorne and Vatican City. Last night I ran to his room and found him reaching, half asleep, for a knife.


He says he had an op go bad there. Only problem is, according to Langley, Agent Joseph Solomon has never been to Rome.


Day 26


I wish someone would tell me that it’s okay to spy on my best friend. I keep this journal in code. I listen to his calls. Tonight I followed him to a dead letter drop in Georgetown.


I wish someone would tell me that I’m crazy. It would be far better than being right, because all I can think about is the passport I found in his safety deposit box (yeah, I also broke into his safety deposit box).


Three years ago he went to Rome on a passport not issued by the CIA—at the same time that someone tried to kill the Pope.


With a knife. I really hope I’m crazy.


Day 92


I think I know what Joe was. What he is? But...no. It can’t be true. I don’t want it to be true.


Day 96


Some people say the Circle doesn’t exist—that there is no ancient association of spies and assassins out to manipulate the world order, but it turns out they are real.


Turns out my roommate is one.


Turns out a lot of people are.


Day 100


Joe told me the truth tonight. Joe told me everything.


We’re going to stop them. It might be the last thing we ever do, but we’ll do it.


I didn’t dare linger on those last words—think about what they meant.

“How old were they when they wrote that?” Bex asked.

I looked at the date at the corner of the page and did the math in my head. “Twenty-three,” I said, and then I
re-did
the math, because it didn’t seem right that my father had started chasing the Circle of Cavan before he’d even started dating my mother—that this mission was officially older than I was.

“Turn,”
Liz said, not trying to hide her impatience at being forced to read at a non-speed-of-light pace, but these were the last things my father would ever say to me. I wanted to make every sentence count.

Day 219


After nine months of bureaucracy and protocol, Operatives Morgan and Solomon have concluded that the criminal organization known as the Circle of Cavan has too many double agents placed within official intelligence organizations to be effectively neutralized through official channels.


It’s a good thing Operatives Morgan and Solomon are very good at being unofficial.


Day 290


After two weeks in Rome, The Operatives have ascertained that the Circle’s base of operations here has been shut down or relocated since Operative Solomon was sent to the Vatican.


They have also learned that a person will really get sick of pasta. Eventually.


Day 407


Today, Hungarian officials positively identified the body of the man found in a river in Budapest as the man who was thinking of providing intel to The Operatives about the Circle’s Eastern European operations.


They killed him.


He was the best lead we’ve had in over a year, and they killed him.


The air around us was warmer; it was almost spring; and yet there were goose bumps on our arms. It still felt a long, long way from summer.


Day 506


The Deputy Director warned The Operatives again about taking on the Circle themselves, but Operative Solomon insists that the Circle has recruited too long and too well to be effectively targeted by a large-scale operation.


The Circle has spies. Literally. The Circle has spies everywhere.


The Operatives must go on alone.


The more I read, the faster I turned the pages until, finally, I flipped to the end, desperate to read the last page first—as if, maybe, this time it might have a different ending.

Day 5,860


The Operatives received word that their asset in Athens has had a breakthrough. Operative Solomon has begun preparations to travel to Greece, but the Deputy Director of the CIA suspects The Operatives are still taking on the Circle on their own, so he has placed Operative Solomon on desk duty. Operative Morgan will go instead.


My father was thirty-nine when he wrote that, and the book was almost out of pages—the story, in a lot of ways, was almost at its end. So I held my breath and turned the page and saw that the handwriting had changed. My father’s lazy scrawl was gone—replaced with the precise penmanship that I’d seen scribbled across the sublevel blackboards for the past year and a half.

Day 5,869


Cutout made contact today with word that Operative Morgan did not appear at their meeting. Cutout will follow backup protocols again until Operative Morgan shows.


Day 5,878


Operative Solomon arrived at Operative Morgan’s safe house in Athens, but it appears he never made it this far. Will begin backtracking immediately.


Day 5,892


CIA has been contacted. Full force of The Agency is now involved in the search for Operative Morgan.


Day 5,900


Three weeks of looking and the trail has gone cold.


He’s gone.


He’s just gone.


Someone has to tell Rachel.


THINGS THAT WOULD NEVER BE THE SAME, NEVER, EVER AGAIN

(A list by Cameron Morgan)

• Macey’s pajama pants: because grass stains and air shaft dirt never come out.
  
• Agent Townsend’s reputation: because if word ever got out that the four of us had done what he’d been trying to do for months, I’m pretty sure they’d take away his double-0 status (if Tina was even right that he had one).
  
• Liz: because the Pigeon Code had opened up a whole new world of cryptography (and she was already pretty obsessed with the old one).
  
• Bex: because her parents had been right.
  
• Bex: because her parents had been wrong.
  
• Me: just because.
  

* * *

The next night I walked toward my mother’s office carrying my father’s journal and my teacher’s secret. I had no idea which one was heavier.

“It wasn’t Sodium Pentothal, was it?”

I spun at the sound and saw Agent Townsend standing in the Hall of History, staring at me through the protective glow of Gilly’s—I mean Cavan’s—sword.

“In the apple?” he clarified.

“I don’t know what you’re—” I tried to push past him and into my mother’s office, but his hand was on my arm. His breath was warm in my ear.

“You can try to lie to me, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”

My father’s journal was in my backpack, and it felt like a talisman, giving me strength. “Get your hand off of me.” Townsend eyed me but didn’t move, and I tried to twist free. “Teachers can’t manhandle students and make wild accusations. The trustees would never—”

“Oh, but the trustees have been employing a famous double agent for almost two years. They’re very eager to help.”

“I’m still a student at this school and—”

“Now, now, Ms. Morgan. Either you’re a trained operative I’m supposed to distrust and respect, or a sixteen-year-old girl—”

“Just turned seventeen,” I corrected him.

“—I’m supposed to go easy on. You can’t have it both ways.” He released my arm and stepped away. “I would have thought your precious Mr. Solomon would have taught you better than that.”

“He’s not
my
Mr. Solomon.”

“Sure he is. Isn’t that why you and your little friends tried to hack into my records? Stake out my office? Put some nasty concoction inside the apple of an unsuspecting teacher?”

I didn’t say a thing.

“That’s good; don’t deny it. Denying the undeniable just makes you sound like a fool as well as a liar. In this profession, you can be one—sometimes the other. But never both.”

He moved through the Hall of History, eyeing our most prized possessions as if they were trinkets at a fair.

He didn’t face me as he asked, “You believed him, didn’t you? Thought he was a good guy? Well, that’s your mistake. No one—and I do mean no one—in this line of work is ever a truly good guy. If we were, we’d be doing something bloody well different from this.”

He didn’t know what he was talking about. He didn’t know . . . anything. I started toward my mother’s office, needing her more than ever, desperate to show her—to prove that we weren’t fools.

“She’s not in there,” he called across the empty hall. I felt my blood turn cold.

“Where is she?”

He smiled slightly. “Gone.”

“What did you do to her?’

“Me?” He laughed. Yes, actual
laughage
. “Allow me to clear some things up for you, Ms. Morgan.” He stepped closer. “I’m not a member of the Circle. I’ve never even
seen
Blackthorne. Of course, we probably had something like it—wouldn’t rule it out.” He shook his head. “But I was never a part of that.”

“A part of what?”

“I
am
the bloody good guy.”

I stood silent, watching him walk away, until . . .

“You’re wrong!” I yelled, the words echoing down the empty hall. “You’re wrong about everything!”

Agent Townsend stopped and turned slowly.

“Nine hours ago, a CIA transport team was ambushed outside of Langley. Three guards were killed and Joe Solomon was taken.” He stared at me down the long corridor. “Your
innocent man
is back with the Circle tonight, Ms. Morgan. They have him. He’s free.”

That night I had the strangest dream. I was standing at the top of the Grand Staircase in a long beautiful dress. I heard the sounds of the Virginia reel come sweeping toward me, and below me, people crowded the foyer floor. But the strangest thing of all was that my father was standing at the bottom of the staircase, waiting.

I descended the stairs and took his arm, and together we made our way through the crowd that filled the Grand Hall. There was dancing and drinking. It was a party, but the feeling in the room was that there was no reason at all to celebrate.

And then suddenly, a man appeared, holding a sword.

I knew I had to stop him—I had to make it stop—but the man moved faster toward where I stood. His eyes pulled closer in the dim ballroom, and I stared at a face I know.

A face I’ve kissed.

“No.” I might have said the word, but a hand was over my mouth. Strong arms were holding me down while I kicked at the covers wrapped tightly around my legs.

Then I heard a deep voice whisper my name. “Cammie, wake up.”

“No,” I mumbled, still fighting and half asleep.

“It’s okay, Gallagher Girl. It’s okay. Wake up.”

T
here are many ways a self-respecting (not to mention
sane
) teenage girl might react to having a teenage boy suddenly appear in her bedroom in the middle of the night.

Hit.

Panic.

Flail.

Freeze.

But I didn’t do any of them. Not right then, because I was lying tangled in the sheets and Zach’s arms. Tears streamed down my face as I thought of my father and Mr. Solomon and Gilly—for a split second I knew what it felt like to be Gilly.

“It’s okay, Gallagher Girl.” He smoothed my hair. “It was just a bad—”

“What are you doing here?” I whispered.

Two feet away, Liz shivered and rolled over. In the corner, Bex was starting to snore. Macey lay perfectly still on her back, her dark hair splayed across her pillow like Sleeping Beauty. I jerked my head in their direction.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t wake them?” I whispered. “Tell me why I shouldn’t push that?” I pointed to the panic button on the wall.

He smiled. “Now, where would be the fun in that?”

“Zach,” I hissed, and let my hand creep closer to the button.

“Okay,” he said, reaching out to gently take that very hand. “I’m here because we need to take a walk.”

When we were in the tenth grade, Zach went to my school for an entire semester. We’d shared the halls as classmates. As equals. But walking into Madame Dabney’s empty tearoom, the playful look he’d had in his eyes that semester was completely gone. I’m not sure what kind of look I had in my eyes, because I was totally avoiding my own reflection in the gilt-framed mirrors. (Now was
not
the time to be worried about pillow-cheek wrinkles and middle-of-the-night crazy hair.) Instead, I studied him.

“Do I
want
to know how you got in here?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I only broke a few laws.” He held his fingers a half inch apart. “Little ones.”

Dim chandeliers hung from an ornate ceiling. Our feet were quiet against the polished parquet floors. Almost a year ago we’d stood in this very spot while Madame Dabney ordered us to dance, but Zach didn’t reach for me this time. I didn’t feel like swaying anymore.

“Does the Circle really have him?” I asked.

“Yes.” Zach’s voice was flat as he ran his hand through his hair and dropped onto one of Madame Dabney’s silk-covered fainting couches. He looked entirely out of place.

“Why? I mean, if he isn’t working with them—”

“They weren’t exactly doing him a favor. A cozy little CIA prison is probably looking pretty good to him about now.”

I walked to the tall windows and stared out over the grounds. Zach’s reflection stared back at me in the dark windows. Somehow it was easier not to face him.

“People don’t leave the Circle easily, Gallagher Girl.”

“I know.”

“Anyone who knows how they work or where they work—anyone who knows anything . . .” As he trailed off, there was something new in his voice. He sounded tired in a way that had nothing to do with the hour.

“I know.”

“They’re tying up loose ends.”

I tried to focus my eyes on the forest outside, the way the sun was just starting to color the sky. “Is that what I am?”

Zach stood and moved to my side at the window. Tears stung my eyes, and I kept my gaze on anything but him.

“Gallagher Girl,” he said softly, reaching for me. “I don’t know. But I promise we will find out.”

A feeling swept through me when I thought back on the last year: Zach on a train racing through the Pennsylvania countryside; Zach lying beneath the bleachers in Ohio. And finally Zach gripping my hand, leading me away from a white van on a dark street in Washington, D.C. Zach standing between me and an attacker’s gun, the attacker looking at the boy beside me and saying, “You?”

“You should be dead, Zach.” I looked down and saw the way my shadow stretched across the floor between us. “That night—in D.C.—he had a clear shot.
I
should be gone and
you
should be dead.”

“Gallagher Girl . . .”

“Why didn’t he shoot you?”

“Everything that night happened so fast, Gallagher Girl.”

“My name is Cammie!” I didn’t think about all the people I could have woken, all the alarms that might have gone off. I just snapped, “How did you know about Boston? Why are you working with Mr. Solomon now? Are you my friend or are you my enemy, Zach? Or, wait, let me guess, you can’t tell me.”

“I don’t know why they want you. And for the rest . . . it’s better if you don’t know.”

Need-to-know basis is a real thing. It exists for real reasons. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it—and, coming from Zach, it sounded a whole lot different than it did coming from my mother.

“Why do
you
get to know?”

“What’s the matter, Gallagher Girl? Jealous?”

“Yeah,” I yelled, even though I’m pretty sure he’d been kidding. “I am.”

“Cammie—”

“Time’s up, Zach,” I said. “Tell me what you know or—”

“Or what?” He reached for me. “You’re not going to hurt me.”

“I won’t,” I said, then risked a glance toward the door at the three angriest Gallagher Girls I had ever seen. “But
they
might.”