Crossing the Line (17 page)

I
found my way to the medical wing when we got back. I must have fallen asleep after my treatment because the next thing I knew I was opening my eyes. I relaxed on my back and tried not to think of how stupid I had been. I shouldn't have told Scorpion as much as I did. I shouldn't have trusted him. I got caught up in the mission—in the idea of a partnership.

The door to my room opened before I could dwell on things for too long. “You're up,” Dr. March said. “How are you feeling?”

“Good.” I sat up. “Better.”

She smiled as she put on a pair of gloves. “Glad to hear it. I need to check your stitches.”

I rubbed the wound on my neck, which was throbbing. I leaned forward so she could get a good look, wincing as she peeled back the bandage. “Elton did a good job with this.” She sounded impressed. “There shouldn't be too much of a scar.”

“That's good,” I said.

“How did it happen?” she asked, applying antiseptic cream and replacing the bandage.

“I was too slow,” I said, shaking my head frustrated. “I've been working to get my speed back, but I just—can't.”

Dr. March squeezed my shoulder. “You're not that far removed
from the drug. What you're going through isn't easy. It will take some time.”

I nodded, still feeling unsure.

“You're free to go whenever you're comfortable,” she said.

“I don't have to stay the night?” I tried not to sound too excited.

“Not this time,” she said with a smile. “You're stable enough that I'm okay with letting you leave—unless you're not.”

“No,” I said, popping off the bed. “I'm good.”

“Okay, then. You can head out when you're ready. Director Simmonds needs to debrief you and I'll need to see you in about five days to get the stitches out.”

 • • • 

Simmonds was waiting for me when I got to his office. From what I could gather, being debriefed by the head of the agency wasn't something that happened often. I didn't know if it was because of the way I'd acted or because of who I was, but I wasn't complaining. I'd rather talk to him than anyone else.

I was happy with the overall outcome of the mission, but we needed to see what KATO wanted with those weapons. The only thing we had to go on at the moment was the flashdrive from China. I asked Simmonds about the other encrypted files. He said the tech team felt they were close to breaking through the weaker decryption, and handed me a pager, promising to let me know when it came down. He also gave me the details of my cover mission to pass on to KATO.

I stepped out of the office when I was done and found Scorpion leaning against the wall across from the door. I hesitated, both because he'd surprised me and because I was a little unsure of what to expect
from him.

“Hey,” he said, studying me cautiously.

“Hi, Scorpion,” I said, trying not to shy away.

“How did your debrief go?”

“It was fine.” I started walking down the hall and he fell into step next to me.

He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “And how is—everything else?”

I turned away. “It's good.” I felt a weight on my chest. I didn't want to talk to him. Not now.

He tugged my arm and forced me to stop. I looked him in the eye for the first time that day, but only for a second. I felt my face flush and dropped my gaze to the floor.

“What is with you?” he asked.

“Nothing.” When he didn't say anything I looked back up. He was staring down at me, his eyes wide with disbelief. I sighed and then I started talking fast. “I shouldn't have told you what I did, and I shouldn't have let my guard down. I didn't mean to say that much.” I looked back to the ground. “No one should see me like that.”

Silence followed until Scorpion found his voice. “Oh my God.” He sounded astonished. “You're embarrassed.”

“What?” My neck snapped up, straining my stitches. “No I'm not!”

“Yes.” He was so sure. “You are.”

My face burned hotter and I stepped around him.

“Hey, now.” He grabbed my wrist before I could get too far away
and pulled me back in front of him. “Jocelyn, look at me.”

I tilted my head up and glared. “I'm not embarrassed.”

A small smile spread across his lips. “All right, fine,” he said. “You're clearly not embarrassed. I don't know what I was thinking.” When I didn't laugh he got serious. “You asked me something before the extraction.”

I shook my head. I didn't want to hear this. “Don't,” I said. “It's fine.”

“You
did
scare me,” he said. I froze, not knowing how to respond. “But you don't anymore. And you shouldn't be afraid of me either.”

I rocked on my feet uncertainly, and Scorpion watched me, waiting. “I know I'm unpredictable,” I said.

He snorted. “That's an understatement.”

I glared at him, but kept talking. “You should know I would never go back to KATO. I have too much at stake.”

His smile faded and his expression went stern. “I believe you.”

My eyes locked on him. “Are you serious?”

He tilted his head, as if he could barely believe the words that were about to come out of his mouth. “Jocelyn, after this mission, I'm going to believe you until give me a reason not to.”

I stared at him, shocked. “I don't entirely know what to do with that.”

A full smile broke out on his face. “Just sit with it. Take a few days to get used to the idea.” He rubbed his chin. “And something else you can think about—when we're off comms, partners don't usually call each other by their code names.”

I blinked, taken aback. “Yeah,” I said. “I'll work on that.”

 • • • 

I waited until the last possible minute to get to Global Dynamics. Interrupting KATO's plans had given me a renewed focus, and I was more determined than ever to keep my cool with Agent Harper. Limiting my exposure played a big role in that.

I breezed into the room just ahead of Sam. I tried to get to my seat without an incident, but Harper had other ideas.

“Well,” he said, stopping the two of us. “It's nice of our problem children to show up.”

I bit my tongue, which was not what Agent Harper wanted.

“Kill anyone lately, Viper?” he asked. He refused to let my old name go.

My temper flared. I couldn't take it anymore. I took a step forward to fight him, but Sam kicked me. I whirled around to face him.

Sam shook his head. “Keep walking, Steely.”

My jaw locked, and when I didn't move, he turned me around himself. He kept his hands on my shoulders, guiding me back to my seat. “I have a plan,” he whispered.

I arched an eyebrow, but eased into my chair, keeping my mouth shut.

Agent Harper looked from me to Sam. “Is there something you want to share with the rest of us?”

Sam shook his head. “Nope. I'm good.”

Harper looked suspicious. Sam was never one to hold back. It was enough to make the whole class curious. Agent Harper turned back to his computer and pulled up his presentation for the day. Sam smirked. From the look of things, Harper was playing right into his hands.

The presentation was on the recent history of Russian espionage. Sam took out his phone. He held his pen in one hand, pretending to take notes, while he typed on his phone with the other. I kept my eyes on his screen next to me, watching as computer code ran itself across the phone. The screen changed and a small compact version of Agent Harper's computer screen appeared in Sam's hand.

I glanced up at him, and he smiled mischievously. He then opened a version of the presentation, flipped to the second page, erased the content, and dropped a video file into the slide. He made a few more tweaks to the presentation, then saved it. Once he was done, he went back to Agent Harper's computer screen and reopened the file so the changes were included. The screen in front of the room blinked. If anyone noticed the change, they pretended not to.

Sam kept Harper's screen in the palm of his hand, while I held my breath and waited. Then, when Agent Harper finally flipped the slide, I had to force my face to stay neutral. A giant black video square filled the screen with a triangle play icon in the middle. Most people in the room kept it together, but a few whispers made Agent Harper look back at the screen. “What the—”

Sam pressed the play button before he could finish his sentence.

It was a fight. Actually, it was a series of fights between Harper and Cody, and Harper and Travis. As strange as it was to call Travis by his first name, it was even stranger to see him so young. All of the fights seemed to be filmed on phones and Agent Harper lost every single time.

Real-life Harper's eyes widened when he realized what was playing. He started hitting keys, frantically doing anything he could to
get the video off the screen. But whatever Sam had done, he'd made sure we would be watching the entire show.

Each time, Agent Harper hit the mat hard. The fights were pretty embarrassing on their own, but together it was downright humiliating—especially coming from someone with as much pride as Agent Harper seemed to have. The worst of them all was the last one. Harper eyed Travis up and down, exuding confidence to the point of cockiness. From what I could tell, they were both still students. They were in the training room, and the entire facility had come to a stop to watch them go at it.

Travis's eyes were narrowed and his face was set. He moved slowly to the center of the mat, ready for a fight. Agent Harper met him there with a smirk.

I glanced back at the real-life Agent Harper at the front of the room. His back was to us, his hands balled into tight fists pressing into the top of the wooden desk. If it were anyone else I would have felt sorry for him.

On the screen, Agent Harper took the first swing at Travis. He threw three hard punches to his gut, which made Travis double over into a defensive position. But he recovered quickly and used his hunched angle to land a punch in Harper's throat. It stunned him long enough for Travis to kick Harper's legs out from under him. He slammed into the mat.

Agent Harper tried to push himself up, but Travis stuck out his arm and knocked him down again. Then Travis jumped on top of him and threw punch after punch at Harper's skull. He kept hitting him long after he should have. It was beyond defeat. It was beyond the point of embarrassment. The clip ended with Travis being dragged
off Agent Harper by Cody and another agent.

When the screen went black again, the room was dead silent. Agent Harper stood frozen with his back to us, but he was so angry I could see his shoulders shaking from the back of the room. No one dared to make a sound.

“Samuel Lewis,” Agent Harper roared. “Get. Out. Of my room.”

Sam shot me a victorious smile, grabbed his bag, and sauntered out of the classroom. He didn't even act sorry.

And I kind of loved him for it.

S
immonds asked to see me before classes the next day. He was standing in the corner of his office when I got there, pulling a page out of the printer.

“We got into the next file on the drive,” he said, handing the paper to me. It was similar to the last one. A single line of Korean, though this one was longer.

“It's another cipher.” I didn't need to see it for more than a moment.

“The fact that the Chinese didn't decrypt it probably means they couldn't,” Simmonds said. “And if it is more protected than the other one, there's a very good chance it's going to be a more sophisticated cipher.”

I flicked my eyes up to him. I hadn't considered that. “If it is, I'm not sure I can crack it,” I said. “The last one was a simple cipher. The kind KATO would have sent if they had to get a message to someone like me while we were out in the field. I know the more complex ones are layered, but they never taught them to agents at my level.”

“Jocelyn.” His voice was pointed and strong, demanding my full attention. “We both know you were more rebellious than they ever realized. It's the reason you got this far. You know more about their facility and their operations than they ever intended. I have no doubt you know something that will help.”

I nodded. I still wasn't convinced I could pull this off, but he was right—I
did
know more than I was supposed to. “I'll see what I can do.”

 • • • 

My mind was running through every KATO meeting I had overheard, trying to piece together a technique. I remembered something from about a year ago about moving through multiple codes. It didn't mean too much to me at the time, but now I was pretty sure that was exactly what I needed. And it would make sense that for highly sensitive information, agents would have to put the phrase though one cipher key, then put that result through another and another until the phrase had been through enough keys to crack the ultimate code.

I was tempted to skip my classes and get started, but I didn't want to draw any more attention to the situation than I had to. I went straight to Agent Lee's room. I was early, but it meant I would have the room to myself for a little bit to play with the code.

The class had filled in while I was working, and Agent Lee had started teaching, but I was too consumed by the cipher to pay attention.

“I think I might be a bad influence,” Sam said, flopping into his seat next to me, staring pointedly at my paper.

I flipped the page over and stuffed it in the back of my notebook. “How much trouble are you in?” I asked, not giving him a chance to question what I was up to.

“What, for the Harper thing?” He shrugged. “Not too much.”

I arched my eyebrow. “How much is ‘not too much'?”

“I'm suspended from the tech lab for a week. It would have been worse if Agent Harper had the guts to tell Lee what the video was.”
Agent Lee was in charge of the day-to-day operations of the school, which included disciplinary actions.

“How did you even get a hold of that video?” I asked.

Sam smirked, arching his lip enough to show a few of his teeth. “I have my ways.”

I rolled my eyes. “Okay, fine. How did you know to use it?”

Sam shrugged. “Everyone knows about the history between Travis, Harper, and Cody. It's passed down from one spy class to the next. And that fight was legendary. Everyone said that Agent Harper had a black eye and a bruised jaw for the rest of the year. He even had to go to graduation that way. He spent the rest of Travis's high school career trying to take him out in any way he could, but Travis always outsmarted him. Not that it was really that hard to do.”

“Have you ever done anything like that before?” I asked.

“What, you mean like the PowerPoint hack?”

I nodded.

“Nope,” Sam said, smiling. “It worked out better than I ever could have imagined.”

Lee cleared her throat at us, and Sam pulled out his phone. We both got quiet for a moment.

Once Lee looked away I turned back to Sam. “You know I don't need you to stand up for me.”

He snorted. “Trust me, it wasn't only for you. He's been an asshole to all of us at one point or another. He deserved it.”

“How do you know
I
don't deserve it?” I asked.

Sam watched me for a moment, then shrugged. “I have a feeling.”

I smiled at him, and was about to turn away when I realized something. With everything KATO was up to, I didn't have the time
to look into my mom like I wanted to. But I was staring at the person who had proven to be the best at digging up details other people didn't want found. My smile widened. “Does that mean you would help me out with something?”

His eyebrows knitted together. “What did you have in mind?”

I brought him up to speed about my parents and where I was in the search—which wasn't very far. His face got more and more serious as I went on. “You think Simmonds is keeping something from you?”

I shrugged. “I think he's told me all he's allowed to, but there's a major piece missing. My mom did more here than just fieldwork. She was involved in some level of development.”

“And you think that's connected to how she died?”

I nodded.

“Okay,” he said. “I'll look into things.”

“Thanks,” I said. “And thanks for the video. Even if I didn't need it.”

He flashed his mischievous smile. “Oh, that was my pleasure. And let me know if you ever want to fill me in on the rest of your story.” He tapped his pen on the back of the cipher. “It'll be nice to see how right my gut is.”

I rolled my eyes. “I'll keep that in mind.”