Read Only the Good Spy Young (Gallagher Girls) Online

Authors: Ally Carter

Tags: #Fiction - Young Adult

Only the Good Spy Young (Gallagher Girls) (9 page)

N
umber of hours I wandered around the mansion, going nowhere: 6

Number of secret passageways I looked for in the hopes of going somewhere: 27

Number of secret passageways I found that were actually still working: 1 (But it only went to the kitchen.)

Number of cookies I swiped while in the kitchen: 1 (Oh, okay, 3—but they were really little cookies.)

Number of times I wanted to cry: 9

Number of times I changed my mind: 9

And so I just kept walking—through the library with its rows of books and dying fire, past the elevator that could no longer take me to Sublevel Two. The halls were quiet and dark, as if the mansion itself were sleeping—resting up for a new day. And then I stopped at the Hall of History and stared at the sword of Cavan, realizing that, for the first time since November, I was actually alone.

Well ... almost.

“Hello, Ms. Morgan.” A deep voice cut through the darkness behind me.

Sure, it was two in the morning on a school night, but somehow I wasn’t surprised when I turned and saw Mr. Smith. Well . . . actually . . . the fact that he was walking around in slippers and one of those old-fashioned nightshirts
did
surprise me; the fact that he was awake did not.

“I . . .” I started. Somehow, even though I technically wasn’t doing anything wrong, I felt like I’d been caught. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“It’s okay, Ms. Morgan.” He came to stand beside me in the warm glow of the sword’s glass case. Protective beams rippled through the room like waves.

I glanced at my teacher. Maybe it was the hour, or the fact that one of us was wearing a dress (and it wasn’t me), but I dared to ask, “So what’s your excuse?”

“A seasoned operative should always check his or her perimeter at unexpected times and in unexpected ways.” I glanced at Mr. Smith’s nightgown—I mean shirt . . . nightshirt. If
unexpected
was what it took to stay safe, then Mr. Smith was going to be alive forever. “You will do well to remember that, Cammie.”

“Yes, sir.” I stared at the sword. “Thank you. It’s actually kind of nice...”

But then I trailed off. I didn’t dare say what I was thinking.

“It’s okay.” There was a knowing wink in Mr. Smith’s eye.

“You can say it.”

I glanced down at the floor. “It’s nice getting some actual Covert Operations advice. I’ve missed it.”

“Mr. Townsend is a fine operative, Cammie.”

“Yes, of course, I didn’t mean to imply—”

“Ambitious. Proud. Calculating . . . But he is perhaps not a natural for the classroom?”

“No,” I agreed. “He’ll never be as good as . . .” But I stopped short, suddenly unable to say the name aloud.

“No, he isn’t what you’re used to,” Mr. Smith agreed.

“I believed him.” I don’t know where the words came from, but there, in the light of that sword, I simply had to set them free. “Joe Solomon is a liar. And a traitor. And I believed him. Even after London . . . He was talking crazy and I still—”

“Was he crazy, Cammie? Was he really?”

I looked at the most careful spy I’d ever known—stared up into the fifth face I’d seen him wear, and tried to focus on the eyes that hadn’t changed since my first day of seventh grade.

“Joe Solomon is many things, Cammie. But crazy? Crazy is the one that I don’t think I’ll ever believe.”

Mr. Smith took a step toward the Grand Staircase, the hem of his nightshirt swaying as he moved.

“Do try to get some sleep, Cammie. And good night.”

Walking back upstairs that night, I thought of Mr. Smith’s words and the way Mr. Solomon had gripped my hand at the Tower of London and pulled me through the dark. As I started up the old circular staircase that leads to the junior suites, cool air landed on my arms, and I looked out through the old wavy glass. It reminded me of the cold wind in London, the rippling waves of the Thames as it flowed below.

I remembered how lost Mr. Solomon had seemed as he hugged me on the bridge—how very strange and foreign the gesture had felt.

Where do men like Joe Solomon go when they fall? I asked myself. I wondered if there would be any help for him, waiting on the shore.

I took another step, but as I moved up the spiral stairs, something outside caught my eye. Something made me stop and stare out across the grounds.

Light from the mansion’s windows streaked through the darkness, pebbling the dark, cloudy sky. And that was when I saw them—the birds that were sweeping out into the open air and then back again, stretching their wings.

For a moment, I stood still, listening to the howling wind and the faint cooing of the birds, and my teacher’s words that had been playing over and over in my mind for weeks.

“Follow the pigeons.”

“I
t’s there!” My voice was cracking, and the words came in short gasps as if I were out of shape. Out of time. “Mr. Smith was right.
He isn’t crazy!”

I heard my roommates’ footsteps on the stairs behind me, as Bex asked, “Cam, what are you talking about?”

“The pigeons!” I’m sure I must have looked like an insane person. And technically, I have been hit on the head
a lot
, so my roommates had good reason to look at each other as if all that brain trauma was bound to catch up with me eventually.

“Cam,” Liz said slowly, her eyes still puffy from sleep. “Where are we going?”

Something was alive in me then. Maybe fear. Maybe dread. But mostly, I think it was hope as I climbed the stairs, higher and higher. When we reached the landing, I felt the cold air that seeped through the seams in the stone, and in that second my heart stopped. I stood, frozen by the cold stone beneath my fingers and a hope that I didn’t dare to say, as I traced the rough carving of the bird in flight, and pushed.

The five largest stones receded, revealing a small compartment and a rusty lever.

“Cammie!” Liz exclaimed. “No. You’re not supposed to leave the mansion! What are you doing?”

But she was too late, because the door was already swinging open, a rush of freezing wind was blowing against my face and across my bare legs, but I didn’t feel the chill.

I just turned to look at my best friends, who stood in the light of the doorway, and said, “I’m following the pigeons.”

We’d been here before, of course. Just a few months ago we’d sat on the dusty, overturned crates that were the last relics of the Gallagher Academy’s once-proud covert carrier pigeon breeding program. We’d sat there for hours, looking out onto the lights of Roseville, talking about the people who were after Macey. After me. But now, the space looked totally different.

“What . . .” Liz started, looking around. “What is all this?”

Chalkboards lined the inner wall of the rampart, far away from the glassless windows that overlooked the grounds. The crates were stacked neatly to one side. A lone chair sat in the center of floor, facing the blackboards, as if someone had spent hours in that place, trying to solve an impossible equation.

“This must be what Mr. Solomon wanted us to find.” I stepped closer to the blackboards that had Mr. Solomon’s words scrawled over every inch. “He risked everything—just to tell me to find this,” I said.

“Cammie . . .” Bex started. “You know as well as I do he was talking crazy. He wasn’t Joe Solomon.”

“But we’re here,” I snapped back. “It’s not crazy if we’re here.”

“What does it say?”
Liz’s voice was soft, her eyes focused as she stepped slowly closer to the board, and I knew she wasn’t talking to us; her mind was lost in code, trying to see through the chaos.

“What is it, Liz?” Macey asked.

Liz shook her head. “I . . . I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

“It’s crazy, is what it is.” Bex banged her fist against the board.

“Think about it, Bex. Think. He’s one of the most wanted men on the planet, and I’m the world’s best-guarded girl. Why come to me in London? If he’s working for the Circle, why take that risk?”

“I don’t know, Cam. Why did he kill your dad? Why did he join the Circle in the first place? Maybe he snapped or broke or . . .” I thought that she might cry. “Maybe this is what he is now.”

“Was he crazy during finals week? Was he crazy in D.C.?” I felt Mr. Smith’s words washing over me. “If he’s not crazy, Bex, then he came to London for a reason.” I threw out my arms and stepped closer to the boards. “He came to London for
this
.”

The four of us were standing in the very place Joe Solomon had stood, staring at the words and numbers and diagrams that he’d written. There were answers here. Clues. He’d risked his freedom—his life—to bring me to this rooftop. I had followed the pigeons, and that night I stood without a coat in the freezing cold, trying to decipher what they had to say.

Behind me, a pigeon cawed. The sound was eerie and loud as I squinted through the dark toward the ledge. It cawed again.

“Stupid birds,” Liz said, shooing her hands toward the lone pigeon that sat perched on the railing.

Most people don’t know that anything can be a cutout, a go-between, a messenger for spies. This part of the mansion existed because pigeons had once been some of the best. They never talked when interrogated; even the best spy satellites in the world couldn’t track them.

“Go on,” Liz said again. “Get—”

“Wait,” I said, reaching for my best friend’s hand, staring at the small bird that sat stoically, waiting in the dark.

“Cam.” Bex’s voice was soft. “Cam, what is it?”

I inched toward the bird and reached for the tiny slip of paper wrapped delicately around its leg.

If you’re reading this, you’ve found it. And if you’ve found it, you know. Must see you. Meet me at the place where we did the brush passes. Send me back the time.

Please come.

And please be careful.

The words were neatly typed. There was no signature—no name of any kind. And even though I knew it had been reckless to send it, reckless for me to read it—totally and completely foolish to even think about doing as it said—the truth of the matter is that a spy’s life isn’t about never taking chances. It’s about taking chances that are worth the risk.

“W
hat about the old ventilation shafts in the basement?” Bex asked as we sat beside a roaring fire in the library late the next night.

I shook my head. “Covered with eight inches of fresh concrete.”

“The trick fireplace on the second floor?” Macey tried.

“Maybe.” I considered the locks and bars that had been added over winter break. “Assuming we could get a blowtorch. Do any of you have a blowtorch?”

Liz perked up as if she were about to say that yes, she did have a blowtorch in the back of her closet.

“I’m afraid to know,” I said, holding out my hand to stop her.

“Boy, they really want to keep us in, don’t they?” Macey said.

“No.” Bex shook her head and stared at me. “They want to keep the Circle out.” She waited a second, as the truth of the matter settled down on the three of us. “This is dangerous.
Too
dangerous.”

“I’m with Bex,” Macey said. “He’s asking you to take a really big risk, Cam.”

They were right, but all I could think about was the way he’d walked into the center of the very people who were scouring the world to find him. “Maybe it’s my turn.”

“Okay. Fine. Let’s say it
isn’t
true,” Bex offered. “Let’s say Mr. Solomon is innocent and wrongly accused and that he didn’t kill . . .” She looked away, then back again. “Let’s say he is the man we know. Does the Mr. Solomon
we
know tell you to sneak out of the Gallagher Academy, go into town, and meet up with a known fugitive? Does Joe Solomon tell you to be stupid?”

The answer was obvious. That was probably why none of us said it.

“Why don’t
we
go?” Liz said, pointing to herself and Bex and Macey. “See him. Get the message. Bring it back.”

“I can’t explain it, guys,” I said, shaking my head. “I just know I’ve got to go.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to be stupid!” Bex shot back, and I realized that
Bex
was being cautious.
Bex
had become the voice of reason. “You didn’t see it, Cammie,” she went on. “You didn’t have to watch them drug you and drag you away like a doll. You were there, Cam, but you didn’t have to watch your friend almost go away forever. You don’t know how that feels.”

“Yeah,” Macey said softly. “She
does
.”

I looked at the girls I would trust with my life. Then I thought about my dad and the man he’d probably trusted with his.

“I have to go,” I said. “It’s my mission.”

“You’re
our
mission,” Bex countered.

“What are we saying?” Liz exclaimed. “Cam, we don’t have to sneak out. We don’t even have to go by ourselves. I bet your mom—”

“No,” I said, cutting her off. “If she got caught helping Joe Solomon . . . No. We’re on our own.”

“I know, Cam,” Bex said, stopping me. “I know. But if we do this without backup—”

“What if they’re wrong, Bex?” I pleaded. “What if he’s the only chance we’ll ever have at finding out what happened to my dad? What if while everyone is chasing him, no one is trying to stop the Circle?
What if he didn’t do it
?”

Bex’s voice was flat and calm and strong as she looked at me. “What if he did?”

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