Spy School Fail-Safe

Chapter 14

I woke up quite late, around 9:30 am in the morning only to see the sunlight peeking through the closed curtains of the room. For a second I was confused but I eventually realized that I was in Singapore, in a safehouse, and I had spent a good load of time doing reconnaissance with Erica.

"Oh, Ben, you woke up," came a voice belonging to none other than Erica herself. She wore black leggings and a lavender colored plain shirt, complete with a light, casual black jacket.

"Let me guess, I slept in?" I groaned.

"No, Jawa and Mike are still asleep," Erica replied. "I only woke up at 8. You're good," she replied.

"Also, don't tell anyone about our recon, understood?"

"Yeah," I replied, trudging to the bathroom. "I won't." I watched as Erica quickly walked away, and I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face.

XXX

"You're here, Ben," Zoe greeted as I entered the kitchen. Zoe was seated on a barstool, eating a sandwich. I spotted bread, peanut butter and two different jams, one strawberry and one mixed fruit. "Sleep well?"

"Kind of," I replied, which was the truth. "Still not used to this time zone and everything."

"I can understand," she replied. "Catherine apparently got all this stuff for us. Make yourself a sandwich."

I nodded, grabbing a plate similar to Zoe's and making myself a peanut butter sandwich. I looked around to see where Erica had gone, but she was nowhere to be seen. She's probably still upstairs, I thought.

"Catherine said she'd stop by anytime now to talk to us about, well, you know," Zoe said, breaking the silence. "Hopefully the other boys wake up by then. Honestly, this trip is kinda boring. If only I got to do some recon at like 3 am."

Yeah, if only Erica would drag YOU on such missions instead of me, but I'm not complaining, I thought to myself, but instead I just said mhm in response to Zoe.

"Oh, you guys already woke up?" came Mike's voice, and we turned to see him walk over to us. "I slept like a log yesterday night."

"Make yourself a sandwich," Zoe advised. "It's a filling breakfast. Plus, the strawberry jam tastes like nothing back at school."

"Nothing at school tastes good," Mike complained. "Well, now we don't even have a school to go to." He sadly spread some strawberry jam on a single slice of toast.

The door opened, and all of our heads reflexively turned that way to find Catherine walk in, carefully locking the door behind her. "Good morning!" she cheerfully greeted. "I see you've all helped yourselves to the lovely breakfast I left for you. I'm glad."

"Hi, Catherine," I smiled. Having Catherine around somehow made me feel ten times better than I already was. Probably because she was a far more talented spy, or because she was a mother figure to me. "Thanks for breakfast."

"Oh, mom, you're here," Erica greeted, walking over to us. "And you brought breakfast." She sat on the barstool right next to me, taking a butter knife to spread some peanut butter on a single slice of bread.

"Yes. I have some important information to share with you all," Catherine said. "But I cannot find Jawaharlal anywhere? Where did he go?"

I shrugged. "He's still asleep," I replied. "But we can fill him in on-" I was cut off by another voice, belonging to none other than Jawa himself.

"I'm here, what's up?" he asked, walking into the kitchen and sitting on the couch next to Mike, as there were only three barstools. "Are we actually going to get to do something fun?"

Catherine found everyone's excitement amusing as she replied. "Yes, in a way," she replied. "After understanding thoroughly what happened last night at the hotel-"

I cut Catherine off, shocked as I turned to Erica. "You told Catherine?" I asked, surprised. "But I thought you said we weren't supposed to tell anyone about it!"

Erica sighed. "Yeah, but my mom somehow found out. She's the one person I can never keep a secret from. She found out, so I gave in and told her everything."

"Woah, wait, what's going on?" Mike asked, confused. "Last night? Hotel? Secrets?"

I sighed. "Erica woke me up at 2 and we went for a small recon mission," I explained, and Erica filled him, Zoe and Jawa in on whatever had happened early in the morning, Catherine listening intently, just in case Erica had forgotten something or she hadn't picked up on any info.

"Woah," Jawa declared as soon as Erica was done explaining every last detail of our recon session. "Okay, so where's this USB drive with information?"

I remembered that Erica had given me the flash drive, and that I had put it on my nightstand before falling asleep. I quickly rushed back upstairs, and there it was, right next to my bed. I grabbed it and rushed back downstairs, where Catherine was opening up a laptop, most likely one that she has brought from Mi6.

"Okay, Zoe, you're good with computers. Try to see what kind of information's been copied into this, and how much of it is useful. 35% isn't much, but little is better than nothing," Catherine instructed, handing her the laptop. "Benjamin, would you be a dear and hand Zoe that flash drive?"

"Here," I dutifully handed Zoe the USB drive, which she inserted into the laptop. A file immediately opened, and we all crowded around her to see what could possibly be on that flash drive.

"This guy isn't CIA, right?" Jawa asked as Zoe scanned the files, trying to find one of interest. When Erica nodded, he continued. "So this guy is after us and the CIA?"

I froze at that statement. "Hold up, you may be onto something," I said. Everything clicked into place all of a sudden. "What if this guy isn't aiming for revenge against me? What if he's aiming for the entire CIA?"

Erica picked up on my thoughts. "And we were all a huge threat to whatever he's after, so he drove us away to make his work easier?"

"Yes, that all makes sense, but what exactly does he want with the CIA?" Catherine asked. "He can't just shoo you all away for no reason, right?"

"I think I know why," Zoe piped up, and we all turned back to the computer screen. There was a file that read CIA Academy of Espionage. "Should I open it?" she asked. Erica nodded, and she double clicked to open the file.

Inside were a few documents, but there was also an image file. Zoe opened the image, and it was a map of our school. Almost like a pre-construction blueprint. A floor plan, with a set of coordinates at the bottom of the photo. I realized almost instantly that those coordinates pointed to some exact location inside the school itself.

Or underground.

Just then, everything made sense.