Spy School: Another Mole

Chapter 19

"Get your elbow out of my ribs!" Erica said.

"Why don't you get your knee out of my spine?" I replied. "Ow!"

"Shut up! We are going to get caught!" She replied.

"Guys! Your radio is still on!" Zoe said through the walkie-talkie.

"Oops," I said. I quickly turned it off.

It was 10:30 at night and Erica and I were crammed into a vent. Inside SPYDER. Right over Joshua's office.

"Erica I still want to apologize to you for what I said. I didn't mean it I promise. I was just frustrated at the moment." I said.

"Look, Ben. I know you probably meant every word you said. But at the same time, you didn't mean every word you said. And I know it wasn't very great of me to just leave you and make you feel like a plan B. But, I have to go Ben. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I want you to understand that. I didn't plan to leave and I didn't want to leave. I'm not happy about going to Australia either."

"You aren't?"

"I would be," Erica said.

"But?"

"But I don't have my best partner going with me," She smiled. "Instead he's staying at the CIA solving more cases, or at least I hope he is."

I smiled in return.

"Oh yeah," Erica said casually. "I have something for you. I know it isn't much but I wanted to give you something before I left." She pulled out a keychain from her pocket that said JJ16. "The first J is for January and the second J is for June. And the sixteen is the day."

"No, it's great. January 16. The day we met. And June 16, the day you gave me Murray's tooth and my birthday." I admired it for a moment. "Thank you, Erica."

"It was the least I could do." She said with a shrug. "Wait. Listen. Footsteps."

I pressed my ear against the vent opening and listened as the footsteps grew louder and louder."

"Joshua, I'm telling you, I don't have any more information on their locations. They just escaped," said a girl. "Yes, I checked the cameras. They were all static...., call me back I don't have time for this now.... I have been tailing them... I was under the name Briella Miya... I can't keep doing this. People will start to become worried...papers are everywhere...I'll send a photo...okay, bye."

I nudged Erica. She looked in my eyes and nodded. She knew what I was going to say before I said it. Briella Miya was the girl in my defense class, who consequently sits behind me. She was quiet and always wore some sort of hoodie. But she was pretty new. How had she been placed in my class if she was new?

The girl left a piece of paper on Joshua's desk and left. As soon as the coast was clear Erica kicked the vent open and jumped down. I followed(Not as graceful though. I ended up almost falling over.)

"Scope the place out. You start with the piece of paper, I'll cover the rest."

I looked around the office. There were papers everywhere. Numbers on different papers. I scanned them to check if I saw something familiar. I saw millions of numbers and I didn't have time to scan them all. I was looking through a stack of papers until my eyes landed on one specific paper. A paper with a photo on it. I very familiar face appeared and I began to piece things together.

"Erica, you better see this."

"And you better see this," she said. "Check it out."

"I walked over to where she was. She was looking at a map of the world. There were lines drawn everywhere and words written on the borders.

"YOU NEED TO GET OUT OF THERE!" Zoe said through the radio. "JOSHUA'S HEADED BACK. GET OUT NOW!"

The sound of extremely faint footsteps was returning. We didn't have anywhere to go except the vent we came from. There were no back doors to the office and the only door there was the door Joshua was going to be coming in through. We didn't have much time and at the moment, we were trapped. Being caught snooping in Joshua's office was like being captured by soldiers during the Holocaust- if you got caught, there was no easy way out. And that was what we were experiencing. Erica look around for anything that could be of help.

"Don't you have your grapple hook?" I asked, hopeful.

"No. When I got my utility belt back it wasn't there." There was a pause while she was thinking. "Okay, give me a boost we don't have much time."

"WHAT ME! There's no way I'm going to be able to give you a boost."

"Never say never." She smirked. "C'mon we don't have much time." She took a photo of the map and I grabbed the paper and shoved it into my pocket.

"Okay grab that chair over there," Erica told me. I did as ordered and placed the chair right over the vent. Erica got up onto the chair but it obviously wasn't tall enough. "Stand next to the chair and place your hands by your side. I'm going to have to step on your shoulders to reach."

"Uh, okay."

"Okay when I say go I need you to move the chair so when I jump I can't get one left foot onto your left shoulder."

I ran some wick calculations in my head and said, "Okay. Got it."

Three, two, one. Jump. Move the chair. And GO!

Erica got on foot on my shoulder. I grabbed her other leg and tried to get her to balance.

"Now jump." She said.

"WHAT? Jump! Are you serious? You are literally balancing on my shoulder and you want me to jump?"

"Yes, I just need about one centimeter more to get to the vent. Three, two, one."

I jumped trying to get at least one centimeter off of the ground, but with all the bodyweight of an entire person, it proved to be not as easy as it seemed.

"Got it! Now help me!" Erica said.

I pushed her legs up to the vent and she was in. Now it was my turn. I got on top of Joshua's desk and when Erica had her hand stretched out ready for me to jump, I jumped. I grasped her hands and used as much energy as I had to pull myself up and create the least amount of dead weight I could. The footsteps got louder and louder. I touched my pocket. The paper was still there. We were good. I tried to shove myself into the vent as comfortably as possible, but then again, it proved to be very difficult. Joshua walked into the office and we went silent. No matter how uncomfortable the position I was in was, I would rather stay there than risk making any noise.

Joshua grabbed a phone and dialed a number. Someone picked up. Joshua only said three words, but they caused so much panic. Erica and I looked at each other while Joshua spat out the words.

"Launch it tomorrow."