"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 know 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."
"It's 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 with our backup -"
"What if they're wrong, Bex?" I pleaded. "What if he' 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?"
Chapter Twenty-Two
Covert Operations Report
The Operatives utilized a basic Trojan horse scenario. If, instead of a horse, you substitute a 1987 Dodge Minivan.
Well, it turns out that when one of the world's most dangerous and covert terrorist organizations is after one of your students, school officials care less about keeping in than they care about keeping people out.
Or at least that's what Bex and Macey and I told ourselves as we crawled beneath a tarp, a blanket, and about ten million physics notebooks, and lay as quietly as possible in the back of Liz's van.
"Where to this evening?" the guard at the front gate asked. I could picture him leaning against the driver's side window, chomping on his gum.
I had to hold my breath as I waited for the soft, Southern voice that answered, "Just a road check, Walter."
"What's she up to now, Lizzie?" the guard asked. In the light that crept in through the weave of the blanket, I saw that Bex was holding her breath too.
"Almost four hundred miles per gallon," Liz blurted. "I mean three ninety-five to be specific - which I can be. Specific, that is. You know me, Walter. I'm a very detail-oriented person. I'm just going out to test it in stop-and-go driving. I'm not hiding anything!"she blurted, and Bex's eyes went wide.
__________
PROS AND CONS OF BREAKING OUT OF SCHOOL
(A list by Operatives Morgan, McHenry, and Baxter)
PRO: As Trojan horse operatives go, the back of a minivan isn't nearly as bad as it can get.
CON: Rebecca Baxter, despite her many good qualities, is a cover hog.
PRO: There's nothing like a completely unsupervised, possibly illegal covert operation to take a girl's mind of the terrorist organization that is after her - not to mention her Culture
& Assimilation homework.
CON: The girl really should have been doing her Culture & Assimilation homework.
PRO: When you haven't had a real CoveOps lesson in months, you'll take any practical experience you can get.
CON: When you haven't had a real CoveOps lesson in months, you can't help but feel really, really rusty.
_____________
I know the streets Roseville. I've walked them with my classmates. I've held hands on them with my first (and technically only) boyfriend. I've seen them filled with football fans and parade spectators, with ladies selling cakes and candies for the church auxiliary, and kids out for a Saturday matinee.
It's all-American as a town can possibly be, with its white gazebo and movie marquee and town square, but it seems different as I stood in the library bell tower, staring down at the square. There was nothing there but me and sky - no walls, no guards - and yet I felt stranded. Like the ravens, I know I couldn't fly away.
"You have good cover here," Bex told me.
I could hear Macey through the comms unit in my ear, saying what I already knew: "The square is clear." I could see Liz in the van, circling the block.
"Liz is tracking you from the van," Bex said. "We've got back-up relays outside of town in case the van is compromised."
Bex kept talking, but all I could think of was how the air was colder. The stars felt brighter. The breeze was softer as if blew against my check. It was as if all my senses were in overdrive, and I couldn't help but think most people feel like that sometimes -
when they're alone or in the dark. When they hear a noise in the closet or a creak on the floorboards, they sense it. It's not about being scared - it's about being alive. The nerves work harder, carrying messages to the brain, getting it ready for fight or flight, and that night, well, let's just say that night my nerves had their work cut out for them.