Spy School Blast Off

Chapter 11 | Caught

KSK Mountain

Kansas City, Kansas

September 13

1400 hours

I'll bet many of you thought that we should have skied down the mountain instead of walking. The problem with that was that there were very many sharp rocks and mini cliffs that could impale your spleen or send you flying off the mountain.  

So we decided to take it the safe way and walked. There was some loose snow at the top that I hoped wouldn't become an avalanche.

About an hour later, we were halfway down the mountain and stopped for a break.

"Do you think they're waiting for us at the base?" Zoe asked.

"Probably not," Catherine reassured her. "The journey up the mountain took a very long time, and we started before them so we should be there faster."  

"What if they had a helicopter?" I asked. 

"Then we should go now," Catherine said, jumping to her feet. The rest of us followed her down the mountain. Soon, we reached the rocket base and ran inside to the warm air. We quickly found the control room, along with multiple huge rockets. Suddenly, I felt the cold barrel of a gun against my neck.

"Hands up," Leslie said. "Back away from the control panel or else Ben will die." My friends raised their hands and backed off. "Good. Now, put your backs against the wall and Mia will handcuff you. If you try something, a bullet goes through his head." She pressed the gun harder against my neck.

Mia grabbed 6 pairs of handcuffs and set to work handcuffing them.

"Are you going to kill us?" Warren asked cowardly.

"Yes," Leslie smirked. "After I finish my secret plan."

"Not so secret anymore," I said. "I already know what it is."

"WHAT?" Leslie said. "Since when?" 

"I just figured it out right now," I said. "You're planning to send a message to where the world leaders are having a meeting in the Capitol Building telling them to give you control of their country. If they don't comply, you'll nuke their capitals."  

"How?"

"I saw you guys hunched over a computer the other day and saw some coordinates on it. They were the coordinates of the Capitol Building and many nation's capitals such as Ottawa, New Delhi, Moscow, Bejing, and much more."

"Well, no matter," she said. "You can't do anything about it anyhow." She walked over to the control panel and tapped some buttons. Just then, I realized that no one was aiming a gun at me. I lunged at Leslie, pulling her away from the panel and furiously tapping all the buttons and flipping all the keys, hoping that one of them was an off switch.

To my immense fortune, words appeared on the screen that said, SYSTEM OVERLOAD. PROJECT DISABLED. To my immense misfortune, it also had another message: SELF DESTRUCTING IN 10, 9, 8...

"Oh no," I muttered. Leslie glared at me.

"This is what happens to people who dare stop me," she growled. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

The entire building exploded, sending a searing hot wave of heat over us. A huge fire erupted and we were thrown into the air like some rag dolls. There was another explosion (probably some gasoline tanks) that sent shards of metal through the air, one narrowly missing me. 

Thankfully, the snow cushioned our fall. But that meant that Leslie and her goons were still in commission, too. 

"Is everybody okay?" Catherine yelled. We all said we were okay, and we started running. Missiles tore into the snow around us. Hayley was holding a machine gun and blasting away at us, emptying multiple clips of ammo.

We raced up the mountain at top speed since we were running for our life. Just as we reached the top (the adrenaline boosted us really fast), we realized that the sound had disrupted the loose snow at the top, causing an avalanche. 

The snow rushed down, sweeping Leslie and her friends off their feet and carrying them down the mountain. We all breathed a sigh of relief.

"So what now?" Mike asked.

"We go back to the hotel and tell Cyrus that we completed the mission," she said. 

"I think he'll already know," I said. "That explosion must have been heard from miles away." We continued on the long trip back down the mountain and to our hotel.

When we got there a couple of hours later, the sun was setting and we were all super tired and hungry since we hadn't' eaten for a long time. We told Cyrus the entire story and he nodded.

"So they're out of commission?" he asked.

"Yes," Catherine said. "I also alerted the authorities and they will come to arrest them."

"So am I going back to England?" I asked.

"No," Cyrus said. "We've decided that in our best interests, you will stay here. Your parents have also gotten jobs back here."  

"I thought you guys voted to keep me out," I said, showing him the video. 

"Alexander was always a nitwit," he said. "Don't listen to him. You're in the CIA, and you're staying."