Crisis Zero Read Online Free PDF

break your cover, not even to other government agencies. Either way, though, this was bad.
    I stared down at the floor with my face in my hands and then my eyes passed over my shoes. I’d almost forgotten about the message! I quickly pulled out the slip of paper from behind the tongue of my shoe and unfolded it.
    It looked the same as all the other messages he’d slip into my school lunches. Except those messages were usually pretty clear and straightforward. This one seemed like gibberish.
    THE SCHOOL BURGER’S SECRET SAUCE IS REALLY JUST BARBECUE SAUCE AND KETCHUP MIXED.
    What in the world did that mean? And why would he give it to me? Agent Chum Bucket couldn’t have just lost his mind in the last few hours. Which meant the message had to mean something . But what? And what was I supposed to do with it? I checked my phone; school was out in twenty-one minutes. Not only that, but I likely needed to get back to class soon before Mr. Kittsonstarted wondering what happened to me.
    So I needed to figure it out fast.
    I thought back to every encounter I’d had with Agent Chum Bucket. The first time I’d met him was when he’d given me my spy gadgets for my first assignment at the beginning of the school year. We’d met in what he’d called his office, which was really just a pantry. He’d even blown a hole into a giant tub of mayo in order to demonstrate how to use the fruit roll-up explosive.
    That’s it!
    Now it seemed so obvious I was a little embarrassed I hadn’t figured it out right away. I jumped up from the locker room bench and ran out into the hallway, quickly making my way toward the school cafeteria pantry. I just hoped I would get there before the NSB decided to search it. Now that they thought Chum Bucket was involved in whatever sort of insanity Mr. Gomez was mixed up in, it likely wouldn’t be too long before they started confiscating his stuff.
    I made a quick pit stop at my locker to get my backpack. The door was closed and locked; yet the hard drive I had taken from Mr. Gomez’s office was no longer inside my bag. Which meant that Agent Chum Bucket hadindeed removed it somehow.
    I slung the empty bag over my shoulder and continued on toward the cafeteria, passing a few other kids and a teacher. They didn’t pay any attention to me. The school must not have been on lockdown anymore now that the NSB had retrieved the stolen drive.
    The door to Agent Chum Bucket’s pantry room was slightly ajar. Which meant he’d either left it open for me or I was going to find NSB agents already inside, searching through the school’s food supplies. I held my breath as I pushed the door open.
    The pantry was chock-full of giant drums of salad dressings, sauces, and condiments, as well as fifty-pound boxes of crackers, bread, noodles, and other typical school lunch ingredients. About the only thing I didn’t see inside the huge pantry room were NSB agents or any fresh and healthy lunch ingredients.
    It didn’t take as long as I expected to find a couple massive drums of secret sauce. I considered for a moment how gross it was that all of the condiments we ate in school lunches came from giant plastic barrels.
    After pushing the thought aside, I unscrewed the lid on the closest barrel. The strong odor of vinegar andsugar and tomatoes quickly filled the confined pantry. I looked around and spotted a box of plastic gloves on a nearby shelf. I pulled on a pair and then slowly dipped my hand into the reddish-brown sludge.
    Even at room temperature, it felt surprisingly cold through the glove. I swished my hand around for a few seconds, feeling nothing. Sauce sloshed over the sides of the jug onto the floor and my pants. I was ready to give up, but decided to plunge my arm in a little bit deeper. That’s when my fingers grazed something solid. Either there were rat carcasses inside our secret sauce, or I had been right about what the message from Agent