The Doublecross Read Online Free PDF

slammed the folder shut and withdrew it. I looked up at him and tried not to stare at his coffee-stained mustache.
    â€œJordan,” Otter said in a sneery way. “I’ve got a special mission for you.”
    The first time I was sent on a “special mission” was when I was around Kennedy’s age. Everyone else in my class was leaping off ropes onto sets of scaffolding. I, however, wasswinging at the bottom of a rope like a human pendulum. When my teacher told me she had a special mission for me, one that involved leaving SRS, I was ecstatic. Everyone who wanted to leave SRS had to check out, of course, but kids that age never got to leave without supervision. Yet there I was, getting assigned a special mission! Going out on my own! The other nine-year-olds would be so jealous!
    And then I realized the “mission” was really just a trip to get her some coffee at the shop outside headquarters.
    It wasn’t a mission. It was an errand.
    I trudged toward the front office, trying to wash the bitter off my face—I didn’t want Otter or anyone else to know how much stuff like this got to me.
    â€œOh, Hale, are you getting coffee?” the agent at the exit desk asked. She reached for her purse, and I began to wish I’d just snuck out through the loading docks.
    â€œNope,” I said, and her face fell. “Dry cleaning for Agent Otter.” The agent slouched in her chair and went back to staring at her computer screen. They didn’t even bother having me sign out anymore, this happened so often.
    I walked onto the elevator, bracing myself on the railing in the back—shooting up six flights in about a second always made me lose my balance. On the upper level the doors opened, revealing a grubby office building with vinyl chairs and orange-green tile. A young woman wearing lots of eye shadow—an SRS agent—looked up at me from a desk, tilted her chin to say hello, and then went back topainting her toenails fuchsia while the Doctor Joe show played loudly on her laptop. I breezed past her, out the doors, and onto the street.
    SRS was located in a pretty little town called Castlebury, the sort of place where they strung Christmas lights between old brick buildings and had a parade for just about every holiday, right down to National Grapefruit Day. I’m serious.
    Obviously, the people of Castlebury didn’t have a clue that right under their feet was a program of elite spies and their spy-in-training kids. I glanced back at the building I’d just emerged from—a sign with missing letters read BR MBY COUNTY SUBSTITUTE MATHEMATICS TEACHER TRAINI G. The label pretty much meant no one would ever come inside. On the rare occasion someone did, the upper-level agent’s job was to pretend to be an overworked receptionist and ask the visitor about fixing copy machines until they left. No one on the outside knew about SRS—well, I guess some politician somewhere
had
to, since we were technically a government organization—but it just wasn’t safe for everyone to know about us. A spy’s greatest weapon was anonymity, after all.
    It didn’t take me long to retrieve the dry cleaning. I held the plastic garment bags over my head, but I still wasn’t tall enough to keep the bottoms from dragging on the ground. The agent-slash-receptionist didn’t even lookup this time as I walked to the elevator and pushed the Down button.
    The Down button didn’t light up. I frowned and pushed it again. The light was probably just out. But no—I couldn’t hear the sound of the elevator coming up. I turned to the receptionist, who was now looking at me with an eyebrow raised.
    â€œIs it broken?” I asked.
    â€œNo . . . ,” she said, frowning, and lifted the ancient cream-colored phone. “Hello? I’ve got that kid up here—the coffee kid, yeah. The elevator—
oh
.”
    The way she said “oh” was different.