"By now they've widened the net to include half of Northern Europe," Bex said with a grin.
"Still think they only let you in because of who your family is?" I asked.
"Yes." Macey's answer shocked me. I'd been in the process of getting up. The coarse wood of the dock was pinching my hands as they supported too much of my weight, and yet I couldn't move,
Macey smiled. She cocked an eyebrow and said, "But that's not why they keep me."
Of all the tests Macey McHenry had passed in the last year, there wasn't a doubt in my mind that that was the biggest one.
"Besides," she said playfully batting her eyes, "my father is potentially the second most powerful man in the country."
"Well," Liz said softly, "not for much longer."
"Why?" I asked, looking at her.
"Because the polls opened two hours ago."
Spies are great at pretending, so we made believe that the bad part was over; we acted as if everything was going to be okay. We rolled down the windows and sang at the top of our lungs and tried not to think about why we had to make unscheduled stops, and turn without signaling, and dozens of other countersurveillance techniques that are the sign of really bad drivers and really good spies.
But no matter how good we were at vehicular countersurveillance, there was at least one dangerous encounter that I knew we'd never outrun.
"We have her."
The truck stop was loud—full of the sounds of diesel engines and the clank of plates and silverware being cleared from greasy tables—and for a moment, I was afraid my mother hadn't heard me. "I said, we've got—"
"Yes, Professor Buckingham," Mom said slowly, and at first I started to correct her. I wanted to say that she'd mistaken the sound of my voice. Badly. But then Mom talked on. "It is very good to hear from you. In fact, I've been wondering where you are now, Patricia?" Mom asked, and I knew that someone was close.
"We're on our way to you," I said, not wanting to say too much over the phone. "Mom, I'm sorry we ran away." With every breath, the words came faster. "We tried to tell Madame Dabney, but everyone was so busy looking in Switzerland, but I just knew in my gut she wasn't there, and—"
"Of course things are ready for you here. If Macey has completed her biology test and is ready, the Secret Service should bring her here to D.C. so that she can join her parents as soon as possible."
I stepped farther down the narrow hallway, away from the crowded dining room, stretching the phone's greasy cord to its limit as I said, "They don't know she ran away, do they?"
"Of course not," Mom answered, the ultimate spy. "That's too much trouble."
I thought about Senator and Mrs. McHenry, and something made me smile.
"So how mad are they that she isn't there?"
"I've taken care of everything," Mom said, her voice still perfectly even and delightful.
A television blared live news coverage—a map of the United States, ready to be divided state by state into red and blue. It was election day in America, but there was one vote left that mattered, and, ironically, it was the one the McHenrys had lost a long time ago.
"Cam!" Bex yelled, "it's time."
"Mom," I said, suddenly needing to say it, "I love you."
A long pause filled the line. For a second, I thought I might have lost her.
"I feel exactly the same way. And Patricia." My mother's voice grew lower. "Hurry. And be careful."
I might have said a hundred other things, except the pay phone wasn't secure (not to mention sanitary), and besides, my friends—and our mission—were waiting.
The Operatives began preparations to go undercover inside hostile territory (a.k.a. the official Winters-McHenry presidential watch party).
Operatives Sutton and Baxter were thrilled to learn that this would require shopping for new clothes.
Unfortunately, according to Operative McHenry, to fully blend in, The Operatives' new clothes couldn't be too cute. Or comfortable.
Washington, D.C. was the first home I'd ever really known, but that night the streets felt foreign for the first time. Maybe it was the vehicle I was driving (Dodge minivans with state-of-the art engines aren't exactly common, you know), or maybe it was the fact that the most famous girl in the country was in the backseat in a red wig, but I felt anything but invisible as we turned down streets lined with news vans and Secret Service barricades.
As we walked closer to the hotel, we passed correspondents reporting live for every news outlet in the country, and I couldn't help myself—I thought about Boston. Beside me, Macey trembled, and I knew I wasn't the only one.
I was beginning to contemplate exactly how we were going to sweet-talk or sneak our way inside (Macey couldn't exactly show up Secret Service-less, after all!), when a familiar voice cut through the chaos. "Cameron!"
The Operatives remembered that potential kidnappers aren't always as scary as highly trained operatives-slash- mothers-slash-headmistresses who happen to know that you're away from campus without permission.
"Cammie," my mother called again, hurrying to meet us.
"Mom, I—" I started, wanting to explain or apologize, to beg forgiveness or mercy, but I didn't get to do any of that because, in the next instant, Secret Service agents swarmed around us. I noticed the comms unit in my mother's ear. I realized the agents around us were all women. One of the agents winked at me, and I wondered for a second if Aunt
Abby wasn't the only Gallagher Girl who had taken a special assignment.
And yet my mother didn't wink. She didn't smile. Instead, she grabbed my arm and steered us toward the building.