The Doublecross by Jackson Pearce Page A

kindly, then held out a well-manicured hand. “I assume we have a lot to talk about.”
    I shook her hand, suddenly aware of how clammy my own was. “We do.”
    Oleander led me back to her office, where Clatterbuck joined us. I withdrew the printout on my parents and handed it to her.
    â€œI broke into the control deck and saw that,” I said quietly. “Katie Jordan and Joseph Jordan. Those are the two agents I thought The League kidnapped.”
    â€œ
Jordan
—they’re your parents, aren’t they?” Oleander said, and I got the impression she wasn’t entirely surprised.
    I nodded. “I think they knew. About everything, I mean—I think that’s why they were marked In the Weeds. They figured out that SRS were the bad guys.”
    Oleander exhaled. “Well, Hale, the news could be worse. They’re In the Weeds, not Contained. That means they’re on the run. SRS doesn’t have them. And I’m guessing that also means that when you were here last time, you lied about being on a mission for Project Groundcover. You came on your own to rescue them, didn’t you?”
    I nodded again.
    Oleander smiled a little. “That was very brave of you.”
    I didn’t know how to answer, both because thanks seemed like a stupid thing to say, and because my chest felt like it was defrosting from how good it felt to hear someone say that. I waited a few moments before taking a breath and continuing. “I’m sorry I lied about Groundcover—but my parents really
were
working on that mission, whatever it is—that’s what they were out on when they went missing. I’m sure if we can find them or make it safe for them to come to us, they’ll tell you what they know. And in the meantime, I figure I can draw up blueprints of the SRS facility. I know you’re low on people here, but I think with my blueprints, a fifteen-man team could get in there and cause enough damage to set them back. To really take them out, you’ll need at least fifty people, and I don’t . . . Well . . . I don’t think we should hurt any of them. They’re all probably just like me—they have no idea they’re fighting for the bad guys. So we go back, get my sister, and then . . . I don’t know, I guess we live here with you guys?”
    â€œMr. Jordan, that won’t work,” Oleander said delicately.
    I stared. “Where are we going to live then?”
    â€œOh, no, I don’t mean that—you’re welcome to live in our dorms here, though everyone at The League actually lives off campus—Clatterbuck and the twins live in that beige apartment complex across the street? Never mind, that’s not the point. What I meant was, we can’t go into SRS at all. Not with fifty men, not with fifteen. Literally, we can’t—we don’t have the resources for a mission like that. We barely have the resources to keep the lights on. You’re talking about putting our middle-age former field agents up against SRS’s flawlessly trained army of . . . of . . .”
    â€œHard bodies,” Clatterbuck offered, looking down at his belly mournfully.
    Oleander looked annoyed, but she nodded. “Against SRS’s very fit, very fast, very smart, very well-supplied agents. Hale, Groundcover is the pin in the middle of all this—I don’t think it’s just what your parents were working on when they went missing. I think Groundcover is
why
your parents went missing—or at the very least, it had to be what tipped them off about what sort of organization SRS really is. We have to know more.”
    I paused, trying not to be too bothered that there was someone else telling me to “think of the mission” instead of my parents. I guess directors of spy agencies are just mission-focused by nature. I said, “I don’t know anything else. Groundcover is a highly classified mission. I can’t