"I'm with Bex," Macey said. "He's asking you to take a really big rick, Cam"
They were right, but all I could think about was the way he'd walking into the center of the very people who were scouring the world to find him. "Maybe it's my turn."
"Okay. Fine. Let's say it isn't true," Bex offered. "Let's say Mr. Solomon is innocent and wrongly accused and that he didn't kill . . ." She looked away, then back again. "Let's say he is the man we know. Does the Mr. Solomon we know tell you to sneak out of the Gallagher Academy, go into town, and meet up with a know fugitive? Does Joe Solomon tell you to be stupid?"
The answer was obvious. That was probably why none of us said it.
"Why don't we go?" Liz said, pointing to herself and Bex and Macey. "See him. Get the message. Bring it back."
"I can't explain it, guys," I said, shaking my head. "I just know I've got to go."
"That doesn't mean you have to be stupid!" Bex shot back, and I realized that Bex was being cautious. Bex had become the voice of reason.
"You didn't see it, Cammie," she went on. "You didn't have to watch them drug you and drag you away like a doll. You were there, Cam, but you didn't have to watch your friend almost go away forever. You don't know how that feels."
"Yeah," Macey said softly. "She does."
I looked at the girls I would trust with my life. Then I thought about my dad and the man he'd probably trusted with his.
"I have to go," I said. "It's my mission."
"It's our mission," Bex countered.
"What are we saying?" Liz exclaimed. "Cam, we don't have to sneak out. We don't even have to go by ourselves. I bet your mom -"
"No," I said, cutting her off. "If she got caught helping Joe Solomon . . . No. We're on our own."
"I know, Cam," Bex said, stopping me. "I know. But if we do this with our backup -"
"What if they're wrong, Bex?" I pleaded. "What if he' the only chance we'll ever have at finding out what happened to my dad? What if while everyone is chasing him, no one is trying to stop the Circle? What if he didn't do it?"
Bex's voice was flat and calm and strong as she looked at me. "What if he did?"
Chapter Twenty-Two
Covert Operations Report
The Operatives utilized a basic Trojan horse scenario. If, instead of a horse, you substitute a 1987 Dodge Minivan.
Well, it turns out that when one of the world's most dangerous and covert terrorist organizations is after one of your students, school officials care less about keeping in than they care about keeping people out.
Or at least that's what Bex and Macey and I told ourselves as we crawled beneath a tarp, a blanket, and about ten million physics notebooks, and lay as quietly as possible in the back of Liz's van.
"Where to this evening?" the guard at the front gate asked. I could picture him leaning against the driver's side window, chomping on his gum.
I had to hold my breath as I waited for the soft, Southern voice that answered, "Just a road check, Walter."
"What's she up to now, Lizzie?" the guard asked. In the light that crept in through the weave of the blanket, I saw that Bex was holding her breath too.
"Almost four hundred miles per gallon," Liz blurted. "I mean three ninety-five to be specific - which I can be. Specific, that is. You know me, Walter. I'm a very detail-oriented person. I'm just going out to test it in stop-and-go driving. I'm not hiding anything!"she blurted, and Bex's eyes went wide.
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PROS AND CONS OF BREAKING OUT OF SCHOOL
(A list by Operatives Morgan, McHenry, and Baxter)
PRO: As Trojan horse operatives go, the back of a minivan isn't nearly as bad as it can get.