"We're too far from a tower," Bex added. FALSE. We'd actually have great cell reception if it weren't for the monster jammer that blocks any and all foreign transmissions from campus, but Macey McHenry and her Capitol Hill father certainly didn't need to know that.

"No cell phones?" Macey said as if we'd just told her all students were required to shave their heads and live on bread and water. "That's it. I'm so out of here." And then she turned and stormed back toward my mother's office.

At least she thought that was the way to my mother's office. She was nearing the doors that lead down to the Research and Development department in the basement. I was pretty sure Dr. Fibs would have everything in Code Red form, but in the tradition of mad scientists everywhere, Dr. Fibs had a tendency to be a little, shall we say, accident prone. Sure enough, as we turned the corner, we saw Mr. Mosckowitz, who happens to be the world's foremost authority on data encryption, but he didn't look like a mega-genius just then. No. He looked like the resident alcoholic. His eyes were bloodshot and watering, his face was pale, and he was totally stumbling and slurring his words as he said, "Hello!"

Macey stared at him in disgust, which was actually a good thing, because that way she didn't notice the thick fog of purple smoke that was seeping beneath the stairwell doors behind him. Professor Buckingham was shoving towels in the cracks, but every time she got near the purple fog she'd start sneezing uncontrollably. She kicked the towel with her foot. Dr. Fibs appeared with a roll of duct tape and started trying to seal the cracks around the doors. (How's that for superspy technology?)

Mr. Mosckowitz kept swaying back and forth, maybe because the purple stuff had messed with his sense of balance or maybe because he was trying to block Macey's view, which would have been tough, considering he can't be an inch taller that five foot five. He said, "I understand you're a potential student."

But just then, Dr. Fibs's tall, lanky frame crashed onto the floor. He was out cold, and the purple smoke was growing thicker.

Bex and I looked at each other. This is seriously NOT GOOD!

Buckingham hauled Dr. Fibs into a teacher's chair and started rolling him away, but I didn't have a clue what to do. Bex grabbed Macey's arm. "Come on, Macey. I know a short—"

But Macey only wrenched her arm out of Bex's grasp and said, "Don't touch me, b——." (Yeah, that's right, she called Bex the B word.)

Now see, here's where the whole private-school thing puts a girl at a disadvantage. MTV will lead us to believe that the B word has become a term of endearment or slang among equals, but I still mainly think of it as the insult of choice for the inarticulate. So, either Macey hated us or respected us, but I looked at Bex and knew that she was betting on the former.

Bex stepped forward, shaking off her happy schoolgirl persona and putting on her superspy face.

This is SERIOUSLY not good, I thought again, just as a white shirt and khaki pants appeared in my peripheral vision.

Never again would I wonder if the only reason we thought Mr. Solomon was hot was because we'd been grading on the girls'-school curve; one look at Macey McHenry made it perfectly clear that even beyond the walls of the Gallagher Academy, Joe Solomon was gorgeous. And she didn't even know he was a spy (which always makes a guy hotter).

"Hello." It was the exact same thing Mr. Mosckowitz had said, but oh was it different. "Welcome to the Gallagher Academy. I hope you're considering joining us," he said, but I'm pretty sure Macey, Bex, and I all heard, I think you're the most beautiful woman in the world, and I'd be honored if you'd bear my children. (Really, truly, I think he said that.)

"Are you enjoying your tour?" he asked, but Macey just batted her eyelashes and went all seductive in a way that totally didn't go with her combat boots.

Maybe it was the cloud of purple smoke wafting toward me, but I thought I might barf.

"Do you have a second?" Mr. Solomon asked, but didn't wait for her to respond before he said, "There's something on the second floor that I'd love to show you."

He pointed her toward a circular stone staircase that had once been a fixture in the Gallagher family chapel. Stained-glass windows stood two stories tall and colored the light that landed on Mr. Solomon's white shirt as we climbed. When we reached the second floor, he held his arms out at the grand, high-ceilinged corridor that was awash in a kaleidoscope of color.

It was, in a word, beautiful, and yet I'd never really noticed it until then—there had always been classes to get to, assignments to finish. I heard Mr. Solomon's lecture again—notice things—and I couldn't help feeling that we'd just had our first CoveOps test. And we'd failed.

He walked us all the way to the Hall of History before turning and strolling back toward that gorgeous wall of stained glass. As Macey watched him go, she muttered, "Who was that?"

It was the first enthusiastic thing Macey had said since crawling out of the limo and maybe long before that—probably since realizing that her father would sell his soul for a vote and her mother was the B word as used in its traditional context.

"He's a new teacher," Bex answered.

"Yeah," Macey scoffed. "If you say so."

But Bex, who hadn't forgotten the B-word incident, wheeled around and said, "I do say so."

Macey reached for her pack of cigarettes but stopped short when Bex's glare hardened.

"Let me lay it out for you," Macey said, like it was some big favor. "Best-case scenario: all the girls go ga-ga for him and lose focus, which I'm sure is very important at the Gallagher Academy," she said with mock reverence. "Worst-case scenario: he's an inappropriate-conduct case looking for a place to happen." I had to admit that, so far, Macey the B word was making some sense. "The only people who teach at these places are freaks and geeks. And when you've got a headmistress who looks like that"—she pointed to my mom in all her hotness, who stood talking to the McHenrys thirty feet away—"it's easy to see what Mr. Eyecandy was hired for."

"What?" I asked, not understanding.

"You're the Gallagher Girl," she mocked again. "If you can't figure that out, then who am I to tell you."

I thought about my mother—my beautiful mother, who had recently been winked at by my sexy CoveOps teacher, and I thought I would never eat again.

Chapter Four

There are many excellent things about having three girls sharing a four-girl suite. The first, obviously, is closet space— followed by shelf space followed by the fact that we had an entire corner of the room devoted to beanbag chairs. It was a very sweet setup (if you'll pardon the pun), but I don't think any of us really appreciated what we had until two guys from the maintenance department knocked on our door and asked where we wanted the extra bed.

Now, in addition to our teachers and our chef, the Gallagher Academy has a pretty extensive staff, but it's not the kind of place that advertises in the want ads (well… you know…except for coded messages). There are two types of people who come here—students looking to get into the AlphaNet (CIA, FBI, NSA, etc.), and staff members looking to get out. So when two men built like refrigerators show up with long metal poles and vise grips, it's fairly likely that those have been the tools of their trade for a while now—just in a very different context.

That's why we didn't ask any questions that night. We just pointed to a corner and then the three of us made a beeline for the second floor.

"Come in, girls," my mother yelled as soon as we entered the Hall of History—long before she could have seen us. Even though I'd grown up with her, sometimes her superspy instincts scared me. She walked to the door. "I've been expecting you."

I'd been working on a doozy of a speech, let me tell you, but as soon as I saw my mother silhouetted in the door frame I forgot it. Luckily, Bex never has that problem.

"Excuse me, ma'am," she said, "but do you know why the maintenance department has delivered an extra bed to our room?"

Anyone else asking that question in that tone might have seen the wrath of Rachel Morgan, but all my mom did was cross her arms and match Bex's scholarly inflections.

"Why, yes, Rebecca. I do know."

"Is that information you can share with us, ma'am? Or is it need-to-know?" (If anyone had a need—it was us. We were the ones losing our beanbag corner over the deal!)

But Mom just took a step and gestured for us to follow. "Let's take a walk."

Something was wrong, I realized. It had to be, so I was on her heels, following her down the grand staircase, saying, "What? Is it blackmail? Does the senator have something on—"

"Cameron," Mom said, trying to cut me off.

"Is he on the House Armed Services Committee? Is it a funding thing, because we could start charging tuition, you—"

"Cammie, just walk," Mom commanded.

I did as I was told, but I still didn't shut up. "She won't last. We can get rid of—"

"Cameron Ann Morgan," Mom said, playing the middle-name card that all moms keep in their back pockets for just such an occasion. "That's enough." I froze as she handed the large manila envelope she'd been carrying to Bex and said, "Those are your new roommate's test scores."

Okay, I'll admit it—they were good. Not Liz-good, or anything, but they were far better than Macey McHenry's 2.0 GPA would indicate.

We turned down an old stone corridor, our feet echoing through the cold hall.

"So she tests well," I said. "So—"

Mom stopped short, and all three of us nearly ran into her. "I don't run decisions past you, do I, Cammie?" Shame started brewing inside me, but Mom had already shifted her attention toward Bex. "And I do make controversial decisions from time to time, don't I, Rebecca?" At this, we all remembered how Bex came to us, and even she shut up. "And, Liz." Mom shifted her gaze one last time. "Do you think we should only admit girls who come from spy families?"

That was it—she had us.

Mom crossed her arms and said, "Macey McHenry will bring a much-needed level of diversity to the Gallagher Academy. She has family connections that will allow entry into some very closed societies. She has an underutilized intellect. And…" Mom seemed to be pondering this next bit. "…she has a quality about her."

Quality? Yeah, right. Snobbery is a quality, so is elitism, fascism, and anorexicism. I started to tell my mom about the eight-hundred-calorie-a-day thing, or the B-word thing, or to point out that Code Reds were fake interviews, not real ones. But then I looked at the woman who had raised me and who, rumor has it, once sweet-talked a Russian dignitary into dressing in drag and carrying a beach ball full of liquid nitrogen under his shirt like a pregnant lady, and I knew I was sufficiently outgunned, even with Bex and Liz beside me.

"And if that isn't enough for you …" Mom turned to look at an old velvet tapestry that hung in the center of the long stone wall.

Of course I'd seen it before. If a girl wanted to stand there long enough, she could trace the Gallagher family tree that branched across the tapestry through nine generations before Gilly, and two generations after. If a girl had better things to do, she could reach behind the tapestry, to the Gallagher family crest imbedded in the stone, and turn the little sword around, then slip through the secret door that pops open. (Let's just say I'm the second type of girl.)