In the sixth book in the New York Times bestselling Spy School series, Ben is taken to Mexico by his nemesis in the hopes that he’ll finally be able to take down SPYDER. Thirteen-year-old Ben Ripley has been caught in the snares of SPYDER more than once and knows well enough to be suspicious of anything that seems too good to be true—despite needing special tutoring in advanced survival techniques. So when Murray Hill finally breaks his silence with an offer to hand over the SPYDER elite, Ben knows that there must be something going on. But his hesitation doesn’t stop the assignment. The mission: Follow Murray Hill to an undisclosed location with no one else but Erica Hale to identify SPYDER leadership. However, as Ben suspected, nothing goes as planned, and what should be an easy mission quickly turns deadly. Ben and Erica will have to face rogue agents, trained killers, and even very hungry crocodiles in a race against the clock to find out what SPYDER is up to this time—and thwart their evil plans. Stuart Gibbs is the New York Times bestselling author of the Charlie Thorne series, FunJungle series, Moon Base Alpha series, Once Upon a Tim series, and Spy School series. He has written screenplays, worked on a whole bunch of animated films, developed TV shows, been a newspaper columnist, and researched capybaras. Stuart lives with his family in Los Angeles. You can learn more about what he’s up to at StuartGibbs.com. Chapter 1: Good Citizenship 1 GOOD CITIZENSHIP Washington, DC Streets in proximity to the Academy of Espionage March 28 1500 hours “Stop that man!” Alerted by the cry, I glanced back over my shoulder. Five storefronts away, an extremely tall man with muscles the size of cantaloupes was charging down the sidewalk, clutching a leopard-print purse. Behind him, an elderly woman lay sprawled on the ground. My first reaction was to think that it was a test. That might not seem like the correct reaction for a normal thirteen-year-old boy, but then, I wasn’t a normal thirteen-year-old boy. I was a spy-in-training at the CIA’s top secret Academy of Espionage, and it was standard practice at the school to spring fake emergencies on the students to see how we handled ourselves. This happened surprisingly often. Three days earlier, I had to defuse a phony bomb and survive an attack by ninjas before I even got to breakfast. These pop quizzes rarely took place off campus, though. And they usually concerned serious criminals like terrorists or assassins, rather than plain-old muggers. But I wasn’t completely sure about this. “Someone please help!” the elderly woman cried. Even though the sidewalk was crowded with people, no one was trying to stop the thief. This was somewhat understandable, as the thief was built like a brick wall and looked as mean as a wounded bear. He was bowling over anyone who happened to be in his way; therefore, people were scrambling to clear a path for him. Trying to stop him would only be asking for trouble. He was now three storefronts away. I glanced at Erica Hale for guidance. Erica was two years ahead of me at spy school and by far the most accomplished student. In fact, she was probably more accomplished than most of the teachers. She was a legacy, a descendant of Nathan Hale, whose entire family tree was chock-full of secret agents, and she’d been learning the ropes from her relatives since she was old enough to wield a billy club. In addition, she wasn’t above springing a sudden sneak attack on me herself. The whole reason we were off campus together was that Erica was giving me extra tutoring in advanced survival techniques. I was only in my second year at the academy, but due to an unusual set of circumstances, I had managed to thwart the plans of SPYDER, our main enemy, four times so far. SPYDER was a covert organization dedicated to plotting chaos and mayhem for a price, and its operatives were getting rather annoyed at me for thwarting them. Now they wanted me dead. Unfortunately, the CIA wasn’t great at adapting to unusual circumstances. School rules specifically stated that, as a second-year student, I wasn’t allowed to take classes beyond Self-Preservation 202, even though I could really have used some more advanced training. So Erica had stepped in. She was tutoring me without permission, on her own time. Now, out on the street, watching the incoming criminal, she shook her head. It was a very small shake, almost imperceptible, but I understood both meanings of it: 1) This wasn’t a test. It was a real crime. 2) I shouldn’t get involved. The biggest problem with being a secret agent was the “secret” part. Once your cover was blown, there was no getting it back. My own parents didn’t even know I was a student in spy school. In fact, the very existence of spy school itself was a secret. (There was quite obviously a campus, only a few blocks away, but it was hidden behind a great stone wall and claimed to be St. Smithe