Spy Ski School by Stuart Gibbs

take a few days before some people even learn how to turn.”
    Erica shrugged. “I taught myself how to be a world-class fencer in one morning. It won’t take me more than a day to get good at skiing.”
    I wondered if Erica was right. At the moment, the nearby slopes were full of evidence that skiing could be difficult.For every skier who came down the mountain well, there were many others coming down badly. I could see a dozen people who’d wiped out at the base of the mountain. As I watched, one poor soul shot off the run entirely and fell into Vail Creek. And things didn’t get much better once everyone had taken their skis off. Ski boots seemed to have been designed to make walking as difficult as possible. Everywhere I looked, people were wobbling about in them like toddlers taking their first steps. One person crashed to the ground right in front of us, his skis and poles flying every which way.
    Erica stepped right over him, leading me toward the front doors of the Arabelle.
    I hustled after her, feeling strangely out of breath. “Hey. Can we slow down a bit?”
    â€œGetting winded?” Erica asked.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œIt’s the altitude. We’re more than eight thousand feet above sea level here. There’s far less oxygen. Your body isn’t used to it yet. It might take a day or two.”
    â€œYou don’t seem to be affected.”
    â€œI’m using ashanti-veda yogic breathing techniques to modulate my oxygen intake. And, of course, I’m in much better shape than you are.”
    â€œYou can actually control how much oxygen you’re breathing? How?”
    â€œIt’svery complicated. You have to harness your chi energy, align your chakras, and then—” Erica stopped so suddenly I almost slammed into her from behind. “The target is approaching,” she whispered.
    I glanced around me, trying to pick up on what Erica had. But everything looked completely normal. We had now reached the front of the Arabelle, where a semicircular driveway passed the main doors. Skiers were streaming across the road, returning to other hotels that were farther from the slopes. “How did you . . . ?” I began.
    â€œCheck the front doors,” Erica hissed.
    I looked that way. Some very large Chinese men had exited the Arabelle. Of the dozens of people within view, they were the only ones who weren’t wearing ski clothes. Instead, they wore three-piece suits, each of which had the telltale bulge of a weapon under the jacket. Bodyguards. “Oh,” I said, feeling like an idiot for missing them before.
    Two of the bodyguards, each the size of a professional linebacker, stepped into the path of the skiers, holding up their hands to stop the crowd, like extremely well-dressed crossing guards. They didn’t say a word, but something ominous in their demeanor froze everyone in their tracks. Both guards had radio wires curling from their ears. One said something in Chinese into his.
    â€œThat’s the ‘all clear,’ ” Erica informed me.
    A second later, three vehicles came down the road. I’d never seen anything like them. Each looked like someone had crossed a car with a tank. They were big and boxy, with all-terrain tires and what appeared to be armor plating. The windows were heavily tinted, so we couldn’t see a thing as they rumbled past us.
    The first looped past the front doors of the hotel and stopped, blocking the exit of the driveway. The second parked in front of the hotel doors. The third stopped short, blocking the driveway’s entrance. No one got out of the first or third car-tank.
    Jessica Shang got out of the second.
    Leo Shang also got out of it, but I didn’t see him. In the first place, he had exited on the far side of it, closer to the hotel doors, so the car-tank was blocking my view of him. And after that, he was instantly surrounded by a scrum of bodyguards.
    But