by Allen Zadoff
“Door-to-door service,” he says.
I sit there for a moment without saying anything. I hated Francisco at first, but I’m beginning to feel differently about him now.
He says, “Can you find your way back to camp, or do you need a pickup?”
“I’ll probably drive myself back.”
“Stop at the roadblock when you get there. I’ll tell them to look out for you.”
“Thanks, Francisco.”
I get out of the truck and head into Cumberland Farms.
From inside the store, I watch him pull out of the parking lot and head down the road.
I look at the neighborhood outside. I spent the afternoon in this neighborhood—was it really only two days ago?
Thursday night the soldiers came for me. Friday night I was at the recruiting event with Moore. Saturday night was The Hunt. Now it’s midday Sunday.
It seems like more time has passed, but that’s one of the effects of sleep deprivation. Fatigue degrades cognition, dulls the sense, slows decision-making processes, and distorts perception. A minute can seem to stand still, yet things that occur slowly can pass you by.
I buy several carbohydrate drinks and a handful of protein bars. When I get out of the store, I stand under a tree out of the line of sight from the road. What I really need is a good meal and a full night’s sleep, but this will have to do.
I slowly chew a bar, interspersing it with swallows of carb drink. In this way I refuel, allowing my strength to return and some of my focus.
I take out my iPhone and put it in secure mode. Here, away from the camp, the digital blocking, the obstruction of the mountains, away from all the possible means of interference, I can truly test it.
I dial the prearranged number, Father’s secure active number for this assignment.
I will inform Father that I am bound for the safe house. He may be there waiting for me already. If not, he will be there soon to meet me.
I’ll have to explain the reasons that I went into the camp. Father may be unhappy at first, but once I tell him what I’ve learned there and how close I’ve come to Moore, I’m sure he will reward my initiative. Besides, the mission is more critical than ever now that I have a sense of the gravity of Moore’s plans.
I hear three rings through my phone followed by a click. The line goes dead.
I start again, this time trying Father’s public number.
There’s no answer.
I don’t know what’s happened to Father’s communication ability, but I know our fallback procedure.
We are supposed to liaise at the house after the mission.
I finish off the last of the protein bars, and I head down the street to the protection of the safe house.
I SCOPE THE NEIGHBORHOOD AS I GO, CHECKING FOR ANYTHING OUT OF THE ORDINARY.
The neighborhood is quiet. A normal Sunday afternoon, nothing that flags my suspicions.
I proceed down the street until I come to the familiar white-and-yellow house.
Number 578. Same silver Escape in the driveway.
I move with the relaxed energy of a kid coming home after a morning hanging out with friends. I walk up the stone path to the front door and turn the knob.
It’s locked.
I try it again in a different direction. Still locked.
Strange.
I walk around the side, look in a window. I’m expecting the electromagnetic film to prevent my seeing in, but that’s not the case. I’m staring at a set of vases over the mantel place.
Suddenly the front door opens.
“Excuse me,” a woman’s voice says.
I whirl around, preparing to meet the challenge.
I find myself looking at an attractive thirty-five-year-old woman in jeans and an oversized sweater. No threat to me. Just a little agitated to find a boy standing in her flower bed.
I collapse my posture into the slouch of a low-key teen boy.
“Who are you?” she says.
“Who are you?” I say with a shrug.
We look at each other.
“I’m the woman who owns this house. You’re a kid sneaking around my yard.”
“I’m not sneaking,” I say. “I’m looking for my dad.”
“Your dad?”
“He lives here.”
“I’m sorry. You’re mistaken.”
A man I’ve never seen comes to the door. He puts a protective arm around her.
“What’s going on, honey?”
“This boy seems to think he lives here.”
“This is our house,” the husband says, his voice cautious but friendly, still wanting to clear up the misunderstanding. “I should know. I pay the mortgage every month.”
“It wasn’t your house two days ago,” I say.
“It’s been our house for six years,” the husband says.
I look at the number again. 578.
Correct street, correct number.
“Are you sure it’s your house?” I say.
I watch carefully, waiting for them to break character, show themselves to be operatives for The Program, maybe a recovery crew of some kind. I wait for the nod inviting me in to safety.
But there is no nod. These people seem like the real thing.
I feel the confusion growing inside me.
That’s when I see their skin appears darker than it should be for this part of the country, even in the summer.
“Why do you have tans?” I say.
The husband looks at me strangely. It was a stupid thing for me to say, but I’m not thinking clearly.
“We won a trip to the Caribbean,” the husband says. “We were on vacation, and we just got back. Not that it’s any business of yours.”
“I’m confused,” I say.
My mind is racing, trying to put together the lack of communication from The Program, the strange circumstances at the safe house, any of it, all of it.
They must see that something’s wrong, because the woman says, “Are you feeling all right?”
I don’t like how she’s looking at me. Like I’m a lost kid of some kind.
“Do you want to come in for a minute?” the wife says.
“Hang on,” the husband says. “We don’t know who this is.”
“He needs some help.”
“Then we should call the police.”
“We don’t need the police,” the wife says, like her husband is being ridiculous.
“Maybe he’s on drugs,” the husband says.
I can’t allow the police to become involved. That would be a mistake. I have to pull myself together.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I guess I made a mistake. We just moved to Manchester. All the streets look alike.”
“Come in for a minute,” the wife says. “I’ll get you a glass of water.”
“No,” I say.
“Please.”
Something about her draws me in. The warmth of her voice or the way she smiles at me like she’s concerned. I’m not sure which.
“Maybe I’ll come inside,” I say.
Not only do I need a drink of water, it would be a good idea for me to go inside and look around the house, make sure I’m not mistaken about the location. I can buy myself some time to analyze the situation and figure out my next move.
I look toward the husband. He shakes his head as if he’s been through this before—having to live with decisions his wife makes that he disagrees with. He sighs and steps aside, gestures for me to come in.
“For a minute only,” he says.
“Just a minute,” I say.
I step into the house. I recognize it instantly. Same fireplace, same green blanket thrown over the sofa.
I was here two days ago. I’m sure of it.
So what happened to the safe house?
I sit on the sofa, and the husband sits across from me in an armchair. We look at each other uncomfortably while the sound of clinking glasses comes from the kitchen.
A minute later the wife comes
out with two glasses of lemonade, one for me and one for her husband.
“I hope you don’t mind lemonade,” she says to me.
“It’s great,” I say.
The sugar is a good supplemental energy source. It will help right now.
The man drinks. I drink. The woman looks on.
“How long have you lived in Manchester?” the husband says.
The glass is cool in my fingers. I drink the lemonade in measured sips, trying to make it last.
I think back to the briefing I received two days ago, the story of the boy whose life I’m supposed to be living now.
“We’ve been here a few months,” I say.
“A minute ago you said you just moved,” the husband says.
“This year, I meant. My parents came here for work.”
“Would you like us to call your parents for you?” the wife says, trying to be helpful.
I laugh then. It’s inappropriate, and it instantly sets them on edge. I note the woman’s eyes dart to the corner of the living room.
That’s when I see it. A pink kid’s scooter propped up against the wall near the front door. The woman notices me looking at it.
“That belongs to our daughter,” she says, like she’s warning me against doing anything dangerous, some action that might disturb the peace of this family.
Family.
These are not Program operatives. I see that now. They are a real family, back in their home after a vacation, completely unaware of what has gone on here while they’ve been gone.
I think of my father sitting in the living room of our home in Rochester. We didn’t have a TV when I was a kid. My father spent his time at home listening to classical music and reading books. He’d sit propped on the corner of the sofa, his nose deep in a new novel. Sometimes my mother would lay a blanket across his lap and lie down to read next to him.
My real parents, together and reading. Back when everything seemed normal.
A feeling wells up in my chest, so powerful that it causes me to moan.
The wife gets concerned. She takes a step closer to her husband.
I’m behaving incorrectly for the situation, but I can’t help myself. The wife unconsciously places a hand on her husband’s shoulder. A united front. That’s what they’re showing me. A partnership that will expel the intruder if need be.
The intruder. That’s me.
I do not belong in this house.
“I appreciate the drink,” I say.
I stand up.
The wife looks relieved. Her husband maintains his caution.
I smile, attempting to set them at ease.
“You know what I just realized? I think I’m one street over from where I’m supposed to be.”
“Oh, that’s what happened,” the husband says, as if it’s an honest mistake on my part.
“I feel silly,” I say.
“It’s no problem,” the husband says.
“I’m sorry to cause you any trouble.”
“No trouble at all,” the wife says.
She turns toward the front door. She makes it two steps before the living room window shatters behind us, exploding inward and sending deadly, razor-edged shards of glass raining down on the wood floor.
IT HAPPENS QUICKLY AFTER THAT.
The glass shatters, bullets thudding into the wall across from us, each one raising a plume of plaster dust like a tiny volcano.
The husband screams. The wife leaps away from the source of the noise but toward her husband, her body covering his.
Even as I drop to safety, I am processing this: it’s not a normal reaction for a civilian. An overprotective mother or wife might cover a loved one with her body, but this woman moved like she has been trained, tackling her husband at knee level and pulling him down, perhaps sensing that the high muzzle velocity of a weapon like the one that sent these bullets is likely to pass through her body and into his if she remains standing.
She may not be from The Program, but she is some sort of pro, perhaps a former police officer who left the force to have a family. I can’t be sure.
I am only sure that we are under fire and that suburban houses do not come under automatic weapon fire in the middle of a Sunday afternoon in a small city in New Hampshire.
Semiautomatic fire, I should say, because six bullets hit the wall. A double burst from a semiautomatic rifle.
I spin and roll from the couch to the floor, staying beneath the sight lines of the window, and I belly crawl to the couple, now cowering on the floor.
“How many entrances in the house?” I say.
“Two,” the husband says, at the same time that his wife says, “Four.”
They look at each other.
She says, “Front, back, side, garage.”
“That’s right,” he says.
I like this woman. She has operational intelligence even under fire.
More glass shatters behind us as a second burst comes through the front door, three pings in rapid succession.
That means at least two men, advancing and anticipating our reaction inside the house.
“Grab the back of my waistband,” I tell the wife as I crawl in front of her. And then I tell the husband, “You grab the back of her waistband. We’ll move together in a line. Stay low, follow me, and I’ll get you out of here.”
The man starts to ask a question when a line of bullets slams into the wall high above us. That ends the conversation for the time being.
I duck walk them toward the side door. That’s where we are most likely to get out safely.
I select the side because of the way the attack is unfolding. If you want to take a house quietly, you surround it on all sides and send in an insertion team. If you want to take out a guy and not get your hands dirty, you shoot him through the front window. It’s crude but effective, barely a couple steps above a drive-by. But since that’s the way this attack is happening, the men are likely to be massed in the front yard.
I glance out the side door. It’s clear. I begin to open the door, but the wife stops me, grabbing my arm.
“Our daughter will be home from her friend’s house soon,” the wife says, fear in her voice.
“How soon is soon?” I say.
“Ten or fifteen minutes.”
“It will be over by then,” I say. “She’ll be okay. I promise you.”
She looks at me, judging whether she can trust me.
A look passes between us. I let her see I am a professional.
“Who the hell are you?” she says.
The sound of wood shatters at the front door.
“They’re here,” I say. “You have to get out now or you’re going to die.”
The man’s eyes are wide and unfocused. He’s going into shock. The woman starts to hyperventilate.
“Your family needs you,” I tell her. “Pull it together.”
I see her accessing a deeper part of herself, and her breathing slows.
I fling open the door and go out before them, eyeing both directions.
“Get at least four houses away,” I say. “Is there someone you trust in the neighborhood?”
The husband is uncertain, but the wife points to a green house several backyards away.
Behind us I hear men breaking through the front door and moving roughly through the living room.
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” the husband says.
“Go and call the police,” I say to the woman, and she pushes her husband out the door, squeezing next to him as they pass through the bushes into the next-door neighbor’s yard.
I could follow them and get out to the street, but where would I go?
I need the black comms rectangle in the toolshed so I can contact The Program, and I need to find out who these men are.
So while the couple makes their way to safety, I slip into the backyard.
There is one man there watching the back door. Heavyset with wide shoulders.
He stands at a slight ang
le, his rifle cocked but trained on the ground at his feet, ready to rise at a moment’s notice. It’s a decent operational posture, but only if he has another man backing him up, watching his six.
He does not.
I slip up behind him and I choke him out with a pincer motion, catching his throat in the crook of one elbow then closing the vise by grasping my wrist with the opposing arm. It’s not the pressure that does it so much as the placement. The neck is the nexus of both the nervous and arterial systems, all of them located close to the surface. It does not take much to gravely injure a person at throat level.
I don’t have time to find out who this man is or why he is doing what he’s doing.
I only have time to neutralize him.
I do it quickly, ignoring the hiss and gurgle as his body fights for breath beneath my grip. Rather than think of these noises as a man trying to live, I’ve been taught to think of them as the sounds of danger.
When the sounds stop, the danger stops with them.
In this way, it becomes easy to protect myself, overriding the natural human instinct for compassion.
The big man goes slack in my arms. I let him fall to the ground, and I race away from the house, toward the toolshed.
I’m halfway across the lawn when I see something is wrong.
The padlock on the toolshed, the one designed to open with my digital thumbprint.
It’s missing.
I race over to the shed and throw open the doors.
There is no black rectangle, no weapon mounted on the wall.
It’s a normal toolshed packed with gardening equipment.
It doesn’t much matter now, not with danger rushing at me from the house. One man is dead, but at least two men are still here, coming for me.
The back door slaps open, and a tall man steps out in a hurry. If he were smarter, he might slip out the door carefully, but not this guy. He throws open the door and it crashes against the wood frame of the house.
Which means I have to move quickly.
I scan the shed. A bag of mulch at my feet. Small garden tools scattered about, any of which could be deadly but none of which will work effectively in this situation.
I swing around to meet the man coming out of the house, and I see it: a garden spade propped up against the door.
I grab it in both hands, and I turn.
