I Am the Mission

by Allen Zadoff

  “I can see it, and I know it’s fun to break the rules. But the U.S. is already under attack from foreign powers. You’d think kids would want to defend against that rather than contributing to it.”

  “I don’t think they see it like that,” he says. “Some people think of it more like a global government. Hackers vs. the establishment, us vs. them.”

  “Us vs. them. That’s how Moore thinks of it.”

  “That’s why you’ve been sent after him?”

  “I never know why I’m sent. I don’t need to know. I’m a weapon.”

  I think about the things I’ve seen in Moore’s camp over the last two days.

  “But in this case,” I say, “I think I figured out why.”

  I glance at my iPhone, checking the time. If I’m going to get back, I should try to get there before morning.

  “You’re going back to the camp?” Howard says.

  “I have a mission to complete.”

  Howard smiles. He pulls an iPhone out of his bag.

  “I bought this before I left New York,” he says.

  “I can’t call you on a number that can be traced—”

  “I know that,” he says, interrupting me. “I used a credit card number I snagged from Verizon corporate. It gets billed back to them as an internal department expense. It will take them months to figure it out. By then I’ll have wiped the data.”

  “I’ll keep my phone on,” I say. “The same number I called you from the first time. There’s signal blocking throughout the camp, but if you need me, send a text and I’ll check for it when I can.”

  “Can I have your special iPhone number, too?”

  “My Program phone? Why do you need that?”

  “If we lose contact. If it’s an emergency.”

  I hesitate, wondering if I should trust Howard with my phone number.

  Which, of course, is ridiculous, because I’ve already trusted him with my life.

  I pass him the phone.

  “Wow.” That’s all he says.

  He handles it delicately, cradling it in two hands.

  “It’s an iPhone, Howard, not a baby.”

  “I’ve never held a baby,” Howard says, “but I know how to respect other people’s digital property.”

  He gently taps open the Settings folder and takes a snapshot of the information with his own phone. Then he hands my Program phone back to me.

  “I’ll let you know the second I’ve decoded the SDHC card.”

  I smile. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Howard.”

  “Your life would be considerably less awesome,” he says.

  “That’s true.”

  “Really?” he says, delighted that I’m agreeing with him.

  “You risked everything coming up here.”

  “I know,” he says softly.

  “It means a lot to me.”

  Before I can stop him, Howard rushes forward, squashing me in a bear hug.

  I say, “I’ve got to be honest. It makes me uncomfortable when you do that.”

  “Just once,” he says. “Then you can go back to being a tough guy.”

  I LEAVE THE SILVERADO IN THE LONG-TERM PARKING LOT AT THE AIRPORT.

  I don’t want to bring it into Camp Liberty on the outside chance the freelance team was hired and equipped by Moore. After considering what Howard told me about the SDHC card, I have to ask myself who has the sophistication to place an electronic device inside a card.

  Moore’s people might be able to do it, but why would they invite me to stay, then try to take me out the moment I left the camp?

  Still, it’s a risk I cannot take.

  So I leave the truck in the long-term parking lot where it will not be scrutinized for days, and I look for a replacement vehicle, something with the engine still warm. If someone just dropped off their car in long-term parking, I can get at least forty-eight hours of use out of it before it’s reported missing.

  I walk the parking lot in the middle of the night, making myself appear like a weary traveler who just got in and can’t remember where he left his car. It’s not tough to do. I actually stumble going up the ramp, a harsh reminder of how tired I am and the fact that even trained muscles will start to misfire at some point.

  I find a new-model Honda Accord, open the Travel Channel app on my iPhone. It’s an app with a built-in database, and it should work without needing to contact a Program server.

  I click on SELECT A DESTINATION. I find JAPAN on the scroll wheel, select it, then wait as the app searches its database for the master key code for the Accord. When it finds the right code, it transmits a remote signal.

  I hear the familiar click of the locks being disengaged, followed by the engine starting up. I get in and drive out of the parking lot. I use the ticket I got a few minutes ago, explaining to the girl at the pay gate that I messed up and drove into long-term when I only needed short-term.

  “You can charge me for five minutes if you need to,” I say with a smile.

  She winks at me and opens the gate.

  THE SUN IS COMING UP BY THE TIME I GET BACK TO CAMP LIBERTY.

  I pull up to the roadblock outside camp in the Accord.

  Rifles come up. A girl with a gun walks up to my window. She stares at me for a moment, and then her expression lightens.

  “I know you,” she says. “I saw you at the community center the other night. You’re a legend.”

  “I don’t feel like a legend. I feel like a guy who needs to go to the bathroom and get some breakfast. No offense.”

  “Girls go to the bathroom, too,” she says.

  “I don’t have a sister,” I say, “so I never learned these important details.”

  She laughs. “They told us we might see you today. I’m glad you’re back.”

  “Me, too,” I say.

  “Always nice to have a new brother.”

  I allow myself to feel what Daniel Martin might feel: proud for persuading his parents to let him come back, nervous about returning here, excited about being a part of something new.

  The girl signals to her partner at the roadblock to lower his weapon.

  “By the way, you timed it perfectly,” she says.

  “For what?”

  “Breakfast,” she says.

  She motions to the boy, and he opens the security gate and pulls the tire strip from the road, clearing a path for me.

  I PARK THE ACCORD AND JOIN A GROUP OF KIDS HEADING INTO THE MAIN HOUSE FOR BREAKFAST.

  There is a large dining area off the main hall where Moore stopped me yesterday.

  I follow the group through the double doors and I’m met by loud conversation and laughter. Members of the community sit at long tables with large shared platters of food running down the center.

  Family style. That’s what this type of serving is called.

  I look around the room for a free place to sit.

  Where you sit, when you sit, how you enter a room like this is vitally important. If I were in a high school, I’d be concerned with status, social proof, defining myself through the hundreds of cues that create ranking. But a community like this has different standards of evaluation, and I have to recalibrate my thinking.

  I am a guest here. A guest does not have to fit in or look comfortable. The opposite, in fact. I allow myself to appear uncertain, not knowing where I should go or what I should do. I let my body reflect that, tensing my shoulders and breathing in a shallow way that is unfamiliar to me.

  I use the opportunity to scan the room as if I’m looking for a place to sit.

  But I don’t care where I sit. I’m looking for Moore.

  I need to know his patterns. Where he eats, where he takes meetings, when he goes to the bathroom, anything and everything.

  Because I need this to be done.

  “Daniel!” Lee shouts.

  He’s sitting at a side table with Miranda next to him. I raise my hand in greeting and move toward him.

  “Good morning,” I sa
y.

  “Look who’s back!” Lee says.

  Miranda nods to me briefly then returns her attention to a half-eaten bowl of oatmeal.

  “Join us,” Lee says. “Grab some food. You know how it works here?”

  “No. It’s my first meal with the group,” I say.

  “It’s every man for himself,” he says. “Especially at breakfast.”

  “Sounds rough,” I say.

  “It’s only rough if they run out of bacon,” Lee says, and that earns him a laugh from the table.

  I take an empty spot at the table across from him, look down the row of faces at kids who greet me.

  “I’d introduce you to everyone,” Lee says, “but you’ve met, like, a hundred people in the last couple days. I’m sure you won’t remember anyone’s name.”

  “I barely remember my own name at this point,” I say, and the group laughs.

  “Anyway, you all know Daniel,” he announces to the table. “Or if you don’t, you’re going to get to know him. Because he’s staying with us for a while.”

  That earns me appreciative nods.

  I sit down, grab a plate, and dig into some eggs.

  I say, “You’re in a good mood, this morning, Lee.”

  “Yeah, well, I had an attitude adjustment,” he says. “I talked with my father last night.”

  “What did he think of The Hunt?” I say.

  “He was very pleased,” Lee says. I note heads perking up around the table. “He reviewed all the stats, and he said we did a good job.”

  Some kids fist-bump each other around the table.

  “You did great,” I say. “No thanks to me.”

  “What do you mean?” a blond girl next to me asks.

  I glance at Lee. He nods, like I can say whatever I want about it.

  “I wasn’t exactly a supersoldier,” I tell the girl.

  “It was your first Hunt,” Lee says generously.

  “I guess,” I say. “I’m still playing catch-up with how you do things here. It’s a lot of information all at once.”

  “We’re not so different from other places where people live together. Universities, boarding schools—”

  “Oh yeah,” I say. “It’s just like Exeter. With guns.”

  The kids at the table laugh.

  “There’s a long history of alternative communities in the United States,” Lee says. “In a sense, even our forefathers were an alternative group. They weren’t living in the way that British society dictated, and they were resisting the laws that their British masters attempted to enforce.”

  “Are you comparing our government to the colonial British?” I say.

  “There are similarities,” Lee says. “A large and powerful governmental body that becomes cut off from the source of its power. It grows distant and ineffectual over time, more concerned with servicing the needs of the rich and powerful than the common man.”

  “There are parallels, I agree. But there’s one big difference. It’s our government and our country. We can change it if we like. We’re not a colony.”

  “You’ve heard of Too Big to Fail?” Lee says.

  “Sure.”

  “We’re too big to change.”

  “I thought change was inevitable,” I say.

  “You guys are boring me,” Miranda says.

  Lee’s face tenses. “These are important issues, Miranda.”

  His voice is suddenly loud enough to be heard across the room.

  Miranda meets his stare. “Vitally important,” she says. “So much so that they shouldn’t be discussed casually over pancakes.”

  Lee’s shoulders relax. “Agreed,” he says. “There’s a time and a place for everything.”

  Suddenly a siren wails through the encampment.

  The entire room stands in unison, people moving in a quick but orderly fashion to exits all around the room.

  “What’s going on?”

  “It’s a drill,” Miranda says.

  “You don’t know if it’s a drill,” Lee says.

  “It has to be a drill,” she says.

  They look at each other, concerned.

  “What does the sound mean?” I say.

  “It’s a warning siren,” Miranda says, quickly coming around the table.

  “A warning of what?”

  “That we’re under attack,” Lee says.

  “We have to hurry,” Miranda says, and she grabs me and pulls me out of the room as the siren blares again.

  PEOPLE ARE RUNNING THROUGH THE BUILDING.

  I am herded through a side door where an assigned monitor stands with a clicker, making a head count of everyone entering. There is controlled chaos through the house as the siren continues to wail. Guns start appearing, rifles and nasty snub-nosed shotguns. People are strapping on holsters, moving to assigned positions around the house. I glance into rooms as we move down the hall, and I see at least two armed people by each window taking up shooting positions around the perimeter.

  Sergeant Burch comes running toward Lee, thrusting a walkie-talkie into his hands.

  “My father?” Lee says.

  “Secured upstairs,” Sergeant Burch says.

  “It’s just a drill, right?” Lee says.

  “No such thing,” Sergeant Burch says. “It’s real until we hear differently.”

  “But my father would tell you if it was a drill.”

  “Not anymore, he wouldn’t,” Sergeant Burch says. “Not since—”

  He glances at me. He chooses his next words very carefully.

  “The troubles,” Sergeant Burch says.

  Lee’s face goes dark.

  “I have to take off,” he says to me. “Miranda, would you take care of him?”

  “What do you want me to do with him?” she says.

  “Stash him someplace safe, then take your position.”

  His walkie crackles, and he moves off quickly.

  “Why do I need to be stashed?” I say.

  “Everyone has assigned positions,” Miranda says. “It’s not safe for you to be walking around on your own.”

  “Can I come with you?”

  “Not a good idea,” she says. “I’m going to put you in an interior room, and I’ll let Lee know where you are. It’s almost certainly a drill. But if anything happens, one of us will come to get you.”

  She rushes me down the hall, knocks hard twice at a door, and when there’s no response, she opens it.

  It’s a windowless utility closet. She motions me inside.

  “I’m sorry it’s not nice,” she says. “It’s the best place for you right now.”

  “I’ll be okay,” I say. “I can defend myself with a mop if I have to.”

  “About this morning at breakfast—I was kind of ignoring you because I don’t want to be too obvious about us. It’s better if people don’t know.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you?”

  She steps into the closet with me, closing the door behind her. She kisses me hard on the lips.

  “I was thinking about you all night,” she says.

  “I was thinking about you, too,” I say, which is mostly a lie. I was thinking about my mission.

  The siren is still wailing, a cycle of a ten-second blasts, followed by ten seconds of silence, then another set of blasts.

  “I have to go,” she says, and she turns and runs out of the room, closing the door behind her.

  A moment later, I hear a key going into the door.

  I give it a minute and I check the knob. Sure enough, it’s locked.

  I hear multiple sets of footsteps passing by in the hall outside, people still hustling to get into position.

  I imagine the house filled with activity.

  Somewhere upstairs is Moore.

  The community is on high alert, heavily armed, at the height of paranoia. But all of their energy is facing outward, toward an unseen enemy.

  I am inside. I am close.

  It’s the perfect moment for me to
act.

  I reach into my pants pocket, find the knife I took out of the freelance team’s truck last night. I flip a switch and watch as the three-inch blade slides out.

  I let the siren cycle twice, and when it starts up the third time, I slide the knife blade into the doorjamb, twist it hard to create a space between the door and frame, then jiggle the blade back and forth over the lock, applying pressure until it slips back into the door.

  I twist to remove the knife, open the door, and I am free.

  People are running through the hallway on the way to their ready stations. Some set up in nearby rooms, taking up defensive positions at the windows. Others brush by me, distracted and rushing as the alarm continues to ring.

  It makes it easy for me to step into the hallway, close the door behind me, and join the flow of people moving through the hall.

  I MOVE WITH PURPOSE, PROJECTING A CONFIDENT ENERGY.

  People nod as they pass me in the hallway, assuming I know where I’m going. I ignore them, communicating that I’m too busy to acknowledge them, slow down, or answer questions.

  They have a job; I have a job. This is what I want them to see.

  I move toward the center of the building. It’s a long, rectangular three-story structure with a basement. Moore is upstairs. That’s all I know.

  But it is enough.

  Moore is their commander. He will want to direct the action.

  There is strategic advantage to the high ground. Line of sight, an ability to understand the battlefield, to position troops and ammunition.

  So I follow the hallway on the main floor until I arrive at a staircase.

  There are guards here, two of them.

  They raise their weapons as they see me coming.

  “Lee needs me,” I say.

  “We’re not supposed to let anybody up,” a boy says. He’s nervous. Not a bad thing for me.

  The siren is still wailing through the building, bodies in motion all around us.

  “I’m in a rush,” I say, pressuring him. “Why don’t you call up there right now?”