by Allen Zadoff
Suddenly I think of Dr. Acosta at the hospital the other day. The strange MRI scanner. The pain and heat I felt—not everywhere, just one specific location.
Under my scar.
If The Program implanted me with something in the past and wanted to cover up the scar, what would be the best way to do it?
Camouflage a scar inside a scar.
I think back to the fight years ago that ended with a knife blade inside me. I remember the way The Program brought me to a clinic afterward, how I was cleaned up, the shots I was given. The minor operation to close the wound.
How I was sutured afterward.
A scar inside a scar.
Dr. Acosta said it was an MRI that had been adapted for a special use. Could it be used to adjust a chip that was already inside me?
I press my thumb against the scar, remembering the sensations I felt there, deep inside my chest.
I rinse the knife with water, and I use it to slice open the scar tissue on my chest.
Blood pools in the wound and drips down into the sink. I probe first with the knife, then I use my fingers to separate the skin, watch a pink slit open in my flesh. The pain is intense now, but I am trained to deal with pain.
I feel it, but it does not stop me. I do what I have to do.
I lean in close to the mirror and peer into the wound.
There, on the muscle of my pec, is a fistula of flesh growing out from the muscle. I prod it gently with the knife tip. It is hard inside, not bone but something else nestled inside scar tissue.
Flesh grows around a foreign object in the body, forming a protective shell. I know this from my biology studies. I cut through the flesh, a nick that opens the internal scar tissue.
That’s when I see something shiny there, a faint blue glow inside.
It’s a sterile Gorilla Glass tubule, the size of a fat grain of rice.
I look again, making sure I’m not imagining it. I tap it with the edge of the knife, feel hard glass.
It’s real.
I take a deep breath. Then I reach inside myself, and I pull it out.
I wash the tube in the sink, drain the blood from around it. I hold it up to the light. I see something that resembles a miniature chip with a tiny antenna coil wrapped around it. The entire device is sealed into a neat and nearly undetectable package inside the tubule.
It was glowing inside me, but not anymore.
A short double wire extends from the bottom of the tube. That’s the part that was inside my muscle when I pulled it out.
Francisco was telling the truth.
The Program was inside of me, hidden in the last place I would look: the scar above my heart.
I step back from the mirror. The blood runs down my body and drips onto the floor at my feet.
I don’t feel any different. Maybe Francisco was wrong about the purpose of the chip.
Suddenly I hear a noise behind me, and I spin around.
Howard is standing in the doorway, watching me. His face is pale, and he’s shaking.
“What are you doing to yourself?” he says, his voice quaking.
“Francisco was telling the truth,” I say.
“Who is Francisco?”
I hold out a bloody palm with the tubule in it.
“He was a soldier,” I say. “Like me.”
HOWARD USES VODKA FROM THE MINIBAR TO STERILIZE THE CUTS.
Then he takes a roll of duct tape from his bag, and I use it as a battlefield dressing to close the wounds. It’s a temporary measure, but a good one. It will stem the flow of blood and allow the body to begin to heal until I can get to a drugstore and find more appropriate dressings.
When we’re done cleaning me up, we sit down in the room, and I tell him what I know about the chip. I tell him what Francisco said about its neurosuppressive quality, the effect it has on throttling fear.
“I’ve never heard of anything like that,” Howard says.
“But it’s possible?” I say.
“There have been a lot of experiments studying the effect of magnetic fields on the brain. But there’s nothing functional at this scale. This would be a level of sophistication years beyond anything available now.”
“It makes sense,” I say. “If you want to create the perfect soldier, start by taking away his fear.”
“How do you feel with it outside of you?”
“The same as I did before.”
“So maybe it was bullshit. Or maybe he was wrong about what it does.”
“Maybe so. But he wasn’t wrong about the chip being there. So what else could it be?”
“Let’s take a look,” Howard says. He powers on his computer, then places the tubule on the lighted Plexiglas device he used to scan the SDHC card earlier.
A moment later, a magnified picture of the tubule appears on the computer screen. Howard points to it. “There’s a computer chip located here. And do you see the little wire coil that surrounds half of the chip?”
“What is it?”
“It could be a power source. Or an antenna.”
That’s when the hotel phone rings, the noise echoing in the quiet of the room.
Howard looks at me.
“Don’t touch it,” I say.
The phone continues to ring.
“You have to get out of here,” I tell Howard. “They’re coming.”
“Who’s coming?”
The Program. A freelance team. Moore’s people.
Whoever it is, it will be trouble.
I don’t have time to explain it to him.
“Grab everything and get it into the other room,” I say.
I imagine them downstairs, whoever they are, inquiring at the front desk about which room we’re in. If the desk is good, they won’t give out that information. But in Manchester, in the middle of the night, it’s probably a young guy who wishes he weren’t here. A young guy who doesn’t want a hassle, who isn’t above providing a little information when forty dollars is slipped across the counter.
Maybe they asked him to call to make sure I was in, or maybe he knew something was up and called after they left. Either way, it’s not a coincidence. Not at five AM
Howard starts pulling plugs from outlets, slapping his laptops closed and stacking them to carry to the other room.
“Wait until you hear the door to this room open,” I tell him, “then get out as quickly and quietly as you can. Hide somewhere in the hotel, and don’t come back here no matter what. Wait until there’s no movement from upstairs or in the parking lot, then get yourself back home to New York. Take the train if you can, but if you need it, there’s a black truck in the back of the parking lot. Keys in the front wheel well.”
“What will you do?”
I shake my head, unwilling to answer.
“If something happens to me—”
“You’re scaring me.”
“Listen,” I say calmly. “If something happens and for some reason you don’t hear from me, I don’t want you searching for me. Destroy any evidence of our communication. It’s the only way to keep yourself safe.”
“Holy shit holy shit holy shit,” he says, starting to panic.
I grab him by the arms.
“You’re going to be okay, Howard. I promise you.”
He takes a deep breath, looks me in the eye. I see his body relax slightly.
“Be careful, Daniel.”
“I will.”
He rushes into the other suite, and I close the door behind him.
I spend sixty seconds fixing the room, straightening cushions, checking for anything that might give away Howard’s presence.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, bare-chested with my wounds taped up.
I reach up to my chest and carefully peel back the tape there.
I press the tubule into the adhesive, then I put the tape back over the wound.
The chip is no longer inside me, but it’s hidden against me, safe, until I can examine it further.
I throw o
n a T-shirt, realize it will not cover the cuts on my arms, and grab a hoodie from the closet and zip it to my neck, hiding the wounds.
I hear a door open and close down the hall.
Whoever they are, they came by stairs, not risking the elevator
I turn out the lights, and I sit in a chair at a diagonal from the door.
My breathing is fast, much faster than normal. I take a moment to center myself, relaxing my shoulders and willing my breath to slow as I’ve done a thousand times before
It doesn’t work.
My breathing turns rapid and shallow, my chest moving in a strange way. Something is wrong with my body. It seems to be reacting without my being able to control it.
It takes enormous concentration to get calm and centered. I only have time for three deep breaths before I hear it.
IT’S NO LOUDER THAN A WHISPER.
The sound of a lubricating spray being squirted into the door lock followed by a tool being eased into the mechanism. The knob is jiggled briefly, and the door opens.
A figure enters the room in an instant, moving with the ease of a shadow.
I know the posture, the powerful way he moves through the world.
It’s Mike.
He stares at me, and I stare back, unblinking.
He steps deeper into the room and closes the door behind him. My breath catches in my chest.
“You don’t look good,” he says.
I wipe sweat from my forehead.
The glow of daylight comes through the blinds, illuminating Mike’s profile in front of the doorway. He looks huge inside the room.
“I haven’t been sleeping well,” I say.
“No, it’s something else,” he says. He studies me curiously. “You look afraid. You’re not afraid of me, are you?”
I will myself not to react to his comment. I make my face calm, breathe slowly and evenly. I touch my forehead again, and my hand comes away wet.
“Why are you here, Mike?”
“It’s not a social call, if that’s what you were wondering.”
“That’s good, because I didn’t have time to buy party favors.”
“You’re still funny,” he says. “Even under duress.”
“I’m not under duress. But you obviously are. You’re sneaking into a hotel room in the middle of the night.”
“I didn’t know what I’d find in here.”
“You found me. Now why don’t you tell me what you’re doing here?”
He’s moved closer to me without my realizing it, every step a chess move.
Francisco was right. You can know Mike yet not see him coming.
“The Program sent me,” Mike says simply.
I stand up, bringing my body to a state of readiness. I want Mike to view me as an operative like him. Dangerous like him.
“The Program… has… disappeared,” I say.
He looks at me strangely.
“I received my mission brief just like always. Actually, this particular brief had an ‘urgent’ code attached to it.”
“What’s urgent?”
“You. Your status here.”
He glances around the room. I know he’s scanning for threats, evidence of other people in the space, hidden dangers, potential weapons.
I say, “I lost communication with The Program four days ago. Even the safe house was sanitized when I got there.”
I don’t tell him about the freelance team. I decide to hold back that information, at least for now.
“What do you think happened?” Mike says.
“I thought The Program had been breached.”
“And now?”
“Now I don’t know.”
He shakes his head.
“They cut you off,” he says.
“What the hell—?”
I’ve been worried about The Program for days, confused and upset as I’ve tried to figure out how to move forward without their support and direction.
“Why would they cut me off?” I say. “I was on a mission.”
“You already know the answer,” Mike says.
“I don’t.”
He sighs. “They cut you off because you went into the camp.”
“I had no other choice.”
“That’s not what it looked like. Not from their standpoint.”
“What did it look like?”
“I don’t know all the details,” Mike says. “But I’m guessing it looked a lot like what happened before.”
“You mean with the dead soldier?”
I see a flicker of tension at Mike’s forehead. If what Francisco said is true, it was Mike who brought him into The Program, and Mike who bears some responsibility for him.
“The soldier before you was sent in and disappeared. That’s why you were told not to go in, but you ignored orders.”
“I didn’t ignore them. It was a calculation on my part. A matter of mission dynamics.”
“Calculated or not, when you went in there, you tied their hands. They had no choice but to distance themselves from you.”
“It’s not like I disappeared,” I said. “I’ve been trying to contact them all along.”
“How could they know it was you?”
“I was using security protocols!”
Mike squats, his hands resting on his thighs. His voice gets quiet.
“I’m not supposed to talk to you about this.”
I don’t say anything, waiting him out. There’s no way to trick Mike. He’ll tell me or he won’t, but it will be his own decision.
“Moore is the Pied Piper,” he says. “They’re scared of him, scared of what he can do. One operative goes in and disappears. The next goes in against orders. They weren’t taking any chances. It became a burn operation.”
“Is that why you’re here?” I say. “To complete the burn?”
He stands, chewing his bottom lip as he considers the question.
I make no outward change in my posture. But I am ready for him, ready for imminent attack.
I evaluate the odds. I am coming off a mission, and Mike looks fresh and well rested. That’s a factor in his favor. On the other hand, we are in a small interior space, and his physical advantage is diminished by lack of maneuvering room. Besides, I’m more familiar with the space than he is. That’s a factor in my favor.
But I can feel my heart beating faster than it should be before a fight. Without the chip, I have less control of my reactions.
I calculate Mike’s advantage to be 60 percent to my 40.
“Let’s calm down here,” Mike says. “I can sense you getting overheated, and there’s no need for it. It’s not a burn operation. I’m here to get a status report. And deliver a message.”
“What message?”
“Status first,” he says.
I clear my throat. I’m not used to reporting to Mike, and I’m not comfortable with the idea. But at this point, I don’t have a lot of options.
“Moore is dead,” I say. “I completed the mission.”
“Is that right?” Mike says, his face relaxing into a grin.
“You knew already,” I say, not believing his reaction for a second.
“I knew,” he says, by way of admission. “Incidentally I had no doubt that you would do it. This despite what some—uh—others may have thought.”
The subtext is clear. Mother and Father doubted.
“You said you had a message for me?”
“Ah, that’s where it gets interesting,” Mike says. “The fact is you started the mission. You haven’t finished. Not yet.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You cut off the head of the serpent, but you were dealing with a Hydra.”
Hydra, the multiheaded serpent of Greek mythology.
“Even as we sit here,” Mike says, “things are progressing at the camp.”
“Liberty is falling apart. I saw it happening before I left.”
“You’re wrong. You assumed it would disassemble. In fact the oppo
site is occurring.”
I think about Lee, his anger at his father, his desperation to prove himself worthy.
“It’s Lee,” I say. “He’s taken over.”
“That’s right. Along with his sister,” Mike says.
I think about Miranda the first night I was at the camp. Would she be helping Lee after her father’s death? Or would she use the opportunity to get free?
“I thought the camp was blacked out. How does The Program know what’s happening there?”
“Someone is feeding information to the FBI. We got it on intercept,” Mike says.
“An agent?” I say.
“Not likely. It’s someone at the camp. He got cold feet and he’s been e-mailing from the forest.”
I think of Sergeant Burch slipping out of the woods after I killed Moore, the way we passed each other without a word. Burch, who served loyally by Moore’s side for so long. I imagine him seeing Moore radicalize, watching the camp change into something it was never intended to be. I imagine what he went through before deciding to take action against his friend, the torture he must have put himself through.
Mike says, “We got the news, and we saw the truck leaving the encampment earlier. I was sent here to see if it was you who left—”
“And?”
“I was told to send you back in to neutralize the situation. Do you remember the first thing the U.S. government did during the Iraq War way back in 2003? It wasn’t Saddam Hussein they killed.”
I think back to my military history lessons when I was in training.
“It was his sons,” I say.
“That’s right. Because if Saddam died and his sons lived, nothing would have changed. You know where this is going, don’t you?”
“Moore’s children.”
“You have to take care of them,” Mike says. “Quickly and efficiently.”
“Why don’t we send the FBI in now?” I say.
“The FBI is well meaning, but it moves at the speed of bureaucracy. This has become an imminent-threat situation. By the time the FBI realizes the true nature of the threat, it will be too late.”
“You’re not my handler. You can’t send me on assignment.”
“I’m not sending you,” Mike says. “The Program is sending you.”
“If they’re so unsure about me, why would they send me back in now?”
