by Allen Zadoff
This is not a professional demolition, a neat series of explosions that will collapse one floor upon the next. It’s an enormous blast in one corner of the building that sends it leaning sickeningly to one side.
There’s no way for me to get out of the building in time.
The best I can do is to run in the direction of the building’s fall.
My mind is racing, calculating angle and distance as it changes moment to moment.
There are perhaps thirty feet between this rooftop and the next nearest building, a smaller tower across the street.
Thirty feet away and a seventy foot drop. An impossible jump.
But as the federal building tilts, the space between the buildings decreases.
If I can time it right, it will be like jumping from one falling domino to the next one that has not yet fallen.
If I can time it.
Metal screams and windows explode beneath me. I hear bolts snapping and people shouting from the ground below.
Terror beats in my chest. I imagine jumping into space and falling, plummeting to the ground like Miranda.
Twenty-five feet between rooftops now.
That’s what my eye is telling me, but I might be wrong. Under this amount of duress, judgment can falter. I’m trained to work under pressure, to make significant and life-changing decisions under the most extraordinary circumstances.
Fifteen feet might be an acceptable risk. But twenty-five feet?
I’ve got seconds left to decide.
I’m too afraid to move. I’m frozen in place with the calculations racing through my mind, the distance, the possibility of making the jump, the likelihood of making a mistake.
The building tilts farther, knocking me to the rooftop. I manage to get back to my feet.
If I stay here I’m going to die. If I jump, at least I’ll have a chance.
Certain death or uncertain life.
Suddenly distance doesn’t matter.
I propel myself forward, running for the edge. I wait until the last possible moment, and then I jump into space—
I’m more than halfway across when I realize I’m not going to make it.
I’m descending faster than I’m moving forward, and even though I elongate my body and reach with my arms, there’s no way I will get to the other side.
I flash back to a week ago, the camp in Vermont, a beautiful summer day, a dark-green lake. I was leaping from a cliff, trusting fate as I dove into the water.
It’s easy to trust fate when you think it’s on your side.
But sometimes fate turns against you.
The way it did me, the day I met Mike.
The way it does to the people I meet on my missions, the people who breathe their last breaths in my arms.
The way it’s turning against me now.
Because now I am falling.
There is open air beneath my feet. I take a final breath, filling my lungs with oxygen, preparing myself for the terrifying drop to the pavement below.
Fate will have its way with me now in the form of a last fall.
My training doesn’t matter anymore. I’m falling, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
That’s when I see it.
A rope.
It appears in front of me seemingly out of nowhere, bright-orange knots in intervals down its length.
For a moment, I think I’m imagining it. A visual hallucination from a desperate boy who is about to die.
Illusion or not, I reach for it.
My fingers wrap around hard nylon cord. Real cord.
I grasp it and my hands slip. It takes every bit of strength I have to hang on hard enough to stop my fall.
But I am strong. I don’t let go.
My hands burn down the length of the rope until I come to a stop near the very end. Suddenly I go from falling to rising into the air, the rope swinging from side to side as I’m buffeted by strong winds from above.
I look up, following the length of nylon upward, craning my neck until I find its source. The rope has been dropped from a helicopter.
I stare up at its belly as it rises slowly, the rotors catching air and pulling me away.
When I look below, I see the Federal Building collapsing onto a downtown street, a rolling dust cloud enveloping several city blocks. It is an image that is terrible and familiar at the same time.
With the building gone, the darkness in the city is complete. Boston is a black void beneath me. Above me is open air.
I climb.
I reach the skid of the helicopter, then pull myself up into the cargo hold. I recognize this helicopter. I flew one just like it in Vermont less than a week ago.
I flop onto the floor and pull the door closed behind me.
The pilot looks back at me, a concerned expression on his face.
It’s Father.
“WELCOME BACK,” HE SAYS.
“Where did you come from?”
“What does it matter? I’m here. Dropping you a lifeline.”
Lifeline.
It’s the same term Francisco used.
“Why now?” I say.
“Because you needed one now, wouldn’t you say?”
“And before? When I was cut off in Camp Liberty, trying to communicate with you?”
“That’s a longer conversation,” he says.
I watch Father, his face impassive as he scans my body, assessing my health.
“You weren’t injured,” he says.
More a statement than a question.
“I wasn’t injured,” I say.
“Then let’s get you out of here.”
I USE A FIELD DRESSING TO WRAP MY BLEEDING HANDS.
Then I climb into the passenger seat next to Father.
I look at the sky through the windshield. A moment ago it looked like death. Now it looks like the opposite.
“I haven’t been able to get ahold of you for four days,” I say.
Father won’t look at me. His focus is straight ahead as he monitors the helicopter’s controls.
“I tried to contact you,” I say angrily. “We had contingencies in place, a safe house, a plan—”
“I know,” Father says.
“But you disappeared! Why?”
“I was under orders,” he says. “I had no choice but to cut you off.”
I take a long breath, forcing back the rage that’s threatening to spill out of me.
“Tell me why,” I say.
“First Francisco dropped off the radar, then you disappeared into the camp. The Program was hemorrhaging. That’s what it seemed like from our perspective. We had to stop the bleeding, or we risked losing everything. Can you understand that?”
Mike told the truth. I went into camp, and The Program interpreted that as a betrayal.
“What did you think happened to me?” I ask.
“We thought you’d been recruited, that you had turned.”
“You think my loyalty is that fragile?”
“As we discussed before the mission, there were questions about you.”
“But you tested me. You said I was fit for duty.”
“And then you disobeyed orders and went into Liberty.”
“So you wrote me off.”
“You can understand why we had doubts after what we’ve seen recently. From you and the other soldier.”
Two operatives breach protocol, one after the other. From The Program’s perspective it couldn’t be a coincidence—they’d have to assume it was systemic. At that point everyone’s allegiance is suspect until proven otherwise.
On one hand, their choice to cut me off makes sense.
On the other hand, they left me in the field to fend for myself, assuming betrayal instead of coming to get me.
I say, “If you still had doubts, you should have contacted me. We could have talked about it.”
“If we had tried to contact you in the camp, Moore would have killed you. We had to assume he’d discovered our soldier and was expecting
a second mission insertion. Any suspicious behavior, and he would have acted against you. So we could not contact you.”
“If you were so worried about Moore killing me, why did you decide to do it yourself?”
“What are you talking about?”
“The kill order,” I say.
“We never put out a kill order.”
I watch Father’s face to determine if he’s lying. I don’t see any evidence of it, but he’s expert at hiding such things.
I say, “You sent a freelance team to the safe house. What would you call it?”
“Is that what you think happened?” he says. “You’re wrong. That team wasn’t meant for you.”
“Funny, because it was me they were shooting at.”
Father exhales slowly, his grip tightening on the cyclic.
“We know you left Camp Liberty to go on an operation at Lake Massabesic.”
“The water treatment plant.”
“That’s right. We saw the photo that was transmitted from the plant. We had to assume you’d turned. If so, you had likely given us up to Moore. Maybe you’d told him about the safe house. He would send people to investigate, perhaps try to access our comms. We hired a freelance team to wait for them. Just in case.”
“But you’d already sanitized the house. Even if Moore’s people had come, they would have found nothing.”
“It was an opportunity.”
I look at Father. His face is composed again, his control of the helicopter exacting.
“What kind of opportunity?” I say.
“The woman you met at the safe house is an ex–FBI agent. She was part of a team that investigated Moore a decade ago.”
I think about the woman, her reaction under fire, the way she managed herself in what should have been a panicked situation.
“You put a freelance team in place so if Moore’s people showed up at her house—”
“It would look like Moore was exacting revenge,” Father says. “An attack in a suburban neighborhood. Civilians dead. Moore’s people on the scene.”
“You were setting him up,” I say, suddenly understanding.
“It would be an ironclad case, a reason for the FBI to go in and break up the camp. Not the mission we had in mind, but we realized we had to take Moore out one way or another. This was a contingency.”
It’s an ingenious plan, if you disregard the fact that The Program was willing to sacrifice an innocent family to achieve it.
I realize now that I made a mistake thinking the freelance team was sent for me. If The Program wanted me dead, they have other ways to do it.
Quieter ways.
Father says, “We had no way of knowing you would be the one to go to the safe house.”
“But it was me,” I say. “And I was alone.”
“Regretful,” Father says. “But you did what you were trained to do. Thank God you survived.”
Father adjusts the helicopter, arcing to the west, away from Boston.
When I look back at him, he’s watching me, staring into my eyes.
“You spent a long time inside that camp,” he says.
“Barely three days all told.”
“But it was enough,” Father says.
“Enough to kill Moore? Yes.”
“Enough to find out the truth. About our soldier.”
I nod. This is what Father is interested in. I see him struggling to appear casual.
“What happened to the soldier?” he says.
“He’s dead.”
I watch Father’s face, gauging his reaction, trying to understand what he feels, if he feels.
I see nothing there. No sadness. No pity.
“You’re sure he’s dead?” Father says.
“Very sure. I’m the one who killed him.”
He clears his throat.
“He turned,” Father says, his voice barely a whisper.
I nod.
“How did they do it?” he says.
I remember what Moore told me. Francisco had already turned against The Program long before he got to Camp Liberty. Moore only provided the possibility of a different life, an alternative to The Program. One that was more attractive to Francisco.
I could tell this to Father, but for some reason, I don’t want him to know.
It’s frightening enough for him to think that The Program could be outmatched by another organization. But the idea that that his soldiers are thinking autonomously would be far more damaging.
I will hang on to this information until I need it.
So I tell Father a different story.
“Moore brainwashed him. Cult induction techniques at a sophisticated level. Thought reform, complete isolation, induced dependency, paranoia of the outside world…”
“That shouldn’t have worked on someone like Francisco.”
“I was up there for three days and things started to get confusing. Francisco was there for almost four months.”
“So he’s gone?”
“I made sure of it.”
“Protect The Program,” Father says.
I meet his gaze.
“My prime objective,” I say.
“Well done,” Father says.
I buckle myself into the seat and lean back.
“Enough for now,” Father says. “There’s plenty of time to debrief later.”
I nod and close my eyes.
After a few minutes I fall sleep. My body shuts down after all it’s been through, slipping into recuperative mode.
I jerk awake only once to find Father looking at me. He gestures to a water bottle by the side of my seat. I take a chug, spit soot on the floor between my legs. Then I gulp down half the bottle, lean back, and fall into a deep sleep again.
The nightmares, whatever they might be, will come later.
Now I dream only of wind and sky, the thud of the rotors carrying me to safety, the magic of a rope appearing in front of me from out of nowhere.
I wake up when I feel the helicopter begin to descend. I’m looking down at a military base.
“Hanscom AFB,” Father says. “We’re about thirty miles northwest of the city.”
“Won’t we be seen?” I say.
“The Air Force and National Guard have been mobilized,” Father says. “And there’s nothing unusual about a military helicopter putting down on a military base.”
Father lands the helicopter, the blades slowly winding down above us.
I look at my jeans and the bloodstained shirt. Father notes it.
“There’s a bag behind the seat for you,” he says.
I find a small duffel in the back. I open the bag and take out a new military jacket and camos. An ID card identifying me as a National Guardsman.
“That should get you off base easily enough. Not that you need the help,” Father says.
I can’t take my shirt off in front of Father or he will see my wounds. There will be questions. Instead I slip the military-issue coat over my bloodied T-shirt, then I slide on the pants.
“Reports from Boston suggest that casualties will be minimal. You triggered the evacuation early enough to save lives. Homeland Security is rounding up the squads that blew the power grid.”
“They’re just kids,” I say.
“Dangerous kids,” Father says. “But they’ll be dealt with fairly. In any case, it’s got nothing to do with us. Not anymore.”
I pull the Guard ID out of the bag and slip it into my pocket.
“What happened on that roof?” Father says. “You couldn’t stop this?”
“I misjudged the girl.”
“That seems to be an issue for you.”
I hold my body still, willing myself not to react to Father’s statement.
“Not an issue,” I say.
But I’m lying. Because I tried to save Miranda.
Would I have really left The Program in order to be with her?
I’ll never know. She didn’t give me the chance to find out.
“Once
is an anomaly,” Father says. “Twice is an issue.”
He’s right. Samara was one. Miranda is two. There won’t be a number three. The Program won’t allow it.
“I didn’t know she had a backup detonator,” I say.
“You couldn’t get it away from her?”
Father’s question makes me angry.
“She jumped before I could get to her,” I say quickly. “I watched her die.”
I want to say more, but I stop myself. Without the chip in place, my emotions are raw, too close to the surface. I can’t trust myself to speak too much.
Father’s expression changes at my tone. His face softens.
“You’ve been through a lot,” he says.
He says it like it matters to him, like he’s concerned for me.
“The explosion shook me up a little. I’ll be okay.”
The rotors whir above us. I pull my emotions inside, hardening my face to a soldier’s countenance.
“I think you’ll be okay, too,” he says. “In fact I’m sure of it.”
I grab the duffel and open the helicopter door.
“This thing we have is fragile, Zach.”
Zach.
It’s a shock to hear him say my name.
“The Program is fragile,” he says. “It doesn’t seem so, but it is. It’s based on a foundation of trust.”
“Of course,” I say.
“We have to trust each other,” Father says.
I think of the freelance team in the backyard of the safe house.
I look at Father in the helicopter next to me.
I think of the chip hidden under the tape on my chest right now. The things Francisco shared with me about The Program.
Francisco may have gone insane, but there was truth to what he said.
I look at Father.
I don’t trust him. Not anymore.
I use every skill at my disposal to hide my feelings from him, masking them under layers and layers of other feelings, then capping those with a surface of calm.
Father’s watching me, waiting for me to say something.
“I trust you,” I say.
“Good,” he says.
He nods once. We’re done.
“Leave the base. Destroy your phone. There’s a Stop&Shop two blocks away with an Infiniti G37 in the lot. Check your e-mail from a safe location when you get clear. We’ll send you instructions.”
