I Am the Mission: The Unknown Assassin Book 2

by Allen Zadoff

  “What’s it doing?” I ask.

  “We call it an MSRR—mobile safe room relay. Mobile because we can camouflage it inside other devices and move it as needed. A safe room because all signals into or out of this room are now blocked. It uses active noise control technology to feedback on whatever sound is generated in the room, effectively canceling it out. We are, for all intents and purposes, in a comms black hole.”

  No comms means no communications of any kind.

  “This would be great for the bathroom,” I say. “Total privacy.”

  “Haven’t used it for that,” Father says with a smile, “but thanks for the suggestion.”

  He takes an iPad from his bag and puts it on the counter in front of us.

  He says, “While the MSRR blocks all external signals, it also provides us with secure digital-satellite uplink.”

  “Why do we need all this?” I say.

  “Because we’re going to finish your briefing now,” Father says.

  “We?”

  Father performs a special finger gesture on the surface of the iPad, a version of the secure gesture I use on my iPhones. All of our digital devices in The Program have covert operating systems that run parallel to the system on the surface.

  A moment later a window opens on the iPad screen.

  It’s Mother.

  She’s sitting in an office somewhere. She looks at me, a digital earpiece glowing on the side of her head.

  My back stiffens, my body automatically shifting to attention, the posture of a soldier in front of his superior.

  “Your father tells me you are well,” Mother says.

  “I am,” I say.

  “I was worried when we didn’t hear from you.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “It won’t happen again.”

  “You are so valuable to us,” Mother says. “To me.”

  Valuable. Possessions are valuable, not people. But I understand what Mother means. I am a soldier, an asset to The Program. And in her own way, I believe Mother cares about me. After all, she took me under her wing and trained me to become the person I am today. She gave my life a new purpose after my real father was killed.

  The part we have never discussed: It was likely she who ordered the killing in the first place.

  “Father brought you up to speed?” Mother says.

  “In part,” I say.

  Mother’s image is replaced by a series of photos on the screen. I see a tall, intense man with a shaved head, first in military service photos, later as an older man in what appear to be surveillance photos taken from a distance with a telephoto lens.

  “This is Eugene Moore,” Mother says.

  “We don’t have many recent photos,” Father adds. “Moore has become increasingly paranoid and isolationist over time. He rarely leaves Camp Liberty.”

  Next I see photos of a young man and woman. The boy has closely cropped brown hair, the girl long red hair and freckles with a beautiful tomboy quality. I note familiar facial characteristics in both of them.

  “Moore has two children,” Father says. “A son named Lee who is your age, and a girl named Miranda. She’s a year younger.”

  Mother’s image returns to the screen.

  “Moore is the target, correct?” I say.

  “That’s right,” Father says.

  “And which of his kids is the mark?” I say.

  My assignments have two components. First there is the mark, someone my own age who I get close to and who leads me inside. Then there is the target, the one I am assigned to terminate.

  “There is no mark,” Mother says.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “We’re sending you at him directly,” Father says.

  The images of Moore and his family disappear from the iPad screen, replaced by shots of a large brick building surrounded by a parking lot.

  Mother says, “Moore holds a recruiting event several times a year in different towns throughout New Hampshire. Parents and kids apply from all over the United States to get an audience with him. You’ll be at his next event.”

  “Am I going to fill out an application?” I say.

  “You already have,” Mother says. “We took care of it. But unfortunately it’s not that easy. Moore selects candidates from the crowd who he wants to meet after the event. Just because you’re there doesn’t mean you get an audience with him.”

  “How does he decide who to meet?” I say.

  “He claims to have a sixth sense,” Father says. “He believes he can feel whether a young person is a proper candidate or not.”

  “How can I make myself feel like a candidate if I don’t know what he’s looking for?”

  Mother’s image appears on the iPad. “We think you already feel like a candidate,” she says.

  “What does that mean?” I say, willing my voice to remain steady.

  Father steps toward me. “She’s talking about your recent issues. The things that caused you to drop off the grid.”

  I had issues during my last mission that caused me to question my orders for the first time. I deviated from my assignment, thinking I knew better than Mother and Father. Only later did I find out that The Program had been right all along, and I had been wrong.

  I meet Mother’s eyes on the iPad screen. “Those issues have been dealt with. I told Father that I just need to keep working.”

  “He told me about your conversation,” Mother says. “But the fact remains you know what it feels like to have doubts now. We need you to access that part of yourself.”

  I sit very still and take slow breaths.

  For a moment, I wonder if this is another test, the entire scenario constructed as a way of gauging my loyalty.

  “You want me to have doubts again?” I say.

  “Not exactly,” Mother says. “We want Daniel Martin to have doubts.”

  “Who is Daniel Martin?”

  “That’s your identity for this mission,” Father says.

  A different mission, a different name. That’s how it always is.

  Mother continues, “Moore will be looking for young people who are confused and questioning the status quo. Disorganized minds he can mold to his purpose. You need to appear to be one of those kids.”

  I think about what this means, the mental confusion I have to embody to seem like a viable candidate to Moore.

  “You want me to get recruited,” I say. “That’s the mission.”

  Father nods.

  “So I’ll get into camp and take him down from the inside.”

  “Absolutely not,” Father says. “We can’t have you at Camp Liberty. It’s too dangerous.”

  “There’s a total communications blackout at the camp,” Mother says. “It’s in a valley surrounded by mountains. They have high-tech electronic signal blocking. Nothing gets in or out, person or communication, unless Moore allows it. If you were to go in, we would have no way to help you.”

  “You can’t send a drone over?”

  “Homeland Security tried. Two drones fell out of the sky. Moore has the technical sophistication to counter them.”

  That’s when I understand what happened before me, the reason I’m receiving this assignment.

  “The soldier—” I say. “He got inside.”

  Mother’s face hardens into a mask of anger and disappointment.

  Father looks away from the iPad.

  I don’t blame him. I hope I never see a look like that directed at me.

  I watch the blue light pulsing on the MSRR. I think of the dead soldier, the things that might have happened to him alone and unable to communicate with The Program.

  “This is a mission brief,” Mother says. “Not a memorial.”

  Father snaps back to attention, and so do I.

  Mother says, “We need you to get an audience with Moore so you can take him out at the event.”

  “In public?”

  “In public but invisible,” Father says. “Your specialty.”

  I c
onsider the variables. The amount of time to learn Moore’s world, to get into character, to acquaint myself with the facility where he will be appearing and run multiple entry and exit scenarios, escape plans, and contingencies.

  “When is the next recruiting event?” I ask Father.

  He looks from Mother to me but doesn’t answer.

  “When am I going in?” I say.

  “Tonight,” Mother says.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I’M LEFT ALONE TO CHANGE INTO A FRESH SET OF CLOTHES.

  I’m given a surgical mask, then I’m taken down through the hospital like a regular patient and wheeled out through discharge by an orderly. After that I’m transported by ambulance to a residential neighborhood in a suburb of Manchester.

  The driver stops across the street from a Cumberland Farms convenience store and without a word hands me a slip of paper. I get out of the ambulance, and he drives away.

  On the piece of paper is a number: 578.

  I look at the house nearest me. It’s number 62.

  An ambulance in a residential neighborhood invites attention, so I’m guessing they dropped me off a ways from my location.

  I start walking. I make my posture casual like that of a kid in the neighborhood coming home late from school on a Friday night.

  After several blocks, the houses become sparse and the road dead-ends in a cul-de-sac with only a few homes, each hidden behind tall bushes. The mailbox identifies the house at the very end as number 578.

  I walk down a pathway and come to a white-and-yellow house set back from the road with a silver Ford Escape in the driveway. I try the front door and find it unlocked. I go inside.

  “How was school?” Father calls from the kitchen as if we’ve shared this moment together a thousand times.

  “Great,” I say as if I’m not surprised to find Father here, and I shut the door behind me.

  I hear an unusual sound from the door, something like an air lock being sealed.

  “We can talk for real now,” Father says, his head popping through the door of the kitchen briefly before disappearing again.

  I look around the living room. Small details of family life are everywhere, from portraits on the mantel above the fireplace to a green blanket thrown casually across the back of the sofa.

  I hear the clatter of dishes from the kitchen. I walk in to find the table is filled with good food: chicken, burgers, salad, fresh bread. Father is pouring a glass of juice.

  “It’s a surprise to see you in the field,” I say.

  Father never comes on assignment with me. He’s always there, monitoring the situation from afar, sending in cleaning teams or accessing digital resources on my behalf.

  “We’ve got a different setup this time out,” Father says. “For expediency’s sake, I’m driving you in and picking you up after.”

  Father on an assignment with me. I think about what that might mean. It could represent a lack of trust, a belief that I need to be monitored more closely. It could be the opposite, a sense that I am trustworthy, so much so that Father is willing to put his life in my hands.

  Or perhaps there’s a simpler explanation. I am a valuable asset that needs protecting.

  I look at the table covered with food. “You’re so involved on this mission you made me dinner?”

  “Are you kidding? Whole Foods.”

  He puts down an empty plate.

  “Sit and eat,” he says. He glances at his watch. “We have three hours before we go mission ready. There’s a lot to do before then.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  I CONSUME ENOUGH CALORIES FOR TWELVE HOURS OF HIGH-ENERGY WORK.

  I won’t need more than that.

  When I’m done eating, I meet Father in the living room. I note a slight color deviation in the light coming through the windows. I suspect it’s caused by a security laminate, a nearly invisible film that covers the inside of the window, allowing us to see out but preventing people from seeing in, as well as blocking laser microphones and other surveillance devices.

  It also renders the glass bulletproof, at least up to the level of .50-caliber rounds.

  “This is a safe house,” I say.

  “A temporary one,” he says.

  “The Program owns this house?”

  He shakes his head. “The family is out of town for a few days. We’re here for now, and we’ll be gone before anyone knows the difference. In the unlikely event we cannot rendezvous immediately after the event tonight, you will make your way back here and await instructions.”

  Father takes out a manila envelope and passes it to me.

  I open it and a new iPhone slides out.

  I swipe with a finger gesture. I check SETTINGS:GENERAL:ABOUT and find the phone set as:

  Daniel Martin’s iPhone

  Father says, “You’ll find your background profile on Facebook. You’ll have time to study it, and then it will be erased. We’ll also go over plans for the community center and our protocols for ingress and egress. But now I want you to spend some time with this.”

  He reaches into his pocket and removes a small eyeglass case.

  “Did Dr. Acosta say I had vision problems?”

  Father takes out the glasses and looks through the lenses. “Your vision’s fine. There’s a very minor correction for reading in your nondominant eye. Enough to pass as an actual prescription if anyone examines them, but not enough to inhibit your vision in any significant way.”

  “Why do you want me to wear glasses?”

  “The right temple arm. It’s detachable.”

  He hands the glasses to me.

  They’re light gray, an average brand but a nice design. They’re the kind of glasses a stylish kid might buy from a mall in the Northeast. I play with the right temple arm, the part that goes above the ear. I twist counterclockwise, and it detaches from the hinge.

  “Careful,” Father says.

  I note a spring action down one end. I press it once and watch a weaponized injector needle slide out from the opposite end.

  I know this needle will be filled with three doses of nerve toxin, a poison I have used many times before. I’ve never needed more than one dose. Tap a victim and they are a few breaths away from a quiet death.

  The toxin is familiar, but the tool is new to me. I must master it.

  “Can you visualize the scenario?” Father says.

  I’ve been taught to visualize, to project myself forward in time and space and see the successful conclusion of my mission.

  I do that now, even without knowing the details for tonight or the layout, without knowing much of anything except the tool I will use and the target I will attain.

  I imagine myself at the event meeting Eugene Moore. Maybe it happens in a private room where he interviews candidates. We will be sitting across the table from each other and I will reach across and tap his arm with the needle.

  Or maybe it will happen in public, and I will use the confusion of bodies to remove my glasses, touch Moore with the needle, and step away. He will fall a few seconds later as if from a stroke or heart attack. I imagine myself slipping through the crush of panicked people to safety.

  It’s a high-risk gambit, but it is achievable.

  I look up to find Father watching me.

  “You can see it,” he says.

  “In general terms. Yes.”

  “It won’t be easy.”

  “No. But that doesn’t worry me.”

  He reaches toward me, puts a hand on my shoulder, and squeezes gently. It’s a gesture a father might make.

  A concerned father.

  I step away from his touch. “I’ve got a lot of work to do to prepare,” I say.

  “Of course you do,” he says. “I want to show you one more thing, and then I’ll leave you alone to study.”

  I follow him outside to a backyard surrounded by high fencing. There is a small metal toolshed set back from the house with a padlock on the door. Father presses the center of the lock, and the to
p of the padlock opens up to reveal a digital thumbprint reader below.

  “Your thumb only,” Father says.

  I press my thumb on the digi-reader, and the door opens with a hiss of hydraulics. The shed is empty except for two things:

  The first is a glossy black object about the size of a shoe box.

  The second is an S-59 high-tech recoilless rifle mounted on the wall.

  Father says, “The black rectangle is a secure digital communications pack. It’s here if you need to call home.”

  “What’s the rifle for?” I say.

  “Emergencies,” Father says.

  “I don’t use guns.”

  “You don’t, but they do. If you need it, you know where it is.”

  I shake my head.

  “I understand that we’ve never been in the field together before,” Father says. “Not in this way at least. But a safe house like this always exists for you.”

  “I know, but I’ve never needed one before.”

  “And I don’t anticipate you needing one now. But this is an accelerated mission launch, and we haven’t had time to put our normal protocols in place. We should be prepared for any eventuality.”

  “What about a weapon for you?” I say. “You said only my thumb opens the shed.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Father says. “I’ve got resources at my disposal.”

  I think about the soldiers storming the camp early this morning. I have no doubt about Father’s resources.

  Father closes the shed door, and the lock seals shut.

  “All right, then,” Father says. “I’m going to leave you alone for ninety minutes, then you and I will run mission scenarios.”

  “Will do.”

  That gives me ninety minutes to learn about Daniel Martin, memorize the details of his life, formulate his worldview, and reorganize my thinking to reflect his experience rather than my own.

  Father heads into the house, and I sit on the back patio. I take out my new iPhone and open the Facebook app.

  I need to know enough about Daniel Martin to transform myself into him for at least an hour tonight. Then I can do what I’ve been sent to do.