I Am the Mission: The Unknown Assassin Book 2

by Allen Zadoff

  “What’s the answer?”

  “A girl.”

  I laugh.

  “You have a girlfriend, don’t you?” she says.

  My laugh stops.

  A memory of my last mission pops into my head, Samara and me running through the rain in Central Park.

  I push it back down, burying it deep in my unconscious, where I will not have to deal with it.

  “I don’t have a girlfriend,” I say.

  The phone screen glows brightly in the dark of the forest.

  “You want to call someone pretty badly,” she says.

  There’s an edge to her voice now, anger creeping in where before there was only curiosity. I have to defuse it.

  “It’s not my girlfriend,” I say. “It’s my mother.”

  I see her body relax.

  “You’re a momma’s boy!” she says, finding her answer at last.

  Now I show the sensitive side of Daniel, allowing myself to appear vulnerable in front of her.

  “My parents don’t know where I am,” I say. “I mean, I sent my dad a text earlier, but he’s notoriously unreliable when it comes to passing on info to my mom. That’s if he’s talking to her at all right now.”

  “But why call her in the middle of the night?”

  “She’ll be up. She’s a worrier.”

  “I wish my mom were a worrier,” she says.

  It’s a curious response.

  “She’s not?” I say.

  Her body posture deflates, her voice dropping to a whisper.

  “No. She’s more like a traitor.”

  “What do you mean?” I say, shocked at her use of the word.

  “She left last year,” Miranda says.

  “Your parents got divorced?”

  She shakes her head.

  “She just fucking left,” she says. “Him. Us. This place. Our way of life. All of it. She packed her bags in the middle of the night and left without telling anyone.”

  I try to imagine a woman who would leave her husband and children without telling them. It could be a woman who is mentally unstable. It might be a woman who fell for another man and got lost in love and obsession. Or it could be something else, a woman so afraid for her life that she thought she had no choice but to run.

  It would be helpful to know which it was.

  “Why did she leave?” I say.

  “I don’t really know. We haven’t spoken since that night.”

  “Never?”

  “A postcard. That’s what I got. One postcard, no return address.”

  “That’s messed up.”

  “Completely.”

  “So you never found out why?”

  She shakes her head. Perhaps she knows more, but she seems unwilling to go there.

  Miranda is tough, a survivor. I appreciate that about her. And I sense that now is not the time to press her for more information.

  The screen on my phone goes to sleep, casting us back into darkness.

  “If you want to call your mom, you should,” Miranda says. “But don’t call from here.”

  “Why not?”

  “We’re too close to the encampment. They monitor everything and they can triangulate the signal.”

  “Where should I call from?”

  “Follow me,” she says, and she starts up the mountain.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  SHE WALKS AHEAD OF ME, HER MOVEMENTS NEARLY SILENT.

  To walk through a forest quietly is extremely difficult. To move through a forest quietly while hiking up a mountain in the dark is nearly impossible. But she achieves it almost effortlessly, her body moving in patterns both trained and reflexive. It tells me a lot about who she is and the life she has led up until now.

  It also tells me that she doesn’t know how to hide her skill set from me. This is the difference between a soldier and an operative. A soldier is a soldier all the time, but an operative is myriad things, each of them adjusted to time, place, and situation.

  This girl is a natural, but naturals need to be developed to become operatives. This camp has taken her only so far. I wonder what she could become with the proper guidance.

  A troubling memory comes to me. It’s a memory of Mike and me in gym class years ago. It was before he killed my parents, before I knew about The Program.

  We were doing a basketball rotation, and the coach had us running wind sprints on the court—free throw line and back, midcourt line and back, full court and back, each with a 180-degree turn to develop our flexibility and speed. Mike ran next to me, matching me move for move.

  When we were walking back to the locker room after, he turned to me.

  “I saw you out there,” he said. “You’ve got natural skills.”

  “Nah, I’m too short for basketball,” I said. I was only twelve, and I hadn’t hit my growth spurt yet.

  “Not just for basketball. In general,” Mike said.

  The comment passed without my thinking much about it.

  That was almost five years ago, but I think about it now as I walk behind Miranda.

  I am assessing skills, just like Mike did. In his case, he was secretly recruiting a new operative.

  But what am I doing?

  I am keeping myself safe. No more than that.

  I push the memory away.

  As I move behind Miranda, I make sure I do not give away my own skills. I step on fallen branches from time to time, brush against dry leaves, take two steps when only one is needed. I may have made it out of the encampment and snared Miranda during a tracking maneuver, but I can muddy her impressions of me now, lead her to think that luck played a greater role in my success than it did.

  We walk without speaking for several minutes until we crest the top of the ridge. She comes to a stop. I hear the sounds of a river flowing nearby.

  “This is the place. It’s safe here,” she says.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because they’ve never caught me.”

  She reaches into her pocket and comes out with something small and black. I can’t see what it is until she turns it on and her face is lit by the glow of her own iPhone.

  “You’re allowed to have a phone?”

  She shakes her head.

  “No one knows,” she says. “And it has to stay that way.”

  “Who would I tell?”

  “Wrong question.”

  “What’s the right question?”

  “Who would believe you?” she says.

  A warning. For a moment, her face looks ghostly in the screen’s light.

  “Who do you call from up here?” I say.

  “There’s nobody to call. I read the news, look at YouTube. I want to see what’s going on in the real world.”

  “I’m surprised.”

  “Why? You thought I was a good girl?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Well, I’m not.”

  “Then what are you?”

  She looks away from me, stares into the woods.

  “Complicated.”

  It’s quiet now, the evening punctuated only by the call of night birds and the distant sound of running water.

  “Is that a river I hear?” I ask.

  She nods. “Liberty survives because of that river. It leads down into camp. We use it as our water supply.”

  “What about in the other direction? Where does it go?”

  “I’ve never followed it there.”

  She presses something on her phone.

  “I’m going to read the paper,” she says. “Why don’t you make your call? We don’t want your mommy to worry about you.”

  “Hey, I said I was a momma’s boy. I’ve got no shame about it.”

  “Eventually you have to leave the nest.”

  I gesture toward her phone. “Is that what you’re doing? Breaking your father’s rules?”

  “We’re not talking about me right now. I notice you have a brilliant way of turning conversations around.”

  �
�Maybe I’m uncomfortable talking about myself,” I say.

  “So it’s a defense mechanism?”

  “One of many.”

  “What do you have to defend yourself against?”

  I point to the world around us, mirroring Lee’s line from earlier:

  “Enemies,” I say.

  She stares at me.

  “You’re an interesting person, Daniel.”

  “I’m interesting now, and you hardly know me. Imagine what I’m going to be like in a few days.”

  “I hope you make it a few days,” she says with a devious smile.

  I wink and turn my back to her. I’m planning to be here only as long as it takes to finish the job. That’s why it’s critical that I talk to Father.

  I use the unique finger gesture to open the alternative operating system on my iPhone.

  The phone instantly goes into secure mode, giving me access to a suite of security apps unimaginable to the average user. I open the Poker app, arrange a hand of cards that represents Mother’s phone number.

  If Father isn’t answering the temporary public number, I’ll dial into the permanent secure number that guarantees a nearly instantaneous connection with Mother.

  I glance over my shoulder at Miranda. She’s turned her back to me, giving me privacy.

  I listen in the digital silence, waiting for the inevitable click of a line opening and Mother’s voice answering. Any time of day or night, anywhere I call from, she is there. This has been true over two years and across multiple missions.

  It’s not true tonight.

  There is only silence.

  First I check the cellular signal. Four bars. Full reception.

  Then I backtrack, closing the app and reopening it. I rearrange the poker hand, checking to make sure the cards are in the proper order by number and suit.

  Again, I wait for the connection, and again nothing happens.

  I turn off my phone.

  “Did you speak to her?” Miranda asks.

  “You were right,” I say. “She must be sleeping.”

  “So much for being a worrier.”

  “She’s also an Ambien user. The two kind of go together.”

  I walk toward Miranda, slipping my phone into my pocket.

  “I want to ask you something serious,” I say. “Earlier tonight in the truck, you told me to stay away.”

  She lowers her voice to a whisper. “Things are changing here, Daniel.”

  “How are they changing?”

  “It’s not just a camp anymore. My father. He’s different since my mother left. I think she kept him calm in some ways. No more. Now he’s got plans.”

  “What kinds of plans?”

  She comes even closer, our faces nearly touching.

  “Frightening plans,” she says, her breath soft on my cheek.

  “I don’t understand what you mean.”

  “I can’t say more,” she says.

  I lean toward her, our faces inches away from each other.

  “But you didn’t even know me when we were in the truck. Why bother to tell me anything?”

  She looks at the ground, suddenly shy.

  “I liked you right away,” she says.

  “You’ve got a funny way of showing it.”

  “I’m used to being around military-type guys,” she says. “I guess it’s made me kind of tough.”

  “But the warning?” I say, getting her back on track.

  “I didn’t think it was fair to bring you here without you knowing what you were getting into.”

  “I’m trying to register for the next camp session. That’s a good thing, right?”

  “My father canceled the next camp session. That event was just for show.”

  “There’s no camp this summer? Then what am I doing here?”

  “He wanted you here. From the very beginning, the moment you walked into the community center. They were talking about you before the event. I overheard them.”

  “Them?”

  “Francisco and my dad.”

  “That’s strange.”

  Moore rejected me after his speech and refused to meet me. He was trying to keep me out, not bring me in.

  So why would she say the opposite?

  “Nothing happens without my father wanting it to,” she says.

  “Nothing?” I glance at her phone.

  “Almost nothing,” she says.

  Maybe it’s the night, or the girl, or the sense of danger all around us. I just know I want to step forward and kiss Miranda.

  It could help my mission or harm it. I can’t be sure.

  So I step back.

  “It’s getting late,” Miranda says, obviously uncomfortable. “We should probably go back before they notice we’re not in camp.”

  “It was fun while it lasted,” I say, and she laughs, a sweet laugh that makes me wish I had kissed her.

  But I am a soldier. I am here to accomplish a mission. Nothing else.

  Miranda moves away from me through the forest.

  “Hey, what’s the best way down?” I call to her.

  She keeps moving.

  “You were talented enough to make it up here,” she says, her tone suddenly teasing. “Can’t you find your way back?”

  “I can if I follow you.”

  “I’m going down alone,” she says. “I don’t want to risk us being seen together outside of camp.”

  Her outline is faint now.

  “Either I’ll see you at breakfast,” she says, “or I’ll see you after the search party finds your body.”

  “Wait a second.…” I say.

  But she doesn’t. She disappears into the night.

  I’m alone in the dark now, thinking about what just happened.

  It’s not getting down the mountain that’s the problem. I’m on a ridge peak next to a river that flows south and feeds the encampment. So direction is not the issue.

  Nor is getting back through the laser perimeter.

  It’s what it will say about me if I do. Miranda took me off the path, led me higher into the mountain, and left me here. If I get back down, that says a lot about my skill set. Too much.

  And if I don’t make it down, they’ll search for me and the entire camp will know I breached security. There will be questions, doubts, maybe even censure.

  So I have to make a choice.

  Before I decide, I take out my phone again, open a secure connection, and try Mother.

  It is the same as before. Silence.

  I try Father, both public and private lines.

  Nothing.

  It’s possible the mountains are causing interference with the signal. It’s possible blocking tech from Liberty is affecting the ability of the phone to uplink to the satellite.

  Possible but unlikely.

  What exactly is going on?

  I don’t know.

  I only know I have to stay in the moment, and the moment requires me to make a choice.

  Follow the river back to camp or play lost? Either could work, either could fail.

  Life is about risk. Mission dynamics are no different. It’s just that the stakes are higher on a mission.

  Much higher.

  I make my choice.

  I head south, moving silently through the darkness, walking back down toward Camp Liberty.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  IT’S A COUPLE OF HOURS BEFORE DAWN WHEN I GET BACK.

  It’s my experience that a security detail loses focus closest to dawn when it nears the end of its shift. The end of a shift is like the last minutes of a job, of school, of nearly everything. By that time you’re just waiting for it to end so you can get home and do what you want to do.

  That makes it a perfect time for me to explore.

  I watch from the cover of the woods. I listen for the clang and whir of metal fabrication, and then I follow it toward the workshop building, moving along the tree line outside of camp, my body turned inward so I can watch for trouble.


  When I get closer to the source of the sound, I move into the encampment, slip through the laser perimeter, and instantly make my gait casual, like a guy who is taking an early walk because he can’t sleep. I turn a corner, and I see it, a factory building with double doors wide enough to drive a truck through. I recognize the building from the game, the second of the two largest structures in camp. Even in the dark I can see the doors are sealed tight with huge padlocks.

  The windows of the workshop are blacked out, but I can make out flashes of light coming between cracks in the paint. The flashes stop, then start again in a staccato rhythm. At first I’m not sure what I’m looking at, but after a moment the pattern becomes familiar.

  Arcs from a welding torch. Something is being assembled in the workshop in the middle of the night.

  I look down the road at the white vans parked there. They look like utility trucks, but there’s no branding on their sides.

  Lee said they outsourced components to earn extra income. That might explain the vans, but it doesn’t explain the all-night fabrication processes.

  I move toward the workshop, heading for a bank of high windows on the side. If I can find something to stand on, I might be able to get a sight line—

  “You can’t be back here,” a voice says.

  A flashlight beam snaps on in my face.

  I recognize the voice. It’s Moore’s bodyguard, Swivel Neck.

  How did he find me back here? And how did he get close without my registering it?

  I haven’t slept in nearly twenty-four hours, and I’m starting to make mistakes. Miranda tracked me into the forest, and Swivel Neck snuck up on me. These are bad signs.

  But I can’t do anything about them now. I have to react.

  I hold my hand up to my eyes and feign surprise.

  “Hey, what’s up?” I say, and then I pretend to suddenly recognize him. “You work the night shift, too?”

  “I work all the time,” he says. “And you’re not allowed to be out here now.”

  “I couldn’t sleep. I was taking a walk and I heard some noise.”

  “Curfew lifts at dawn. The camp is off-limits until then,” Swivel Neck says.

  “There’s a curfew? Nobody told me.”

  He plays the beam across my face.

  “I’m telling you,” he says.

  “Off-limits. It’s all good,” I say with a shrug. “By the way, what time is breakfast served? Unless waffles are off-limits, too.”