I Am the Mission: The Unknown Assassin Book 2

by Allen Zadoff

  But this man was good. He cleared his phone’s memory before he arrived. There’s no information for me to find.

  I reach to put the phone back in his pocket, and I feel something hard against my knuckle. I probe the pocket. It’s empty.

  I tap the outside of the pocket, and I feel it, a small hard object.

  I reach in and tear the pocket lining. I find a tiny black micro SDHC card. A secure digital high-capacity memory device.

  I slip it into my own pocket.

  I hear soft footsteps in the grass behind me.

  I spin around, ready to strike.

  It’s the daughter. She’s looking at me, her eyes wide.

  Moving slowly, I place the rifle on the ground. I step in front of the ex-soldier’s body, blocking her sight line because I don’t want her to get scared and scream.

  She doesn’t scream.

  “You’re just a boy,” she says. “How did you do those things?”

  She watched me kill a man. She should be terrified, not asking questions.

  I forget how resilient kids are. This girl in particular. She’s her mother’s daughter.

  I move closer to her, my voice gentle.

  “You have to go to the neighbor’s house. Your parents are there,” I say.

  “Where?”

  “Four doors down. A green house. Do you know it?”

  “Ms. Weiss.”

  “Go there now and wait for the police.”

  “What about you?”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  I lead her through the bodies, blocking her view as best I can. I open the gate and when I’m sure it’s clear, I let her out, watching as she runs down the street to safety.

  The police sirens are close now. I hear the screech of tires as they turn the corner onto the block.

  Neighbors are grouping on the street, emboldened by the sound of the police on their way.

  I move in the opposite direction, passing quickly through several backyards until I come out a distance from the house.

  I walk slowly so as not to attract attention. I’m thinking like the freelance team might have thought, where they would stage for this assault, how they would move toward the house, how close they would have to be to get away after they were done. I’m looking for a particular kind of vehicle, something generic enough to go unnoticed yet parked in a way that shows me it’s not from the neighborhood. I pass a few likely suspects, check them briefly, but all the vehicles look well-used. While it’s possible these guys stole a car, it’s doubtful. Not for an operation like this, where they needed to get loud and then get away unseen.

  I find it a quarter mile away on the side of the road, a Chevy Silverado, parked at a slight angle as if it were stopped too quickly. I pass by and note the truck is completely empty inside, not even a coffee cup in the holder.

  I kneel down as if to tie my shoe and reach into the front driver’s-side wheel well. My hands close around a key fob.

  I was right. It’s the truck they came in.

  It’s standard operating procedure to leave the keys with the vehicle. You don’t let someone carry the keys if you’re not sure all of you will make it back. You leave the keys with the vehicle, thereby allowing an escape under any circumstances.

  Before I get in, I put my hand on the hood.

  The metal is cool to the touch, about the same temperature as the outside air.

  Depending on climate and usage, it can take an engine two hours or more to cool down after being driven. If these men followed me from the camp, they would have parked here less than half an hour ago. The engine block would still be warm.

  But a cool engine means they were already here, waiting for me.

  Which means they knew where I would be.

  I open the truck door and get in. At first examination, the truck is empty, the seats clean, the change tray empty.

  Inside the glove compartment I find a legal registration and insurance in the name of a generic fleet-leasing company.

  I reach down into the space between the seats, and I find a black knife with a three-inch retractable blade.

  I don’t like knives, but I slide it into my pocket just the same. I may need it.

  I fire up the engine. I drive out of the neighborhood at normal speed, avoiding the police cars rushing past me into the neighborhood.

  I need to find someplace where I can think for a while, sort through the things that have happened to me in the last twenty-four hours without worrying about my safety.

  I need someplace large and public. Someplace busy on a Sunday afternoon.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  THE MALL OF NEW HAMPSHIRE.

  I drive into a three-quarters-full parking lot, find a corner space with a view of both the mall and the parking lot entrances, and back the truck into it. I keep the engine running for a full ten minutes as I wait, scanning the parking lot and monitoring all traffic coming into and out of the mall. There are no tails, no suspicious vehicles or foot traffic, only a mall security patrol in a small electric cart moving in a lazy circle at five miles per hour around the perimeter of the mall.

  I turn the engine off and lean back into the seat, the tension bleeding from my body for the first time in hours.

  I pull out my iPhone. There’s no use trying to call Mother or Father again, but maybe there’s another way to get a message through.

  I put the phone in secure mode and open the Instagram app. I lean out the window and take a photo of a trash can. In the description I write, “What a mess!” Then I geotag the photo, not to the mall but to the neighborhood where the safe house was located. Under normal circumstances, I could upload this to a monitored Tumblr blog, and it would trigger an investigation by The Program as well as an immediate call to my phone to check up on me.

  But now the photo will not upload, a progress wheel perpetually spinning on the screen. I check the phone and see that I have reception, but no access to the special server.

  Every means of contacting The Program has been blocked.

  Why?

  I run through the facts.

  First I lost communication with Father and Mother, now with The Program as a whole.

  The safe house was gone and sanitized.

  Finally I was attacked by a freelance team, waiting for me at the location of the safe house. The team may or may not have known who I was, but they knew enough to be there.

  None of it makes sense.

  I back up and go through the list again, this time starting with the disappearance of the dead Program soldier.

  There’s something I’m not understanding, some critical fact that’s missing.

  I need more data if I’m going to make an informed deduction.

  But how can I get it?

  I am trained as a solo agent, a soldier alone in the world, my only links to Father, Mother, and The Program.

  With those links severed, there is no help for me.

  Not Program help, at least.

  There was only one time during a mission when I breached protocol and sought help outside The Program.

  It was from a boy a few years younger than me.

  His name was Howard.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  I STOP AT A BEST BUY INSIDE THE MALL.

  I buy a new iPhone with cash, set up an account under an assumed name and e-mail address. I have credit cards under a dozen names, the numbers memorized in a sequence algorithm that exists only in my memory. These numbers are anonymized, even within The Program, a firewall to protect against the one-in-a-million-chance scenario where The Program’s data is breached.

  I type in the memorized credit card number and security code, and I wait as the wheel spins in the prompt box.

  A moment later, the card is accepted.

  I take the phone to an isolated section of the mall. I find a bench and I sit down.

  I send a text to a special number, a throwaway phone I purchased for Howard from an electronics shop in New York City.r />
  My text is a simple, prearranged message: CAN’T SEE YOU NOW. CALL YOU LATER.

  If Howard remembers the protocol, he will write down the number from this text message, destroy the first throwaway phone, then call me from a second phone that has never been used before. It should take no more than two minutes.

  That’s if he remembers, if he hasn’t lost courage in the weeks since I left New York, and if nothing bad has happened to him because of the secrets he learned after meeting me.

  It takes ninety seconds for my new iPhone to vibrate.

  “Howard?” I say.

  “Holy shit,” Howard says. “It’s really you.”

  “It’s me.”

  “Holy shit holy shit holy shit,” he says.

  “Nice to talk to you, too,” I say.

  “Are you kidding? It’s great to talk to you. It’s incredible. I thought you would forget about me.”

  I remember the first time I saw Howard in the cluster group at an Upper West Side private school in Manhattan. He was pale, curly-haired, and excessively sweaty, never participating in the social life of the school but watching everything from the sidelines.

  The memory makes me smile.

  “How could I forget?” I say.

  It was during my last mission that Howard used his hacking skills to help me research my target, the mayor of New York, and sort truth from fiction. In the process we became friends. I told him things about who I am and what I do. Things that put his life in danger.

  When I left the city, I told Howard that I might call on him someday. I didn’t know that day would be so soon. Or how much trouble I would be in.

  “What’s going on, Ben?” he says.

  Benjamin. That’s the name he knows me by from my last mission.

  I have to be very careful what I say to him on an open line. Even with our call bouncing through the crowded digital traffic of the Northeast.

  “It’s good to hear your voice,” I say.

  “Where are you?” he says, then interrupts before I can dismiss the question. “Wait, that’s a stupid thing to say. I can’t ask a question like that, can I? Let me think of a better question.”

  “Howard—”

  “I’m going to think of one. Just give me a second. This is much harder than I thought it would be.”

  “Please, Howard…”

  There’s silence on the line.

  “You sound strange,” he says.

  “I’m going through some things.”

  “What kinds of things?”

  I think about what it might mean if I tell Howard what’s happening. The risks he’ll take without fully understanding them, the risks I’ll take by opening myself up to him again.

  It’s one thing for me to take risks. I’m trained for it, but Howard’s innocent, a high school hacker with a Japanese girlfriend he’s only met in avatar form online.

  “Ben?” he says.

  “What?”

  “Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

  The lessons of The Program ring in my head. I am a solo act. I can handle things on my own, without assistance from anyone or anything. When in doubt, I am to trust my instincts and intuition.

  But what if The Program has been breached? What if Mother or Father need my help?

  The freelance team revealed that I am in danger. My mission may even be compromised.

  I am trained to work alone, but I can’t figure out this situation on my own. With Howard’s skills, I might be able to determine what’s happened to The Program, the reason for the communication blackout and disappearance of the safe house. I can’t tell him the story on an open line, but in person—

  “I need your help, Howard,” I say.

  “What can I do?”

  “Come to New Hampshire.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  I TELL HIM TO TAKE THE TRAIN TO EXETER.

  A fourteen-year-old boy traveling by train to Exeter on a Sunday afternoon won’t attract any notice whatsoever. I make arrangements to pick him up there in several hours. Then I hang up the phone.

  It’s done.

  I’ve broken from Program doctrine for the second time in my life.

  I have hours to kill before Howard arrives, and I need to stay in public. Luckily, I have the perfect cover. I am a boy at the mall on a Sunday.

  I start by walking the mall, doubling back on myself, watching for reflections in storefront glass, popping into several stores then out again, scanning all the time for unusual movement around me.

  There is none.

  Instead I see something else.

  A couple holding hands on a date. A family arguing about which store they will go into first. A group of teenagers laughing at some inside joke.

  I see normal life, a life that I do not live.

  When in doubt, emulate.

  I’ve been trained to fit in anywhere, matching the patterns and the energy of the people around me. That’s what I do now. I move through the mall like the teens I see around me. Unlike them, I use the time to recuperate from killing four men.

  I get a haircut. I order a small pizza in the food court. I sit in a massage chair at an electronics store. Then I go to Barnes & Noble, and I find a corner of the magazine section and comb through the news and culture magazines.

  Because I do not live in one place, I have to work hard to stay up on current events. Without the daily pattern of attending school, talking with friends, and watching television, it’s easy to fall out of sync with the world. I have to feed myself a stream of information so I can understand and stay connected to current events and be able to converse with those around me without seeming like a visitor from a foreign country.

  I pick up a New York Times and read a follow-up article about the death of Mayor Goldberg’s daughter in New York City, a death I know more than a little about. The article reflects on the incidence of rare and unexplained mortality in young people due to natural causes.

  Natural causes. My specialty.

  According to the article, Mayor Goldberg has gone into a media blackout while he grieves for his daughter. Something about the image of this lonely billionaire losing both his wife and daughter has caught the imagination of the world, raising his profile and bringing him attention on an international level. There is talk of him running for president in the next election.

  I think back to my time in New York. The memory is painful, like pressing a bruise that has not fully healed.

  I questioned The Program, and a girl is dead because of me. She was not innocent, but she was special to me, even if only for a brief time.

  But that was before. And I’ve been taught how to handle before.

  You put it away and replace it with now.

  I toss the Times back onto the rack.

  I check my watch. The entire afternoon has passed, and the mall is beginning to close.

  It’s time to get Howard.

  I make one last stop at Gap to buy some new clothes and a duffel bag to carry them in.

  I pull the tags from the clothes, crumple them into a ball, and stuff them into the duffel so they’ll wrinkle and look more worn. I change into a fresh T-shirt and pants in the bathroom, slipping my old clothes into the Gap bag and dropping it in the large covered trash bin as I leave the mall.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  HOWARD IS STANDING ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD BY THE EXETER TRAIN STATION.

  I pull up in the Chevy Silverado and beep the horn to draw his attention. He sees me and his face lights up. He grabs a small duffel from the ground, swings a large computer bag over his shoulder, and hops into the truck.

  “Hey,” I say, and he quickly puts a finger up to his lips to silence me.

  He reaches into his duffel and pulls out a square electronic device with three mini antennas jutting from one side. He flips a switch and the device lights up and emits a single chirp.

  Howard’s face scrunches in concentration. He moves the device around, trying to pick up the source that is causi
ng the beep. He crawls over the seat, nearly kicking me in the head in the process. He scans the backseat but finds nothing. Then he comes into the front and the device chirps again.

  It’s me. I am the source.

  Howard looks concerned. He starts at my feet and moves up my body, the chirps increasing until he arrives at chest level, when the device emits a steady tone.

  He points to my right pec, one finger up at his mouth to warn me not to speak.

  I reach into my right pocket and take out my phone and hand it to him.

  He scans the phone, but the device does not register anything.

  If it’s not the phone, what is it?

  He holds the device to my chest again, and again the chirping becomes a steady tone.

  He points toward my chest, indicating that the signal is emanating from there. We look at each other.

  He reaches slowly toward my chest, touching the pocket there. He reaches into the pocket and comes out with the micro SDHC card I took off the leader of the freelance team at the safe house. I forgot I’d transferred it to the pocket of my new shirt.

  He examines the micro SDHC card, then exhales. He turns off the device with the antennas.

  “It’s safe to talk?”

  “Nothing is transmitting,” he says.

  “What’s that device you have?”

  “A little something I brought along. I knew you were in trouble, so I came prepared.”

  He holds up the micro SDHC card, flipping it between his fingers like it’s a poker chip.

  “Do you know what this is?” he says.

  “I know it’s some sort of data card. I took it off a bad guy.”

  “It looks like a normal data card, but it’s not. I can see that the contact points are different. You need some kind of a special reader, or the card is useless.”

  “I don’t have the reader,” I say.

  “You don’t need the reader,” he says. “You have me.” He smiles. “Now aren’t you glad you called me? Because I am fucking awesome.”

  I laugh and slip the truck into gear. “It’s good to see you, Howard.”