I Am the Mission: The Unknown Assassin Book 2

by Allen Zadoff

  “You’re too skinny to be eaten,” I say. “That’s a lot of chewing with very little reward.”

  “You’re not making me feel better.”

  “Be careful, buddy.”

  “You, too,” he says. “See you soon.”

  He gets out of the truck and scurries into the woods clutching his blanket. I hate to leave him alone out here, but I have no choice.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY

  A DOWNED TREE BLOCKS THE ROAD, HALF A DOZEN ARMED BOYS ON GUARD BEHIND IT.

  This is not the roadblock from the other day. This is a hastily erected barricade, more substantial, more dangerous. What’s worse, I don’t recognize any of the boys guarding it.

  There’s no way to drive around the roadblock. There is a cliff on one side, dense forest on the other.

  I sort through options:

  I could back up, leave the truck, and set out on foot.

  I could try to talk my way through.

  I could abandon the mission.

  Three options. Two are bad; the third is unthinkable.

  I make my choice.

  I slip the knife from my pocket and push it up the sleeve of my right arm, using the elastic at the hoodie’s wrist to hold it in place.

  Then I pull slowly forward. I’ll start by talking, and I’ll do what I have to do after.

  Guns rise as the truck comes near. The faces behind them are grave. A taller boy steps forward, looking through the windshield. I keep both hands on the steering wheel where he can see them.

  Something changes in the tall boy’s expression, and he calls out to one of the boys behind him. I see a walkie-talkie pop up. A message sent, a message received.

  “Turn off the truck,” the tall boy says. He has a tactical-model pump-action shotgun, modified with a stock and pistol grip. He points it at me.

  I look down the black shotgun barrel. Then I look at the boy behind it, staring at me, searching for a reason to pull the trigger.

  I turn off the truck.

  I feel the weight of the knife inside my right wrist. I can turn and snap my arm, and the motion will drop the knife into my hand. One and a half seconds to turn, a second for the knife to drop and settle, another half second for me to depress the switch that releases the blade, and two seconds to travel the distance from the window to the boy’s throat.

  Five seconds.

  But it only takes two seconds for his mind to register the threat and depress the trigger of the shotgun.

  I don’t move.

  I sense tightness in my chest.

  This feeling. I remember it from a long time ago, a distant echo of my childhood.

  It is fear.

  Howard is right. The chip works.

  Or rather, it doesn’t work, because it’s taped to the outside of my chest right now, where it can’t affect me.

  I will myself to look only at the steering wheel in front of me, but I’ve lost impulse control. My eyes shift left to once again look down the shotgun barrel. I imagine the round chambered down below, and my mouth goes dry.

  A moment later the boy with the walkie signals.

  The shotgun is lowered.

  “Move over,” the tall boy says. “I’m driving us in.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  WE DRIVE INTO LIBERTY.

  I see the panel vans from the night of The Hunt, their sides modified with NORTHEAST ELECTRIC stencils.

  Why have they been made to look like power company trucks?

  A boy and a girl with guns stand guard by the vans. They nod to my driver as he passes.

  As we come closer to the encampment, I see more teens with guns. Heads snap around when they hear the truck coming.

  Everyone is armed, everyone tense.

  We pass the first set of buildings, and then the main square comes into view.

  I see a backhoe parked in the center of the square, its shovel raised to maximum height as if it’s in the process of digging something.

  There is no operator in it. The backhoe is still, parked in the upright position. As we drive closer, I see something else. A rope tied haphazardly around the shovel with a life-size doll hanging from it like a party favor.

  It takes a second for my mind to register what I’m really seeing.

  It’s not a doll. It’s a body.

  Sergeant Burch’s body.

  His head is canted at an unnatural angle, the rope tight around his neck.

  He’s been hanged.

  Teens walk under the body, their pace quickening slightly, eyes cast toward the ground.

  I last saw Sergeant Burch sneaking out of the woods before I left the parking lot. Now I’m sure he’s the one who was passing messages to the FBI. Someone found out and ordered him to be executed.

  Miranda steps out of a building. She is wearing jeans and a loosely buttoned blouse, her red hair flowing free down her shoulders. Only her face betrays the seriousness of the situation.

  The driver stops the truck and motions for me to get out. Miranda approaches. I note that she doesn’t have a gun.

  “We thought we lost you,” she says.

  “Lost and found,” I say.

  “Why did you run away?”

  “I got scared after your father—”

  I look at the ground, wanting her to think I’m experiencing a painful memory.

  I’ve done this a thousand times, emulating emotions I’ve seen in others, feigning emotional states to make people believe what I want them to believe.

  I’ve done this a thousand times, but now is different.

  Because now I feel real pain, not for Moore or what he was trying to do before he lost his way, but for Francisco, my brother in The Program.

  The brother who I killed.

  Suddenly my breath is gone. My mouth opens, gasping for air, but I can’t find any.

  “We all got scared,” she says, her voice gentle. “I’m still scared.”

  She gestures toward the backhoe in the main square.

  “I saw it when we drove in,” I say. “Sergeant Burch. What happened to him?”

  “Lee accused him of something, and people went crazy.”

  The area has emptied around us. We stand alone, an arm’s reach from each other.

  “There are things going on that you don’t know,” she says.

  “Can you tell me?”

  “First I have to ask you something. Why did you really come back?”

  “I had a feeling,” I say.

  She searches my face for more. “What kind of a feeling?”

  “A feeling that I might be needed.”

  She reaches out and touches my shoulder.

  “Come inside,” she says. “We have to talk about some things.”

  I follow her through the door of a building I’ve never been in before. She leads the way down a long, dark hallway.

  “Where are we going?” I say.

  Suddenly I hear a whooshing noise behind me, followed by a propulsive bang as the twin prongs of a Taser-like device hit me from behind. My brain registers it in a second, faster even than the electricity passes down the wire into my body. I relax before it hits, knowing that fighting will only make it worse.

  I’ve been Tased as part of my training, and I know it’s possible to ride it out like a storm, coming out the other side weakened but not incapacitated. But as the electricity surges through me, I can feel that this is not a standard Taser. It’s some kind of adapted, hypercharged device that takes over my body and shatters my consciousness.

  I feel a stinging sensation in my neck: the sharp prick of a needle and the poisonous warmth of a chemical being injected into my carotid artery.

  I try to hang on to the mission, the plan, the intent of my being here. I try to locate Miranda’s face through the shadowy hallway in front of me.

  But the combination of the electricity and the drug takes all of it away, spinning me down into a dark so pure it’s almost peaceful.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  I WAKE UP
IN A CONCRETE ROOM LINED IN SHADOWS.

  I try to move, but I cannot. My hands are tied behind me. I’m sitting in a chair, my body aching all over.

  A stinging slap forces my head back.

  It’s Lee. He paces in front of me. I try to stand but find my legs are tied as well.

  “Where am I?” I say.

  “No matter,” Lee says. “Nobody can get in, and you can’t get out.”

  His voice has a hard edge to it. He paces back and forth, agitated.

  “Where is Francisco?” Lee asks.

  “How should I know?” I say.

  Lee stands across from me now. His eyes have changed. There is something dark in them, an intensity and anger that is unsettling.

  “You were the last one to see him,” Lee says.

  Lee knows I was with Francisco, but he doesn’t know what happened or he wouldn’t be asking the question.

  And if he doesn’t know what happened, he has no way of knowing the timeline. Maybe I can use this against him.

  “So Francisco hasn’t turned up?” I say as if I’m surprised.

  “Obviously not,” Lee says.

  “Doesn’t that make you wonder?” I say.

  “Wonder what?”

  “He disappeared right after your father died,” I say.

  “After?” Lee says, confused.

  “Who cares about Francisco?” Miranda says to her brother. “Would you drop it already?”

  Miranda is somewhere in the room outside my sight line. She brought me here, which means she knew this was going to happen. She set me up.

  “We need Francisco!” Lee says to her. “We need his help.”

  “We’re fine without him,” she says.

  “Listen,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. “I don’t know what’s going on exactly, but I know you’re making a mistake.”

  “It’s no mistake,” Lee says. “You left the compound after my father died. Only someone guilty would do that.”

  “I’m not the only one who left,” I say.

  Lee slaps me hard across the face again.

  “Lee,” Miranda says, attempting to calm him.

  “He’s trying to confuse us,” Lee says.

  He whirls around and steps behind me, confronting Miranda.

  “We have to kill this bastard now,” he says.

  “No, we don’t,” Miranda says.

  “Dad said there could be an assassin sent into camp,” Lee says.

  “He’s not the assassin,” she says, which surprises me, because she found me in the woods making a call. She has more evidence than anyone that I might not be who I say I am. Why is she lying for me?

  “We can’t trust him,” Lee says. “Not now, not when we have important work to do.”

  “Our father trusted him.”

  “And you saw what happened to him.”

  Moore said he’d warned Lee about me, but Lee was easily swayed. That means he liked me. I can play on that.

  “I don’t know what you’re doing, but maybe I can help you,” I say.

  “Maybe he can,” Miranda says. “You saw him during The Hunt. He did fine.”

  “Fine won’t cut it,” Lee says.

  He comes around where he can see my face.

  “Where did you go when you left camp?” he says.

  “I panicked,” I say. “I drove home to talk to my parents, but they were out. I didn’t know what to do. I drove around in circles, then I went to the mall.”

  “He’s right that he’s not the only one who left camp,” Miranda says.

  “That’s true,” Lee says, thinking about it.

  She walks over and joins her brother, puts an arm on his shoulder.

  “Maybe we’re asking the wrong question,” Miranda says. “Instead of asking why he left, maybe we should be asking why he came back.”

  Lee looks at her. “You think he had a change of heart?”

  “Maybe he’s one of us,” Miranda says.

  Lee considers it for a moment, then shakes his head, determined.

  “We can’t take that risk,” Lee says. “Not now. Not when we’re so close.”

  So close to what? What is Lee planning?

  Miranda lowers her head.

  “We can’t kill him.”

  “That’s not your decision to make,” Lee says.

  He’s holding the Taser-like device in his hands. When did he pick it up again?

  “Your father invited me here,” I say.

  “I won’t make the same mistake my father did,” Lee says. “I don’t know who you are for real, but I know I can’t trust you anymore. You were kind to me and to my sister, so I’m going to spare your life.”

  Lee’s presence is dominating now. He’s changed quickly, taking on the demeanor of a military commander.

  Lee says, “By the time you wake up, it will be over.”

  I search for Miranda, but I can’t see her.

  “They will find you here,” Lee says. “You can be sure of that. And you will bear witness for us.”

  He comes toward me. I test the rope on my wrists, hoping to find a loose bond. If I can get a hand out—

  Lee grabs me under my chin, pulling my face forward. His eyes are wild, his breath fetid.

  “You will tell them that I was the one. Not my father. Not anyone else.”

  His nails dig into the flesh of my chin.

  “Tell them I was the one,” he says. “Do you hear me?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  In killing Moore, I’ve given Lee the chance to step up and be the man his father wanted him to be. Unwittingly, I’ve set this all in motion.

  Lee backs up quickly and aims the device at my chest.

  “We all have our roles to play, Daniel. You will be the messenger. And I will be the message.”

  Before I can say anything, he depresses the trigger, and the surge hits me, arcing my body with wave after wave of electricity, so intense that I lose all control and the world goes black for the second time.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

  MY FATHER WAS IN A CHAIR IN OUR LIVING ROOM.

  Mike brought me in to see him, one arm wrapped tightly around my back and under my armpit to hold me up. Mike had drugged me a moment before. By the time I got to the living room, I could barely walk.

  I was twelve years old and Mike was my new best friend. Or so I thought.

  Then Mike brought me into the living room so I could see what he had done to my father. And so my father could see what was going to happen to me.

  This is the memory that recurs, the one that my brain clings to even when I will it to let go. It is the last time I saw my father alive five years ago.

  Everything is forgotten sooner or later. Life moves on. Even terrible things grow old over time. The psychological term is habituation. People who live near airports no longer hear the jets. People with mansions stop feeling wealthy.

  And people who lose someone eventually stop grieving.

  Our minds are designed to habituate. The past is forgotten, put in its proper place. Intense stimuli become second nature. And terrible things become commonplace.

  We can’t hold on even if we want to.

  And yet there are things that stick. Not things you choose, but things that choose you.

  This memory, for example.

  Mike at my side, holding me up. The feel of his arm around me. The sight of my father in front of me.

  I’ve always thought this was a memory of Mike’s betrayal, the great betrayal of a friend who is not a friend, a brother who is not a brother.

  But in my unconscious state, I have a new perspective.

  There are reasons I am sent on an assignment. So there must have been reasons Mike was sent on an assignment that brought him to me.

  My father.

  Something he did brought Mike into our lives.

  This is the new understanding I have. My memory is not a memory of Mike’s betrayal of my father.

  It’s a memory of my father’
s betrayal of me.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

  “DANIEL.”

  A voice calls through the haze. A hand shakes me.

  “Daniel,” the voice says.

  Water on my forehead, pulling me up toward consciousness.

  “Wake up, Daniel.”

  That is not my name, but it sounds familiar to me. As does the person who is saying it.

  Howard.

  “Wake up,” he says.

  I stir in my chair, moving my arms and legs. They’re free. When did they get free?

  Howard shakes me again.

  “Easy,” I say. “I’m awake.”

  I open my eyes. Howard stands over me, his face heavy with concern.

  “Do you need mouth-to-mouth?” he says.

  “Why would I need that?”

  “You were passed out.”

  “Did I stop breathing?”

  “No.”

  “Then keep your mouth away from my mouth. No offense.”

  “None taken.”

  I look around the room. Not a room. A bunker.

  “How did you find me?” I say.

  “You didn’t come back by nightfall, so I hiked down into the camp.”

  “You got past the roadblock?”

  “I went into the woods.”

  “You’ve got some skills,” I say.

  “Just because I’m a geek doesn’t mean I can’t throw down from time to time.”

  “Can you really throw down?”

  “I don’t even know what throwing down is. But it sounds cool when I say it.”

  I try to laugh, but it hurts too much.

  “Can you help me up?” I say.

  He puts an arm around me and supports me while I stand. The feeling of his arm across my back stirs up the memory of a moment ago.

  My father. Something he did brought Mike into our lives for the first time.

  My father betrayed me.

  He was the first perhaps, but not the last.

  Samara, the girl I loved, betrayed me.

  Even The Program has betrayed me.

  I look at Howard, suddenly unsure about him, about the faith I’ve placed in him.

  “Can I trust you, Howard?”

  He thinks about it for a moment.

  “Let me put it this way: I should be at home in Manhattan relaxing, eating Cheetos, and doing AP Calculus homework. Instead I’m on a mountain in New Hampshire risking my life to save you from some kind of torture chair.”