I Am the Mission: The Unknown Assassin Book 2

by Allen Zadoff

  “That’s a good point,” I say.

  “Do you still have doubts?”

  “None. Let’s go, buddy.”

  He walks me toward the door, letting me lean on him as my muscles slowly come back online.

  “You really love those Cheetos, don’t you?” I say.

  “I like the spicy ones best,” he says. “But the cheese messes up the keyboard, so I’m trying to quit.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

  ABOVEGROUND, LIBERTY IS A GHOST TOWN.

  The entire population of the camp is gone. We walk past quiet buildings, windows half open, garbage bins waiting to be emptied.

  The structures are here, but the people are gone. Wherever they went, they left in a hurry.

  At first I’m careful, walking ahead of Howard while searching the ground for trip wires, laser triggers, anything that might indicate a booby trap.

  But there are none.

  By the time we get to the main square, my muscles have come back online and I can walk normally again. The backhoe is still in the middle of the square, but Burch’s body is gone, moved to who knows where.

  I lead Howard toward the main house. I open the door slowly, checking for trigger devices but finding the way clear.

  I pause in the front alcove.

  “Wait for me here for a couple minutes,” I tell Howard.

  “Where are you going?” he says, afraid.

  “I have to find out where they went,” I say. “I’ll be right back.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

  I SLIP INTO FRANCISCO’S ROOM.

  I’m looking for evidence of the plan that Lee was talking about.

  The room is bare, hardly lived in. There’s a single book facedown on the night table. A glass of water. A pillow with an indentation in it.

  I look at the book. Neuromancer by William Gibson. I open it and flip through the pages. It’s an old copy, and some of the pages are stuck together.

  I search the room, the closet, the drawers.

  I check every hiding place, looking for notebooks, drawings, any clues that might help, but I find only clothes and toiletries. A tool kit in a box by the door.

  There’s nothing here.

  I take one last look around the room. Just before I go, something occurs to me.

  The pages of the Gibson novel. Something didn’t feel right when I flipped through it.

  I reach into my pocket and remove the knife I’ve been carrying.

  I open the book again, use the edge of the blade to separate the stuck pages. I don’t find anything. But then I look inside the back cover.

  It has been reglued, a bit of excess glue spilling onto the pages. I carefully slice it open.

  Something flutters to the floor.

  A photograph.

  I pick it up.

  A Hispanic man is sitting outside on a folded lawn chair. Next to him stands a pretty woman with her hand on his shoulder. On the man’s knee is a young boy.

  The man has his arm around the boy’s stomach, holding him in place.

  I recognize the boy’s eyes.

  It’s Francisco, sitting with who I imagine are his real parents.

  Francisco before he was recruited by The Program. Before he came here and betrayed everything he had been taught.

  I turn and catch sight of myself in the mirror in Francisco’s room. I look half crazed in my dirty hoodie.

  I open Francisco’s closet and find some long-sleeved flannel shirts.

  I take off my shirt and ball it up. I take out one of Francisco’s shirts and slide it on. I’m instantly hot, but the cuts on my arms and torso are hidden from view.

  I look in the mirror again. For a second I think Francisco has come back and he’s here in the room with me.

  I turn away from my reflection. I close the knife and put it back in my pocket.

  As I glance down, the photo of the young Francisco catches my eye.

  I should burn it, then scatter it outside, let the wind carry the ashes away. This would keep The Program safe and erase the last vestige of Francisco in the world.

  But I don’t do that.

  I reach down and pick up the photo, carefully buttoning it into the pocket of my flannel shirt.

  I don’t know why I take the picture with me. It’s a danger to me, a piece of evidence that I should not have on my person. By all counts, it’s a piece of evidence that should not exist in the world.

  Still, I want to save it. I don’t know why.

  I jog back to the front of the house, where I left Howard. He’s zipping water bottles and some snacks into a backpack when I get there.

  “Just in case,” he says.

  “Skills,” I say, tapping his forehead.

  He smiles.

  “Did you find any clues?” he says.

  “Not yet. But I have another idea,” I say.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

  FOR THE FIRST TIME, THE DOORS TO THE WORKSHOP ARE OPEN WIDE.

  Howard and I stand there looking into an empty space. No vehicles, no people.

  Long workbenches have been cleared in haste, tools pushed onto the ground, huge wire spools speared on rods along the wall, now empty of their contents. The ground is littered with sections of colored wire insulation like the red curlicue I found on the ground outside my first night here.

  What look like large empty metal barrels are stacked throughout the workshop building. They have been fabricated from scratch, welded, and hammered into what look like sections of giant pipes that are open on both ends.

  “What are these things?” Howard says.

  “Not sure.”

  I look down at the concrete floor and see remnants of white beads, almost like poly foam.

  “Packing material?” Howard says.

  I bend down, pick up some of the particles, and examine them. I sniff. They have only the faintest odor, but I recognize it from my training.

  “It’s ammonium nitrate,” I say.

  “What is that?”

  “It’s a main component of fertilizer. And fuel explosives.”

  I look at the metal barrels, then think back to the line of panel vans waiting outside the workshop. I imagine them loaded with something like giant pipe bombs.

  “Explosives?” Howard says. “What are they planning to blow up?”

  My mind runs through locations in the Northeast that could be the focus of the attack, the kinds of places we went to on The Hunt earlier this week. National Guard bases, corporate headquarters, municipal facilities for water or power. A cadre of teen terrorists spreading out through the area, poised to strike.

  But that was Moore’s plan, and Moore is dead.

  Lee is in charge now.

  He will have a different approach. A bigger approach.

  I think about the vans I saw as I drove in earlier. The other night they were unmarked. But now they all bear the same two words.

  NORTHEAST ELECTRIC.

  I remember something Lee said about the video game system the first night I came to the encampment.

  It’s not just a game. It’s training.

  He told me that he was the one who developed the scenarios for the game.

  “You know your way around game systems, don’t you?” I ask Howard.

  “I’m taking that as a rhetorical question.”

  “I need you to play a game now.”

  “Normally I’d be thrilled, but shouldn’t we be saving the country?” he says.

  “The game. That’s how we’re going to do it.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT

  I POWER UP THE GAMING SYSTEM BACK IN MY ROOM.

  I show Howard how it works, bringing up the profile for Daniel X, my game character from the other night.

  “You’ve got lousy stats,” Howard says.

  “I’ve got lousy game stats. It’s life stats that count.”

  Howard grins. “Is that a tag line from your spy manual?”

  I sigh. “I liked you better when you were a scar
ed kid in the hallway at school.”

  “That’s the old me. I’m an espionage guy now.”

  I bring up the GAME SCENARIOS prompt screen.

  “This is amazing,” Howard says. “They created this themselves?”

  “It’s like a training simulator for them.”

  “It’s very cool,” he says. “They’ve got some real talent here. Too bad it’s wasted.”

  Howard scrolls through the game scenarios.

  Laying Plans

  Waging War

  Tactical Disposition

  “Where should we start?” he says. He clicks on one of the scenarios in the middle, but he’s blocked from entering the game. “Actually, I asked the wrong question. We have to start at the beginning.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s an ascending level design. You can’t move up to the next until you’ve successfully completed the previous.”

  “So you have to win the scenario before you can proceed?”

  “Unless you have cheat codes.”

  “Nope.”

  He nods. “Then I’m going to have to win. But it’s not going to be easy with your character stats. No offense.”

  “Enough about the stats.”

  “Sorry. I’ll get started.”

  “I’m going to watch over your shoulder until I find what I’m looking for.”

  “What are you looking for?”

  “I won’t know until I see it,” I say.

  I’m trained to sort through enormous amounts of visual data, categorizing, sorting, and testing the data against various hypotheses. If the answer is in the game, I trust that I’ll be able to see it.

  “Can you play with someone watching you?” I say.

  “Are you kidding? Have you ever seen a game tournament?”

  “I haven’t had the pleasure.”

  “Well, you’re going to see one now,” Howard says. “Time for Fro-Fro to throw down. Fro-Fro. That’s Goji’s pet name for me.”

  “I remember,” I say.

  He bites his lower lip, his face set in concentration as he clicks into the first scenario, LAYING PLANS, the one I played the first night in the camp. The schematic of the campsite comes up, and I watch as the ATF attack unwinds on the screen in front of me.

  “This is awesome,” Howard says.

  Unlike me, he is completely comfortable with the controller, the internal commands, the ways of maneuvering the character through the game. It’s like he’s fluent in a second language, seamlessly adapting himself to this world with a few clicks.

  “There we go,” he says. “Now I’m rolling.”

  He races through the main square in the game, somehow gaining access to the house and making his way to safety without getting slaughtered by the ATF.

  Within seconds, the first scenario is over, Howard is triumphant, and Daniel X’s character stats have improved considerably.

  “That wasn’t too bad,” Howard says. “On to the next level.”

  He cracks his neck once, then he’s back in.

  For the next twenty minutes, Howard plays as fast as he can as I watch what amounts to a gamer’s tour through the philosophy underlying Camp Liberty. I see defensive strategies, offensive strategies, various means of attacking infrastructure out in the world. One of the scenarios is divided into multiple sections, part of which takes place inside an artificial World Wide Web where the Daniel X character is transformed into a digital packet that Howard has to navigate through various international servers undetected, until at last he can breach the firewall of a large commercial bank.

  I watch it all with Lee in mind, comparing what I see to what I believe I know about him, his desire for attention, his need to better his father.

  Eventually Howard arrives at the fifth scenario:

  The Attack by Fire

  Something about the name feels like it would be attractive to Lee.

  Howard opens the game map. It’s a series of tall buildings crowded together, a downtown cityscape of some kind.

  Howard bites his lip again, studying the map as I watch over his shoulder.

  “Where does this one take place?” he says. “Let’s see…”

  He races through the area in some kind of vehicle.

  “Stop the car, Howard.”

  “I’m not supposed to stop,” he says. “See the GPS on the dashboard?”

  “Just stop it.”

  He screeches to a halt on the side of the road.

  “Get out and walk around for a second, please.”

  Howard opens the door of the truck on-screen. He gets out and walks a few steps through the street. The buildings cast long shadows across the pavement from west to east.

  It’s sunset.

  “Do me a favor. Turn around and look at the car.”

  His character turns. It’s not a car at all. It’s a white van. NORTHEAST ELECTRIC is stenciled on the side.

  “This is the one,” I say.

  “What city is it?”

  Howard uses the character to scan the area, moving to a corner where we can get a better view.

  I look at the configuration of the downtown area. One of the buildings looks familiar to me. I run it through a database of buildings in my head.

  “The Prudential Tower,” I say.

  “It’s Boston,” Howard says.

  “What are they doing in Boston?”

  Howard puts the game controller on the table. He leans back, rubbing his eyes.

  “I’m trying to remember something,” he says. “Something that’s happening in Boston this week.”

  I think back to my time at the mall on Sunday. I sat in Barnes & Noble reading magazines, catching up on the news. I passed a rack of newspapers on my way out, glancing at them as I walked by.

  One of them was a Boston Globe.

  I play the scene over in my mind, trying to remember the headline that I saw.

  Suddenly it clicks.

  “The new JFK Federal Building,” I say. “It’s opening today.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE

  IT WAS MEANT AS A SYMBOL OF STRENGTH.

  A redesigned plaza built around the JFK Federal Building in Government Center downtown. A public park, a tribute to those lost, a new hope for the city.

  That is where I’ll find Lee.

  I drive Howard back to the Manchester Holiday Inn. He remains silent on the way, lost in thought. It doesn’t take long before I pull into the parking lot.

  “We have to stop them,” Howard says.

  “I have to,” I say.

  “I want to come with you.”

  “You’ve already done your part. More than your part.”

  He looks at me like he’s ready to argue.

  “I want you to pack everything and get out of here, Howard. Don’t go to New York right away. You’ll have to pass through Boston and it’s too dangerous. Take a train west to Albany or anywhere else you want to go. You can return home in a week or so.”

  “How will I know that you’re safe?”

  “I’ll call you.”

  “Okay,” he says. “Meanwhile I’ll work on the stuff we talked about. The stuff about your father.”

  “Drop that for now. Just get yourself to safety. We can talk about the father stuff later. Do you understand me?”

  He nods.

  “Thanks, Daniel.”

  “Hey, you’re the one who saved me from a torture chair, remember?”

  He reaches across the seat and hugs me. I let him do it. Maybe I even hug him back a little.

  He opens the truck door, then he pauses before getting out.

  “The next time I see you, you’ll have a different name,” he says.

  “That’s right.”

  “But it will still be you.”

  “It will.”

  “And you’ll remember me?”

  “I promise.”

  “Be safe,” he says, and he gets out of the truck.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY

  IT’S A STRAIGHT SHO
T TO BOSTON.

  I take 93 south the whole way, maxing out my speed, slowing only to avoid police traps. I make good time. It’s early evening when I arrive, and downtown Boston is emptying out with the last of the day’s business rush.

  I move in the opposite direction of most of the traffic, heading into downtown and making my way toward the new and improved JFK Building.

  I’m thinking about what I might find there.

  Any federal structure built since 9/11 is going to include blast-proof doors, reinforced steel, and exterior barricades. It’s not as if a group of white panel vans is going to be able to drive up and park next to the building. Whatever Lee is planning, he’s going to have to do it from the inside.

  What’s more, bombing a federal building would be news, but sadly, it wouldn’t be original.

  I try to get into Lee’s head.

  An angry boy, out to prove himself to his father and the world.

  The Attack by Fire.

  I can’t put it together yet, but the federal building is too tempting a target. I head for it now.

  Traffic is cordoned off for several blocks around the plaza, so I have to park the truck and go the rest of the way on foot. I can see the building looming in front of me, forty stories of steel and glass rising above the Boston skyline.

  It is lit up for its opening, the lights burning bright to the very top, where it is capped by red, white, and blue tracer lights. From the ground, giant spotlights are aimed up the sides of the building, framing it in still more light.

  As I step out of the truck, I hear an explosion far off behind me. The sound booms and rolls through the downtown area. I look toward the federal building, but there’s nothing happening there. A minute later, there are multiple explosions from different parts of the city. I see a plume of smoke rising black against the sunset several blocks away.

  I was wrong about the location of the attack. Maybe there was more to the video game, and I should have let Howard continue to play.