by Allen Zadoff
And the car in front of me, twenty yards away.
I continue for a few steps, and the license comes into view. It’s not one of Jack’s dad’s cars. This car has diplomatic plates.
The doors open. Four Asian men in suits get out. They do it casually, as if the non sequitur of four men in suits stopped in the middle of a suburban street is no big deal.
Choices:
I could escape into the woods. See how good they are on foot and separated.
Some would say that’s the best strategy in this situation, divide power and take it on little by little.
Some say that. I don’t.
There’s another trick that I learned from the people who trained me. Don’t diffuse power; concentrate it. Get it too close together, where its effectiveness is reduced.
That’s the trick I will use.
The problem: I never carry a gun, and my weaponized ballpoint pen and other tools were dropped down a sewer. I left my empty backpack in a Dumpster a ways down the road.
So I’ve got nothing to rely on but my training.
It should be enough.
But I can’t know for sure.
I stay on the same trajectory, moving toward the car. Ten yards away now. I keep my posture nonthreatening. I’m a sixteen-year-old kid walking down the street. That’s what I want them to see.
It’s also the truth. I am sixteen. I am walking.
As I get closer, I can hear the men talking to one another in Mandarin. I see the cheap material of their suits, and I see how their jackets fit poorly over bulky shoulders.
Diplomats do not have bulky shoulders. Maybe one guy if he’s into fitness. Not four in a row.
I don’t know these guys. I didn’t come across them on the assignment with Jack. But they know something about me because they’re looking at me like I’m dinner at the zoo.
This could get interesting real fast.
“Hey,” the first one says. “We’re lost. Can you give us directions?”
His English is good. His ploy is not.
Nobody stops his car on a diagonal in the middle of the road to ask for directions.
It’s ridiculous, but I’m a teenager, so people often underestimate me.
Most teenagers fight against that because they want to prove how tough they are.
Not me.
It’s good to be underestimated. It’s what’s known as a tactical advantage.
So when the Chinese guy asks for directions, I say, “Sure. Where are you headed?”
He’s a little surprised, but not totally.
Still underestimating.
“I’ve got the address on my phone,” he says.
He holds out an Android phone for me to look at. The guy next to him shifts his eyes toward it. The phone is arm’s length away. Which means I have to come within arm’s length to read it.
I move closer.
The two guys in the back step in, tightening the net. They relax at the same time. This is going to be easy. That’s what they’re thinking. I see it reflected in their posture.
Two rows of two. I’m walking toward them and putting the story together at the same time. Thick chests, tight haircuts, and diplomatic plates. I’m probably looking at Chinese spies. I’m guessing Jack’s father was in business with them, and that’s the reason I was sent here.
But I don’t know for sure. I don’t need to know.
Asking questions is not what I do. I’m given an assignment, and I carry it out.
Most of the time it’s simple, but something has gone wrong, because they’re here, and I’ve been detected.
I’ll save the questions for later.
Only one thing matters right now.
Survive.
I do not fight for sport. I fight when it is necessary.
If they get me in a car with diplomatic plates, it’s all over. There will be no police interference, no help for me at all.
I cannot let that happen.
The guy who spoke English holds out his phone to me. I think of one of those deep-sea fish that has an appendage dangling in front of its mouth to attract prey. A fish with its own fishing rod, designed by nature.
AP Biology, Subtopic 3C: Competition and Predation.
This guy has his phone. He dangles it.
I take the bait.
Literally take it. Out of his hands.
I twirl and smash the phone into the bridge of his nose. I don’t ask questions, and I don’t hesitate. Not against four men.
The glass shatters. His nose shatters.
Before he even hits the ground, I’m on to the next man. This time it’s the corner of the phone. I spin and swing, and he takes it in the left eye. A quick adjustment, and I stab the phone into his right eye. The globe resists briefly before rupturing.
Two down.
Surprise was my advantage. No more.
The third man comes. He’s bigger than the others. Much bigger. He guards his face as he moves. He won’t be fooled like his friends.
So I fool him another way.
Noting that the fourth man has cleared to the edge of the road, I dive for the open car door. It’s exactly where number three wanted me a minute ago. But a minute is a long time in a fight. He thought he’d be putting me in the backseat. The fact that I’m already there means he has to come after me.
I move as though I’m going to jump through the door and out the other side.
I do half of that. I get into the car. I don’t get out again.
He comes.
It’s a narrow space. Flexibility wins over bulk in a narrow space.
I’m flexibility. He’s bulk.
He tries to get his arms around to swing at me, but there’s not enough room.
I still have the phone. This time I tuck it in my fist to weight the punch, and I lash out hard three times.
It stuns him but doesn’t disable him.
I slip out, and when he comes after me, I bash the door into his face.
He drops to the ground, out cold.
He knows how to take a punch, but he doesn’t know how to take a car door to the head. Nobody does.
I look up to find the fourth man waiting with his gun out.
He’s got a gun, and I’ve got a broken phone in my hand.
Not what you’d call a fair fight.
A stupid guy with a gun would think he’d already won. Not the fourth man. He’s smart. He’s been watching and learning.
He stays far away from the phone, away from me and outside of my striking range.
He keeps the gun aimed at my center mass. Which means he knows how to use it. If you aim at someone’s head and they move quickly, there’s very little chance you’re going to hit them. Not so if you keep the weapon on center mass.
I don’t use guns, but I know all about them. At least enough to know that I’m screwed.
He motions with his head for me to turn around. Doesn’t wave the gun barrel like an inexperienced man would do.
If I turn now, I’ve lost.
I don’t think he’s going to shoot me. He’s going to take me somewhere and ask questions. That’s a lot worse than being shot.
I think of my father. The last time I saw him I was twelve years old. He was taped to a chair and bleeding. Someone had asked him questions.
Questions are bad.
That day with my father was a long time ago. Another time, another life.
Now there is a man with a gun.
Now I must look for options.
Now I must survive.
The fourth man shouts at me in Mandarin. I don’t know what he’s saying, but he’s angry. He knows what I’m trying to do. Stall. Work the angles. And with three of his colleagues down and bleeding, he’s not treating me like a sixteen-year-old anymore.
I look at the gun. I look at his eyes.
Cold.
I’m in trouble.
And then the phone rings.
The Android phone in my hand. The glass is shattered, but the ph
one is still working.
The ring surprises him as much as it surprises me.
Surprise is not a bad thing. Not if you can use it to your advantage.
I answer the phone.
“Ni hao ma?” I say. How are you? in Chinese.
That’s about all I know how to say.
I listen to the phone for a moment, then I hold it out to the fourth man as if it’s for him. He’s so shocked he doesn’t know what to do.
I shake the phone a little. I look at him like he’s an idiot. We both hear the man shouting over the phone, his voice tinny and distant.
I don’t know what he’s saying, but it doesn’t matter.
AP Bio, Subtopic 3C.
I dangle the phone in front of me.
The guy reaches—
And I hit him in the head, in the soft spot of his right temple, an inch behind his eye. I hit so hard that the phone comes apart in my hand.
He drops to the ground.
Done.
What if the phone didn’t ring? What would have happened?
Not now. I can’t think about that now.
“Chance can be your friend or your enemy,” Mother used to say. “Make it a friend.”
Mother, that’s what I call the woman who trained me.
She’d taught me this lesson, and I applied it today.
I look at the bodies of the four men on the ground around me. I look at the gun by my feet.
Mother taught me another lesson. Death is a tool I use for my work. It’s not something I do lightly. I could finish these men, but it is not strictly necessary. They are already crippled, their mission thwarted.
They do not need to die. At least not now.
Issue closed.
It’s time to use a real phone. My iPhone.
It looks like a normal phone, but it’s not. The physical architecture is the same, but the operating system is much different. And the apps? Well, they’re far from average.
I open the Weather Channel app. I click on REPORT HAZARDOUS CONDITIONS.
I hold up the phone. A map appears with a GPS dot that shows my position. It glows red, then a second later flashes green.
A cleanup crew will be here shortly.
Mother will not be happy. I might have some explaining to do.
I take the car keys from the fourth man’s pocket. I start up the sedan. It’s not like Chinese spies are going to report a stolen car.
Besides, it’s got diplomatic plates. And I like to drive fast.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I’M SPEEDING DOWN THE PIKE.
I’d never do it under normal circumstances. Nothing to draw attention to myself.
But diplomatic plates and driving like an asshole go hand in hand. Besides, I’m on the Pike, where traffic laws are optional.
I’m heading toward Boston now, putting distance between myself and the incident. The mile markers tick by, each one making me safer than the last.
I glance in my rearview, automatically scanning for tails. I open the sunroof so I can monitor the sky.
I’m alone.
I briefly think of Jack, what it’s like for him right now. In a split second he’s become a sad statistic. His father’s death will be a minor tragedy among the privileged students at Natick Prep. A young man, the unexpected loss of a parent, a period of mourning, a period of adjustment.
But I know something Jack doesn’t know:
Life goes on.
Even after the worst of tragedies, it just keeps going.
I am sixteen, but this is an old lesson to me. It helps me do what I must do.
There is something else I know:
Jack’s father was not who he seemed to be.
Jack thought of his father as the CEO of a tech firm with high-level government contracts.
That much was true.
But his father was something else, too. He was secretly working with the wrong people. After dancing with four Chinese spies this afternoon, I’m guessing it was the Chinese government.
The details are not for me to know. They are not my business.
My business is to get in, do the job, and get out again. Move on to the next.
The job is assigned to me.
I don’t have to think. I have to act.
The general picture, that’s all I need, and the true picture of Jack’s father is that he was doing something he was not supposed to be doing. Something that made him dangerous, possibly even a traitor.
That’s why I was sent here. To stop him.
It’s my specialty. I get an assignment, and I carry it out.
The Program, the organization I work for, says I am a patriot, but patriots have a choice. I do not.
Maybe that’s not true.
I had a choice a long time ago, and I made a mistake.
My father had a choice, too. He chose wrong, or I wouldn’t be here.
Back to Jack and his father. The matter at hand.
I don’t need to have an opinion about what I’ve done, but I do have a way of thinking about it that helps me.
I’ve done Jack a favor.
He doesn’t know the damage his father has already done or the damage he was yet to do if he were not stopped.
Unlike me, Jack’s cherished image of his father will be maintained forever, frozen in time. Who and what his father was will never be known. Not to him. Not to anyone.
Here’s what Jack will remember:
The beautiful lie that defined his family.
I am not lucky like Jack.
I know the truth about my family. Or some of it.
I know my father was not the great dad I thought he was, or the man he pretended to be to the world. The Program tells me one thing, but my memories tell me another.
I don’t know which to believe.
It’s enough to make all my memories suspect, to make the past a mystery from which I cannot escape.
CHAPTER EIGHT
IT WAS A SATURDAY AFTERNOON IN EARLY NOVEMBER.
I was twelve years old.
I was waiting for my father in his office at the university, and I got a call. There had been an accident, and I had to come home immediately. That’s what the caller said.
I ran home to find Mike sitting at our kitchen table. I was surprised to see him there.
“Where are my parents?” I said.
There were cookies on a plate in the middle of the table. Oatmeal raisin. Mom used to put them out for us. I was skinny and hardly ate. Mike was big for his age and ate a lot.
“Your parents,” Mike said. “I need to talk to you about them.”
I noticed a can of diet ginger ale on the floor by the refrigerator. It had spilled and formed a sticky brown-yellow puddle. I was looking at it, wondering how it got there, wondering why nobody had done anything about it, when Mike reached out and touched me with something.
Something sharp, like a thumbtack.
I suddenly felt tired.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said to me.
“Why would I be afraid?” I said.
My head started to spin, and I fell. Mike steadied me. He propped me against his shoulder and led me into the living room. A friend helping another friend in distress.
My father was sitting on a chair in the living room, his head slumped in front of him, his legs duct-taped to the legs of the chair.
“That’s funny,” I said.
When you see something absurd, something that is beyond your power to comprehend, your mind interprets it as a joke. It is a natural human defense mechanism. I’ve used it to my advantage many times.
I didn’t know things like that back then. I was young and stupid. I thought we were playing a game.
“It is funny,” Mike said. “Funny and sad.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
Mike snapped his fingers hard. Once, twice.
My dad’s head shot up. He could not speak. There was tape over his mouth.
“Dad,” I said.
Hi
s eyes told the story.
This was no game. It was danger.
Mike grabbed the back of my collar, pulled me close to my father, so close we were almost touching.
“Do you see?” Mike said.
But he wasn’t talking to me.
I was only twelve, but I understood. I might not have been able to put it into words at the time, but I got the idea.
Mike hadn’t brought me to the living room to show me what he’d done to my father; he’d brought me there to show my father what he was going to do to me.
“This is not your son,” Mike told my father. “Not anymore.”
I tried to reach out to my father, but Mike pulled me away.
I was more than tired then. I was falling asleep on my feet.
“Who are you?” I said to Mike.
“I’m your friend,” he said. “I’m Mike.”
“You’re not my friend,” I said.
“You’re a smart kid,” he said.
The way he’d said it, it was like he wasn’t a kid. He was something else, something I didn’t yet know existed.
He led me outside. I had no ability to resist. He put me in the back of a waiting cab. It looked like a cab, but the windows were blacked out.
That was the last time I saw either of my parents.
It was the end of everything.
It was the beginning of everything else.
CHAPTER NINE
I STEP ON THE GAS AND FEEL THE ENGINE RESPOND.
I look out the window as mile markers pass in a blur. Buildings in a blur. Faces in a blur. I learned long ago that the world is blurred by speed. The greater the speed, the more the blur.
If I keep moving forward, it will stay that way.
The thought makes me breathe easier.
When I’m ten miles away from the primary zone, I see the Dunkin’ Donuts up ahead.
I pull into the big parking lot, and I leave the sedan in a far corner. It’s a beast. I hate to see it go.
I switch to the car that’s waiting for me here. A Camry, complete with a scratched rear bumper and dented hubcaps. Designed to blend. Boring. Slow.
I take out my iPhone. I slide the bar to the left, up, then quickly down and up on the diagonal. It’s a custom gesture that puts the phone in secure mode.
I open the Games folder, click on the Poker app. Click NEW GAME.
