by Allen Zadoff
I need to find a way to get Moore alone for a few minutes. This could be my opportunity.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
BUT MOORE IS NEVER ALONE.
Flannel and Aaron tail us as we walk, never straying more than a few feet from Moore.
“I’m sorry to use you like that,” Moore says.
“Use me?”
“To teach my son a lesson.”
“What would you have done if I’d followed your order and aimed at him?”
“I would have given you a second order,” Moore says.
“To drop my weapon?”
“To shoot.”
I look to Moore for some sign that he’s joking. I don’t see any.
“And if I had followed the second order?” I say.
“So be it. A lesson is learned either way.”
I think about what kind of man would be willing to sacrifice his son to teach him a lesson.
Then I think of Father, his hand over mine on the cyclic in the helicopter yesterday. Was he really willing to crash our helicopter to make his point?
“We have rules about newcomers,” Moore says. “They’re not to get live ammo until they’ve been fully vetted.”
“I can understand that. But if you were truly concerned about me being new, why did you walk in front of me when I had a loaded rifle?”
“Not in front.”
“Nearly.”
“If you had turned even an inch toward me, you would have died.”
I glance back at Francisco, find him watching me, his eyes scanning regularly from Moore to me.
“Okay, but if I were a bad guy. I might have gotten off a shot.”
“Doubtful,” Moore says. “But whatever happened, I would have had my answer.”
“Your answer to what?”
“To the question of whether or not you’re dangerous.”
“That’s what you want to know?”
He nods.
“I didn’t shoot you, so I’m in the clear, huh?”
I react like Daniel Martin would, wiping fake sweat from my brow.
“Not exactly in the clear,” Moore says. “There’s a difference between a zealot and a professional. A zealot acts without regard to personal safety. A professional is doing a job and wants to go home at the end of the day. You didn’t shoot, so I know you’re not a zealot. But that’s all I know.”
I watch Moore closely, trying to understand his intent. Is it possible he knows who I am?
I want to defuse the situation, so I say, “To be honest, I haven’t had breakfast yet, and this conversation is making my head hurt.”
“We’re not done talking yet,” Moore says, danger radiating from him.
“What do you want to talk about?”
“I want you to tell me the truth about who you are.”
Truth. It’s the same thing Francisco talked about last night.
“The truth? I’m a guy who wants to get into Camp Liberty,” I say.
“Why?” Moore says, his focus intensifying.
I think about my mission briefing with Mother and Father yesterday, the doubt they wanted me to show Moore. Normally I would have time to develop this persona earlier in a mission, before I even got close to my target, but now I have to do it in real time, in front of Moore.
I take the arrogant Daniel Martin and I go deeper, probing beneath his surface attitude to the boy who might be suffering quietly.
“Maybe I want to get away from my parents,” I say.
The sentence surprises me a bit.
“What’s so bad about your parents?” Moore says.
“They’re liars.”
Moore nods, waiting.
“They expect me to play by the rules, but the rules keep changing. How the hell am I supposed to deal with that?”
“That’s not fair to you,” Moore says.
“No kidding. I get blamed for shit that’s not my fault because they changed it up on me, and then they want my respect. But you have to earn respect, don’t you? It’s not something you get automatically because you call yourselves parents.”
I sense something personal inside me threatening to surface, so I think instead about Daniel’s story, redirecting the focus of my rant.
“My parents say they don’t believe in the system and then do everything in their power to stay a part of it, even to excel within it. My father is willing to give money to organizations like yours that want to change things, but what does he really want? I mean, he’s giving money to change a system he benefits from, and the organizations themselves only exist because people make money off the system so they have something to donate. To me it looks like one big feedback loop of bullshit.”
I’m expecting Moore to be offended, but he smiles at me.
“I understand how you might feel that way,” he says. “It’s a system, that’s true, but everyone has a role to play.”
“What do you mean?”
“An army, for example, has different elements. There are the soldiers on the ground who do the actual fighting, there are commanders whose job is to see the big picture and guide the fighting, and then there are the money men, who pay for it all. Without everyone playing their role, there is no army.”
“I never thought of it like that before.”
“So you may not like the role your father plays in this ecosystem, but he plays a role nonetheless. An important one. Not everyone can do the fighting.”
I nod, signaling my understanding. “The ecosystem you’re talking about—I know which role I want to play.”
“Which role is that?”
“Soldier.”
Moore smiles. “I thought so,” he says.
He signals for Francisco to come forward.
“He’s ready,” Moore says to Francisco.
“Ready for what?” I say.
CHAPTER THIRTY
WHITE VANS LINE THE ROAD LEADING OUT OF CAMP.
Unlike the other day, they are pointed out toward the mountain pass, their engines running. I see teens in the driver’s seats, waiting impatiently.
Francisco walks me toward the back of the line, where a number of kids are gathered in a group. I slow down as I pass, noting that most of them are dressed in black from head to toe. I see Lee talking with people in the center of the group, his arms gesticulating wildly. He notices me and signals for me to join him.
“Go ahead,” Francisco says. “I’ll catch up with you in a minute.”
I walk over to Lee.
“Hey,” Lee says. “My dad called to say you were coming with us. I’m glad.”
“I’d be glad, too, if I knew where we were going.”
“The Hunt.”
“What’s The Hunt?”
Lee smiles. “A scavenger hunt. We go out and look for things. Are you interested?”
“Sure. Maybe I can call my parents from the road?”
He nods. “Come on, then. You’re riding with us.”
He walks me toward a van near the rear of the pack. He opens the side door and waits for me to climb in. Then he slides in behind me.
Francisco nods a greeting from the driver’s seat.
“Everybody locked in?” he says.
“Safety first,” Miranda says, buckling her seat belt in the front passenger seat.
Lee pats me on the back. “We’re good to go,” he says to Francisco. Then he leans forward to his sister. “Daniel is one of us now, Miranda. Can you believe it?”
“Did you clear it with Dad?” she asks Lee.
“It was Dad’s idea. Isn’t that right, Francisco?”
“That’s right,” he says.
“It’s official. I’m coming with,” I say.
“The more, the merrier,” she says, unimpressed. Then she turns around and slumps in her seat.
“Let’s roll out,” Francisco says, and he starts the van.
“You’re going to love this,” Lee says quietly. “It’s a total blast.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
> THE VANS SPLIT UP OUTSIDE OF CAMP, MOVING OFF IN DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS.
I sit in the back with Lee, trying to monitor our direction in case I have to report on it later. There are no windows on the side of the van, so I look through the front windshield, memorizing details as we go.
I recognize Manchester as we cross into the city limits.
My phone chimes.
“What is that?” Francisco says quickly from the driver’s seat.
I pull out my phone. It’s another fictional reminder for Daniel Martin, this time for a school book fair that’s happening next weekend.
“It’s just my phone,” I say.
“Off,” Francisco says.
I look to Lee. “But you said I could call my dad.”
“Later,” Lee says. “If your phone is on, you can be tracked. We can be tracked.”
He motions to all of us in the van.
“So what?” I say.
“You don’t want to be tracked right now. Believe me,” he says.
He watches as I turn the phone off. I glance up to see Francisco also looking at me in the rearview.
“It’s off,” I announce to the van.
Francisco nods and steers the van down a busy stretch of road. We pass store parking lots filled with cars.
“What would they think if they knew we were out here now, driving among them?” Lee says.
“Who?” I say.
“The people. The nice, law-abiding people.”
“If they’re law-abiding, then what are we?”
“Save it,” Francisco says from the front seat.
Lee grits his teeth. I’m noticing he doesn’t have much of a poker face.
He leans toward me and whispers: “You’ll see what I mean.”
Miranda flips down the mirror in the front seat. Ostensibly she’s fixing her hair, but when I glance at her, she’s looking at me from the corner of the mirror, her eyes large.
She doesn’t say anything, so I don’t, either.
I try to piece it together. What are they planning?
We make one stop at a gas station, and I notice Francisco pulls a baseball cap low over his forehead before he gets out to pump gas. When he gets back in the car, he has a bag full of energy bars, beef jerky, and trail mix. He tosses it back to me.
“What’s this?”
“Lunch for everyone,” he says. “It’s the best we can do.”
“Anything is better than nothing,” I say.
I haven’t eaten all day, and I missed breakfast because I was talking to Moore, so I dig into some trail mix, eating slowly to replenish my energy without shocking my system.
“Okay, time to do some reconnaissance,” Francisco says.
We head out of Manchester, driving east for several miles until we pass signs for Lake Massabesic, just east of Manchester.
“It’s up ahead,” Lee says.
“I can read the signs,” Francisco says.
“You’re not from around here, so I’m just making sure.”
“Thanks for your concern,” Francisco says.
“Enough,” Miranda says. “All this dick swinging is boring the crap out of me.”
The road is mostly empty, but Francisco drives cautiously, obviously unfamiliar with the territory.
“Where are you from, Francisco?” I say.
“Lots of places,” he says.
“He was a stray,” Lee says, “until my father took him in.”
“That’s not nice,” Miranda says, putting her hair into a bun and tucking it under a nondescript baseball cap. “We’re all in this together.”
She passes a similar cap back to me, motioning for me to put it on.
“It’s not nice, but it’s true,” Lee says.
Francisco keeps his cool in the front seat. Instead of responding to Lee, he says simply, “It’s time to focus on the task at hand.”
Lee slips on a baseball cap as Francisco takes the turnoff for Lake Shore Road. We drive for a few miles, hints of the lake popping up through brief clearings in the forest.
“We’re going to drive around twice, nice and easy,” Francisco says. “Keep your eyes open.”
We do two laps around the lake, and then Francisco slows, searching for something on a nearby road. A moment later he finds it, a wooded cul-de-sac hidden from the main road. He pulls in and turns off the engine.
Miranda reclines her seat back. Lee rests his head on the side of the van and pulls his cap over his eyes like he’s going to sleep.
“What’s happening now?” I say.
“Now we wait,” Francisco says.
“For what?” I say.
“For nightfall.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
THEY NAP THROUGH THE AFTERNOON, BUT I DO NOT.
I use the time to sort through my mission timeline, attempting to look at it both from The Program’s perspective and my own.
Twenty-four hours since I began the mission at the community center, and Moore is still alive. From my perspective, the mission has been delayed, but not abandoned. If anything, I’m getting closer to the inner circle, more comfortable there, integrated and accepted.
But what is The Program’s perspective?
I haven’t talked with The Program or received any communication since I stepped out of Father’s car.
It seems like they have disappeared, but if something has gone wrong with my iPhone or the comms link, perhaps I’m the one who seems to have disappeared. The thought is troubling to me, but there’s nothing I can do about it now.
I hear a crinkle of paper, something being unwrapped. I look over at Lee. He’s awake, surreptitiously peeling and eating a chocolate bar, gobbling it down a square at a time.
He notices me watching him.
“What?” he says, his mouth full. “It’s an energy boost.”
“Where did you get it?” There were no chocolate bars in the bag Francisco brought us.
“I smuggled it from camp,” he says.
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out another one.
“You want?” he says. “Our secret.”
“I’ll pass,” I say.
An alarm goes off from some kind of timer in the front seat. Miranda reaches for it and turns it off. Then she stretches and yawns loudly.
“Who would have thought that changing the world would be so boring?” she says.
“Did you guys get some rest?” Francisco says.
Lee and Miranda answer in the affirmative. I join them, even though it’s not true for me.
“Let’s get started,” Francisco says. “Everybody ready?”
Lee finishes off the chocolate bar in one big bite, then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
“I’m ready,” he says.
“What about you?” Francisco says as he turns toward Miranda.
She nods.
“I need a verbal confirmation,” he says. “You know the protocol.”
“Ready and willing,” she says unenthusiastically.
“And you, Daniel? Are you ready?”
“Don’t I have to know what we’re doing before I know if I’m ready?”
“Are you ready to trust us?” Francisco says. “That’s all we need for now.”
“Sure,” I say.
“Then let’s go,” Francisco says.
He hops out and opens up the back of the van. He pulls out a single duffel bag, which he slings over his shoulder.
“Do you have your comms?” he asks Lee.
“I’ve got them, and I’ve checked them,” Lee says.
“Check again,” Francisco says.
“I checked already.”
“We can’t afford any errors,” Francisco says.
“There won’t be any errors,” Lee says, and I see his hand balling into a fist. He grudgingly pulls a cell phone from his pocket, checks for a signal, then types a text into the phone.
A second later, a text comes back with a faint ping.
“You see? It’s working,�
�� he says, and stuffs the phone back into his pocket. “The only time we get cell phones, and I can’t even download any apps.”
Francisco sighs. He turns to Miranda. “What’s our timeline?”
Miranda presses a button on her digital timer.
“Thirty minutes,” she says.
“What’s the timeline about?” I say.
“That’s how long we have to get in place and accomplish the mission,” she says.
“Mission?”
“The Hunt,” she says.
“T-minus thirty,” Francisco says. “That means we have to hustle.”
With a hiss of air through his teeth, he starts up the side of the road, motioning us to follow him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
THE ROAD IS DESERTED.
I sense the lake to our right, a low-slung stone wall defining the boundary of the property around it. We pass the occasional cabin to our left, and Francisco diverts us into the woods, out of sight, switching back to the road only after we’re a good distance away. Only once do we spot headlights coming toward us down the lake road, and Francisco quickly moves the group behind the foliage until the car passes.
As we get closer to whatever our destination is, Francisco staggers us so we’re not as obvious a group, or as large a target. I use the opportunity to drop back a little ways to where Miranda is.
“You guys have done this before,” I say.
“A few times a year,” she says. “For two years now.”
“Same group?”
“Different groups. But they usually keep Lee and me together.”
“It’s like a camping trip of some kind?”
“It’s no camping trip,” she says. “It’s a hunting trip.”
“No talking, please,” Francisco says.
He’s fallen back within earshot.
He stops the group by putting up a fist, then he points from his eyes to a spot in the distance.
A utility road opens out of nowhere, marked only by a single rustic wooden sign:
MANCHESTER WATER WORKS
WATER TREATMENT PLANT
“What is this place?” I whisper.
“It’s the water processing plant for the city of Manchester,” Lee says. “The lake provides drinking water for one hundred and sixty thousand people. All of it passes through here to get purified before it winds up in their homes.”