I Am the Traitor

by Allen Zadoff

Howard said our battle was David versus Goliath, and he wished it were Goliath versus Goliath. This is where Goliath can be found.

  His summer home is down the street from this baseball field, an enormous mansion set back from the road and surrounded by a tall stone wall.

  I find a parking spot by the field, down at the end of a long line of cars. Then I explain to Tanya and Howard why we’ve come to this place, and why I’m leaving them at the baseball game while I go to the mayor’s house.

  “I should come with you,” Howard says. “The mayor knows me.”

  He’s right about that. Once upon a time, the mayor’s daughter, Samara, had befriended Howard. For a while, she was his only friend. But Samara is gone now, and I’m not sure how the mayor is going to react when he finds out why I’m here.

  “I have to do this alone,” I tell Howard. “But if everything goes as planned, I’ll need you both to back up my story. One of the mayor’s people will come out to get you. You’ll know I’ve sent him, because he won’t use your real names.”

  “What will he call us?”

  “How about Bonnie and Clyde?” I say.

  “Awesome,” Howard says.

  Tanya attempts a smile.

  “What if it’s not one of the mayor’s people,” Tanya says. “What if the police come? What if we’re caught?”

  “It’s up to you how much you want to reveal, Tanya. But, Howard, I want you to tell them your story.”

  “How much of my story?” Howard says.

  “All of it. If they come, you tell all. Don’t leave anything out.”

  “New York?” Howard says, his voice low.

  “What happened in New York?” Tanya says.

  “Tell them what you know,” I say to Howard, ignoring Tanya for the time being. “Don’t speculate. Stick to the facts, and you’ll be fine.”

  “What happened in New York?” Tanya says again.

  Howard looks at me, unsure how much he should reveal.

  “We lost a friend,” I say.

  Tanya looks at me curiously.

  “The less you know, the easier it will be for you,” I say. “If I answer your questions, you might have to talk about it later.”

  “I’m not crazy about this plan,” Tanya says.

  “Do you have a better one?”

  She bites at her lower lip. “I have a different one. Not better.”

  “Will you trust me on this?”

  “I already trust you,” she says. “Why stop now?”

  “Okay, then,” I say, and I pass her the car keys. From the scoreboard on the field, I can see the game won’t be over for a couple of hours. “If you haven’t heard from me by the time the game is over, leave with the crowd. Don’t stick around.”

  They nod gravely. I get out of the car.

  “Wait, Zach.”

  It’s Tanya. She’s slipped out of the backseat and she’s coming toward me.

  I stop. Tanya stands in front of me, our breath in sync.

  “How many times have we said good-bye in the last forty-eight hours?” Tanya asks.

  “Too many.”

  “Let’s make this the last time.”

  She kisses me, softly at first, and then the kiss turns urgent, the two of us clinging to each other.

  A cheer goes up from the crowd behind us as a player makes a hit.

  I let Tanya go.

  “See you soon,” I say.

  And I turn and head for the mayor’s house.

  I NOTE THE SECURITY CAMERAS SUSPENDED ABOVE THE GATE.

  In ten seconds I will be in range of their lenses. Everything I do from that moment on will be recorded.

  I do not hesitate. I walk right up to the gate, where a black call box is embedded in a stone column.

  I press the call button. It takes less than a minute for a gruff voice to come on the line.

  “Speak.”

  “The mayor is expecting me,” I say.

  A moment later the gate buzzes open.

  It’s a long walk down a driveway that’s practically its own road. A sprawling nineteenth-century estate house comes into view. There’s a big man in a dark, well-tailored suit waiting for me. I recognize him as one of the mayor’s longtime security detail, a man I last saw at Gracie Mansion. I call him the Pro.

  “I’m going to pat you down,” he says.

  “Just like old times,” I say.

  “Yeah, I’m feeling very sentimental right now.”

  “I thought that was a tear in your eye.”

  “Arms up and spread your legs,” he says.

  He steps forward to search me.

  “If we’re going to have a problem, tell me now,” he says.

  “Is witty banter a problem?”

  “If I was in your shoes, I wouldn’t be in such a good mood.”

  “I’m in a terrible mood. Joking makes it a little easier.”

  He nods. “I feel you on that one, brother.”

  He searches me, professional but not overly aggressive. At least until he feels the weight in my jacket pocket. He grasps the back of my neck with one hand while he reaches in and pulls out two cell phones, both powered off. One is my Program phone, the other I took off the SWAT commander.

  “Two phones?” he says.

  “My mom’s a worrier.”

  He nods, a half smile on his lips.

  “Okay, superstar. Let’s bring you to the boss.”

  He pauses at the door.

  “Our past relationship notwithstanding, if you make any kind of move that concerns me, I will take you down. No questions asked.”

  “I appreciate the warning.”

  “One per customer,” he says. “That’s all you get.”

  He gestures for me to walk through the door in front of him.

  I open a massive set of double doors and step into a grand foyer that smells of antique wood and history.

  “Nice place,” I say.

  “Do me a favor—don’t burn it down like you did the last one.”

  A moment later I hear footsteps approaching the foyer, and Mayor Goldberg appears. The Pro tenses next to me, ready for anything. The mayor looks tired, and he seems to have aged in the short time since we last saw each other.

  “Benjamin?” he says.

  “It’s me, sir.”

  “They’re calling you Daniel Martin on the news.”

  “That’s not my real name. Neither is Benjamin.”

  “I thought that might be the case,” he says.

  “Thank you for taking my call, sir. And for agreeing to meet with me.”

  “Aiding and abetting a suspected terrorist. I think they call that political suicide. But you risked your life for me at Gracie Mansion. More importantly, you risked your life for Samara.”

  Technically true. I risked my life to save her, then I risked my mission to try to redeem her. When neither of those succeeded, I did my job and I killed her.

  The mayor doesn’t know this, and he never will.

  “I agreed to meet with you because I owe you one,” the mayor says. “And I always repay my debts.”

  “I appreciate that,” I say.

  “Welcome to my home,” he says. “Now come in and tell me why your face is on every television screen in the world.”

  THE MAYOR TAKES ME INTO THE DEN.

  He immediately goes to a wet bar on the side of the room, pours himself two fingers of whiskey. He’s obviously nervous, but covering it well.

  “Diet Coke okay for you?” he says.

  “I’ll take a regular Coke if you have it.”

  The Pro lingers in the background, watching me intently.

  The mayor passes me a glass, then takes a seat on the sofa across from me.

  “You said your name is not Benjamin or Daniel. What should I call you?”

  “Zach. That’s my real name.”

  The mayor sips from his glass.

  “The press is saying you were involved in the Boston bombings.”

  “I knew Lee Moo
re. He was a friend of mine.”

  His father, Eugene Moore, ran a training camp for teen terrorists. When I killed Moore, his son took over. That was the one thing I didn’t expect.

  “So you were involved?” the mayor says, his back stiffening.

  “I was in the building when the bomb went off. I was trying to prevent it.”

  “The size of that explosion—if you were in the building, you wouldn’t be alive, would you?”

  “I was on the roof. I got out in time.”

  “You flew away?”

  “In a manner of speaking. I was picked up by a helicopter.”

  “I don’t remember seeing a rescue like that on the news.”

  “It wasn’t on the news. Just like Gracie wasn’t on the news. A lot of things happen and never make the news.”

  “Point taken,” the mayor says. “But if you were there, you must have known what was going to happen.”

  The mayor is as clever as I remember, asking me questions with the precision of a prosecuting attorney.

  “I suspected it would happen,” I say. “That’s not the same as knowing.”

  “So you were an innocent bystander who decided to try to stop a terrorist attack.”

  “No, sir. I was on assignment.”

  “What kind of assignment?” the mayor asks.

  I glance at the Pro.

  “I know you want your security man here,” I say, “but what I’m about to tell you will put you both in danger.”

  The Pro steps forward. “More danger than we’re already in by letting a suspected terrorist into the house?” he asks.

  “Much more,” I say.

  He and the mayor share a look.

  “Do you want to leave?” the mayor asks him.

  The Pro shakes his head.

  The mayor nods. “Then let’s continue,” he says to me.

  “You asked about my assignment,” I say. “I’m a soldier. My mission was to infiltrate Eugene Moore’s training camp and disrupt his operation. The bombing was an outgrowth of that mission.”

  “A soldier?” the mayor says. He leans forward, taps down his glasses with two fingers and looks at me over the frames. “How old are you?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “If you’re sixteen, you’re still in school.”

  “I finished school. I completed my studies on an accelerated timeline,” I say.

  “So you’re in college now. Maybe ROTC?”

  I shake my head.

  “I was on assignment in Boston. Before that I was in New York, where we met.”

  “On assignment?” the mayor asks.

  “Yes.”

  “You had something to do with the fire at Gracie Mansion.”

  “You and I both know it wasn’t a fire,” I say.

  “You were there and you saw the shooting. So, of course, you know it was some kind of an attack.”

  “It wasn’t just any attack. It was a plot by a rogue element of the Mossad posing as Arab terrorists. They planted explosives in the electrics room under Gracie, then they fanned out through the mansion disguised as members of the Israeli security detail.”

  “That’s classified information,” the mayor says.

  “I have security clearance,” I say.

  “So you work for a security consultancy? You’re an intelligence analyst, a young computer expert with access to the database?”

  “Like I said, I’m a soldier.”

  “There are many kinds of soldiers.”

  “My skills are highly specialized. I’m trained as an assassin.”

  “Oh, you’re an assassin,” the Pro says. “That explains everything.”

  “I’m telling you the truth,” I say.

  “You’re like a ninja?” the Pro asks.

  “This isn’t a joke.”

  “Ninjas are no joke,” he says. “They come at night, dressed in black, totally invisible. I don’t want to mess with ninjas.”

  The mayor holds up his hand to silence him.

  “Zach, can you see why we might have trouble believing the things you’re telling us?”

  “Of course. But look at the facts. You know I was at Gracie, and the media have confirmed that I was in Boston. That’s two major terror incidents in the course of one month. That would be quite a coincidence for a normal sixteen-year-old boy.”

  “Agreed,” the mayor says.

  “Before New York, I was in Natick, Massachusetts. Did you know Chen Wu, CEO of DefenseTech? He died last month.”

  “I didn’t know him personally, but I heard the story.”

  “There were missions before that. Many of them. I can give you details if you need further confirmation.”

  “Let’s assume you’re telling us the truth,” the mayor says. “Why did you call me?”

  I stand, look from one man to the other. It’s now or never.

  “I’m in trouble,” I say.

  “No kidding,” the Pro says.

  “It’s not what it looks like in the media. I’m being set up by the organization I work for. If it was just me in danger, I would deal with it alone. But there are other people involved. Innocent people.”

  I look at the mayor, wondering if I can trust him. But I’ve come too far to go back now.

  “My father’s life is in danger,” I say. “He’s a prisoner, and he’s being held by my employers.”

  “Your employers. Who is it you work for?” the mayor asks.

  “The government.”

  “I work for the government, too.”

  “It’s a different government, Mr. Mayor. A shadow organization called The Program.”

  The mayor puts his drink down on the table. I notice the Pro shuffling slightly from leg to leg.

  “That’s a rather ominous name,” the mayor says. “It’s a Homeland Security operation?”

  “Not directly.”

  “It sounds like you don’t know who the hell you work for,” the Pro says.

  “I know who I report to. But you’re correct, I don’t know exactly who I work for, not in the broader sense.”

  “You just follow orders, huh?” the Pro says glibly.

  “Don’t you?” I ask.

  The smirk disappears from his face.

  “Why don’t we call your boss and confirm all this?” the Pro says.

  He takes out the cell phones he removed from my pocket earlier.

  “I wouldn’t turn that on,” I say.

  “There are two of them,” the Pro says.

  “The Samsung belongs to a very pissed-off SWAT commander. The iPhone is something else entirely. I’d suggest you don’t touch it at all.”

  He holds up the iPhone, examining it in the light.

  “It looks like a normal iPhone to me,” he tells the mayor.

  “There’s a secure operating system hidden beneath the surface. It links to The Program.”

  “So if I turn this phone on—” the Pro says.

  “They come for us. More precisely, for me. But they might be willing to take both of you out if it assures their getting to me.”

  The Pro says, “You’re sitting next to one of the most powerful men in the world. You’re saying this Program of yours would risk killing him?”

  “Not directly. They might raid the building and we would all die in the process, a hostage crisis that went bad. They might blow up the house and call it a terrorist bombing, blame it on me. Do you want me to continue?”

  The Pro says, “You have a great imagination, kid.”

  “It would be a mistake to think I’m making this up,” I say.

  “Tell me about your father,” the mayor says.

  He’s asking questions. That’s a good sign.

  “I haven’t seen my father in almost five years,” I say. “I thought he was dead until a couple of weeks ago. Now I believe differently.”

  “He’s been a prisoner for five years?” the mayor says.

  “He’s a scientist,” I say. “They’re forcing him to work for The Pr
ogram. And I’m their bargaining chip.”

  The mayor sighs. “This is quite a story, Zach.”

  “I know it is. It’s a lot to process all at once. But I’m not just asking you to believe in the story.”

  “What are you asking?”

  “Believe in me,” I say.

  The mayor studies me for a moment. “I believe you enough to let you into my house.”

  I exhale, the tension lifting from my chest.

  “What do you want me to do?” the mayor says. “How can I help you and your father?”

  “Get on the phone. Call government officials you know, call your friends in law enforcement, say whatever you have to say to get them to the house. The more powerful people who know my story, the safer we are.”

  “And if I have doubts about you?” the mayor asks.

  “Verify.”

  “How do I do that? The moment I start asking around about you, there’s going to be a shitstorm coming toward me.”

  I lean down, reaching for my shoe.

  The Pro pulls a weapon, so fast that his arm is a blur.

  “Easy,” he says.

  I move slowly, taking off my shoe and pulling out the flash drive filled with files Howard stole from The Program server at the Mercurio Institute.

  “What do you have there?” the mayor says.

  “It’s a flash drive,” I say. “You’ll find files downloaded directly from my organization yesterday.”

  I offer him the drive.

  “You made your fortune in the computer-security industry, sir. There’s enough on the drive to verify that The Program exists.”

  I’m hoping it’s enough, because I don’t know exactly what Howard pulled off The Program server.

  “I’ll take a look,” the mayor says.

  I say, “You have to cut any connection to the Web before you do it.”

  “My system is secure,” the mayor says.

  “There’s no such thing,” I say. “The Program has a network of child hackers spread across the country. If you’re connected to the outside world, they can find you.”

  “You want me to shut down the power because of kids with computers?”

  “Believe me, these are not regular kids. Shut it all down—phones, security systems, house automation. Anything that connects to the Web.”

  “Convenient,” the Pro says. “If you were planning to attack the mayor, you’d want all the connections severed. No connection, no way to call for help.”