by Allen Zadoff
“I have a habit of disappointing women,” I say.
She twists a strand of hair between her fingers.
“And I have a habit of disappointing men. Something else we have in common.”
I go out the door, past the suit posted there.
I listen as I walk down the hall, measuring off the seconds before she closes the door. With a friend, you might close it right behind them. With someone you’re interested in, you might wait a few seconds before closing. And with someone you’re falling for—
“Hey, Benjamin,” she calls.
I look back, and she’s standing halfway out the door, one hand on the knob, the door still open.
With someone you’re falling for, you don’t go inside. You wait and watch them go. Just like she’s doing now.
“You haven’t disappointed me,” she says.
The elevator door opens. The operator waits.
“I haven’t disappointed you yet,” I say.
But I will when I kill your father.
She smiles and waves good-bye.
I step inside the elevator and let the doors close behind me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
I HAVE TO SIGN OUT IN THE LOBBY.
I make a checkmark next to my name, and the cops tell me to have a good night.
A nondescript kid taking off from the party.
That’s how I want it.
I scan the street. My body remains casual, but I am very aware of my surroundings. I move, then pause, checking for reactions in the world around me.
There is nothing.
As I wait for the light to change at the corner, I pull the mayor’s card from my pocket. The seal of the City of New York is embossed at the top.
In a neat scrawl the mayor has written:
To my new friend—
Great to meet you,
Jonathan Goldberg
False familiarity. A politician’s trick, but a good one.
A normal person would be swayed by a card like this. At the very least, the mayor would have just earned a vote for life.
I’m too young to vote, so the charm offensive is wasted on me.
Almost wasted.
Something about the mayor’s energy stays with me. His image lingers after I’ve closed my eyes.
I think about him, then I think about Sam. The way she hugged her father.
I think about the fact that she lost her mother. Soon she will lose her father, too.
So be it. I did not make the choice.
A horn honks, snapping me back into the moment. I look up in time to see a black sedan cut off a cab. On the cab’s roof, the ad reads:
Home is where the is.
The heart accelerates and disappears down the avenue.
I walk in the opposite direction.
I lost my home.
The thought appears like a strange, foreign thing.
I push it away.
I walk faster, feel the wind blow through my hair. I breathe in the motion of the city, the motion of the world, all of it spinning and moving and never stopping.
I am moving, too. I am moving and never stopping, one assignment after the next.
The thought gives me peace.
Briefly.
Because a half block down, I sense something. I glance in a store window, scanning the street behind me.
A black sedan. It’s moving slowly in my direction, tailing me from two blocks back.
Is it the same sedan that cut off the cab a moment ago? I can’t tell.
But I will find out.
I walk up to 86th Street and take a left toward Broadway. A busy street, traffic flowing. There’s no way to accomplish a slow tail in this situation.
The sedan doesn’t try. It accelerates into traffic and shoots past me. The windows are blacked out, so I can’t see the driver. It turns up Broadway and disappears.
Maybe it wasn’t after me in the first place.
I wait at the light, then I cross Broadway and keep going, walking along 86th Street.
I project my attention in all directions.
I don’t sense anything.
Not for a full minute. That’s when the sedan appears again, this time in front of me, speeding in my direction.
I put the pieces together. I was followed after meeting Sam, and now after leaving the mayor’s. It’s not a coincidence.
On my walk earlier, I noticed a construction Dumpster in front of a town house that’s being renovated. I’m ten feet away from it.
I don’t wait for the sedan to make its move. I cut hard right and leap across the sidewalk and behind the Dumpster. I race up to the brownstone and use my shoulder to push against the wood planking on the front door.
The wood groans and the padlock gives way with a loud snap.
CHAPTER FORTY
I ENTER A DARK, DEMOLISHED PARLOR ROOM.
Exposed walls, torn flooring, wires dangling from the ceiling. A beautiful home that’s been gutted for renovation.
I drag over a dirty wheelbarrow, flip it sideways to prop the door from the inside.
Footsteps on the sidewalk in front of the brownstone. Two players, maybe more.
They walk past, then double back. I have to move quickly.
There’s a staircase to my left with the banister missing.
Up or down?
There’s a chance I could get trapped on higher floors, but it’s a small risk compared to the benefits. Elevation and surprise. Two key elements for repelling an attack.
I run for the stairs.
I make it to the second-floor landing before I hear the sound of the front door being forced. There are four levels in the residence, which means I’ll likely find a living room and dining room on the second floor. I need space to fight, so it’s here or the roof. I choose here.
I move quickly down the hallway until I arrive at a door with a thick plastic sheet taped across to prevent dust from entering the rest of the house. Maybe it’s mold abatement. Maybe asbestos. You never can tell in these old buildings. The secrets behind the walls.
I pull the sheeting away from the door frame and enter a large living room. There’s a streetlamp at window level outside, the light spilling across the center of the room, dividing the space into shadows and light.
A second later the plastic rustles at the doorway. I fling myself behind a column as the first man enters. I peek around the edge, monitoring his movements.
He is nervous. He peeks into the room, his head swiveling as he looks for me. I hold my breath, make my energy soft.
After a moment he exhales and starts to back out of the room.
He stops, looks down.
Dust on the floor, illuminated by the window. The imprints of the paper booties of the men who work in the room, their steps arranged in a well-worn trail.
Crossing them is something else. My shoe prints.
I didn’t look down.
Stupid.
The man moves back into the room, following the footprints, looking for me. He snatches a pry bar off the floor and advances.
I wait for him to cross my path, moving to the other side of the column to get behind him. I let him get one step past and I strike, hooking him beneath his shoulder with one arm and clamping my hand over his mouth with the other.
The pry bar clangs loudly to the floor.
There’s a reaction from the floor below us. A second set of footsteps rushes up the staircase.
I grip the man as he struggles in my arms. We spin around the room in an awkward dance. I catch glimpses of expensive wallpaper partially stripped during construction.
I imagine this space fully furnished, elegant and clean, a happy family moving in and out of the room as they go about their day.
But that was a different time.
Now there is violence. Now there is struggle.
The man in my arms bucks hard, trying to throw me off his back. I increase the pressure against his shoulder, feel the rotator cuff strained to its limit. I
don’t want to hurt him. Not if I don’t have to. I need to know who he is, ask him questions.
A shadow crosses the plastic sheeting of the doorway and continues down the hall.
The man struggles harder in my arms, trying to get away, trying to shout out.
I clamp down on his mouth and pinch his nose at the same time, denying him air.
If the second man continues up the stairs, I’ll temporarily knock this man out and go after number two.
But the second man does not move on. He comes back.
A figure appears behind the plastic. Not nervous like the man in my arms. The figure is powerful, sure of himself.
The Presence. He’s back.
He assesses without entering the room, his face obscured through thick plastic.
Suddenly the man in my arms has a blade. It happens in an instant. He shrugs his arm hard, and it appears from a hidden sheath on the inside of his forearm.
He stabs backward, aiming for my neck but settling for the shoulder if he can get it.
I turn quickly, and the blade flashes an inch from my face.
I was able to dodge the first time, but the second time I may not be so lucky.
I do not kill for sport, only when necessary.
I quickly assess my options.
It is necessary.
I shift my hand rapidly from his mouth to his forehead, readying a killing blow.
In the split second that his mouth is uncovered, he shouts out. I immediately torque his head viciously to the side until his spine snaps, and he goes limp in my arms.
A single phrase. That’s all he has time to shout. It’s a foreign phrase, but one I recognize from my training.
A warning.
In Arabic.
I let his body fall and I rush toward the Presence, whipping the plastic sheeting out of my way.
But he’s gone.
I hear footsteps at the bottom of the stairs, followed by the slap of wood as the Presence bursts through the front door.
He’s got too much of a head start. By the time I make it outside, I’ll have no chance at all.
I head back toward the room, checking the hallway floor as I go.
I see my footprints and those of the man inside the room.
I also see a third set, from the Presence.
Boot treads in the dust. Brand-new boots. Not worn in.
I go back inside to examine the man I just killed.
I drag his body toward the shaft of light coming through the window. I examine him head to toe. New clothes. A starchy jersey, khakis, stiff new work boots.
New everything.
Professionals do not buy new clothes for a job. It’s too hard to age them correctly. New shoes will slip if they’re not scuffed. New sneaker treads will stick. All of it will pop on visual inspection.
These guys move like they’re military, but trained professionals do not buy new clothes. Not unless they have to because they’re in a rush.
Rushed.
Like me. Like my assignment.
I think about the man speaking Arabic.
There are no coincidences on assignment. That’s what Mother taught me.
Sam’s mother was Israeli. She died in the Middle East.
The men are speaking Arabic.
It’s a tenuous connection, but it’s something that needs exploration.
The question now is, how am I going to explore it?
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
I DREAM OF HOUSES.
The one where I grew up, the one where I trained. And a third one. The mayor’s residence.
One becomes the other in the dream. I am lost inside of these spaces, trying to find my way. I use my training, marking walls, memorizing turns, doing what I know to do.
But it all fails. The harder I struggle to get my bearings, the more lost I become.
I wake from the dream, my breath coming in gasps.
I sit up in bed, trying to understand what’s happening. I don’t dream on assignment, not like this.
I dream plans. I dream strategy. I dream about finishing.
But this dream, what was it about?
Failing.
That’s not possible.
I run to the bathroom and splash water on my face. I look at my reflection in the bathroom mirror.
What’s happening to me?
A double vibration from my phone. It’s the signal for a secure call request from Father.
I glance at the clock.
6:45 AM. Day 2.
I take the call.
“How was the party last night?” Father says. No greeting.
“It was very interesting,” I say.
I think of the body in the town house. I did not send a weather advisory to alert a cleanup crew. I’d have to explain myself to The Program, allow that my cover had been blown, and with it, possibly my entire assignment.
I’ve never blown an assignment, and I’ve never been discovered.
It will not happen this time. I will figure this out, and I will finish.
I’m quite sure of it.
So I did not signal a weather alert, and I will not discuss it with Father now.
My guess is that the body is no longer there. It feels like the Presence is military, and now I know he’s not working alone. He would not leave a body around if it threatened him in any way.
“Did you get to meet the mayor?” Father says.
Odds he knows I met the mayor, that there’s someone in the house reporting to him?
Low.
Necessity of testing this hypothesis by lying to him?
Also low. Stick to facts.
“I met him,” I say.
And I hesitated.
I do not say that.
“Am I going to read about it in the Times?” Father says.
“No.”
A pause.
“That’s my other line,” he says. “I’ll call you right back.”
The connection cuts off.
I’m in trouble.
I met the mayor, and the mayor isn’t dead. Father wants to know why.
A text message comes in on my phone.
Great talking to you.
—Dad
This is no normal text message. I press it, and my touch brings up the front-facing camera. I’m staring into the phone at a live video feed of myself.
The video stream is open to Father. He can see me, but I can’t see him.
“Was there a problem last night?” Father says.
“No problem,” I say. “My meeting the mayor does not make the Times, Dad. Students often meet the mayor.”
“Not students like you. Not special students.”
“Special students, normal students, all kinds of students. There were a lot of people at the residence last night. It was hard to get any time alone with the mayor.”
“I see.”
Silence on the line.
I’ve got a pretty good idea why. Father is running my image through microexpression software, monitoring my eye movement, subtle changes in my facial musculature, the number of times I blink per minute.
In other words, a lie detector.
Which is bad news for me, because I’m lying.
I’ve never lied to Father before. Why now?
He said this is a test. My greatest test yet.
And what do I want the results to be?
Am I a soldier or a boy who hesitates? Who can’t handle a presence following him? Who has memories when he should be focused on his task?
No.
I am a soldier.
And a soldier finishes the mission.
So I don’t tell Father the details of last night. I concentrate on making my face calm on the screen. I slow my breathing. I imagine the muscles in my face—relaxed and untroubled, professional in every way.
“My concern is that meeting the mayor is a once-in-a-lifetime event,” Father says.
“It was very special,” I say. “But that doesn’t mean it won’t happen
again. Remember, I’m going to school with his daughter now.”
“You’re telling me you may meet him again,” Father says. “If you’re lucky.”
“We make our own luck,” I say. “Isn’t that what you taught me?”
“It is,” he says.
I shift on the edge of the bed. I feel the indentation caused by someone else’s body. On every assignment there is a mattress perfectly broken in. How do they do it? I imagine a giant device slamming into the bed over and over again, bending fabric and padding to its will.
Father says, “If you need anything, you’ll let me know?”
“Of course.”
“Do you need anything?”
I sense him looking at me on the other side of the phone. Looking at my image as it is analyzed by a computer.
“I have everything I need,” I say.
“That’s my boy,” he says, and the line disconnects.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
I’M AT A COMPUTER IN THE SCHOOL LIBRARY.
I’m surfing the Web, sitting in a carrel in a long row of computers. Most students at this school carry laptops, netbooks, or iPads. But they also provide computers in the library for those who might need one.
I do not need one, of course. I have my phone, and my phone is secure, at least to the world at large. But it might not be secure from The Program.
And I do not want The Program to know what I am doing.
Investigating.
In a strict sense, I do not need additional information to complete my assignment. My job is not to investigate or understand the big picture. I have a name, I have a target, and I have my training. That should be enough.
In a normal assignment it is. But things are happening that are not normal.
The Presence. Who is he and where did he come from? How could he know that I am here?
The man last night shouted to him in Arabic.
Sam’s mother was Israeli, and she died in her home country.
The Middle East. That is the connection.
It’s a long shot. But it’s something.
As I surf, I focus especially on stories about the mayor losing his wife. Her car accident in Israel. I read article after article about the tragedy. I look at photos of the aftermath.