I’ve gotten confused in my last two missions. My job is not to understand the big picture of my life.
My job is the small picture of the mission. Acquiring targets, getting close, finishing.
That’s what I have to do now.
Finish.
I should stand up, but I don’t. Not right away.
I am tired. My body. My mind.
Time passes.
When I look up again, the moon is out.
When did it become nighttime?
I drag myself up off the forest floor. I am lost here in the darkness. I do not know where I am.
That’s when I remember the river.
On side flows down to Moore, to camp, to my mission.
The other goes someplace else, someplace I do not know.
I only have to make the right choice, and I will be fine.
I follow the river south toward Camp Liberty.
I have work to do.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
I HIKE OUT OF THE WOODS.
I use Francisco’s device to turn off the laser perimeter and walk back into the encampment unseen and unchallenged. I go directly to my room and lock the door behind me.
I must sanitize this space. It will be my next-to-last act here.
I move through the room, erasing evidence of my presence, cleaning surfaces with tissue, then flushing them to erase genetic evidence.
My thoughts are racing below the surface, threatening to bubble up and confuse me, but I keep them down below where they cannot interfere with my tasks.
I stand in the center of the room, looking around one final time to make sure it has been properly prepared. Normally I call in a cleaning crew after I have finished, contact Father and have him send a team while I get a safe distance away. But I do not have access to those resources now.
I must act alone. I must prove myself.
Something happens to me now. I fuzz out, losing track of time.
When I come to, I’m standing in the center of the room. My hand is on my opposite arm, pressing at the bones of my elbow, searching for something there beneath the skin.
I am looking for the chip, just as Francisco said I would.
No.
I put my hand down.
Francisco lost his mind and betrayed The Program. His words are lies, his actions suspect. I cannot allow myself to get confused at a time like this.
I have a job. I have to finish what I came here to do.
CHAPTER SIXTY
I SLIP INTO THE MAIN HOUSE.
I hear the chatter of families eating dinner on the first floor. I bypass them, and I move deeper into the house, mounting the first-floor staircase and moving on to the second.
I have done this once before. That’s all it takes for the layout to be committed to memory.
I pass a few people into the hall, nodding to them as I go. There is no reason to hide, no need to mask my movement in any way. I project authority and people yield, allowing me to pass.
I take the corner stairs up to the third floor, and I arrive without incident.
The war room.
I pause in a doorway for a moment, steadying my body and mind.
I feel certainty deep inside, the laser focus that has always allowed me to accomplish my missions.
It’s a relief to feel it. The old me. The me without doubts.
The soldier.
I assume Moore knew about Francisco’s plan this morning. He would take me up the mountain, ostensibly to repair a satellite uplink, but really to test my allegiance.
A make-or-break scenario.
I would turn against The Program, or I would be killed.
Because I am still alive, it won’t be tough to assume I turned. But Moore will want to know the details of what happened on the mountain.
I will make my certainty feel like the certainty of a boy who believes he has seen the truth. A boy who has made a new choice for his life.
This is the boy I will show to Moore.
I step into the room.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
HE IS NOT ALONE.
Aaron is with him.
No matter.
I stand in the doorway waiting for them to notice me.
Moore looks up, takes in my appearance, registers the fact that I am by myself.
He nods to me, and I step into the room.
“Where’s Francisco?” Aaron says.
“In his room,” I say simply.
“I thought you two were together,” he says.
I note him looking at my forehead. I wipe there with my fingers. The skin is raw from a scrape. I feel the stickiness of clotted blood.
“We were together,” I say. “We took a hike, talked about some things. As you can see, we had a few issues to settle between us.”
“Were things settled satisfactorily?” Moore says.
I dab at my forehead. “Let’s just say we understand each other a lot better now.”
“Boys will be boys,” Moore says.
“And men will be men,” I say. I look at the blood on my fingers and smile. “You think I look bad? You should see Francisco. He’s cleaning himself up, and then he’ll join us.”
Aaron looks at me, distrust pouring off him. But he is not the important player in the room.
I check Moore’s eyes, searching for evidence of distrust.
I do not detect any.
“Francisco explained everything to me,” I say.
I glance at Aaron as if I’m unsure if I should say more with him in the room.
Moore takes the cue.
“Why don’t you grab a bite downstairs,” he says to Aaron.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Aaron says.
“Do as I tell you,” Moore says.
Aaron looks from Moore to me. His weight shifts from leg to leg, his uncertainty manifesting in his body. Aaron so badly wants to be a tough guy. He is brave but unskilled. I see that now.
“I’ll pick something up and be back in a few minutes,” Aaron says to Moore.
“Take your time,” Moore says. “Daniel and I have much to discuss.”
Aaron looks at me with narrowed eyes, then he leaves the room.
Six to eight minutes, that is my time frame. That is my estimate of how long it will take Aaron to get back here. It depends on what they’re serving downstairs, the length of the line in the dining hall, and how fearful Aaron is about my time with Moore.
But the important thing is that he is gone now.
I say, “I wasn’t sure how much Aaron knew.”
Moore shakes his head. “We thought it was better to keep him out of it for the time being.”
We.
“You knew about me all along,” I say.
“I suspected. I didn’t know,” Moore says.
I take a step toward Moore. He allows it.
He says, “Francisco warned me there would be others, that The Program would not let this stand.”
Hearing him say the name of my organization causes Francisco’s betrayal to hit me full force. Francisco told this stranger about The Program, breaking a fundamental code of our work.
Then I think of Howard waiting for me back at the hotel. I broke the same code.
Am I any different from Francisco?
I can’t think about this now. I push it to the side and focus all my attention on Moore.
I say, “Francisco warned you about me, but you decided to let me in.”
“I decided the opposite. It’s Francisco who persuaded me to give you a chance that night at the community center. He thought you were a Program soldier, but he also thought you could be something more.”
“A permanent.”
“A soldier,” Moore says, correcting me. “A new kind of soldier. And he was right, wasn’t he?”
I think of Francisco on the forest floor, his eyes bulging as I squeeze his throat.
Three minutes gone. Three remain.