Allen Zadoff - The Lost Mission

Father points, suggesting a course correction to the south.

“Wasn’t Moore in the army himself?” I ask.

“He rose to lieutenant colonel before he was court-martialed for disobeying orders.”

“Something political, right?”

“He was holding political rallies in uniform during active duty. They began court-martial proceedings, but he sued and ended up with an administrative discharge. It’s a big point of pride for him. He considers himself a conscientious objector. You take his radical political beliefs, add them to a pile of money from wealthy supporters along with serious tech know-how, and you have a dangerous formula.”

“This camp. Where is it?”

“It’s set in a valley in the mountains north of Manchester, New Hampshire. This is no cabin in the woods. It’s a sophisticated, high-tech operation, nearly impenetrable by ground or air.”

“You said the camp is made up of kids.”

“That’s right.”

“Why does The Program care if kids want to play soldier in the woods?”

Father pauses. “That’s an unusual question.”

“It’s an unusual situation.”

Normally I don’t ask the reason behind a mission. It’s unnecessary, even distracting. My job involves target acquisition, pure and simple. I concern myself with who, not why.

But this time things are different.

I say, “I’m being brought in to complete a lost mission, and that’s never happened before. I need as much information as I can get.”

“I don’t disagree with you,” Father says. “That’s one of the reasons I’m here in person.”

I usually receive my briefings remotely via social media, the assignment dossiers hidden in plain sight behind ever-changing Facebook profiles.

“I’m going to answer your question,” Father says. “I just don’t want there to be any misunderstandings in the future. This is a one-time deal.”

“I understand,” I say.

Father nods. “We care about Camp Liberty because our assets have picked up indications of troubling activity online, emanating from the camp. They are probing infrastructure in the Northeast. Electrical plants, Department of Transportation computers, and the like. Individually, they’ve been mostly benign computer breeches, but taken as a whole, the portrait is troubling. Our algorithms suggest there’s something big coming, and we can’t wait for it to happen. We have to act now.”

“When are you sending me in?”

Father studies my face, trying to determine something. After a moment he says:

“We’ve got to take care of a few things with you first.”

Father points out the window to the right.

“That’s Manchester up ahead,” Father says. “We’re going to that set of buildings just outside of town.”

He indicates a sprawling structure set off from the highway, one roof marked with a large white cross with an H painted in the center.

“A hospital?” I say.

“That’s right. When’s the last time you had a physical?”

Father knows when it was. Two years ago, when Mike stuck a knife in my chest during my final exam.

I don’t bring that up. Instead I say, “It’s been a long time.”

“We need you at full operating capacity before your mission.”

On the rooftop, a man in an orange jumpsuit waves his arms at me.

I say, “We’re not a hospital chopper. We’ll attract attention.”

“We initiated a CDC emergency protocol. The hospital has prepped and cleared an entire floor for us. They won’t know who we really are.”

The Program is invisible in the world. Like me, it can appear to be whatever it wants to be, but I have not seen it use resources to this degree—Homeland Security troops to find me, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention regulations to take over hospital facilities. The fact that they’re using so many resources indicates how important this is to them.

“We’ll get you looked at, then I’ll finish your briefing,” Father says.

I note that Father didn’t answer my question about when I will go after Moore, but now is not the time to probe further.

The man in orange is signaling using red flashlights to guide me in to the rooftop. The way he waves his arms, it almost looks like he’s warning me to stay away.

FATHER STAYS BEHIND WHILE THE MAN LEADS ME DOWN A STAIRWAY INTO THE HOSPITAL.

The floor is completely deserted, gurneys at the ready, machinery hooked up but unused. The man stops in front of an empty doorway, and without a word, he walks away.

As I reach for the door, it opens.

A beautiful young woman in a white lab coat is looking at me. She has long dark hair and intense eyes.

“I’m Dr. Acosta. Father and Mother assigned me to take care of you today.”

I examine her face, note the subtle hint of makeup around her eyes.

“Lucky me,” I say.

“You haven’t heard what I’m going to do to you yet.”

“Should I be worried?”

“You don’t look like a guy who worries much,” she says.

“I’m more sensitive than I look.”

“Maybe we should send you to the shrink instead of me.”

“You’re not the shrink?”

“I deal with the body only,” she says.

“I knew there was a reason I liked you.”

I note the smile at her lips. It’s quickly wiped away and replaced with a physician’s countenance.

“Let’s get started,” she says. “Take off your shirt.”

She begins a lengthy physical exam followed by a stress test, lung and heart capacity measurements, ECG and EKG, and a full blood work-up. Dr. Acosta guides me through the process quickly and professionally with a minimum of conversation. She’s young, but she’s obviously very good at what she does.

With the preliminaries completed, she guides me down the hall to an imaging laboratory. In the center of the room sits a high-tech diagnostic machine. It appears to be something like a CT scanner, but I don’t recognize some of the technology employed there.

“What am I looking at?” I ask.

“It’s a state-of-the art sixty-four-slice SabreLight PET/CT scanner with advanced assessment protocols. Any more questions?”

“Will you hold my hand during the scan?”

“No, but I’ll give you a lollipop after,” she says.

“Deal.”

“Okay, then. Lie back and enjoy the ride.”

I lie down on the table. Dr. Acosta adjusts a few dials on the side of the device, makes sure I’m positioned correctly, then steps into the safety of an adjoining room, where she can watch me through the glass. It’s dark in her room, and I can just make out her outline hunched over a control panel.

“Are you ready?” she says, her voice coming through a speaker on the side of the machine.

I give her the thumbs-up.

The machine starts to whir and move over me.

I glance toward Dr. Acosta behind the glass. I notice a taller figure has joined her now. I recognize the stiffness to his posture.

It’s Father.

“Take a deep breath and relax,” Dr. Acosta says over the speaker. “Don’t move for a little bit.”

The machine clicks and whirs as the scanner passes over me from head to toe, one full scan. I prepare to get up, when Dr. Acosta says, “Just another minute, please.”

The scanner passes up my body again, this time stopping at chest level.

I feel a surge of warmth in the area beneath the scar on my chest. It’s followed by a wave of dizziness.

“I’m feeling a little light-headed,” I say.

“We took a lot of blood earlier,” Dr. Acosta says. “It’s not out of the ordinary.”

The sensation of heat beneath my scar increases almost to the point of being painful, and then suddenly it’s gone.