Allen Zadoff - The Lost Mission

“It’s not what I want,” he says, “but I have the guts to do what I have to do to make a point. Unlike my father.”

“What about Miranda? She’s up there, too.”

He looks at his feet. I take the opportunity to step toward him. Now there’s only seven feet between us.

“I told her not to come,” he says.

“But she didn’t listen to you, did she?”

“She wanted to be with me,” he says. “She’s my sister, and she’s loyal. She said we should be together until the end.”

“After The Hunt, you asked me if I had what it takes to sacrifice myself for a cause. Do you remember?”

“I remember.”

“I have what it takes,” I say.

He smiles.

“So it’s the three of us, then,” he says.

“Yes.”

I move toward him a step at a time, covering the remaining distance.

At first he starts to back up, but I keep coming, raising my arms to the sides so I appear to be no threat to him.

“It’ll be good to keep each other company,” I say.

He tries to hide his relief, but his body betrays him. His shoulders lower slightly; the tension in his back releases.

It’s not easy to die alone in a dark garage, even if it’s for a cause you think is just. I’m offering company in his last moments, and he’s desperate enough to want it.

I sigh and take off my glasses.

“When do we do it?” I say.

I detach the glasses from the right temple arm, and I let the frames fall to the ground.

“You dropped your glasses,” he says.

The moment he looks down, I’m on him. My free hand grasps the wrist that is holding the cell phone, while my other arm swings around and presses the weaponized needle into his neck.

The same needle I used to kill his father.

The needle contains three doses of poison. I’ve never had to use more than one.

Until now.

Lee tries to trigger the phone, but I’m exerting all the pressure I can muster into the nerve ganglion above his wrist, preventing him from closing his hand.

I need three seconds for the drug to take full effect, maybe a little more because he’s young and has some physical training. He fights me for half that time, trying with all his might to bring his thumb down on the keypad.

But I press his wrist even harder and torque backward until I feel bones being crushed.

His strength suddenly ebbs, and he slumps toward me. I grab the cell phone from him.

He falls into my arms, his face near mine.

I feel his chest expand and contract, struggling to take a final breath before paralysis makes it impossible.

His mouth moves. He’s trying to say something, but he doesn’t get the chance.

I shift my head to one side, feel his face slump against my shoulder, a spot of wet saliva touching my neck above my collar, as intimate as a kiss.

I don’t look in his eyes.

I feel them searching for me, but I don’t want to see.

I wait for the gurgling noises to stop, for the last bit of life to drain from him. I wait for the boy who was Lee to die along with his past and his future.

I take them both away from him.

Because it’s my job.

At least it was .

I think of the tubule pressed into the tape over my chest, the Program chip contained within it. The betrayal that chip represents.

That’s when I realize: I didn’t kill Lee because Mike ordered me to.

I did it because he was dangerous. To himself. To me. To the world at large.

I did it, not because The Program told me to but because it was the right thing to do.

Something moves in the shadows over Lee’s shoulder.

It takes my eyes a moment to adjust before I can see her.

Miranda.

She’s watching me.

And then she turns and disappears into the darkness. I hear the echo of her footsteps and the sound of a door slamming in the stairwell.

I have to get to her. But not yet. First I must finish here.

I lay Lee’s body on the concrete floor. I check his pulse.

He’s gone.

I make sure the power is off on the cell phone, and then I smash it with my heel, putting this detonator permanently out of commission.

Lee is dead, his plot thwarted.

But that is only half of my mission.

The other half just ran out the door.

I RACE UP THE STAIRS, THROUGH THE NOW EMPTY KITCHEN, AND DOWN A SERVICE HALL.

I pass a few remaining servers heading for the exit, and I ask if they’ve seen a girl. They point in the opposite direction, deeper into the building.

I grab a maintenance jacket from a door hook, keeping my head down as I weave my way through the servers, slowing my pace as I walk up a ramp into the lobby that leads to the main atrium.

There are a few agents clustered about the room, conferencing intensely about the events outside. They do not know the danger below them this very moment. So I change that.

“Bomb!” I shout, pointing under our feet.

That gets them going. They race through the lobby, shouting for people to get out.

I make my way along the outskirts of the room. Suddenly I see a flash of movement from across the atrium. It’s Miranda, running toward the elevator banks.

I sprint across the lobby, unnoticed amid the evacuation in progress. But by the time I get to the elevators, she is gone.

I look at the elevator indicators. They’re all at lobby level save one. The car on the end is rising past the twenty-first floor.

I remember Miranda the night she followed me up the mountain. She’s used to climbing up high, going where she can get some perspective.

Miranda should have escaped the area, but she did not. She got on an elevator.

I watch it rising ever higher. I’m guessing Miranda will not stop until she gets to the top of the building.

That’s where I will go, too.

THE OBSERVATION PLATFORM.

I step out to panoramic views of Boston through glass, interrupted by a few neighboring towers of equal or greater height. I do not see Miranda, but her elevator is up here, it’s doors locked open, the alarm ringing continuously.

I am on the observation deck, but it is possible to go higher.

The roof.

I see the entrance to the access stair, its door swinging open on well-greased hinges. I take the stairs two at a time, the elevator alarm fading behind me.

I open the roof door, and a gust hits me in the face. Warm night air, whipped into a frenzy by the turbulence of high-altitude winds.

Miranda is standing three-quarters of the way across the roof, steadying herself against the wind, looking away from me. I let the door close loudly behind me, hoping the sound carries.

She turns.

I want her to turn. No surprises. Not up here.

I move slowly toward her across the roof.

She waits until I’m in earshot, and then she says, “I saw what you did to my brother. He was right. You were sent here to stop us.”

“Yes,” I say.

“You’re an agent of some kind.”

I nod. A pained expression crosses her face.

“I should have let Lee kill you,” she says.

“Why didn’t you? You knew enough about me to at least be suspicious.”

She doesn’t answer, only glances toward the street, where the police and military vehicles are pouring into the blocks surrounding the plaza.

“You were trying to help me from the beginning,” I say. “You warned me not to come to camp, you kept my secret when you found me in the woods, and then you saved my life with your brother.”

“What does it matter now?” she says, and she steps closer to the roof’s edge.

“It matters to me.”

As I look at Miranda, I realize I feel afraid.