Allen Zadoff: The Lost Mission

“The explosion shook me up a little. I’ll be okay.”

The rotors whir above us. I pull my emotions inside, hardening my face to a soldier’s countenance.

“I think you’ll be okay, too,” he says. “In fact I’m sure of it.”

I grab the duffel and open the helicopter door.

“This thing we have is fragile, Zach.”

Zach.

It’s a shock to hear him say my name.

“The Program is fragile,” he says. “It doesn’t seem so, but it is. It’s based on a foundation of trust.”

“Of course,” I say.

“We have to trust each other,” Father says.

I think of the freelance team in the backyard of the safe house.

I look at Father in the helicopter next to me.

I think of the chip hidden under the tape on my chest right now. The things Francisco shared with me about The Program.

Francisco may have gone insane, but there was truth to what he said.

I look at Father.

I don’t trust him. Not anymore.

I use every skill at my disposal to hide my feelings from him, masking them under layers and layers of other feelings, then capping those with a surface of calm.

Father’s watching me, waiting for me to say something.

“I trust you,” I say.

“Good,” he says.

He nods once. We’re done.

“Leave the base. Destroy your phone. There’s a Stop&Shop two blocks away with an Infiniti G37 in the lot. Check your e-mail from a safe location when you get clear. We’ll send you instructions.”

Back to business as usual. The assignment followed by the waiting.

“Will it be a long wait this time?” I say.

“I can’t be sure.”

I start to climb out of the helicopter.

“Zach,” Father says.

I hesitate in the doorway.

“If it gets to be too much, will you call me?”

“Too much?”

“The thoughts. I know waiting can be difficult for you.”

“I’ll call.”

“I’d prefer it. These last few days—” He pauses, choosing his words carefully. “I had to make some choices that were difficult for me on personal level. I’m not supposed to be telling you this, but I think it’s important that you know. I’d like it if this was an anomaly, something that we move on from.”

“I’d like that, too,” I say.

“Call me if you have an issue. Don’t let it get to this point again.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

I step onto the tarmac. The blades rev up behind me, whipping the air into a frenzy as the helicopter takes off, banks hard, and disappears in the night.

A G37 COUPE IS WAITING IN THE PARKING LOT OF THE GROCERY STORE OUTSIDE THE BASE.

There is an iPhone charging in the center console and a set of documents in the glove compartment. I push down the visor, open the vanity mirror, and blow hot air on it. A number appears there, the secure PIN for the phone that will serve as my code for this waiting period. I memorize it and wipe the mirror clean.

I start the car. The engine roars to life. It’s the big engine that Infiniti is known for, 330 horsepower of muscle, a rare indulgence these days.

I pull out of the parking lot, the wind whipping through open windows.

The Program is back, our protocols are in place, and the elements have been arranged for my safe egress.

It’s as if the last four days never happened. The Program never disappeared, never left me.

Part of me wants to accept this. I was used and I survived. This was my mission. It was more complex than the ones that preceded it, but so be it. Everything is back to normal now.

But another part of me knows this is a lie. I trusted these people once.

Never again.

A phone vibration snaps me back to the present moment.

It’s not coming from the new Program iPhone in the center console. It’s the iPhone I forgot I had. The one connected to Howard.

“Jets leave trails in the sky,” he says when I answer the phone.

His voice is rushed and excited, Howard in fast-forward mode.

“I’m not following you,” I say.

“Jets leave trails. So do digital signals. E-mails, voice messages, interagency communications. They all leave faint trails online, even the secure ones. Especially the secure ones, because even though they are erased, they are not overwritten by the amount of traffic that overwrites normal public communications.”

“Where are you going with this, Howard?”

“I followed the trails.”

“Followed them where?”

“To your father.”

I’ve accelerated without realizing it, and when I look up, I’m bearing down on the rear bumper of the truck ahead. I swerve, narrowly missing it as I switch to an empty lane.

“Where are you now?” I say.

“I’m still in Manchester.”

“I told you to get out of there.”

“I just had to do one thing before I left,” he says. “And one thing led to another, and the data started to come in—”

“Promise me you’ll pack up as soon as we get off the phone.”

“Absolutely,” he says. “I triple swear it. That’s what Goji makes me do when I promise to FaceTime her in Osaka, but I forget and—”

“My father. Tell me where you found him.”

“Right, right,” he says, getting back on task. “He was in the historical data. The Program data. Remember that twelve-year-old hacker I told you about when you were in New York?”

“The Loop kid.”

“That’s right. Infinite L∞P. The one who thinks he’s hot shit. Well, guess what? He screwed up and left a backdoor open in the rear quadrant of a firewall. Not really open. More like a tunnel that looks closed from the outside when it’s not. The point is I got inside and I cracked one of The Program’s remote servers.”

“You’re telling me you found data about my father on a Program server?”

“That’s right. They were communicating with him.”

“You mean they made secret contact as a precursor to killing him? Like setting him up before the mission?”

“That’s the weird thing,” Howard says. “They were communicating openly with him.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Like internal agency communications.”

“My father was working for The Program?”

“No,” Howard says. “The Program was working for your father.”

“How is that possible?”

“I’ve got e-mail evidence, secure text messages, even some—”

Howard stops talking.

“Howard? Hello?”

The line goes dead.

I slam the brakes, skidding the car to the side of the road.

I dial Howard’s number, let it ring. There’s no answer.

I wait sixty seconds and do it again.

Nothing.

I wait another two minutes, and I call again. Still nothing.

I whip the car around, crossing four lanes of traffic to the protest of angry horns. I race back east, plotting a route that will avoid Boston while taking me north toward Manchester.

I call Howard five more times over the course of several hours without a response. Finally I give up, knowing I’m not going to reach him. I try to imagine a reason why that might be, a reason that does not include something terrible happening to him, but I cannot.

There’s nothing left for me to do but focus on the driving, the road in front of me, the mile markers ticking off on the highway, one every thirty-seven seconds.

THE HOTEL TELLS ME HE NEVER CHECKED OUT.

I go to the suite and knock, but nobody answers.

I note light along the bottom edge of the doorway. That’s when I pick the lock and slip inside.

The room is empty. A single overhead lamp has been left on in the front room, like you might do if you were leaving during the day and not coming back until evening.