Allen Zadoff - The Lost Mission

“Father brought you up to speed?” Mother says.

“In part,” I say.

Mother’s image is replaced by a series of photos on the screen. I see a tall, intense man with a shaved head, first in a series of military service photos, later as an older man in what appear to be surveillance photos taken from a distance with a telephoto lens.

“This is Eugene Moore,” Mother says.

“We don’t have many recent photos,” Father adds. “Moore has become ever more paranoid and isolationist over time. He rarely leaves Camp Liberty.”

Next I see photos of a young man and woman. The boy has closely cropped brown hair, the girl long red hair and freckles with a beautiful tomboy quality. I note familiar facial characteristics in both of them.

“Moore has two children,” Father says. “A son named Lee who is your age, and a girl name Miranda. She’s a year younger.”

Mother’s image returns to the screen.

“Moore is the target, correct?” I say.

“That’s right,” Father says.

“And which of his kids is the mark?” I say.

My assignments have two components. First there is the mark, someone my own age who I get close to and who leads me inside. Then there is the target, the one I am assigned to terminate.

“There is no mark,” Mother says.

“I don’t understand.”

“We’re sending you at him directly,” Father says.

The images of Moore and his family disappear from the iPad screen, replaced by shots of a large brick building surrounded by a parking lot.

Mother says, “Moore holds a recruiting event several times a year in different towns throughout New Hampshire. Parents and kids apply from all over the United States to get an audience with him. You’ll be at his next event.”

“Am I going to fill out an application?” I say.

“You already have,” Mother says. “We took care of it. But unfortunately it’s not that easy. Moore selects candidates from the crowd who he wants to meet after the event. Just because you’re there doesn’t mean you get an audience with him.”

“How does he decide who to meet?” I say.

“He claims to have a sixth sense,” Father says. “He believes he can feel whether a young person is a proper candidate or not.”

“How can I make myself feel like a candidate if I don’t know what he’s looking for?”

Mother’s image appears on the iPad. “We think you already feel like a candidate,” she says.

“What does that mean?” I say, willing my voice to remain steady.

Father steps toward me. “She’s talking about your recent issues. The things that caused you to drop off the grid.”

I had issues during my last mission that caused me to question my orders for the first time. I deviated from my assignment, thinking I knew better than Mother and Father. Only later did I find out that The Program had been right all along, and I had been wrong.

I meet Mother’s eyes on the iPad screen. “Those issues have been dealt with. I told Father that I just need to keep working.”

“He told me about your conversation,” Mother says. “But the fact remains you know what it feels like to have doubts now. We need you to access that part of yourself.”

I sit very still and take slow breaths.

For a moment, I wonder if this is another test, the entire scenario constructed as a way of gauging my loyalty.

“I don’t understand,” I say. “You want me to have doubts again?”

“Not exactly,” Mother says. “We want Daniel Martin to have doubts.”

“Who is Daniel Martin?”

“That’s your identity for this mission,” Father says.

A different mission, a different name. That’s how it always is.

Mother continues, “Moore will be looking for young people who are confused and questioning the status quo. Disorganized minds he can mold to his purpose. You need to appear to be one of those kids.”

I think about what this means, the mental confusion I have to embody to seem like a viable candidate to Moore.

“You want me to get recruited,” I say. “That’s the mission.”

Father nods.

“So I’ll get into camp and take him down from the inside.”

“Absolutely not,” Father says. “We can’t have you at Camp Liberty. It’s too dangerous.”

“There’s a total communications blackout at the camp,” Mother says. “It’s in a valley surrounded by mountains. They have high-tech electronic signal blocking. Nothing gets in or out, person or communication, unless Moore allows it. If you were to go in, we would have no way to help you.”

“You can’t send a drone over?”

“Homeland Security tried. Two drones fell out of the sky. Moore has the technical sophistication to counter them.”

That’s when I understand what happened before me, the reason I’m receiving this assignment.

“The soldier—” I say. “He got inside.”

“And then we lost contact with him,” Father says.

Mother’s face hardens into a mask of anger and disappointment.

Father looks away from the iPad.

I don’t blame him. I hope I never see a look like that directed at me.

I watch the blue light pulsing on the MSRR. I think of the dead soldier, the things that might have happened to him alone and unable to communicate with The Program.

“This is a mission brief,” Mother says, her voice steady. “Not a memorial.”

Father snaps back to attention, and so do I.

Mother says, “We need you to get an audience with Moore so you can take him out at the event.”

“In public?”

“In public but invisible,” Father says. “Your specialty.”

I consider the variables. The amount of time to learn Moore’s world, to get into character, to acquaint myself with the facility where he will be appearing and run multiple entry and exit scenarios, escape plans, and contingencies.

“When is the next recruiting event?” I ask Father.

He looks from Mother to me but doesn’t answer.

“When am I going in?” I say.

“Tonight,” Mother says.

I’M LEFT ALONE TO CHANGE INTO A FRESH SET OF CLOTHES.

I’m given a surgical mask, then I’m taken down through the hospital like a regular patient and wheeled out through discharge by an orderly. After that I’m transported by ambulance to a residential neighborhood in a suburb of Manchester.

The driver stops across the street from a Cumberland Farms convenience store and without a word hands me a slip of paper. I get out of the ambulance, and he drives away.

On the piece of paper is a number: 578.

I look at the house nearest me. It’s number 62.

An ambulance in a residential neighborhood invites attention, so I’m guessing they dropped me off a ways from my location.

I start walking. I make my posture casual like that of a kid in the neighborhood coming home late from school on a Friday night.

After several blocks, the houses become sparse and the road dead-ends in a cul-de-sac with only a few homes, each hidden behind tall bushes. The mailbox identifies the house at the very end as number 578.

I walk down a pathway and come to a white-and-yellow house set back from the road with a silver Ford Escape in the driveway. I try the front door and find it unlocked. I go inside.

“How was school?” Father calls from the kitchen as if we’ve shared this moment together a thousand times.

“Great,” I say as if I’m not surprised to find Father here, and I shut the door behind me.

I hear an unusual sound from the door, something like an air lock being sealed.

“We can talk for real now,” Father says, his head popping through the door of the kitchen before disappearing again.

I look around the living room. On the surface, this appears to be like any other suburban house. Small details of family life are everywhere, from portraits on the mantel above the fireplace to a green blanket thrown casually across the back of the sofa.