Allen Zadoff - Boy Nobody

He steps away so that Sam and I are facing each other across the room.

“I didn’t want it to come to this,” Sam says. “I tried to warn you to stay away.”

“You can still stop it,” I say.

“I can’t.”

“I don’t think you knew about the plot tonight.”

I reach for her, but she doesn’t move.

“I may not have known, but I knew other things. I’m in too deep, Ben. There’s no turning back.”

“Why did you do it?” I say.

“For my mother. For the country she loved.”

She gives me a sad half smile.

And then she goes out the door.

A flash of movement to my left.

Gideon is darting out of the room through an opening to a utility tunnel hidden in the darkness behind him.

I’m guessing that he’s heading for the safe room. The prime minister will be there by now, along with the mayor.

I look to the hallway door, toward Sam.

I lied to her. My assignment is not to stop this.

My assignment is to stop her.

But for some reason, I’m thinking about the mayor, about our time together, the way he put his trust in me and invited me into his life.

I should not care about this. Or about him. He is neither the target of my assignment nor my responsibility.

But he is in danger. And the prime minister with him.

If my primary assignment was meant to prevent the attack at Gracie tonight, is it possible I should intercede now?

Without instructions from The Program, I have no way to know.

No way but to follow my intuition.

Sam in the hallway. Gideon in the opposite direction through the utility tunnel, heading for the mayor and the prime minister.

Me in the middle of it all.

I make a choice.

I follow Gideon into the tunnel.

THE SOUND IS NEARLY IMPERCEPTIBLE.

A single strand of fishing line stretched almost to breaking, followed by the click of a mechanical switch.

Nearly imperceptible, but not entirely. Because when my foot hits the trip wire at the entrance to the utility tunnel, I hear it.

Too late to undo what I’ve done, but quick enough to throw myself forward and down, jamming my body between the floor and the wall as an explosion turns the air to fire behind me. Fragments of shrapnel ping off the concrete wall inches above my head.

I avoid the deadliest effects of the blast, but not all of it. The pressure wave slaps me against the ground, stunning me. The roar turns to silence as my ears stop working.

My father. His image appears in my head. Not the image of him in his office when he was alive, or the final time I saw him tied to the chair. A different image, one I’ve never actually seen.

My father alive in a room somewhere, standing at a window, thinking about me. Wondering if I’m alive or dead.

The smell of smoke brings me back.

I am on the ground in the blackness of the utility tunnel. I check my limbs, and they are functional. I check my flesh for wounds, but there are none.

I look back to a small stream of light coming from the entrance to the custodian’s office. The tunnel is still open. I can escape.

But I don’t.

I crawl deeper into the darkness.

Gideon is somewhere up ahead. I must stop him.

After a few yards, the smoke begins to clear, and I can see a string of LED lights lining the floor. The light is dim, just enough to navigate.

I stay low, crawling beneath the layer of smoke. My guess is that there is one more booby trap at the exit. Entrance and exit. That’s how I’d rig the tunnel if it were me. I’m betting that’s what Gideon has done, too.

I accelerate, moving through the darkness faster and faster, turning corners quickly, projecting my attention forward toward Gideon.

Four rapid turns and I sense him.

Then I see him.

Around the next corner. The light of the exit behind him, his shadow moving in front of me. Moving quickly. Moving carelessly.

He’s not watching his back, probably because he thinks the explosion took me down. All his focus is on finishing the mission in front of him. I’ve had the same blinders on, so I know what it feels like. I also know it’s a mistake.

Especially right now.

I rush forward and grab him from behind, my arm hooking around his neck. He’s startled, but he adjusts quickly. It’s a narrow tunnel, so he keeps driving his way forward, kicking at me and trying to get me to release.

I don’t let go, so he adjusts his strategy, twisting around quickly and catching me with a head butt that sends me flying backward.

“You will not give up,” Gideon says.

“No.”

“Well, then. I found something I like about you.”

He pulls an object from a hidden sheath beneath his jacket.

It’s a knife.

The blade is dark carbon steel, designed for fighting in darkness without giving away its position. It swishes through the air, the sound the only indication of its deadly trajectory.

I remember a knife like this. It was in Mike’s hands. I remember the shock as it pierced my shoulder, and the pain that followed as my nerves registered the assault.

I made a mistake that day long ago with Mike. I fought the knife instead of fighting Mike. And I lost.

I will not make the same mistake again.

Gideon attacks with a lunge, and I take a double step backward in the narrow tunnel. The blade passes in front of me without making contact.

Gideon moves toward me, and I allow it. There is a turn in the tunnel a few steps behind me. I want to keep him talking, keep him moving forward.

“The prime minister is a great man,” I say. “What will killing him gain you?”

“Great men make mistakes, too. His particular mistakes are not for me to know. I have orders. I follow them. It’s easier that way.”

He’s right about that. It’s easier when you don’t think, don’t challenge what you’ve been told. Maybe you don’t end up in tunnels fighting for your life. Or maybe you do. But it’s not because you made the decision—it’s because that’s what you’ve been sent to do.

Soldiers like Gideon and me are trained not to make decisions on our own.

So why am I here?

I’m here to save the mayor’s life.

Gideon steps forward, slashing as he comes; I leap back and around the corner, and he follows. He’s entirely focused on me as the target. He doesn’t realize there’s a wall behind him now.

“I think your mission has failed,” I say.

“You’re thinking again,” he says. “I guess you didn’t learn your lesson.”

I shout and rush at him like an emotional fighter enraged. I open my arms like I’m going to trap him in a bear hug.

He is surprised by my gambit, but pleased, too. I know because I can feel him relax the slightest bit. He’s goaded me into making a mistake and fighting outside my style. I’m fighting like him—that’s what he believes.

There’s even a hint of a smile on his lips.

It’s easy to fight a maniac. You just stay out of range of his anger and then you take him down.

This is what he tries.

He drops back to avoid my wild parry, not realizing he’s fallen out of position and the turn in the tunnel is behind him. He bumps into the wall.

There’s a moment of shock as he discovers he’s trapped.

A moment. That’s all it takes to convert my mad rush into something else. Something much more deliberate. Instead of grabbing for a bear hug, I strike out with a leg, so quickly he doesn’t see it coming.

A single kick folds him at the waist. He clutches his stomach as the knife clatters to the floor.

I grab him then, and I use the inertia to turn the corner and throw him as hard as I can toward the exit of the tunnel.