Allen Zadoff - Boy Nobody

He falls backward, his body spinning out of control, tumbling until his upper body crosses past the exit of the tunnel and into the light on the other side.

He sits up quickly, and he smiles back at me.

He’s thinking that I blew it, and he’s won.

He didn’t hear the click of the fishing line triggering the explosives at the exit, where he’d wired them.

But I did.

Gideon is emotional, but he is predictable, too. This is a mistake for people in our business.

I fling myself around the corner to safety, and a second later an explosion rocks the tunnel, tearing him apart and sealing the exit forever.

I RACE AFTER SAM.

I double back through the tunnel to the custodian closet, then through the hallway to an outer door that’s propped open.

I pop out onto a hidden corner of the estate. Bent blades of grass leading away from the mansion.

I think as Sam would think, move as she would move.

Where would she go now? Would she stay in Carl Schurz Park?

She could walk up to any law enforcement official, say she’s the mayor’s daughter, and ask for help. She would be safe then, outside the zone of suspicion.

But I think there is a different plan.

A plan with Gideon. A meeting place for after. It has to be someplace safe, someplace she feels comfortable and where she will not be recognized. Someplace that gives them access to different avenues of escape.

Someplace like Cleopatra’s Needle.

SHE STANDS IN SHADOW BEHIND THE STATUE.

I step into the plaza, into the moonlight.

“Ben?”

“Who did you expect?”

She doesn’t answer. She watches me, her expression unchanged.

“I know about the blog,” I say. “The secrets you were passing to Gideon and his people. All of it.”

“I owe him my life,” Sam says. “He was there for me after my mother died.”

“He recruited you.”

“In hindsight, yes. At the time it didn’t seem like that.”

“What did it seem like?”

“Love.”

I think of Mike, the way he came into my life like a brother.

I say, “He pretended he loved you so he could turn you. That’s not love.”

“I guess you’d know all about that,” she says.

We’re on opposite sides of the statue, subtly shifting back and forth as we speak. My step countered by her step, hers by my own.

“You were playing me from the beginning,” I say. “You had Gideon following me the day we met.”

“To watch you, not to hurt you. It wasn’t until you killed his man in the brownstone that we knew for sure you weren’t who you said you were.”

“You knew, but you moved forward with our relationship anyway?”

“I knew something, but I didn’t know what you were here for. Not exactly. I needed to keep you close until I could find out.”

“So that’s that. It was all a game for you.”

“No,” she says. “It was real for me.”

She comes around the statue until we’re facing each other across the plaza.

“What was it for you?” she says.

“An assignment.”

“That’s all?”

I want to tell her everything. How it began as an assignment, how I hesitated and it became something else.

I want to tell her, but I don’t.

I say, “I needed to be close to you so I could get to your father.”

“He was your target?”

“Originally, yes.”

“And now?”

I look at her face in the moonlight. She is more beautiful than when I first saw her, but she is something else, too. Something darker. Something like me.

“You committed espionage,” I say. “You put your father and the entire country at risk.”

“Is that why you’re here, Ben? You’re some kind of spy hunter?”

“I’m a soldier.”

“And I suppose right and wrong don’t matter?”

I shrug. “I do what I’m told,” I say.

I’m supposed to. I didn’t complete this assignment because of her. But I don’t tell her that.

“Oh, I remember,” she says. “You’re the boy who doesn’t believe in anything. We’re different that way. I not only believe, I’m willing to back it up with action.”

“That’s how you justify treason?”

“The Israelis are U.S. allies. If you share secrets with a friend, that’s not treason.”

“Is that what Gideon told you?”

“Gideon,” she says.

She looks around the empty plaza.

“He won’t be coming,” I say.

Her face changes. Her eyes turn cold.

The same look I saw from Gideon, from Mike. The same thing I see in the mirror when I look at myself.

“You’re not who I hoped you would be,” she says.

“Neither are you.”

I step toward her.

I’m expecting her to run. I’m ready for it, another chase through the park. Like the first time, but with a much different intent.

But she doesn’t run. She starts to cry.

Maybe she’s crying for Gideon, maybe for herself. I want to think it’s for me, but I don’t know.

I’ve seen women cry before—women and men—and it doesn’t move me.

This is different.

When I see Sam crying, I want to comfort her. I want to put my arms around her one last time, even if just for a moment. I reach for her—

And she turns on me, snarling.

Not the Sam I know, the girl I met in AP European class at school.

Someone else.

A beast, furious and dangerous.

She comes at me with a barrage of kicks and punches. I recognize elements of jujitsu and Krav Maga. I recognize them only briefly, because then there is contact, and we are in the fight.

It’s obvious that Sam was trained at some point, but also obvious that it was a long time ago. She’s got more potential than skill. She tries to make up for it with rage.

Rage can be effective in short bursts, even deadly. But not over multiple attacks, and not against a well-matched opponent.

Not against me.

When she comes at me with a roar followed by a series of vicious kicks, it looks impressive, but she is exerting too much energy.

It’s a primary lesson of combat. By fighting too hard, she is fighting herself. And when you fight yourself, you always lose.

I stay in close and make myself an available target. A final flurry of punches, and her performance degrades quickly. She’s tired.

That’s when I strike.

I use my body as a fulcrum, and I take her down, flat on her back.

She tries to get up, and I take her down again.

I think of Gideon with his hand on her cheek, the way they looked at each other in the basement.

She comes up a third time, and I slam her down hard. She is panting and exhausted, her energy spent.

I stand over her.

I stay out of arm’s reach. I don’t take unnecessary risks with her, not anymore.

“You don’t have to do this, Ben,” she says.

She uses my name. I know this trick. Personalize the conflict, create a bond with your attacker, then plead for mercy.

It sounds heartfelt, but it does not move me.

“My name is not Ben,” I say.

She looks up at me.

“Whoever you are,” she says, “you don’t have to do it.”

“I have no choice,” I say.

“There’s always a choice,” she says.

She made a choice. To betray her father and betray her country.

But there is no choice for me. Not really.

I slip the pen from my pocket. She looks at it, her eyes wide.

“It doesn’t hurt,” I say.

“How do you know?” she says.

I turn the pen cap to the right, click it once, and feel the soft pop between my fingers as the fluid is released into the point. An idea comes to mind. A new thought, irritating, like an itch in a place you can’t reach.