“Nothing like that.”
What he likes, Matias, is that you have that rarest of combinations found in youth; ambition and restraint. That means you’re a thinker, and that maybe even you’re smart. He calls this potential. Awesome potential.
This man whose name you will never know, he has reach, the Uzbek said, and his reach is increasing. He has a vision and a plan, and someone like you would be welcome within it. Follow instructions, do as you’re told, keep being smart, and it will pay dividends, big dividends. It will make Odessa a memory, and will pave your future with gold.
“What do I have to do?” Matias asked.
“You have to go to school,” the Uzbek said.
It was almost a year later that he arrived in Los Angeles. He traveled under a false name, he couldn’t even remember it now if he tried, because as soon as he arrived, it was done, literally burned. The Uzbek had arranged a condo for him, and a car, and he was enrolled in the community college, and his name was Gabriel Fuller, and he was an American, though his mother had been from Ukraine. He had a bank account and a stipend and papers for everything, and the instructions were simple enough, as they were with Pooch.
One, he was to stay clean. No drugs, no guns, nothing that would make the law look at him twice. Be clean and stay clean, no record, and this was vital, the Uzbek said. No speeding tickets, nothing.
Second, get that language, and get rid of that accent. Know your American, so you can be American.
Third, take the courses at the college, meet the people, blend in. Take whatever you want, but if maybe some sciences are in there, that wouldn’t be bad, you know? Maybe some math and some physics, too, because the more you know, the more useful to us you become, and the more useful, the more respect, the more the reward.
The day his papers said he’d turned eighteen, he received an e-mail from the Uzbek. In truth, Matias had celebrated-a poor word for letting the day pass without note-what he suspected was the date almost six months prior. But on Gabriel Fuller’s eighteenth birthday, at least, there came this e-mail, sent through the anonymous account Matias checked every day, which, for almost a year, had remained empty. So it took him by surprise when he saw the letter, read it, and it was so simple, and he began to truly understand what they were after.
Happy Birthday, Gabriel.
Time to serve your country. Army or marines.
One term of service will be fine.
He went with the army, signed on for the 4YO, four-year obligation, took the training and the pay, regular infantry, learned the weapons and the tactics and found himself in Afghanistan once again, and there were times during that deployment that he wondered if this had been a good idea or not. Moments when his unit was taking fire, when his friends died. They were his friends, truly, because he was Gabriel Fuller, and even if he had only been pretending, those bastards trying to kill them sure as hell were using real bullets and rockets and grenades.
He was Gabriel Fuller, and he was a soldier in the army of the United States of America, and he didn’t need the Uzbek to tell him why he was doing this. Free training from the most advanced, best fighting force anywhere in the world.
He could see how that might be useful.
He was out after his second tour, had made himself a specialist before departing, and the army wanted him to stay. But the Uzbek, who had been silent since wishing him happy birthday so long ago, reached out again, and said that was enough. Perhaps he might want to explore what the GI Bill had to offer?
Perhaps he might like to pursue a degree in engineering, in fact? Or economics? Or chemistry?
His fifth semester at UCLA, he and some friends had gone to the movies in Westwood, seen a film about this chick who was wrongly accused of being a spy. He hadn’t been paying much attention to the movie, because among the friends was this girl, Dana, and he thought maybe she liked him the way he liked her, and about minute forty he discovered that she did. So he missed most of the film, instead tasting her mouth and letting her taste his, and it wasn’t really until the next morning, when they parted and he was heading to class, that he found himself thinking at all about what he’d seen, what he’d heard while lost in the taste and touch and feel of Dana.
A sleeper agent, someone on the screen had said. A long-term sleeper agent, placed and forgotten, known to no one. Until the day comes, the call arrives, and the sleeper is activated. Until the sleeper awakens.
It stopped him, standing just outside of Royce Hall, and he felt like a fucking idiot.
That’s me, he thought. I’m a sleeper, and I don’t know who for, or why, or what, or when I’m going to wake up.
And it occurred to him then that if this was his dream, if he was asleep, as sweet as this dream had become, it would end. He would wake. When the time came, he would wake, and he wouldn’t have a choice in the matter.
He would wake, whether he wanted to or not.
The Uzbek contacted him in late winter, the same way he had every time before.
I am coming for a visit in the spring, to talk about your summer job.
Dana was studying special education, working with the developmentally and physically disabled, and she was making summer plans along those lines. But she wanted them to spend the summer together, and so she asked what he was going to do, and even though Gabriel knew he shouldn’t, he told her the truth.
“I’m working at WilsonVille,” he said. He had applied immediately after the Uzbek’s visit, as instructed, had already received word that his security screening had been approved. He was due to attend his first orientation and training seminar that weekend.
She laughed, then, thought he was joking. Saw from his look that he wasn’t. “Seriously?”
“Already applied and was accepted.”
“To do what?”
“Whatever they’ll let me.” He shrugged. “Probably picking up garbage. What about you?”
“I was thinking about going home. There’s this camp for the deaf I used to volunteer at, I was going to work there.” Her family was from Illinois, outside of Chicago someplace. They were talking in her dorm room, and she looked at him thoughtfully for a couple of seconds after saying that. Then reached over to the foot of her bed. A small collection of stuffed animals resided there, would inevitably end up on the floor whenever they made love. She picked up one of them, a sweet-looking gazelle.
“But now I’m thinking maybe not,” Dana said. She was still holding the animal, one index finger slowly stroking its breast up and down as she looked at him. The curl of her lip formed a slight smile as she met his eyes, and the gesture had nothing to do with the little gazelle in her hands. The thrill it gave Gabriel took him by surprise, made him want her right then and right there.
“We could get our own place,” she said. “Just for the summer, you and me.”
And despite everything the Uzbek had said, despite everything he already knew and everything he was beginning to suspect, Gabriel Fuller nodded. The Uzbek would give him hell when he found out, of course. The Uzbek wouldn’t like it.
But the Uzbek, Gabriel Fuller thought, had never been in love.
“I’d like that,” he said.