“My father wants us to confront questions like these. It’s all a part of the game.”
I think about a camp full of kids being trained for military operations on American soil. That doesn’t sound like a game to me.
A large component of soldier training is desensitizing recruits to the stimuli they will receive in an actual battle situation, thereby inuring them to it before it happens. So when the soldier finally gets into battle and the explosions start around him, he doesn’t freak out. He’s already experienced it, albeit in the relatively safe environment of the training facility.
Moore is doing the same thing with these kids, bringing them to the brink time and again, without them knowing what is real and what isn’t.
I think about the operation tonight, imagining a dozen white vans, some heading down to Boston and into western Massachusetts, others staying in the immediate area. I think like Moore, considering targets he could hit if that was his intent: Natick Labs, the main research and development center for the U.S. Army; Raytheon; Boston Scientific; various tech labs at MIT; the campuses at Harvard, BU, or any of the other sixty or so colleges and universities there. The possibilities are endless, and from Boston, it’s a short hop to New York and Washington. Suddenly Camp Liberty’s location in the mountains of New Hampshire doesn’t seem so remote.
“You have to admit it was a rush, wasn’t it?” Miranda says.
“It was,” I say, placating her.
She slips her hand in mine.
“What are you two whispering about?” Lee says, waking from his nap.
“Daniel is telling me how much fun he had tonight,” Miranda says, pinching my palm at the same time.
“Yeah, right,” Lee says. “Lots of fun.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
THERE IS A FIRE AT LIBERTY.
I can see it as we pull in: the glow of the flames against houses, the trail of smoke rising from the center square of the valley.
“Is something burning?” I say.
“It’s a bonfire,” Lee says.
“We have a party after The Hunt,” she says.
Francisco parks the van, and Miranda hops out fast.
“Let’s go,” she says, pulling me along beside her.
“I want to talk with Lee. I’ll catch up with you in a couple minutes,” I say.
“Fine,” she says, obviously disappointed.
I don’t like being caught in the middle of this competition between Lee and his sister, but I need to talk to Lee about what happened tonight.
Lee gets out of the van, walks around, and opens the back door.
“How are you doing?” I say.
“How am I doing?” he says angrily.
He reaches in and pulls the duffel bag toward him. He unzips it and holds it open to me.
I look inside. There, in the bottom of the duffel, are two sacks of unbleached flour, double sealed inside plastic bags.
“I’m fantastic as long as we’re going to a cake-baking contest,” he says.
He rezips the bag and pushes it violently into the truck.
“You wanted to poison those people?” I say.
He kicks the bumper, and suddenly all the anger drains from him.
“No,” he says, his head hanging down. “That’s not what I wanted. I wanted—”
Francisco comes around the van, and Lee stops in midsentence.
“Lee, let’s go talk to your father,” Francisco says, his voice gentle.
“Not now, Franky. I’m not in the mood.”
“I think you should,” Francisco says. “You’ll feel better.”
“I don’t care what you think,” Lee says. “Especially not you.”
Francisco looks back and forth from Lee to me, then he throws up his hands and moves on.
Lee slumps down on the back bumper.
“I didn’t want to poison those people, but I want to do something. Somewhere. Sometime. We talk and talk and never do anything. It makes me so angry, I can’t even speak to my father anymore, I hate him so much. He’s just like the government he pretends to criticize. All talk, no action.”
He looks up at me, his face suddenly angry.
“You’re the same way,” he says. “I offered you the gloves and you wouldn’t take them.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Either you’re one of us or you’re not.”
“I came to learn about your father’s ideas. You can’t throw me into something like that and expect me to be okay with it.”
“Maybe you’re scared,” he says. “Maybe you don’t have what it takes to sacrifice yourself for a cause.”
“We’ll see.”
“We will. I agree.” He slams the van doors. “If you stick around. And if my father ever decides to do something for real.”
“This camp is for real,” I say, trying to get back on his good side. “What he’s teaching everyone here, the training he’s giving them that they’ll take out into the world.”
“Sometimes I think it’s all a scare tactic,” Lee says. “He builds this big weapon and never uses it, just waves it in people’s faces.”
I hear Lee’s frustration, but I disagree. You don’t send kids out on mission ops unless you intend to use them some day. Why risk getting caught? Why risk dealing with the authorities at all?
So I think Lee has it wrong, but I understand his frustration with his father. Maybe I can use his frustration to get closer to him.
“Have you talked to your father about it?” I say.
“Ad infinitum,” he says. “But it doesn’t matter. You see how he treats me, how he dismisses me.”
I glance down and see Lee’s fists clenched by his sides.
“One day I’ll be in charge,” he says, “and it will all be different. Believe me when I tell you.”
“I believe you,” I say.
“You do?” he says, looking up for the first time.
“Really.”
“You think I have what it takes?”
“I do. I saw it tonight.”
He smiles.
“Sorry about earlier,” Lee says. “Maybe I was wrong about you and I jumped to conclusions.”
“Maybe I should have taken the gloves. I don’t know.”
“We’ll have another chance.”
“I hope so.”
He starts walking toward the main square, and I follow.
“Do you think your father will let me stay?” I say.
“We’ll see,” he says.
“Where is your father now?”
“I don’t know. He usually lies low during parties. He’s not much of a celebration guy.”
“What about you?”
“Not in the mood. But you should go.”
“Maybe I’ll hang out with you,” I say.
He smiles.
“I’d rather be alone,” he says. “Besides, my sister will have a hemorrhage if you don’t show up at the party. I think she likes you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you see how she stuck up for you tonight?”
“I think she was doing that just to piss you off.”
He laughs.
“Seriously, are you okay if I hang out with her? If not, I’ll—”
“It’s fine with me,” he says. “But be careful. She only seems nice. She’s tough under the surface.”
“She’s tough on the surface, too.”
He laughs.
I think of Mother, the woman who runs The Program.
“Anyway, you don’t have to worry about me. I can handle a woman with a temper,” I say.
“You think you can,” he says. “But she might surprise you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
I HEAR THE SOUNDS OF MUSIC AND KIDS LAUGHING IN THE DISTANCE.
I follow them into the main square, where a large bonfire is lit. Nearly the entire camp is here, girls and guys celebrating together, singing songs and talking about their various exploits from the evening.