I look toward the husband. He shakes his head as if he’s been through this before—having to live with decisions his wife makes that he disagrees with. He sighs and steps aside, gestures for me to come in.
“For a minute only,” he says.
“Just a minute,” I say.
I step into the house. I recognize it instantly. Same fireplace, same green blanket thrown over the sofa.
I was here two days ago. I’m sure of it.
So what happened to the safe house?
I sit on the sofa, and the husband sits across from me in an armchair. We look at each other uncomfortably while the sound of clinking glasses comes from the kitchen.
A minute later the wife comes out with two glasses of lemonade, one for me and one for her husband.
“I hope you don’t mind lemonade,” she says to me.
“It’s great,” I say.
The sugar is a good supplemental energy source. It will help right now.
The man drinks. I drink. The woman looks on.
“How long have you lived in Manchester?” the husband says.
The glass is cool in my fingers. I drink the lemonade in measured sips, trying to make it last.
I think back to the briefing I received two days ago, the story of the boy whose life I’m supposed to be living now.
“We’ve been here a few months,” I say.
“A minute ago you said you just moved,” the husband says.
“This year, I meant. My parents came here for work.”
“Would you like us to call your parents for you?” the wife says, trying to be helpful.
I laugh then. It’s inappropriate, and it instantly sets them on edge. I note the woman’s eyes dart to the corner of the living room.
That’s when I see it. A pink kid’s scooter propped up against the wall near the front door. The woman notices me looking at it.
“That belongs to our daughter,” she says, like she’s warning me against doing anything dangerous, some action that might disturb the peace of this family.
Family.
These are not Program operatives. I see that now. They are a real family, back in their home after a vacation, completely unaware of what has gone on here while they’ve been gone.
I think of my father sitting in the living room of our home in Rochester. We didn’t have a TV when I was a kid. My father spent his time at home listening to classical music and reading books. He’d sit propped on the corner of the sofa, his nose deep in a new novel. Sometimes my mother would lay a blanket across his lap and lie down to read next to him.
My real parents, together and reading. Back when everything seemed normal.
A feeling wells up in my chest, so powerful that it causes me to moan.
The wife gets concerned. She takes a step closer to her husband.
I’m behaving incorrectly for the situation, but I can’t help myself. The wife unconsciously places a hand on her husband’s shoulder. A united front. That’s what they’re showing me. A partnership that will expel the intruder if need be.
The intruder. That’s me.
I do not belong in this house.
“I appreciate the drink,” I say.
I stand up.
The wife looks relieved. Her husband maintains his caution.
I smile, attempting to set them at ease.
“You know what I just realized? I think I’m one street over from where I’m supposed to be.”
“Oh, that’s what happened,” the husband says, as if it’s an honest mistake on my part.
“I feel silly,” I say.
“It’s no problem,” the husband says.
“I’m sorry to cause you any trouble.”
“No trouble at all,” the wife says.
She turns toward the front door. She makes it two steps before the living room window shatters behind us, exploding inward and sending deadly, razor-edged shards of glass raining down on the wood floor.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
IT HAPPENS QUICKLY AFTER THAT.
The glass shatters, bullets thudding into the wall across from us, each one raising a plume of plaster dust like a tiny volcano.
The husband screams. The wife leaps away from the source of the noise but toward her husband, her body covering his.
Even as I drop to safety, I am processing this: it’s not a normal reaction for a civilian. An overprotective mother or wife might cover a loved one with her body, but this woman moved like she has been trained, tackling her husband at knee level and pulling him down, perhaps sensing that the high muzzle velocity of a weapon like the one that sent these bullets is likely to pass through her body and into his if she remains standing.
She may not be from The Program, but she is some sort of pro, perhaps a former police officer who left the force to have a family. I can’t be sure.
I am only sure that we are under fire and that suburban houses do not come under automatic weapon fire in the middle of a Sunday afternoon in a small city in New Hampshire.
Semiautomatic fire, I should say, because six bullets hit the wall. A double burst from a semiautomatic rifle.
I spin and roll from the couch to the floor, staying beneath the sight lines of the window, and I belly crawl to the couple, now cowering on the floor.
“How many entrances in the house?” I say.
“Two,” the husband says, at the same time that his wife says, “Four.”
They look at each other.
She says, “Front, back, side, garage.”
“That’s right,” he says.
I like this woman. She has operational intelligence even under fire.
More glass shatters behind us as a second burst comes through the front door, three pings in rapid succession.
That means at least two men, advancing and anticipating our reaction inside the house.
“Grab the back of my waistband,” I tell the wife as I crawl in front of her. And then I tell the husband, “You grab the back of her waistband. We’ll move together in a line. Stay low, follow me, and I’ll get you out of here.”
The man starts to ask a question when a line of bullets slams into the wall high above us. That ends the conversation for the time being.
I duck walk them toward the side door. That’s where we are most likely to get out safely.
I select the side because of the way the attack is unfolding. If you want to take a house quietly, you surround it on all sides and send in an insertion team. If you want to take out a guy and not get your hands dirty, you shoot him through the front window. It’s crude but effective, barely a couple steps above a drive-by. But since that’s the way this attack is happening, the men are likely to be massed in the front yard.
I glance out the side door. It’s clear. I begin to open the door, but the wife stops me, grabbing my arm.
“Our daughter will be home from her friend’s house soon,” the wife says, fear in her voice.
“How soon is soon?” I say.
“Ten or fifteen minutes.”
“It will be over by then,” I say. “She’ll be okay. I promise you.”
She looks at me, judging whether she can trust me.
A look passes between us. I let her see I am a professional.
“Who the hell are you?” she says.
The sound of wood shatters at the front door.
“They’re here,” I say. “You have to get out now or you’re going to die.”
The man’s eyes are wide and unfocused. He’s going into shock. The woman starts to hyperventilate.
“Your family needs you,” I tell her. “Pull it together.”
I see her accessing a deeper part of herself, and her breathing slows.
I fling open the door and go out before them, eyeing both directions.