“I was thinking about you, too,” I say, which is mostly a lie. I was thinking about my mission.
The siren is still wailing, a cycle of a ten-second blasts, followed by ten seconds of silence, then another set of blasts.
“I have to go,” she says, and she turns and runs out of the room, closing the door behind her.
A moment later, I hear a key going into the door.
I give it a minute and I check the knob. Sure enough, it’s locked.
I hear multiple sets of footsteps passing by in the hall outside, people still hustling to get into position.
I imagine the house filled with activity.
Somewhere upstairs is Moore.
The community is on high alert, heavily armed, at the height of paranoia. But all of their energy is facing outward, toward an unseen enemy.
I am inside. I am close.
It’s the perfect moment for me to act.
I reach into my pants pocket, find the knife I took out of the freelance team’s truck last night. I flip a switch and watch as the three-inch blade slides out.
I let the siren cycle twice, and when it starts up the third time, I slide the knife blade into the doorjamb, twist it hard to create a space between the door and frame, then jiggle the blade back and forth over the lock, applying pressure until it slips back into the door.
I twist to remove the knife, open the door, and I am free.
People are running through the hallway on the way to their ready stations. Some set up in nearby rooms, taking up defensive positions at the windows. Others brush by me, distracted and rushing as the alarm continues to ring.
It makes it easy for me to step into the hallway, close the door behind me, and join the flow of people moving through the hall.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
I MOVE WITH PURPOSE, PROJECTING A CONFIDENT ENERGY.
People nod as they pass me in the hallway, assuming I know where I’m going. I ignore them, communicating that I’m too busy to acknowledge them, slow down, or answer questions.
They have a job; I have a job. This is what I want them to see.
I move toward the center of the building. It’s a long, rectangular three-story structure with a basement. Moore is upstairs. That’s all I know.
But it is enough.
Moore is their commander. He will want to direct the action.
There is strategic advantage to the high ground. Line of sight, an ability to understand the battlefield, to position troops and ammunition.
So I follow the hallway on the main floor until I arrive at a staircase.
There are guards here, two of them.
They raise their weapons as they see me coming.
“Lee needs me,” I say.
“We’re not supposed to let anybody up,” a boy says. He’s nervous. Not a bad thing for me.
The siren is still wailing through the building, bodies in motion all around us.
“I’m in a rush,” I say, pressuring him. “Why don’t you call up there right now?”
“There’s no way to call,” he says, biting his bottom lip.
“They didn’t give you a walkie?” I say like I can’t believe it.
He looks toward the ground, embarrassed. “I’m not C2,” he says. “I don’t get comms gear.”
C2. Military slang for “command and control,” the officer elite charged with directing battle plans and defining strategy. That means only the top guys have comms, and the rest of the kids stand at their stations until otherwise notified.
“What do you want to do?” I say impatiently.
If you put too much responsibility on a nervous guy who isn’t used to it, he’s likely to mess up.
“You say Lee needs you?” he says.
“That’s what he told me.”
He looks to his fellow guard, uncertain.
“You’d better hurry,” he says, stepping aside.
“Will do,” I say. “Thanks.”
I take the stairs two at a time. Near the top I miss a step, my toe slipping down and almost causing me to lose my balance. I catch myself without going down and pull myself to the top of the stairs and around the corner.
I pause there for a moment. I don’t make mistakes, not when I’m operating at full capacity.
I remind myself to slow down a bit, not let myself go faster than sleep deprivation allows.
I just came up the staircase to the second floor, but the stairs end here. I know it’s a three-story building, but there seems to be no way to get to the top floor.
I’m confused for a moment, and then I remember something from my training.
There’s an old and maze-like section of Tokyo called Edo that was the former seat of power for the shogun. It’s said that it was intentionally laid out in a confusing manner, so if enemies ever penetrated into the city, they would become lost and could be slaughtered.
I’m guessing this building has been designed with alternating stairwells to make it tougher to get up or down quickly. I turn down the second-floor hallway, trusting my instinct, looking for the hidden staircase that will lead me up to Moore.
I go only a few steps when I feel it. Someone is shadowing me.
I pause in the middle of the hall, trying to sense whether the shadow is behind or in front of me. It’s like the moment I felt Miranda behind me in the woods that first night, only now when I stop, I’ve lost him.
No shadow. Nothing at all.
For some reason I think of the dead soldier and the things that might have happened to him inside the camp. Was he tracking Moore one morning, just like I am? Did he get close? And if so, what went wrong?
I should not be thinking about this. Not now, when I am moving toward Moore, when I might have an opportunity to get him alone at last.
I focus my energy and continue down the hall.
The shadow, or whatever I thought it was, is gone now.
Now there is only me, moving toward my target.
I round a corner and note a staircase up ahead, tucked into the corner of the building. There are two guards, both of them armed, one of them shouting into a walkie-talkie. I can’t risk having him call my information in to Lee or Sergeant Burch.
I quickly reverse direction, walking toward another hallway in a more deserted section of the house. I’ve come up fast enough that it’s possible not every soldier has gotten into position. Sure enough, there’s a staircase in the far corner.
It is unmanned. I turn the corner and head for it, and then I stop.
My intuition is telling me something is wrong.
An unmanned staircase, all the way in the far corner of the house.
Part of me feels it is a lucky break. Part of me senses a trap.
The problem is I am too tired to know which part to listen to.
Move forward or abandon the mission and wait for another opportunity?
I quickly assess the risks, and I decide this is not the time to hesitate. So I make it to the stairs and keep going, taking stairs two at a time, accelerating as I ascend, not stopping until I’ve arrived, undetected, on the third floor.
The command floor.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
HE IS HERE.
Moore.
I hear his voice coming from a room at the end of the hall. He is giving orders, adjusting the position of forces throughout the main house.
A moment later two men step out of the room carrying rifles. They rush away from me, not bothering to look back, where they would certainly see me.
I take a long, centering breath, and I step into the room.
It’s a war room, maps pinned to one wall, a schematic of the compound on the table with troop positioning marked out with colored pins.
A man with long hair is studying the wall map, his back to me.
He turns. It’s Francisco.