Why?
He must see the confusion on my face, because he answers the unvoiced question:
“Imagine you and I, with our training… the things we could accomplish if we put our skills together.”
“Accomplish where? With Moore? You traded The Program for a madman,” I say.
“I’ll admit he’s got his issues. But there’s room to shape his beliefs. We could do it together, build this into something special.”
He lowers his voice.
“The Program wouldn’t stand a chance with us together. Think about it.”
I consider teaming with Franky. There’s something nice about the idea of being together, soldiers united rather than alone and isolated in the world.
“You’ve only been here two days,” Francisco says. “I understand if you’re not ready to make a decision yet, but give yourself time to get to know Moore. Give us time to talk this out together.”
I hesitate, the tiniest seed of doubt creeping into my mind.
“I don’t have time,” I say.
I have a mission. I can’t allow myself to be confused.
“Listen to me,” he says. “I’m trying to throw you a lifeline.”
“I don’t need your lifeline. You betrayed The Program,” I say. “You betrayed your training, everything you believed in.”
“I never believed,” he says. He stares at me, his eyes piercing through the dimness of the forest. “Did you?”
That’s when I hit him. A roundhouse to the side of his head.
He’s startled by the speed of my attack. I go from stillness to a rapid strike in less than a second.
He reaches up to defend himself, and I hit him again.
He tries to grab a length of branch from the ground, but I’m too fast. I hit him again.
He tries to speak, but I don’t wait to hear what he’s going to say.
I’ve heard enough.
I’m trained to act instantaneously, to kill without leaving a trace.
I know two dozen ways to do it. When I don’t have my poison, I know how to do it with my hands. With items in the environment. I can always kill in a manner that is undetectable if I choose to do so.
Not now.
Now I take his head in my hands, and I bash it against a tree. I pull it back and I bash it again.
He goes limp in my arms, the fight drained out of him.
I push him up against a tree, my palm pressing into his throat, choking him out slowly.
“You said you recognized me earlier,” I say.
He groans, and I slap his face lightly, snapping him to attention.
“Listen to me,” I say. “Earlier you said you knew I was Epsilon by looking at me. What did you mean?”
“Your face,” he says through bloody lips. “It’s familiar.”
“How is it familiar if you’ve never seen me before?”
“You look like your father.”
My hand comes away from his throat. I stand before him, undefended.
“You know my father?” I say.
He stares at me, surprise showing through swollen eyes.
“You don’t know, do you?” he says.
“Know what?”
“How you got to The Program. Who you really are.”
“Mike brought me in.”
“But why? You must have thought about it.”
I have thought about it. Nobody is innocent, nobody who The Program targets. They’ve all done something to bring it on.
My father did something to bring it on.
But what?
Francisco strikes at me then, a ferocious blow to the head, a last-ditch effort to save himself. But his timing his off, his body injured beyond repair. I sidestep, the punch narrowly missing me but glancing off the side of my skull hard enough to start a ringing in my ears.
He is like a wild animal, injured but dangerous until the end.
“Who am I?” I say.
“I can’t tell you that,” he says.
“You won’t,” I say.
“I can’t,” he says.
I rush him, our bodies connecting in a savage exchange of blows. I feel his power waning with each one.
I kick out and connect to his belly, slamming him backward. He trips on a fallen tree trunk and goes down. I leap on top of him, kneeling on his chest, my hands closing around his throat.
“You can’t tell me who I am because you don’t know,” I say.
The last blow hurt him badly. The color drains from his face, a sign that he is bleeding internally. He struggles beneath me, a sticky line of blood dropping from the corner of one lip and making contact with the ground.
His voice is hoarse as he speaks.
“I can’t tell you,” he says, “because you have to find out for yourself.”
I squeeze his throat.
He gasps, looking up at me.
I meet his gaze, and I squeeze tighter.
My focus is singular. I must crush this boy.
I imagine him telling Moore about The Program before turning against us.
I think of him at the water treatment plant, holding Lee back, not because he was morally opposed to acting, but because he was awaiting instructions from Moore.
He fights for breath, but I do not allow him any.
This traitor. This boy who was one of us and is no longer.
I will protect The Program from the damage he has done. I will protect the country from the terrorist acts he might carry out if he is not stopped.
The phone in my pocket buzzes again and again. Someone is trying to reach me urgently, but the buzzing is like a fly far away on the edge of my thoughts.
Time seems to stop. There is nothing but this moment, and my mission.
Protect The Program.
I will destroy the voice that tells lies about my father.
The traitor’s hand that reached out to me with a lifeline.
The soldier willing to poison innocent people for an insane cause.
The mind that plots The Program’s downfall.
I squeeze until they are gone, and there is nothing left.
Until all is silence, and The Program is safe.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
WHEN I’M SURE FRANCISCO IS DEAD, I DRAG HIS BODY DEEPER INTO THE WOODS.
A section so dense that he will never be found.
The heat and moisture will start the process. The animals and their hunger will finish it.
I reach down and take the square gray device from his pocket. I’ll use it to get back into the camp.
I stop and listen in the darkness.
No movement, no footsteps.
I am alone.
I hear the call of a night bird and the distant gurgle of running water.
I follow that sound, tracing it back through the woods until I arrive at the river, and I plunge my hands into cold water.
I sit on the riverbank. I take off my shirt and rinse it in the river. I twist the fabric and watch water and blood pour from it. I do the same with my pants. I wash the blood from my boots.
When I’m finished, I put the cold shirt back on. It shocks me back to the present moment.
The text messages earlier.
I take out my Program iPhone, but that’s not where the messages are. They are on my other phone, the one I’ve been using to contact Howard.
Howard has sent half a dozen texts asking me to call him.
Howard.
I made a mistake asking him to come up here. I see that now.
Francisco crossed the line into treason and went insane. I will not make the same mistake.
After I am done, after I have killed Moore, I will get Howard out of here safely. I’ll cover our tracks. I’ll send him home, and I’ll never contact him again under any circumstances.
Then I’ll reconnect with The Program. Things like this will not happen again. Breaks in protocol. Questions.
Doubts.
I sit down in the woods. I feel the cool air on my skin.