I take a long breath, forcing back the rage that’s threatening to spill out of me.
“Tell me why,” I say.
“First Francisco dropped off the radar, then you disappeared into the camp. The Program was hemorrhaging. That’s what it seemed like from our perspective. We had to stop the bleeding, or we risked losing everything. Can you understand that?”
Mike told the truth. I went into camp, and The Program interpreted that as a betrayal.
“What did you think happened to me?” I ask.
“We thought you’d been recruited, that you had turned.”
“You think my loyalty is that fragile?”
“As we discussed before the mission, there were questions about you.”
“But you tested me. You said I was fit for duty.”
“And then you disobeyed orders and went into Liberty.”
“So you wrote me off.”
“You can understand why we had doubts after what we’ve seen recently. From you and the other soldier.”
Two operatives breach protocol, one after the other. From The Program’s perspective it couldn’t be a coincidence—they’d have to assume it was systemic. At that point everyone’s allegiance is suspect until proven otherwise.
On one hand, their choice to cut me off makes sense.
On the other hand, they left me in the field to fend for myself, assuming betrayal instead of coming to get me.
I say, “If you still had doubts, you should have contacted me. We could have talked about it.”
“If we had tried to contact you in the camp, Moore would have killed you. We had to assume he’d discovered our soldier and was expecting a second mission insertion. Any suspicious behavior, and he would have acted against you. So we could not contact you.”
“If you were so worried about Moore killing me, why did you decide to do it yourself?”
“What are you talking about?”
“The kill order,” I say.
“We never put out a kill order.”
I watch Father’s face to determine if he’s lying. I don’t see any evidence of it, but he’s expert at hiding such things.
I say, “You sent a freelance team to the safe house. What would you call it?”
“Is that what you think happened?” he says. “You’re wrong. That team wasn’t meant for you.”
“Funny, because it was me they were shooting at.”
Father exhales slowly, his grip tightening on the cyclic.
“We know you left Camp Liberty to go on an operation at Lake Massabesic.”
“The water treatment plant.”
“That’s right. We saw the photo that was transmitted from the plant. We had to assume you’d turned. If so, you had likely given us up to Moore. Maybe you’d told him about the safe house. He would send people to investigate, perhaps try to access our comms. We hired a freelance team to wait for them. Just in case.”
“But you’d already sanitized the house. Even if Moore’s people had come, they would have found nothing.”
“It was an opportunity.”
I look at Father. His face is composed again, his control of the helicopter exacting.
“What kind of opportunity?” I say.
“The woman you met at the safe house is an ex–FBI agent. She was part of a team that investigated Moore a decade ago.”
I think about the woman, her reaction under fire, the way she managed herself in what should have been a panicked situation.
“You put a freelance team in place so if Moore’s people showed up at her house—”
“It would look like Moore was exacting revenge,” Father says. “An attack in a suburban neighborhood. Civilians dead. Moore’s people on the scene.”
“You were setting him up,” I say, suddenly understanding.
“It would be an ironclad case, a reason for the FBI to go in and break up the camp. Not the mission we had in mind, but we realized we had to take Moore out one way or another. This was a contingency.”
It’s an ingenious plan, if you disregard the fact that The Program was willing to sacrifice an innocent family to achieve it.
I realize now that I made a mistake thinking the freelance team was sent for me. If The Program wanted me dead, they have other ways to do it.
Quieter ways.
Father says, “We had no way of knowing you would be the one to go to the safe house.”
“But it was me,” I say. “And I was alone.”
“Regretful,” Father says. “But you did what you were trained to do. Thank God you survived.”
Father adjusts the helicopter, arcing to the west, away from Boston.
When I look back at him, he’s watching me, staring into my eyes.
“You spent a long time inside that camp,” he says.
“Barely three days all told.”
“But it was enough,” Father says.
“Enough to kill Moore? Yes.”
“Enough to find out the truth. About our soldier.”
I nod. This is what Father is interested in. I see him struggling to appear casual.
“What happened to the soldier?” he says.
“He’s dead.”
I watch Father’s face, gauging his reaction, trying to understand what he feels, if he feels.
I see nothing there. No sadness. No pity.
“You’re sure he’s dead?” Father says.
“Very sure. I’m the one who killed him.”
He clears his throat.
“He turned,” Father says, his voice barely a whisper.
I nod.
“How did they do it?” he says.
I remember what Moore told me. Francisco had already turned against The Program long before he got to Camp Liberty. Moore only provided the possibility of a different life, an alternative to The Program. One that was more attractive to Francisco.
I could tell this to Father, but for some reason, I don’t want him to know.
It’s frightening enough for him to think that The Program could be outmatched by another organization. But the idea that that his soldiers are thinking autonomously would be far more damaging.
I will hang on to this information until I need it.
So I tell Father a different story.
“Moore brainwashed him. Cult induction techniques at a sophisticated level. Thought reform, complete isolation, induced dependency, paranoia of the outside world…”
“That shouldn’t have worked on someone like Francisco.”
“I was up there for three days and things started to get confusing. Francisco was there for almost four months.”
“So he’s gone?”
“I made sure of it.”
“Protect The Program,” Father says.
I meet his gaze.
“My prime objective,” I say.
“Well done,” Father says.
I buckle myself into the seat and lean back.
“Enough for now,” Father says. “There’s plenty of time to debrief later.”
I nod and close my eyes.
After a few minutes I fall sleep. My body shuts down after all it’s been through, slipping into recuperative mode.
I jerk awake only once to find Father looking at me. He gestures to a water bottle by the side of my seat. I take a chug, spit soot on the floor between my legs. Then I gulp down half the bottle, lean back, and fall into a deep sleep again.
The nightmares, whatever they might be, will come later.
Now I dream only of wind and sky, the thud of the rotors carrying me to safety, the magic of a rope appearing in front of me from out of nowhere.
I wake up when I feel the helicopter begin to descend. I’m looking down at a military base.
“Hanscom AFB,” Father says. “We’re about thirty miles northwest of the city.”
“Won’t we be seen?” I say.
“The Air Force and National Guard have been mobilized,” Father says. “And there’s nothing unusual about a military helicopter putting down on a military base.”