I roll down my window when I pass the city limits, taking in the sights and sounds of this new place. I am trained to be adaptable, my energy adjusting to locales without any thought on my part. By the time I turn onto Triphammer Road, I am driving like a local.
I follow Triphammer until it turns into Route 34 in the town of Lansing. The houses are more isolated here. When I get to the address Mike gave me, I find a long, narrow driveway that disappears into a bank of trees.
I continue past for a mile and a half until I find a recessed area in the woods where I can wait out of sight from the main road.
I reach over to wake Mike, but his eyes are already open.
I say, “We passed the house a while back. Not much to see from the road.”
“Do you want to wait for nightfall or go in now?”
“It’s a toss-up.”
“Every minute he’s in there is a minute they might break him.”
It’s a good point. On one hand, there is safety in darkness. On the other hand, time is our enemy.
“Let’s go in now,” I say.
Mike looks pleased with my choice.
“Do you have anything on the house?” I ask. “Maps, diagrams?”
“Nothing,” he says. “You have to go in blind.”
It’s not ideal, but it doesn’t trouble me. You might even say it’s become my specialty.
A phone buzzes in the car, the double vibration that indicates a secure text message coming in from The Program.
“Is that you or me?” Mike says.
I take out my phone and find a secure text from Mother, indicating she wants a callback.
I lean over and show it to Mike.
“You ran a leapfrog app?” he asks.
I nod, check the stats on my GPS. “The phone has me outside a Chinese restaurant near the Ohio State campus.” Four hundred and fifty-seven miles from here.
“That’s good. She still thinks you’re in Columbus.”
“I can put her off for a while, send a text to let her know I’ll call her back.”
“You’re supposed to be waiting for your next assignment,” Mike says. “How would you react to her call under normal circumstances?”
“I’d grab it fast because I’d be bored to shit, waiting for her or Father to give me mission orders.”
He laughs. “I used to be the same way.”
Used to.
I wonder what changed for him.
“I’ll call her back,” I say. “Do you want to be here?”
“It depends. How good are you?”
Humans behave differently with people around than they do alone. Mike’s asking if his being here will change the way I interact with Mother.
“You can stay or go,” I say. “It makes no difference to me.”
Mike grins. “Initiate the call.”
I open the word puzzle app and arrange the letters.
Before I press Play, I frame the phone carefully in front of me. Mother will likely do a video call, and if she sees something that doesn’t look like Columbus, Ohio, on-screen, it will give away my location. So I make sure there are no landmarks or signs behind me, and I start the call.
The word puzzle app disappears. A moment later Mother is on the screen, watching me.
“How’s my favorite son?” she says.
I note Mike’s eyebrows rise slightly beside me.
Favorite son is nonstandard phrasing. Mother is admitting she has other children, comparing us with one another. She does not do this.
Mother watches me carefully on-screen, gauging my reaction.
I smile into the camera. “Your favorite son is great,” I say.
I don’t know what Mother is up to, but my guess is that it won’t take long to find out.
“How’s your summer vacation going?” she says.
Vacation. One of the ways we describe the waiting period between assignments.
“To be honest with you, it’s a little boring,” I say.
“You’re anxious to get back to school,” Mother says.
“You know me, I prefer to be busy.”
Mother brushes the bangs from her forehead. I notice she’s wearing glasses with designer frames. I’ve never seen her in glasses before.
“Are those new?” I say.
Mother grins and adjusts the glasses. “Nice of you to notice,” she says.
“We may not get to see each other in person very often, but that doesn’t mean I’m not paying attention.”
“You’re always paying attention.”
“Like mother, like son,” I say.
Mother looks pleased.
She says, “I’m calling to tell you I can’t bring you back from vacation just yet. Things have been—busy—at home. You know how it was when you left.”
Mother is talking about the terror attack in Boston. Most of the Northeast Corridor is still on edge after the bombing by homegrown teen terrorists.
Mother says, “If you can stand it, we’d like you to stay there, relax, and enjoy yourself for a while.”
“I’ll do whatever you think is best.”
“That’s my boy. Your father and I may even have a surprise for you.”
I feel my muscles tense.
“A good surprise, I hope.”
“Is there any other kind?” Mother says. “Stay put and I promise we’ll be in touch soon.”
I can tell she’s not going to give me any more information right now, so I move back to the standard script.
“Will do, Mom. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
The call ends. I put the phone down.
“What do you think?” I say to Mike.
“Strange.”
“Exactly.”
“Let’s put it in context,” Mike says. “She knows about Howard, but not what he was doing exactly.”
“She knows he hacked into The Program server and she probably suspects it has something to do with me.”
“Right, so how would she react to that?”
“She’d take me off the active list until she could find out the truth. But she wouldn’t want me to suspect anything.”
Mike nods agreement. “It’s not safe for her to send you on assignment until Howard cracks.”
“If I were her, I’d stall for time. And I’d try to find out if my operative was loyal or not.”
“How would you do that?”
“I’d set a trap.”
“Break it down for me.”
“Guilty people do stupid things,” I say. “The pressure of guilt drives people to expose themselves. So if I were Mother, I’d keep things positive, maybe even make overtures of friendship and loyalty. I’d try to increase the person’s guilt. That’s what Mother was doing on this call. That’s why she broke protocol and said I was her favorite son.”
Mike smiles. “Very perceptive,” he says.
“So I’m correct. Mother is setting a trap.”
I watch Mike’s expression. It does not vary.
“You think I’m the trap?” Mike says.
“It’s possible.”
“If this was a trap, it’s already been sprung. You admitted to me that you knew the kid. You admitted he was working with you. That’s enough information, isn’t it? Enough for me to report back to The Program and for Mother to issue a kill order.”
“It’s enough. I agree.”
“But here we are. And you are alive and well.”
“Here we are.”
“This is not a trap,” Mike says. “It’s an opportunity to clear your name.”
I lean back in my seat. It’s my turn to close my eyes.
“This is kind of nice,” I say.
Mike doesn’t speak. I’m guessing he’s perplexed by my statement.
“I mean being on a mission with you, Mike. Reasoning it out together.”
“What can I say? We’re Program brothers.”
I open my eyes and look at Mike. My former best friend and greatest enemy. Perhaps there’s another chapter in our future.
Could we be brothers?
Mike says, “Let’s talk about how you’re going into the house. I assume you have a plan.”
“I have two plans. One with you and one without.”
“You’ll have to do it without me. That’s not a problem, is it?”
“Are you kidding? I work best alone.”
I take Mike through the plan that’s been forming since I arrived in town. He asks what I might do in different scenarios, and he makes a few suggestions that are helpful.
But there’s only so much planning we can do. When it comes down to it, I’m breaking into a secure house with a long list of unknowns. Usually on a mission like this, I would leave nothing to chance.
But in this case, I have to make chance my friend.