Children of the Underground

  George and Sam watched the car as it pulled to a stop. Two people got out. George eyed them both. He could switch focus with the binoculars quicker than Sam could with the scope of the rifle. George and Sam were trained. They knew their roles. George’s job was to watch. Until she got the word, Sam’s only job was to aim.

  “There are two of them,” George whispered to Sam. “A man and woman. They look young. The man is maybe five-eleven with short, dark hair. The woman is probably about five-four or five-five with long red hair.” Sam kept the rifle pointed at the red hair on the woman. It was the easiest trait to follow against the thick green and brown background of the swamp. Through the rifle scope, it was impossible to get a good look at the woman’s face. “They don’t seem to suspect that they’re being watched,” George finished.

  * * *

  Evan knew something was wrong before he even understood what he was looking at. The mass of black, charred wood in front of them had once been a building. He could see that now. The shape of the building’s foundation covered most of the hard ground on the island in the swamp. From his seat in the car, it looked to Evan like the building’s foundation was almost the only thing left. A few pieces of the wall were still standing, but even those looked like they were moments away from crumbling into a pile of ash, all charred black with unnatural cracks where light showed through. Before he could say anything, Addy got out of the car.

  Evan got out too, chasing Addy. “I don’t know if this is safe,” Evan called out to Addy, but she ignored him again. Instead Addy began to walk quickly toward the remains of the building, almost jogging. Evan ran after her. As he ran, he saw how much bigger the building was than it first appeared. Somehow, whoever built the building was able to build it downward into the earth, despite the surrounding swamp. When they reached the edge of the building’s foundation, Evan looked down into the pit. Before it burned down, a whole story of the building had been buried underground. Most of the ground floor had collapsed into the floor below it, covering everything with broken, burnt wood. Looking into the pit, Evan could see partially burnt desks and singed metal cabinets with their empty drawers pulled out. “Jesus,” Evan said, “how big was this place?”

  “More than thirty of us worked here,” Addy finally answered him, kicking a charred piece of wood over the lip of the building and sending it tumbling into the pit.

  * * *

  George and Sam kept their sights on the targets, following the couple from the car to the remains of the building. Their orders couldn’t have been clearer. They weren’t there to simply watch and take notes. They had a mission. Part of that mission included orders to shoot and kill anyone suspicious who came to the compound. They were supposed to lose the bodies in the swamp. Without taking her eye away from the scope of the rifle, Sam began to stretch her fingers so that she could pull the trigger twice in quick succession. The faster she could get from the first target to the second, the easier it would be. The less time that the second person had to run, the better. “Give me the word,” Sam whispered to George, and rested her index finger back on the trigger.

  * * *

  “What do you think happened?” Evan asked, unable to contain his questions. He thought he probably knew. He thought he’d lived through it. It looked like whoever had been here followed the same MO as the people who attacked them in Los Angeles. He looked down at the rubble. Whoever had burned the compound down had apparently cleaned the bodies out too. Evan saw no evidence of life in the pit, nothing but old furniture and crumbling walls.

  “Over there,” Addy said, pointing toward the back corner of the compound, “that’s where Reggie’s office used to be. It didn’t have windows. Reggie used to say that when they finally came for him, he didn’t want to see them coming. It must have been a massacre.”

  * * *

  George reached over and placed a hand gently on Sam’s shoulder. She tensed. It had been a long time since Sam killed someone, but she was ready to fire, shift her aim, and fire again. Killing isn’t something that you forget how to do. “Wait,” George whispered to her. He was still staring intently at the couple through his binoculars. “Don’t fire,” he said. “Don’t shoot,” he said, his voice growing louder.

  For the first time since the car pulled up, Sam took her eye away from the rifle’s scope. “Come on, George,” she whispered. “What’s going on?”

  George reached over and grabbed Sam’s rifle, pulling it so that the barrel was aimed anywhere but at the targets. Sam shot George a look, wondering if he’d gone mad. George thrust the binoculars into Sam’s hands. “I think it’s her,” he said, barely containing his excitement.

  “Who, the redhead?” Sam asked.

  “Forget the hair. Look at her face. It’s Addy,” he said to Sam. “Holy shit, I think it’s Addy.”

  Sam took the binoculars from George and aimed them toward the woman with the red hair. She twisted the knobs on the binoculars to focus them better. The last time Sam had seen Addy, her hair was an ordinary brown color. Sam and George didn’t know that Addy dyed her hair red when she joined the revolution. It didn’t matter. Addy’s face hadn’t changed. Sam waited a second until Addy turned toward them. That’s when Sam saw Addy’s face. “It is,” Sam said to George, not bothering to whisper any-more. “It’s Addy.”

  They stood up. “Addy!” George shouted as loudly as he could, as if there was nothing in the world to be afraid of. He leapt in the air. “Addy!” he shouted again, waving his arms wildly.

  * * *

  Addy heard the shouting coming across the swamp from the trees. Even though it was impossible, it sounded like someone was yelling her name. If she hadn’t been so numb from staring at the burnt corpse of the compound, Addy would have been smart enough to be afraid. She would have grabbed Evan and made a run for it, back to the car. Instead she lifted her head toward the voice and scanned the trees for the sound. She half expected to turn and have the tip of a bullet be the last thing she ever saw. Instead she saw a figure in the distance, dressed in full camouflage, standing impossibly on the branches of a tree, jumping up and down and waving his arms in the air.

  “Addy!” George yelled again.

  Before even being sure she wasn’t going insane, Addy started running toward the edge of the island, toward the edge of solid ground, toward the person shouting out her name. Someone else was in the tree too. The two figures started to climb down from the tree. The first one jumped down while still about three feet above the muck, making a splash in the murky water. The second followed quickly after the first. Then the two figures started wading through the water, lifting their knees as high as they could so that they could move faster. “Sam,” Addy said, as she stood at the edge of dry land. She meant to shout it, but it came out no louder than a whisper. “George,” she said louder, but still not loud enough for the two of them to hear her over the sounds of their own splashing. “Sam!” she finally yelled loud enough for them to hear.

  George had overtaken Sam in the water and reached dry land first. He pulled his boots out of the muck and grabbed Addy in a giant hug, lifting her feet off the ground. When Sam reached them, she plunged into the hug like she was diving in water, grabbing both George and Addy and pulling them closer together.

  “We thought you were dead,” George said to Addy when the three of them finally eased up on their grips of each other. He was answered with Addy’s tears. She didn’t even mind crying this time. Addy grabbed George and hugged him again, squeezing him like a scared child squeezing her teddy bear. Questions began to pile up in Addy’s brain, so many questions. How did the two of them escape when the compound was raided? Who else escaped? Was Reggie okay? But Addy decided that those questions could wait a few more moments, at least until she was able to breathe again.

  Forty-six

  I’m not afraid of Them—not anymore—but I am afraid. I’ve missed so much. You’re old enough to understand your
own name now, but the name you know isn’t the name I gave you. I’ve been fooling myself, telling myself that something deep inside you will remember me. You’re everything to me and I’m nothing to you. I can make only one promise to you, Christopher. No matter what happens, I will always love you.

  I’ve got two more days on this train, two more days to try to think of what I’m going to say to you when we meet again. Sometimes I take out the picture of your father that Michael gave me and I stare at it. Someday I’ll worry about telling you about your father. Someday I’ll worry about telling you about Michael and the sacrifice he made for you without asking for anything in return. Someday I’ll tell you who you really are. Right now, I’m simply praying that you’ll accept me.

  Forty-seven

  I saw you today. You’re so big, more like a little boy than a baby. You’ve changed so much. I still recognized you right away. I recognized your father in you. It was unmistakable.

  You crawl so fast. And you stand up and take steps while holding on to things! You haven’t let go and taken any steps on your own yet. I could still be with you for that. I could still be there to cheer you on as you take those first brave steps.

  You seem so happy. You laugh all the time. You seem healthy too. I shouldn’t have expected anything different. I should have known that the people raising you would do a good job. They would raise you like any other normal child. They would try to shield you from the inevitable horror of your future all the way up until you turned sixteen. Then they’d stand aside as strangers taught you how to hate, like they did to your father and Michael and Dorothy and Reggie and Palti, and that kid your father and I killed in Ohio, and the security guards at the intelligence cell, and the teacher in Philadelphia. You’d turn sixteen and they’d give you tests and decide if you were going to be a killer or just another cog in the machine. I don’t know which is worse. What did Michael say? If you’re going to be part of the knife, you might as well be the blade. Either way, you have to spend your life looking over your shoulder, hoping that the person behind you isn’t following you. When the woman who has raised you looks at you, I can see the love in her eyes. She’s doing her best. But for you, her best isn’t good enough.

  They really did their best to hide you, putting you in this small corner of the world. I was still in the car when I first saw Mendocino rising out of the distance. The road jutted out over the rocky coastline and gave me a clear view north. The town of Mendocino was no more than a few dozen houses with a few stores and hotels sprinkled throughout it. Driving up to this little town surrounded by tall, yellow grass is strange, like driving up to a prairie town from a Laura Ingalls Wilder novel that had been plopped down on a cliff jutting impossibly into the Pacific Ocean. When I saw the town, I thought for a second that this whole thing had to be an elaborate trap or a cruel joke. If they wanted to get rid of me, this was a perfect place to do it. I tensed my fingers on the steering wheel and kept on driving. You were here. I could feel it.

  It was late afternoon when I first pulled into the town. The sun was sinking toward the ocean. I parked my car by the gas station near the entrance to the town. Your address was burned into a special part of my brain where I only kept things that belonged to you: the image of your face the first time I saw you, the feel of your grip when you grabbed my fingers, the sound of your crying when they took you from me.

  It wasn’t hard to find you in such a little town. I was in the town for only forty-five minutes when I first saw you. You were in a small, fenced-in yard in front of a house near the headlands. You were playing on a blanket that someone had spread out on the grass. You had a few books and toys splayed out in front of you. A woman was in the yard too. She had frizzy blond hair and brown eyes. She was much older than me. She was hanging clothes from a wicker basket on a clothesline. Most of the clothes were yours, tiny little onesies with pictures of cartoon whales and owls on them. I stood on the street, a little gravel road, pretending to be walking to the headlands to watch the sunset. I forced myself to keep walking. I can’t even describe for you how hard it was to fight the urge to run to you right then and there and take you in my arms and run away. The woman was alone. I would have gotten away with it. Getting away with it wasn’t the only consideration, though. I can’t simply snatch you up and take you away. I have a list of things I want to learn before I take you away: what foods you eat, what your favorite toys are, when you take your naps, what songs you like. I ordered myself to take three days. You’ve had enough pain in your life already. When I take you back, I want to do everything I can to lessen the trauma of being ripped from another family. I walked past you toward the ocean. You didn’t even look up at me. You were too busy playing with a toy drum.

  That night, I found a place where I could sit and look inside your house without being seen. I could see into the house’s light-filled windows. I sat in the dark and watched you play until they put you to bed. I wish I’d been close enough to hear you laugh. When you laugh, your round head bounces up and down on top of your round belly, while your fat little legs stick out in front of you. I could have sat there watching you for the rest of my life if someone could have promised me that things would never change, that you’d always be that safe and happy. No one can promise me that, though. You’re going to get older. That’s why I need to save you.

  * * *

  Bottle of formula at a little after six in the morning today, right after you woke up. According to my book, I should wean you from the formula soon, but I’ll wait. You had cold oatmeal three hours later. You had lunch at twelve thirty. You had a snack of applesauce at four thirty. Of all the things you ate, the applesauce was definitely your favorite. You screamed when they tried to take it away before you’d eaten every last morsel. At six o’clock, you had dinner, macaroni and cheese with chopped-up broccoli. You had another bottle of formula before going to bed. You were asleep by seven thirty. I’m writing everything down.

  You took two naps during the day; each one lasted about an hour and a half. The first was at ten in the morning and the second was at three in the afternoon. You went through a lot of diapers. I need to buy diapers.

  You clap when they play music for you. You smile. Your smile is so sweet, my heart nearly broke. They’ve made me miss almost a year of that smile.

  On the way back to my hotel from watching you, I passed a store with a mannequin in the lit-up window. It was one of those headless mannequins. It was wearing a little black cocktail dress. I stared at it. I don’t even know for how long. It was beautiful. I tried to imagine in what life someone might wear a dress like that. The only way I could imagine myself wearing a dress like that was as a disguise.

  Two more days, Christopher. Two more days.

  * * *

  A bath. The water is hot. The whole bathroom is steaming up. I want it to be hot enough that it hurts when I climb in. I want it to be so hot that it takes a few minutes before I can even be comfortable immersed in the water. I almost want it to burn.

  I think you waved to me today. It’s hard to know for sure, since you wave at everything. I’m coming for you tomorrow. I’m going to take you during your morning nap. The husband should be at work. I don’t have a car seat for the rental car, so I’m going to have to take their car. You’ll be more comfortable that way anyway. Hopefully, you’ll sleep in the car, and by the time you wake up, I will have found a safe place for us. I still have enough of Michael’s money to hide us. If everything goes right, we’ll be far away by the time they’re able to report anything.

  I’ve missed you so much, Christopher. I can’t wait to hold you. I want to grab you in my arms and hug and kiss you. I can’t wait to show you how much I can love you.

  Forty-eight

  When Addy was finally able to speak, nothing but questions poured out of her mouth. Evan had sidled up behind the three of them, Addy in her jeans and black shirt, and the two strangers decked out from head to toe in mud-cov
ered camouflage. Despite being only a couple feet away, no one seemed to notice Evan. Addy kept asking the strangers how they survived the raid and if anyone else made it. When Addy was only about halfway through her questions, George cut her off. “We weren’t raided, Addy,” his voice, deep and resonant, said.

  Addy stopped speaking and stared at him for a second, dumbfounded. She thought for a moment that maybe she’d misheard him. Addy looked over at Sam. Sam was nodding, confirming the words that Addy fought to believe. “Then what happened here?” Addy asked, motioning toward the charred wreckage of the compound.

  “We burned it down ourselves,” Sam answered her. “Reggie always planned it this way. He’d always planned on razing the whole place to protect the information if we had to abandon it. That way no one could get their hands on any of the information about any of the people we cleaned.”

  “So everyone is okay?” Addy asked. “Reggie is okay?”

  Sam nodded her head. “Everybody’s fine.”

  “Then what are you guys doing here?”

  “Reggie has us working here,” George answered. “We were looking for you. Reggie was sure that you’d come back. He wanted to make sure someone was waiting for you.”

  For a second, Addy was speechless. She felt like she was being teased. “If you were looking for me, what’s with the gun?” Addy asked, motioning toward the rifle slung over Sam’s shoulder. She’d never seen anyone in the Underground carrying a gun like that before. Had that much changed in the weeks she’d been gone?