Children of the Underground Read online

  * * *

  The manila envelope until the second day after Michael left. It was sitting on the counter next to the microwave. At first, I wondered if it was a mistake. I wondered if Michael left it here by accident, if he was wandering around Philadelphia blind. I knew better than that, though. He left it here on purpose. He wanted me to read it. I’m sure of it. Michael had already opened the envelope. A jagged tear ran across the top where Michael had ripped open the envelope with his finger. I reached into the envelope and pulled out its contents, careful to make sure that Reggie didn’t see what I was doing.

  Superficially, the envelope’s contents weren’t any different than that of the fat man. Rummaging through it, I found a number of pictures showing various stages of our target’s life. He was white. He looked athletic. He was handsome. In one picture, he was running. In another, he was boxing. Each picture had a date and location written on the back. The earliest photos were taken in Chicago. Some were from Los Angeles. Only the most recent pictures were taken in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia pictures had all been taken within the last three months. In a few of the pictures, our target was standing in front of a classroom full of teenagers. I figured he was teaching initiation sessions for the War, like your father had. I figured wrong.

  I spent most of the day looking through the material. I wouldn’t let Reggie look at it. He asked to. He only wanted something to do. I reminded him that he was leaving the War, that he didn’t need to look at these things anymore. “But you do?” he asked with more than a touch of sarcasm.

  “Yes, I do,” I told him without any notes of sarcasm or irony in my voice.

  Our target is six feet, four inches tall. He weighs roughly 220 pounds. He’d been an amateur boxer when he lived in Chicago. I wondered if Michael left the envelope so that I’d know what I was getting him into. I kept reading. Our target was a civilian high school math teacher. He’d taught for over seven years in inner-city high schools in Chicago, Los Angeles, and now Philadelphia. He had won teaching awards. The pictures of him standing with a bunch of teenagers weren’t of him indoctrinating children into the War. The pictures were of him teaching math to poor kids. I took out the two pictures of him in front of the class again and looked at them. The first one was from Chicago. Every student in the picture was staring at our target. The second photo was taken only a few weeks ago in Philadelphia. He demanded no less attention in the recent picture. On the surface, he looked like a good person. You can never let your guard down, Christopher. Even the best of them are killers.

  I turned the page. The top of the next page contained the words Thirty-one confirmed kills. I kept reading. The next thirteen pages described twenty-eight of the thirty-one kills. I counted each one as I read. Six were done in Chicago. Eight were done in Los Angeles. Two were done in Philadelphia in the two and a half years that he’d lived here. It seemed that they were cutting back on his local work. The other thirteen kills were executed while our target traveled during the summer, leaving a trail of blood wherever he went.

  I noted that I still had three more killings to read about.

  The next page began a whole new section titled Prior Attempts. This section felt unique and ominous. First was Chicago. The first person sent to kill our target had more than two dozen kills under his belt. He had all the advantages of training and experience. He tried to ambush our target as our target walked home to his apartment one evening. The details of what happened were sketchy. The only thing that anyone knew definitively was that the hit man’s body was found in a Dumpster in an alley two days later. His skull was fractured. No one found the murder weapon, but from the size and shape of the wounds, it appeared to be an ordinary brick. Our target had killed a professional hit man with what he’d found lying on the ground around him.

  They moved our target to Los Angeles shortly after he was ambushed the first time. He began teaching again. It was over a year before he was found. They sent another professional to try to finish him. Their plan was basically the same. So were the results. The body of the hit man was found four days later in an abandoned building. He died of traumatic head wounds, but this time he’d been electrocuted first. Our target played with him before he killed him.

  Our target didn’t leave Los Angeles right away. Instead he changed neighborhoods, hoping to get lost inside the city. The third attempt was a total debacle. It took place only three months after the second attempt. Even I could tell that it was poorly planned. They sent an eighteen-year-old kid after him. It was the kid’s first solo job. He was the younger brother of one of our target’s Chicago victims. The kid’s death was quick and clean. There were no signs of struggle. His death appeared to be an afterthought.

  After the third attempt, our target moved to Philadelphia. That was over two years ago. He was only recently positively identified. They were sending Michael to kill him this time. I had no way of knowing if it was because Michael had experience being ambushed and ambushing others or because Michael’s failings made him expendable. Probably both. I wondered where Michael was and if he was safe. I wondered when he’d be coming back. I worried that he wouldn’t be coming back at all.

  I repacked the envelope early that evening. I had learned everything that I could from those papers. I slipped the envelope into one of the kitchen drawers. “Are you finally finished?” Reggie asked me. He was leaning against the doorframe leading into the kitchen. He must have been waiting for me to finish.

  “For now,” I told him. We ordered a pizza and sat at the kitchen table together, waiting for it to be delivered.

  “I’ve been thinking about things,” Reggie said to me as we waited. “I was thinking that maybe I shouldn’t run. Maybe I should stay and help you and Michael find your son.”

  “You’re just going stir-crazy from being cooped up here,” I joked.

  “I’m serious,” Reggie said. “Running sometimes seems so cowardly when there’s more that I could be doing.”

  “Dorothy promised me that they’ll help me find my son if I help you to run. So running is what you can do for me. After that, you can be whatever type of hero you want to be.”

  “Okay,” Reggie conceded, “but I’m going to repay you for what you’re doing for me one day.”

  “Stay alive. Get away. If one day you decide that you want to fight, make sure that it’s your decision and not somebody else’s. That’s favor enough for me for now.”

  I lay in bed that night, thinking about our next target and worrying about Michael. Even with Reggie there, I felt an emptiness without Michael around me. Maybe it was because we were trapped in that apartment. Two more days, I thought to myself. Three if you count Sunday.

  * * *

  Reggie asked me if I would go with him to Brooklyn. He wanted to see his old neighborhood one more time and he knew that he’d have no chance once Michael came back. “No,” I told him. “It’s not safe.”

  “Nothing I do is safe,” Reggie shot back. “Nothing I ever do again will be safe. You don’t have to come with me, but I’m going to go crazy if I stay in here for another day.”

  “People will see you. People you know.”

  “I’ll be safe. No one will be looking for me there. They can’t think that I’m that stupid.”

  I thought about it, barely able to believe that I was considering letting Reggie do something colossally dangerous and stupid based on the logic that it was so stupid that it wouldn’t be that dangerous. “Okay,” I finally agreed. I didn’t have the heart to stop him. Reggie and I were too much alike. I would’ve done almost anything for one chance to go back home before running away forever with your father, even if it was only for a few minutes. No one had offered that chance to me. No one even tried. I imagined what Michael would say to me. He’d probably tell me that sympathy is a dangerous emotion in this game. It didn’t matter, though. Michael wasn’t there to stop us. But it should have mattered. I should have made
it matter. I still had a lot to learn.

  “Thank you,” Reggie said, towering over me as he stood up. “I won’t forget this.”

  “Hopefully, I will,” I said to him. I made Reggie wait while I went for a run before we left. As I ran, I felt people’s eyes on me and wondered which ones were looking for Reggie. I looked into their faces, trying to read them. Everyone looked the same to me. I had a desire to keep running, to run for hours, to waste the entire day so that I wouldn’t have to go back and make what I was sure was going to be a big mistake.

  We rode the subway into Brooklyn. It was a short ride. My heart started pounding when we stepped off the train, before we walked up the stairs into the sunlight. I could hear people’s voices out in the street as we climbed the stairs. We wouldn’t have anywhere to hide. When we emerged from underground, I looked down the long street. People were sitting on stoops. Kids were playing games on the chalk-strewn street. Two old men were standing on the street corner, talking. Everything looked frighteningly normal. “This is a mistake,” I said to Reggie.

  “Stop worrying,” Reggie said. “I know this neighborhood. If anything is out of place, I’ll know it. Trust me.” I wanted to trust him.

  Reggie led me through more side streets to a pizza place where he knew we could get lunch. “I don’t know where I’m going, but wherever I’m going, there won’t be pizza like this,” he said, smiling like a child in a candy store.

  We sat at the back of the pizza place. I sat facing the entrance. I made Reggie sit with his back to the door. Even with his back to the door, people still recognized him. They came up from behind him to say hello. They grabbed him before he even knew they were behind him. Each time someone grabbed him, an image of the person’s hands choking Reggie flashed across my mind. What would I do then? Run? Reggie returned each of their embraces.

  “We should go home,” I said, when Reggie finished his second slice of pizza.

  “I am home.” Reggie smiled. That’s when I realized that the mistake I’d made wasn’t letting Reggie risk getting us ambushed, although that was possible. The mistake was giving Reggie that tiny taste of home that could destroy his resolve. Now I knew why your father didn’t let me go home one last time. When you’re trying to run away, memories are like quicksand. They can suck you up forever. “Let me take one last look at the basketball courts before we go.” I said okay. The damage already appeared to be done.

  The basketball bouncing against the asphalt sounded like a drum or an excited heartbeat. I could hear it from two blocks away. “We’re only looking,” I reminded Reggie. He didn’t acknowledge me. The men playing basketball recognized him as soon as we turned the corner. Three of the players were shirtless. The other three were wearing shirts that clung to their skin because of their sweat. “Joe,” one of the men called out. Reggie lifted a hand in a wave—so much for staying anonymous. “Where you been?” the man yelled. “We need you. Little C here can’t shoot for shit.” He pointed to one of his teammates, who lifted his middle finger in response.

  “I can’t stay,” Reggie called back to them. I wondered if I was the only one who could hear the sadness in his voice.

  “One shot,” the man said. “Show Little C how it’s done.”

  Reggie looked at me. “One shot,” he said, and ran toward the courts before I could object. I stood frozen, watching him run. I was sure each step was going to be his last. I was sure I was going to hear gunshots or the sound of approaching feet banging against the pavement. I remembered what it felt like in the park in Washington, D.C., when they’d kidnapped Michael and I’d stood there, unable to help. Reggie stepped onto the court. Someone passed him the ball. He caught it, dribbled once between his legs and then jumped. At the height of his jump, he shot, releasing the ball off the fingertips of his long, outstretched arm. He was halfway between the midcourt line and the three-point line. Five of the men on the court almost simultaneously yelled, “Oh!” as the ball went through the hoop. Two of the men high-fived. Little C looked at the hoop, wondering why he lacked what some men had. Reggie’s smile grew even broader. For a few seconds, I thought that maybe the trip had been worth it.

  “Can we go now?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Now we can go.”

  * * *

  Reggie and I had dinner, the phone in the apartment rang. I hadn’t heard it ring before. It took me a second to realize what it was. At first, I thought it was some sort of alarm. When I finally picked up, I heard Michael’s voice. “I wanted to check in and make sure that you guys were okay.”

  “We’re okay,” I told him. “Are you?”

  “I’m fine,” he said. Neither of us said anything for a few moments.

  “I found the envelope,” I told him, breaking the awkward silence.

  “Yeah? What did you think?”

  “I want you to be careful. I think our mark is dangerous.”

  “Dangerous is a relative concept,” Michael responded.

  “When are you coming back, Michael?”

  “When do you want me to come back?”

  “Soon. Now. Yesterday.”

  Michael let himself laugh. The sound of his laughter made me feel better than I’d felt in days. I looked over at Reggie sitting on the couch. He looked pensive. I didn’t like that look. “I should be done with my recon soon,” Michael said.

  “We need you here,” I said into the phone.

  “Do you?” Michael asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Good,” he said, and then he hung up.

  * * *

  In the middle of the night. It wasn’t unusual for me anymore. Usually there’s no reason for it, only nightmares and bad memories disturbing my sleep. That night, there was a reason. I heard sounds coming from the apartment door. It sounded like someone was trying to get inside.

  The lights were all off. The dark clouds outside covered the sky. The apartment was dark. I rolled over and tried to peer through the darkness. Reggie had been spending the nights sleeping on the floor on the other side of the room. I searched for him, wondering if he was already awake, wondering if he’d heard what I heard. His sleeping bag was still in the corner of the room but it was empty. My mind raced. They couldn’t have come in and gotten him while I was sleeping, could they?

  I slipped out of the bed, careful to step quietly onto the floor. I heard another rattling sound at the door. I stepped into the kitchen. Someone was standing in the darkness. The figure turned toward me. “Maria,” he said.

  “What are you doing, Reggie?” I asked. I reached over and turned on the lights.

  Reggie had his backpack over his shoulder. The chain lock was still hanging across the door. Reggie had been blindly fumbling with it. That was the sound I’d heard. “I’m going home,” Reggie said. “I’m not ready to run.”

  My mind immediately jumped to Dorothy’s promise. If you help us here, we may be able to help you in the future. “You can’t go home,” I said to Reggie.

  “I can. You saw me. We were there today. That’s where I belong.”

  I shook my head. “That’s not home, Reggie. That’s a fiction. That’s two hours. What about the rest of the time? Nothing’s changed.” Michael would have told me not to let Reggie go back to Brooklyn. He would have been right. He would have been right for all the wrong reasons, but what difference did that make? “They’ll try to turn you into something you’re not.”

  “I don’t know if that’s true. Maybe the person they want me to become is actually who I am. Maybe this really is in my blood.”

  I took a step closer to him. “No. It’s not. It’s not who any of you really are.” I thought about your father and you and Michael. “You know that. I know you know it.” Suddenly it wasn’t about Dorothy’s promise. It was about trying to help this lost, frightened kid get away. If I could save him, then maybe I could save you.

  Michae
l’s emerald green eyes began to glisten in the light, covered by a thin film of tears. “I want to say good-bye to my mother,” Reggie pleaded. “I never said good-bye to her.”

  “You don’t have to,” I assured him. “She’s your mother. She’ll understand.”

  “Understand what?” Reggie pleaded.

  “She’ll understand that you had to leave her to be safe. She’ll understand that you’re safer without her, that you’re better off without her. If she doesn’t understand that, then she doesn’t know what it means to be a mother.”

  “And you do? What were you a mother for, like, a month?” Reggie stared at me.

  Reggie’s words stung. He knew he’d hurt me. He started to apologize, but I cut him off before he had a chance. I didn’t want his sympathy. I wanted him to understand. “Do you really doubt that I know what it means to be a mother? I watched them carry my baby away screaming, and haven’t had a moment go by where I haven’t heard those screams since. I would lay down my life in a second if it meant that my baby would be safe. And if I were your mother, I would want you to run and never look back.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I took another step closer to Reggie. I reached out and held one of his hands. “It’s the only thing in this world that I’m sure about.” I needed to convince him. I needed him to understand. First him, then Michael. Then I could move forward and get back to searching for you. “You’re not running from your mother,” I assured him. “You’re running for her—her and any other real friend you’ve got.”

  Twenty-six

  Michael still hadn’t come back. I hadn’t heard from him since his one and only phone call. I didn’t exercise on the morning of the drop-off. Michael had taught me that you don’t exercise on the day of a job. You save everything—everything you have—in case you need it. If Michael wasn’t going to show, I figured I should be doubly ready. It was the first day in weeks that I hadn’t exercised. The lack of that release made me antsy. My body was begging me to burn off energy. Instead I sat in the apartment with Reggie, doing nothing. Reggie was in worse shape than I was. At least I’d gotten out of the apartment for my run the day before. Looking at Reggie was like looking at a coiled spring.