Children of the Underground (35 page)

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-covered 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?

“If anyone but you showed up here, we were supposed to shoot to kill,” Sam told Addy.

Addy felt a mosquito biting her arm. She didn't care. She ignored it. “Who told you to do that?” Addy asked.

“Reggie's orders,” Sam answered her. So much had changed in the weeks that Addy'd been gone. Addy had never known Reggie to give an order like that. Sometimes pickups didn't go as planned and blood was shed, but it was never ordered. Addy wasn't sure if she should be proud or disgusted. “It's getting serious,” Sam assured her. Sam's voice was tense and determined.

“Everyone is joining forces, Addy,” George told her. “People would have found you and told you, but after we learned about the raids in Los Angeles, everybody but Reggie thought you were dead.”

“What do you mean, ‘Everyone is joining forces'?” Addy asked George.

“Everybody,” George echoed, sounding more serious than Addy had ever heard him sound before. “The Underground. The rebels. Everybody. All the factions. Everywhere. It's global. People are coming out of the woodwork. It's the final push. We're finally going to try to end the War.” Addy's heart began to beat so strongly that she could feel her pulse in the tips of her fingers.

“You were right about fighting, Addy,” Sam said when George was done. “You were just a little off on the timing.”

Addy kept looking back and forth between George and Sam, waiting for one of them to crack a smile or laugh so that she could be sure that this was all a twisted joke. Neither flinched. Neither even grinned. They were serious. “How is this all possible?” Addy asked. It was a pipe dream, getting everyone who was against the War to finally work together. It was impossible.

“Christopher,” George said. “It's all Christopher. He's bringing everyone together.”

“Christopher?” a voice broke in from outside the circle. It was Evan. He'd been listening in silence the whole time. “Do you know where Christopher is? Do you know if he's okay?”

The three of them—Addy, George, and Sam—looked up at Evan as he spoke, as if he'd suddenly materialized out of thin air. Addy felt guilty. She'd completely forgotten that Evan was even there. “Evan?” she said with surprise. Then she collected herself. “Evan, this is George and Sam,” Addy introduced the three of them. “I used to work with them here. They're part of the Underground.”

Evan reached his hand out, and George and Sam took turns shaking it. “You're the kid from the news,” George said to Evan, recognizing his face from the pictures.

“He's with me,” Addy said to them, stepping closer to Evan, touching his elbow with her hand. “Don't believe everything you see on the news.”

“I never have,” George laughed. Addy wondered if she should tell them who Evan was. She wondered if she should tell them that Evan had grown up as Christopher's closest friend. She decided not to. Evan was going to have a hard enough time adjusting without having to answer any more questions about Christopher.

“So, do you know where Christopher is?” Evan asked again.

“Yeah,” George answered him, staring straight into Evan's eyes. “He's with Reggie.” Addy's shock slipped out in an audible gasp. George turned toward Addy. He nodded to confirm to her that he was speaking the truth. “Reggie is helping Christopher. They're working together to make sure that everyone is ready for the uprising.”

Forty-nine

It's over. For now, it's over. Maybe I should have simply grabbed you and ran.

I got to the house at a little after nine in the morning. I went to the same spot where I'd secretly been watching you for the past three days. It gave me a clear view into your house but kept me relatively hidden. I could see you, but no one in the house could see me. It was sunny. It would be hot later, even this close to the ocean. You'd go down for your morning nap in an hour. My plan was to get you out of the house shortly after you fell asleep so that you'd be too tired to understand what was happening. I hoped that you'd eventually wake up with me and think that the past eleven months had simply been a long nightmare.

I sat down and reached into my backpack for my lucky pack of cigarettes. It was opened now, one cigarette short of a full pack. I took a cigarette out of the pack and placed it between my lips. I lit it. It was the first cigarette I'd had in, what, seven months? Eight? I smoked it until the cigarette had burned about a quarter of the way down. Then I felt stupid, ridiculous even, so I threw the barely smoked butt on the ground and stamped it out with my foot. The world is already full of enough silly rituals. I don't need to create new ones.

You went down for your nap a little bit late. She didn't put you in your crib until almost half past ten. You cried at first, rocking yourself back and forth in your crib before falling asleep. I could see into your crib through the open window. I watched you as you stopped fussing and your breathing calmed, your tiny chest rising and falling at a slow, even pace. That's when I decided it was finally time to go and get you.

The front door of the house faced south, overlooking the rocks and, eventually, the ocean. The air was full of the constant smell of salt from the sea. I walked around the house and up to the front door. I knocked three firm, solid knocks. The irony wasn't lost on me, remembering the sound of the knocks on the door the day they stole you from me. This was different though. I was taking back what was rightfully mine.

I knocked. Then waited, listening. I heard a rustling sound on the other side of the door. The last I saw of the woman through the window, she had been in the kitchen, putting dishes away. She didn't answer the knocks at first, but I knew that she'd heard me. I didn't knock again. I didn't want to appear too eager. Instead, I waited. Eventually, I heard the woman put some dishes down on a counter. I heard her footsteps as she started walking toward the door. Her steps were slow and apprehensive. I saw her pull back the curtains next to the door and peek out the window. When she looked out, she saw only me—tiny, innocent me. When They came to take you from me, They came with five heavily armed men. The curtain dropped back in place. Seconds later, the woman opened the door.

“Can I help you?” she asked. She opened the door only a crack, barely wide enough for her to look out. She tried to block my view inside her house with her body. She was dressed in white linen pants and a breezy coral button-down blouse.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I was going for a walk out to the headlands and I was hoping that I could use your bathroom. I'll only be a minute.”

The woman glanced back into the house without opening the door any wider. She was looking toward your room. She shook her head. “My baby is asleep,” she said. “I really don't want to wake him.”
My baby
, she'd said.

“I'll be really quiet,” I said. “I promise.” I bounced on my feet, trying to sell the lie.

The woman took a long look at me as if she were peering into a dark hole. “Do I know you?” she asked. “You look familiar.”

I swallowed, trying to think of what to say besides
Of course you recognize me.
You see me every day when you look at your son
. “I'm on vacation here in town,” I told her. “Maybe you've seen me walking around.”

She kept staring at my face. She knew that she recognized something else. She glanced again toward your room. I worried for a moment that she might be putting it all together. “I really need to use your bathroom,” I said, trying to interrupt her train of thought. “Then I'll be out of your way.”

She didn't want to open the door. She was nervous. I made her nervous. She looked past me down the street, toward the other houses, looking to see if anyone else was outside, to see if anyone would be there to save her if she screamed. The street was empty, but I was small and looked innocent enough. “Okay,” she said, opening the door wider. “But please be quiet. The bathroom is at the end of that hallway,” she said, pointing toward her husband's bathroom, the one at the other end of the house, away from you.

“Thank you,” I said, and jogged past her, moving lightly on my feet. I didn't want you to wake up either. I may have wanted it less than she did. I ran inside the bathroom and closed the door behind me. Once inside the bathroom, I took off my backpack. I reached inside and took out what remained of the duct tape. My knife was strapped inside my waist. Before leaving the bathroom, I looked at myself in the mirror. A short-haired, tired-looking woman stared back at me with fierce eyes. I flushed the toilet. Then I turned on the faucet and splashed some cold water on my face. This was it. I steeled myself, taking deep breaths. Then I stepped back outside the door, holding the duct tape in my left hand.

She was waiting for me right outside the door. She should have had a weapon. If she were a soldier, she would have had a weapon. She wasn't a soldier, though. She was a tither. She and her husband paid for the War with a check every month. That's why they didn't have to fight. They paid their way out of it. She knew enough to be afraid, but not enough to do anything about it. When I stepped through the door, she glanced down at my hands. She saw the duct tape. Then she looked back up at my face. “What do you want?” she said, her voice quiet and shaky.

“I'm not one of Them,” I said to her. It didn't matter if
Them
was your father's side or hers. I had gotten comfortable using the term
Them
interchangeably. To me,
Them
were the true believers, no matter what side they were on. “I'm not here to hurt you.”

She started backing away from me, walking slowly backward toward the kitchen. “Then what are you here for?” she asked. She was going to run soon. I could tell. She was going to turn and run and I would have to chase her, catch her, subdue her, and silence her—all without waking you up.

“You still don't know why you recognize me?” I asked her, knowing full well that I was this woman's worst nightmare. She would have been happier if I was one of Them. If I was one of Them, she'd be as good as dead but
her baby
would be safe.

“No,” she said, staring at my face, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

“I'm here for Christopher,” I said, trying to catch up to her, to walk toward her faster than she was backing away.

“Who?” she asked. They never told her your real name.

“My son,” I said, looking over her shoulder toward your room.

Then she realized. The life seeped out of her face. “No.” She began shaking her head. “You can't. You can't.”

“I'm not going to hurt him either,” I told her, feeling a sudden urge to console her. “I'm here to save him.”

“Save him from what?” she asked, almost in a panic-induced falsetto.

I thought about how to answer the question this time. She deserved the painful truth. “You,” I told her.

Before she could turn and run, I raised my voice, hoping to stop her. “There's no use running,” I told her. “I'll catch you.” I looked at her. Her skin sagged around her muscles. She wasn't prepared for this. “You've spent almost a year raising my son,” I said to her. “You want to know what I've been doing all that time?” I didn't wait for her to answer. “I've been training.” Everything you do is practice for the next thing that you do.

She ran anyway. She turned and sprinted toward the kitchen. They kept knives in the kitchen. Maybe there was a gun there too. I ran after her, pulling out my knife as I ran. When I got close enough to her, I kicked one of her feet out from under her. She fell to the floor. As she fell, I pulled out a large strip of duct tape and cut it with the knife. She hit the hard floor with a loud thud and immediately turned over to face me. I was on top of her before she had another moment to think, my knees jabbing into her chest. She saw the knife. I took the duct tape and pressed it across her face, covering her mouth before she had a chance to scream. She reached up with one hand to try to hit me, but I caught her hand in the air. Then I stood up and twisted her wrist, forcing her whole body to roll over. She began crying. She kept trying to scream through the duct tape. Her body was shuddering. Her screams came through the duct tape like low, quiet moans. Once she was on her stomach, I placed one knee into the small of her back and reached for her other hand. I was holding the knife and her wrist in the same hand, trying not to cut her. I pulled her hands together behind her back and taped them together, exactly like I'd taped up the security guard in the intelligence cell. Once her hands were taped together, I taped her feet. I couldn't afford to have her get up and run, not in this town, not with her hands taped behind her back and her mouth taped shut. Tying her up took me only a few seconds. I was fast and efficient. Once I was sure she was immobilized, I listened. The house was quiet. You were still asleep.

I rolled her over again and pushed her up against the wall. Her eyes were red. Tears were streaming down her face. I remembered what it felt like. I remembered lying on the ground and wishing that they'd shoot me and put me out of my misery so I wouldn't have to watch them take you away. I looked into the woman's eyes. “I know you love him,” I said to her. “I appreciate that you've treated him well. But you were going to turn him into a killer. You were going to make him hate.” She shook her head, trying to deny what she knew was the truth. “And he's my son,” I said more forcefully. “You had no right to have him in the first place.”

I stood up. I found a chair in the kitchen and dragged it next to her. Then I picked her up and sat her down on the chair. She tried to say something to me through the tape, but I ignored her. I wrapped more tape around her body, securing her to the chair. Then I went outside. I'd hidden a large duffel bag behind some shrubs outside the front door. I grabbed the duffel bag and came back inside. The woman was struggling against the tape but wasn't making any progress. Her chest kept heaving as she cried. I was worried she might hyperventilate, but there was little I could do. I wasn't going to undo the tape, and she didn't know enough to control her breathing. With the duffel bag in my hand, I began collecting things, things that they weren't going to need anymore. I knew where they kept your diapers, your clothes, your bottles, your pacifiers. I began taking everything that I'd seen them use with you over the past three days and throwing it in the duffel bag. I wanted to take enough to last me for two days. Then I could start to replenish the supplies on my own. To get your diapers, I had to walk into your room, right past your crib. You were sound asleep. You were the most peaceful thing I'd ever seen. The last thing that I grabbed was the car keys off the hook on the wall near the front door.

I ran out to the car. I opened the trunk and threw the duffel bag inside. Then I went back in the house for you. If I'd only been seconds faster. I made two steps toward your room. Then I heard a sound coming from outside. Screeching tires. I looked outside. A car fishtailed in front the house, pulling to a loud stop. He'd come back. The husband had come back. He was supposed to be at work. She must have called him while I was in the bathroom. She must have assumed that I was one of Them. But then why did she stay? She stayed to protect you. Even knowing the rules, even knowing that They weren't supposed to hurt you, even knowing that she didn't know how to fight, she stayed to protect you.

Through the white curtains on the front window, I saw him step out of the car. He had a gun in his hand. He slammed the car door behind him and started running toward the house. He didn't stop to think or to plan. He was running headlong into danger. I can only imagine what she'd said, speaking in a whisper in the seconds she had while I was in the bathroom.
One of Them is here. I'm going to protect our baby. I love you
. Time wouldn't have allowed for much more than that. He was running toward the door, hoping he'd made it in time to save his child and, only if he were lucky, his wife. It all would have been fine if it weren't for the goddamn gun. I wasn't afraid of him, but I was afraid of the gun. I still had the duct tape in one hand and the knife in the other. I hid behind a corner that he'd have to pass before he saw his wife tied to the chair. I could get a jump on him from there.

The front door swung open. The man shouted, “Maggie!” as he crossed over the threshold into the house. I could hear the panic in his voice. He should have been more careful, but how can you expect someone to be careful when they think that everything they care about in the world is already gone? I'm telling you now, Christopher, that in those moments when you fear the worst, you have to close your eyes to everything that you know is true and simply believe—believe that everything is going to work out for you, believe that your enemies deserve whatever comes to them, believe that you are unstoppable, believe that you are righteous. If you can't believe those things in those moments, you'll be torn to pieces.

From where she was taped to the chair, the woman could see me. She could see me standing with my back pressed against the wall and my knife in my hand. Her eyes flitted between me and the hallway. I would know when her husband came into view by the look in her eyes. She was trying to loosen the tape around her mouth. I could see her working her tongue furiously against the back of the tape. She wanted to warn her husband, but she was making no progress. I heard the footsteps coming toward us. Then I heard the man yell, “Maggie!” again. This time I could hear both the panic and the relief in his voice. As he yelled her name, the woman's eyes widened into giant orbs of fear. He didn't notice. He was too happy that she was alive. He stumbled toward her, falling to his knees in front of her. I took a silent step toward his back, readying the knife. He reached up for the tape covering his wife's mouth. I couldn't let him undo it. She would scream. I had to decide what to do. The man's hand caught the corner of the tape and, as it did, I kicked him hard in the kidney.