First Team Read online

“But we’re beyond the worst?”

  “We are.” The doctor sat on the edge of Brock’s bed and gently unwrapped the bandages on his face. The doctor scowled and tilted his head, studying Brock’s nose. “Okay. Good. I’m going to leave these off. I think you’ll be more comfortable, and you don’t have to go anywhere anyway, so . . .”

  The fresh cool air felt good on Brock’s cheeks, even though his skin seemed tight and he just couldn’t get enough air through his nose. Brock tried to move, but the straps held him down.

  “Here, we can get rid of these.” The doctor undid the thick Velcro straps. “But I don’t want you touching your face.”

  “What’s wrong with it?” Brock croaked.

  “Drink?” The doctor took a cup with a straw from beside the flowers and brought it close to his face.

  Brock nodded and sucked in some cranberry juice.

  “Compared to when you came in, you look super. Your face was . . . a mess. Broken nose. Both cheekbones. Some nasty gashes, but the trauma to your brain was what had us worried. Whenever we get automobile accidents that’s our biggest concern.”

  “But we weren’t—”

  “Doctor!” Brock’s dad burst out. “Let’s let him rest. Shouldn’t we?”

  The startled doctor studied Brock’s dad, then shrugged. “Well, he checks out fine. As I said, let’s watch him for three days and then back to . . . where? Palm Beach, right?”

  “West Palm,” Brock’s dad said.

  “Wish I could get my wife to move south. It’s nice now, but the winters here just kill me.” The doctor patted Brock’s dad on the shoulder and left the room.

  “Automobile?” Brock asked.

  “Shh.”

  “But how could they not know?” Brock kept his voice to a whisper.

  His father sat on the edge of his bed and leaned close. “We went down in the Allegheny National Forest. I carried you out. It was a long ways. I told them our car went off the road, but I didn’t remember where. I played dumb, but you’ve really been out. You remember?”

  “The plane?” Brock’s heart clenched with renewed fear. “Yeah, and those people. They shot at us.”

  “We’re fine now.” His dad squeezed Brock’s shoulder. “I’ve got half a dozen IDs in my bag. We’re Richard and Brandon Scroggins until we get out of here.”

  “Then who are we?” Brock asked.

  His father shrugged. “You’re not going to be able to pick like last time. We’ll have to choose from what I’ve already got. Things are different this time.”

  “Why?” Brock asked.

  “Because of this.” His dad raised his chin and pointed to a long, thin half-circle scar, then the bandages around his nose. “And this. You too. Both of us. Sometimes life gives you a chance you never even thought of.”

  “What are you talking about, Dad?”

  “Neither of us looks the same. Your face, mine, they’re different, not entirely, but enough to beat the scanners.”

  “Scanners?”

  “Every time you go through a public place, an airport or a government building, heck, sometimes just down the street. There are video cameras that feed into super computers. The government likes to know where people are. Every face gets scanned. Every person has a unique set of facial points with different ratios: distance between eyes, width of mouth, length of nose, all that kind of thing. But you can beat that now.”

  “Because of the swelling?”

  His dad shook his head. He got up, went over to the dresser, and returned with a hand mirror. “More than swelling. Look.”

  Brock stared into the mirror and tried not to scream.

  5

  Brock hated tears.

  His father was like an ice sculpture. Tears weren’t part of his deal. He was cold and hard, even though Brock knew his father loved him all the same.

  So, Brock struggled to keep the tears from streaming down his cheeks. He sniffled and bucked up, raising his chin.

  “Okay.” Brock nodded his head and the person in the mirror nodded back.

  He wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. It wasn’t the fading black circles under his eyes, or even the purple gash running from the outside corner of one eye down to his upper lip. It was his nose. It had been narrow before, but not like this crease of paper, and . . . the end of it was entirely different. His old nose had turned up at the end like a jump you’d build out of snow for sledding. This, this was like a chip of wood, narrow and pointy and small. Maybe “elfin” was the word, and it didn’t fit his face. Maybe alien was a better description. It wasn’t him.

  “You’ll get used to it. It’s what all the Hollywood people do. Look.” Brock’s father undid his own bandage. His nose was much the same, also narrow and pointed at the end. He also realized now that something was different about his father’s chin. It was . . . bigger, wider. “They had to work on us both anyway. A tree limb smashed right through the windshield. I told the surgeon to do a little extra on me. They love that, those plastic surgeons.”

  Brock shook his head. It was still his dad, but a bizarre version.

  He shrugged and wiggled his legs. “Why do they have these straps on me?”

  “They didn’t want you coming to and thrashing around,” his dad said. “He forgot your legs. Here, let me get you loose.”

  Brock’s dad tore free the Velcro band that had been holding down Brock’s legs. Brock let his dad swing his legs over the side of the bed. His legs trembled and his feet felt like blocks of concrete as he stepped onto the cold floor. His dad put an arm around him and walked him around the room before helping him back into the hospital bed.

  His father leaned close and spoke low. “I have some things to take care of, but I’ll be back and then we’ll go. I wanted to make sure you could walk a little first.”

  “But didn’t the doctor say three days?” Brock gently ran a finger down along the thin ridgeline of scar tissue on his face, then touched his new nose.

  His father shook his head. “The plane is buried in the woods, so I don’t think they can find it, even with their satellites, but we’ve been around here longer than I like. With these faces . . . I want us to be someplace new, where no one knows that we changed how we look.”

  Brock took a deep breath and let it out in a huff.

  “Don’t look so glum,” his dad said.

  “I’m not.” Brock did his best to sound truthful.

  “You haven’t heard the best part yet.”

  “What’s the best part?” Brock tried to sound eager.

  “You know how you say you always hate being the new kid?” His father’s eyes seemed to sparkle back at him.

  Brock hesitated while he tried to figure out where this was going. “Yeah.”

  “So, the next place we go to . . . with these new faces? We stay.”

  “But I thought we couldn’t,” Brock said.

  “We couldn’t before, because they were after me and watching. I kept hoping I’d find a safe way to cash out of all the bank accounts I set up over the years. If I could get to them without someone catching me, we’d live like kings for the rest of our lives.”

  “So you figured out how?” Brock studied his father’s face.

  “No.” His father smiled warmly at him. “Forget the money. When I was walking out of those woods and I didn’t know if you were alive or dead, I realized we don’t need that money. I only need you, and I don’t need to be running off all the time. I’m done with all that.”

  “So what will you do?”

  His dad shrugged. “No idea. Nothing very exciting I’d guess, but I’ll be around for your games and parent-teacher conferences and all that other stuff I never did.”

  “We won’t have to move away?” Joy bubbled inside Brock.

  “Not unless you want to,” his dad said.

  “I don’t. I don’t want to move again. Ever,” Brock said. “But . . . where are we going? Where will we live?”

  6

  “Calhoun, Ohio.”r />
  “Calhoun?” Brock wrinkled his brow. “What’s it near?”

  His father smiled. “It’s not near anything. Oh, I guess if you had to say, maybe Charleston.”

  “Ohio?”

  “No, West Virginia. Closest place in Ohio is probably Columbus. I’m not totally sure. It’s pretty remote. That’s why we’re going there.”

  “Do they have a baseball team?”

  “Everyone has baseball.” His dad stood. “You get some rest. I’ll be back in a while and then we’ll go.”

  Brock’s dad waved from the door, then closed it behind him. A nurse came in a few minutes later and asked him what he’d like for dinner. He told her he’d have the chicken and some mashed potatoes with gravy.

  “Any vegetables?” she asked.

  “Nah.”

  “I’ll bring you some green beans.” She made a note, then smiled, nodded, and left him alone.

  Brock wondered why adults would sometimes do that, ask you something, then ignore your answer completely. Why ask? He shook his head and laid it back deep into the pillow to think about Calhoun, Ohio. It sounded like a good place.

  Brock closed his eyes and when he woke, he could see that it was already dark outside. His dinner sat untouched on a tray beside his bed. His father stood above him wearing dark-blue jeans and a black sweater.

  “Shh.”

  Brock nodded and let his father help him up out of the bed to get dressed. Together, they slipped out of the hospital and into his father’s waiting car. Brock tried to move the seat back, but it was stuck.

  “Sorry,” his father said. “It’s a piece of junk, but I had to pay cash and we’re going to dump it soon anyway.”

  They started to drive, but the signs said Route 66 South.

  “I thought we were going to Ohio?” Brock said. “That’s west.”

  “We are.” His father kept his eyes on the road and his face looked even more strange with its new nose and wider chin in the shadowy light of the passing streetlamps. “I have one last thing I have to do . . . before I leave my old life for good.”

  “What?”

  “A favor. We have to go to Washington, DC.”

  “A favor for who?” Brock asked.

  His father glanced over at him, his face heavy with sadness. “Your mother.”

  “I don’t understand.” Brock didn’t have to remind his father that she was dead.

  His father took a deep breath. “I’ll try to explain.”

  7

  Their car tires thumped over the gaps in the road with a steady rhythm that filled the silence while Brock waited for the answer.

  He had only the ghost of a memory of his mother. Sometimes she appeared to him in his dreams, but he suspected that vision came directly from the old photo his father kept in a private wooden box Brock had discovered years ago. In that same box was a brittle scrap of newspaper with an article about a woman, brutally murdered and left floating in the East River in New York City. Brock didn’t remember any of that. He’d been just two years old.

  “Your mother and I . . .” His father cleared his throat and glanced out his side window toward a hillside cloaked in dark silent trees before refocusing on the road. “We promised each other that if anything ever happened to the other, and we left the life of . . . well, whatever you call what we were doing.”

  “Spies?” Brock suggested.

  “The intelligence community.” His father glanced over at him. “If we left it for good, we have documents that we agreed to release to the Washington Post. Kind of a doomsday device.”

  “Doomsday?” Brock thought that was like an atomic bomb.

  “It will reveal secret information and wreak havoc on certain people and certain agencies. Not something you’d want to do if you ever had any notion of sticking around.” His father brightened. “But we’re not sticking around. This is it. Gone for good. A new life. Just you and me.”

  “So why do we have to go to Washington?” Brock asked.

  “There’s a flash drive. In a bank vault. There’s some money there too. We could use a little of that. I want to spend some time at the beach, let the summer go by and let things cool down. You and I can get to looking a little more normal, then we’ll get a place and get you registered for school. What do you think about a couple months at the beach?”

  “Just us?”

  “Who else is there?” his father asked.

  “And you don’t have to go anywhere?” Brock asked.

  “Son, I have the feeling you’re going to get a little sick of me.” Brock’s dad grinned at him and Brock grinned right back.

  8

  They spent the next two months at the beach in Maryland, not far from DC. His father was gone only occasionally, traveling into the capital on business he didn’t discuss, but most of the time it was the two of them together. It would have been perfect, if only Brock’s mom had been there.

  Something about the ocean and the sand, the wind and the dunes, left his father frowning often into the distant sky. He’d start to talk about the past. “Gosh, I remember . . . ,” he’d say, but never finish the thought. Maybe it had something to do with the old photo of his father and mother, the one in the secret box, that was taken on a beach somewhere. Brock didn’t ask.

  Despite his father’s occasional dark and silent moods, Brock loved the time they got to spend together, especially walking on the beach, searching for seashells and shark teeth. Sometimes they’d build a fire in the dunes and roast marshmallows. Sometimes they’d just sit on the deck overlooking the surf, reading books and munching on roasted almonds, his father’s favorite. Brock got used to the way he looked, mostly because he didn’t spend much time looking at himself anyway. His dad grew a close-cut black beard and Brock got used to that too.

  One day, Brock’s dad brought home a newspaper along with their groceries. His dad left the groceries in their plastic bags and took the paper out onto the deck. Brock snuck a peek at him through the curtains and scowled at the intense look on his father’s face as he stroked his new beard and scoured the inside of the front page. It was a look Brock had grown used to over the years, and now he realized that he’d gotten used to a different kind of dad. His father not only had a new face, but during their time at the beach, he’d grown warmer and sometimes showed flashes of being gentle.

  The look his father wore now would scare a young child. It was intense, and hard.

  Brock took a deep breath, opened the door, and stepped out onto the deck. “What’s wrong?”

  “Huh?” His father flashed an angry face that he quickly tried to change. “What? Oh, nothing.”

  Brock just stared at him.

  His father took a deep breath and nodded his head. “Okay, not nothing. Here, look at this.”

  His father held up a copy of the Washington Post, open to page 2. Brock read the headline: RUSSIAN DIPLOMATS EXPELLED.

  Brock took the paper from him and read. The story was all about some Russian diplomats who were kicked out of the country because of their links to organized crime in New York City, run by a man named Dmitri Boudantsev who’d suddenly gone missing. Brock studied the picture of Boudantsev’s face. The criminal’s thick black eyebrows, round flattened nose, and evil stare oozed danger.

  Brock’s heart pounded against his ribs as he finished reading. “And this is connected to us?”

  His father bit his lower lip and nodded. “Yes. I made all this happen. . . .” He pointed to the article. “But Boudantsev got away. How, I have no idea. I’m letting you see this because . . .”

  His father gave his head a violent shake. “I really can’t believe he could ever find us. I can’t think how it’s possible, but . . . I’ve seen other impossible things happen. Anyway, let’s not talk about this again. It’s from the past, and that’s where it will stay. You really don’t have to worry, Brock.”

  “But, what if?” Brock had to ask.

  His father looked at him. “If you ever did see this man, you need to r
un. You need to run for your life.”

  9

  They didn’t talk about it anymore, and Brock convinced himself that they were safe. They had to be.

  Their faces healed. The thin white scars faded into their tan skin, and Brock even got used to his new nose.

  He wasn’t Brock Nickerson anymore though. His father had him choose from three possible identities: Thomas Givens, Robert Barrette, and Ian Bodett. Brock chose Robert Barrette.

  “Can you . . . call me Brock?”

  His father had bitten into his lower lip and remained quiet while he thought. Finally, he’d said, “Okay. I guess your papers can say Robert and we call you Brock. I’ve seen crazier things and no one’s going to find us anyway.”

  Brock was thrilled. He enjoyed their last few days of summer even more and was sad when they packed up the car and drove away from the small beach house with its deck overlooking the dunes and the ocean.

  “You think we can come back?” Brock asked, passing by Pete’s Crab Shack, his favorite place for a milk shake.

  His father reached out and patted Brock’s knee. “This was great, right?”

  “I loved it here.” They passed the huge parking lot for the national seashore. Lucky people were unloading coolers, umbrellas, and towels, ready for a day of sun.

  His father turned onto the main road heading inland. “Things close down, though, once the season ends. Calhoun has a really good school.”

  “So, can we come back here?”

  His father bit his lower lip. “Well, we’ll see. This is going to be a new way of life for us. The money is going to run out, and I’m going to have to get a job that’s probably not going to leave a lot left over for beach houses. Certainly not for two months.”

  “Maybe a week, though?”

  “Maybe.” His father scowled at the road. “The best part of this for me was just being with you. This is like a jumping off point for us.”

  “To a normal life, right?”

  “As normal as I can make it.” His father looked over at him and smiled.