I Am The Traitor by Allen Zadoff

I Am The Traitor is the final book in the Unknown Assassin trilogy. In this final installment Zach finally learns the truth about The Program as he searches for his father. The truth however involves some terrible revelations about Zach's family and his father's involvement in The Program.

The novel opens with Zach waiting to meet Mike in his hometown of Rochester, New York, in the hopes he can rescue his friend, Howard, whom the Program has captured. It might be a trap but Zach has to take the risk if he is to free Howard.

Zach first goes to the University of Rochester where his father was once a psychology professor, attempting to meet Professor Abraham Silberstein, who was his father's former research partner. He manages to find the room where Dr. Silberstein is lecturing but when Silberstein recognizes Zach in the class he abruptly ends the lecture and flees. Zach pursues him losing him when he runs into Mike dressed as a campus cop. 

Mike knows that Zach is searching for his father and tries to convince Zach that what he told him in New York was misunderstood. Mike tells him that he should be angry at his father because he is the one who brought the Program into his life. He also warns Zach that he is in serious trouble having gone rogue on his last two missions. He attempts to convince Zach that both his parents are dead and that the Program should now be his family. Hoping that eventually he can get more information from Mike, Zach decides to play along. Mike informs him that they need to clean up the mess he made and kill Howard who is being held at a house in upstate New York. Zach believes that Mike is either telling him the truth and giving him a chance to set things right, or he is lying and by killing Howard, Zach will destroy any chance of learning the truth about his father.

They travel to the house where Howard is being kept but before going in Zach is contacted by "Mother" who tells him she has no upcoming assignment for him and he's to relax. Zach believes that Mother knows about Howard and his hacking into the Program server and that she's setting a trap for him. Mike tells him this is not a trap but an opportunity to clear his name with the Program.

In order to gain entry to the home where Howard is Zach calls 911, bringing firetrucks to the house. He quickly finds Howard along with another girl, Tanya who is also being held. Zach gets both Howard and Tanya out of the house but is confronted by several Program soldiers. Outside the house Mike kills the Program soldiers as Zach, Howard and Tanya escape in a Honda Accord. They stop at a diner in Courtland to give Zach a chance to question Howard who is somewhat groggy from the drugs he's been given. Mike contacts Zach at the diner to tell him he's coming after him. Zach finds tracking devices in both Howard and Tanya's clothing. As they head towards Binghamton, New York, Tanya tells Zach she needs to contact her Nana who will be worried. Trusting her, Zach allows this while he and Howard discuss the disappearance of Zach's father and mother. Howard believes that the Program would have had to create a cover story since Zach's parents were both well known researchers.  Howard discovers that the Program faked an accident which killed both of Zach's parents. After locating the accident report they head to the police station at Horseheads, New York to talk to Sergeant Manning who wrote up the accident report. Not surprisingly they learn that Manning died from a heart attack two days earlier.

After escaping from Mike who tried to run them off the road at Horseheads, Zach is contacted by him and learns that his parents' are dead but not as a result of the accident which was staged by the Program. He tells Zach to get rid of Howard and Tanya. The next morning Howard does remember Zach. Zach needs to find out more about his father and to that end he needs to access the Program's server. They decide to pay Dr. Silberstein a visit but they need to know where the mag-stripe security pass that Zach stole from him allows access. Howard learns that the card is from the Mercurio Institute and that's where they head next. Impersonating Joshua Silberstein, Dr. Silberstein's son who was Zach's best friend when they were younger, Zach gains access to the doctor's lab. Dr. Silberstein offers Zach more pieces of the puzzle about his parents but each step leads to the destruction of the people Zach meets and demonstrates that the Program is willing to do just about anything to stop him from learning the truth about what really happened to his parents.

Discussion

I Am The Traitor is a suspenseful, fast-paced novel that is impossible to put down. Like the two previous novels it is characterized by plenty of action and a fair number of dead bodies including several very cruel murders by Zach. In this novel Zach is determined to find his father because he no longer believes what he's been told by the Program. He never suspects the truth that is revealed to him near the end of the novel.

** spoilers**

When Zach does find his father, the reality of what his father's involvement in the Program entails,  leads him to realize that he cannot allow him to continue his research. Zach learns that his father initially designed a chip to suppress fear in soldiers. However, the chip didn't seem to work completely the way they wanted. Soldiers still experienced PTSD (post traumatic stress syndrome). His father discovered that if the chip was implanted in children twelve or younger, it seemed to function better. So he deliberately turned his own son over to the Program and made him a test subject for a controversial research project - the implantation of a chip that was designed to suppress fear in soldiers.

 As part of that project, Zach was trained to be an assassin.  Zach states, "Instead of making them soldiers, you made them assassins." His father does not believe there is anything wrong with this, instead he tells his son that the Program was a brilliant way to test the chip. As Zach became older he began to rebel against the Program, something his father believed was the result of the chip. So he developed a new chip, one that removes all feelings and remorse, in effect creating soldiers without a conscience.   "Once this chip is inside you, there will be no more feelings. No questions, no mistakes, no need for disloyalty."  When his father tries to force Zach to have this new chip implanted, Zach realizes he will never be free of his father or the Program unless he acts to put an end to it.

Although Zach kills many people, most of his murders are in self defense except for the last two. He sees no way out of the Program other than to kill the two people who created the entire operation, although realistically, with so many Program assets it's hard to see how this would solve Zach's problem in the long term. 

The character of Tanya in I Am The Traitor is rather interesting. She seems to represent a typical Bond girl in this Bond-type story; the reader really doesn't  know if she is for or against Zach. At first she appears to be a helpless girl caught in the Program's net and Zach doesn't seem much interested in her. But soon it's apparent that she is much more than helpless; she can handle a gun and she can fight. Very quickly she and Zach become romantically involved further complicating their relationship. Zach doesn't know what her motives are or whether he can trust her, but he does. In the end she decides to fight with Zach.

Zadoff manages to maintain suspense until the very end of the novel with several other plot twists. Zadoff has stated that the idea for his Unknown Assassin trilogy came from a character who was a trained assassin who assumed a new identity for each mission. Those missions were usually to kill the parents of the teens he was to befriend.

Overall, I Am The Traitor is an action-packed thriller, with plenty of twists, some very disturbing murders, a touch of romance, and offering a solid ending to this trilogy.

Book Details:

I Am The Traitor by Allen Zadoff
New York: Little, Brown and Company     2015
292 pp.

I Am The Mission by Allen Zadoff

I Am The Mission is the exciting second book in Allen Zadoff's teenage assassin series. Zach (formerly known as Boy in the first novel) is counselor in training (CIT) at a summer sports camp for boys in Vermont. While waiting for his next assignment in a hotel room his thoughts of what happened with Samara, the daughter of New York's mayor, in the last assignment overwhelm him. He breaks off communications with The Program and goes off the grid, taking a bus to Vermont and getting the CIT position.

However he is quickly tracked down by The Program and is captured by soldiers hired by Father.  Father tells Zach that The Program is concerned about his loyalty. He takes Zach on a helicopter ride where he is tested once again regarding his loyalties. Satisfied that he is faithful to the mission and The Program, they fly on to New Hampshire while Father tells Zach the background for his next mission which is to be a test of his loyalty.

Another operative in the Program has gone missing while on a mission. Father is certain that the operative is dead and the mission is lost. Zach is needed to go in and finish the job. Eugene Moore runs a military camp for teens in rural New Hampshire. The camp, called Camp Liberty is for the children of right-wingers. It is of concern to The Program, because their online activity indicates Moore's group is probing infrastructure in the Northeastern United States, including power plants and Department of Transportation computers. The Program is expecting something  big is coming and they want to stop Moore whose camp is located in a valley in the mountains north of Manchester, New Hampshire.

But first Zach is taken to a hospital for a check-up where he has blood tests, a PET/CT scan. Zach is approved for the mission but he notices that the scar from a previous wound was hurting him during the scan. He will discover the reason for this later on in the novel.

Both Mother and Father continue to brief him on his new mission. Zach is told that Moore has two children, Lee and Miranda. This time there will be no mark. Instead Zach, posing as Daniel, will attend a recruiting event run by Camp Liberty. Mother and Father believe that Zach's recent doubts will make him an easy pick for Moore at the recruitment. He is to get close to Moore at the recruitment and assassinate him. Under no circumstances is he to go into Camp Liberty which is under a total communications blackout due to high-tech electronic signal blocking. Entry to and from the camp is also strictly controlled.

Daniel is taken first to a safe house in suburban Manchester where he is prepped for the mission by Father who then drives him to the recruitment event. Lee Moore tells Daniel that he is one of a dozen other kids selected to meet Moore. Daniel is with Lee working his way up to Lee's father when suddenly his way is blocked by security. Lee tells him his father has changed his mind about seeing Daniel. At this time a woman tries to attack Eugene Moore but Daniel reacts quickly and saves Moore. This action allows Daniel to meet Eugene Moore but he is too protected for Daniel to act. He loses the mission as designed by The Program. However, when Lee offers him a tour of Camp Liberty, Daniel decides to disobey Father's instructions and to travel to the camp.

On the way to the camp, Daniel is separated from Lee, Miranda and the rest of the group and is taken the rest of the way by Francisco, a security advisor. Francisco tells Daniel that he doesn't believe who he says he is and he tries unsuccessfully to get Daniel to come clean about his identity. At Camp Liberty, Daniel learns that the permanent people play an online game designed by Lee, that tests their military skills.

Although he's locked into his room, Daniel easily escapes and decides to hike up the mountain to try to connect with Father or Mother, since his previous calls have gone unanswered. He discovers the camp has an invisible laser perimeter to monitor who comes and goes. Daniel easily gets past this and heads up into the forest but he runs into Miranda and Lee who have been following him. She guesses correctly that he is trying to get past the electronic jamming to make a phone call although she doesn't really know who Daniel is trying to call. She helps him travel to a spot to make the call but Daniel is unable to reach either Father or Mother. Daniel thinks it might be because of the technical interference, but he also considers the possibility that he has been cut off by The Program.

The evening of the next day sees Daniel along with Miranda and Lee sent out on a "Mission" or Hunt. This turns out to be a practice run involving poisoning the water supply for Manchester which they have to treat as a real op until they are told otherwise. Lee is angry that it is part of the game used to train Camp Liberty personnel while Miranda believes doing something like this is justified. Daniel comes to realize that Moore is serious about training young people to commit acts of terrorism against their own people.

Daniel leaves Camp Liberty and returns to the safe house, only to find that it is no longer a safe house. Instead he finds a couple living there and they are attacked by a freelance team that tries to kill Daniel. Unable to reach Father and needing more information, Daniel calls his friend Howard, a hacker who helped Zach on a previous mission sort fiction from truth and to find out about the SDHC card he found on the body of one of the freelance ops. While Zach returns to Camp Liberty, Howard will continue to research the SDHC card.

Zach returns to the mission but during a drill when he manages to make it to Moore's war room, Francisco confronts him and asks him to go out on hike to fix a relay station. It is during this hike that Francisco reveals his identity to Zach and tells him more about The Program. Zach has to make a choice between believing what he's been told by The Program and completing his mission or believing what Francisco has told him.

Discussion

I Am The Mission bumps up the intensity, the action and the excitement a few notches compared to the first novel, I Am The Weapon - previously titled, Boy Nobody. Zach, as Daniel Martin is still a strong, efficient assassin, as he calculates angles, evaluates each situation and strategizes over his opponents. His unemotional narrative is what makes this book so engaging.

I Am The Mission has a unique storyline, is well paced with a solid cast of characters. Zach is a fascinating character because he's complex, he's conflicted and the reader gets to experience both of these attributes through Zach's narration. He was brought into The Program when he was twelve after being told both his parents were dead. He's athletically gifted and highly intelligent. He's been expertly trained to not question his orders - as are many soldiers, to not show remorse and to be fully committed to his missions.  Or is he?  

Zach is beginning to question what he's been told, partly because he is maturing into adulthood and partly because of what he has learned during the last mission and during this one, especially from Francisco. What he learned from the previous mission has caused him to have doubts which Zach believes can be dealt with by simply continuing to work. At the crux of his doubts however, is what happened to his father and how Zach came to be recruited into The Program. He has bits and pieces of memories but nothing is certain and he knows he needs to find out more. In addition he now must face Francisco's revelations which he eventually learns are true. Complicating matters further are Howard's discoveries about the SDHC card which reveal new information about Zach's father. How he was treated by The Program have made him realize at the end of his mission that he can now trust no one except maybe Howard.

"The Program is back, our protocols are in place, and the elements have been arranged for my safe egress.
It's as if the last four days never happened.....
Part of me wants to accept this. I was used and I survived. This was my mission. It was more complex than the ones that preceded it, but so be it. Everything is back to normal now.
But another part of me knows this is a lie. I trusted these people once.
Never again."

Howard is a truly delightful character, a foil to the highly trained, fearless Zach. They have an unlikely friendship despite the fact that Zach works for the government and Howard, as a hacker, is anti-establishment. Although Howard possesses considerable electronic intelligence, he's very much an innocent teenage boy, who dreams of the kind of things that Zach does. He's brave and loyal - two traits Zach desperately needs in his life.

The novel explores the theme of identity especially with Zach struggling to maintain his identity as a teenage assassin while mourning the loss of a "normal" life as a teenager which he seems to be doing more in the second novel.  There is also the issue of a government recruiting and training young people to become deadly weapons and then abandoned to their fate should things not work out according to plan. Readers may struggle with the idea that Zach is so young; if he were slightly older, perhaps in his early twenties, the story would be more plausible. He's composed and analytical beyond  his years and in the novel,  he goes three days without sleep and is still able to function - something most teens would not be able to accomplish. Still, this teenage James Bond is exciting, complex and engaging.

There is some minor sexuality in the novel and of course a great deal of violence with numerous murders, making this a novel for teens 14 years and older. Nevertheless, with so few really good novels geared towards the male teenage reader, this age group will enjoy the James Bond-esque action of the Unknown Assassin series.

Book Details:
I Am The Mission by Allen Zadoff
New York: Little, Brown and Company   2014
421 pp.

Boy Nobody - I Am The Weapon by Allen Zadoff

"My life is one continual assignment. I move from world to world as I've been trained to do, leaving nothing but bodies behind me. With each assignment comes new challenges, new complications, new excitement."

Taken from his family at twelve, "Boy Nobody" is trained to become an efficient killing machine, sent in to take out specific targets. The usual method of operation sees him befriend the mark, usually the child of his intended target, which allows him access to the family. Once in the family, he kills the target which is the parent of the child. Efficient and deadly.

Zadoff starts this thriller off with Boy completing his recent "assignment", the killing of a Chinese CEO of a high-tech firm. Boy is friends with Jack Wu and on a visit to his home, while alone with Jack's father, he stabs him in the forearm with a pen. This pen is really a syringe that injects Mr. Wu with a powerful drug that stops his heart in seconds. And then he waits while the police and EMS arrive and simply walks away and onto his next assignment.

Boy is part of something called The Program. He was taken from his family when he was twelve by an older boy named Mike and given the option of either dying like his father and mother, or being part of The Program. He asked to be killed but instead was trained into a operative of The Program. The Program is about finding and removing enemies of the United States. Boy was trained by The Program who gave him a "Father" and a "Mother". His "Father" coordinated his life and his "Mother" appeared often to check up on him. Boy did all of his high school in two years plus he completed special training in weapons and tactics, psychology and strategy. His "Mother" oversees each assignment and is in charge while his "Father" sends him the next assignment. Everything - clothing, fake ID, where he will live, money is pre-arranged for the next assignment and any contact with Father and Mother is encoded.

Boy soon learns that his next assignment is to kill the Mayor of New York, Jonathan Goldberg. This assignment however is unusual for a number of reasons. First he must complete his assignment within five days. Boy is disturbed because he has never been given so little time to enter and integrate before completing an assignment. His mark is Samara (Sam) Goldberg, the mayor's daughter. Boy doesn't like to deal with girls whom he finds complicated and who bring emotion into play.

He is inserted into a famous (unnamed) private school, which Sam attends, on the Upper West Side. Boy immediately attracts the attention of Sam who invites him to a party she is having at her father's apartment where she lives. Her mother was killed in an accident several years ago while visiting her home country of Israel. During the party, Boy manages to wander into the mayor's private area providing him with the perfect opportunity to fulfill his mission. However, Boy is caught off guard by the mayor's personable character and the resemblance to his father which brings back memories of his childhood. Because of this, Boy does not take the opportunity to kill Goldberg.

From the beginning there are complications leading Boy to begin questioning his mission. He suspects he is being followed, which is soon confirmed and results in a deadly confrontation. It also becomes evident that some of the people around Sam are not whom they seem either. Boy begins to have strong feelings for Sam and they become romantically involved, just when the parameters of the mission begin to change. And Boy is left struggling whom to trust, his "Mother" or Sam and her father?

Discussion  

There's no doubt Zadoff has written a chilling novel about a boy turned into an special operative who takes out American enemies and traitors. He's a sixteen year old killing machine who assassinates without conscience. Boy is trained to not to ask questions and not to think about the effect the murder has on the family of the target. There's no way to describe the sanitized murder at the end of the book except as brutal, despite Boy assuring his "target" that dying won't hurt. It's a tragic end that seems wrong on so many levels.

It's evident that Boy is extremely intelligent. He completed all of his high schooling by the age of sixteen. Mature beyond his years, Boy is situationally aware, calculating and emotionally distant. Despite being pulled from society and subjected to rigorous training, Boy is extremely socially intelligent, something that is perhaps incongruous with his past.

But Boy, who finally has a name at the end of the novel, is changing. He has been challenged from his first encounter with Sam to consider who he is. "Do you ever wonder where you belong?" she says. "Like maybe life made a mistake and put you someplace you weren't supposed to be?"   She also questions what he believes in.  "...'You're the boy who doesn't believe in anything. We're different that way. I not only believe, I'm willing to back it up with action.' "

When the mission changes, Boy is conflicted as to what to do and about what he has been told. For the first time, he seeks to find out and he chooses Howard, the techie weirdo from school to help him. He's not so willing to simply accept what "Mother" tells him. He needs proof and Howard helps him get that proof.

Also for the first time after a mission, Boy feels intense grief - "a deep chasm of grief" as he describes it, which he finds unbearable and buries deep within himself. And while he originally thought he was one of a few operatives, he's now beginning to suspect that there are many others just like him who maybe have different jobs within The Program. Armed with a new piece of information about his family from what was supposed to be a deadly encounter with Mike, and with Howard secretly working with him, Boy intends to find out.

Zadoff has done a very good job of creating his characters - they are both realistic and multi-dimensional. Sam is a complex character - as Boy predicted- whose suffering after her mother's death was largely ignored by her father. Sam's father never allowed her the time or space to grieve, resulting in Sam's alienation from her father and resulting in her being able to be recruited by her Israeli soldier and lover, Gideon, into a terrorist cell.

Howard, the techie geek/weirdo is a brilliantly crafted character who is very disturbing. The classic bullied boy, intelligent and different, who can't seem to find his niche in society, pushed further into its fringes.

Boy Nobody contains several murders, a great deal of physical violence and some sexual content  but none are described in detail or graphically. Readers will be left with a ton of questions which leaves this novel leading nicely into a second book.

Update: Please note that the author has retitled this first novel to I Am The Weapon, the first in The Unknown Assassin series.

Book Details:
Boy Nobody by Allen Zadoff
New York: Little, Brown and Company     2013
337 pp.