THREE

According to Catherine Goode, Zach's first words had been a lie.

"You pointed at me and said 'pretty', you little shit," she cooed, pinching his cheek lovingly. Her mood had been so sweet, her smile so bright, that Zach hadn't been able to do anything but grin back, even if his cheek stung a little afterwards. "You've always known how to lie. Wonder where you get it."

Her eyes and gone hazy after that, and she had rose and gone upstairs, leaving a four-year-old Zach in the living room, alone, as thunder rumbled outside and shook the fragile walls of Catherine's old house.

She always seemed to go to places farther than her upstairs bedroom, because Zach was never able to ask her about her last comment. About where he got 'it'.

It didn't matter, one way or the other. Even if it wasn't the kind of lie he was meant to tell for the rest of his life, it set a precedent for how he was going to live his life. Regardless of whether he liked it or not.

His lies had as many faces as he did. They weren't just words that were carefully designed to conceal the truth, or words that spilled out like vomit, senseless and thoughtless in their approach. They were identities, personalities, covers, 'legends'. They were his curse and his lifeline.

Joe had been the one to teach everything about changing faces. Of course, Joe had been the one to teach Zach how to do everything—from reading to math to languages to the few chords he could pluck out on the guitar—but Zach knew that knowing how to change was the most valuable.

"It's all about the way the world sees you," Joe had said, voice low and patient, as he slipped on a wig and stuck a rock in his shoe. Seconds later, he had looked virtually unrecognizable as the Frenchman named Anton, and Zach had understood.

He became an expert at making up new versions of himself. He tried them out on everybody he knew—from Joe to Catherine to the other agents who came and went like the weather, but mostly Joe—and edited them as he went. He made up stories for each of his characters and gave them names. They had favorite movies and colors; they had families and inside jokes and friends.

"You've got it, kid," Joe would always say after Zach showed him a new accent to go with a new face. "But don't forget to be yourself for a while."

Zach would always nod, like he was listening so intently, so carefully. Joe was his mentor, so what he said was true, right?

It didn't take Zach long to figure out the downside of living as somebody else for so long; he forgot who he was before.

It was like a play. When everyone was gone and the stage-lights were down, Zach seemed to forget his lines. In his oblivion, his mind grasped and clawed at straws, trying to remember whether he had had any or not.

He had been looking for sixteen years and had yet to find himself. If he didn't soon, he knew he never would.

ooo

Of all the places to sit for a stakeout, Zach knew that benches were the least conspicuous.

Whatever bored bastard invented the pastime of sitting on a piece of wood and watching strangers in a public place must have had the practice of covert operations in mind, because Zach couldn't ask for anything better. It was perfectly acceptable for him and his roommate to wait there and watch as the world went by, looking naturally at ease in their comfortable civilian clothes as they leaned back in pretend leisure.

He owed a lot to that bored bastard.

Even if he didn't have a mission, Zach would have loved to spend a day on a bench at the Mall. People-watching was one of the few things he could say, with any surety, he actually liked to do with his time. It was one of the few things that he would have done regardless of what world he lived in or what he was expected to do with his life. Watching people—especially in a place with as varied of a population as possible—showed him the best of humanity.

(It was nice, after so many years of seeing the worst.)

Varied mixes, however, seemed less appealing to Zach as the day wore on. Especially since he was looking for somebody specific. He had to sift through middle-aged moms in track pants and teenage girls and boys on school trips, Russian speaking tourists and Japanese travelers taking pictures in front of the Lincoln Memorial. It was dizzyingly overwhelming, and Zach had to take a Tylenol and eat a half-bag of M&Ms before his head stopped pounding.

As unpleasant as it was, Zach knew he had the easiest job. The Gallagher Girls had to pick needles out of a haystack to find their tails, and the CIA had to constantly change everything about their appearance to blend with the crowd. All he had to do was sit on a bench and eat the candy he bought from a vending machine.

Beside him, Grant was blowing into his hands, rattling off details about their targets so they could 'find them and go back to Blackthorne.'

"... They will be in coats. Obviously." Grant huffed, burrowing deeper into his jacket."And their uniforms. That's what the file said."

"Do you know what color their uniforms are?"

Grant gave Zach a withering look. "I'm straight, dude."

"That doesn't matter. Color of clothing is all part of observation."

Grant made a petulant face and muttered under his breath about how 'Joe Solomon's damned protégée thinks he knows fucking everything', but Zach didn't really care at that point. He was too cold and too nervous and mightily regretting the M&Ms, as delicious as they were.

He wanted to move. He felt like running the length of the Mall a couple of times to get some of his damned energy out of his system. Maybe he could actually walk through one of the museums, like he always wanted to when he was a kid. Maybe he could highjack someone's car and drive as far away as he could. Maybe he could—

"Zach?"

"What?"

"I see them."

Zach resisted the urge to gawk around. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Grant staring straight ahead. Zach's roommate had plastered on a knowing smirk, leaning back onto the bench and crossing one leg over the other, slipping on his cover like a second skin. Zach, for once, followed his lead.

He casually leaned his elbows on his knees and, heart pounding, slowly slid his eyes over to where Grant was staring.

Their targets were thirty feet away, making their way through the crowds with the unmistakable certainty of operatives on a mission. Both of them were in their school uniforms, their plaid skirts undulating in the breeze.

Zach avoided looking at the girl in the red coat and focused on those skirts and wondering if his and Grant's future uniforms had anything to do with plaid.

(He dearly hoped not.)

"What do we do now?" Grant asked, barely moving his lips.

Zach watched the two girls walk farther and farther away, memorizing their pattern of movement, the way they interacted and gestured so he could look for it later.

Even from where he was sitting, in what felt like an entirely different world, Zach could tell that they were good.

But he would be better.

"We wait."

ooo

The initial contact was done.

(Sort of.)

Zach was relieved.

(Even if it wasn't really 'contact'.)

But they had seen him and his roommate, and looked at them, and obviously passed them over and categorized them as harmless.

(So that counted.)

He was relieved.

He hadn't really known what to expect, but he knew that Joe Solomon had been wrong. Whatever Joe had been expecting from Zach when he met Cameron Morgan, Zach hadn't done it.

(Even if he hadn't technically met her.)

"They walk really fast," Grant huffed three hours later.

Zach couldn't help but nod.

They were following the subjects from a hundred feet away. Right in front of them was one of the CIA all-stars, who had kind of thrown caution to the wind and was just running after them with everything he had left.

Zach didn't couldn't blame him. The Gallagher Girls were, he begrudgingly admitted, fast.

"Where are they going?" Grant asked after a while, slightly breathless.

Zach scanned the crowd, watching as two heads—one dark blonde, one curly black—disappeared as they went down the escalators to the underground train system.

"They're getting rid of their tail," Zach replied.

Once they were sure they wouldn't be noticed, the boys jogged through the crowd and elbowed their way to the escalators.

Once at the top, Zach and Grant paused. They panicked.

"Good God," Grant muttered, looking at the crowd below them.

Zach swallowed, suddenly nervous again.

Dozens of girls in white blouses—one that were nearly identical to their target's uniforms—were clustered on the escalators, gabbing and squealing as they all made their endless way down to the trains.

Zach's eyes frantically scanned the masses for any sign of a red coat but saw none.

"Hey, boys," one of the girls crooned. She waggled her fingers and smiled a 'come-hither' smile.

By the way his roommate was looking the girl up and down; Zach knew that the only thing stopping Grant from 'coming hither' was their mission.

"Hey... Ellie," Grant said, reading the girls nametag. She blushed and giggled, like it was just the cutest thing ever that he had actually made the effort to read her nametag.

"Hey, what's all this?" Zach asked, leaning on the moving belt that served as a handrail. "Are you all in a group or something?"

'Ellie' turned to Zach, eyes wide like she hadn't noticed him in the glare of his glittery roommate. He didn't even try his usual cocky smile and smirk to charm her, so he just settled for mildly curious.

"Oh, yeah," she said, making a dismissive hand motion. "It's just this... Thing, like, um..."

Zach nodded, still absentmindedly scanning the crowd.

Seven steps down, two girls were glancing at Zach and giggling. He paid them no heed, still looking for...

But then he saw their targets right in frontof the giggling girls. Girls who were slightly taller different-cut blouses and forced ease as they leaned on the escalator railing. They stood straighter, with a palpable alertness that told him they were prepared for anything.

He instantly knew who they were. For a second, he almost felt like he was breathing after being underwater for five minutes.

"I see them," he muttered to Grant as 'Ellie' prattled on about their 'fake congress' conference.

"Where?"

Zach jerked his chin towards the two girls below, just as one of the others yelled 'let's make a run for it!' and the white blouses became a stampeding herd. Zach and Grant watched, apart from the fray, temporarily amused, as all of the fake congress girls sprinted onto a train just as it was pulling away from the station.

Standing still amid the chaos, it didn't take the Blackthorne Boys long to find who they were looking for; two girls, both slipping on their coats, walking away from the crowds they had disappeared into only minutes before.

Then, just a blink later, they were gone.

"Where'd they go?" Grant asked, his voice cracking slightly with barely restrained panic and exhaustion when they finally reached the ground floor.

"Under the escalator," Zach replied in a cool voice He resisted the urge to roll his eyes at Grant's overreaction but reminded himself that Grant—the son of a plastic surgeon and his second of seven ex-wives—had not grown up staking people out and predicting their movements. Zach knew that it was still very much a guessing game for Grant.

"So... Do we split up now?" Grant asked. Even if he complained about it under his breath, Zach was always the one who made the call.

They had twenty-five minutes left to do what they needed to do. It was divide and conquer time.

"Yeah."

"So..." Grant started walking away, looking over his shoulder at Zach, "I'll see you at the van?"

"Maybe."

Grant opened his mouth like he was going to say goodbye, then thought better of it and just nodded before he walked off.

Zach watched from a safe distance as Grant followed Baxter, fifty paces behind her as she made her way through the station. She seemed unaware of the fact that he was tailing her.

Zach sat at his bench and debated whether or not he should finish off the half-empty bag of M&Ms in his pocket.

But then he saw the other girl emerge from under the escalator. The girl in the red coat. Her stance was suspicious, her walk purposeful, and Zach had to restrain himself from running to catch up with her.

She was headed to the elevator, and he didn't think twice. He pushed the 'up' button before she could, greeted her, and went in when the door opened.

And before he knew it, he was in an elevator with Cameron Morgan.