Hero

Kerrigan will speak at a rally in Central Park in late June. Zach tells his mom that the kids in school seem drawn to Kerrigan and regard the opponent, Vice President Boras, as “Darth Vader.”

John visits for dinner; he, John, and Elizabeth debate the candidates, with John taking Boras’s side. He reminds Elizabeth that he and Tom used to have these same arguments.

Zach and John go for a walk. John warns Zach that he’s not yet ready to take on his father’s mantle. He says the Bads are everywhere, doing whatever they can—moving weapons, installing dictators—to win power and that Mr. Herbert keeps showing up when those things happen.

Zach asks if his dad knew who gave him his powers. John says his father never learned that, but John believes Mr. Herbert knew and had that man killed.

Kate and Zach puzzle over John’s allegation about Mr. Herbert killing Zach’s grandfather. She asks if he’ll question Mr. Herbert on the topic; Zach doubts he’ll be that blunt, but he has a plan to find out the answer.

Early in summer, Kate volunteers herself and Zach to make campaign calls, urging voters to attend the Kerrigan rally. Every afternoon, Zach goes to the park, hoping to get a visit from Mr. Herbert. Meanwhile, his intuition grows by leaps and bounds. It starts at school, where he can tell when a pop quiz is coming. He knows when his mom wants to surprise him. One day in the park, he knows Mr. Herbert will be there, and, sure enough, the old man appears.

Zach asks if he trained his father in the park; Mr. Herbert says sometimes. Zach asks if his father trusted him; the old man replies, “Not completely.” Zach wonders if the Kerrigan rally might be a good place for the Bads to strike; Mr. Herbert says Zach is using his sixth sense again.

They practice for two hours. Zach learns to catch rocks thrown at him and track birds in flight as they flit from tree to tree, half a mile away. Zach asks Mr. Herbert if he thinks he’s ready; the old man replies, “Seems to me you’d better be” (252).

Mr. Herbert leaves. Zach decides to follow him. The old man walks over to the streets beyond the west side of the park and ends up at the Dakota, where John Lennon lived and was shot. Mr. Herbert enters the gated building.

Zach knows why the old man is there: It’s to visit someone who’s lived there as long as Zach can remember: John Marshall.

Zach waits near the Dakota, waiting for Mr. Herbert to re-emerge. He wonders if the old man and Uncle John are somehow in cahoots, pulling him this way and that for their own purpose.

When Mr. Herbert emerges, Zach darts across the street and confronts him. Mr. Herbert is impressed by Zach’s newfound stalking skills: He calls Zach “the invisible boy” (257-58). Zach demands to know what the old man is doing, visiting John. Mr. Herbert says he’s simply trying to help. The boy retorts that Uncle John believes Mr. Herbert only does what’s good for himself. Mr. Herbert nods and admits that maybe John is correct. Therefore, “I want to make things right” (259). He hurries away into the park.

Zach gives chase, but the old man is gone. Zach is angry—not at Mr. Herbert or Uncle John, but at his dad, who never prepared him for all this. He looks down: His hands are fists. Opening them, he sees the two coins he’s been carrying. They’ve done him nothing; their good luck hasn’t helped him, and they certainly didn’t help his dad.

He hurls the coins deep into the park. Overcome by sadness, he crumples to the ground: “For the first time since his dad died, he cried” (262).

Zach gets Kate to help him search his father’s room for clues. She thinks doing so is “creepy,” and Zach agrees, but he tells her about getting the trust-no-one message on his computer. She confesses that she snuck into the apartment and wrote that message in hopes it would help him stand up to the constant back-and-forth pull between John and Mr. Herbert. Knowing he wouldn’t pay attention if she said it to his face, Kate took the stealthy route. She also admits that she’s never really trusted John, whom she considers “too slick.”

Zach’s eyes fall on a framed Pogo comic that his dad kept near his desk. Pogo says, “We have met the enemy. And he is us” (267).

On the day of Kerrigan’s big Central Park speech, Zach, his mom, and Kate climb into a limo to ride to the stage located on the park’s Great Lawn. Police cars escort the limo; crowds line the streets. The stage has a bulletproof, invisible shield to protect Kerrigan, plus police and Secret Service agents. Backstage, Paul Simon waits to perform; beyond the stage is a huge crowd, more people in one place than Zach has ever seen.

Paul Simon walks on stage; the crowd roars; he begins to play. Zach suddenly feels like he’s in “overdrive,” as if something’s about to happen. 

The mayor introduces Senator Kerrigan. The crowd cheers, drowning out the mayor. Zach looks around, his senses on high alert. In his head, his dad’s voice says, “Look to the sky, Zacman” (274). Zach scans the buildings around the park and zooms in on a black-clad figure with a rifle, standing where a guard should be. The figure aims his rifle at Kerrigan.

Zach’s eyes can see the assailant’s finger pull the trigger. Zach hurtles across the stage, knocking Kerrigan over just as a bullet blows a hole in the campaign sign behind them. Pandemonium erupts. Suddenly, Zach is pushed down by Mr. Herbert, who says, “Always gotta watch out for the second bullet, boy” (276). Everyone is pulled quickly offstage by Secret Service.

Zach’s mom hands him her phone: It’s Kerrigan, who thanks him and says that only Zach’s father could do what Zach just did. The boy notices Mr. Herbert quietly exiting the tent, and he follows.

Mr. Herbert sits down under a tree. Zach sees blood on the old man’s shirt. The second bullet hit him while he was protecting Zach. Zach wants to take him to a hospital, but Mr. Herbert has him sit: “Let me die in peace […]. With my grandson next to me” (279).

Mr. Herbert explains that, as an earlier hero, he tried to win adulation from both sides in the war of good and evil but merely ended up doing evil. To make up for his sins, he hid his relationship to Zach’s dad to protect him so Tom could eventually be free to do good. Finally, he pulled Zach’s dad off the street and raised him, as the heroic power shifted from father to son.

Mr. Herbert tells Zach his father would have been proud of Zach today, “Very proud” (283). He closes his eyes for the last time.

Zach confronts John at the Dakota apartment. He accuses John of letting Zach’s dad die and then allowing the assassin to try to kill Kerrigan. John replies that Tom Harriman had gotten too full of himself. Zach says the Bads long ago turned John; John doesn’t argue. Zach calls him “scum” and warns him to stay away from the Harriman family. John warns him that the Bads have enormous power; Zach says, “Bring it,” and leaves.

He runs through the park, realizing that he’s no longer worried about watching his own back. Instead, “the Bads better watch theirs” (289).