Zachariah wavered momentarily as he watched the man recover. He had two options: he could kill the man and get out of there, or he could just get out of there. The second option looked far more appealing than the first; the man was clearly better trained than he was. He didn’t know who the man worked for, but he probably didn’t stand a real chance against him. Still gripping his knife, he took a step back, ready to turn around and run.
The man looked up at him then, his bright blue eyes narrowing, and he lifted a small, compact pistol and aimed it right at Zachariah.
“Aw, fuck,” Zachariah said, right before the man squeezed the trigger.
The bullet struck him in the right bicep and sent him staggering backward, eyes watering in pain. That was enough to make up his mind for him. Clapping a hand over the wound in his bicep, he whirled on his heel and sprinted down the street, intending to get away from the man and his gun as quickly as possible.
* * *
Ashton Miller lowered his pistol as he watched the unknown man race into the darkness, running full tilt toward where he’d been holed up since entering Prague. He knew exactly where the man had been staying: a hotel in a somewhat dingy neighborhood whose residents wouldn’t think twice if he showed up with blood on his clothes. He’d taken out a room at a similar place himself to use as his base of operations; it wouldn’t do to get a room at a five-star hotel and draw unnecessary attention to himself by walking through the lobby in his work clothes.
Ashton had arrived in Prague only three days before and had gotten busy with his job immediately. It had taken him only a handful of hours to suss out the fact that there was someone else on the same job he’d been on. He’d been in the process of trailing his target, trying to establish his most recent habits and patterns, searching for gaps in his security, looking for weak spots to exploit, when he’d spotted another man who appeared to be doing the same thing. At first, Ashton had thought nothing of him; walking down any given street in Prague were dozens of young men just like him, dressed in jeans and vintage band t-shirts, distracted by their cell phones even while they deftly dodged around each other, barely acknowledging others’ presences—though maybe not quite so many as attractive as this one.
If he hadn’t seen the man again only a few hours later, several streets away outside of a restaurant his target had gone into, he’d never have thought of him again. But there he’d been, strolling down the street casually, a phone in his hand and headphones in his ears. Something about the man’s mannerisms had made Ashton suspect that he wasn’t actually listening to music and wasn’t just a random passerby. Since then, he’d started tracking the man, spotting him in the most unexpected places, obviously following either Ashton or his target—or maybe even both.
Ashton hadn’t been surprised to spot the man on the roof across the street, barely noticeable unless one knew where to look—and Ashton was well trained enough to know where to look. He didn’t get to where he was today by ignoring seeming coincidences.
He tore his eyes away from the place where the man had stood and looked around the narrow alley where they’d fought. Retrieving his flashlight from where it’d fallen during the scuffle, he shined it across the pavement, searching for any evidence left behind. It took him a moment to gather up the weapons that were scattered across the ground, and once he’d figured out which were his and which belonged to the other man, he tucked them away, turned his flashlight on, and started out of the alley, already making plans for his next step.
He only hoped that next step involved ice for his groin, because damn, that other man could kick like a mule.
Two
The second time Zachariah saw Ashton Miller, it was in his hotel room. It had taken him over an hour to get back to the hotel he’d reserved a room at, following a meandering path to try to mask the way to his base of operations, even as blood oozed over his skin to soak his sleeve and seeped through his fingers to drip onto the sidewalk. By the time he’d slipped through a service entrance of the small, dingy hotel he was staying in, he was beginning to feel mildly queasy with loss of blood, and his head hurt enough that it made him dizzy. He dug the little gold key from his pocket and managed to shove it in his room’s lock, stepping inside and closing the door behind him, bolting it shut before slumping against it.
The room was dark and cool, the air conditioner humming gently from where it was positioned underneath the windows. The air felt soothing against his overheated face, and he closed his eyes, breathing in deeply as he tried to focus past the pain in his arm and figure out what he needed to do next. When he’d first arrived in Prague, he’d dumped his bag on the bed before promptly leaving. He’d only been back once to retrieve his sniper rifle, hidden in pieces among the folds of his clothing. He remembered the first aid kit he’d stuffed inside his suitcase at the last minute. He was definitely going to need it tonight.
He crossed the room to the table by the bed and fumbled for the lamp’s switch. The light flared on, illuminating the room in a pale yellow gleam. He sighed and tugged the band out of his hair, letting the dark locks fall free for the first time in two days. Then he ripped the Velcro on his vest loose, dropped the garment onto the bed, and tugged off his shirt, biting back a grunt of pain at the fresh agony that rolled through his bicep. There was a neat hole punched into the muscle, still oozing blood but not as badly as it had been when he’d first gotten shot. Moving his arm sent a sharp sting of pain through his bicep, but ultimately, it wasn’t anything he couldn’t tolerate. Thankfully, it looked to be mostly a flesh wound, or so prodding at it indicated; there didn’t seem to be any damage to the bone. He turned to pull his suitcase toward him, intending to dig out the first aid kit and tend to the wound, but movement in the shadows made him freeze in mid-reach.
The movement in the corner coalesced into the familiar figure of a man, the same one he’d fought with in the alley outside of Tesla’s home. This time, though, he wasn’t wearing a mask, and his face was clearly visible in the mellow lamplight. He was handsomer than Zachariah expected, probably one of the best-looking men he’d ever laid eyes on, far better looking than most he’d seen around the Agency; he was enough so that Zachariah wondered how in the world he’d been recruited—the Agency didn’t like it when their agents were too attractive, because they then drew too much attention. The man’s hair was dark, almost as dark as Zachariah’s, and his skin was pale, smooth, and unblemished. He still wore the same clothes he’d worn in the alley, and his hand clutched a pistol, though it wasn’t aimed at him.
“What the fuck are you doing in my room?” Zachariah asked, though there wasn’t any real animosity in his words. He was too tired and his arm ached too much for him to put any energy into being angry at the intrusion.
“You’re an American,” the man said, his voice as low and as curiously accent-less as it’d been in the alley an hour before. His eyes flickered to Zachariah’s arm before returning to his face. Zachariah could feel a trickle of blood oozing down his arm toward his elbow. He ignored it and kept his own eyes on the figure that stood on the other side of the bed.
“That’s very observant of you,” he said. “What gave it away?”
“The way you said ‘asshole’ back there,” the man said, sounding almost awkward as he repeated the swear. “Sounds like you’re from the south, if I had to take a guess. Maybe…Texas?”
“Maybe,” he hedged. He wasn’t willing to divulge much of anything to this man; he didn’t know who he was, who he worked for, or what he planned to do, and he wasn’t going to spill anything until the man gave up information of his own. “What were you doing on the scene of my assignment, anyway?” he asked.
“I think whose assignment it was is up for debate,” the man said. “Especially since I’m the one who actually completed it.”
“Yeah, and you get the payout, too, right?” Zachariah asked with a tinge of bitterness in his voice. He scowled and glanced at his bleeding arm; a trail of blood had run from the bullet wound down to
his elbow, dripping steadily off his skin to spot the carpet below.
“Depends.” The man shifted his weight from one leg to the other, staring at Zachariah, then asked, “Who do you work for?”
Zachariah raised his eyebrow. “You’re kidding me if you think I’m actually going to answer that question.”
Then man stared at him for another long minute, then he nodded once. “Well trained. I know a few agents who would have answered that question without thinking.”
“Then they’re the kind of agent who will end up dead sooner rather than later,” Zachariah quipped.
“Indeed.” The man sighed and ran a hand through his thick, dark hair. “Henry Cage,” he said. Zachariah recognized the name; he’d heard it more than once in the Agency offices, though he’d never met the man. He had his doubts that this was Henry Cage; he knew the man was older than this one. “He’s my handler,” the man clarified, as if reading the doubt in Zachariah’s eyes. “I’m Ashton.”
Zachariah started to fold his arms over his chest but stopped the movement when a sharp stab of pain radiated from the bullet wound. “Got a last name to go with that? Or is that your last name?”
“Miller,” Ashton said. “It’s Ashton Miller.” He lowered his pistol fully to his side and extended a hand. “And you are?”
Zachariah glanced at the man’s extended hand but didn’t take it. “Zachariah,” he answered, leaving it at that for now.
“I’ve seen you around the offices before,” Ashton said, dropping his hand, “though only from a distance, so I never got to talk to you or introduce myself then. Brandon Hall is your handler, isn’t he?”
“Maybe,” Zachariah said.
“You don’t trust me, clearly,” Ashton said. “Though I wouldn’t really expect you to.” He reached behind him, and Zachariah tensed as he pulled free a pistol. But, much to his surprise, Ashton tossed it onto the bed between them. “You left this at the scene. That isn’t a good idea, especially if there is any way to trace it back to you.”
Zachariah started to reach for the pistol but stopped, eyeing the gun the other man still held. It was only when Ashton glanced down at it and slid it into its holster that he picked up his own and set it in easy arm’s reach on the bedside table. “Thanks,” he muttered. He looked at his bleeding arm again and added, “Look, it’s lovely you dropped by to deliver my pistol and all, but I have things I have to do. Like patch up the bullet hole you put in my arm.”
“Looks painful,” Ashton said, and Zachariah tried to not grimace as he saw the faintest of smirks cross the man’s face.
“Yeah, well, at least you missed so I’m still at a point where I can actually feel pain,” Zachariah commented. He grabbed his suitcase with his left hand, dragging it to him and unzipping it to retrieve his first aid kit.
“Who said I missed?”
Zachariah looked up from his suitcase, a bit startled by the admission. “You didn’t miss?”
“Well, I could have shot you in the chest,” Ashton said. “Or maybe even the head. I just figured I’d aim for the arm so I could follow you and question you later. Especially since you were a fellow American. I figured there was a good chance we work for the same people.” He waggled his fingers at Zachariah and motioned toward the first aid kit he’d pulled out of his suitcase. “Here, give me that. I’ll give you a hand with your arm. I doubt it’ll be very easy to patch yourself up with only one hand.”
* * *
Ashton sat on the edge of the bathtub in Zachariah’s hotel room, the first aid kit opened on his lap as he picked through the contents, choosing the supplies he’d need to patch up the other man’s arm. Zachariah sat on the closed toilet lid, his head resting in his left hand, eyes closed as he waited for Ashton to start his medical care. A bloodied bullet from the .22 Ashton had shot him with sat on the sink, dug out of the man’s bicep only moments before. As he plucked the supplies out of the surprisingly substantial kit, Ashton surreptitiously snuck glances at the other man, scanning him from head to toe, taking in everything he could, just to satiate his burning curiosity.
Zachariah was unlike any agent he’d ever met, both in looks and in mannerisms, and he’d met quite a few agents around the Agency’s offices. To begin with, he wore his dark hair long, just brushing his shoulders—something most agents didn’t do. His skin was lightly tanned and unmarked. He was well built, muscular and lean, and he looked strong enough to handle anything the Agency threw at him—if he did, indeed, work for the Agency like Ashton suspected.
Zachariah let out a slow sigh, and Ashton took a closer look at his face. For the first time, he noticed how exhausted the other man looked, like he’d been up several days and was running on fumes and coffee alone. Dark circles ringed his green eyes, his straight jaw was tight with stress, and his hair hung limply around his face. Ashton frowned and pulled on a fresh pair of medical gloves from the first aid kit then snagged a wad of gauze, dampened it, and began to clean off the excess blood from Zachariah’s arm. Once he was done with that and had injected a local anesthetic, Ashton found the suture kit and got to work patching up the bullet hole he’d put in the man’s bicep.
“So why exactly were you on the scene of my assignment, anyway?” Ashton asked as he pushed the needle through the man’s skin. He wasn’t expecting a different answer from the one he’d already gotten earlier; truth be told, he was wondering exactly how the two of them had ended up on the same assignment at the same place at the same time. To his knowledge, that had never happened before.
Zachariah scowled and gritted his teeth, shaking his head and nearly jarring Ashton’s grip on his arm loose. Ashton tightened his fingers around the man’s arm and pointedly jabbed the needle in a little deeper than necessary, eliciting another hiss of pain from him. “It wasn’t your assignment,” he said. “It was mine. I was the one who was supposed to kill Tesla, not you.”
“That’s clearly up for debate,” Ashton said, even as his mind spun with Zachariah’s revelation. Their assignments hadn’t been the same, after all. “So you were there to kill Tesla,” he said, tying off the suture and moving on to the next. “Obviously, you didn’t succeed.”
“Only because you got in my way,” Zachariah retorted. “And cost me two mil in the process. Thanks a lot.”
“You’re welcome,” Ashton replied dryly. “So what were you supposed to do after you shot Tesla?”
“Pack it in and get out of there,” Zachariah said. “Nothing else. Why?”
“Because my assignment wasn’t to kill him—well, I was supposed to if he wasn’t dead when I entered the building,” he admitted. “But my primary objective wasn’t Tesla’s death. He had something I was supposed to retrieve.”
“Which was?”
“I can’t tell you that,” Ashton said.
“Why not?”
He took great delight in saying, with emphasis, “It’s classified.”
Zachariah let out another long, drawn-out sigh and rolled his eyes. “Fine. Don’t tell me anything. Whatever.”
“Strictly, I’m not supposed to tell you anything,” he said, starting another suture. “Same as you’re not supposed to tell me anything, either, regardless of whether you believe we’re on the same side or not.”
“I know the rules,” Zachariah said.
“Yeah? Then why don’t you follow them?” Ashton suggested. He ignored the dirty look Zachariah cast his way and tied off the last suture, sitting back a bit to get a look at his handiwork. The stitches were a little crooked, and the wound wasn’t perfectly closed, but he smiled in satisfaction. “I think this is the best patch job I’ve done yet.”
Zachariah raised an eyebrow and tilted his head to look at the wound. “Best yet?” he said incredulously. “That’s probably the roughest-looking stitch job I’ve seen since I was in training!”
“Yeah, well, it’s the best I’ve got in me,” Ashton said. “I haven’t had much practice with sewing people up. I don’t get into the habit of getting myself shot.
”
Zachariah took the jab with the lightheartedness it was intended; all he did was shrug and reply, “What can I say? I’m talented like that.” He glanced around the bathroom—Ashton wondered what he was looking for—then asked, “So, ah, what now?”
“Now, you’re going to take a shower,” Ashton said. “You look like you need one bad. And then you’re going to get some sleep. You look like you haven’t had any of that in days, which isn’t healthy. It also makes you less effective as an agent. Trust me, I’ve probably been in this business longer than you,” Ashton was certain of it, “and I’ve been there, done that.”
Zachariah wrinkled his nose, sighing as he seemed to consider Ashton’s proposition. “And what are you doing to do while I’m in the shower?”
“I’m going to check in with my handler to let him know what’s going on,” he said. “As we’re supposed to do.” He stood, gathering the medical supplies and stuffing them back into the small bag in which they belonged. “I’ll put this on the table by the bed for you.” Zachariah gave him a slight nod, so he tucked the bag under his arm and left, pulling the bathroom door shut behind him.
Once he’d escaped the bathroom, Ashton leaned against the wall and let out a heavy sigh, even as he slipped his hand into his pant pocket and brushed his fingers over the thumb drive inside. He had no idea if it was the right thumb drive and, without a computer, had no way to check—not that he’d have known what he was looking for, anyway. He’d just have to hope that, when he turned it over to Henry, it was the one he’d been sent for.
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