by Jack Mars
He lost track of time sitting there with her. The next time he glanced up at the clock he saw that more than two hours had gone by.
And then she blinked, and moaned slightly, and said: “Daddy?”
“Yeah.” His voice came out a whisper. “It’s me.”
“Is this real?” she asked, her voice floating to him dreamily.
“It’s real,” he told her. “I’m here, and I’m going to take you home. I’m going to take you away from here. I’m going to take care of you… even if you hate me for it.”
“Okay,” she agreed softly.
And eventually he relaxed enough to realize that the danger had passed. Sara fell asleep and Zero slid into the front seat of the SUV. He couldn’t put her on a plane in this state, but he could drive back, through the night if he had to. Maria would get rid of the vehicle for him, no questions asked. And the local authorities would be paying a visit to the dealer, Ike.
He glanced over his shoulder at her, curled in the backseat with her knees drawn up and her cheek on the soft leather, looking peaceful but vulnerable.
She needs you.
And he needed to be needed.
4 WEEKS LATER
CHAPTER ONE
“You ready for this?” Alan Reidigger asked, his voice low as he checked the magazine on the black Glock in his meaty fist. He and Zero had their backs to a plywood structure, keeping hidden and obscured by the darkness. It was almost too dark to see, but Zero knew that in moments the whole place would be lit up like the Fourth of July.
“Always ready,” Zero whispered back. He held a Ruger LC9 in his left hand, a small silver pistol with a nine-round mag, as he flexed the fingers of his right. He had to stay cognizant of the injury he’d sustained almost two years earlier, when a steel anchor had crushed his hand to the point of uselessness. Three surgeries and several months of physical therapy later, he had regained most of its operation, despite permanent nerve damage. He could fire a gun but his aim tended to track to the left, a minor annoyance that he’d been working to overcome.
“I’ll go left,” Reidigger laid out, “and clear the causeway. You go right. Keep your eyes up and watch your six. I bet there’s a surprise or two waiting for us.”
Zero grinned. “Oh, are you calling the shots now, part-timer?”
“Just try to keep up, old man.” Reidigger returned the grin, his lips curling behind the thick beard that obscured the lower half of his face. “Ready? Let’s go.”
With the simple, whispered command they both shoved off from the plywood façade behind them and split off. Zero brought the Ruger up, its barrel following his line of sight as he slipped around the dark corner and stole down a narrow alley.
At first it was just silence and darkness, barely a sound in the cavernous space. Zero had to remind his muscles to keep from tensing, to stay loose and not slow down his reaction speed.
This is just like all the other times, he told himself. You’ve done this before.
Then—lights exploded to his right, a severe and jarring series of flashes. A muzzle flare, accompanied by the deafening report of gunfire. Zero threw himself forward and tucked into a roll, coming up on one knee. The figure was barely more than a silhouette, but he could see enough to squeeze off two shots that connected with the silhouette at center mass.
Still got it. He climbed to his feet but stayed low, moving forward in a crouch. Eyes up. Watch your six… He whirled around just in time to see another dark figure sliding into view, cutting off the path behind him. Zero dropped himself backward, landing on his rear even as he popped off two more shots. He heard projectiles whistle right over his head, practically felt them ruffle his hair. Both his shots found home, one in the figure’s torso and the second to the forehead.
From the other side of the structure came three tight shots in quick succession. Then silence. “Alan,” he hissed into his earpiece. “Clear?”
“Hold that thought,” came the reply. A burst of automatic fire tore through the air, and then two punctuating shots from the Glock. “All clear. Meet me around the side.”
Zero kept his back to the wall and moved forward quickly, the rough plywood tugging at his tac vest. He spotted a blur of movement up ahead, from the roof of the flat-topped structure. A single well-placed headshot took out the threat.
He reached the corner and paused, taking a breath before clearing it. As he whipped around, the Ruger coming up, he found himself face-to-face with Reidigger.
“I got three,” Zero told him.
“Two on my side,” Alan grunted. “Which means…”
Zero didn’t have time to shout a warning as he saw the human-shaped figure glide into view behind Alan. He brought the pistol up, right over Alan’s shoulder, and fired twice.
But not fast enough. As Zero’s shots landed, Alan yelped and grasped at his leg.
“Ah, dammit!” Reidigger groaned. “Not again.”
Zero winced as bright fluorescent lights came to life suddenly, illuminating the entire indoor training course. Heels clacked against the concrete floor, and a moment later Maria Johansson rounded the corner, arms folded over her white blazer and her lipsticked mouth frowning.
“What gives?” Reidigger protested. “Why’d we stop?”
“Alan,” Maria scolded, “maybe you ought to take your own advice and watch your six.”
“What, this?” Alan gestured to his thigh, where a green paintball had splattered across his pant leg. “This is barely a graze.”
Maria scoffed. “That would have been a femoral bleed. You’d be dead in ninety seconds.” To Zero she added, “Nice job, Kent. You’re moving like your old self.”
Zero smirked at Alan, who furtively gave him the finger.
The warehouse they were in was a former wholesale packing plant, until the CIA purchased it and turned it into training grounds. The course itself was a product of the eccentric agency engineer Bixby, who had done his best to simulate a nighttime raid. The “compound” they had been storming was made of boxy plywood structures, while the muzzle flashes were strobe lights placed throughout the facility. The gunshots were reproduced digitally and broadcast on high-def speakers, which echoed in the huge space and sounded to Zero’s trained ear almost like real shots. The human-shaped figures were little more than dummies molded from ballistic gel and affixed to dolly tracks, while the paintball guns were automated, programmed to fire when motion sensors picked up movement at varying ranges.
The only thing genuine about the exercise were the live rounds they were using, which was why both Zero and Reidigger wore plated tac vests—and why the training facility was only open to Spec Ops agents, which Zero found himself once again being.
After the fiasco in Belgium, in which the two of them had confronted Russian President Aleksandr Kozlovsky and unearthed the secret pact he had with US President Harris, to say that Zero and Reidigger had landed themselves in hot water would have been a monumental understatement. They’d become international fugitives wanted in four countries for having broken more than a dozen laws. But they had been right about the plot, and it didn’t quite seem justified for the two of them to spend the rest of their lives in prison.
So Maria pulled every string she could, sticking her neck out in a big way for her former teammates and friends. It was nothing short of a miracle that she somehow managed to have the ordeal retconned as a top-secret operation under her supervision.
The trade-off, of course, was that they had to return to work for the CIA.
Though Zero wouldn’t admit it aloud, to him it felt like a homecoming. He had been working hard the past month, hitting the gym again, target-shooting at the range daily, boxing and sparring with opponents almost half his forty years. The weight he’d gained in his year and a half absence was gone. He was getting better at shooting with his injured right hand. Maria was right; he was very nearly back to his old self.
Alan Reidigger, on the other hand, had resisted at every turn. He had spent the last four years
of his life with the agency thinking he was dead, living under the alias of a mechanic named Mitch. Coming back to the CIA was the last thing he wanted, but given a choice between that or a hole at H-6, he had reluctantly agreed to Maria’s terms—but as an asset rather than a full-fledged agent, hence Zero’s digs of him being a “part-timer.” Alan’s involvement would be on an as-needed basis, providing support whenever able and helping to train up younger agents.
But first that meant that the two of them had to get back into fighting shape.
Reidigger wiped at the green paint on his pants, only serving to smear it further across his thigh. “Let me clean this up and we’ll go again,” he told Maria.
She shook her head. “I’m not spending my whole day in this stuffy place watching you take shot after shot. We’ll pick it up again after the holiday.”
Alan grunted, but nodded anyway. He had been an excellent agent in his day, and even now had still proven himself to be sharp-witted and useful in a fight. He was quick despite the extra weight he carried around his midsection. But he’d always been something of a bullet magnet. Zero couldn’t recall how many times Reidigger had been shot in his career, but it had to be approaching double digits—especially since he’d been tagged in the shoulder during their Belgian escapades.
A young male tech wheeled out a steel-topped cart for their equipment while a team of three others went about resetting the training course. Zero cleared the round from the Ruger’s chamber, popped the magazine, and set all three down on the cart. Then he tore at the Velcro straps of the tac vest and tugged it over his head, suddenly feeling several pounds lighter.
“So, any chance you’ve reconsidered?” he asked Alan. “About Thanksgiving. The girls would love to see you.”
“And I’d like to see them,” he replied, “but I’m gonna take a rain check. They could use some quality time with you.”
Alan didn’t elaborate, and he didn’t need to. Zero’s relationship with Maya and Sara had been severely strained over the past year and a half. But now Sara had been staying with him for the past several weeks, ever since he found her on the beach in Florida. He and Maya had been talking over the phone more and more—she had almost jumped on the very first plane when she’d heard what happened to her younger sister, but Zero had calmed her down and convinced her to stay in school until the holiday. This week was going to be the first time in quite a long time that the three of them would all be under the same roof. And Alan was right; there was still substantial work to be done to repair the damage that had separated them for so long.
“Besides,” Alan said with a grin, “we’ve all got our traditions. Me, I’m going to eat an entire rotisserie chicken and rebuild the engine of a seventy-two Camaro.” He glanced over at Maria. “How about you? Spending time with dear old dad?”
Maria’s father, David Barren, was the Director of National Intelligence, essentially the only man other than the president that CIA Director Shaw answered to.
But Maria shook her head. “My father is going to be in Switzerland, actually. He’s part of a diplomatic attaché on behalf of the president.”
Alan frowned. “So you’re going to be alone on Thanksgiving?”
Maria shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. In fact, I’m way behind on paperwork, thanks to spending so much time down here with you two idiots. I plan on putting on some sweatpants, making some tea, and hunkering down…”
“No,” Zero interrupted firmly. “No way. Come have dinner with me and the girls.” He said it without fully thinking it through, but he didn’t regret the offer. If anything, he felt a stab of guilt, since the only reason she’d be alone on Thanksgiving was because of him.
Maria smiled gratefully, but her eyes were hesitant. “I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”
She had a point; their relationship had ended barely more than a month prior. They had been living together for more than a year as… well, he wasn’t sure what they had been. Dating? He couldn’t remember ever referring to her as his girlfriend. It just sounded too strange. But it didn’t matter in the long run, because Maria had admitted that she wanted a family.
If Zero was going to do it all over again, there wouldn’t be anyone else in the world he’d rather do it with than Maria. But when he took a good introspective look, he realized he didn’t want that. He had work to do on himself, work to repair the relationships with his daughters, work to exorcise the ghosts of his past. And then the interpreter, Karina, had come into his life, in a too-brief romance that was dizzying and dangerous and wonderful and tragic. His heart was still aching from her loss.
Even so, he and Maria had a storied history, not only romantically but professionally and platonically as well. They had agreed to stay friends; neither of them would have it any other way. Yet now he was an agent again, while Maria had been promoted to Deputy Director of Special Operations—which meant she was his boss.
It was, to say the least, complicated.
Zero shook his head. It didn’t have to be complicated. He had to believe that two people could be friends, regardless of their past or current associations.
“It’s a great idea,” he told her. “I won’t take no for an answer. Have dinner with us.”
“Well…” Maria’s gaze flitted from Zero to Reidigger and back again. “Okay then,” she relented. “That sounds nice. I guess I should go get started on that paperwork.”
“I’ll text you,” Zero promised as she left the warehouse, heels clacking loudly on the concrete.
Alan pulled off his own tac vest with a long grunt, and then replaced the sweat-stained trucker’s cap over his matted hair before casually asking, “Is this a scheme?”
“A scheme?” Zero scoffed. “For what, to get Maria back? You know I’m not thinking about that.”
“No. I mean a scheme for Maria to be a buffer between you and them.” For a covert operative who had been living the last four years as someone else, Alan had a brutal candor about him that sometimes bordered on insulting.
“Of course not,” Zero said firmly. “You know there’s nothing I want more than for things to be the way they used to be. Maria is a friend. Not a buffer.”
“Sure,” Alan agreed, though he sounded dubious. “Maybe ‘buffer’ wasn’t the right term there. Maybe more like a…” He glanced down at the bulletproof tac vest lying on the steel cart in front of them and gestured to it. “Well, I can’t think of a more apt metaphor than that.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Zero insisted, trying to keep the heat out of his voice. He wasn’t angry with Alan for being honest, but he was irritated at the suggestion. “Maria doesn’t deserve to be alone on Thanksgiving, and things with the girls are far better than they’ve been in more than a year. Everything is going great.”
Alan put up both hands in surrender. “Okay, I believe you. I’m just looking out for you, that’s all.”
“Yeah. I know.” Zero looked at his watch. “Look, I gotta run. Maya’s coming in today. Let’s hit the gym on Friday?”
“Definitely. Tell the girls I said hi.”
“Will do. Enjoy your chicken and engine.” Zero waved as he headed for the door, but now his head was swimming with doubts. Was Alan right? Had he subconsciously invited Maria because he was afraid to be alone with the girls? What if them being together again reminded them of why they had left in the first place? Or worse, what if they thought the same thing Alan did, that Maria was there as some sort of protective barrier between him and them? What if they thought he wasn’t trying hard enough?
Everything is going great.
It wasn’t at all a comfort, but at least his ability to lie convincingly was sharp as ever.
CHAPTER TWO
Maya trudged up the stairs to the second-floor condo that her dad was renting. It was in a newer development outside of downtown Bethesda, in a neighborhood that had been built up over the past few years with apartments and townhomes and shopping centers. Hardly the sort of place she had
ever expected her father to live, but she understood that he had been in a hurry to find something available when things fell apart between him and Maria.
Probably before he could change his mind, she imagined.
For the briefest of moments she mourned the loss of their home in Alexandria, the house that she and Sara and her dad had shared before all of the insanity started. Back when they still believed he was an adjunct history professor, before discovering that he was a covert agent with the CIA. Before they had been kidnapped by a psychopathic assassin who sold them to human traffickers. Back when they believed their mother had died of a swift and sudden stroke while walking to her car after work one day, instead of being murdered at the hands of a man who had saved the girls’ lives on more than one occasion.
Maya shook her head and swept the bangs from her forehead as if trying to push away the thoughts. It was time for a fresh start. Or at least to give it an earnest try.
She found the door to her father’s unit before she realized that she didn’t have a key and should have probably called first to make sure he was home. But after two brisk knocks, the deadbolt slid aside and the door opened, and Maya found herself staring for several dumbfounded seconds at a relative stranger.
She hadn’t see Sara in longer than she cared to admit, and it was evident all over her younger sister’s face. Sara was quickly growing into a young woman, her features becoming defined—or rather, the features of Katherine Lawson, their late mother.
This is going to be harder than I thought. While Maya more closely resembled their father, Sara had always taken on aspects of their mother, in personality and interests as well as looks. Her younger sister’s complexion was paler than Maya remembered too, though whether that was a trick of her memory or a result of a detox, Maya didn’t know. Her eyes seemed somehow duller, and there were evident dark crescents beneath each that Sara had attempted to obscure with makeup. She’d dyed her hair red at some point, at least two months earlier, and now the first several inches of the roots were showing her natural blonde. She’d had it cut recently as well, to chin level, in a way that framed her face nicely but made her look a couple years older. In fact, she and Maya might very well have passed for the same age.