Assassin Zero

by Jack Mars

  “If the weapon is anything like what we have,” Bixby continued, “the sonic waves would be able to pass through windows and walls, which will make it difficult to locate its source. However, in order to affect the area and number of people that it did, this weapon must be pretty large—bigger than one person could carry, and it would require an external power source. So if you can find it, whoever is responsible will be at a slight disadvantage with mobility.”

  “But what happens if we find ourselves at ground zero of an attack?” Zero asked. “Or if they realize we’re after them and they use the weapon?”

  “Ah. That’s what this is for.” Bixby picked up another gadget, a yellow and black device that looked like a small radar gun with a plastic concave disc facing the front of it. “A sonic detection meter. I adapted this from an industrial ultrasonic leak detector—they use these to find pressurized gas leaks that would otherwise be invisible and inaudible. I recalibrated it to the lowest possible frequency range, so it can at least tell you the direction the weapon is in. At close enough range, it’ll pinpoint a location.”

  “Hang on a sec.” Strickland held up a hand. “It sounds like you’re saying this thing will only work if the weapon is active.”

  “Well…” Bixby pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Yes. That’s correct.”

  Zero frowned. “So in order to pinpoint the location of the machine, we have to be in its range—during an attack?”

  “Uh…” Bixby chuckled nervously. “I suppose we should just hope that OMNI gets a hit and you find these people first, so it doesn’t come to that.” He handed the sonic detector to Zero. “Consider it a failsafe.”

  Zero and Strickland exchanged a concerned glance. They didn’t like the sound of that.

  “Anyway,” Bixby said cheerfully, “the rest of this is your standard fare.” He gestured to each item as he rattled them off. “Graphene-reinforced jackets. They’ll stop a nine millimeter round at point-blank range, but be careful with anything bigger. Or just try not to get shot in general. These are off-network satellite phones with lithium-ion batteries, fully charged. Ruger LC9 with nine-round box magazine and ankle holster. And of course, the Glock 19, with a seventeen-round magazine and biometric trigger lock. Each is already coded to your thumbprint.”

  Zero lifted the black pistol, feeling the familiar and welcome weight of it. He had to remember that his aim tracked to the left with his right hand. The raised scars were still prominent, like white-lined henna tattoos, from the injury and multiple ensuing surgeries.

  He grabbed up the Glock’s magazine in his left, intending to load it—but then he froze.

  The feel of the gun was well known, even appreciable in a strange way. But he didn’t get that same feeling when he grabbed the magazine. Instead it felt completely foreign to him, and in a moment of searing panic he suddenly realized he had no idea what to do with it.

  He had forgotten how to load a gun.

  Zero simply stood there, the Glock in one hand and the magazine in the other. He felt eyes on him and glanced up to see Strickland watching him, one eyebrow slightly raised.

  “You okay, Zero?”

  His expression must have given something away, his undisguised alarm at the sudden failure to remember what to do. Just yesterday he had been on the training course with Alan, expertly loading and reloading, firing rounds into ballistic-gel dummies. Today he was at an utter loss—just like he had been that morning when he had forgotten his late wife’s name.

  “Of course,” he said casually. He turned the magazine over in his hand as if inspecting it, and then set it down again. “Just checking everything out.”

  “Uh-huh,” Strickland said simply. Zero couldn’t tell what he might have been thinking, but he didn’t say anything further. Instead Todd lifted the other Glock and the magazine, pushed it into the gun until it clicked, and racked the slide. It was a well-practiced move, little more than routine, but one that looked incredibly unfamiliar, even peculiar, to Zero.

  What the hell is going on in my brain?

  As Strickland pulled the graphene jacket over his shoulders, Zero surreptitiously picked up the gun and the magazine again. He pushed it into the pistol, just as Todd had done, and with some difficulty he pulled back the slide. The resistance of it was more than he thought it would be—or perhaps he had simply forgotten the amount of force required to do what should have been a simple and second-nature task.

  But as soon as the slide clicked back into place, the memory did as well. It was as if performing the action brought it back… Just like riding a bicycle, Zero thought sourly as he restrained himself from sighing audibly with relief.

  What would I do if that happened in the field? In the middle of a firefight?

  He should tell Maria, he reasoned. He was compromised. But would she believe him? Or would she think it was an excuse to stay behind, to spend time with his daughters? Even worse—would she have to report it to Director Shaw, and reveal everything that had happened in his past?

  He had to do this. And he had to tell himself that it wouldn’t happen when he needed it, that his instincts would kick in and take over, as they had so many times before. Even when his memory had been erased his instincts still saved his life on more than one occasion.

  He would just have to be careful—and get this done as quickly as possible.

  Zero pulled on the jacket and holstered the Glock inside it. Then he strapped the ankle holster and the LC9 to his leg, beneath his jeans, while Bixby packed the rest of the gadgets in a brown messenger bag.

  Just as he was finishing, there was a sharp chirp, so loud that it startled Zero, loud enough to be heard clear across the lab. Bixby frowned at his smart watch.

  “It’s OMNI,” he said urgently. “We’ve got a hit—Russian chatter via a cell phone tower. Talk of an attack.” He looked up at Zero and added gravely, “It’s time to go.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Zero jumped out of the black town car before it came to a complete stop, scooping up the gear bag as he did. Strickland was right behind him as they hurried toward a waiting Gulfstream G650, one of the fastest private jets in the world, its engines already whirring to life.

  As soon as the hit had come in from OMNI they’d been dispatched. Zero wasn’t even yet sure where they were going; Bixby had promised to update them en route as they tracked the Russian chatter they’d honed in on. A waiting car had taken the two of them straight to a private airstrip just outside of Langley, the jet already there and the pilot on-call for just such an emergency.

  The two agents wordlessly jogged to the plane and up the stairway ramp, past the waiting pilot—but then Zero stopped short in the aisle. There was already someone else aboard, looking up at him calmly from a seat at the rear of the jet.

  “Maria,” he said breathlessly. “What are you doing here?”

  “I couldn’t in good conscience send you two out on this alone,” she said with a small shrug. She had changed her clothes into sneakers and casual wear, and had a gear bag of her own on the seat beside her. “I’m coming with.”

  Zero threw a glance over his shoulder at Strickland, but the younger agent merely shrugged.

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” he asked, even as the pilot pulled up the ramp and locked the door behind them. “What if you’re needed here?”

  “For what? A bigger threat than we’re already facing?” Maria shook her head. “This isn’t negotiable. I’m coming. Besides,” she smiled coyly, “if I recall from my years of working with you, someone usually needs to save your ass once or twice on these things.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” Strickland muttered as he dropped himself into a seat.

  “Well… okay then.” Zero took the seat in front of Maria and buckled himself in. It was strange how earlier that morning he had doubted the future of their relationship, wondering how they could ever remain friends when she was his boss—and now he found himself glad, even relieved, that she was coming along.


  “There was no paperwork, was there?” he asked over his shoulder.

  “Oh, there’s always paperwork. I just don’t do it.”

  He chuckled softly, but it was short-lived. “Where are we headed?”

  “If you can believe it,” Maria said as the jet began a rapid taxi down the runway, “we’re going to Las Vegas.”

  “Vegas?” Strickland asked from the row in front of Zero. “They got to Vegas that quickly?”

  “It would fit our theory about them having a plane.” Maria scrolled on her tablet, checking the intel as Bixby forwarded it. “OMNI picked up Russian chatter, assumedly female, which definitely mentioned an attack of some nature.”

  “Oddly enough,” Zero murmured thoughtfully, “it makes sense.” The more he turned it over in his mind, the more it seemed to fit. “Think about it—Vegas is the number-two most popular tourist city in the US, behind New York. The casinos don’t close for holidays, so there’ll still be plenty of people on the Strip, and…” He trailed off as a grim realization struck him.

  “What? What are you thinking?” Maria prodded.

  “Foreigners,” he told them. “Foreign tourists that don’t celebrate the holiday. That’s who’s in Vegas right now. That’s what makes it an attractive target.”

  “And attacking foreigners on US soil definitely sounds like these lunatics’ MO,” Strickland added. “What details we have?”

  “Unfortunately, very limited,” Maria replied somberly. “They’re being careful. The signal was traced to a burner, the first and only call made from it. We won’t know if they ditched it unless they use it again. But the call definitely used the word ‘attack,’ and came from the Strip—specifically the Venetian. Hang on, there’s more coming through.” She paused briefly before adding: “I’ve got more of the translation incoming. The call mentioned the words ‘rendezvous, illusion, oh-one hundred.’ That sounds to me like a meeting and a time.”

  “We just need to know where.” Strickland rubbed his chin as the Gulfstream reached altitude, roaring westward. “Illusion… illusionist? Like a magician? A show, maybe?”

  Zero shook his head. It wasn’t specific enough; whatever “illusion” meant must have been evident to the recipient of the call. “Illusion,” he murmured aloud to himself—not only in English, but in Russian as well.

  Where could that mean? He’d been to Vegas twice in his life, the most recent time being almost twenty years earlier, before Maya was even born. He wasn’t exactly well-versed in its layout. Hell, last time he had been there, he and Kate had stayed at Treasure Island, which was only a few years old at the time, still new. They had stayed in a room facing the south that looked out on…

  “It’s not ‘illusion’!” he said suddenly, twisting in his seat to face Maria. “It’s a mistranslation. It’s ‘mirage.’ As in, the Mirage Hotel & Casino.”

  “Brilliant. I knew I brought you along for a reason.” Maria checked her watch and did some quick calculations. “So the Russians plan on convening at the Mirage at one p.m. At max airspeed and the most direct flight path, this jet can get us there in a hundred and seventy minutes. Which means…” She groaned, deflating visibly. “That we’ll have ten minutes tops to get there and cut them off.”

  “No way.” Strickland shook his head. “That’s not enough time. We need to contact the casino, the local authorities, and make them aware—”

  “We can’t do that,” Zero argued. “If the Russians see an increased police presence, or if the casino evacuates, they might run and we’ll lose them again.”

  “Or worse,” Maria added, “they might be inspired to use the weapon prematurely.”

  “But we’d be avoiding another attack,” Strickland countered.

  Zero’s gaze flitted to the gear bag at his feet. Inside it was the sonic detection meter that Bixby had given him. It was a horrid thought, one that he was ashamed to even entertain—but if they arrived during an attack, at least they could pinpoint the location of the weapon.

  He shook it from his head. Strickland was right. Their priority should be to stop it, not to incite one.

  “I’ve got another idea.” Maria pulled out her phone and put the call on speaker. “Bixby, can you hack into a Vegas casino’s security system and access their cameras without them knowing it?”

  “Um…” came the engineer’s voice through the phone. “That’s, uh, a bit above my pay grade, Deputy Director. But we’ve got a guy that might be able to. A Danish fellow, name of Tormund.”

  “Get him on it,” she ordered. “I want access to their exterior cameras and casino floor. Reroute them to my tablet.”

  “It might take some time,” Bixby admitted. “You’re talking about some of the most secure systems in the world—some of those casinos have better security than we do.”

  “He has two hours,” Maria said firmly. “Get it done. Thanks.” She ended the call before Bixby could protest further.

  “What’s the plan here?” Zero asked. “Access the cameras and look for Russians?”

  “In a way,” Maria replied. “Access the cameras and look for that redheaded bitch everyone keeps talking about.”

  He nodded. “We’ll need a contingency. After all, there are only three of us, and a lot of ground to cover if they split up or try to flee.”

  “We’ve got some time to make one,” Strickland noted.

  Zero settled into his seat, his stomach a knot of blended excitement and dread. Strickland was right; they did have time to plan.

  But they had only ten minutes to execute it.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Sara felt like she had two minds. Even then, sitting in the passenger’s side of her dad’s SUV with Maya behind the wheel, the day quickly turning to evening as they drove south, she felt it. The second mind. She’d been feeling it for some time now, ever since her dad had found her in the backseat of a drug dealer’s car, half-dead and high out of her mind on painkillers.

  One mind was hers. That much was clear. She knew who she was, and she knew that what she’d gotten herself into was difficult to come back from. She knew that she shouldn’t run or steal or try to get a fix.

  But the other one, the second mind that she felt, was different. It was the one that begged for the high. The one that knew she’d be flooded with endorphins from a single hit, the one that remembered all too well how the feeling made the world melt away, erased all the worries and strife and left only the pleasure. It was the mind that told her to run. It was, as her dad had pointed out, the addiction talking—and she didn’t like it when that side talked, because it meant that she had to acknowledge that she was, indeed, an addict.

  “You know,” Maya said quietly beside her. “We don’t have to do this today. We can wait until tomorrow, like Dad said.”

  Sara shook her head as they headed south on I-95. “No,” she said quietly. “We can’t.”

  It couldn’t wait. The Thanksgiving dinner that Maya had made, the turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce, all of it had tasted like a prisoner’s last meal to her. After she had made the agreement with her dad and told him she would give the place a try, everything around her suddenly seemed grayer—and then the other mind, that devious second one, started in.

  You could make a run for it. Wait until Maya’s asleep, grab what you can, and just leave.

  And Sara knew that if they waited until tomorrow, she would try to run. In a moment of lucidity she told Maya that they had to go tonight, after dinner, and drive the three hours south to Virginia Beach. She had to go to Seaside House before she could change her mind.

  Maya had agreed, seeming to understand the situation or at least trying to be as supportive as she could. But she couldn’t really understand, not fully. She didn’t know what this was like, and there was no way for Sara to explain it to her.

  Even now, even as they headed toward the place that was supposed to help save her, the darkness in her mind told her: Wait until the next stoplight. Jump out. Make
a run for it.

  Maya reached over and gently squeezed Sara’s hand. “This is going to be good for you.”

  You don’t need this, it told her. You’re fine.

  “I looked this place up online. They have a great rating. And it’s a really pretty facility.”

  You’d do better on your own.

  “I bet you’ll make friends here,” her sister told her.

  All they’re going to do is convince you there’s something wrong with you. That you’re broken and need to be fixed.

  “Yeah,” Sara muttered, though she didn’t fully know who she was answering.

  “Besides,” Maya said brightly, “their program is one of the best on the East Coast. And it’s only four weeks—”

  “Four weeks?” Sara blurted out. Her dad hadn’t mentioned that part.

  Maya glanced over at her briefly in concern. “It’s not that long, Sara. Some places take a lot longer. It means you’ll be home just in time for Christmas.”

  Sara muttered a halfhearted agreement, though she was suddenly a lot less sure about all of this. Four weeks—that’s how long she’d been with her dad, and that had felt like an eternity. An eternity since her last hit. An eternity since Florida.

  She thought of Jacksonville, and the ramshackle co-op where she had lived for more than a year as an emancipated minor. She thought of her best friend and roommate, Camilla, the eighteen-year-old Latina who had been teaching her to drive and showed her how to do her eye makeup so that she looked older. She even though of Tommy and Jo, the young couple who lived in the co-op, constantly on her nerves for one reason or another.

  Sara hadn’t spoken to any of them, not even Camilla, since coming back north. One of her dad’s stipulations had been to provide him with all of their phone numbers so he could block them on their shared cell phone account. He didn’t want anyone tempting her back to Florida.