by Jack Mars
She didn’t need to be told again. She kept her eyes on the gun as she sidled past him, and then fled onto the street.
He assumed she would go to the police. That was good. He needed only to stall Krauss for a short while.
“Where are you, S?” He stalked forward, keeping the gun level, keeping alert for movement in his periphery. “Krauss. That’s your name, your real name. Stefan Krauss. You’re a killer. A murderer-for-hire. But you knew that already, right?”
He paused, listening. Krauss might have already made a run for it, through a back door, or a window.
No. He was listening. Zero just knew it.
“You can feel it, even if you don’t remember. You said it last time we met. You had a suspicion you weren’t a very good person. And you’re not—”
He heard a rustle and spun. Not fast enough. Krauss leapt out from his hiding spot in a rack of long dresses and reached for Zero. He caught the assassin’s body weight and fell with him, landing safely on his back. Krauss rolled backward with the momentum and sprang to his feet an instant before Zero did. A foot shot out and struck the thumb of the hand holding the Sig Sauer. Zero cried out as the gun fell from his wasted grip.
Krauss let out a shout and leapt forward again, both arms swinging. Zero barely got his own up in time to block. He was on the defensive, avoiding every blow that came but giving ground. Soon he’d hit a wall.
There was something different this time. Krauss wasn’t faster, or stronger; he was just… different somehow. More like himself, yet not.
The wall was behind him. Zero had no choice. The next swing came and he dropped to one knee, then sprang off his left leg and tackled Krauss into a jewelry display. Glass broke beneath them as trinkets scattered across the floor.
“Where’s the bomb?!” Zero demanded. He landed a blow across Krauss’s chin and the assassin’s head lolled. “I know you planted it! Where is it?”
Zero hit him again. “Is there more than one?”
Zero swung again. “Where?”
Krauss’s teeth gritted, blood between them. He put up his forearms and bucked his hips. Zero shifted, off balance, and threw out an arm to steady himself. A blow landed on his own chin and he staggered to the side.
Krauss climbed to his feet, breathing hard. He spat blood on the floor. “I won’t tell you a thing. This needs to be done.”
“Why?” Zero panted as he stood. “Because a voice told you to do it?”
Surprise flickered across the assassin’s face.
“I know about the voice,” Zero told him. “His name is Mr. Bright. He’s manipulating you. I know who you are. What you’ve done. How you got that scar on your neck.”
Krauss didn’t take his eyes from Zero, but his hand instinctively rose and touched the stitched scar.
“And I’ll tell you everything. But first—you need to tell me about the bomb.”
Krauss’s throat flexed. “How can I trust you?”
“How can you trust the voice?” Zero asked him.
Krauss looked away. It seemed like he was considering it.
But then he frowned in confusion. His hand reached up again to the scar.
“What is it?” Zero asked, or tried to ask, but he was cut off by a cry from Krauss.
“Aah!” He fell to a knee, his hand gripping the scar and his neck tightly, his eyes squeezed shut. It was all Zero could do but watch.
Almost just as quickly as the seeming attack had come on, Krauss’s features smoothed. He stood again.
Zero tensed as Krauss looked left and right, and then at him.
“Who are you?” His voice was barely a murmur. “Where… where am I?”
No.
A chill ran down Zero’s spine as Shaw’s words echoed in his head.
It can be controlled remotely.
Krauss winced and put a finger to one of his cracked lips. His brow furrowed further as it came away with blood. “What’s going on here?”
The subject’s brain can be continuously manipulated. New things they learn or discover can be erased.
“The bomb,” Zero demanded. “Where is the bomb?”
“I don’t know about any bomb.”
They took it. They waited for him to plant it, and then they stole the knowledge away.
No, he realized. Not stole. Merely hid. If his own brain was any indication, the information was still in there, somewhere.
And Zero needed it, before anyone was killed.
Before anyone else was killed.
A phone buzzed from somewhere. Krauss, just as confused as he was a moment ago, reached into his jacket and pulled out a cell phone.
“Don’t,” Zero warned. “Don’t answer that.”
Krauss directed his attention to the phone. His thumb moved for the button.
Zero sprang. He swatted at the phone and it clattered to the floor. As Krauss grabbed for it, Zero swung with his right and delivering a cracking blow across the assassin’s jaw.
His knees buckled. His body swayed, and Krauss hit the floor.
At any other time in their history, he would have ended it there. He would have found the gun and shot Krauss dead on the spot while he was still unconscious. He deserved nothing less.
But he couldn’t. Not now. He had information that Zero needed, before anyone was killed. And it was still in there, somewhere.
He worked quickly, pulling the paring knife he’d taken from Mischa from his pocket and kneeling over Krauss. He turned the assassin’s head so he had a clear view of his neck and the scar.
He cut the stitches. They popped easily, one by one, until the wound was open. Though it made him queasy to do it, he gritted his teeth, and he dug the tip of the knife into Krauss’s neck.
He knew where it was. He knew where it had been in his own neck.
He worked the tip of the knife back and forth gently, prodding. It scraped the surface of something tiny, something rigid.
“There you are, you son of a bitch,” he muttered. He angled the knife, getting the blade under the suppressor chip.
“Halt!” a stern voice shouted behind him. But not in English. The command was in Arabic.
Zero glanced over his shoulder to see two Egyptian police officers, pistols out, pointed right at him. Their expressions were a blend of anger and disgust; he couldn’t imagine how this looked. He had blood on his hands and a knife in the neck of an unconscious man.
“Wait, it’s not what you think,” he tried to say, but he said it in English, forgetting the Arabic words in the moment.
“Move away from him!” one of the officers demanded, responding in accented English.
He couldn’t do that. He was right here. He was so close.
He twisted the blade. He felt the chip pop free.
“I said move!” the officer shouted, stepping closer. He holstered his gun as the other officer covered him, and reached for handcuffs at his belt. “You are under arrest…”
“Just wait…!” Zero pleaded.
This would work. It had to work. Krauss would wake and know who he was and where the bomb was, and he could clear all this up with the police, and EOT, and Interpol, and everyone.
Krauss’s eyes opened as the officer moved in to cuff Zero.
“Hands up,” the cop warned. “Do not move.”
Zero did as he was told.
Then Krauss screamed.
The officer leapt back. So did Zero.
It was a primal, bubbling scream, a roar of unintelligible pain, and with it his entire body jerked as if he was electrocuted.
Zero could only stare in shock. What had he done?
“Sir!” The officer held up a hand, as if that would somehow calm Krauss. “Please, remain on the floor, we will call for help!”
Krauss rolled onto his stomach. Spittle bubbled between his lips. His eyes were wide, simultaneously terrified and furious.
He opened his mouth as if to speak, but it was as if he couldn’t form words.
It was, to Zero, as if the
assassin’s brain had short-circuited.
What did I do?
The cop with the handcuffs ignored Zero and kept his eyes on Krauss. He reached for his gun again, seeming to second-guess who might be in the right or wrong in the situation they’d stumbled upon.
That was when the bomb went off.
The explosion was strong enough to rattle the windows of the clothing shop. It shook the building’s foundation. It made all four men in the building cease in their tracks, able to do little more than glance at each other in bewilderment.
But of all of them, Zero had heard such a sound before, and he knew what it meant.
It meant he was wrong.
The cops abandoned the shop and dashed for the exit. Zero hesitated, looking between the door and the seemingly feral Krauss, who was baring his teeth at him.
He ran for the door.
Out in the street, people screamed and ran in every direction. He could see the smoke before he reached the end of the block.
That was when the second bomb went off.
Zero ducked instinctively at the resonant blast and covered his head. The Heliopolis Palace was ablaze. People were fleeing.
Mischa. He needed to get to Mischa.
Krauss. He needed Krauss.
He had been wrong. Not about the location, and not about the culprit. But about the timing. He thought he had time.
But all Bright had to do was disrupt the accord.
Zero understood now. Bright didn’t have to kill any foreign leaders or diplomats. He didn’t have to try to get past the extensive security at the convention center. He didn’t need an army or a lot of firepower.
All he had to do was disrupt the Cairo Accord with a terrorist attack, both of which were happening now.
A third bomb went off. Palace windows exploded as military personnel ran for their lives across the expansive front lawn, burning debris falling down around them.
“Mischa!” he shouted. He shoved someone out of the way. Someone ran into him. He pushed forward in the crowd. “Mischa!”
He saw her there, and he breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn’t moved an inch from where he’d left her. Even as bombs went off right across the street, even as crowds surged around her, even as there was panic in the streets, she had done as he’d asked and hadn’t moved an inch.
She was crying. Her mouth was open a little, staring at the fire, watching the palace burn, and there were tears on her cheeks.
He reached her and scooped her up in his arms and turned right around to go back the way he’d come. “I got you. You okay?”
“Yes,” she said softly. “We… we were right.”
“In the worst way.”
“Don’t leave again.”
“I won’t. I won’t,” he promised.
He carried her through the crowd, hurrying back toward the clothing store, even though he already knew Krauss would be gone.
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
Todd Strickland stood near the wall on the eastern side of the dais of the round chamber in the Cairo International Convention Centre. He was alert, his senses in overdrive. This was the moment they’d built toward. This was the moment he’d worked for.
He’d silenced the phone that Penny had given him when Zero called. He couldn’t afford interruptions. He was barely listening as the young King Basheer of Saudi Arabia said a few words to those in attendance and the millions—perhaps even billions—watching around the world. He did not even glance up as the king signed his name to the accord document.
Strickland was scanning those in attendance. Keeping alert, keeping an eye on his periphery. Watching for sudden movements. Watching for anyone who didn’t look like they belonged, anyone who looked nervous or tense.
But there were none. This was going off without a hitch. Exactly as planned.
Millions were watching. Perhaps even billions.
That was when the bomb went off.
It was more of a feeling than a sound. The way a strong peal of thunder could make one’s knees weak. The walls seemed to quake. Nearly every person in the room froze, suddenly alert.
There were certain sounds that triggered certain responses. Like Pavlov’s dog and his bell. Like a mother hearing the cry of an infant. Like a firefighter when the alarm rings. Like Todd Strickland and the sound of a bomb going off.
He was no stranger to it. After tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and then the CIA, and then EOT, he knew the sound of an explosion when it happened. So when the bomb went off, three things happened almost simultaneously. First, a shiver ran down his spine. That was normal. An explosion was more of a feeling than a sound, and it was one of instant doom, instant fear. If it didn’t elicit that response in someone, there was something wrong with that someone.
What wasn’t normal was pushing aside the flashbacks that wanted to come, of leveled villages, of people trying to flee while burning. But he was no stranger to that either.
The second thing was the approximation of distance. It sounded less than a mile away; an imminent and absolute threat.
The third thing was pushing himself off the wall and shouting orders as the assembly hall of the Cairo Accord broke into chaos. Diplomats stood, their eyes wide in alarm. Anxious chatter broke out. Heads darted left and right, trying to make sense of what they’d just heard. The feeling of doom and fear surging through them. Searching for some semblance of control.
There was a fourth thing, though he didn’t want to acknowledge it: Zero’s face conjured in his mind’s eye, his words echoing in his head, and the dire sensation that he’d been right.
But Strickland had prepared an emergency protocol for the Cairo Accord, and he put it into action instantly as he shoved his way toward the dais.
He found Agent Clark first, and grabbed him by the shoulder. “Take Alpha Team, secure the president!” Rutledge had been seated upon the dais, beside Vice President Barkley, but he stood at the sound of the explosion. Barkley remained seated, but she gripped the armrests of her chair with both hands.
“Bravo Team, secure the VP and—”
That was when the second bomb went off. It sounded louder, somehow, but no closer. Or maybe it wasn’t louder but just more real after the first explosion.
What’s being hit? It wasn’t their location. But it was near.
Strickland shook agents from their stupor and shouted orders and got bodies moving toward the appropriate exits. He radioed the Is-Pal team outside to cover exits.
“Just what the hell is going on out there?” he demanded.
The voice crackled in his earpiece, broken up with static.
“… not… confirmed,” was all he caught.
No time for that now. The emergency protocol coordinated by EOT designated specific destinations for each world leader in attendance. It outlined the exit they would take, the vehicle that would be waiting, and the security team that would escort them.
But this was chaos. Personnel ran every which way, toward the wrong exits, with the wrong teams. Strickland saw Clark and half of his unit securing Rutledge. Members of Bravo Team had Barkley. Two Secret Service agents took the astonished King Basheer by the arm and directed him away from the dais.
Across the chamber, O’Neill and Hauser blocked the main exit, directing the flow of foot traffic back toward the two rear exits. At least someone remembered the plan.
A third bomb went off. It sounded as if there was an airstrike on Cairo.
“Emergency protocol!” he shouted, his hands cupped around his mouth. He shoved bodies in one direction or another, reminding them harshly where they were supposed to be. His security personnel were Secret Service, police, military. All trained for this sort of situation, and yet the human instinct was panic.
Slowly the protocol formed. Agents and officers got the leaders out of the building. Is-Pal would help get them into cars and in eleven different directions. A convoy of leaders would be disastrous in the event of an attack.
“Penny?” he said into his earpie
ce radio. “Penny, you copy?”
“I’m here,” she said, her voice strained.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine, just…”
Scared. She didn’t have to say it.
“Get down here as soon as you can,” he told her. Penny was one floor above them, holed up in a small office with an array of three computer screens. Her job during the signing was being patched into the NSA, keeping an eye on digital chatter for any potential threats to the Cairo Accord.
Strickland waved to O’Neill and Hauser. He looked for McMahon and found him across the round hall, ensuring the Ayatollah of Iran and his detail were evacuated.
“Is-Pal,” he said into the radio as the hall emptied. “Evacuation is nearly complete. Confirm when everyone is secure and gone, copy?”
“Copy,” said a voice in the radio. “But… what the hell happened?”
I wish I knew.
The Executive Operations Team converged in the center of the chamber as the last dozen or so attendees were escorted through the rear exit of the hall.
“We should be with the president,” O’Neill said firmly.
“That’s the Secret Service’s job,” Strickland told her. In his emergency protocol plan, EOT was the only group he hadn’t designated a task for—because at the time, he didn’t know what it might be. “Our job is to oversee security of the accord, so we’re going to secure the accord. And then we’re going to find out what the hell is happening.”
“I can tell you.” Penny strode into the hall with an open laptop balanced on a forearm. “The Heliopolis Palace has been bombed. The explosion went off inside; the bombs were planted, and there may be more.”
As if in response, another explosion rattled the chamber. He winced. They all did. A shiver ran down his spine. That was normal, insofar as bombings went.
“Are they evacuating?” he demanded.
“They’ll try,” Penny said, “but…”
But it might be too late for that. He couldn’t imagine the casualties not ten minutes from their current location. Caught off-guard completely. Dozens were dead, at least. Perhaps even hundreds.
It was only the smallest of comforts that the Egyptian president and his wife had been here, in attendance at the accord signing.