by Jack Mars
“Oh, don’t you worry, sweetheart, I’ll make it up to you,” he quipped right back. “There’s stuff in the freezer for dinners, and Todd is just a call away if you need anything.”
“Dad, I think we’ll be fine,” Maya sighed.
“By the way, how is Boy Scout doing?” Sara asked behind her.
“Be nice. He saved your life. Love you both, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“Love you too.” Maya ended the call, and Zero stashed his cell phone in the glove box of the truck before jogging over to the plane. It was a beautiful jet—as well it should be for its price tag of sixty-five million dollars, which didn’t even include the alterations the CIA had made to it. It could seat up to eight comfortably and twelve if necessary; its wingspan was narrow enough to land on a four-lane highway if it needed to (and in one precarious situation, Zero had needed it to), and thanks to a few modifications it could reach a top speed in excess of seven hundred fifty miles an hour.
The breeze blowing over the flat open tarmac was bone-chilling. Zero zipped up his black leather coat as he rounded the plane to the entry ramp side to find Maria, her arms folded and eyes narrowed, having what seemed to be a less-than-amiable chat with the pilot.
“I know what orders are,” she was telling him, her tone tight. “I also know when to follow a lead. I’m telling you we have a lead, and this is where we need to go.”
The pilot clucked his tongue. “Sorry, ma’am, but it was made very clear that my job would be on the line if I took y’all anywhere else.”
Zero frowned. Something about the pilot’s Texan drawl sparked something in his mind. He looked the man over; the pilot didn’t look like the usual uniformed captain they had on these operations. He was around Zero’s age, at or near forty, wearing an honest-to-goodness bomber jacket complete with fur-lined collar. His black hair was trimmed close, and he had a five o’clock shadow that he’d apparently groomed that way. He was, for all intents and purposes, trying to be walking stereotype of the maverick pilot.
And Zero… knew him.
“Chip,” he said suddenly, before he even knew why he was saying it. “Chip Foxworth, right?”
The pilot frowned. “Do I know you, Agent?”
“No. You wouldn’t remember me. But I know you. You were a fighter pilot in the Navy. You flew Tomcats, I believe. You were going to go in for the Blue Angels, but the CIA scouted you first.” Zero recited it all like there was a script in his head. This wasn’t a new memory resurfacing; this was information, something he’d read or been told. It was a strange sensation, much like the first time he’d realized he knew Arabic and Russian. “You didn’t make the cut. So you flew for them instead.”
The pilot scoffed. “You tryin’ to make friends here? Because you ain’t doin’ such a good job…”
“No,” Zero said, “I’m trying to bargain. You still want a shot at being CIA? You’re talking to Agent Zero.”
Chip looked him up and down. A wide smile broke out on his face, wide enough for Zero to see that he was missing a molar. “Get the hell outta here. If you’re Agent Zero, I’m Madonna.”
Zero folded his arms. “I know all this because I read your file.” Back when he was head of the SOG team, even before the memory suppressor, he had reviewed each candidate for Spec Ops Group himself. “I liked what I saw. But it wasn’t my call to make.” That distinction would have gone to Shawn Cartwright, the then-deputy director who was now very much deceased. “You want another shot? We need you on our team.”
The pilot scoffed and kicked at the tarmac. “Shit,” he murmured.
“We got a van!” Alan bellowed from the other side of the plane. A moment later a white cargo van careened around the tail and screeched to a stop. A burly driver leapt out and yanked open the rear doors as Alan joined him. Together the two of them hefted the long black footlocker from Bixby’s lab—Penny’s lab now, Zero reminded himself—and carried it up the ramp and onto the plane, huffing and puffing the whole way.
The driver then jumped back into the van and sped away without a word. The entire exchange had taken all of forty-five seconds, and left Chip Foxworth seemingly bemused.
“Well?” Zero asked again, trying to pretend that he wasn’t baffled by the expedience of the handoff. “Do we have a pilot or not?”
“All right,” Chip relented. “Get on the plane, let’s go.” He led the way, vaulting up the ramp stairs in two bounds. The three of them followed, dropping into cream-colored leather seats and buckling up.
“Please keep your hands and feet inside the ride at all times,” Chip called over his shoulder, leaving the cockpit door open. “We’ll have to refuel in Europe, likely Zurich. But final destination: Mogadishu.”
“Addis Ababa,” Reidigger called back.
Zero frowned at that.
“Gesundheit?” Chip said.
“Addis Ababa in Ethiopia.” To Zero and Maria he added, “Trust me. I know a guy who might be able to get us into the port.”
“You know a guy,” Maria repeated. “Of course you do.”
The plane’s engine whirred to life, and in moments they were taxiing down the runway. Zero leaned back against the headrest and closed his eyes. They would need to check gear, review the op, come up with a plan—but they had some time. He could relax for five minutes.
Or maybe not.
“You okay?” Maria asked quietly. She sat across from him, leaning over the aisle.
“Yeah, of course. Why?”
“You knew the pilot.”
“I remembered reading his file once,” Zero said honestly.
“Sure. But I saw the look on your face. You just remembered it. In the moment. Did it come back to you?”
“What are you trying to ask?” Zero said, perhaps a little too defensively.
“Are you still having memory problems?” Maria asked him point-blank.
“I…” He knew he should be honest. But Maria knew about the memories that had resurfaced of his past, carrying out assassinations in the name of the CIA. She was there when they’d caused him to have a nervous breakdown. She was there when he’d put a gun to his own head. If he was honest now, she’d see him as little more than a liability to the operation.
“No,” he said. “I’m straight. I’m good.”
“Okay,” she said, leaning back in his seat. “You promise?”
“I promise,” he lied.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Let’s see,” Sara said as she leaned over the open freezer door. “Do you want frozen lasagna or frozen chicken tenders? Oh, and there’s a frozen pizza in here too. Now I see why Dad wanted to learn to cook. I really should have been paying attention to that frittata.”
There was no response behind her. Sara straightened, looking around, but her sister wasn’t there. “Maya?” She closed the freezer and headed down the short hall to find her in their shared room, jamming clothes into an olive-green rucksack.
“Are you going somewhere?” Sara asked.
“For a little bit, yeah,” Maya said without looking up. “There’s something I need to do.”
Sara shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. She didn’t like the idea of being left alone here. “For how long?”
“Not sure. A day or two? Maybe longer.” Maya opened her nightstand drawer and pulled out a lockback knife. She snapped the blade open, inspected it, and then folded it closed again. Into the rucksack it went. “If Dad comes back before then, tell him I went to visit friends on campus to reacclimate myself.”
“So lie to him. Got it.” Sara hadn’t intended it as sarcastic as it came out; that was just her natural tone these days. Either way it had the desired effect. Maya set down the rucksack and turned her attention to her younger sister.
“Are you going to be okay?” she asked candidly.
“Me? Pssht. Yeah. Of course I will.” Sara forced a grin. “It’ll be great. I can stuff myself with frozen food, and I won’t have to argue with either of you about what’s o
n TV.”
Maya smiled with half her mouth. “You call me if you need anything at all, and I’ll come right home.” She hefted the rucksack and brought it out to the kitchen, where she pulled open the silverware drawer and withdrew the black pistol that was hidden behind the cutlery tray. Sara watched as her older sister expertly ejected the magazine, cleared the chamber, and dropped both into her sack.
“There’s a revolver in the closet,” she told Sara. “I’m taking this one.”
Sara felt a lump form in the pit of her stomach seeing her sister with the gun. The haste with which she was packing, the story about going back to school, and the need for a gun only amounted to one thing in Sara’s mind.
Maya pulled on her winter coat and slung the rucksack over her shoulder. “I’m going to take an Uber to Langley and get Dad’s car. I’ll be able to charge my phone in there if I need to. Call if there’s anything—”
“Maya, wait.” Sara held her breath for a moment, mustering the courage to ask. “Are you going to kill those boys? The ones that attacked you?”
Maya’s face fell slack in sheer disbelief. “Sara… no. No, of course not. God, no.” She opened her arms and wrapped her in a hug. “No, I’m not going to kill anyone. This is just for protection. I don’t know what I’m going to find.”
“At least tell me what you’re looking for,” Sara said from Maya’s shoulder.
Her older sister sighed. “Fine. But you have to keep this a secret. Dad’s been looking for someone. Someone from his past. But he can’t find them, so I’m going to try.”
“Why? Why do you need to help him?”
Maya chewed her bottom lip for a moment. “Because,” she said at last, “he won’t ask for help. But I know he needs it.”
Sara felt a pang of remorse at that. She was guilty of the same thing—they all were. “Can I come with you?”
Maya flashed her a thin smile. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. I know I can handle myself, but…” Her sister trailed off, but Sara didn’t need her to finish. Maya wasn’t responsible for her safety and couldn’t guarantee it.
“It’s okay,” Sara said quickly. “I get it. Do what you have to do. Just, keep me updated.”
“I will, I promise. Call me anytime. Be back soon. Stay safe!”
“You too.”
And then Maya was out the door, into the chilly February air, and Sara was alone.
She stood in the foyer for a long time, not knowing what she should do, until she realized how stupid she felt just idling there. She made it to the kitchen and stood there instead for a while, elbows propped on the counter. She poked her head in the freezer again before deciding that she wasn’t actually all that hungry, and resorted to turning on the TV.
After about fifteen minutes of lackadaisical channel-flipping, she settled on a nineties sitcom that she’d never really found all that funny before, but for some reason the background track of canned laughter turned up to a high volume made the apartment feel less empty. It even felt bigger now, somehow, without anyone else in it.
For the last two months, more than that now, Sara had been spending her time either here or at the community center. There were people there. There were people here. The main reason she’d never complained about sharing the close quarters with her father and sister was—and she’d never admit it to either of them—she was enjoying being close to them again, both literally and figuratively.
More than that, she needed it, because it helped her get outside her own head. Here and now, even with fake laughter filling the living room, her head was the only place to be.
She remembered reading somewhere that most of those canned laughter tracks used in sitcoms were recorded in the sixties, which meant that most of the people laughing were probably dead. And that thought didn’t help anything.
At some point her stomach rumbled and she realized she was hungry after all. A glance at the clock shocked her—she’d been sitting there for more than two hours and hadn’t actually registered a single plotline of the show that was on TV over her own swirling thoughts and gallows humor.
“You need to get out more,” she told herself as she headed back to the kitchen. Her fingers were barely on the freezer door when someone knocked so briskly at the front door that she jumped nearly a foot in the air.
“Christ,” she laughed at herself. “Chill out, Sara.” She headed to the small foyer, pausing only briefly at the coat closet and remembering what Maya had said about the revolver hidden in there.
It’s probably just a solicitor. Or maybe a Jehovah’s Witness. Hmm, maybe I should get the gun. She snickered at her own internal joke as she took a look through the peephole.
She couldn’t believe what she saw.
“Oh my god.”
It couldn’t be.
She unlocked the door and yanked it open, staring in disbelief.
Camilla flashed her an embarrassed smile. “Hey, girl,” she said hesitantly.
Sara couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Camilla, her roommate from Jacksonville, was standing at the door of her Maryland apartment. Her Florida life felt like a distant past, another life since she’d rented a ramshackle house with Camilla and three others. Since she’d been introduced to cocaine and Xanax. Since she’d been introduced to the drug dealer Ike, whom she’d stolen from, and almost killed herself on an OD.
But it was her, Camilla, in the flesh—or rather, in capri pants and a windbreaker in the dead of winter in the northeast.
Sara snapped out of it. “Jesus, you must be freezing! Get your ass in here, come on.” She ushered Camilla in and shut the door, the older girl rubbing her hands together for warmth. “Come in the kitchen. I’ll make some coffee.” On the way down the foyer Sara turned the heat up several degrees, certain that wherever in the world her dad was, a shudder had just gone down his spine at her touching of the thermostat.
“Thanks.” Camilla dropped a backpack onto a chair in the kitchen and glanced around. “Nice digs. This your place?”
“No. It’s my dad’s place.” Sara’s head was still spinning at the sudden intrusion as she filled the coffeepot with water. “Camilla, not to be rude, but what the hell are you doing here?”
Her former roommate smiled. “I know, I know. I’m so sorry to just drop in on you like this. I wanted to call when I got up here, but my phone died and I didn’t know what else to do.”
“How did you get this address?”
Camilla blinked. “You texted it to me. At Christmas? Remember I sent you a card?”
“Oh. Yeah.” Sara barely remembered that because she’d thrown the card away. She had still been struggling and hadn’t wanted the reminder of her former life. “Yeah, thanks for that.”
Sara turned on the coffee machine and then faced her friend—her former friend, and enabler. The girl who had given her the first bar of Xanax. The girl who scored dimes for her so she wouldn’t have to. She wanted to be mad that Camilla had just shown up so unceremoniously like this. She was ready to be mad… but then she noticed a few things that she hadn’t at first.
Camilla was eighteen—no, nineteen now, Sara remembered, since her birthday was early December—but she’d always tried to look older with lots of makeup. There was no makeup now, not a trace of it, and her girlish features clashed terribly with the bags beneath her eyes and the creases around her mouth that heavy drug abuse had brought on early. Her hair was kinky and unwashed, pulled up in a sloppy ponytail. She had taught Sara how to pick clothes that flattered and accentuated her contours, but now Camilla wore a thin windbreaker and what looked like a man’s tank top, loose on her skinny frame.
Frankly, she looked like hell, and Sara could guess why that might be.
“Why are you here?” she demanded.
“What, I can’t drop in to see an old friend?”
“No,” Sara said, “you can’t. Not when…”
Not when I feel like I’m an inch away from relapsing at any moment. But she didn’t say that. “Tell me t
he truth.”
“Okay. Yeah.” Camilla inspected the tiled floor. “There was this guy. He seemed nice at first, and it was fun for a while… until it wasn’t anymore. I tried to break it off and he didn’t like that. Started showing up at the house, and my job. I went to my parents’ place. He even showed up there. Almost got in a fistfight with my dad but he ran off when the cops were called.”
Sara took a deep breath. She didn’t need this right now, but this wasn’t the sort of thing there was ever a convenient time for. “Did he hurt you?”
Camilla shrugged one shoulder noncommittally. “I don’t think he meant to,” she murmured. “Just could use a place to lay low for a bit. Somewhere far away from that scumbag.”
Sara leaned against the countertop and smoothed her hair. She doubted her dad would like this very much. She also knew he’d have trouble turning away someone in need. But he wasn’t here. Neither was Maya. This was up to her.
“You clean?” she asked.
“Yeah. I am. Totally.” To Sara’s arched eyebrow she added, “I promise. Haven’t touched anything in weeks.”
“Let me see your bag.”
“Seriously?” Camilla bristled.
“Seriously.” Sara wasn’t backing down from this. It was one thing to have her old partner in crime in the apartment; it would be another matter entirely if she was holding.
“Fine.” Camilla waved a hand. “Go ahead.”
Sara unzipped the backpack and rifled through it quickly. She found some clothes, some makeup, a few pieces of jewelry, a couple of hair products, and a tight roll of cash, thick as a Maglite and held with a rubber band.
“That’s from the bar,” Camilla said quickly. “It’s everything I had.”
Sara wanted to press her for the truth, but she also knew that Camilla was, or had been, an excellent bartender, popular locally and especially among older men. It wasn’t uncommon for them to tip her as much as their drink cost. She dropped the money back into the bag and zipped it again.
“All right,” she relented at last. “You can stay here for a few days. My sister and dad are both away, so you can sleep in my bed and I’ll take Maya’s. But if either of them get back and want you out, it’s outta my hands, got it?”