Target Zero

by Jack Mars

  “No, no. Bigger in scope. Some sort of conspiracy…”

  A pending war. But there is no pending war… Is there?

  Carver’s eyes narrowed in concern. “What sort of conspiracy?”

  “Something about a war… something to do with oil…” Reid cut himself short. He didn’t want to say more without knowing more—without knowing more. “Forget it,” he said quickly. “We need to find out exactly who this Khalil is, and where he is, before the virus is released on the next—”

  Still facing the tanker wagon, Reid felt a pressure on the back of his head. It was unmistakably the barrel of a gun.

  “I really wish you wouldn’t have said that,” Carver said quietly. His voice genuinely sounded rueful. “Because now I have to do this. Goodbye, Kent.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  “In the back, Carver?” Reid said quickly. It was the first thing that sprang into his mind that might have given the other agent pause before pulling the trigger. “You would shoot me in the back of the head?”

  The moment of silence that followed felt like it stretched for eternity, Reid fully expecting a bullet to enter his skull at any millisecond. But mercifully, the pressure of the barrel relieved slightly.

  “Turn around,” Carver ordered.

  “At least tell me why.” Reid was pushing his luck, he knew, but it was the only way he had to delay his assassination. “For knowing too much?”

  “For remembering too much,” Carver replied. “I saw that look in your eye. You remember what you knew back then. Now turn around.”

  Reid panicked slightly. He didn’t remember enough to know what he knew back then, but even the little he’d said was apparently enough to get him killed. He knew now why he hadn’t said anything to Reidigger two years ago.

  “Who put you on this?” he asked. “Mullen? Riker? The CIA is in on it too then?” He was bloviating, trying to get Carver to give him even a half-second of an opening to react. He slowly raised his hands, as if in surrender. “Think about this a second. You know too much too. What do you think they’ll do to you after you do it to me?”

  “It’s not like that,” Carver said. “And I’m not going to tell you again.” Reid felt a hand on his shoulder as the other agent pulled to spin him around.

  “Carver?”

  They both turned instinctively at the sound of Maria’s voice. She was peering out from between two of the tanker cars, climbing over the hitch and bewildered at what she was seeing.

  Agent Carver looked from her, back to Reid, and his expression hardened. In the instant his finger squeezed the trigger, Reid brought his raised arms together in front of his face.

  The Glock barked thunderously and a bullet struck his left forearm. Pain seared through it and the arm fell away useless at his side. But his other arm was already swinging outward. His cupped hand struck Carver’s arm just behind the wrist with enough force to send the Glock flying out of his grip.

  Reid stepped into the strike for a kick, but Carver was ready for it. He twisted away from the oncoming boot, grabbed Reid’s foot, and yanked him off his feet. He hit the gravel hard enough to knock the air from his lungs.

  Several yards away, Maria clambered down from the tanker wagon and pulled her own pistol. Carver acted fast, leaping into a roll as she fired off a shot. The bullet struck nothing but air in the space he’d just been and he vanished, rolling lengthwise underneath the train car.

  Maria sprinted to Reid, grabbing up his Glock from the ground as she did. “Here. You okay?”

  He clamped a hand over his shot arm, expecting to have to stymie the blood flow—but there was no blood. He inspected the wound. There was no bullet hole, and not nearly as much pain as there should have been.

  The graphene. He’d nearly forgotten that his jacket was reinforced. The sleeve had stopped the bullet from penetrating his skin. It hurt like hell, and he would most definitely have a nasty contusion, but no bones were broken and there was no entry wound. He could flex his fingers and move his wrist.

  “What the hell was that?” Maria exclaimed.

  “A memory. Carver turned on me.” Reid dropped to the ground and searched beneath the train car. There was no sign of the sudden renegade agent. “Some kind of cover-up. No time to explain.” He clambered up the steel-rung ladder of the nearest boxcar. He wasn’t about to take a chance of going underneath if Carver might be on the other side with a backup sidearm.

  Once on top of the car, he crouched low and frantically wiped the soot from his Glock with the hem of his shirt. He swiped his thumb along his tongue, and then pressed it to the biometric lock. The gun clicked; the trigger guard opened.

  Maria started up the ladder after him. “Wait,” he said. “Call Langley. Talk to Cartwright. Tell him Minot is dead, there’s no virus here, and to look into Khalil Oil right away. There’s a connection there with the Imam that might help us locate him.”

  “What do I tell them about Carver?”

  “Nothing. Not a word.” Someone over there already knows. He was certain Carver’s hesitation to shoot him was because the agent wasn’t working of his own volition. He was under orders.

  Reid carefully peered over the side of the boxcar. He looked left and right but didn’t see Carver. He didn’t hear him either. The next set of cars was too far a span to jump, so instead he dropped over the side and tucked into a roll as he landed, coming up with his gun level.

  There was no sign of Carver. He’d run off, it seemed.

  But I remember now, at least a little bit. I was working toward something two years ago. Gathering intel. Trying to uncover it. Whatever this conspiracy was, it had been in the works for a long time, even as far back as then.

  He saw a flash of movement in his periphery. He didn’t look up; he spun to his right and dropped to his stomach as two shots blasted over his head. Not twenty feet away from him, Carver leaned out from behind a tanker wagon, standing on the hitch. Reid shimmied quickly underneath the boxcar as a third shot rang out. The undercarriage tugged at his jacket and sharp gravel poked his chest through his shirt, but he didn’t dare move or try to climb out the other side. Carver would be waiting for him, and he had a second gun.

  Carver favors the .38 Colt Cobra. Six shots. He’s used three. Reid did not want to take his chances on forcing Carver to take his other three shots. He scanned the ground around him. Carver was either still standing on the hitch or had climbed another boxcar; either way, he had the upper hand. There was nowhere Reid could go, and he couldn’t risk revealing himself. But Carver couldn’t either. As soon as he climbed down and exposed his feet, Reid would certainly take a shot.

  Stalemate , he thought bitterly. His radio was useless, since he had lost his phone in the tailor’s basement. Barnard had his LC9. Reid had his Glock 19, but that did him little good in his position.

  Wait a second. With some difficulty he managed to snake a hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out the one other item he had at his disposal. It was a small, smooth cylinder about the size of a battery. The sonic grenade. What had Bixby said about it?

  If you find yourself in a jam, depress the buttons on each end of the cylinder. It emits a combination of high frequencies that cause immediate nausea and loss of equilibrium for anyone inside a twenty-five-foot radius—except you, as long as it’s close.

  The CIA tech had also told him it wasn’t yet field-tested, and this seemed as good a time as any. He held the device between his thumb and index finger. Then he held his breath, and squeezed down on both ends as hard as he could. The buttons each depressed with a small click.

  And then—nothing happened. He heard no sound, no frequency. The tiny device appeared to be inert; there was no indication that anything was going on.

  A few seconds passed by, and then something hit the gravel on the other side of the boxcar. It was a .38 revolver, and it was almost immediately followed by a body.

  Agent Carver hit the ground with a groan. He rolled onto his side, his eyes squeezed close
d and his mouth twisted in a grimace. He tried to get up on his hands and knees, but he fell again.

  Something above Reid fell too, something heavy hitting corrugated metal with a dissonant thud. Oh, god. Maria. She must have followed and climbed up onto the boxcar to get the drop on Carver. He heard a soft moan that confirmed his fears. If she fell off the boxcar, she could break something. A limb or worse.

  Reid scrambled out from beneath the boxcar and stood with the sonic grenade still in his hand. Bixby was right; as long as he kept it close he didn’t suffer any of the ill effects that the writhing Carver was experiencing. The betraying agent groaned again and retched a small amount of bile onto the gravel.

  Reid hurried to him and snatched up the Colt revolver, sticking it in his jacket pocket. He realized suddenly and desperately that he had no idea how to turn the sonic grenade off. The buttons were depressed; there didn’t seem to be any way to deactivate it.

  Carver leapt up at him with a snarl and tackled Reid to the ground. The force of the hit again knocked the wind out of him and his Glock 19 sailed from his grip. The two men landed in a heap, but he managed to keep his fist closed around the sonic grenade.

  Too close. I got too close to him. Carver straddled Reid and pummeled him with both fists. It was all Reid could do to keep his hands up and protect his face, but as long as Carver was on him he too would be protected from the frequency.

  Reid bucked his hips and Carver lurched to the side. He steadied himself with one hand as the other swung at Reid’s face, missing by an inch. Reid responded with a right hook that grazed across the agent’s jaw as he jerked his head back. Carver swung again, but Reid blocked the strike with his forearm. He cried out as pain splintered up and down his arm from the deflected gunshot. He brought an elbow up and it connected with Carver’s nose. He fell backward, blood blossoming from both nostrils.

  Reid reared back to hit him again when a voice rang out from behind him.

  “Stop!”

  They both turned. Maria stood just a short distance behind them. Her breathing was ragged and there was sweat on her brow. Reid blinked in surprise. The sonic grenade was still in his fist, the buttons both still depressed. Bixby’s untested weapon had worked, but only for a short burst.

  In Maria’s hands was a gun—but not her gun. It was Reid’s, his Glock 19 that had fallen to the ground while the two men had grappled.

  “Move aside, Kent.” She had the gun trained on Carver.

  “Maria, wait.” Reid couldn’t very well tell her that the gun wouldn’t work for her, not in front of Carver. Maybe she knows, and she’s bluffing , he hoped.

  “Move aside,” she repeated. He did, getting to his feet with a groan. “Why did you do this?” she demanded. “Why are you trying to kill Kent?”

  Carver stayed on his knees as he wiped blood away from his lips. “You don’t know what he knows,” he said forcefully. “You don’t know how dangerous it is.”

  “If you know, you’re going to tell us,” Reid said. “Who put you on this?”

  Carver did not answer. He glared at Reid, his lips curled in a snarl.

  “He’s not going to say.” Maria took a step closer, still keeping her aim leveled at the downed agent. “Get up. On your feet, and if you try anything, I will shoot you.”

  Carver nodded. He put his hands up first and began to stand. Then he threw his body weight to the right, hit the gravel, and rolled beneath the nearest boxcar.

  Maria pulled the trigger—or tried to. With the biometric lock, the trigger didn’t move. “What…?”

  Reid lurched forward and tried to grab for Carver, but the agent kept rolling, beneath the boxcar and clear to the other side. Reid struggled to free the Colt from his jacket pocket as he quickly climbed up the ladder one-handed to the top of the boxcar. Carver scrambled to his feet and ran, sprinting down the length of the freight rails away from them.

  Reid took careful aim, targeting Carver’s leg. Even if he had graphene reinforcing his clothes, the impact would take him down. He squeezed the trigger.

  The gun clicked. Carver kept running. He didn’t look back or hesitate.

  Reid popped open the revolver’s cylinder and found nothing but spent shell casings. Carver had only had three shots. The turncoat agent vanished around a bend in the tracks. Reid wanted very much to pursue him, to catch him and force him to tell them why. But Carver was unarmed and fleeing, and they had something much more important to pursue.

  He climbed back down and took his gun back from Maria. “Biometrics,” he explained quickly. “On the trigger lock.”

  She scoffed. “Dammit, Bixby.” Then she frowned and knelt, picking something up from the ground. It was a small piece of plastic, nearly transparent—an earpiece.

  “Carver’s,” Reid said. “Must have fallen out when I hit him…”

  “Or else he took it out on purpose,” she countered. “I bet he’ll drop his phone too, so he can’t be tracked. That traitorous son of a bitch…”

  Reid shook his head. “He didn’t want to do it. Not at first, anyway.”

  “Kent, he pulled the trigger on you—”

  “I know. There’s no excuse for it. But I’m telling you, he was acting on orders. I’m sure of it. Come on, we have to go. Now.” He led the way, climbing between two boxcars as Maria followed. “I’m sorry about the frequency,” he told her as they hurried out of the maze-like freight yard. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “I lost my gun, though. Minot didn’t have the virus?”

  “No, but she was made to look like she did.”

  “Then who has it?” Maria asked breathlessly.

  “If I had to bet? It’s the Imam. His name is Khalil. This must be his plan, his jihad… Minot was made to believe that she was the Imam Mahdi, but she’s not.” Neither was the Syrian boy. Or the virologist. “Khalil is. And I don’t think he would trust anyone else to pull off his master stroke.”

  At last they broke free of the labyrinthine boxcars and onto the empty passenger rails that stretched between them and the station. Dr. Barnard and Watson hurried toward them.

  Watson had his gun drawn.

  Without hesitation Reid skidded to a stop and raised his own Glock, aiming for Watson’s forehead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  “Stop right there and put the gun down, Agent Watson,” Reid ordered loudly.

  Watson froze in utter disbelief. “Are you out of your mind, Steele? We heard shots, we came running…”

  Reid did not falter. “Put it down,” he said again firmly. Barnard took two uncertain steps back. Even Maria seemed unsure of what to do, but Reid had no choice. Carver had been ordered to take him out for what he knew. And Watson was Carver’s former partner.

  Watson put his hands up slowly, but he did not put his gun down. “Where’s Carver?” he demanded. “What did you do?”

  Reid shook his head. “He’s alive. He fled. Right after trying to kill me.” He was careful not to mention anything about his memory or the newly rediscovered conspiracy.

  “No,” Watson said quietly. “No, he wouldn’t have—”

  “He did,” Maria confirmed, her tone apologetic. “I saw it happen, John.”

  “And I can’t risk you doing the same.” Reid’s hand was steady, his gaze unflinching. “I don’t know you well enough to take you at your word. I believe you’re a good man and a good agent, but there’s still someone out there with the virus. That’s my focus right now. I can’t keep one eye on you and hope you don’t shoot me in the back when you have the chance.”

  Watson scoffed. “You think I would do that, Kent?”

  He shook his head. “I can’t risk it.”

  “What do we do now then? You going to shoot me? Because I’m not putting this gun down. Not while you’ve got one pointed at me.”

  “No,” Reid said, “I’m not going to shoot you. We’re going to leave you here.” He could trust Maria; if she had been under the same orders as Carver, she would have h
ad plenty of opportunity to take a shot. Besides, he knew her. She wouldn’t do that to him. And Barnard was a CDC doctor, not an agent. “The three of us are going after the virus. You do whatever it is you feel you have to do to finish this op, but you’re on your own.”

  Watson shook his head. “That would be damn foolish of you. Johansson said it herself. We need to stick together right now, not fall apart.” He turned to Maria. “You know me. You know I wouldn’t.”

  Maria averted her gaze. “I would have said the same thing about Carver twenty minutes ago.” She sighed. “I’ll stay.”

  For a split second Reid took his gaze off of Watson to shoot her an incredulous look. “What?”

  “I’ll stay with him,” she repeated. “We split up. You take Barnard and the car and go. Watson and I will find transportation and see what Langley finds on the Imam. If you get a lead, call us, and we’ll do the same. You won’t have to keep an eye on Watson. I will.”

  Reid bit his lip. He didn’t want to leave Maria behind as well. He wanted her by his side. He wanted her watching his back. But short of leaving Watson behind entirely, he couldn’t think of a better way.

  “All right,” he agreed finally. “Barnard, give her the Ruger.”

  The doctor took the small LC9 from his jacket and handed it off to Maria.

  “Holster that,” Reid ordered Watson. The agent slowly tucked his Glock back into his shoulder harness. Only then did Reid lower his aim, though he still kept his gun firmly in his grip. “If we find something, we’ll call. Good luck. Barnard, let’s go.”

  Reid hurried across the tracks with Barnard following. Only when they reached the station again did he holster his gun. The doctor remained entirely silent until they had reached the white SUV parked outside.

  “Should I be concerned about what I just witnessed?” he asked as Reid started the engine.

  “Yes,” he replied candidly. “But if you’re asking me to tell you, I won’t.” It could be as dangerous for you as it apparently is for me. “Take out your phone. Call this number and put it on speaker.” Reid recited the phone number as he hit the gas, screeching away from the Marseille-Saint Charles station and toward the highway.