Hunting Zero

by Jack Mars

  “Yes.”

  The driver laughed lightly again, but he typed it into the GPS on the cell phone mounted on his dashboard. The taxi swerved slightly on the road, reminding Reid to buckle his seatbelt.

  “Huh,” the driver said softly after a moment. “How about it. There is a Tkanina in Dubrovnik. Other side of the city from your place, but not far from here. You still want to go?”

  “I do,” Reid told him.

  “You are the boss.”

  It only took another four minutes to reach the destination, located in a small commercial area outside of Dubrovnik proper. The address they had been led to was pretty much exactly as Reid had expected; beige brick, nondescript, with no signs or indication of what might be inside.

  “Turn off your headlights. Park over there, in the next lot over,” Reid instructed. The taxi rolled past the dark, silent building and stopped in the lot of an adjacent facility. The sign suggested the place manufactured bicycle parts, but it was deserted at this time of night. “Pop your trunk, please.”

  Reid got out of the car and stowed his black bag. Then he came around and knelt beside the driver’s side window. “I’m leaving my bag with you,” he said. “I want you to wait for me. I don’t know how long this will take; it might be only a few minutes. It might be an hour. But if you wait, there’s another hundred in it for you.”

  The driver’s eyes lit up. “Sure thing, my friend. I wait here.”

  “Thank you.” Reid straightened, but then another thought occurred to him. “And, uh, you might hear noises.”

  “Noises?” The driver raised an eyebrow.

  “Loud noises. But please. Stay and wait for me.”

  The taxi driver grinned as he reclined his seat back and wove his fingers behind his head, as if sitting in a lounge chair. “My friend, I am chill. See? I stay. I wait.”

  “Thanks.” Reid left the car and trotted across the dark parking lot towards the cube-like Tkanina building. The only light outside was mounted on the front, a few yards over the steel double-door entrance, casting a pale glow over the front several parking spaces. Reid edged around the halo of it and inspected the building’s façade; there didn’t appear to be any cameras, and the windows were too high up in the walls for him to get a look inside.

  He tried the front doors. They were locked, naturally, but after a quick inspection he determined he could dismantle the lock from the outside. He snapped open the spade-shaped lockback knife, still stained with some of Marko’s blood, and set to work.

  It took him under a minute to take the left door handle off and pull the locking bolt out, but it felt like much longer. His mind was racing. He wasn’t expecting to find his girls here; the traffickers and Rais alike would be stupendously foolish to trust that sort of information with a soft touch like Marko at the freight terminal. Even so, he hoped to find something—or more aptly, someone—inside.

  He slipped into the building as quietly as he could and immediately drew his Glock 22. It took several seconds for his eyes to adjust to the darkness of the shop floor… and when they did, his face fell in abject disappointment.

  The shadows fell long over rows and rows of workstations. Many of them were equipped with industrial-grade sewing machines. Along the far wall were wide devices with rollers wrapped in wide swaths of fabric in various colors.

  This is actually a textile mill. He had expected a mostly empty building, or perhaps even a thinly veiled front, but this appeared to be a bona fide business. It could have been owned by the traffickers as a way to launder their money, he reasoned, or perhaps a pass-through entity like the men at the ports had been, paid off to falsify incoming cargo in order to get the girls into the country.

  Regardless, he had come this far, and he was definitely going to have a look around. He crossed the shop floor carefully and quietly, his path illuminated only by the wan moonlight from the windows recessed high in the walls overhead. At the far end of the floor he found entrances to a couple of office, unlocked and empty.

  Beyond them were two sets of stairs. One was made of steel and led up to another partial level of the plant. The second was concrete and led down into the darkness of a basement.

  Reid stood at the base of the steel stairs for a full minute, listening intently. He heard nothing but the blood rushing in his own ears; no footfalls, no voices, nothing.

  He took the stairs down, wishing he had brought a flashlight.

  At the bottom he squeezed his eyes shut for several seconds to allow them to adjust to the darkness quicker. When he opened them again he could make out the faint silhouettes of more machines, lots of them—he was standing at the edge of a subterranean level of the plant, a floor just as vast and wide as the one above. But it was incredibly dark, too dark to navigate. He held the Glock in one hand as the other fumbled along the wall in the hopes of a light switch.

  Something caught his eye and he glanced upward. In the corner of the ceiling was a small, single red dot of light.

  Reid squinted at it. The light was attached to a rectangular black box. A camera, he realized, directed at a downward angle.

  Toward the entrance.

  Directly at him.

  The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as he heard shuffling footsteps in the darkness.

  And then the shooting began.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Reid saw the muzzle flash a quarter of a heartbeat before he heard the torrent of automatic gunfire split the stillness of the wide basement. He threw himself to the concrete floor, landing hard on his side and scrambling to a seated position.

  The burst was short and punctuated by silence. Reid felt his surroundings and put his back to a machine for cover, gripping the Glock tightly. His breath was shallow and quiet as he listened intently.

  Then a voice came, harsh, male, and guttural. “You, go that way! You, over there!” The man wasn’t speaking English, but Reid understood him all the same. Slovak, he thought. I know Slovak—and these men must be with the Slavs.

  Footfalls followed, breaking off into separate directions. Reid closed his eyes—they were doing him little good in the Stygian darkness anyway—and listened to the steps, their distance, their pace.

  “He told us you might come.” The man spoke again but in English this time, and loudly, both for Reid’s benefit. “Your American friend.”

  Rais. He knew I might find this place.

  “He said that if you did, you would come alone.” The man was walking steadily, moving across the floor, getting closer to Reid’s position. “This is true, yes? You are alone.”

  To the left, twenty yards and closing. He craned his neck slightly. To the right, further away. They can’t see either. They don’t know where I am.

  “He said that if you found us, we should not kill you,” the man continued. “Only to scare you away. But now that you are here, I think we will kill you anyway. We cannot risk you telling anyone what you might have found.”

  What I might have found? There was something here, something the traffickers were afraid of getting out. First things first. Reid tensed as the Slav to his left closed in, inching closer.

  Suddenly there was a dull sound, a heavy click, and Reid was blinded by light. Several rows of powerful fluorescent lights blazed on overhead, all at once, turning the sheer darkness into veritable daylight. Reid shielded his eyes at the sudden harshness, grimacing as white enveloped his vision.

  The Slav was drawing near. Any second he would be upon him. Reid lifted the Glock blindly in the direction of the footfalls. Wait. Wait… He opened his eyes slightly, barely a millimeter, in time to see a silhouette step around the machine he was hiding behind.

  Reid instantly fired off two shots. There was a yelp. The silhouette vanished from sight as it fell. A gun clattered to the floor.

  He skirted around the other side of the machine and dared to open his eyes. His vision was adjusting; he quickly checked his six, but there was no one there. He held his breath, listening. There were
no footfalls. The other men were holding their positions.

  The man on the other side of the machine groaned in pain. Reid wasn’t sure where he’d hit him, but it sounded like it was enough to take him out of the fight, at least for now.

  He checked his surroundings. He was standing in a straight corridor of machinery, about six feet wide, lined on both sides by the same type of device arranged side-by-side the whole way down the row. It was taller than he was and about as narrow, with a large round cylinder attached to the front, reminiscent of the chamber on a revolver. But instead of bullets, each deep divot held a thick spool of colored thread.

  Spinning machines. They make fabric here, in the basement. Suddenly Reid realized what that meant; they were not importing fabric at all, but falsifying the incoming cargo documents for the traffickers.

  “Jakub?” the Slav who had taunted him called out. “Jakub,” he asked in Slovak, “are you alive?”

  The wounded man groaned and said, “Ano.” Yes.

  The footfalls resumed, slower this time, and only one pair, though Reid knew there were at least two other men in the basement with him. He knelt and quickly untied his boots, tugged them off, and crept down the corridor of machinery in his socks.

  “Jakub,” the first man called out again. “You have your gun?”

  “Yes,” the wounded man hissed.

  “You stay there. Watch the door. He does not leave.”

  They were assuming that Reid did not speak Slovak, that they could formulate a plan in their foreign tongue. He reached the end of the row and paused.

  “I’m coming around,” the man said. “If you see him—”

  Reid took a breath, and then whipped around the corner with the Glock level. Jakub was lying on the floor at the far end of the row, blood standing out bright against the dark concrete as he shimmied toward his gun, oblivious to Reid’s appearance behind him.

  The other Slav stepped into view, and Reid fired twice.

  His first shot missed, but the second struck the man in the shoulder and spun his body ninety degrees. As he twisted, the Slav brought a black SMG up with one hand and squeezed the trigger.

  A hail of bullets flew wildly. Reid leapt forward, taking cover behind the next row of machines, but not fast enough. A sharp pain stung at his right bicep; a bullet had torn into his blazer and grazed his arm.

  He inspected it quickly and saw it was bleeding badly, but was a fairly superficial wound.

  Rapid footfalls echoed as the shoulder-shot Slav scurried away. “Michal,” the man cried out in Slovak, “he removed his shoes. Be cautious!”

  Reid could hear the steps of the Slav getting farther away, heading toward the farthest row of machines, but he could not hear anything from the third, this Michal. Either he was savvy or anxious, perhaps both.

  He glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one was behind him and noticed a few drops of bright red blood on the floor. The gash on his arm had left a trail; it would be easy to follow him, to know where he was, but he had no idea where the third man might be.

  He decided to take a chance. Reid lifted the Glock and fired two shots into the wall.

  There was a scuffle of boots, a flurry of movement from the next row over, followed immediately by a short burst of automatic fire. He was right; the third man, Michal, was nervous and had an itchy trigger finger.

  Reid took a running start and slid forward on his heel and knee, like a batter sliding into home plate, across the open aisle of machinery. The Slav was facing him and had a submachine gun pointed in his direction—but upward, directed at center mass, while Reid had gone low. Before the man could reposition his shot, even before the surprise registered on his face, Reid took aim and fired again, just once.

  Michal’s head jerked as the bullet struck his forehead. He fell flat onto his back, limbs splayed.

  “Michal?” the talkative Slav shouted.

  Reid hurried over to check the body. “Michal is dead,” he called out in Slovak.

  A long moment of silence followed.

  “You son of a bitch!” the man suddenly screamed in his native tongue. “I’ll kill you!” His footfalls became angry stomps, seemingly several rows away from Reid’s position. A burst of gunfire rang out; then more stomps, and another burst.

  The Slav was stalking aisle by aisle, spraying bullets down the rows of machines. Another burst tore at the air. He was only three or four rows away.

  Reid quickly knelt and pulled loose his Ruger LC9.

  More stomps. Another burst, closer.

  He wedged himself in the narrow space between two of the machines as best he could.

  Stomps. Shots. A shout: “Where are you?!”

  Reid held the LC9 out to his left. The Glock to his right. His arm burned, his other shoulder throbbed, but he kept each as steady as he could.

  The gun came around the corner first, black with a stubby barrel. It was followed by an arm, which pointed it down the lane of spinning machines as a hail of bullets cascaded past him. A stray shot struck the cylinder to Reid’s left and he forgot to breathe.

  Then the man showed himself, stalking across the aisle, glancing down its length…

  Reid fired the LC9. The bullet hit the Slav’s ribcage and he doubled over with the impact. As he glanced up, fury and pain in his eyes, Reid fired a second shot into the man’s neck. A thin fountain of blood jetted from the wound. For a moment the Slav tried weakly to raise his gun again, his hand shaking, but it fell limply to his side before he could level it. The man collapsed to the floor.

  Reid climbed out from between the two machines and remained still for a moment, just listening. He heard no more footfalls; only the slight groans of the first man he’d shot. Two down. One to go.

  “Jakub,” he called out in Slovak. “Your friends are dead. Put your gun down and slide it away.” Reid tucked the Ruger back into his ankle holster but held onto the Glock, clearing the other aisles as he approached the last Slav’s position.

  “How do I know you won’t kill me?” Jakub called back. His voice was weak. He had likely lost a lot of blood.

  “I don’t know where I hit you,” Reid called back. “You might already be dead. How fast or slow that happens is up to you.” He paused; Jakub would be in the next aisle over, the closest to the entrance. The Slav seemed to be deliberating. But after a moment, he heard the clatter of a dropped gun, and then the sound of it sliding away.

  Reid swung into view with his gun directed downward. He blinked in surprise; Jakub was young, with long hair pulled into a ponytail. He can’t be more than twenty. Reid had to remind himself that young or not, this man had aligned himself with traffickers. He had done horrible things to innocent people—including Reid’s own children.

  Jakub’s face was white as a sheet. The kid had managed to pull himself into a seated position with his back to a machine and his legs splayed out in front of him, sitting in a growing puddle of his own blood. One red-stained hand was pressed over his abdomen; Reid had shot him just above the navel.

  “Do you have a phone, Jakub?” Reid asked. “A way to contact the others?”

  “Who?” Jakub asked, his voice faltering. “Which ones?”

  Reid knelt. “The ones with the green-eyed American. The ones that have my daughters.”

  Jakub’s eyes widened in shock. He let out a slight whimper.

  “Yes,” Reid said. “Two of those girls are my children. Everyone you ever harmed or helped to bring harm to was someone’s child. This is your atonement. Make the call.”

  With some difficulty and several groans of pain, Jakub managed to liberate a cell phone from his pocket. He smeared blood across the screen as he pressed a button.

  Reid took the phone from him, not taking his eyes from the young Slav. After two rings, a harsh voice answered.

  “Čo?” the voice snapped. What?

  “I want you to listen to this,” Reid said calmly in Slovak. He pulled the trigger on the Glock. Jakub’s body jerked once and fell sti
ll. “That was the sound of Jakub’s death. The other two are dead as well. Put the American on the phone.”

  The line was silent, a slight static hissing in Reid’s ear.

  Then a voice came on the line, an eerily calm tone that made his skin crawl and his stomach flip with rage.

  “Kent. Steele.” Rais enunciated each syllable as if he had tasted something delicious. “I knew you would come. I knew you would persevere—”

  “Shut up,” Reid snapped. He couldn’t tolerate the sound of the assassin’s voice. “I know what you want, and it has nothing to do with them. So let’s finish it. You and I. Tonight.”

  “What do you have in mind?” Rais sounded amused.

  “I came alone. You do the same—leave your new ‘friends’ behind. But you bring the girls. I want to see them, to know they’re safe. Then we’ll finish this.”

  “I will bring one girl,” the assassin said simply.

  Reid’s entire body shook in a fresh wave of fury, his fingers gripping the phone so hard it felt it might snap in his hand. “This is not a negotiation, you psychopath, these are my children.”

  “And despite that I am holding all the cards, so to speak,” Rais interjected calmly, “I am allowing you to set some terms. But I have terms of my own. Therefore, it is very much a negotiation. I will bring one girl. You will see her. You will know she is safe. She will know the location of the other girl. If you are still alive afterwards, she can tell you. If you’re not, I will release them. Their only use to me is to get to you. You have my word.”

  Reid shook his head. He didn’t like it. He didn’t trust Rais at his word, not for a second. But as the assassin had keenly pointed out, he held the power here. He had the girls. Reid had nothing but his anger and his determination—and his life, which was what Rais wanted most of all.

  “Fine,” Reid hissed, his teeth gritted. “Villa Maya. That’s where we’ll meet. One hour. I’ll be waiting.” He hung up and quickly checked to see if there was any other useful information on the phone—GPS history, contacts, anything. But it was a burner, nothing of use on it. He grunted and dropped it to the floor next to Jakub’s body.