by Jack Mars
Reidigger laughed. He was a far cry from the round-faced agent Zero had known four years earlier, with his boyish looks and stubbornly thick torso. In order to obscure his appearance after his faked death, and to assume his alias of a mechanic named Mitch, Alan had put on at least forty pounds, grown out a bushy beard flecked with gray, and perpetually wore a trucker’s cap pulled low on his forehead, the brim of it permanently stained with both sweat and dark oily thumbprints.
The cap had become such an omnipresent accessory that Zero wondered if he wore it to bed.
“What, this?” Reidigger chuckled again and slapped his stomach. “This is all muscle. Y’know, I go down to the gym twice a week. They’ve got a boxing ring. The young kids, they love to talk trash to the older guys. Right before I whip their asses.” He took a sip and added, “You should come sometime. I usually go on—”
“Tuesdays and Thursdays,” Zero finished for him. Alan made that offer every week too.
He appreciated the effort. He appreciated that Alan came by so often to sit around on the patio with his old friend and shoot the breeze. He appreciated the check-ins and the attempts to get him out of the house that were growing more halfhearted with every visit.
The truth was that without the CIA or teaching or his daughters around, he didn’t feel like himself, and it had led to a sort of sickness settling into his brain, a general malaise that he couldn’t seem to overcome.
The sliding glass door opened suddenly then, and both men turned to see Maria step out into the October afternoon. She was dressed smartly in a crisp white blazer with black slacks and a thin gold necklace, her blonde hair cascading around her shoulders and dark mascara accentuating her gray eyes.
It was strange, but for the briefest of moments it was jealousy that swept through Zero at the sight of her. Where he had stagnated, she had flourished. But he pushed that down too, pushed it down into the murky swamp of his stifled emotions and told himself he was glad to see her.
“Afternoon, boys,” she said with a smile. She seemed in good spirits; her mood upon arriving home from work tended to be as varying as the odd hours she kept. “Alan, it’s good to see you.” She bent at the waist to give him a hug.
“Astonished” wasn’t quite the term that came to Zero’s mind when Maria discovered that Alan was not only still alive, but holed up in a garage not thirty minutes from Langley. But she took the news in stride—a bruising punch to his shoulder and a harsh rebuke of “you should have told us!” was seemingly all the catharsis she needed.
“Hi, Kent.” She kissed him before grabbing a beer from Alan’s sixer and joining them. “Good day?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Good day.” He didn’t elaborate, because the only elaboration he could have offered was that he’d spent the day watching old movies, napping, and vaguely thinking about returning to the waiting and still unfinished basement. “You?”
She shrugged. “Better than most.” She tended not to talk too much about work with him—not only because of security clearance, of which Zero currently had none, but also out of the unspoken fear (at least Zero presumed) that it might trigger him, jar some old memory, or otherwise inspire him to get back in the game. She seemed to like him where he was. Though his suspicion about that was another matter entirely.
“Kent,” she said, “don’t forget that we have dinner plans.”
He smiled. “Right, of course.” He hadn’t forgotten about the guest they’d be hosting that evening. But he was actively trying not to think about that.
Kent.
She was the only one who still called him that.
Agent Kent Steele had been his alias in the CIA, but now that was nothing but a memory. Zero had been his call sign, started as a joke by Alan Reidigger—who still called him Zero. And ever since he’d gotten his memories back, that was the name that he usually thought of himself by. But he wasn’t either of those anymore, Kent or Zero, not really. He wasn’t Professor Lawson anymore. Hell, he barely felt like himself, his real self, Reid Lawson, father of two and history professor and covert CIA operative and whatever other thing he identified himself as. Even though eighteen months had passed, he still bitterly recalled the shadowy conspirators dragging his name through the mud, releasing his image to the media, calling him a terrorist and attempting to pin the would-be assassination attempt on him. He was, of course, completely exonerated of those charges, and he had no idea if anyone else even remembered it. But he did. And now the name felt foreign to him. He avoided being known as Reid Lawson whenever possible, to the extent that the house, the bills, even the cars were all in Maria’s name. No mail came for him with his name on it. No one ever called asking for Reid.
Or Kent.
Or Zero.
Or Dad.
So just who the hell am I?
He didn’t know. But he knew that he had to discover it for himself, because the life he was leading was no life worth living.
CHAPTER TWO
Zero was glad he didn’t have to talk about them. But Alan knew better than to ask about the girls.
Reidigger stuck around for about forty-five minutes before rising from the deck chair, stretching, and in his usual fashion, announcing he’d better “hit the ol’ dusty trail.” Zero gave him a brief hug and waved as he pulled the pickup truck out of the driveway and silently thanked him for not asking about his daughters, because the truth was that if Alan had asked how they were, Zero couldn’t answer.
He found Maria in the kitchen, wearing an apron over her work clothes as she chopped an onion. “Good visit?”
“Yeah.”
Silence. Just the rhythmic tock of the knife against the cutting board.
“You ready for tonight?” she asked after a long moment.
He nodded. “Yeah. Definitely.” He wasn’t. “What are you making?”
“Bigos.” She dumped the cutting board’s contents into a large pot on the stove that already contained simmering kielbasa, cabbage, and other vegetables. “It’s a Polish stew.”
Zero frowned. “Bigos. Since when do you make bigos?”
“I learned from my grandmother.” She smirked. “There’s still a lot you don’t know about me, Mr. Steele.”
“I guess so.” He hesitated, wondering how best to broach the subject on his mind, and then decided direct was best. “Um… hey. So tonight, do you think you could maybe try not to call me Kent?”
Maria paused with the knife hovering over a dried mushroom. She frowned, but nodded. “Okay. What do you want me to call you? Reid?”
“I…” He was about to agree, but then realized that he didn’t really want that either. “I don’t know.” Maybe, he thought, she should just avoid calling him anything.
“Huh.” It was obvious from her expression that she was concerned, wanted to push further into whatever was going on in his head, but it wasn’t the time to unpack all that. “How about I just call you ‘pookie’?”
“Very funny.” He grinned in spite of himself.
“Or ‘cupcake’?”
“I’m going to get changed.” He headed out of the kitchen even as Maria called after him, laughing to herself.
“Wait, I got it. I’ll call you ‘honeybunch.’”
“I’m ignoring you,” he called back. He appreciated what she was trying to do, attempting to diffuse the situation with humor. But as he reached the top of the short staircase that led to the loft, the anxiety bubbled up within him again. He’d been glad for Alan’s visit because it meant he didn’t have to think about it. He’d been glad Alan didn’t ask about the girls because it meant he didn’t have to face facts or memories. But there was no avoiding it now.
Maya was coming to dinner.
Zero inspected his jeans, made sure they were free of holes or errant coffee stains, and traded his lounging T-shirt for a striped button-down.
You’re a liar.
He ran a comb through his hair. It was getting too long. Slowly turning gray, especially at the temples.
&
nbsp; Mom died because of you.
He turned sideways and inspected himself in the mirror, pulling his shoulders back and trying to shrink the slight paunch that had gathered around his belly button.
I hate you.
The last meaningful exchange he’d had with his eldest daughter was vitriolic. In the hotel room at The Plaza when he’d told them the truth about their mother, Maya had stood from the bed. She’d started quietly, but her voice rose quickly by the octave. Her face growing redder as she cursed at him. Called him every name he deserved. Telling him exactly what she thought of him and his life and his lies.
After that, nothing had been the same. Their relationship had changed instantly, dramatically, but that wasn’t the most painful part. At least she was still there physically, at the time. No, the slow burn was so much worse. After the admission in the hotel, after they had returned home to their Alexandria house, Maya went back to school. She was ending her junior year of high school; she’d missed two months of work but she hit the books with an intensity Zero had never seen in her before.
Then that summer came, and still she exiled herself to her room, studying. It didn’t take long for him to figure out what was going on. Maya was fiercely intelligent—too smart, he’d often say, for her own good. But in this case, she was too smart for his good.
Maya studied and worked hard and, thanks to a little-known bylaw in her school district’s charter, she was able to test out of her senior year of high school by taking and passing every AP exam. She graduated from high school before the end of that first summer—though there was no ceremony, no cap and gown, no walking with classmates. No proud, smiling photos next to her father and sister. There was just a form letter and a diploma in the mail one day, and Zero’s abject astonishment as he realized what she was trying to do.
And then, only then, was she gone.
He sighed. That was more than a year ago now. He’d last seen her just this past summer, around July or August, not long after his fortieth birthday. She rarely came down from New York these days. On that occasion she’d come back to get some of her belongings out of storage, and had hesitantly agreed to have lunch with him. It had been an awkward, tense, and mostly silent affair. Him asking questions, prodding her to tell him about her life, and her giving him succinct answers and avoiding eye contact.
And now she was coming to dinner.
“Hey.” He hadn’t heard Maria come into the loft bedroom, but he felt her arms around his midsection, her head resting against his back as she hugged him from behind. “It’s okay to be nervous.”
“I’m not nervous.” He was very nervous. “It’ll be good to see her.”
“Of course it will.” Maria had organized it. She had been the one to reach out to Maya, to invite her over the next time she was in town. The invitation had been extended two months earlier. Maya was in Virginia this weekend to visit some friends from school, and reluctantly agreed to come. Just for dinner. She wouldn’t be staying. She made that very well known.
“Hey,” Maria said softly behind him. “I know the timing isn’t great, but…”
Zero winced. He knew what she was going to say and wished she wouldn’t.
“I’m ovulating.”
He didn’t respond for a long moment, long enough to realize that the silence was becoming uncomfortable as it yawned between them.
When they first moved in together, they had agreed that neither of them was terribly interested in marriage. Kids were not even on his radar. But Maria was only two years younger than him; she was rapidly approaching forty. There was no longer a snooze button on her biological alarm clock. At first she would just casually mention it in conversation, but then she ceased her birth control regiment. She started keeping keen track of her cycle.
Still, they’d never actually sat down and discussed it. It was as if Maria simply assumed that since he’d done it twice before, he would want to be a father again. Though he never said it aloud, he secretly suspected that was why she hadn’t pushed for him to return to the agency, or even to teaching. She liked him where he was because it meant there would be someone to care for a baby.
How can it be, he wondered bitterly, that my life as an unemployed civilian could be more complicated than as a covert agent?
He’d waited too long to reply, and when he finally did it sounded forced and lame. “I think,” he said at last, “that we should put a pin in that for now.”
He felt her arms fall away from around his waist and hastily added, “Just until we get past this visit. Then we’ll talk, and we’ll decide—”
“To wait longer.” She practically spat the words out, and when he turned to face her she was staring at the carpet in undisguised disappointment.
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
Yes, it is.
“I just think it warrants a serious discussion,” he said.
So I can man up enough to admit I don’t want it.
“We should at least deal with what’s in front of us first.”
Like the fact that the two children I already raised hate me.
“Yeah,” Maria agreed quietly. “You’re right. We’ll wait longer.” She turned and headed out of the bedroom.
“Maria, wait…”
“I have to finish dinner.” He heard her footfalls on the stairs and cursed himself under his breath for mishandling that so badly. It was pretty much par for the course in his life lately.
Then the doorbell rang. The sound of it sent an electric tingle through his nervous system.
He heard the front door open. Maria’s cheerful voice: “Hi! It’s so good to see you. Come in, come in.”
She was here. Suddenly Zero’s feet felt like lead weights. He didn’t want to go downstairs. Didn’t want to face this.
“And you must be Greg…” Maria said.
Greg? Who the hell is Greg? Suddenly he found the willpower to move. One stair at a time, she slowly came into sight. It had only been a few months since he’d last seen her, but still she took his breath away.
Maya was eighteen now, no longer a child, and it was showing more rapidly than he cared to admit. When they’d met for lunch the past summer, her hair was still long and curled into the military-requisite donut bun, but she had since had it cut shorter, a pixie cut, short on the sides and back and sweeping across her forehead, accentuating her lean face, which was growing mature and angular. She looked stronger, the muscles in her arms developing, small but dense.
She was looking more like him every day, while he was looking and feeling less like himself every day.
Maya glanced up at him as he came down the stairs. “Hi.” It was a passive greeting, not bright but not flat. Neutral. Like someone greeting a stranger.
“Hi, Maya.” He moved in to hug her and the slightest hint of apprehension shadowed her face. He settled for a half-embrace, one arm around her shoulders while her hand patted his back once. “You look… you look well.”
“I am.” She cleared her throat and addressed the elephant in the room. “This is Greg.”
The boy, if he could be called that, stepped forward and stuck out an enthusiastic hand. “Mr. Lawson, a pleasure to meet you, sir.” He was tall, six-two, with short blond hair and perfect teeth and tanned arms that were testing the limits of his polo shirt’s sleeves.
He looked like the high school quarterback.
“Uh, nice to meet you too, Greg.” Zero shook the kid’s hand. Greg had a firm grip, firmer than was necessary.
Zero disliked him immediately. “You’re a, uh, friend of Maya’s from school?”
“Boyfriend,” Maya said unflinchingly.
This guy? Zero disliked him even more now. His smile, his teeth. He found himself incensed with jealousy. This grinning idiot was close to his daughter. Closer than Zero was allowed to be.
“What are we all standing around here for? Come in, please.” Maria closed the door and led them toward the living room. “Have a seat. Dinner isn’t quite done yet. Can I
get you something to drink?”
They responded, but Zero didn’t hear it. He was too busy examining this relative stranger in his house—and he didn’t mean Greg. Maya was flourishing into a young woman, with her new hair and pressed clothes and boyfriend and school and career trajectory… and he wasn’t a part of it. Not any of it.
Despite everything that had happened, Maya hadn’t deterred from the goal she had set for herself almost two years earlier. She wanted to be a CIA agent—more than that, she wanted to become the youngest agent in the CIA’s history. But it had nothing to do with following in her father’s footsteps. She had been through some harrowing experiences of her own, chief among them being kidnapped by a psychopathic assassin and handed over to a human trafficking ring, and she wanted to be among the protectors who would keep such things from happening to other young women.
After testing out of her senior year of high school, and unbeknownst to Zero, Maya applied to the military academy West Point. Even though her grades were excellent, she had no ROTC experience and no plans for military service, and therefore wouldn’t have made the most attractive candidate. But she had a plan for that too.
In an act of cunning and guile that foreshadowed an illustrious career in covert operations, Maya went over her father’s head to fellow agent (and friend) Todd Strickland. Through him, and under the pretense of being Agent Zero’s daughter, she managed to secure a letter of recommendation from then-president Eli Pierson, who thought he was doing Zero a personal favor. She was accepted into West Point, and moved to New York before the end of that first summer after discovering the truth about her mother.
Zero found out all of this while she was packing her bags. By then it was too late to stop her, though not for lack of trying. But no amount of pleading would dissuade her.
She was in her second year now, and even though the ties between father and daughter were nearly severed, Maria kept tabs on Maya as best she could and updated Zero. He knew that she was top of her class, excelling in everything she did, and earning admiration from the faculty. He knew that she was heading toward great things.