by Jack Mars
He knew that Emilia Sanders was not her real name, and that she was Ukrainian, but nothing else about her.
“What do you want?”
“You know of the private meeting between Presidents Harris and Kozlovsky?” she asked quickly.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Have you not been watching the news, Agent Zero?” she asked with grim amusement.
Another flash of anger bubbled up within him. “I’m not ‘agent’ anything. And no, I’ve been pretty careful to avoid the news. The whole world can go to hell as far as I care. Goodbye, Sanders—”
“Wait,” she insisted. “When I helped you before, I asked for nothing in return. Now I am asking you for one minute.”
He swore under his breath. He didn’t owe her anything. “Fine,” he relented. “One minute.”
Emilia Sanders spoke quickly. “Yesterday there was a meeting between the US president and the Russian president. Private, closed-door. It lasted for only a few minutes, and besides the two presidents there is only one person in the world who knows what they discussed. An interpreter. She is on the run. They want to kill her. She needs help. There is no one else to turn to. She needs you.”
Zero was silent for a long moment.
“Hello?” Sanders said. “Zero?”
“It’s been one minute. Goodbye.” He ended the call. “That’s not your life anymore,” he reminded himself. Then he turned and headed back down the breakwater toward the rocky beach.
His phone chimed with a new message: They will kill her for what she knows.
“Not my problem,” he told the phone.
He reached the beach and considered calling an Uber back to the airport when he got yet another text message from Sanders.
She is my sister.
“Don’t care,” he muttered. His thumb floated to the side button to power the phone off, but it lingered. “Don’t,” he told himself. But then the browser was open, and his thumbs were typing as if they had a mind of their own.
He searched for the term “president meeting,” and it seemed that it was plenty to go on. Every media outlet in the country had been covering the Russian president’s visit, and every pundit had a theory about the brief private meeting Sanders had mentioned.
Zero was confused. The new US president, Harris, was supposed to be one of the good guys. He didn’t know much about Harris’s politics, but he knew the man had been busy cleaning house and undoing damage since he took office. The people liked him.
Then he saw something else. A breaking news report from only a few hours earlier. An anonymous tipster told the media that the interpreter had recorded the secret meeting. The White House was denying it, claiming that any recording she had must be fake, and that the woman was trying to extort both sides for some personal gain.
They had released her identity. A Ukrainian-born woman named Karina Pavlo. And with it, a photo from some identification database. She resembled Sanders, at least in that she was slight-framed, brunette, with dark eyes and an angular chin. Zero couldn’t help but think that she was quite attractive, in a foreign and mysterious kind of way.
Another text came through.
She needs you.
A cool sea breeze ruffled his hair as Zero recalled the events of eighteen months earlier, when he had tried to warn Pierson about the conspiracy. He too had recordings. In response, the White House had labeled him a criminal. A domestic terrorist. They had discredited him publicly. They tried to ruin his life and get him killed.
Maybe Sanders was lying, and this interpreter was actually extorting two presidents. But if she wasn’t, then the people with the power were doing the same thing to her that they’d tried to do to him.
“Is she really your sister?” he asked when Sanders answered his call.
“Yes.”
“What’s your name? Your real name.”
Silence. Then: “Veronika Pavlo. And my sister is—”
“Karina Pavlo. I saw. Is she FIS?”
“No. She really is an interpreter. She is afraid and will not trust anyone else but me. I have asked that she trust you.”
“You know I’m not CIA anymore, right?”
“Yes. That is precisely why I’m willing to trust you. And only you.”
You need to be needed.
Whatever Karina knew was enough for the presidents of both countries to be concerned.
She needs you.
“Where can I find her?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Karina had never been so nervous in her life. Sitting in the dark, alone, she could hardly focus on the screen in front of her. Even in the meeting with the two conspiring presidents, or fleeing from the Secret Service, she had not been as anxious as she was then.
Veronika’s plan had worked, at least to some degree. Both the authorities and the media believed she had fled to Richmond. Not only had their contact called in a tip, but since then several alleged sightings had been reported.
Still she was nervous, because the White House believed she had recorded the meeting. Regardless of whether or not it was true, it would make them that much more desperate to find her. She had traded being taken alive for a harder push to find her. It was a calculated risk that she was now wondering if they had miscalculated.
So Karina had followed Veronika’s plan. She had, as instructed, gone to the movie theater and purchased a ticket for whatever was showing in auditorium 8. She sat alone in the back row as a horror movie played. It was fit for the season, with Halloween approaching, but she barely paid any attention to it. Even as the rest of the audience gasped or shrieked in fright with each jump-scare, Karina sat nervously, occasionally glancing around.
Every time someone stood to use the restroom or a man cleared their throat loudly, she wondered if it would be him. Yet no one came. No one sat beside her or whispered to her or anything.
Maybe he’s waiting until the movie is over.
And then the movie was over. The credits rolled and patrons, smiling in embarrassment at their fright, filed out of the theater. Karina waited until everyone else had left, and then waited longer. Finally, as the theater employees came in to clean up before the next showing, she slowly rose from her seat and stepped out into the dim corridor.
Where do I go now? The digital marquee over the auditorium’s entrance told her that the next showing was in thirty minutes. She had nowhere else to go. Veronika had told her to come here and stay put until this man, the man she called Zero, came for her.
So I will. There was a red plastic bench across from the auditorium entrance. She sat upon it, resolving to wait for the next show and sit again alone in the dark theater.
A group of teenage boys walked past her, chatting excitedly about some superhero film. A young mother held her daughter’s hand as they entered the women’s restroom across the hall. A man in jeans and a black shirt poked at a cell phone as he lingered near the bench.
Karina untied the silk scarf from over her dark hair and ran her fingers through it, letting it hang over her shoulders.
“Mind if I sit?”
She glanced up. The man in the black shirt was smiling down at her, gesturing toward the plastic bench seat.
“Not at all. Please.” Her American accent was improving with use, she thought.
“Thanks.” The man sat with a sigh and put his phone in his jeans pocket. “Just waiting for my wife in the bathroom.”
“Ah.” Karina glanced at him in her periphery. He looked to be in his late thirties, or a decent forty, in good shape, with dark hair just barely peppered with gray.
“What are you seeing?” he asked suddenly.
“Sorry?”
“What movie are you seeing?” He smiled again.
“Oh. Um, the horror one.” She’d already forgotten the name of it. Or perhaps she hadn’t been paying enough attention to know in the first place.
“Right, right. Something ‘massacre’ or other.” He chuckled a little.
“And you?” she asked politely.
“We’re going to see that, uh, new romantic comedy.” He shrugged. “I’m not a big fan, but my wife loves them. It’s always the same story though, isn’t it? Overworked professional woman meets some laid-back cool guy. They couldn’t be more different. Then they fall in love. Rinse and repeat.”
“Yes.” She forced a small chuckle of her own. “I suppose so.”
The man sighed and checked his watch.
He’s not wearing a wedding ring.
Her heartbeat sped up suddenly. Her fist tightened around the silk scarf in her hand.
“I think I’ll use the restroom,” she said, her voice tighter than she intended. She started to rise—
“No, Karina. Sit.” The man’s voice was not harsh or insistent; it was rather calm, and he gazed up at her with a light smile on his lips. “I was enjoying our chat.”
They found me. Her throat ran dry as she slowly lowered herself to the bench again. They found me. How?
She looked the man over again, blatantly this time. He had no gun, at least not that she could discern. And he seemed to be alone. Would they not have sent more after her?
“There are a lot of people here,” the man said. “I think it would be best if we go elsewhere to talk.”
Realization struck her and she nearly sighed with relief. “Oh! You’re him?” she said quietly. “The man I’ve been waiting for. The one called Zero.”
The man looked left and right down the corridor. “Not here,” he told her urgently. “They have eyes and ears everywhere. Look.” He gestured to their right, toward the lobby.
Karina’s breath caught in her throat. A thick-necked man in a suit stood just beyond the lobby, one hand at his right ear, his lips moving silently as he relayed a message into a radio. He stuck out like a sore thumb in the theater, but she knew right away that he was Secret Service.
He hadn’t noticed her. At least not yet.
“How?” she said anxiously. “How did they find me?”
“We have to move,” Zero whispered. “I need you to trust me.” He stood then, and offered her the crook of his arm. “We’ll be okay. Just do as I tell you.”
She hesitated. But Veronika had seemed confident that this man could help her. She stood and took his arm with her left, her right hand still gripping the silk scarf.
He guided her directly toward the lobby and the agent. “Pretend we’re a couple. We just got out of a movie.” Then louder he said, “So. What’d you think?”
Karina swallowed the lump in her throat and tried to act natural. “Oh, it was okay. Honestly, I didn’t think it was all that scary.”
“Right?” Zero agreed. “They don’t make ’em like they used to. Remember The Exorcist?”
She laughed as they walked right past the agent. He didn’t even give them a second glance. “How can I forget? We watched it on our first date. So romantic.” Then she let out a whooshing breath. “How did they find me?” she hissed.
“Facial recognition software,” he whispered back. “They can tap into traffic cams, security cameras, even phones if necessary, and run it through a database until they get a hit.”
“Dammit. I thought I was more careful than that.”
“It’s okay. I’m going to get you out.” He pushed open the door and they exited into the night—and nearly ran right into another agent outside. The Secret Service man glared at them and narrowed his eyes.
Zero smiled at him. “Sorry, pal.” He turned to Karina. “Hey, you hungry, babe?” He guided her away from the agent.
“I could eat,” she said in her American accent. “And I could definitely use a drink.” Out of earshot she whispered, “Christ, they’re everywhere.”
“My car’s across the lot. Just keep walking and act natural.”
She did so, her arm in his, trying to keep a smile on her face and the banter light.
“It’s that SUV right up there,” he whispered. And then: “Oh, shit.”
She saw the SUV. She also saw that a sleek black sedan was parked right next to it, and two more agents were milling about behind it.
They both looked up at the approaching couple.
“Kiss me,” Zero whispered urgently.
“What?”
He spun her around suddenly to face him and, before she knew it, his lips were pressed against hers. It was obvious, dispassionate, unconvincing. The agents would never fall for it, she knew.
Then she felt something cold on her wrist. Before she could pull away, a cuff clicked shut around it. She pulled back, or tried to, but the man before her held her tightly as he snapped a second cuff around her other wrist.
“You’re under arrest.” He grinned maliciously.
“You are not Zero,” she said dumbly, the handcuffs biting into both her arms.
“No such luck, darlin’. Just didn’t want to cause a big scene in public.” He glanced over his shoulder as the two agents approached. “Radio the others, tell them we got her.”
It was a ruse. And she had fallen right into it. Stupid! she scolded herself.
Zero, the real Zero, was not coming for her.
If she was going to get out of this, she’d have to do it on her own.
She looked down at the steel cuffs on her hands. She opened her fist, and the silk scarf she’d been holding fluttered to the ground.
Karina bent over to pick it up.
“Hey, stand up!” the man barked.
She clasped her hands together tightly. Then she twisted her body at the hips and drove the club of both fists into his midsection.
“Oomph!” The man doubled over, and Karina swung again, upward, right into his face. The shock of impact ran up both her arms as the man’s head jerked back, blood from his nose arcing into the air. He fell flat on his back on the asphalt.
“Stop!” one of the agents commanded. They both reached for their guns.
Karina ran, ducking low behind cars and pumping her legs as fast as she could. Adrenaline coursed through her. She’d never struck anyone like that before, and now she was running for her life.
“She’s on the move!” one of them shouted behind her.
A gunshot rang out, impossibly loud and too close. A car window shattered. An alarm whooped. People screamed. Karina’s legs nearly failed her, almost turning to jelly beneath her at the thunderous crack of the gun.
They’re shooting at me. I’m going to be shot.
Still she kept moving forward, ducking low as possible. She weaved between the cars, no idea where she was headed or where she might be able to run to. Her only instinct was to get away, to stay out of their hands…
She rounded the rear bumper of a Jeep and an arm came out of nowhere, straight and strong and unyielding. The arm caught her at the collarbone. Her legs flew out from beneath her. For a moment she was weightless, and then she hit the ground hard enough to knock the breath from her lungs.
Karina gasped desperately, even as several strong arms lifted her to her feet. There were four of them; she was surrounded. There was a gun in her face. Her breath came shallow and labored. She felt dizzy and vaguely aware of pain in her skull.
“Fucking bitch.” The man she thought was Zero stalked up to her, holding one hand to his nose, blood eking between his fingers.
“Is it broke?” asked one of the suited agents.
“No, just hurts like hell.” He sneered at her. “Get her in the car. Keep a gun on her. And call HQ. We might have a problem.”
“What problem?” asked an agent. They all looked the same to her: black suits, white shirts, thick necks, combed hair. Her vision was fuzzy. She likely had a concussion.
“She thought I was Zero.”
“Zero?” One of the agents laughed. “Come on. Guy’s a ghost story.”
“No,” said the man in the black shirt. “He’s real, all right. He’s just been out of the game a while.” He leaned close to her, dropping his hand away from his bleeding, swelling nose. “For some reason, she tho
ught he was coming to get her. But don’t worry. We’re going to find out why.”
CHAPTER NINE
“Ten-HUT!”
The cadets snapped to attention, arms at their sides, spines straight, eyes forward in two parallel lines facing each other. Between them, on the floor of West Point’s south-wing gymnasium, lay a thick green mat. Sergeant Castle paced over it between the two rows of cadets. He was a short man, five-six at best, but every inch of him was bulky, heavily muscled, except the shaved top of his head. He wore the same uniform that the cadets wore, a simple gray T-shirt and matching shorts.
Maya kept her eyes forward as Castle moved to the other end of the mat. She didn’t dare look at the boy in the opposite row at the edge of her periphery. Greg.
“At ease,” Castle ordered.
Maya shifted her hands behind her back and widened her stance, though she still didn’t look over at him. They hadn’t spoken since she’d left him behind at her dad’s house. Somehow he’d made it back to New York. The rumor mill around school was charged with whispers of what she’d done and a thousand different reasons why, ranging from a practical joke gone wrong to him pressuring her to have sex with him, and not one of them the truth.
The most important thing was that no disciplinary action had been taken against her. Greg hadn’t gone to the administration, and it seemed he hadn’t even run off to his rich parents to have something done about it. It was a small comfort. She didn’t give a damn about her reputation with the other students, but he could have potentially hurt her academic career.
“Tonight I want to see your proficiency in locks and throws,” Castle ordered. Despite his rugged exterior, his day job was teaching mathematics at the academy. But three nights a week, Castle taught judo as an extracurricular. “And to add insult to potential injury, we’re going to start with someone who can set the bar for all you tough guys.” He looked right at her. “Lawson, front and center.”
Maya stepped forward without hesitation. “Sir!”
“Show these fellas how to fight like a girl, cadet.”
To say that she was the best in the class might have been braggadocio, which only made it fortunate that she didn’t have to say it. They knew it. Maya enjoyed judo; it taught someone like her, someone shorter and lighter than a lot of the boys, how to use her body to fight off someone bigger. It evened the playing field. And, as she had discussed after class with Castle one afternoon, it was basically math; as long as you remembered your angles, your weight distribution, and your balance, you could do anything, take down almost anyone.