by Jack Mars
“And with her, let’s see…” Castle scanned the cadets.
Please no. Please no. Please no.
“Calloway! Get up here.”
Dammit! She didn’t dare show a physical reaction, but inside she was cursing as Greg stepped forward to face her on the green mat.
She looked at his face. Met his gaze. He stared back at her, expressionless.
Part of her wanted to apologize right then and there, to say she was sorry, but she didn’t. She wouldn’t, because she wasn’t sorry.
“Anyone want to take a bet on this?” Castle asked casually, eliciting a few small laughs.
“I’ll put twenty on Lawson!” one of the cadets shouted.
“Trick question, Gilbert. There is no gambling in this academy. Now give me fifty.”
More laughter as the sharp-nosed cadet groaned and dropped into pushup position.
“Any time you’re ready,” Castle told them.
She had no choice. She squared up across from Greg, a slight bend in her knees as they took the starting stance—one hand on the opponent’s shoulder and the other cradling just below their opposite elbow. Typically in a practice position like this, Castle would have them alternate, one executing a move while the other practiced technique of going with the throw and to the ground safely.
Typically.
“Ladies first,” Greg said.
Maya nodded. She kept her eyes on him as she began to shift her weight. In the instant just before she started to take his balance, she saw the flash of a smirk cross his face.
Then he stepped forward suddenly, pushing her backward hard, forcing her to briefly go on one foot to keep from falling over. She wasn’t at all prepared for it. He swung out his left leg and, with a swift kick to her calf, swept the foot from beneath her.
She fell flat onto her back on the mat. It didn’t hurt, though it knocked the wind from her and her calf would no doubt be bruised.
A few snickers arose from the gathered cadets. Castle frowned, but said nothing. It wasn’t a move he had taught them; it was a cheap shot.
Maya got to her feet. She said nothing and showed no emotion. Instead she simply got back into position. Greg did too, though she could tell he was trying not to smile.
She started to push him back again, adjusting her weight, but this time he went completely rigid, every muscle going taut, and shoved her sideways. As she lost her balance, he snaked one arm low, in her groin, and the other hand clamped on her shoulder.
Then he lifted her clear off the mat. For a moment she was in the air, legs over her head. Then Greg twisted around and threw her to the ground in a body slam.
It hurt that time, even with the mat. The impact rattled her whole body. A few of the cadets actually groaned aloud, and one of them said, “Looks like Gilbert’s gonna be out twenty bucks.”
“Calloway!” Castle barked. “This ain’t the WWE.”
“Sorry, sir.” But with his back to Castle, Greg grinned down at her. “Bet that hurt,” he said quietly.
Okay. She rose once again. If that’s how it’s going to be.
Maya squared up once more, but this time she looked past him, to Castle. The sergeant gave her a furtive, almost imperceptible nod.
She grabbed onto Greg’s shoulder and opposite elbow, and he did the same.
“Go ahead,” he whispered harshly, scowling at her. “Try something. See what hap—”
Maya yanked his elbow down, bending her knees and dropping her body weight with it. Greg’s body jerked to one side, dangerously off-kilter. She swung one leg up, high, high enough to get over his head, and hooked his neck with her calf. She kept going, using her momentum and Greg’s downward motion to spin him and get her leg fully around his neck, twisting her spine and arcing her leg in a way that none of these boys could ever hope to. Then she leaned backward as she yanked one of his arms up, and she leaned back, pulling her weight and Greg’s body with her as she sat on her butt.
As she hit the mat, Greg’s neck was pinched tightly between her legs, one arm awkwardly stuck in there with it. She quickly brought her other leg around and locked her ankles.
Then she squeezed.
Greg made a choking sound as the crook of her knee cut off his air. A few of the cadets cheered; one of them whistled loudly.
“What’s the matter?” she whispered under the din. “Can’t breathe?”
His free arm reached for the mat to tap out. No. She twisted her hips and kept his arm from reaching the ground.
Her calf, the one right in Greg’s face, had thin white scars running its length. Though they had long since healed, they would never fully fade. The letters R-E-D. A number, 23. And then more letters: P-O-L-A.
“See those?” she whispered to Greg. He let out another choke. “You never asked me where they came from. What they meant.” It was the message she had carved into herself to let her dad know what train the human traffickers had put her sister on. But in Greg’s ear, close enough that only he could hear it she hissed, “I see them every day. That’s my constant reminder that people far worse than you couldn’t get the best of me. You’re nobody. Don’t forget that.”
“All right, Lawson,” said Castle casually. “Let him up before he turns blue.”
She released him and rolled away. Greg sucked in a breath, his face nearly purple, blotchy and ugly, eyes bloodshot and moist.
A few of the cadets chuckled.
Greg scrambled to his feet and spun on the group angrily. “You think that’s funny?!” he shouted hoarsely. He spun on Maya. “You’re just a whore!”
“That’s enough, cadet!” Castle barked sternly. He stepped forward and put one hand flat on Greg’s chest. The boy wilted immediately, despite being several inches taller than the sergeant. “If I hear that word again, I’ll let her choke you out. You understand me?”
“Yes, sir,” Greg said meekly.
“Now get the hell out of my gym. Go.”
Greg shot one more glare at her and then sulked away. She’d pay for that in some way, she was sure, but for now it was worth it to see him humiliated in front of his peers. She couldn’t believe she’d nearly let herself fall for him; now she could see him for what he really was.
“You okay, Lawson?” the sergeant asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.” Castle paused before saying, “I didn’t teach you that move. Where’d you learn it?”
Maya hadn’t even given it a second thought, but the sergeant was right. He hadn’t taught her that.
“My dad,” she murmured. “He taught it to me.” She remembered the day well, more than a year and a half ago now. Her dad had discovered that she was secretly taking a self-defense course after classes at Georgetown. He had insisted that if she wanted to learn, she would learn from him. They practiced in the basement of their house in Alexandria with a few thin foam mats on the floor.
I can’t, she had told him when he showed her the takedown. I can’t do that.
You can’t? His smile. She remembered his smile. How long had it been since she’d seen it? Then he had asked her: What’s the square root of five hundred twenty-nine?
Twenty-three. She knew it without skipping a beat.
Uh-huh. And who ruled England during the Hundred Years’ War?
The House of Plantagenet. Then she’d scoffed. She knew what he was doing.
Still he smiled and asked, How did you know that?
I learned.
Right. You learned, and you memorized, and you practiced until it was just instinct. Why is this any different?
“Lawson.” She snapped out of her own head as Castle raised an eyebrow toward her. “You with us?”
“Yeah. I mean, yes sir.”
“Why don’t you take five?”
She didn’t want to take five. She wanted to tell him that she didn’t need to take five. She didn’t need his sympathy or his help. She didn’t need anyone’s help. But she couldn’t say any of that.
Instead she said, “If i
t’s all the same to you, sir, I’d like to actually get some practice in.”
Castle stared at her pointedly for a moment, and then nodded. “All right then. Who’s up next?” He turned to the gathered cadets at the edge of the mat.
But suddenly they all seemed very interested in the floor.
CHAPTER TEN
It was just a little after nine-thirty at night by the time Zero got to the movie theater, where Sanders told him he would liaise with the interpreter. But he didn’t need to go into auditorium 8 to know that she wasn’t there.
The parking lot was crawling with police cruisers, lights flashing as they evacuated the cineplex and tried to get people to go home. But a small crowd had formed of disgruntled patrons whose movies had been interrupted. Some were demanding refunds while others were clamoring to find out what was going on.
Zero edged closer, around the crowd, catching brief snippets of conversation as he did.
“…heard someone got shot in the parking lot…”
“…those were gunshots? I thought it was thunder…”
“…kids say they saw a woman get kidnapped…”
Near the box office, two officers were setting up sawhorses to keep the crowd away from the doors while another pair of uniformed cops was talking to a teenage boy with two friends behind him.
“You asked me what I saw, and I’m telling you!” the kid insisted. “Some guys in suits took a lady away. They had her cuffed and they had a gun on her and everything.”
“I think you’ve been watching too many action movies, kid,” said one of the cops. “Every other eyewitness is saying it was shots fired from a moving car.”
“Most likely gang-related,” said the other officer. “An initiation or something like it. No one was hit.” He leaned toward the teen and added, “No one was taken. You hear me?”
The teenager scoffed and walked away, followed by his two friends. Zero pushed through the crowd and followed them out to the dark parking lot. He knew exactly what was happening; the authorities were already covering it up, gaslighting anyone who claimed to have seen what they saw. He’d used the tactic himself a few times.
“Total bullshit,” he heard the kid saying. “I know what I saw…”
“Hey.” He trotted up to them. “I believe you.”
The three kids stopped and glanced at each other. The one who had been talking to the police, a skinny kid with spiked hair, spoke up. “You a cop?”
“No. I’m a friend of the woman who was taken. I need to find her.”
The teenager eyed him suspiciously. “If that’s true, why don’t you go talk to the cops? Maybe they’ll believe you.”
Zero shook his head. “Can’t do that.” He wasn’t CIA anymore; there was no need to be discreet. “They’re trying to cover it up so no one thinks anyone was kidnapped. The guys in suits are in on it. So are the police. Others too.”
“For real?”
“For real. So I need you to tell me what you saw. Every detail you remember.”
The teen looked to his two friends. One of them shrugged. The other one nodded. “Yeah. All right. We were coming out of the movies, and we saw—”
“From where?”
The kid pointed. “Those doors. Walking towards Ben’s car. This is Ben.” He nodded towards his friend. “He’s parked over there. Anyways, we were walking, and we heard the shots—”
“How many shots?”
“One,” said the kid.
“Two,” said Ben.
“Two,” confirmed the third friend. “There were two shots.”
“Was she hit?”
“Nah. She was running. Staying low.” The kid told him about her coming around the corner, being handcuffed, getting knocked down, and then dragged away by four men in suits. “And one other guy. He was in a black shirt and his nose was all bloody.”
He had them describe what Karina was wearing, and which direction she’d been running from. Then he slipped them a fifty-dollar bill. “Don’t tell anyone what you’ve told me,” he said gravely. “It could put you and your families in danger.” And then before the kid could ask he added, “For real.”
Across the parking lot he examined the asphalt, hoping to find something, anything that might lend a clue to what had happened to Karina or where she had been taken. He knew what kinds of places people were put when they had information they didn’t want to give up. There was nothing pleasant about them.
The lot began to empty as the cops slowly won their battle with the crowd, sending people home and assuring them that the movie theater would reverse transactions for the interrupted showings. A few people passed him here and there, but no one paid him any attention, even as he scrutinized the ground around him like someone who had dropped their wallet.
Then he spotted it.
Headlights blared and a car horn honked as he nearly stepped right out in front of someone trying to leave. Watch yourself, he warned. It seemed his instincts were not as keen as they once were.
He stooped and picked up the silk scarf, turning it in his hands. He sniffed it; it smelled like shampoo. Someone had been wearing it over their hair. He used the flashlight on his cell phone to inspect the ground around it and saw a line of spattered blood only a few feet away.
Those kids mentioned a man with a bloody nose. The picture was coming together. Karina was jumped here. She struggled as they cuffed her. She dropped her scarf. Struck one of them in the face. Ran for it. Got caught.
“But why did you come out here in the first place?” he murmured aloud. Sanders said the interpreter would be in the theater waiting for him. Did they find her and force her to follow them out to the parking lot? Wouldn’t she have struggled and caused a scene, rather than go willingly?
It didn’t matter much now. Karina had been taken, and he had no idea to where. He had no way to find her. He felt a deep pang of guilt; he’d been too late. If he had arrived just a little earlier, he could have helped her. She needed him, and he failed before he even began.
He was about to make the difficult call to Sanders and tell her so when footsteps caught his attention. He looked up to see a man in a dark suit approaching, a thin smile on his face. Zero knew the look; the guy was an agent, either FBI or Secret Service.
Zero looked around. Most of the cars had gone, and even some of the cops. The few who lingered were inside the movie theater lobby, visible through the glass doors, but they might as well have been a mile away for all the good they could (or would) do him.
“Hi, Zero,” the suited agent said as he drew near.
“Who?” he asked, feigning innocence.
It didn’t work. The Secret Service agent smiled wider. “What are you doing here?”
“Well, I was trying to watch Mountain Cabin Massacre,” he said casually. “But then the cops evacuated, so I’m just heading home.”
“Sure. What’s in your hand there?”
Zero opened his fist and showed him the silk scarf. “Don’t know. Just saw it here on the ground.”
“Uh-huh.” The agent shook his head a little, still smiling. “I thought they taught you to lie better than that.”
Zero tensed as the agent paced near him. If he was in for a fight, he wasn’t entirely certain how he would fare. It had been a long time, and the agent was not only younger but in much better shape.
“You don’t remember me,” the young agent said. “Why would you? But I was there, on the bridge that day. A year and a half ago, when you rescued President Pierson. I was one of the agents that thought you were a renegade. I even took a few shots at you.” The agent shrugged one shoulder. “Sorry about that.”
If he was telling the truth and still had a job, it meant the agent was clean, not a part of the conspiracy. Then why do I still feel like something is about to go down?
“Don’t worry about it. Water under the bridge.” Zero faked a smile of his own. “No pun intended.”
“Clever.” The agent ceased his pacing. “You know, that woman ask
ed for you. By name. And now here you are. Strange, right? So you want to tell me again what you’re doing here?”
“All right, you got me.” He’d have to try a different lie. “The CIA had a contact to the interpreter, a Russian who knew how to reach her. We set up a meeting here with the promise that we’d protect her in exchange for information. Take her to a safe house. Of course that was just a setup to get to her. But your boys seem to have gotten here first.”
“We sure did. Just one thing.” He narrowed his eyes. “We didn’t call the CIA in on this. And even if we did, I happen to know you’re not with them anymore.”
Zero scoffed at him. “You know ‘covert’ means secret, right? If you knew about it, then I wouldn’t be very good at my job. You can clear all this with my deputy director. She’ll tell you.” He regretted it as soon as he said it. Despite what was going on in their personal life, he knew Maria would go to bat for him—though he was blatantly jeopardizing her position.
“Yeah,” the agent agreed. “Let’s do that. Come on, we’re going for a ride.”
Headlights suddenly flicked on behind the agent, high beams, bright and blinding. Zero shielded his eyes with a hand as he cursed under his breath. He had walked right by that car and hadn’t noticed anyone in it.
I’m getting rusty in my old age.
“I drove here,” he told the agent. “I’ll follow you.”
“I’m not asking, Zero. I’m telling you to get in the car. Don’t make me use force.”
He weighed his options. He had no idea if he could take on the one agent by himself, let alone however many others were in the car. “Fine,” he said at last. “Lead the way.”
The agent directed him to the backseat of the black sedan, and then went around and sat beside him. In the front seat were two other men; the driver looked like Secret Service as well, but the passenger looked like some kind of mobster. His black hair was slicked back on his head, and he had a thick mustache over a frowning mouth and stubbled jaw. He wore an all-black suit with no tie.