Agent Zero

by Jack Mars

  “Yeah. Maybe.” Reid smiled. “And don’t think for a second I’ve forgotten what you said up in that steeple.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said coyly.

  “No? Do I need to refresh your memory…?”

  She scoffed. “I was stalling a terrorist, Kent. It’s called subterfuge. You used to know what that meant.”

  “Yeah, and apparently you used to love me.”

  Maria blushed fiercely. “I… yeah. Maybe. Though I think… I think we were both different people then.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed quietly. The tension in the air grew thick, so he quickly changed the subject. “But no more secrets, all right? Not between us. I think I can safely say that aside from my girls, you might be the only person in the world I feel I can trust. I’d like to keep it that way.”

  “Agreed.” Maria winced. “But… can I get away with just one more little secret?”

  Reid smirked. “What now?”

  She reached into her back pocket and pulled out a folded white envelope. “I didn’t tell you about this before because I wasn’t sure if you were telling the truth. And then we got separated, and then… well, you know.”

  “What is it?”

  “A few weeks ago, this came in the mail to the safe house in Rome. It was sent by Alan Reidigger. He didn’t know that I was there.” She slid the envelope across the table to him. “It’s yours. I haven’t opened it.”

  Reid unfolded the envelope. Sure enough, it was addressed to him—c/o Reid Lawson was written on the front, along with the address to the apartment in Rome. He turned it over and saw that on the back flap were six words, neatly written in small letters: In the event of my death.

  Maria was right. The envelope was still sealed.

  “I bet you might find a few answers in there,” she said.

  Reid turned the envelope over in his hands. He very much wanted answers—but at the same time, he wasn’t sure he’d like them. It didn’t feel like the right time to open it, not there, sitting in a conference room.

  He wasn’t sure it would ever be the right time.

  The door swung open and Deputy Director Cartwright entered, carrying a brown file folder. Reid folded the envelope and stuck it in his pocket. Later, he thought.

  “Agents,” Cartwright greeted tightly. “We did a good thing today.” Even as he said it, he did not look pleased.

  Maria frowned. “You’re sending some mixed signals, sir.”

  “There’s still a lot of confusion,” Cartwright said. “A lot of people want to ask you a lot of questions. Not just the CIA, but Internal Affairs, the Swiss government, the National Security Council, possibly even Interpol. The most important thing we can do right now is be completely honest about the events of the last five days.”

  Both agents nodded their agreement.

  “There’s more,” said Cartwright. “I have strong reason to believe that the mole within the CIA is Steve Bolton.”

  The name barely registered any effect in Reid—he had only heard it in passing as another official within the CIA—but Maria looked up sharply. “How can you know?” she asked.

  “I had my suspicions earlier, when we sent Carver and Watson for your girls,” Cartwright explained. “Bolton was the only one I told, and the terrorist identified himself as Agent Watson. But I didn’t act on it; I wasn’t sure, and to make an accusation like that with so little evidence would not have reflected well on me if it wasn’t true.” He shook his head. “I should have gone with my instinct then.”

  “It’s not too late…” Maria offered.

  “Bolton is missing,” the deputy director told them. “He went to lunch just before the attack on Davos, and never returned. His cell phone was found about a block from a bar he liked. No one has seen or heard from him.”

  “Then that’s it,” said Reid. “If he was supplying them with intel, then the leaks should stop.”

  “We can only hope, Zero.” The deputy director shook his head. “I’d really like to consider today a win—and for all intents and purposes, it was. But we may still have problems in the agency, and Amun is still out there.”

  “True,” Reid agreed, “but Amun has made a fatal flaw.” He turned to Maria. “Remember your analogy back in Rome, about their chain? Someone to the left and someone to the right? We’ve broken their chain. We have the bomber, the German doctor, and the real sheikh. Rais is dead, and so is the Egyptian. They’re disrupted. I don’t know how long that’ll last, but hopefully long enough for us to get a jump on them.”

  “Us?” Maria asked.

  Reid bit his lip. With everything that had happened, he hadn’t really given any thought to what would happen next. Strange, he thought, that his instinct was to continue on, keep going. If he thought about it for even a moment, all he really wanted was to get home to his daughters.

  “Johansson, would you give us a minute?” Cartwright asked.

  “Of course.” Maria rose and left the conference room.

  Once she was gone, the deputy director took her seat across from Reid. He set the brown folder between them and folded his hands atop it.

  “I don’t like to mince words,” he said. “You’ve already been reinstated for this case. I’ve spoken to Directors Mullen and Hillis, and in light of what you’ve done, we can maintain that reinstatement—pending a psych eval, MRIs, a few other tests. You could come back, full-fledged.” Cartwright paused a moment. “Or, you could choose not to.” He tapped the brown folder with an index finger. “In here is your full debrief from this case. Once this mess is wrapped up, Zero’s files have to go somewhere. Either the archives… or the active database.”

  Reid was silent for a long moment. He desperately missed his quiet life with his girls, their game nights, his lectures and classes… but on the other hand, he found himself yearning for the thrill of the chase, the feel of cold steel in his hand, and the exhilaration he got from the recoil of a gun.

  “Thanks,” Reid said, “but I think I need some time. I’m not sure if I’m ready for that. I still need to figure out who I am.”

  Cartwright chuckled. “You haven’t realized that yet?” The deputy director leaned forward. “Don’t kid yourself into thinking you’re some big mystery, Zero. It’s quite simple. You are Reid Lawson. You were born as Reid Lawson. It’s not an alias. That’s why we never found you in our follow-up after your alleged death; we thought you were smart enough not to use your real name. Who would do that? Turns out you were hiding in plain sight all along.”

  Reid felt a wave of relief wash over him. He was Reid Lawson. His wife had been Kate Lawson. His children were Maya and Sara Lawson. That’s who they were, who he was.

  “But you’re also Kent Steele,” Cartwright said. “Yes, it’s an alias, made for your protection, but it’s no less who you are.”

  Reid nodded. “I understand. But until I regain my memories and sort them out, there still feels like there’s a Reid side and a Kent side. My brain is a bit of a mess.”

  “We… may have a guy that can help,” the deputy director said thoughtfully. “He’s a… well, I’m not sure how to describe him. He’s a tech guy—at least that’s his job description—but he’s very brilliant. A little strange, too, but brilliant. I know this is your head we’re talking about, but if anyone could figure this out, it’d be him. If you come back, you could sit with him. Maybe he could shed some light on what’s going on in your attic.” When Reid was silent, he continued, “Take some time. Figure it out. But don’t take too long. This offer won’t be on the table forever, and I’d hate to lose an asset like you.”

  Reid smirked. “Yesterday you told Director Hillis I was compromised.”

  Cartwright shrugged a shoulder. “Yeah, well, I guess I can be wrong sometimes.” He stood and buttoned his jacket. “Now come on, Zero. You’ve got a lot of questions to answer before we can get you home to your girls.”

  “Zero,” Reid repeated thoughtfully. “I suppose I’m that, too.”<
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  “Yes,” Cartwright agreed. “No matter what name you go by, or who anyone thinks you are, you’ll always be Agent Zero. Outside of a handful of people, no one will know what you did today. You’ve done it before, and no one knew. If you do it again, no one will know that either. It’s part of the job. Zero is nothing, nobody. Zero is a ghost.” With his hand on the door, he added quietly, “I suppose we all are.”

  EPILOGUE

  Three days after the explosion at Davos, a Cessna Citation X flew the transatlantic flight from Zurich Airport to Dulles International in Virginia. Inside the jet, Reid drummed his fingers against the leather armrest eagerly. The past few days had been grueling, seemingly endless hours of conferences, meetings, debriefings, telling and retelling his story over and over for various men in suits whose faces and names blurred together after a while.

  But he was finally going home.

  “Kent, you okay?” Maria sat beside him across the narrow aisle. “You look like a kid waiting for Christmas morning.”

  “Yeah.” He smiled. “I’m great. I’m just excited to see them again.” Even the Cessna’s seven-hundred-mile-per-hour top speed wasn’t nearly fast enough to get him home to his girls, and now that they were nearly there, his impatience grew exponentially. “You know, it’s funny,” he mused. “I’m kind of… nervous, actually. It feels like it’s been so long.”

  Maria grinned. She opened her mouth to reply, but her cell phone rang. “It’s my dad,” she said. “Probably wondering how close we are. Excuse me.” She rose from her seat and went to the rear of the cabin to answer it. “Hey, Dad. Yeah, almost home…”

  Reid’s fingers drummed again on the armrest. He didn’t even realize his left knee was bouncing in anticipation. I need to relax, he told himself. He grabbed the black nylon bag at his feet—Reidigger’s GOOD bag—and tugged it open, reaching for a bottle of water he’d stowed inside.

  His fingers brushed against something else. It was the still-sealed envelope addressed to him, from Alan, marked for the event of his death.

  Reid hadn’t opened it yet. There had been so much going on, and… and if he was being honest with himself, that was an excuse. He had some trepidation about reading its contents. He was concerned he might learn something about his past that he’d later regret. He also wanted to be alone when he read it, and the past few days had been a whirlwind of activity.

  He could hear Maria a short distance behind him, speaking with her father, recounting the meetings and conferences they’d had, and he knew he had some time to himself.

  No more excuses, he thought. No time like the present.

  He worked his thumb under the flap and tore the envelope open.

  He wasn’t sure what he had expected, but was a little surprised to find only a single sheet of paper in the envelope—and on it, a fairly short, neatly written letter in a familiar hand, the same handwriting he had seen once before on the note he found in Reidigger’s passport.

  Hey Zero, the letter began.

  If you’re reading this, I’m probably dead (or maybe you’re just really impatient). Either way, it means that you made it to the safe house, which means that things probably went sideways on us. I’m sorry about that. I want you to know that I only did what I felt I had to do.

  Before you read the rest of this, I need you to remember something. I need you to remember the Hohenzollern Bridge. The doc said that if the suppressor was ever removed, saying it aloud should help recall the memory, so go ahead. Give it a whirl. Then maybe the rest of this letter will make a little more sense.

  Reid blinked at the page for several seconds. He knew the Hohenzollern; it was a railway bridge in Germany that spanned the river Rhine. It was inaugurated in 1911 by Kaiser Wilhelm. He knew the facts, but he didn’t know the significance.

  “Hohenzollern Bridge,” he murmured aloud.

  A vision instantly flashed through his mind.

  It’s night. You stand on the footpath of the bridge, leaning against the railing and staring down at the darkness of the rushing river below. The eighty-foot drop would certainly injure, possibly even kill, the average person. But not you.

  If only.

  Footsteps approach. You glance up slowly, not the least bit surprised to see Alan Reidigger approaching. He’s cautious, moving slowly, apprehensive.

  “Hey, Zero,” he says. He’s trying to sound cheerful, but his voice is strained. “You’ve been busy.”

  Over his shoulder, about fifty yards down the footpath, is Agent Morris. Alan didn’t come alone.

  “Are you here to kill me, Alan?”

  Reidigger leans against the railing with his forearms, staring out alongside you.

  “Yes,” he says.

  That was nineteen months ago, Reid knew, almost to the day. That was after Kate’s death, after Kent’s vicious spree, after he was called back in by the CIA and chose to ignore it. Reidigger had found him in Cologne, Germany, and had come to him on the bridge. He told him he was there to kill him.

  “Yes,” he had said.

  They both stood there in silence for a long time, staring out over the water.

  “I found him,” Kent said finally. “The Amun assassin I was chasing. His name is Rais. I opened him up and left him to die.” He looked skyward. “Do you know what happened next?”

  Reidigger did know. “Nothing,” he said quietly.

  “That’s right. Nothing. I felt nothing. I got nothing out of it. No satisfaction. No vindication. No new leads. No direction.” Kent paused for a long moment. “Alan, I took this too far. I don’t think there’s any coming back.” He glanced over at his friend and added, “I assumed the agency would send someone. I just didn’t think it would be you.”

  “I volunteered,” Alan told him. “If anyone was going to do it, it was going to be me.”

  “And Morris?”

  “He’s here for backup, if I need it.”

  “You won’t,” Kent assured him. “I won’t move against you.”

  Alan sighed. “Kent, you’re damn foolish, you know that? You’ve been blinded by grief. Have you forgotten that you’ve got two girls at home? They love you. Their mother just died, and they haven’t seen their father in weeks. They need you. And frankly, you need them.”

  Kent looked up again, this time in confusion. “You said you were here to kill me.”

  “I am,” said Alan, “in a manner of speaking. I’m here to kill Kent Steele.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You say there’s no coming back, but I don’t think that’s true,” Alan explained. “Listen to me carefully. The CIA has been developing a highly experimental device—a microchip that is capable of suppressing memory. I’m pretty sure I can get my hands on a prototype.”

  “Memory suppression? Alan, what the hell are you talking about?”

  “Before I was a field agent, I worked in R&D. I saw some things. I’ve still got friends there. This chip is tiny, no bigger than a grain of rice. If I can get to it, I know a neurosurgeon in Zurich that will install it, no questions asked. We can suppress these memories, Kent. You’ll forget about the assassin and the Fraternity. You’ll forget you ever worked for the CIA. You would have no memory of being Zero. You’ll go and live a quiet life with your girls somewhere. I’ve plotted a lot of it out. But I need your help—and obviously, your head.”

  Kent was struck speechless. He had heard the stories, of course; legend had it that the CIA had been experimenting with the human brain for decades, but he had never seen anything legitimate come of it. He’d always chalked it up to urban myth.

  But if what Reidigger was saying was true, then… maybe it was possible to come back from all this.

  “You’ll need to say yes now,” Alan told him, “because I’m sure in a minute or two Morris is going to get impatient. He’s going to come down this way, and the only thing he’s got for you is a bullet.”

  “What if it doesn’t work? What if they find out?”

  Reidigger scoffed
lightly. “I don’t know, Kent,” he said impatiently. “Like I said, it’s experimental. And if the agency finds out, then they’ll kill you, and probably me too. We don’t have time to work out logistics. The only alternative is that you die on this bridge tonight.”

  Kent thought of his girls. Strange, it had felt like so long since he’d thought of them, and he was suddenly aware of how much they needed him, how scared they probably were. He had sent them to New York to stay with Kate’s sister, and he hadn’t so much as called them in a while. They needed him—and he needed them.

  “Thank you, Alan.”

  “Thank me later. Meet me in Zurich. You know the place,” Alan said. “Then there’s just one more thing.”

  Alan pulled out his gun and pointed it at Kent. “I need you to fall.” He fired once.

  The bullet missed him by less than two inches, whizzing so close to his ear that he felt a breeze from it. Kent staggered against the railing and tipped over the side.

  A bridge. Darkness. Water rushing far below. The sensation of falling…

  Reid took a deep breath. The memory had been so vivid, so lucid, that it was like he was there. He had to remind himself that he was on the Cessna, en route to the United States and his girls.

  He touched the scar on his neck where the memory suppressor had been torn from him. He had done this willingly, for his girls—and for himself, to end his self-destructive warpath. Suddenly the words from Reidigger’s note, the one he had found in Zurich, made a lot more sense: If you’re reading this, it’s because what we did came back to bite us in the ass. I always thought it might, which is why I’ve been carrying this around ever since.

  Reidigger had suspected that the suppressor might not last forever, or that someone would find out that Kent Steele was still out there—and he had planned for it. He had risked his life to help his friend. He had died for his friend. And even after his death he had continued to help keep his friend Zero alive.

  Reid opened the letter once more. There were two more paragraphs below the memory trigger of the bridge.