by Jack Mars
I hope you remember, the letter continued, because what I’m going to tell you next is extremely important. Kent, before they sent me, the CIA wanted to bring you in, but you wouldn’t listen. It wasn’t just because of your warpath. There was something else, something you were close to finding—too close. I can’t tell you what it was because even I don’t know. You wouldn’t tell me, so it must have been heavy.
Whatever it was, it’s still there, locked away in your brain somewhere. If you ever need it, there is a way. The neurosurgeon that installed the implant, his name is Dr. Guyer. He was last practicing in Zurich. He could bring back everything, if you choose. Or he could suppress them all again, if you wanted to do that. The choice is yours. Godspeed, Zero. —Alan
Reid stared at the letter for a long moment, rereading it twice more before he fully grasped what Reidigger was telling him. He could bring it all back, if he wanted. He could know everything. Or he could suppress it again.
Neither of those choices was very appealing.
He had suppressed the memories once before out of desperation and necessity. There was no way he could return to ignorance after everything that had happened, especially if it meant compromising the safety of his daughters.
But remembering was an equally disturbing option. If he unlocked all of his memories as Kent Steele, would he return to being that person and fall back into old habits? Would Reid Lawson, or the personality that he had developed as Reid, cease to exist?
And most unnerving of all was Reidigger’s vague allusion to “something else.” Something he was close to finding. What if he remembered something that he wasn’t meant to remember—or something dangerous that Kent Steele had been so desperate to forget?
“All right, Dad,” he heard Maria say behind him. “Yup, see you real soon. Love you too.” As she ended the call, Reid folded the note and tucked it back into the envelope. She dropped into the seat beside him. “Everything okay?” she asked, noticing the envelope in his hand.
“Yeah.” He forced a smile. “Everything’s great.” His first instinct was to share the letter with her, but something in the back of his mind kept him from doing so. It was meant for him, and no one else. Besides, they had just gone through hell to solve one mystery. There was no immediate need to launch into a new one.
Instead he told her, “It was a farewell letter. I think he knew Amun was on his trail and wanted closure. I wish I could remember more of him; he seemed like a good guy.”
“The best,” Maria agreed quietly.
Before tucking the letter back into the bag, he took something else out—the photo of him and Reidigger standing in front of the fountain in Rome. It was well worn and creased down the center. In the picture, they were both smiling, and seemed very much at ease with each other.
I hope I do remember you someday, he thought. Alan had been a better friend to him than he could ever hope to have been in return, and he wanted to honor the man’s memory as best he could. He tucked the photo into the envelope, with the letter, and put it back in the bag.
The overhead intercom came to life as the pilot announced, “We’ll be landing in just a few minutes. Buckle in, Agents.”
With that brief statement, the eagerness suddenly returned and Reid forgot about the letter. He would be seeing his girls again in mere minutes.
He cleared his throat as the plane dipped in altitude. “So, uh, you’ll be heading back to Baltimore then?”
“Yeah. For the time being, until the next assignment.” She smiled. “It’ll be nice. I haven’t been home in a long time. What about you? Have they told you where you’re going yet?”
Director Mullen had informed him that regardless of whether or not he took their offer, the CIA would be relocating him and his girls. Other members of Amun might be aware of his address in New York and they didn’t want to take any chances.
“Alexandria,” he told her. “I’ll be taking an adjunct position at Georgetown.”
“Virginia, huh?” She shrugged. “You know, that’s only about an hour or so from me.”
He smiled. “I, uh… yeah. That’s close.” He looked at her gray eyes, her vibrant smile. She was more familiar to him now, and not just because of what they had been through in the last few days. It was like reuniting with a childhood friend after decades apart; the memories were fuzzy, perhaps even lost, but there was a closeness, a kinship—maybe more than that. Something bordering on intimacy.
She wanted him to say more, he could tell. Just ask her, his brain prodded his mouth.
“It, um, would be nice to see you again,” he offered.
She leaned over the aisle and kissed him, only briefly, but meaningfully. Her lips felt inviting and familiar against his.
“Definitely would be nice,” he said sheepishly.
“And, uh…” She paused a moment. “I know you’ve got a lot to do, and two girls to take care of. But it would be good to have you back.”
Reid glanced at the floor and nodded. She was right; he had a lot to do, and a lot to think about. But there was only one thing on his mind at the moment—no, two things, and they were both in the back of a black town car at that very moment, heading toward the airport to greet him. There would be time to weigh his options and sort things out later.
It was time to go home.
*
Maya didn’t even realize that her left knee was bouncing in anticipation. She was seated behind Agents Carver and Watson in the back of a sleek black luxury sedan with her sister beside her as they drove down the tarmac of a small runway at Dulles. There was a second black car driving parallel to them; she had no idea who might be in that one and the windows were tinted too dark to see. But it didn’t matter. They were about to see their father, and then they would go finally home.
“You excited, Squeak?” she asked her sister.
Sara smiled wide and nodded eagerly. If her younger sister was at all affected by the events of the past week, she didn’t show it. She was resilient—and she hadn’t seen what Maya had witnessed.
The mostly-silent Agent Carver drove, with Watson in the passenger seat in front of them. He had been very kind to them the past few days that they had spent in the safe house. He made sure they were well fed and had everything they needed. Admittedly, Maya had gone a little stir-crazy at the safe house. They had to maintain the rules of no cell phones, no computers, and no tablets. There was, thankfully, a television—which meant that she was able to watch the news.
It was not at all lost on Maya that the two major international events, first the false alarm at the Winter Olympics and then the explosion at Davos, both occurred in the same day, and that the very next afternoon their father had announced his homecoming.
That fact, combined with the safe house, the armed guards, the two men that had assaulted them on the boardwalk, and Watson’s honorific of “Agent” meant that Maya had put together a pretty good idea of what her father might have been spirited away for. At least, she believed she did, but she didn’t try to vocalize it or even ask any questions. She was smart enough to know that none of the men protecting them would give her an honest answer.
The one conclusion that she had definitively come to, however, in the time spent at the safe house, was that she was not okay. She had been nearly kidnapped, threatened with a gun, had a knife held to her throat, and witnessed two men and an innocent woman shot dead.
Despite how jubilant she was that her dad was coming home alive and well, there were some things they would have to discuss. She felt he owed her that much.
“Hey, take a look!” Agent Watson pointed upward, through the windshield, as a small white twin-engine jet descended from the sky toward them.
Sara craned her neck and her smile grew. “Is that him?”
“That’s him,” Watson confirmed.
Maya felt a tinge of nervous excitement run down her spine. The wheels of the Cessna touched down gently a few hundred yards from them, and it taxied a short distance down the runway. The tw
o black sedans slowed as they approached the plane.
The door swung open from the inside and a short set of steel stairs were lowered by a man in a white uniform shirt—presumably the pilot—as Agent Carver stopped the car and parked.
At first, no one emerged. Neither of the girls moved from their seats, though Sara squirmed anxiously. Then a shape filled the doorway… but it wasn’t their father. It was a woman—a tall, stunning woman with blonde hair cascading around her shoulders and, curiously, her right arm in a white sling. She exited the plane and strode quickly toward the other waiting black car. She pulled open the rear passenger-side door, but just before entering the vehicle, she glanced over at their car and flashed a warm smile. Maya didn’t think the woman could see beyond the tinted windows—could she?
Then she got in, closed the door, and the other black car departed almost immediately. Maya was so confused by the beautiful woman and her strange smile that she didn’t even notice the plane’s other passenger disembarking until Sara tapped her suddenly on the shoulder and pointed.
“Maya, look!” she practically shrieked. Sara turned to Agent Watson. “Can we…?”
“Of course.” Watson grinned. “What are you waiting for?”
The girls leapt out of the car, leaving both rear doors open as they ran to him.
“Daddy!” Sara jumped into his arms and he caught her, squeezing her tightly and swinging her back and forth.
“God, it’s so good to hug you again,” he said, his voice muffled as he buried his cheek in her hair. He held Sara for several seconds, and then set her down and turned to Maya.
His wide smile faded.
She had run for him, same as her sister, but she stopped a few paces short and simply stared. Over the last few days, she had spent a lot of time imagining what their reunion might be like, particularly at night as she was trying to fall asleep. Sometimes she dreamed about it. But she had never expected this.
One side of his face was badly bruised, the eye still purple and swollen. There was a butterfly bandage across his forehead and a larger one at his neck. He was clearly limping on one knee, and his left hand was wrapped in thick, mitten-like gauze.
His expression slackened. He knew exactly what she was thinking. “Maya…” he started.
He had very clearly been in danger, which meant that they too had been in real danger. The reality of it, his bandages and bruises and limp, struck her hard.
She tried to keep the tears at bay, but she couldn’t. All of her emotions came bubbling to the surface, all at once—not just her joy at seeing her father alive, but her alarm at seeing him in such a state, the fear she had squelched so she could keep her sister safe, the horror of seeing the scene at the boardwalk. All of it came on like a burst dam, as if her brain had decided it was finally safe to relent, and the tears came liberally.
Her father wrapped her in a hug and held her. He didn’t say anything—he didn’t have to. He just held her as she sobbed into his shoulder.
“Hey,” he said at last. His voice cracked. “I’m here now.” He squeezed her again and told her, “It’s going to be okay.”
She wanted to tell him that it wasn’t okay, that it never would be okay… but right then, in that moment, it felt like it almost might be.
Maya sniffled and took a step back to wipe her eyes. She laughed at herself a little—she had always felt self-conscious about crying in front of anyone, even her dad.
“We have a lot to talk about,” she said.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “We do.”
Her dad put one arm around her, and the other around Sara, and the three of them headed toward the waiting car. Somewhere, toward home.
NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER!
TARGET ZERO
(An Agent Steele Spy Thriller—Book #2)
“One of the best thrillers I have read this year.”
--Books and Movie Reviews (re Any Means Necessary)
In this follow up to book #1 (AGENT ZERO) in the Kent Steele spy series, TARGET ZERO (Book #2) takes us on another wild, action-packed ride across Europe as elite CIA agent Kent Steele is summoned to stop a biological weapon before it devastates the world—all while grappling with his own memory loss.
Life returns only fleetingly back to normal for Kent before he finds himself summoned by the CIA to hunt down terrorists and stop another international crisis—this one even more potentially devastating than the last. Yet with an assassin hunting him down, a conspiracy within, moles all around him and with a lover he can barely trust, Kent is setup to fail.
Yet his memory is quickly returning, and with it, flashes into the secrets of who he was, what he’d discovered—and why they are after him. His own identity, he realizes, may be the most perilous secret of all.
TARGET ZERO is an espionage thriller that will keep you turning pages late into the night.
“Thriller writing at its best.”
--Midwest Book Review (re Any Means Necessary)
Also available is Jack Mars’ #1 bestselling LUKE STONE THRILLER series (7 books), which begins with Any Means Necessary (Book #1), a free download with over 800 five star reviews!
TARGET ZERO
(An Agent Steele Spy Thriller—Book #2)
Jack Mars
Jack Mars is the USA Today bestselling author of the LUKE STONE thriller series, which includes seven books. He is also the author of the new FORGING OF LUKE STONE prequel series, comprising three books (and counting); and of the AGENT ZERO spy thriller series, comprising six books (and counting).
ANY MEANS NECESSARY (book #1), which has over 800 five star reviews, is available as a free download on Kobo!
Jack loves to hear from you, so please feel free to visit www.Jackmarsauthor.com to join the email list, receive a free book, receive free giveaways, connect on Facebook and Twitter, and stay in touch!
BOOKS BY JACK MARS
LUKE STONE THRILLER SERIES
ANY MEANS NECESSARY (Book #1)
OATH OF OFFICE (Book #2)
SITUATION ROOM (Book #3)
OPPOSE ANY FOE (Book #4)
PRESIDENT ELECT (Book #5)
OUR SACRED HONOR (Book #6)
HOUSE DIVIDED (Book #7)
FORGING OF LUKE STONE PREQUEL SERIES
PRIMARY TARGET (Book #1)
PRIMARY COMMAND (Book #2)
PRIMARY THREAT (Book #3)
AN AGENT ZERO SPY THRILLER SERIES
AGENT ZERO (Book #1)
TARGET ZERO (Book #2)
HUNTING ZERO (Book #3)
TRAPPING ZERO (Book #4)
FILE ZERO (Book #5)
RECALL ZERO (Book #6)