Target Zero (An Agent Zero Spy Thriller—Book #2)

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FOUR

Reid was barely out of the driveway on his way to meet with Maria before he called Thompson to ask him to keep watch on the Lawson home. “I decided to give the girls a little independence tonight,” he explained. “I won’t be gone too long. But even so, keep an eye out and an ear to the ground?”

“Sure thing,” the old man agreed.

“And, uh, if there’s any cause for alarm, of course, head right over.”

“I will, Reid.”

“You know, if you can’t see them or something, you can knock on the door, or call the house phone…”

Thompson chuckled. “Don’t worry, I got it. And so do they. They’re teenagers. They need some space now and then. Enjoy your date.”

With Thompson’s watchful eye and Maya’s determination to prove herself responsible, Reid thought he could rest easy knowing the girls would be safe. Of course, part of him knew that was just another example of his mental gymnastics. He’d be thinking about it the whole night.

He had to bring the GPS map up on his phone to find the place. He wasn’t yet familiar with Alexandria or the area, though Maria was, thanks to its proximity to Langley and CIA headquarters. Even so, she had chosen a place that she had never been to before either, likely as a way to level the playing field, so to speak.

On the drive over, he missed two turns despite the GPS voice telling him which way to go and when. He was thinking of the strange flashback he’d now had twice—first when Maya asked if Kate knew about him, and again when he smelled the cologne that his late wife had loved. It was gnawing at the back of his mind, so much so that even when he tried to pay attention to the directions he quickly grew distracted again.

The reason it was so bizarre was that every other memory of Kate was so vivid in his mind. Unlike Kent Steele, she had never left him; he remembered meeting her. He remembered dating. He remembered vacations and buying their first home. He remembered their wedding and the births of their children. He even remembered their arguments—at least he thought he did.

The very notion of losing any part of Kate shook him. The memory suppressor had already proved to have some side effects, like the occasional headache spurned by a stubborn memory—it was an experimental procedure, and the method of removal was far from surgical.

What if more than just my past as Agent Zero had been taken from me?

He didn’t like the thought at all. It was a slippery slope; before long he was considering the possibility that he might have lost memories of times with his girls as well. And even worse was that there was no way for him to know the answer to that without restoring his full memory.

It was all too much, and he felt a fresh headache coming on. He switched on the radio and turned it up in an attempt to distract himself.

The sun was setting by the time he pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant, a gastropub called The Cellar Door. He was a few minutes late. He quickly got out of the car and trotted around to the front of the building.

Then he stopped in his tracks.

Maria Johansson was third-generation Swedish-American, and her CIA cover was that of a certified public accountant from Baltimore—though Reid thought it should have been as a cover model, or maybe a centerfold. She was an inch or two shy of his five-eleven height, with long, straight blonde hair that cascaded around her shoulders effortlessly. Her eyes were slate-gray, yet somehow intense. She stood outside in the fifty-five-degree weather in a simple navy-blue dress with a plunging V neck and a white shawl over her shoulders.

She spotted him as he approached and a smile grew on her lips. “Hey. Long time no see.”

“I… wow,” he blurted. “I mean, uh… you look great.” It occurred to him that he had never seen Maria in makeup before. The blue eye shadow matched her dress and made her eyes seem nearly luminescent.

“Not so bad yourself.” She nodded approvingly at his choice of apparel. “Should we go in?”

Thanks, Maya, he thought. “Yeah. Of course.” He grabbed the door for her and pulled it open. “But before we do, I have a question. What the hell is a ‘gastropub’?”

Maria laughed. “I think it’s what we used to call a dive bar, but with fancier food.”

“Got it.”

Inside was cozy, if not a bit small, with brick interior walls and exposed wood beams in the ceiling. The lighting was hanging Edison bulbs, which provided a warm, dim ambience.

Why am I nervous? he thought as they were seated. He knew this woman. Together they had stopped an international terrorist organization from murdering hundreds, if not thousands, of people. But this was different; it wasn’t an op or a mission. This was pleasure, and somehow that made all the difference.

Get to know her, Maya had told him. Be interesting.

“So, how’s work?” he ended up asking. He groaned internally at his halfhearted attempt.

Maria smiled with half her mouth. “You should know I can’t really talk about that.”

“Right,” he said. “Of course.” Maria was an active CIA field agent. Even if he was active too she wouldn’t be able to share details of an op unless he was on it with her.

“How about you?” she asked. “How’s the new job?”

“Not bad,” he admitted. “I’m adjunct, so it’s part-time for now, a few lectures a week. Some grading and whatnot. But it’s not terribly interesting.”

“And the girls? How are they doing?”

“Eh… they’re coping,” Reid said. “Sara doesn’t talk about what happened. And Maya actually was just…” He stopped himself before he said too much. He trusted Maria, but at the same time he didn’t want to admit that Maya had guessed, very accurately, what it was that Reid was involved in. His cheeks turned pink as he said, “She was teasing me. About this being a date.”

“Isn’t it?” Maria asked point-blank.

Reid felt his face flush anew. “Yeah. I guess it is.”

She smirked again. It seemed she was enjoying his awkwardness. In the field, as Kent Steele, he had proven he could be confident, capable, and collected. But here, in the real world, he was just as awkward as anyone might be after nearly two years of celibacy.

“What about you?” she asked. “How are you holding up?”

“I’m good,” he said. “Fine.” As soon as he said it, he regretted it. Had he not just learned from his daughter that honestly was the best policy? “That’s a lie,” he said immediately. “I guess I haven’t been doing that great. I keep myself busy with all these unnecessary tasks, and I make excuses, because if I stop long enough to be alone with my thoughts, I remember their names. I see their faces, Maria. And I can’t help but think that I didn’t do enough to stop it.”

She knew exactly what he was referring to—the nine people who had been killed in the single successful explosion set off by Amun in Davos. Maria reached over the table and took his hand. Her touch sent an electric tingle up his arm, and even seemed to calm his nerves. Her fingers were warm and soft against his.

“That’s the reality we face,” she said. “We can’t save everyone. I know you don’t have all your memories back as Zero, but if you did, you would know that.”

“Maybe I don’t want to know that,” he said quietly.

“I get it. We still try. But to think that you can keep the world safe from harm will make you crazy. Nine lives were taken, Kent. It happened, and there’s no way to go back. But it could have been hundreds. It could have been a thousand. That’s the way you need to look at it.”

“What if I can’t?”

“Then… find a good hobby, maybe? I knit.”

He couldn’t help but laugh. “You knit?” He couldn’t imagine Maria knitting. Using knitting needles as a weapon to cripple an insurgent? Certainly. But actually knitting?

She held her chin high. “Yes, I knit. Don’t laugh. I just made a blanket that’s softer than anything you ever felt in your whole life. My point is, find a hobby. You need something to keep your hands and mind busy. What about your memory? Any improvements there?”

He sighed. “Not really. I guess I haven’t had much going on to jog it. It’s still kind of jumbled.” He set the menu aside and wrung his hands on the tabletop. “Although, since you mention it… I did have something strange happen just earlier today. A fragment of something came back. It was about Kate.”

“Oh?” Maria bit her lower lip.

“Yeah.” He was quiet for a long moment. “Things with Kate and me… before she passed. They were okay, right?”

Maria stared straight at him, her slate-gray eyes boring into his. “Yes. As far as I know, things were always great between you two. She really loved you, and you her.”

He found it hard to hold her gaze. “Yeah. Of course.” He scoffed at himself. “God, listen to me. I’m actually talking about my late wife on a date. Please don’t tell my daughter.”

“Hey.” Her fingers found his again across the table. “It’s okay, Kent. I get it. You’re new to this and it feels strange. I’m not exactly an expert here either, so… we’ll figure it out together.”

Her fingers lingered on his. It felt good. No, it was more than that—it felt right. He chuckled nervously, but his grin faded to a perplexed frown as a bizarre notion struck him; that Maria still called him Kent.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Nothing. I was just thinking… I don’t even know if Maria Johansson is your real name.”

Maria shrugged coyly. “It might be.”

“That’s not fair,” he protested. “You know mine.”

“I’m not saying it isn’t my real name.” She was enjoying this, toying with him. “You can always call me Agent Marigold, if you prefer.”

He laughed. Marigold was her code name, to his Zero. It was almost a silly thing to him, to use code names when they knew each other personally—but then again, the name Zero did seem to strike fear into many he’d encountered.

“What was Reidigger’s code name?” Reid asked quietly. It almost stung him to ask. Alan Reidigger had been Kent Steele’s best friend—no, Reid thought, he was my best friend—a man of seemingly unyielding loyalty. The only problem was that Reid barely remembered anything about him. All memories of Reidigger had gone with the memory implant, which Alan had helped coordinate.

“You don’t remember?” Maria smiled pleasantly at the thought. “Alan gave you the name Zero, did you know that? And you gave him his. God, I haven’t thought about that night in years. We were in Abu Dhabi, I think, just coming off an op, drunk at some hoity-toity hotel bar. He called you ‘Ground Zero’—like the point of a bomb’s detonation, because you tended to leave a mess behind you. That shortened up to just Zero, and it stuck. And you called him—”

A phone rang, interrupting her story. Reid instinctively glanced at his own cell, lying on the table, expecting to see the house number or Maya’s cell displayed on the screen.

“Relax,” she said, “it’s me. I’ll just ignore it…” She looked at her phone and her brow knitted perplexedly. “Actually, that’s work. Just a sec.” She answered. “Yes? Mm-hmm.” Her somber gaze lifted and met Reid’s. She held it as her frown grew deeper. Whatever was being said on the other end of the line was clearly not good news. “I understand. Okay. Thank you.” She hung up.

“You look troubled,” he noted. “I know, I know, you can’t talk about work stuff—”

“He escaped,” she murmured. “The assassin from Sion, the one in the hospital? Kent, he got out, less than an hour ago.”

“Rais?” Reid said in astonishment. Cold sweat immediately broke out on his brow. “How?”

“I don’t have details,” she said hastily as she stuffed her cell phone back into her clutch. “I’m so sorry, Kent, but I have to go.”

“Yeah,” he murmured. “I understand.” Truthfully, he felt a hundred miles away from their cozy table in the small restaurant. The assassin that Reid had left for dead—not once, but twice—was still alive, and now at large.

Maria rose and, before leaving, leaned over and pressed her lips to his. “We’ll do this again soon, I promise. But right now, duty calls.”

“Of course,” he said. “Go and find him. And Maria? Be careful. He’s dangerous.”

“So am I.” She winked, and then hurried out of the restaurant.

Reid sat there alone for a long moment. When the waitress came over, he didn’t even hear her words; he just waved vaguely to indicate that he was fine. But he was far from fine. He hadn’t even felt the nostalgic electric tingle when Maria kissed him. All he could feel was a knot of dread forming in his stomach.

The man who believed it was his destiny to kill Kent Steele had escaped.