Trapping Zero (An Agent Zero Spy Thriller—Book #4)

PROLOGUE Reid Lawson was exhausted, aching, and anxious. But above all else, he was confused. Less than twenty-four hours prior, he had succeeded in rescuing his two teenage daughters from the hands of Slovakian traffickers. In the process he had stopped two freight trains, inadvertently destroyed a very expensive prototype helicopter, killed eighteen men and severely injured more than a dozen others. Was it eighteen? He had lost count. Now he found himself handcuffed to a steel table in a small, windowless detention room, awaiting the news of what his fate would be. The CIA had warned him. The deputy directors told him what would happen if he defied their orders and struck out on his own. They were desperate to avoid another rampage like the one that had happened two years earlier. That’s what they called it—a “rampage.” A violent, bloody tear across Europe and the Middle East. This time it had been Eastern Europe, across Croatia and Slovakia and Poland. They had warned him, threatened him with what would happen. But Reid saw no other recourse. They were his daughters, his little girls. Now they were safe, and Reid had resigned himself to accept whatever end might be in store for him. In addition to the activity of the past several days and a severe lack of sleep, he’d been given painkillers after having his injuries treated. He had sustained a shallow stab wound in his abdomen from his fight with Rais, as well as thorough bruising, some superficial cuts and scrapes, a gash across one bicep where a bullet grazed him, and a mild concussion. Nothing serious enough to keep him from being detained. He wasn’t told his destination. He wasn’t told anything at all as three CIA agents, none of which he recognized, silently escorted him from the hospital in Poland to an airfield and onto a plane. He was, however, somewhat astonished when he arrived at Dulles International Airport in Virginia instead of the CIA black site Hell-Six in Morocco. A police cruiser had carried him from the airport to agency headquarters, the George Bush Center for Intelligence in the unincorporated community of Langley, Virginia. From there he was ushered into the steel-walled detention room on a lower level and handcuffed to a table that was bolted to the floor—all without any explanation whatsoever from anyone. Reid didn’t like the way the painkillers made him feel; his mind wasn’t fully alert. But he couldn’t sleep, not yet. Especially not in the uncomfortable position at the steel table, the handcuff chain threaded through a metal loop and tight around both his wrists. He’d been sitting in the room for forty-five minutes, wondering just what the hell was going on and why he hadn’t yet been tossed into a hole in the ground, when the door finally swung open. Reid stood immediately, or as much as he could while being handcuffed to the table. “How are my girls?” he asked quickly. “They’re fine,” said Deputy Director Shawn Cartwright. “Sit.” Cartwright was Reid’s boss—or rather, he had been Agent Zero’s boss, right up until Reid was disavowed for striking out to find his girls. In his mid-forties, Cartwright was relatively young to be a CIA director, though his thick, dark hair had begun to gray slightly. It was surely coincidence that it started right around the same time that Kent Steele had returned from the dead. Reid slowly lowered himself back into the seat as Cartwright took the chair across from him and cleared his throat. “Agent Strickland stayed with your daughters until Sara was discharged from the hospital,” the director explained. “They’re on a plane, the three of them, on their way home as we speak.” Reid breathed a short-lived sigh of relief—very short-lived, since he knew the proverbial hammer was about to fall. The door opened again, and anger spontaneously swelled in Reid’s chest as Deputy Director Ashleigh Riker entered the small room, wearing a gray pencil skirt and matching blazer. Riker was head of Special Operations Group, a faction of Cartwright’s Special Activities Division that handled covert international operations. “What’s she doing here?” Reid asked pointedly. His tone was not friendly. Riker, in his book, was not to be trusted. She took a seat beside Cartwright and smiled warmly. “I, Mr. Steele, have the distinct pleasure of telling you where you’ll be going now.” A knot of dread formed in his stomach. Of course Riker would take pleasure in doling his punishment; her disdain for Agent Zero and his tactics was hardly masked. Reid reminded himself that he had gotten his girls to safety, and he knew this was coming. It still didn’t make it any easier. “Okay,” he said calmly. “Then tell me. Where will I be going?” “Home,” Riker said simply. Reid’s gaze flitted from Riker to Cartwright and back again, unsure he had heard her correctly. “I’m sorry?” “Home. You’re going home, Kent.” She pushed something across the table. A small silver key slid over the polished surface to just within his grasp. It was a handcuff key. But he didn’t take it. “Why?” “I’m afraid I can’t say,” Riker shrugged. “The decision came from above our pay grade.” Reid scoffed. He was relieved, to say the least, to hear that he wouldn’t be thrown into a miserable pit like H-6, but this didn’t feel right to him. They had threatened him, disavowed him, and even sent two other field agents after him… only to set him loose again? Why? The painkillers he’d been given were numbing his thought process; his brain was unable to work out the kinks in what they were telling him. “I don’t understand…” “You’ve been away for the last five days,” Cartwright interrupted. “Conducting interviews, researching a history textbook you’re editing. We have names and contact information for several people that can corroborate the story.” “The man that committed the atrocities in Eastern Europe was confronted by Agent Strickland in Grodkow,” said Riker. “He was discovered to be a Russian expatriate masquerading as an American in an attempt to cause international strife between us and the Eastern Bloc nations. He drew on a CIA agent and was shot dead.” Reid blinked at the flood of false information. He knew what this was; they were giving him a cover story, the same one that would be issued to governments and law enforcement agencies around the world. But it couldn’t be that easy. Something was certainly amiss—starting with Riker’s bizarre smile. “I was disavowed,” he said. “I was threatened. I was ignored. I think I’m owed a little bit of an explanation here.” “Agent Zero…” Riker began. Then she chuckled slightly. “Sorry, old habit. You’re not an agent; not anymore. Kent, this wasn’t our decision to make. As I said, this comes from higher up. But the truth of the matter is, if we look at the sum and not the parts, that you eliminated an international human trafficking ring that has plagued the CIA and Interpol for six years now.” “You took out Rais and, presumably, the last of Amun with him,” Cartwright added. “Yes, you killed people,” Riker said. “But every one of them has been confirmed to have been a criminal—some of the worst of the worst. Murderers, rapists, pedophiles. As much as I hate to admit it, I have to agree with the decision that you did more good than harm.” Reid nodded slowly—not because he agreed with the logic, but because he realized his best course of action at the moment was to stop arguing, accept the pardon, and figure it out later. But he still had questions. “What do you mean I’m not an agent anymore?” Riker and Cartwright exchanged a glance. “You’re being transferred,” Cartwright told him. “That is, if you accept the job.” “The National Resources Division,” Riker chimed in, “is the CIA’s domestic wing. It’s still within the agency, but doesn’t require any field work. You’ll never have to leave the country, or your girls. You’ll recruit assets. Handle debriefs. Meet with diplomats.” “Why?” Reid asked. “Simply put—we don’t want to lose you,” Cartwright told him. “We’d rather have you onboard in another function than not with us at all.” “What about Agent Watson?” Reid asked. Watson had helped him find his girls; he had gathered equipment for him and gotten Reid out of the country when he needed to. As a result, Watson had been caught and detained for it. “Watson is on an eight-week medical leave for his shoulder,” Riker said. “I imagine he’ll be back as soon as he’s adequately healed up.” Reid raised an eyebrow. “And Maria?” She had helped him as well—even when her orders from the CIA were to apprehend Agent Zero. “Johansson is stateside,” said Cartwright. “She’s taking a few days’ respite before reassignment. But she’ll be heading back into the field.” Reid had to keep himself from visibly shaking his head. Something was definitely wrong with this—it wasn’t just him being pardoned. It was everyone associated with his latest rampage. But he also had the instinct that told him it wasn’t the time or place to argue about going home. There would be time for that later, when his brain wasn’t bogged down with sleep deprivation and painkillers. “So… that’s it then?” he asked. “I’m free to go?” “Free to go.” Riker smiled again. He didn’t at all like the look of it on her face. Cartwright looked at his watch. “Your daughters should be arriving at Dulles in about… two hours or so. There’s a car waiting for you if you want it. You can get yourself cleaned up, changed, and be there to greet them.” The two deputy directors rose from their seats and headed for the door. “Good to have you back, Zero.” Cartwright winked at him before he left. Alone in the room, Reid looked down at the silver handcuff key before him. He glanced up at the cameras mounted in the corners of the room. He was going home—but something was very, very wrong about that. * Reid hurried towards the parking garage at Langley, free of the cuffs and detention room—free of being a field agent. Free of fear of repercussion against those he loved. Free of a dirt hole in the ground at H-6. A startling notion struck him as he navigated through the gates and out onto the street. They could have simply thrown him in Hell-Six. They could have at least threatened him with it, held that black cloud of never seeing his family again over his head. But they didn’t. Because if they did, I would have every reason to talk, Reid reasoned. There’d be nothing to keep me from spilling everything if I thought I’d be spending the rest of my life in a hole. Though it felt like weeks ago, it had only been four days prior that a fragmented memory had returned to him; before the memory suppressor, Kent Steele had gathered intel about a pre-planned war that the US government was designing. He hadn’t told anyone about it, though he did disclose to Maria that he had remembered something that could spell a lot of trouble for a lot of people. Her advice had been simple and straightforward: You can’t trust anyone but yourself. He didn’t see it earlier, in the detention room with his fate in question and the painkillers addling his brain. But he saw it now. The agency knew that he knew something, but they didn’t know how much he knew—or how much he might remember. He wasn’t even sure how much he truly knew. He shook the thought from his head. Now that the questionable outcome of his future had been resolved, all of the tension drained from his shoulders and he found himself fatigued and aching, beneath which brewed a bubbling excitement at the thought of seeing his girls again. He had two hours before the girls’ plane landed. Two hours was more than enough time to go home, shower, get changed, and meet them. But he decided to forego all that and went straight to the airport instead. He didn’t really want to go back to the empty house alone. Instead he parked in the short-term lot at Dulles and entered through arrivals. He bought a coffee at a newsstand and sat in a plastic chair, sipping it slowly while a thousand thoughts spun in his head, none snagging long enough to be considered a conscious impression but each passing fleetingly before cycling back around like a whirlwind. He needed to call Maria, he decided. He needed to hear her voice. She would know what to say, and even if she didn’t there was something about talking to her that always seemed to remedy his ailing mind. Reid did not have his cell phone, but thankfully there were payphones in the airport, a growing rarity in the twenty-first century. Then he had no change to drop into the machine, so he dialed zero first and then the cell phone number that he knew by heart. There was no answer. The line rang four times before going to voicemail. He didn’t leave one. He wasn’t sure what to say. At long last the plane arrived and a procession of quick-walking passengers strode down the long corridor, past the gates and security checkpoint and either into the waiting arms of loved ones or hurrying on to baggage claim. Strickland saw him first. Agent Todd Strickland was young, twenty-seven, with a military-style fade cut and a thick neck. He carried himself with a gentle swagger that was somehow approachable yet authoritarian at the same time. Most importantly, Strickland did not appear at all surprised to see Reid; the CIA undoubtedly would have told him that Kent Steele had been released. He merely nodded once to Reid as he led the two teenage girls down the lengthy walkway. It seemed that Strickland had not told either of his daughters that he would be there upon their arrival, and for that Reid was grateful. Maya spotted him next, and though her legs kept moving her jaw fell slack in astonishment. Sara blinked twice, and then her lips spread wide in a genuinely elated smile. Despite her arm being in a cast and sling—she had broken her arm after taking a tumble out of a moving train—she ran to him. “Daddy!” Reid dropped to one knee and caught her in a tight embrace. Maya hurried over right after her younger sister, and the three of them held each other for a long moment. “How?” Maya whispered hoarsely in his ear. Both of the girls had been given plenty of reason to believe they wouldn’t see their father again for what might have been a long time. “We’ll talk later,” Reid promised. He released his grip on them and stood to face Strickland. “Thank you, for getting them home safely.” Strickland nodded and shook Reid’s hand. “Just keeping my word.” In Eastern Europe, Strickland and Reid had reached a strange sort of mutual understanding, and the younger agent had made the promise to keep the two girls safe, whether Reid was around or not. “I suppose I’ll get going,” he told them. “You two be good.” He grinned at the girls, and strode away from the small family. The ride home was short, only half an hour, and Sara made it feel even shorter with her uncharacteristic chatter. She told him how well Agent Strickland had treated them, and how the doctors in Poland let her pick her own color of cast for her arm, but she still chose the ordinary beige so that she could color it herself with markers. Maya sat oddly quiet in the passenger seat, every now and then glancing over her shoulder at her little sister and smiling briefly. Then they arrived at their home in Alexandria, and it was as if the front door was a vacuum for any cheerful or joyous thoughts. The mood turned on a dime; the last time any of them had stepped foot into the foyer there had been a dead man lying just before the kitchen. Dave Thompson, their neighbor, was a retired CIA agent who had been killed by the assassin who had kidnapped Maya and Sara. No one spoke as Reid closed the door and punched in the code to activate the alarm system. The girls seemed hesitant to even take a step further into the house. “It’s okay,” he told them quietly, and though he hardly believed it himself he led the way towards the kitchen in an effort to prove that there was nothing to be afraid of. The crime scene clean-up crew had done a thorough job, but it was still plainly evident from the strong scent of ammonia and the spotless grout between the tiles that someone had been here, mopping up blood and eliminating any trace that a murder had occurred. “Is anyone hungry?” Reid asked, trying to sound untroubled but very much coming off as loud and theatrical. “No,” Maya said quietly. Sara shook her head. “Okay.” The pregnant pause that followed was palpable, like an invisible balloon inflating to impossible volume in the span between them. “Well,” Reid said finally, hoping to burst it, “I don’t know about you two, but I’m exhausted. I think we should all get some rest.” The girls nodded again. Reid kissed the top of Sara’s head and she trudged back down the foyer—edging close to one wall, he noticed, though there was nothing blocking her path—and up the stairs. Maya waited, saying nothing but listening intently for the footfalls on the stairs to reach the carpeted top. She tugged off her shoes using the toes of each opposite foot, and then asked very suddenly, “Is he dead?” Reid blinked twice. “Is who dead?” Maya did not look up. “The man who took us. The one who killed Mr. Thompson. Rais.” “Yes,” Reid said quietly. “Did you kill him?” Her gaze was hard, but not angry. She wanted the truth, not another cover or another lie. “Yes,” he admitted after a long moment. “Good,” she said in nearly a whisper. “Did he tell you his name?” Reid asked. Maya nodded, and then she looked up at him unflinchingly. “There was another name he wanted me to know. Kent Steele.” Reid closed his eyes and sighed. Somehow Rais continued to plague him, even from beyond the grave. “I’m done with that now.” “You promise?” She raised both eyebrows, hoping he was sincere. “Yes. I promise.” Maya nodded. Reid knew all too well that it wouldn’t the end of it; she was far too smart and inquisitive to let things lie. But for the moment, his answers seemed to satisfy her and she headed up the stairs. He hated lying to his daughters. He hated even more lying to himself. He wasn’t done with field work—maybe paid field work, but he still had a lot to do if he was going to get to the bottom of the conspiracy he had only begun to unearth. He had no choice; as long as he knew anything, he was still in danger. His girls could still in danger. He wished for a moment that he didn’t know anything, that he could forget what he knew about the agency, about conspiracies, and just be a college professor and a father to his daughters. But you can’t. So you need to do the opposite. He didn’t need fewer memories; he had tried that before and it hadn’t worked out so well. He needed more memories. The more he could recall about what he knew two years ago, the less work he would have to do to uncover the truth. And maybe he wouldn’t have to worry for long. Standing there in the kitchen mere feet from where Thompson was killed, Reid made his decision. He would find the old letter from Alan Reidigger—and the name of the Swiss neurologist that had implanted the memory suppressor in his head.