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

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

The next several seconds were little more than a blur in Reid’s mind. He couldn’t even be sure the events unfolded in the way he thought they did as his body and instincts took control.

His feet hit the deck of the tugboat as a shoulder-launched rocket-propelled grenade shot upward towards the chopper. Reid’s gun was up in an instant and he fired two rounds into the Iraqi, but the report of the shots was entirely lost in the explosion overhead.

As the insurgent fell, Reid glanced over his shoulder to see an orange fireball erupt from the side of the Sea Stallion. Someone hit the deck beside him and rolled; it was the Mossad agent Talia Mendel.

The helicopter careened sideways as it fell towards the sea. Strickland and Maria still clung to the rope as it lost slack. Maria fell first, landing on the deck—but the deck of the adjacent speedboat. Strickland, his arms flailing, splashed into the Mediterranean just before the Sea Stallion hit the water. Reid could only hope the pilot wasn’t hit and could make it out.

“Strickland!” he heard himself shout hoarsely.

“I’ll get him!” Maria insisted. She winced slightly; she must have hurt something in the fall, Reid realized. “We’ll clear this boat. Go!”

Mendel nodded to him as she pulled her service pistol, an Israeli-made Jericho 941, a distant and smaller cousin of the American Desert Eagle.

“I saw one go for the bow,” he said quietly. He took point, Mendel trailing right behind him as he knelt beside the terrorist he had shot from above, writhing and holding his wounded leg. Reid quickly checked him for weapons while Mendel bound him with a zip tie. Then the two of them edged around the dark cabin, atop of which was perched the wheelhouse, towards the bow.

Reid heard the man before he saw him, grunting with the effort of some task. As the two agents rounded the corner of the cabin Reid raised his Glock—just in time to see the Iraqi, his back turned to them, heave something large off the bow. It splashed down into the water before either of them could see what it was.

“Freeze!” Reid commanded in Arabic.

The man did not. He scrambled for an automatic rifle resting on the gunwale.

Before Reid could squeeze off a single shot, Agent Mendel fired twice. Both bullets found a new home in the insurgent, one-two in quick succession, one in the forehead and the second in the chest. The man jerked backwards, hips hitting the gunwale, and toppled overboard after his castaway object.

Reid turned to her incredulously.

She shrugged. “I am a very good shot.”

Reid shook it off and ran to the bow, peering over the edge into the dark water, but he saw nothing but bubbles rising to the surface. “What do you think he tossed over the side?” he asked. “The weapon?”

“Perhaps,” said Mendel. “If they did not want to be caught red-handed with it.”

He shook his head. “They would know we could drag it back up…” He trailed off as the high-pitch whine of a strong engine started. It wasn’t the tugboat; the white speedboat had disconnected from them and was pulling away quickly.

Reid ran to the port side and scanned the deck for Maria, but he did not see her. He hoped she was able to get Strickland out of the frigid Mediterranean in time.

A second whine joined the first as a powerful spotlight came into view. Moments later, a second speedboat roared past, this one laden with IDF commandos as they gave chase.

“I’d say they have that covered,” said Reid. “Let’s clear the rest of this boat and wait for them to come around to get us. I have a suspicion our missing Israeli journalist might be here somewhere.”

Mendel nodded. She stepped cautiously up the stairs to the lofty wheelhouse, cleared it, and shook her head at Reid. There was no one up there.

Reid led as they entered the dark, square cabin beneath the wheelhouse. It too was empty, but a narrow set of stairs led downward below deck, and from their vantage point they could see that a light was on. The stairs were too slender for them to take at the same time, so Reid adjusted the grip on his gun and headed down first, Mendel directly on his six.

“Stop,” the voice told him in Arabic before he had even reached the bottom step. His Glock was up in an instant, pointed at the source of the sound—but Reid did not shoot.

The man stood in the center of a single wide space, part storage and part recreational area, it seemed. He was tall and lean, with jutting cheekbones and a thin beard. His angry gaze was fixed on Reid, and in one hand he held a small box, his thumb against the end of it.

A remote detonator.

Beside the insurgent was another man, on his knees, hands bound behind his back. The captive’s head was covered with a burlap sack, and his chest heaved in rapid, frightened pants. Reid could clearly see why; strapped to Idan Mizrahi’s torso was a vest laden with no fewer than a dozen blocks of C-4.

“Put down your guns,” the Iraqi said evenly, “or I will blow this entire boat.”

“I am a very good shot,” Mendel said quietly in English.

“Don’t,” Reid warned. No matter how good a shot she was, they couldn’t risk that his thumb might press down on the button and blow them all sky-high. Reid bent slowly and set his gun down on the floor. Then he rose again and put his hands up.

Agent Mendel scoffed, but followed suit.

“Over here,” the man commanded, gesturing for them to move to the other side of the room. “On your knees.”

Reid moved steadily, not taking his eyes off the insurgent, though his mind was racing. As he crossed the cabin he said in Arabic, “I know who you are.”

The Iraqi c****d his head slightly, but said nothing.

“You are Awad bin Saddam. Are you not?” He was taking a guess, but an educated one; the man who had planned this attack would be unlikely to leave its potential success up to anyone else.

The man sneered. “That is right. I am Awad bin Saddam, and Allah, praise be unto him, has gifted me a most glorious purpose.”

“I hate to tell you this,” Reid said as he lowered himself to his knees. “But your ‘glorious purpose’ just went over the side of the boat.”

Bin Saddam’s lip curled in a snarl. “This is all part of the master plan.”

Reid frowned. Part of the plan? What could that mean?

“Is it wise to taunt the suicide bomber with his finger on the trigger?” Mendel murmured in English.

“If his goal was to blow us up, he would have done it by now,” Reid reasoned.

Mendel was quiet for a long moment. “Yes,” she agreed quietly. “He is bluffing. Look at his eyes. He is afraid.”

“Quiet!” bin Saddam shouted at them in Arabic, waving the detonator.

Reid scrutinized the man before him. Bin Saddam’s gaze was hard and intent; to him the expression did not look afraid, but nervous. A single bead of sweat rolled down the Iraqi’s brow, and his eyes flitted every few seconds—towards a narrow door on the other side of the cabin, adjacent to the entrance to the stairs.

“Not bluffing,” Reid realized, “stalling. He doesn’t want to blow it because there’s something behind that door.”

“Maybe the real weapon,” Mendel whispered.

Bin Saddam grabbed the burlap sack over Idan Mizrahi’s head and jerked it violently. The helpless journalist yelped. “Do you want this man to die? Do you want to die with him?”

“Mendel,” Reid continued in English, ignoring bin Saddam. “You have a backup weapon?”

“Of course,” she said. “And since we might die in a few moments, you can call me Talia.”

“Okay Talia,” Reid said, his heart pounding in his chest, his brain screaming at his insane notion. “I’m going to try to distract him, and we’re going to see just how good a shot you really are…”

Bin Saddam shouted in anger and reached behind him, pulling a black pistol free from his belt. Reid surged forward in a roll from his kneeling position, closing the distance between him and the terrorist in a second.

Bin Saddam’s pistol barked once, the bullet striking Reid in the chest at point-blank range. It was followed immediately by a second shot, this one from Talia behind him.

The bullet tore bin Saddam’s thumb clean from his hand.

The Iraqi screamed as the detonator toppled into the air. Reid ignored the burning, searing pain in his chest as he leapt forward onto his elbows, his hand outstretched.

The detonator fell neatly into his palm.

He breathed an enormous sigh of relief, which sent a new shockwave of pain through him. He rolled over and checked his vest; the material had stopped the nine millimeter round, even from only two feet away.

It must be reinforced with graphene, he realized. Composite carbon fiber mesh, the width of a hundred atoms. Imperceptible, but stronger than steel. The site of the gunshot behind the vest would be terribly bruised and painful, but he wasn’t dead. He tugged the bullet from the vest and tossed it aside.

Then he knelt and carefully disconnected the two thin metal rods from a block of C-4 on the journalist’s vest, effectively disarming the plastic explosives.

“Idan Mizrahi?” he asked as he tugged the burlap sack loose from over the man’s head. The journalist blinked at him, the young man’s eyes bleary and red. “Are you alright?” He seemed as if he didn’t understand Reid, shell-shocked as he was from the experience. Reid cut the ties that held his wrists together and helped him into a nearby chair. “Sit tight a moment,” he said. “This isn’t over just yet. Whatever happens, I want you to—”

Reid jumped at the sudden report of a gunshot. He spun, his mouth open in utter shock as Talia stood over Awad bin Saddam’s body, a fresh bullet hole in his forehead. In one of his lifeless hands was the black pistol.

“He was going for his gun,” she said simply.

“You couldn’t have disarmed him?” Reid asked in disbelief.

“I am Mossad. This is how we disarm men like him,” she said, as if that explained everything. “He will never hold a gun again. Or a detonator.” She gestured toward the small black box that Reid still held in his hand.

I guess we won’t get to question bin Saddam now, he thought bitterly as he stuck the detonator into his back pocket. He retrieved his Glock, handed the Jericho off to Talia, and gestured towards the narrow closed door that bin Saddam had been eyeing.

“Ready?” he asked, positioning himself to one side of the door.

“Ready,” she confirmed from the other side, her pistol aloft.

Reid reached for the knob. As he twisted it, a long burst of automatic gunfire splintered the door to pieces from the inside.