by Jack Mars
Come on, Penny. He needed a location. They needed a location, since Maria and Reidigger were at his side, despite his protests of going alone. They were both injured worse than he was—or so he’d tried to claim. Neither quite bought that either.
“Where?” Alan asked breathlessly, winded from scrambling out of the chopper and jogging a far enough distance to hear each other over its rotors.
Zero didn’t know. All around him, personnel of the base hurried in this direction or that, shouting orders to one another, fueling jets and getting planes into the air. It seemed that the news of the railgun’s destruction hadn’t yet reached them—or else was not public knowledge just yet, considering the powers-that-be would demand evidence of it.
Thankfully no one questioned their presence there, in part to the jumpsuit that made him look like he belonged and partially due to the Marine helicopter that had just deposited them there.
“Here,” said Alan, discreetly slipping him a Glock 19. “It’ll do you more good than it will me.” He gestured to his wounded hand. He wouldn’t be able to hold and fire a pistol without popping the stitches.
Zero slipped it into the baggy pocket of the jumpsuit as he looked around desperately. He couldn’t very well just ask someone. Excuse me, is there a secret bunker around here in which you hide foreign leaders?
Thankfully, the satellite phone rang. “Penny! What have you got?”
“I have nothing, Agent,” she admitted somberly. “I’m sorry. But there is simply no record to find of the Ayatollah’s current whereabouts. It’s not something anyone would note anywhere, and anyone who could tell us is obviously unavailable. His trail went cold where you’re standing.”
Dammit. They had no other options; they had to report it and hope that the spy didn’t have a chance to act. It was a huge risk, and not one he was eager to take…
He spotted a familiar sight on the next runway over. For a moment it confused him; what was Air Force One doing here at Andrews if Rutledge and his cabinet had been evacuated?
Then he remembered—there were two Boeing VC-25As dubbed Air Force One, and when not in service they called the runway at Andrews AFB home.
Curiously, though, there was an airstair alongside the massive jet, a white-framed set of red steps leading to the closed clamshell door.
“Zero?” Maria was at his shoulder, staring in the same direction. She saw it too. “You don’t think…?”
He shook his head slowly. It made sense, in a way; a foreign leader with plenty of known enemies needs to be spirited away during an attack that suggests foreign dignitaries might be targeted by way of the UN building’s destruction. Where would they hide him? In the bunker of an Air Force Base was a possibility.
But inside the unused Air Force One? No one would guess that. He’d heard tell that the body of the plane could sustain a nuclear blast; even on the ground, it was as secure as any safe house and still within the confines of a military base.
Which would make getting inside it almost impossible.
“Can’t exactly just knock on the door,” Alan muttered, as if reading his mind.
“What about the cargo hold? Can we access it from the exterior?”
“If this was a regular Boeing?” Alan said. “Probably. But this is the president’s plane, Zero. They’ve thought of that.”
“Fair enough.” He had to think of something, and fast. “Follow me.” He jogged toward the blue and gray plane, hoping he didn’t simply get shot on approach, and put the sat phone to his ear. “Penny? Would you be able to patch me through to Air Force One? Not the one carrying Rutledge—the one on the ground at Andrews.”
“I believe I could,” the young doctor said. “Give me a moment…”
“What are you thinking of doing?” Maria asked as she trotted alongside him. He held up a finger for her to hang on—mostly because he wasn’t quite sure what he was going to do yet, only that he needed the people inside to open that door.
“Okay,” said Penny, “patching you in three, two, one…” There was a crackle, and then silence, and then a man’s voice came through the phone, low and more than a little heated.
“This is Agent Kenney with the United States Secret Service. Who is this?”
“My name is Agent…” He almost said Zero, but stopped himself. Anyone who hadn’t heard of him would think that was crazy. “Agent Alan Reidigger, Central Intelligence Agency. There is a bomb on the plane. I repeat, we have reason to believe there is a bomb on the plane.”
The words simply tumbled out of his mouth before he had a chance to really think it through. Zero had no way to confirm that this man was really Secret Service or that he wasn’t the traitor. But in the two seconds of silence that followed he became fully aware that he had just committed a felony—calling in a fake bomb threat—which was probably made much worse considering the location.
Act now, apologize later.
To Agent Kenney’s credit, despite the brief silence that followed Zero’s proclamation, he did not ask further questions. It sounded as if the phone was dropped, and then he heard the agent’s booming voice: “We’re evacuating the plane! Let’s go, right now! Get the Ayatollah off the plane!”
I was right. And, in an oddly circuitous way, Air Force One was still the target—just not the one he’d thought it would be.
By the time the shouting began through the phone, Zero had reached the airstairs. He sprang up them quickly, ignoring the pain in his limbs, as Alan huffed behind him and Maria shouted a warning.
“Wait! Are we really going to do this? We’re essentially hijacking Air Force One.”
But he didn’t have time to answer. The blue clamshell door of the plane opened, and the black-suited agent on the other side—presumably Agent Kenney—froze in bewilderment as he came face-to-face with Zero.
Luckily Alan took point. He reached past Zero, grabbed the agent’s wrist, and twisted his body as he pulled. Agent Kenney yelped as he was yanked through the door, over Reidigger’s shoulder, and tumbled down the staircase, landing unconscious at the bottom.
“Sorry,” Reidigger grunted.
Zero pulled out the Glock and swung into the president’s plane. “Freeze!” he shouted at another Secret Service agent. “CIA! Don’t move!”
Behind the agent were four Middle Eastern men who he surmised were the Ayatollah’s private security detail, and then the man himself. The Ayatollah was tall, six-two without the black turban wrapped around his cranium, and a shrewd gaze surrounded by creased, aged skin. His beard was entirely white, though his eyebrows were oddly still dark.
Two of the Iranian security detail reached for the guns at their hips when Maria and Alan rounded on them as well, entering the plane.
“Stop!” Maria commanded in Farsi. “Do not move!”
“There’s a traitor among you,” Zero said directly to the Ayatollah. “Someone here wants you dead.”
Iran’s leader did not have to speak loudly for his basso voice to be heard easily. “I would assume,” he said in flawless English, “that the ones pointing weapons are the ones who wish me dead.”
“No, sir, we’re trying to keep that from happening.” Zero looked from one Iranian to the next. Which one? He had no idea. “Someone on this plane gave crucial information about your location. The helicopter that you flew on. Who was it? Who made a call?”
“My men are loyal,” the Ayatollah said, perfectly patient and seemingly unafraid. “And none made calls.”
None… Zero shifted his attention to the other Secret Service agent. The agent had his hands up at ear level, his eyes narrowed, his square jaw set firmly.
And just the tiniest bead of perspiration on his forehead.
“You.” Zero pointed the Glock at him. “The railgun is gone. It’s at the bottom of the Atlantic. The crew is dead. Krauss is dead.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man insisted.
“I think you do.” Zero could see the anxiousness etched in his face. “Y
ou were waiting to hear that news, weren’t you? When the helicopter never exploded. You boarded at Blair House and commanded the pilot to return to Andrews, but nothing happened. So you were sitting here, waiting to be told that Krauss had failed so you could assassinate the Ayatollah yourself—”
The agent’s lip curled in a snarl. One hand whipped down, reaching for his gun. Zero pulled the trigger on the Glock.
Nothing happened. The trigger lock was on.
Biometrics. Zero had forgotten that Alan’s Glock would be useless to him. The gun was keyed to Reidigger’s thumbprint, not his.
The agent pulled his pistol in one smooth action, even as the Iranians went for theirs. One of them leapt in front of the Ayatollah, forcing their leader to get down.
A single shot rang out.
The agent’s head snapped back as blood plastered the wall of Air Force One.
Maria holstered her gun. Her shot had been perfect.
“Thanks,” Zero breathed.
“Anytime.”
Sirens sounded outside, screaming closer. At the bottom of the airplane steps, Agent Kenney groaned as he came around.
They had a lot of explaining to do.
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN
Sheikh Salman literally quaked with rage as he watched the footage of the US Navy pulling the remains of the railgun from the ocean floor.
His men had failed him. Krauss had failed him. Even the Islamophobic agent he had recruited had failed. The man was suffering from PTSD and had even made an attempt on his own life before Salman had discovered him, thanks to a sleeper cell in Virginia who had infiltrated the veterans’ support group. The Secret Service agent had come at a steep price, an eight-figure sum for his family, and Salman was quite content to kill him in the process.
The agent could have had a hundred chances to murder the Ayatollah, but had been ordered to do so only if the railgun failed. The plan that Salman had been concocting for two years was to show strength, ingenuity, and power—power that was supposed to unite the separated fundamentalist factions under a single banner, their banner.
Thus, he had failed as well. King Basheer would be furious. Currently the young king was away from Riyadh, attending the wedding of a cousin on the other side of the country, but he would return tomorrow and there would be punishment for Salman. Of that there was no doubt. Perhaps he would be cast from the palace. The very thought made him queasy.
He stormed to his private quarters, an outbuilding opposite the courtyard. It was a magnificent space, one he had come to think of as his own, more than a thousand square meters total that held a king-sized bed, a lounge, his own wading pool, and even a small topiary and garden.
Salman pushed open the double doors and closed them again behind him. Dusk was settling over the palace, throwing the chamber into shadow. He reached for the nearest lamp, switched it on, and leapt back in fright.
An African-American man sat on the edge of the four-poster canopied bed. He was dressed quite ordinarily for a westerner, in denim jeans and a dark jacket, which somehow made the black pistol in his lap all the more alarming. The barrel of it was long, thin, designed to suppress the sound of its shots.
Salman struggled to force his heart to slow as he stood tall in the face of this intruder. “Who are you?” he demanded in Arabic.
“Hello, Sheikh Salman.” The man spoke English; he was American, or so his accent dictated. “My name is Oliver. I’m here to kill you.”
The sheikh sneered. Who did this man think he was? Despite the presence of his weapon, he wouldn’t dare to kill a king’s advisor in the middle of a royal palace. The notion was lunacy.
“You see,” the man called Oliver continued, “complex problems can sometimes be solved with fairly simple solutions. I find those solutions. I fix the problems. Usually those problems can be solved by removing a particular variable.”
Sheikh Salman took a cautious step to the right. In the bureau against the wall, not ten meters from him, there was a pistol. If he could get to it…
“Please don’t,” the man said. “The gun’s not in there. I’ve already swept the room.”
“Just who do you think—”
Oliver stood suddenly. The simple act was threatening enough to silence Salman and he shrank back two quick steps.
“As I was saying. I find solutions. Our current problem is that we don’t want to go to war with your country. We’d prefer to avoid a bigger international incident than we already have. The US enjoys the benefits that have come of our relationship, and frankly, it would create a whole mess of new problems. We know that Saudi Arabia was responsible for the railgun’s theft and use. We know that King Basheer was at least mildly aware of the attempt on the Ayatollah’s life. But we also know that the plan itself was of your design, Sheikh Salman.”
“You know nothing,” the sheikh hissed, “and you can prove less.”
“Yes.” Oliver smiled at that. “You’re right. Burden of proof is a burden. Which, again, is where I come in. Men like me don’t have to prove anything.”
“You are speaking in circles,” Salman spat. “I don’t believe you’re here to kill me. You’re here to threaten me, like a common American thug. Your country would never sanction a crass assassination like this—”
“Make no mistake, Sheikh. I am here to kill you.”
He said it so coldly, so candidly that a chill ran up Salman’s spine. He thought about shouting, screaming for help, but that would only inspire this Oliver to use the gun faster.
“Ordinarily,” the man continued, “that part would be done by now. You probably wouldn’t have even noticed me before you were dead. As I said, I don’t have to prove anything; for example, I don’t have to prove that you have been whispering in Basheer’s ear for much of his life. I don’t have to prove that you are clearly the variable that requires removing in order to solve the problem. There’s really only one reason you’re still breathing.”
Salman gulped. His head was shaking back and forth and he didn’t know how long he’d been doing it. “You… you can’t. You wouldn’t dare. Killing me would make a martyr! Those I have aligned to our cause would rally against you and your country. It would be war regardless! You would only be helping my plan, not hindering it! And not just here, but across the entire Middle East!” He was ranting now, sweating, his palms damp and clammy.
“No,” said Oliver. “Your death will be written off as a suicide for the failed terrorist attack. I think we both know that Basheer will deny any knowledge of the plot and pin the attempt entirely on you and your radical followers. They, in turn, will either be captured or abandon your cause. Without your influence, Basheer will play nice with us, or he’ll face a potential conflict that he is woefully unqualified to handle. Your name, Sheikh, will die in ignominy. Just like you are about to.”
“No!” Salman cried. Even the threat of death paled in comparison to being relegated to a traitor and forgotten. “You cannot! I… I have information!”
“I know you do. That brings me to the reason we’re talking. Who is Stefan Krauss?”
Salman blinked in surprise. That certainly wasn’t the type of information he’d expected to be asked. Krauss was a nobody, a killer for hire who, in hindsight, had been far overpaid. “What does that matter? He is dead now.”
“Maybe,” said Oliver with a small shrug. “Maybe not. His body has not yet been recovered, even though we found all five of your people. We know that Stefan Krauss is not his real name. Intelligence suggests he’s been involved in up to a dozen high-profile assassinations in the last five years. He was able to infiltrate the South Korean research team flawlessly. I think he led you to believe he was a simple mercenary, maybe an assassin. But the little that we’ve gathered suggests he’s former intelligence, perhaps a spy, and is still able to access sensitive information. That kind of man is very dangerous. He’s been a ghost, and whether or not he is now in the literal sense is something I would very much like to know. How did you find him?”
>
“Amnesty,” Salman gasped. “I will tell you for amnesty.”
“I already told you, I’m here to kill you.”
“Please…”
“Last chance,” Oliver warned quietly. “Krauss?”
“I… I didn’t find him. He found me,” the sheikh admitted. “One of the factions we made an arms deal with, they had contracted him. Somehow he knew what I was doing, trying to unite them, and had assumed I was creating a plan…”
Oliver frowned. “Did Krauss tell you about the railgun?”
“Yes.” The sheikh was practically whimpering now. “Amnesty, please.”
But Oliver was not paying him any attention. He looked pensive. “Interesting. So Krauss knew not only about your arms deal, but also about the railgun well before it was completed. That means he already had a way to get into the research team posing as security.” He looked up. “Sheikh Salman, I believe he played you for a fool.”
Salman did not understand, and at this point did not care. Krauss was certainly dead. There was no way he could have survived. But the sheikh still had a chance.
“I have money,” the sheikh protested. “Whatever they are paying you, I will double it. Triple it! Whatever you want! You can go wherever you want. You don’t ever have to go back.”
Oliver smiled sadly at that. “That’s the thing, Sheikh. I already can’t ever go back. And they don’t pay me for this. Call it… atonement.”
He raised the pistol.
Sheikh Salman squeezed his eyes shut. There was nowhere to run.
He did not even hear the sound of the shot before the bullet entered his skull.
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT
Zero, Maria, and Alan sat side by side on one end of a conference table with nine empty seats around it. The surface of the table was equally empty other than a triangular black speakerphone in the center. It was after eight o’clock at night and Zero was exhausted, aching, and really just wanted to get home to his girls and his own bed.
