Decoy Zero

by Jack Mars

  After the debacle on Air Force One, which had occurred several hours ago now, they had been detained, questioned relentlessly, and eventually released—no thanks to Director Shaw or Deputy Director Walsh, but because Dr. Penelope León had arrived. Despite all three being disavowed, Penny had created backups of their CIA records and credentials and was able to prove their identity.

  Their wounds were cleaned and treated; they were fed and brought clothes to change into. Then they were whisked to Langley by two expressionless agents who said almost nothing before depositing them into the conference room and locking the door behind them. The pair of agents then went through a debrief—an amusing exercise to Zero, not only because their account was probably bordering on unbelievable but especially since the presence of the two agents was practically unnecessary, as the whole exchange was recorded.

  The two agents had left twenty minutes earlier, and now the three of them simply sat there, waiting for the next part, which none of them had been told but they all knew was coming.

  “Certainly taking their time,” Reidigger muttered.

  As if on cue, the door swung open and two men entered briskly: Director Shaw, his expression as solemn as it ever was, and the shorter accountant-like lackey Walsh. They did not address or even look at them as they took seats at the head of the conference table.

  “As far as I’m concerned,” Shaw said finally, “you should all be in jail.”

  “Hello to you too, sir,” Maria said snidely.

  “And you’re welcome,” Alan added.

  At last Shaw looked up at them, and the disdain in his gaze was palpable. “You’re all fired.” He shook his head in disgust and opened his mouth to speak again when the door to the conference room opened once more.

  Penelope León entered, dressed in corduroy and a purple V-neck and sporting bangles around both wrists.

  “Dr. León,” Walsh said sharply, “this is a confidential meeting—”

  “I helped them.” Penny took a seat beside Zero in solidarity. “I was communicating with them during their entire operation. I supplied them with weapons and gear. I copied their records from the CIA database in order to prove their identities to the authorities. Whatever falls on them for their insubordination should be equally visited upon me.”

  Shaw frowned so deeply Zero feared his face would get stuck that way. Walsh was simply stunned.

  Penny sat with her hands in her lap and, Zero noticed, a small black box in her fist. Some sort of remote, it looked like. Her thumb pressed a button, but nothing happened. At least not that he could discern.

  “Well then,” said Shaw. “I’ll repeat myself for Dr. León’s sake. As far as I’m concerned, you should all be in jail. You’re certainly all fired. For now you will be placed under strict house arrest until the events of the last two days can be fully investigated and charges can be filed. There will be hearings. You will be charged with crimes. In the meantime, you will be watched carefully. If any of you attempt to leave the country, you will be jailed immediately and without due process. Do you understand?”

  Reidigger yawned.

  “I have to admit, that doesn’t really work for me,” Penny said casually.

  Shaw finally reacted with some character, by virtue of his eyes going so wide they looked like they might fall out of his head. “I don’t think any of you understand the severity of what you’ve done. You deliberately disobeyed orders, you committed scores of crimes, you took the law into your own hands, you held a foreign leader at gunpoint, and you think after all of this you can simply waltz back in here and tell me no?!” He was shouting by the end of his rant, his face growing red. “I have half a mind to toss you all in the holding cells right now and throw away the—”

  “Excuse me,” said a male voice. It sounded tinny, as if coming through a speaker—because it was. It was coming from the triangular speakerphone in the center of the table. “I think I’ve heard enough.”

  Zero knew that voice. It was President Jonathan Rutledge.

  Shaw knew it too, and his red face suddenly paled. “…Mr. President?”

  “Regretfully I can’t be at this meeting in person,” Rutledge said. “Obviously there has been a lot to attend to, including my delayed meeting with the Ayatollah. For what it’s worth, team, he sends his regards and appreciation.”

  The remote, Zero realized. Penny had planned this. She crashed the meeting and patched the president through on the sly. He almost laughed aloud.

  “And the Saudi king, sir?” Maria asked.

  “King Basheer has predictably declared the incident an act of insurgency by a radical group within his borders,” Rutledge told them, “led by a tribal sheikh who was found dead by self-inflicted gunshot wound today.”

  “Mr. President,” Shaw said quickly, “let me just say that what I meant just now may have been misconstrued out of context—”

  “I heard what you said, Shaw. I understand your position, and you should understand mine. You can try to bring charges against these people. But if you don’t think I’ll use executive power to pardon the people that risked life and limb to stop that weapon, you’re very mistaken.”

  Alan folded his arms smugly. Zero allowed himself a smirk; maybe Reidigger wouldn’t be so quick to naysay operations now that he too had a powerful friend in the White House.

  “Furthermore,” the president continued, “Dr. León shared with my office the briefing package that you supplied these agents with at the onset, after my explicit order to involve Zero and his team. I think we both know it was a disgrace intended to discredit them.”

  “Sir, that was absolutely not my intent—”

  “I’m still talking, Shaw. For all of their indiscretions, your own were clearly negligence. However, finding a new CIA director would be a hassle and there’s enough to be dealt with right now. Believe it or not, besides your clearly troubled relationship with this team, I think you’re doing a decent job on the whole.

  “So here’s what we’re going to do,” Rutledge continued. “In the coming weeks, after the dust settles on this mess, we’re going to establish a new division, outside the realm of Special Activities Division and SOG. This team will operate under the umbrella of the CIA, but will work autonomously and answer directly to either the DNI or me.”

  Zero saw Maria stiffen in her seat. Mouthing off to Shaw was one thing; answering to her father, DNI David Barren, would be another matter entirely.

  We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it, he thought wryly.

  “Is that amenable to you, Shaw?” the president asked.

  “Um… yes. Yes, sir. It is.”

  Despite the consternation that Maria would undoubtedly have, it was plenty amenable to Zero as well. Not having to deal with rookie deputy directors or answer to Shaw anymore would solve a lot of problems. It would be the same crew in a new division. They’d bring Strickland, of course.

  And Zero had not forgotten his promise to the pilot and aspiring agent Chip Foxworth. Maybe he’d make a good recruit.

  “Until that time, I believe these three agents have earned some time to recuperate from this ordeal,” Rutledge added. “Go home to your families. The United States thanks you.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Zero said on behalf of all three of them. Some time off would be very welcome.

  “Was there anything else, Dr. León?”

  “No, Mr. President, I believe that covered just about everything.”

  “All right then. Thank you for your service, and good night, all.” There was a click, and President Rutledge hung up.

  The conference room was silent for a long moment. Walsh looked to Shaw. Shaw looked as if he very much wanted to say something, but couldn’t make up his mind.

  It was Maria who finally spoke. “There’s one more thing, Director Shaw.”

  “I… yes, Agent Johansson?”

  “The girl that’s being held, Mischa. I want her released into my care.”

  Zero’s head whipped around so f
ast he was pretty sure he pulled a muscle.

  “You’re holding her unlawfully. You can’t prove that she’s done anything wrong,” Maria continued, her tone rising an octave. “I don’t think that the president, or anyone else, would be too pleased to discover that the CIA has been keeping a twelve-year-old girl in the basement.”

  “Pardon me?” Penny gasped.

  “Dr. León,” Shaw said very nervously, “the call did end, right? Doctor?”

  My god. Zero could hardly believe what he was hearing. That girl was still being held down there? He had assumed long ago that she’d been transferred to a minimum-security facility somewhere. Guilt stabbed at him for not having followed up—but it seemed Maria had.

  And Maria wants to… do what, exactly? Adopt her?

  That was definitely a long conversation they were going to have in the very near future. But he agreed that getting her out of there was the primary concern.

  “I will see what I can do,” said Shaw carefully.

  “I wasn’t asking,” Maria told him firmly. “You’ll make this happen by the end of the week.”

  Shaw stared for a moment and then nodded once, tightly, as if it was against his will. Walsh looked like he wanted to be anywhere else at the moment.

  “Great, glad that’s all settled.” Reidigger rose to his feet with a groan. “If we’re finished here, I’m in pretty dire need of a shower.” He glanced pointedly at the directors. “Unless there was anything else?”

  “Um, no. You… you’re dismissed,” Shaw said meekly. The director had clearly marched in here thinking he was about to score a victory against the agents he saw as insubordinate, and the tables had flipped so suddenly that he was at a loss for words and, likely, coherent thought too.

  Zero got up as the four of them filed to the door. He too couldn’t wait to get home, to find out what his girls had been up to the last couple of days.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, one moment,” said Penny. She turned to Shaw. “Would you also release Agent Zero’s daughter from custody?”

  Zero got whiplash for a second time in the span of two minutes. “Sorry, what?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

  “Okay.” Zero slid into the passenger seat of his SUV with a wince, letting his eldest drive him home so he could focus more on the pain his body was in—and exactly why she had been in a holding cell at CIA headquarters. “You’re going to tell me everything, starting with why my car is out here near Alan’s garage.”

  “Sure, I guess I owe you some answers.” Maya started the car. “But first, how are you? You look like hell.”

  “Uh-uh, no deflecting. Out with it, young lady.” He tried to sound stern, but she only chuckled at him.

  Upon hearing that Maya was being held by the CIA, his first instinct had been to hit Shaw in the jaw. He restrained himself (mostly by virtue of Alan putting his bulk between Zero and the director) and instead demanded he be brought to her. Every horrible thought ran through his head on the way to the sublevel—that Shaw had done this as revenge against him, that his daughter was being humiliated, possibly even tortured—but when he arrived at the glass-walled holding cell and spotted her, she grinned sheepishly and flashed him a thumbs-up.

  Then, after being released, she told him that his car wasn’t in the Langley parking lot and Reidigger needed to give them a lift back to the garage.

  “Still waiting…” he said singsong in the passenger seat of his SUV.

  Maya sighed, keeping her eyes on the road ahead. “I found the guy.”

  Zero frowned at her. “Who? What guy?”

  “The man you told me about. The one you were looking for. He’s alive. His name is Seth Connors, but he was going by the name John Graham and being kept in a safe house.”

  A knot of panic formed in Zero’s stomach and the only thing keeping it from turning to nausea was his utter bewilderment that Maya had actually followed through and found the man—inside of two days. A hundred questions formed in his head and jammed up at his mouth. “You—what? How? Why?”

  “How? Let’s see… by heading off Alan’s hacker guy, threatening a neurosurgeon, driving through the night, and having a gun pointed in my face by a man who has clearly lost his mind.” She lowered her voice. “Why? Because, Dad… you needed help and I knew you wouldn’t ask for it.”

  “I needed help? Is that right?” He scrutinized her. “Since when are you so charitable?”

  Maya rolled her eyes, though her shoulders slumped a bit and her features softened in a rare display of vulnerability. “Fine. Also, maybe, it was just a little bit because I felt I… needed to. To do something like that. To prove to myself that I could.”

  Zero rubbed his forehead. “Maya, you don’t have to go running off on an insane mission like that to prove anything. You know that you can do anything you set your mind to—”

  “You have to say that. You’re my dad. I needed to know it.”

  There was that pang of guilt again, this time over a trait he’d clearly passed down unwillingly. “I get that.”

  She glanced over at him sharply. “Do you?”

  “Eyes on the road. And yes. More than you know.” If he was being honest with himself, which was generally as rare as Maya’s moments of vulnerability, the primary reason he’d even pursued the railgun halfway around the world and back again was to prove that he could. It certainly wasn’t to prove anything to Shaw or anyone else.

  “So,” he asked carefully. “What did you discover?”

  “I… I think I need to think about that for a little while.”

  He frowned. Maya did not know about the memory suppressor. She did not know that for two years he had been completely and blissfully unaware of his involvement in the CIA. She did not know that his memories had, for the most part, returned, and she certainly, absolutely did not know about the deterioration that was occurring in his skull.

  He very much wanted to keep it that way if he could, no matter how much she deserved to know the truth.

  “I think,” she continued, “that sometime very soon, you and I and maybe even Sara too are going to have a long and difficult conversation.”

  A lump formed in his throat, not because of what she was suggesting but because of how right she was. It was a long overdue conversation, one that they deserved.

  “But before we have that conversation, I think I have to consider what exactly I want to say, and what I want to ask,” she told him candidly.

  Despite all of his fears, he was immensely proud of her. He wasn’t particularly pleased with the danger she’d put herself in, or how blasé she was about it, but he was proud that he’d raised such an intelligent, capable, headstrong, and occasionally vexing young woman.

  “Would you tell me just one thing?” he asked. “How was he? Connors.”

  “Confused,” Maya admitted. “He’d lost his identity and had no choice but to believe the lies he’d been told. But… some things were coming back. Poking through. I think he’s starting to remember again, even if only a little.”

  “And the safe house. Is he still there?”

  Maya shook her head. “They brought him in too. I don’t know where he is.”

  So he’s at Langley. Zero mentally marked that as an item on his to-do list in the near future: speak with Seth Connors personally somehow. He was sure his new friend Dr. León could help facilitate a meeting.

  They drove in silence for a couple of minutes before Zero’s cell phone rang, startling him.

  “It’s Alan.” He frowned. Then he answered and put it on speaker. “Hello?”

  “Zero,” Reidigger said gruffly. “Would you mind asking your daughter if she’s seen the 1972 Buick Skylark that was parked in my garage?”

  “Oh, crap.” Maya’s eyes widened. “Right. Um… so that is in a parking garage. In Columbus. Ohio. I don’t have a ticket for it. But it’s there. Sorry.”

  *

  By the time they reached home, the second-floor apartment in Bethesda, Maryland, Zero was so exh
austed his feet were literally dragging up the steps. But before he could put his key in the door, Maya stopped him gently by the elbow.

  “Listen,” she said quietly. “Sara’s been by herself the last couple days, for the first time in a long time. I’m not sure how she handled that, so maybe we don’t lay all our stuff at her feet?”

  Zero smiled. “Course not. We’ll keep it light.”

  Maya nodded as he opened the door.

  The first thing he noticed was that it was freezing inside, as if every window had been opened despite being the middle of February.

  “Oh,” he heard Maya exclaim softly. “Okay…”

  He closed the door behind him and followed her gaze down the foyer and into the kitchen, blinking at what he saw.

  Todd Strickland was there, his left arm in a sling as he tried to duct-tape long pieces of cardboard over their back patio door, which by the looks of it had been completely shattered.

  Sara knelt nearby, struggling to sweep glass into a dustpan on account of her right hand being wrapped in a thick splint.

  She looked up in surprise and stood quickly. “Hey! Hi. So… I know this looks bad. But before I say anything, I promise I’m okay.” Sara glanced down at the splint on her hand. “Uh, mostly okay.”

  EPILOGUE

  Maya sat up in bed, every muscle feeling relaxed after a very excellent and much-needed night’s sleep. She checked her phone; it was nine thirty in the morning. It had been a long time since she’d slept in that late.

  She rolled out of bed and padded down the hall barefoot to the bathroom of Maria’s bungalow-style house, the one that she used to share with her dad and now was again. Last night, after seeing the broken patio door and window and hearing Sara and Strickland’s tale of forced entry at the hands of two drug dealers, her dad had called up Maria and asked if they could crash at her place, which she had graciously agreed to.