Target Zero

by Jack Mars

  And he was not about to give this terrorist the satisfaction of knowing that he was responsible for anyone’s death but his own.

  Reid pulled his Glock from the holster and fired a single shot into the man’s forehead. Blood and brain spattered the wall behind him and he fell beside the open box of the smallpox virus.

  To Reid’s surprise, Barnard had reacted too. He didn’t realize it until the doctor was upon him, grabbing him by an arm and yanking him out through the open door of the pantry. He shoved Reid out into the cafeteria and pulled the door closed, shoving the lever down to lock it with a resonant chunk.

  Reid slumped down, seemingly having lost control of his legs. It was only then that he let his breath out, a long whoosh that he once again could not recall holding.

  Barnard knelt beside him. “Did you breathe?”

  “What?”

  “Did you breathe it in?” The doctor shrugged frantically out of his jacket.

  “I… I don’t know…”

  Barnard scoffed in frustration. “I told you, it’s transmitted via droplets in the air onto the nasal, oral, or mucosal membranes.” With a heavy grunt of effort, he tore the sleeves from his jacket and handed one to Reid. “Wrap this around your nose and mouth.”

  Reid did as he was told, tying the sleeve around his face like a mask. Barnard did the same, and then stuck out a hand to help Reid to his feet. “Come on. Hurry!” He led the way, striding briskly back into the corridor and toward the crew quarters. “Here.” He gestured into an empty cabin.

  Reid peered inside, uncertain of what Barnard was suggesting. The doctor pushed him inside. “We have to quarantine ourselves for at least three hours. If we’re not infected, we won’t exhibit any symptoms.” The doctor started to pull the door closed behind him.

  “Wait!” Reid shouted. “And if we are?”

  Barnard paused. His rueful gaze met Reid’s. “Then it was a genuine pleasure to know you, Agent Steele. Don’t come out.” He yanked the door closed. A few seconds later, Reid heard the clang of another door as Barnard quarantined himself in another cabin.

  For a long moment Reid could only stand there, trying and failing to process what had happened in just the last minute. Then he noticed something—hanging on the wall, near the bunk beds, was a white phone with a curling cord. Taped to the wall beside it was a single sheet of paper, a directory to other parts of the ship, faded but legible.

  He pulled the tied jacket sleeve from around his face. He would have to call and try to reach someone on his team, Maria or Watson or Baraf, to let them know that the virus had been released on deck two.

  Beyond that, all he could do was wait to die, or wait to see the light of day again.

  CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

  Maya Lawson awoke with pain in her skull and in her jaw, radiating from both points throughout her head. She opened her eyes slowly, and then immediately clenched them shut again under the glaring white light.

  Thoughts returned to her slowly. An intruder, in the house. Mr. Thompson, dead. Sara…

  She panicked and sat upright. Fresh, jolting pain seared through her forehead and she winced, rubbing it. She worked her jaw around in slow circles. It hurt, but it wasn’t broken.

  She needed to get to her sister. Keep Sara safe. That was all that mattered.

  Maya looked left and right in confusion. She was in the basement of their Spruce Street house in Alexandria. The assassin had knocked her unconscious and brought her down here. The door to the makeshift panic room was directly before her and, hopefully, Sara was safely behind it.

  But the assassin was nowhere to be seen.

  Hope swelled in Maya’s chest. Sara got to the panic room. She called the police. He fled.

  She tried to climb to her feet but they seemed to be stuck together. Her ankles were bound tightly with electrical tape, wrapped at least a dozen times around the hem of her pajama pants. She tore at it with her fingers while straining to pull her ankles apart.

  Heavy footfalls resonated from over her head. A pair of steady, clomping boots stepped slowly over what would be the short corridor between the foyer and kitchen. Only one pair.

  The hope of a moment ago dissolved. He was still here.

  Maya ripped at the tape frantically as the man appeared in the doorway at the top of the stairs. He took them one at a time, slowly, like the ever-patient killer in a supernatural horror movie. Maya grunted in frustration as she pulled at the electrical tape, but she had only peeled back a few layers by the time the man reached the bottom of the stairs.

  He knelt at her side and watched her work for a moment. His patience was as exasperating as it was terrifying. Maya shrieked in frustration and yanked at her bonds with both hands. Tears swelled in her eyes. Why were the police not here? Why had no one come for them?

  “Shh,” the man said, drawing the syllable out. “Stop.” He put his own hand over hers. She flinched at his touch. His hands were ice cold.

  “Don’t,” she warned, her voice hoarse and throaty. “Don’t touch me. Where’s Sara?”

  The man pointed at the reinforced door, the one her father had installed to keep them safe. It was designed to be bulletproof and fireproof, with a steel core and three heavy deadbolts that locked from the inside. There was nothing the assassin could do to get to her sister.

  “The police will be here any second,” Maya told him quickly. “There’s a phone in that room, and Sara would have called nine-one-one by now…”

  “I cut the landline.” The man’s expression was passive, almost curious, as he watched Maya’s lower lip tremble.

  “She has a cell—”

  The assassin held up a silver phone in a hot pink case. “She left it charging in her room when she ran. Anything else?”

  Maya’s breath came ragged and heavy. Thompson was dead. No one was coming.

  “Yes,” the assassin said, as if he was reading her mind. “You are alone.” He reached for his belt and pulled loose the hunting knife, now clean of Mr. Thompson’s blood. Maya’s heart skipped two beats at the sight of the glinting blade.

  With one smooth motion the assassin sliced through the tape that bound her ankles. “Stand up,” he ordered. She did so, slowly, her legs shaky and her knees weak. The assassin pointed to a rectangular white box mounted over the door, pointed downward at them. “That camera. Does it have audio feed?”

  Maya had nearly forgotten about the cameras. Her dad had two of them installed, one over the door and another on the garage outside, directed at the driveway and front walkway. Both fed to monitors inside the panic room so that anyone inside could see who was entering the house, or who might be outside the door.

  “Maya,” the man said again. His voice was oddly gentle. It made her skin crawl. “Does it have audio? Can Sara hear us right now?”

  She nodded once. Sara would have heard the whole conversation.

  “Good.” The assassin grabbed Maya’s right arm so suddenly that she yelped in surprise. He twisted her wrist outward and her arm behind her, away from her body so that her torso bent at an odd angle. She cried out again as the tension sent pain radiating up into her shoulder.

  “Sara,” the man said firmly, his gaze directed at the camera. “First you should know that no one is coming. No police are en route. Your bodyguard is dead. You have no way to contact anyone outside that room. Short of your father walking in the front door, there is no one who can help you. And believe me, I would love nothing more than for that to happen.”

  He paused for a moment before ratcheting the tension on Maya’s arm. She gasped in pain as her muscles screamed, stretched to their limit.

  “My name is Rais,” he told the camera. “This is happening to you because of what your father has done. I harbor no personal resentment or vendetta against you or your sister; to me, you are instruments, the means to my end. If you do as I say, I will not harm you or your sister. If you do not, immeasurable harm will come. I don’t want that. Neither of you are valuable to me injured or dea
d.”

  “Sara, don’t listen—aah! ” Maya shrieked as the assassin twisted just a little further. Her shoulder burned as muscles began to tear. Just the slightest bit more pressure on her wrist would snap it.

  “Sara,” the assassin Rais said to the camera. “I want you to open this door and come out. I will not hurt you. I will stop hurting your sister. If you don’t come out, I will stand here in front of this camera and break each of your sister’s limbs, one at a time. If you think I’m bluffing, then do nothing and watch.”

  “Don’t,” Maya gasped, barely able to get the word out. “Don’t.” She did not think the assassin was bluffing at all. Don’t open the door. All Sara had to do was stay put.

  Bones could heal. But she did not believe for a second that no harm would come to them.

  Unplug the audio feed. Don’t watch. Maya had the distinct feeling that they would not come back from whatever he was planning to do with them.

  “So be it,” the assassin said quietly.

  Maya gritted her teeth and waited for the bones in her arm to snap. She had broken her arm once before, when she was eight, by falling off her bike.

  She hadn’t cried then. She wouldn’t give this psychopath the satisfaction now.

  He twisted further. Her mouth opened wide, her eyes clenched tightly shut, but she did not cry out. She did not scream.

  There was a dull, heavy click as one of the deadbolts slid aside in the door.

  No!

  The pressure on her arm relieved slightly, only enough to keep her wrist from breaking. Several seconds passed in complete silence. Then, a second deadbolt opened.

  “Sara, no!” Maya cried.

  The third deadbolt clanked to the side, and the door pushed outward slowly. Standing in its frame was Sara. Her lips trembled and tears ran down both cheeks. Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy. Her wide, fearful gaze was fixed on Maya.

  The assassin released Maya’s arm and she fell to her knees. Her shoulder burned and her wrist ached terribly, but nothing was broken. She scrambled to her feet and hugged her little sister with her good arm, pulling her close as Sara sobbed. Maya wanted to scold her, to tell her she never should have opened the door, but in the moment all she could do was hold her.

  “Thank you,” the assassin said quietly behind them. “Upstairs now. Your neighbor’s truck is already in the driveway.”

  Maya spun on him. How did he know Mr. Thompson was our neighbor?

  Rais dangled a set of keys in the air. The key fob. He must have taken Mr. Thompson’s keys and used the fob to find his vehicle.

  He pulled out the hunting knife again and showed them the blade. “I have two guns, thanks to your neighbor and your father,” he told them. “But I prefer this. I’ve just cleaned it of blood. I’d hate to have to do so again. The three of us are going upstairs. You are both going to put shoes on. Then we will go outside and directly into the truck without a sound.”

  He knelt so that he was about eye level with Maya. “You care for your sister, enough to try something brash. If you do, she will pay for it. If you make a noise, I will cut something off of her. If you try to run or to let her run, I will catch her, not you. You will stay like this, close to her, and if you separate even an inch, it will be her that I hurt. Am I clear?”

  Maya’s nostrils flared as feelings of both fury and fear washed over her. This man had done this before, maybe several times. He seemed to know that Maya would try something; even as he threatened them she had been formulating a plan in her mind, to jump him and let Sara run.

  Her sister sobbed harder, pressed against her chest. She couldn’t risk it. Where he might take them she didn’t know, but she would find an opportunity. Bide her time and form a plan.

  Maya nodded once. She hugged Sara tighter as she thought of her text message that she sent to her father—just one word, help. He got it. She just knew he did. He was on his way now.

  “Shh,” she whispered to her sister. “Dad is going to find us. I promise.”

  “Yes.” The assassin said quietly, more of a hiss than a word. “I’m counting on it.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN

  Reid wiped sweat from his brow with a sock and groaned. He felt awful. Even not moving at all he was still sweating, and mild nausea had risen in his gut. He had spent much of his time in the tiny crew quarters thinking of his girls back home, wondering what they were doing at that same moment, and if they were thinking of him too. He desperately wanted to hear their voices. But he couldn’t. He had no line of communication to them.

  The faded white phone on the wall rang with two dull electronic tones that had really grown to irritate him. He answered it quickly. “Steele.”

  “Hey.”

  He smiled. “We just talked fifteen minutes ago.”

  “I know,” Maria said. “I just wanted to check in again and see if you were dead yet.”

  He laughed. “Still kicking, at least for now. But someone has got to get me some water. I think dehydration is setting in.”

  For six hours he had been quarantined in the crew quarters Barnard had shoved him in. The first two hours had been fraught and nerve-racking, but when he hadn’t developed any fever or nausea after hour three, his tension eased. His breath had caught in his throat when the terrorist in the blue coveralls bit down on the vial. He hadn’t breathed anything in, and the ventilation system in the cruise ship had shut off when the engines were cut off. The smallpox virus was cordoned to the pantry and cafeteria.

  But while the ventilation system remained off, the air grew stuffy and stiflingly hot. There were no windows or other points of egress in the tiny cabin. Reid had stripped down to his T-shirt and boxers and was still sweating, wiping his forehead with his socks. It was torturous, but the WHO demanded that he remain where he was until they had swept the ship and cleaned up any remnant of the virus.

  “The least they could have done was stick us in the same room,” Maria griped. “I’m dying of boredom in here.”

  “I’m pretty sure that would defeat the purpose of a quarantine,” Reid remarked. After Maria and Watson had stopped the boat, they radioed Interpol, who sent a helicopter of yellow-suited WHO scientists to their location. By that time the passengers and most of the crew had been loaded into the enclosed yellow lifeboats, which were currently doing laps around the inert ship. For those still aboard, the WHO had demanded that everyone be quarantined separately to ensure that no one was exhibiting symptoms of the active virus.

  Thankfully, Reid had the white service phone in his quarters, an internal communications system to most of the compartments on the ship. Maria had found it particularly useful, calling him no fewer than six times in the last three hours. She had closed herself into a room on deck seven, just below the top deck—a spacious and pleasant stateroom, by her own admission.

  “How’s Watson?” Reid asked.

  “He’s fine. They won’t be able to patch up his shoulder until the quarantine ends, but it’s not like he would complain anyway.” She laughed lightly.

  “I think I might owe him an apology,” Reid said quietly.

  “No. He understands,” Maria told him. “He might have been confused and angry in the moment, but after what happened with Carver you were right to distrust him. I wouldn’t have blamed you if you didn’t trust me after that.”

  “You’re the only one I can trust. If I didn’t have that, I think I might go crazy.” And it was the truth. Ever since rediscovering his CIA identity, Reid felt extremely distrustful of nearly everyone around him. He couldn’t help but wonder if that was a symptom of his unique background and situation or of being a secret agent in general.

  He very much wanted to talk to Maria about his fragmented memories, the conspiracy, the alleged pending war and Carver’s motivation for attacking him—but he didn’t dare talk openly about it. Apparently his distrust had spread to more than just people.

  Instead he asked, “By the way, what did you want to tell me on the helicopter? You seemed ki
nd of troubled by it. Now’s as good a time as any.”

  “Hmm.” He could hear the smile in Maria’s voice. “Like you said, I think that can wait until our second date.”

  “Fair enough.” Reid looked up suddenly as he heard a click. A moment later the door to his cabin swung inward and a figure in a yellow decontamination suit stood on the threshold. “Hey… I have to go. Someone’s at the door.”

  “All right. See you soon, I hope.” She hung up.

  The figure took a step into the room, holding a rectangular package sealed in plastic in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. Reid couldn’t see past the respirator mask; the white lights overhead glinted off the glass. But when the figure spoke, Reid smiled.

  “Agent Steele,” said Dr. Barnard. “I believe you might be part cat.”

  Reid raised an eyebrow. “Nine lives?”

  “I was going to say you always land on your feet. But I suppose either way works.” He tossed the water bottle to him, and then the plastic package. “Decontamination suit. Put it on and come up to the top deck.”

  Reid unscrewed the top and downed the bottle’s contents in a few seconds. Much better , he thought. “Why the suit? It’s been six hours. I’m not sick.”

  “The active virus is still on the ship,” Barnard said. “You may not be exhibiting symptoms, but until we’re off this boat and cleared, no one is above scrutiny. There is still the possibility of infection.”

  *

  It was another nine hours before Reid felt a breeze on his face. At six in the morning local time, he pushed through the double glass-door entrance of the boxy WHO facility and took a liberal breath of fresh air.

  Despite the early hour, the place was already bustling with white-coated researchers and doctors in suit jackets. Reid felt oddly out of place in the white V-neck scrub top and pants they had issued him, plastic slips over his feet. It made him feel more like a patient than an agent, but that was fairly accurate for what he had been through.