by Jack Mars
There was a dull ache down his entire back. When the epinephrine wore off, he was definitely going to feel that.
He expected to hear the screech of tires as the police cars pursued him. Instead, he winced with the sharp report of gunfire. What happened to nonlethal?! He ran serpentine as bullets flew past him. Corner. Alley. He turned, kept sprinting, hoping he could lose them on foot…
Headlights suddenly flickered on, powerful halogens so bright he had to put up a hand to shield his eyes as he skidded to a stop, his breath coming rapid and shallow. A car blocked his path. He had nowhere to go; he couldn’t very well turn around and face the two officers that were shooting at him.
“Get in!”
Reid blinked. “Maria?”
“Come on!” she insisted. He couldn’t see her behind the halogens, but it was definitely her. He thought briefly of the rock and the hard place, and then sprinted ahead and jumped into the passenger’s side of the car.
She immediately shifted and slammed the accelerator. The black turbo-charged muscle car roared in agreement and took off toward the mouth of the alley.
“You followed me,” he said, panting for breath. “I told you what that would mean to me if you did.”
“That’s a strange way of saying ‘thanks, Maria, for saving my ass.’” She kept both hands on the wheel, staring straight ahead as they barreled out of the alley. They smashed aside the front end of one of the approaching police cruisers as it attempted to cut off their path and kept right on going as if nothing had happened.
“Do you know where you’re going?”
“No,” she admitted as she spun the wheel sharply, sending the car into a skid around the next corner. “I don’t know this town. But if we can lose them and find our way back to the highway, we can… oh, dammit.” She looked in the rearview mirror.
Reid twisted in his seat. The single police cruiser had given chase, and was joined by two other cars. Interpol, he thought. They had caught up while he attempted to flee on foot.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
Reid hadn’t even realized he’d been drumming frantically on the center console with the fingers of his left hand. “For now. But in a minute or two I won’t be.” To her confused glance, he added, “I took a shot.”
“Jesus,” she murmured. “How many?”
“Two,” he confessed. “In the span of about an hour.”
“Kent!” she scolded. “You’re going to give yourself a heart attack—”
“Watch it!” he shouted as a black sedan leapt in front of them, attempting to block their path. Maria spun the wheel. Reid gripped the handle over the window as the car slid sideways, and then backward, pulling a complete one-eighty. She shifted and slammed the gas again, heading straight for the pursuing vehicles.
As expected, they screeched to a halt, creating another blockade across the road. Maria slammed the brakes and the black car stopped two-thirds of the way to them. Reid quickly looked left and right; there were no alleys, no crossroads on which to escape between the two roadblocks.
They were trapped.
“Maria,” he said. “Is this one of Mitch’s cars?”
“Yes…” She realized what he was asking. “You think these windows are bulletproof?”
“I’m willing to take that chance if you are.”
She put her hand on the gear shift. He put his over hers—not in a romantic gesture or one of solidarity, but to stop her.
“Wait. Why are you doing this?”
Maria looked him right in the eye. “I’m doing this for you. For your girls.”
He could see no deceit behind her gaze. She was a trained CIA agent—among other things, apparently—but in the moment, he believed her. He took his hand off of hers and she shifted, popped the clutch, and the car lurched forward toward the barricade of vehicles.
Reid fastened his seatbelt a second before the front end of the muscle car plowed into the front end of an Interpol car and the rear of a police cruiser, pushing them both forward. But not enough to get through.
Maria swore, shifted up, and slammed the gas anew. The powerful engine roared and the tires spun, shoving the cars aside. The smell of burnt rubber filled the vehicle.
Pops of pistol fire joined the engine. Reid covered his head with his hands as bullets smacked against the windows and windshield. The glass spider-webbed, but held.
Thanks, Mitch, he thought once again.
Maria shifted into fifth, and the muscle car eked through the gap. The sound of scraping metal squealed up either side of them as they shot forward again.
Reid glanced behind him and noted with dismay that two of the cars were already in pursuit again. They’re not going to give up. Pain was leaking back into his limbs as the epinephrine wore off. He was right; he definitely felt the fallout from his daredevil stunt.
“I need to know who you are,” he said quickly.
“What, now?” Maria asked incredulously. She downshifted and spun into a tight turn.
“Yes, now. I said it before—I want to trust you. I might need to. But first I need to know what side you’re on.” A burning odor emanated from the air vents.
“There are no sides, Kent,” Maria insisted. “This isn’t about the CIA or FIS. If anything, I’m on my own side…” She fishtailed again and shot up a side street, narrowly avoiding a passing van.
“What does that even mean?” he asked. The two cars behind them spun into the turn, keeping pace. “You’re playing two agencies for your own agenda? How do I know you’re not playing me too?”
She scoffed. “My job right now is to either arrest you or recruit you. Obviously I’m not doing either. Think about it, Kent. We’re not that different. What side are you on?”
“I’m on my own…” He trailed off. He’d almost given the same answer that she had.
“These last few ops, ever since you’ve been back, have you even once actually felt like you were CIA again?” she asked quickly. “Or have you been looking over your shoulder, wondering who you can trust, if you can trust anyone?”
He looked down at his hands. She was right. He didn’t feel like CIA, and he recently found himself doubting everyone’s words and intentions.
But Maria was different. She had more than words and intentions for him; she acted. She showed her true colors in ways that risked her own safety and well-being.
Maria shifted again, or tried to. The gears grinded horribly and the burning smell increased. “Shit,” she muttered. “I think we blew our transmission. We can’t keep going like this. We need to lose them long enough to get away on foot, find a place to hide.”
She was right. They couldn’t keep going like this, and he certainly couldn’t get very far on foot. The pain in his abdomen returned with a vengeance; his wound had torn open again, judging by the widened blood spot on his shirt.
He emptied his pockets into the center console—the bottle of painkillers, the liquid adhesive, the last shot of epinephrine, his cash, and Metaj’s phone.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
He popped the top of the pill bottle and swallowed two dry. “If there’s any chance of fixing this, you’ll keep this stuff safe for me.”
“Kent, what are you—”
“This phone is from a pimp here in Staremesto named Metaj.” Reid lifted his shirt and pinched the bloody edges of his wound together with a groan. “He sells girls to the traffickers. There’s a… number in there for someone named Mirko. He’s the contact.” He applied a bead of the liquid adhesive. “If something happens to me, if I can’t get out of this, promise you’ll follow it. Promise you’ll find them.”
They both bounced in their seats as something beneath the hood blew. Smoke billowed from beneath it.
“Don’t…” she warned.
“They want me. Get somewhere safe.” He pushed open the door and leapt out of the moving car, hitting the pavement painfully hard and rolling several times.
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
“Eight.” The interrogator slapped down a manila folder on the table in front of Reid. “Eight dead. Several more wounded.” He shrugged out of his black suit jacket and hung it on the back of a blue plastic chair, but he did not sit. Instead he paced the length of the steel table bolted to the floor between them.
The man was Interpol, around fifty, his dark hair shifting gray and deep crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes. Judging by his accent, Reid could assume he was French, though he spoke in English.
“Eight bodies found in two countries, three cities, over the span of only a few hours. Every witness to these crimes claims that an American man fitting your description committed them.” The interrogator leaned forward on the table, his fingers splayed, and stared into Reid’s eyes.
Reid stared back passively and said nothing.
After leaping from the car, he had risen in the middle of the road and stood directly in the path of one of the oncoming cars. It had screeched to a halt only feet from hitting him; it was an unmarked car of Interpol’s. The second car, a police cruiser, had screamed past him, pursuing Maria.
As the Interpol agents trained their guns on him and Reid put his hands in the air in surrender, the black muscle car skidded sideways. The police cruiser careened into the side of it, injuring the driver. The last he saw of Maria was a flash of blonde hair as she escaped from the passenger’s side of the disabled muscle car, fleeing into the night.
He had no idea what might have happened to her since, but he hoped that she was able to make a getaway. She was the only chance he had now of finding his girls.
Unfortunately, Baraf was not among his captors, at least not that Reid could see. They put him in handcuffs and drove him the forty-five minutes back to Bratislava, to Interpol’s regional office in Slovakia, where he was cuffed to a loop in the steel table. Hardly a word had been spoken to him until he arrived in the boxy interrogation room, being scrutinized by the French interrogator.
“You have no passport, no identification whatsoever—nothing on you at all,” the interrogator continued. “We’ve contacted the US embassy and your government. We sent them your photo and the charges pending against you. They claim to know nothing about your identity. You understand what this means?”
Reid simply stared, keeping his mouth shut and his eyes on the man, but he did understand. It meant that the CIA had officially disavowed him, that the United States, his home country, would feign ignorance to any and all of his activities.
It meant that he would be tried in a Slovakian court. And then, either during his time or when it was up—if it was ever up—he would likely be tried in Croatia as well. It meant that if he could not find a way out of this, he could very well spend the rest of his days in European prisons.
“We will find the necessary evidence linking you to these crimes,” the interrogator promised, resuming his pacing. “But you can make this easier on everyone, including yourself, by telling me who you are. Why you did the things you did.”
Reid tracked the man’s movement back and forth opposite the table. He was desperate, screaming internally; his girls were still out there, potentially getting farther by the minute. His own future was just as bleak. Yet he kept his composure, staring back at the interrogator and not uttering a single word. The two tablets of hydrocodone he had taken before jumping out of the car helped keep his hands from trembling and the sweat from rolling down his forehead. He was certain that Interpol could—and would—find evidence against him, in the form of his hair, his blood, and his fingerprints at the scenes.
Still he said nothing.
“Fine,” the interrogator said finally. He was trained not to lose his cool, but Reid could tell that the man was growing frustrated by his silence. “You may have it your way. I am certain the Slovakian government would have little problem adding a charge of obstruction of justice to your already impressive list.”
There was a knock at the door to the tiny room. The interrogator opened it and spoke silently for a moment with whoever was on the other side; Reid could not see them from his vantage point, nor could he hear their hushed words. The interrogator left, closing the door behind him and leaving Reid alone.
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and sighed. You can’t let this be it. Yet there was no way he could see out of this. He was handcuffed to a bolted table. Even if he wasn’t, what could he do? Fight his way out of Interpol headquarters while unarmed, injured, and partially high on painkillers?
Reid glanced up at the camera in the corner of the room, staring into the lens. They already knew his face, and whether or not they ever discovered his real identity was moot. He had reached the end of his rope, but his daughters still needed help. If he couldn’t provide it, someone had to.
He closed his eyes and sighed. “My name is Reid Lawson,” he said into the empty room. He knew that every word was being recorded, that someone was listening. “Two days ago my daughters were taken from their home by a known terrorist and given to a human trafficking organization that operates here in Slovakia…”
Reid opened his eyes and paused, furrowing his brow in confusion. The small red light next to the lens of the mounted camera had flickered off.
A moment later the steel door swung open again and a familiar face entered the room—though it looked neither pleasant nor happy to see him.
Vicente Baraf slowly lowered himself into the chair opposite Reid. He wore a cream-colored suit and his dark hair was slicked straight back atop his head.
He opened the folder before he spoke; inside were crime scene photos, pictures of the dead men from the Tkanina facility. He flipped to the next; it was of one of the dead SIS agents from the penthouse.
“The camera is off,” Baraf murmured. “As is the audio feed. I convinced them to give me five minutes with you. I have a notable history of building positive rapport with criminals.”
Reid blinked in surprise. “You didn’t tell them…?”
“Of our history? That I know you?” Baraf shook his head. “No.”
Reid’s gaze flitted around the room. The walls were solid; there was no two-way glass, and if the audio and visual equipment truly was off, then they could speak freely. Still, Reid kept his voice low.
“Please listen to me,” he pleaded. “What you might have been told is not necessarily the whole truth—”
“Ten men,” Baraf interrupted. “Your occupation is covert operations, yet you openly killed ten men. Regardless of what I’ve been told, how do you expect me, or anyone, to help you when you leave that many corpses behind?”
“Every one of them deserved what they got,” Reid said adamantly. “Every single one was a trafficker, or a pimp, or an accomplice…”
“That is not your decision to make!” Baraf hissed. “You are not judge or jury! Just an indiscriminate executioner!” He took a breath, calming himself. “You killed two SIS agents, Kent. You maimed a member of the European Commission.”
“Filip Varga is in on it!” Reid said in a harsh whisper. “He aids and abets the traffickers. He admitted it to me.”
“And yet there is no evidence.”
“The girls,” Reid countered. “The three girls from the penthouse of the District. They went to the police, right?”
“Yes, three girls went to the police,” Baraf confirmed. “They reported that they had been trafficked, forced into prostitution. But they said nothing about Varga or the hotel.”
Reid couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Because they’re scared!” he insisted. “They’ve been threatened, beaten, raped by people like him. People in positions of power. I bet you they wouldn’t pick the traffickers out of a lineup for fear of repercussion.” He leaned forward, the chain of his handcuffs rattling. “Please believe me. You know I have no reason to lie about this.”
Baraf nodded slowly. “I know you don’t. And I do believe you. But you have no evidence, and I need more than just your word. I could look into it, build a case, but that would take time. Someone like Varga would c
over his tracks. He could create a lot of problems, tie up litigation for months, even years…”
“Where is he now?” Reid demanded.
“In the hospital, being treated for his wounds. But he has already released a statement to the press. He claims that an American man broke into the penthouse, shot his SIS agents, and threatened to kill him. He claims it was politically motivated. Once he is released, he will hold a press conference, and I am certain that people will rally behind him.”
“And what about the European Commission?” Reid asked. “They could open an investigation on him. I can come forward, make my identity known, my affiliation…”
“Kent,” Baraf said calmly, “right now you have no affiliation. You have been disavowed by not only your agency, but your government.” He folded his hands upon the table between them. “We received word minutes ago that someone from the US embassy is coming to retrieve you. I think you know what that means.”
Reid’s heart sank. Strickland, he thought bitterly. Agent Zero was Strickland’s new op, according to Maria; the CIA was sending him to return Kent Steele to the States. Whatever the Slovakians might have had planned for this unknown American criminal would likely be quite comfortable compared to the hole that the agency could throw him in.
“But they don’t have jurisdiction here,” Reid argued.
“No,” Baraf agreed, “but under the United Nations’ anti-terrorism laws, you can be repatriated until you are tried before the International Criminal Court.”
Reid balked; the ICC was an intergovernmental tribunal based in the Netherlands that tried criminals charged with crimes against humanity, war crimes, and international terrorism.
But he also knew it would never get that far. Once he was in Strickland’s hands he would vanish. It was likely he would never see the US again at all; only the inside of a dirt hole at a CIA black site.
