Hunting Zero

by Jack Mars

  “Yes, she did. But there’s more.” Reid hesitated. “I need information. She told me you would help.”

  “What sort of information?”

  “There’s a train, a freight train that crossed the border from Czechia into Poland, probably sometime in the last couple of hours,” Reid said quickly. “This train is carrying a red boxcar or cargo container labeled with the number twenty-three. I need to find it, and I need to find it now.”

  “What of your CIA?” The man sounded almost amused, much to Reid’s irritation. “They cannot help you with this intel?”

  Reid clenched his jaw. This man very likely already knew that they wouldn’t. “No,” he said forcefully, “they can’t. Can you? Or am I wasting my time?”

  “We can locate your train,” the man said, his voice smarmy. “However, this information does not come for free. We ask for a favor in return.”

  Reid scoffed. This was precisely the situation he did not want to find himself in. “What kind of favor?”

  “It seems you have much on your mind at the moment. We will not ask this favor now, but sometime in the future—the near future—we will contact you.”

  “Fine,” he said curtly. Of course he would agree to it if it meant finding Sara; besides, he had no idea what might become of him in the near future anyhow. “It’s a deal.”

  “Good. Now this information you give us, it is not much to go on. What else can you tell us about your missing train?”

  He shook his head. He didn’t have much else to tell them. “It might be owned by Czech Railways.” The other trafficker train had been, he reasoned. Then another thought occurred to him. “Wait, you gave us the lead on Filip Varga, right? You’ve been watching him, building a file on him?”

  “Perhaps,” the man said vaguely.

  “Then you know he’s been helping the traffickers move women across the borders. Look into Varga’s holdings and see if there’s anything associated with freight. It could be that the train, or at least the containers, belongs to something he’s got his hands in.”

  The man on the end of the line chuckled lightly. “She was right. You are astute. Stand by, Agent Zero.” The call ended.

  Reid scoffed again. He didn’t like the situation before he’d made the call, and he liked this man’s wheedling, insincere voice even less. But if the means meant that he got to Sara, then he couldn’t afford to be picky about his allies, even temporary ones.

  A full three minutes passed before the phone rang again.

  “We have identified your train,” the Ukrainian man told him. “I cannot tell you where it is currently, but I can tell you where it will be. There is a small city called Grodkow, to the west of Opole. You know it?”

  “I know it,” Reid said, grateful for his thorough knowledge of European history. The city formerly known as Grottkau had been nearly demolished during the Thirty Years’ War, one of the most devastating conflicts in human history.

  “The train’s route will pass just north of there. By our best estimate it will arrive in approximately forty-five minutes’ time. I will remit the coordinates. You can get there by then?”

  “Yes,” Reid told him. He was less than sixty miles from Grodkow; he could get there in roughly twenty minutes, well ahead of the train.

  “Good luck, Agent Zero. We will be in touch.” The Ukrainian ended the call.

  Reid adjusted his tail rotor and pulled the stick back, rising in altitude and accelerating to max airspeed. He did not know what kind of favor they would ask of him, but it hardly mattered now. He had a destination; he just had to get there before anything happened to his daughter.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Sara sat on the dirty floor of the boxcar as the train chugged down the tracks. She could see nothing in the darkness, though she was vaguely aware that there were others in there with her. Occasionally she heard a shuffle, a sniffle, the sound of gentle weeping. But none of the girls spoke, least of all Sara.

  She had nothing left. There were no more tears to cry; there was no more hope to be had. She had awoken from her stupor when the rough, angry men put her on the train, only to watch her sister torn from her. Only to see the dark-haired girl, the one who tried to help, shot dead in the dirt.

  Dad will come for us. That’s what Maya had promised. But he hadn’t come. No one had. And now Maya was gone too. Sara had nothing left. She had consigned herself to meet whatever fate came to her.

  She was not too young or naïve to be ignorant to what these men wanted with her. But the knowledge of it only left her numb.

  What could she do that Maya couldn’t—or any of the other girls who had been kidnapped and forced onto the train? Her impotence did not even make her angry. It simply drained the strength and fortitude from her small, frail, fourteen-year-old limbs.

  Suddenly the brakes squealed beneath her, the train slowing. Wherever they had arrived did not matter to her; she had no idea where they had landed on the cargo plane, or where the van had taken them, or where this train was going. She knew they had traveled far enough and long enough to be in some distant country, some part of the world so far removed from what she knew that she had no hope she could ever find her way back.

  The train came to a hissing stop. Without the chugging of the engine, Sara could hear one of the other girls whimpering in the darkness—as if she knew something that Sara didn’t. Maybe she did. But no one asked. No one spoke at all.

  The door to the boxcar slid aside loudly. Suddenly there was a bright light sweeping the car, the beam of a flashlight in her eyes. She squinted into it.

  A man’s voice, in the guttural language that she did not understand. He spoke harshly, as if giving an order.

  Suddenly there was a hand around her arm. It clamped down hard and yanked her to her feet. She yelped involuntarily as the large, brutish silhouette towered over her, pulling her to the door of the boxcar. Forcing her out into the chilly night air.

  Sara was out of the train, but she did not scream for help. She did not try to wrench free from the tight grip. She did not try to run. There was nothing left in her. The train had stopped seemingly in the middle of nowhere; there were only trees and darkness. No lights or signs of people.

  She watched the ground, her feet, as she was marched down the length of the train. The man who held her muttered in his language all the while. After several cars he stopped her in front of a long, blue train car with several windows running down the side, each of them darkened by curtains or shades.

  He said something gruffly and gestured at the platform. She stepped up onto it as the man slid the door open and shoved her inside.

  Sara stood in a hallway, with windows to her right and sliding doors to her left. The windows in the doors were similarly covered from the inside. The train car smelled like a new car, but there were noises from beyond the doors. Noises that made her shiver.

  The man pulled her along once again, past the first door. Past the second door. To the third door.

  Sara noticed that it was slightly ajar, slid open just a couple of inches. She could not help herself; her eyes glanced inside before she even realized what she was doing.

  Her gaze met that of another girl, not much older than Maya. Her face was puffy and red. Her eyes wet with tears. She stared blankly at that narrow opening in the door, back at Sara.

  There was a man atop her.

  Sara froze. Her legs seemed to stop working. In that brief glance, the girl’s face was burned into her mind. Though her expression appeared blank, there was so much more behind her eyes. In that intimate instant, Sara saw fear. Humiliation. Dread. Panic. Complete and utter defeat.

  Then the man with the gun grunted and pulled her along, forcing her legs to work again as he led her to the fourth and final door on the left. He slid it open to reveal a tiny, empty cabin. He shoved her in, barked a few unintelligible words, and slammed it closed again.

  Sara stood in the center of the small, square space. There was a bed, perfectly made with sheets
and a pillow and a blanket. Two silver, lamp-like sconces protruded from the blue wall on either side of a window, a thin shade pulled down over it. A small table was bolted into the floor and wall.

  But Sara hardly saw any of that. She saw only that girl’s face and everything behind it. She saw the face of the dead girl from the van, the one who had fallen right in front of her, her eyes half-closed and skin chalky white. She saw the face of the dark-haired girl who had tried to help Maya, and been brutally murdered for it.

  Three times now Sara had seen her own possible fate at the hands of these men.

  Her heartbeat doubled in her chest. She sucked in a deep breath, as if she had just awoken from a coma. Her skin prickled as sensation crept back into her arms and legs, blood rushing at high speeds through her veins.

  No.

  She no longer felt numb.

  That won’t be me. I won’t let it be me.

  The train began moving again, chugging steadily as it pulled itself along the tracks. There were voices out in the corridor—two men speaking. Sara whipped around, looking for something, anything… but there was so little available.

  She had shoes, sneakers, from the blonde girl she had exchanged clothes with. She patted down the pockets of the jeans; there was nothing in them. She had a belt…

  A belt!

  The jeans were cinched with a thin brown leather belt, securing at the front with a gold clasp. Sara tore it off and shoved it underneath the pillow of the bed.

  A moment later the door slid open. The man with the gun was there, peering in at her as she stood in the center of the room. There was another man with him—tall, thin, his lanky arms and legs reminding her of a spider. He had dark eyes and long dark hair that hung in his face.

  Sara shivered. She did not like the mere sight of him, let alone his reason for being there.

  The lanky man entered the cabin, and the door was shut again behind him. In one hand he had a bottle of some sort of liquor; he put it to his lips and took a long sip.

  He grinned at her. His teeth were yellow and uneven.

  The man said something in a language she didn’t understand. It might have been the same language as the traffickers; she couldn’t tell. He set his bottle on the small horizontal surface, and then he sat on the edge of the small bed. He patted it, inviting her to sit with him.

  Sara slowly lowered herself to a seated position, trying to keep space between them, but the man slid closer to her. He whispered something in his language as he reached up and brushed her hair from her ear.

  She did not flinch, but her hands trembled fiercely in her lap. Not from the man’s touch; they trembled from the thought of what she might have to do, what she would do.

  The lanky man with the long hair touched her shoulder. He ran his hand down her arm, and then up her back. Her skin crawled; she wanted nothing more than for him to stop touching her, to leave her alone.

  He murmured something and stood, reaching for his bottle again. The man held it out and raised an eyebrow; he was offering it to her. Sara shook her head no.

  He shrugged and brought it to his lips.

  Sara’s hand reached beneath the pillow.

  Suddenly she was on her feet. The belt was in her hand. As the bottle was lowered again to the table, she whipped the belt around his neck from behind. She pulled. Teeth gritted.

  She could not remember what happened next. It was as if her mind had checked out temporarily while her body did the work. The next thing Sara knew she was kneeling on the floor, breathing hard. Trying to keep herself from sobbing. There were deep red lines in her hands. The belt was on the floor.

  So was the lanky man. He wasn’t moving. She did not dare look down to see what she had done.

  It won’t be me.

  She climbed to her feet and pulled up the window shade. The train was moving at full speed now; trees flew by in the darkness. Sara tried the latch, but it would not budge. She strained and shoved, but the window didn’t move. She cried out in frustration and pounded a fist against the glass.

  A harsh voice outside the cabin called out. Though the window in the door was covered, she could see a silhouette on the other side. The man with the gun—he was going to come in and see what she had done.

  The latch clicked and the door began to slide open. Sara did not hesitate; she grabbed the lanky man’s half-full liquor bottle in an upside-down grip. As the door slid fully open, she let out a primal scream and swung it as hard as she could.

  The bottle smashed across the man’s face. Glass and potent-smelling liquid flew every which way. The gunman fell back, into the corridor, gasping. There was glass in his face, blood everywhere. Sara instantly felt nauseous.

  But she couldn’t stop. Not now. Not when there might be others.

  Hands shaking, she scrambled over and pulled the man’s gun from the strap around his shoulder. She had never shot a gun before. She held it tightly in both hands and, eyes squeezed closed, she pulled the trigger—aiming for the far wall of her cabin.

  The gun kicked strongly in her hands, but she held fast. A spray of bullets buffeted the wall and shattered the window. From other cabins came shrieks of panic at the sharp, impossibly loud sound.

  Her ears ringing, Sara put both hands on the windowsill. She winced as a shard of glass pierced her hand, but still she pulled herself up.

  Chilly air swept through her hair. The ground below was rushing by way too fast. She could be seriously hurt, or worse, in the fall. But behind her she heard another door thrown open, and more angry shouting.

  I won’t let it be me, she reminded herself. No matter what happened, being outside the train was far preferable to being in it. Sara held her breath as she pushed herself out of the window, end over end. Suddenly her feet were over her head; she somersaulted. Her feet hit the ground first, but only for an instant before they were flung out from under her. Then she was on her elbows, her side, her butt, her knees, tumbling over and over down a dirt hill, smacking painfully into the ground with each roll.

  Yet with each roll down the hill she caught just a glimpse of the train above her, like a still photograph, but getting smaller and smaller as she tumbled further from it.

  She finally stopped tumbling, coming to rest at the bottom of the hill. She did not move—she wasn’t sure she could—as a wispy breath steamed into the night.

  CHAPTER FORTY ONE

  The helicopter dropped quickly as Reid descended just north of the Polish city of Grodkow, at the precise coordinates the Ukrainian had sent to him. His intention was to land directly on the tracks, just as Maria had done to stop the freight train carrying Maya, but he couldn’t see a thing in the darkness below. Reid flicked on the landing lights and intensely bright white beams shone downward, at a slight angle, as he lowered to a thousand feet.

  He could only hope that the Ukrainian’s information was correct. He could only hope that they had the right train, the right route, and that they hadn’t passed through here yet…

  Reid sucked in a breath as something rushed past the chopper’s windshield, dangerously close and moving so fast he had to adjust the tail rotor to keep from spinning in the object’s wake.

  What the hell was that? A plane?

  He didn’t have to wonder long. The flying object slowed not a hundred feet in front of him and perfectly maneuvered around in a circle to face his chopper.

  It’s a helicopter, he realized. Not just any—a Eurocopter X4. The silver helo before him glinted in the glow of his landing lights. It was larger than the medevac, with two wing-like protrusions on either side, each with a vertically aligned propeller.

  It was the fastest helicopter in the world, capable of top speeds more than twice that of the red and white chopper Reid was in. And he had little doubt as to who was inside it.

  The Eurocopter matched Reid’s descent speed, continuing to face him. He had no choice but to land and face this. He couldn’t run; the silver X4 could easily overtake him. Besides, there was nowhere for him
to run. He had to believe that the train carrying Sara would be here soon.

  He could only hope that he was still there to catch it.

  Reid set the medevac down gently, its skids sinking into soft grass. He powered down the vehicle, watching as the X4’s three wheels landed gently, its rotors already slowing. A silver door swung open and a single man emerged. He wore a black T-shirt under a bomber jacket with a wool collar. His dark hair was short, as short as Reid’s now was, faded up the sides of his head in a military-style cut.

  Agent Strickland stood in front of the X4, awash in the landing lights of the medevac chopper, making no attempt to hide the Glock 19 in his right hand. He stood casually, arms at his sides, waiting.

  Reid quickly examined his options. He had the Uzi and the Ruger, both with rounds in them—but there was no way he was simply going to shoot a potentially innocent agent. And if Strickland saw him armed, he might fire first. He could pretend to acquiesce, disarm the younger agent, fight him off… but Strickland was a former Ranger, and Reid was injured. He was in no physical state for another intense showdown.

  His only other option was to try to appeal to the agent. Perhaps Strickland would see reason. But, Reid thought, if Strickland was in Riker’s corner he would have little chance of seeing things Reid’s way. He thought back to Agent Carver, who had attacked and tried to kill him for simply recalling a memory, all on Ashleigh Riker’s authority.

  I think I’ll have to play this one by ear. He left the Uzi in the helicopter but kept the Ruger LC9 tucked in the back of his jeans as he pushed open the door and climbed out of the cockpit.

  It was eerily silent in the grassy field, made all the more eerie by the two helicopters sitting dormant, facing each other. Beyond the X4 Reid saw the lights of Grodkow, less than a mile away. But out here, where the trains ran, there was no one but the two of them.

  He took slow steps toward the Eurocopter, and Strickland did the same in the opposite direction, neither taking their eyes off the other. The younger agent kept his gun at his side, and he did not seem to be in any rush. His face was passive, his features smooth; he did not look at all concerned to be facing the allegedly legendary Agent Zero.