by Jack Mars
While they walked, Karina slipped her arm in the crook of his. Her cheeks flushed pink as she said, “For appearances’ sake.”
“Sure,” he murmured. “Good idea.” He cleared his throat, trying to think of something interesting to say. “Um… Did you know that Liège has been the setting for several insurgencies and battles over the centuries?”
Karina looked at him as if he had suddenly started speaking Latin. “Is that so?”
“Uh, yes. And it was once the home of Christina the Astonishing. She was a Christian holy woman, in the late twelfth century, who later became canonized as the patron saint of people suffering from mental health disorders.”
She laughed then, and it took Zero a moment to realize that she wasn’t laughing at him, but rather laughing at the moment. “How in the world do you know that? Are you some sort of history buff?”
“Professor, actually.” Then he quickly corrected himself and said, “I mean, I was. I used to be. That was my… alter ego, I guess you could say.”
“Professor Zero,” Karina chided gently. “Forgive me, but it’s difficult to imagine.”
“Well, anyone who knew me then would say the same about being a CIA agent.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” she said with a sigh. “A week ago I spent my life in quiet meetings and conferences wearing heels and blazers. If you had told that woman she would be jumping from moving trains and being shot at, she would have laughed at you in four languages.”
“Isn’t laughing the same in every language?”
“Of course not! Haven’t you ever heard a Frenchman laugh?” And then she let out a soft laugh of her own, lilting and pleasant to his ears.
As they walked along the lit boulevards, among the people, Zero found himself more at ease than he had been in a long time—months, certainly. Maybe more. Eventually they found an inn, a discreet place that looked like an oversized cottage not far from St. Paul’s Cathedral. The clerk was more than happy to accept double the going rate for a night in exchange for accepting American dollars and no questions asked.
Their room was tidy and inviting, with just a touch of foreign influence. Karina said a brief prayer of thanks in Ukrainian at the very sight of a bathtub. “I am going to take what is likely going to be the longest shower of my life,” she announced. “You should probably make yourself comfortable.”
Zero chuckled at that. “Knock yourself out.” But as soon as the door was closed behind her, the smile fell away from his lips.
He couldn’t stop thinking about what she had said earlier. It would seem that your part in this is nearly over, Zero. But it wasn’t. Even after FIS came, even after the intel that Karina had was safely with the Ukrainian leaders and she was with her sister, he would still have to confront the things he had done to get here. FIS had not made any guarantees about his own safety, and he couldn’t be sure that they even would. Veronika might owe him her gratitude, but he had no idea who she was, not really—and vice versa, for that matter. He had no safety net with her.
Beyond the closed door to his right he heard the shower running, imagined that Karina was happy to finally wash off the dirt and blood and general muck and mire of everything they’d been through so far.
But when he looked down at his own hands, all he saw was the blood on them.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Strickland switched off the headlights and parked the unmarked car a half a block away and across the street from the Third Street Garage. He cut the engine and sat there for a few minutes, watching the dark building. The layout was as he remembered it; beige, one story, with a flat rooftop, three garage bays, and an adjoined office. Behind the garage bays, he knew, was a small apartment, attached but only accessible from the outside. Judging by the fact that there were no lights on, he guessed that would be the best place to find the mechanic.
He wasn’t happy about being used for this glorified errand. He wished he’d been sent to Europe—the notion that Fisher and his team would find and apprehend Zero was laughable—but he also knew that Maria had a soft spot for him. In fact, though he’d never say it aloud, he suspected that she was attempting some minor sabotage by sending Fisher instead of him, giving Zero more time to get to wherever he was going.
But where is he going? That was the question. Todd couldn’t even imagine what had sent Zero off on something like this in the first place. He could imagine the sort of conspiratorial dirt that the alleged interpreter may or may not have, but why Zero? What had inspired him to suddenly come out of retirement after a year and a half and do all he’d done?
He really hoped it wasn’t Sara. When last Strickland and Zero had talked, it had been to tell him where to find his younger daughter. Strickland hadn’t followed up to see if Zero had actually gone or not, but if he had, Sara would not have had anything pleasant to say to him.
I wonder if that was his tipping point.
He wondered if the former Agent Zero had finally cracked.
Todd pushed the thoughts out of his head and got out of the car, approaching the garage casually as if he was just a passerby. He peered into the dark windows of the office and garage bays but saw and heard nothing. So he circled around to the back and the door of the small apartment.
He had his hand on the holster of his Glock when he stopped and reminded himself that this man was an asset, not an insurgent. He could have laughed at himself; he had become so used to doing things a certain way, in the Middle East with the Rangers and elsewhere with the CIA, that his natural inclination was to kick down the door with gun in hand and tear the man from his bed.
There were no lights on through the apartment either. He pounded on the door solidly three times with the back of his fist and said loudly, “Mitch…?”
It was only then that he realized that Maria hadn’t given him a last name. At the time it hadn’t seemed odd, but suddenly Strickland was keenly aware that “Mitch” was likely an alias.
Not to mention that she accidentally called him “Alan.” Maria was a lot of things, but scatterbrained wasn’t one of them. Fatigue and stress were old friends of hers.
“Mitch,” he said again loudly. “This is Agent Strickland with the CIA.”
No answer. Todd gently tried the doorknob. Naturally it was locked.
It looked as if he was going to have to do this the old-fashioned way. He reminded himself again to keep the gun where it was as he reared back and, with one swift kick just below the knob, cracked the doorjamb. It splintered and flew open, and he stepped inside.
“Mitch,” he said immediately to the darkness of a small kitchen. “Don’t be alarmed. I’m with the CIA, and I’m here to—”
Suddenly there was a flash of light, so intensely bright it was as if he was staring directly at the sun. All he could see was white as every photoreceptor in his eyes were activated all at once. The flash was accompanied by an explosion, a single bang as loud as an entire Fourth of July display going off only a few feet away. The blast was so loud and instant that he didn’t hear it as much as he felt it, rattling his teeth and actually cracking two windows.
Todd’s knees gave out immediately, his equilibrium thrown by the instant imbalance of fluid in his ears. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t hear anything but a high-pitched whine. The logical part of his brain knew that it was a stun grenade—also known as a flash-bang. He’d used them before and had them used on him.
The other part of his brain, however, instantly plucked a memory from the recesses of his mind. An operation to rescue hostages in Bahrain. He and his unit had gone in dark, or so they thought. The enemy had assaulted them with stun grenades as they entered a compound and then opened fire.
As that memory surged through his head, automatic guns chugging and fellow soldiers screaming, Todd reached for his Glock. Before he could gather his senses he had it up in front of him, unable to see anything, unable to hear the real world but having the sounds of the harrowing recollection roaring through his head. He fired three times from
a one-knee position, indiscriminately into the apartment. Glass shattered somewhere.
Stop!
He struggled to gather his wits, first shoving the gun back into its holster and then rising shakily to his feet. His vision was returning, but there was a bright afterimage every time he blinked. The ringing in his ears slowly subsided.
There was no one there, at least not that he could see. This place was booby-trapped. Just who was this guy expecting a visit from?
As soon as he thought it, he heard a stomping footfall. A large shape rushed at him from the darkness beyond the kitchen. He got his hands up in time, but they weren’t enough to stop the charging bull of a man. His assailant knocked into him full-force, knocking the air from Todd’s lungs as his feet left the ground and the rest of him sailed backward through the broken front door. He landed with a jarring crunch on the gravel outside, whatever air remaining in him abruptly forced out.
His assailant hurtled over him and kept going, boots pounding the gravel as he ran around the corner of the building.
“Hey,” Todd tried to say hoarsely, but he had no wind. He scrambled to his feet, stumbling and nearly falling over, and then half-jogged after the man. “Mitch!”
Whoever this guy was, he’d been inside when Todd announced that he was CIA, but he was still in a hurry to get out of there. This time he drew his gun. As he rounded the corner after him he heard an engine roll over.
In the garage. He’s trying to get away.
Todd shoved open the office door, which was thankfully unlocked, and took a breath before pushing into the garage with the three bays. Two of them contained vehicles, and one of them was idling, the headlights on but unmoving. The bay door wasn’t even open. Strange.
Todd approached it carefully, gun aimed. It was nothing much to look at, a boxy old brown sedan that looked like it had driven right out of an early nineties movie. But he could hear the throaty engine under the hood and tell that it had a V8 turbocharged engine. It was a getaway car, and he had little doubt that it could leave his unmarked town car in the dust.
The windows were tinted dark, too dark to see inside. He pointed the Glock at the driver’s side window as he shouted, “Get out of the vehicle, now!”
There was no movement. If the bay door started to roll up, or the engine shifted gears, he’d have to shoot. Or else this guy would be long gone in an instant.
“Get out, now!” Todd reached for the door handle.
As he did, he saw a flash of movement in the window’s reflection. Behind you! He ducked out of the way a half-second before the steel head of a two-foot-long monkey wrench smashed into the glass, shattering the window.
The burly mechanic reared back immediately for another swing.
“Hey, wait—” Todd managed before he threw his body to the right, evading a swing at his ribs.
The mechanic was broad-shouldered and hefty, but he moved with a speed and grace that indicated he’d had combat training, and plenty of it. As he missed his swing he moved with the momentum of it, bringing the wrench up and then straight down as if it were an axe.
Strickland twisted his body and the deadly tool whizzed right past his ear, very nearly clipping his shoulder. In close quarters, he wrapped an arm around both of the mechanic’s thick wrists and trapped them tightly in the crook of his elbow.
“Stop!” he said hoarsely. “I don’t want to fight you!”
The corners of the mechanic’s beard curled up in a grin. “Bet your ass you don’t.” His head shot forward and the trucker’s cap flew away as the top of his skull smacked into Strickland’s forehead. His neck jerked back and stars swam in his vision. His grip on the mechanic’s arms slipped away, as did his Glock. It was all he could do to backpedal, but his hip struck the rear fender of the other car in the garage and he spun as he fell to the concrete floor.
“Wait.” He was woozy, his vision blurred, still disoriented from the flash-bang let alone the blow to the head. “I’m CIA…”
“Yeah? How many did you bring with you?” the mechanic grunted as he advanced with the wrench. “Your boys got this place surrounded?”
“I’m alone,” Todd insisted. “Johansson sent me.”
Mitch paused, but glared dubiously down at him. “You shot at me.”
“I didn’t mean to. I have… it’s PTSD. The flash-bang triggered me. I’m sorry.”
The larger man considered this for a long moment, and then stooped to pick up his oil-stained hat. He brushed it off and set it back over his matted hair. “What’s your name?”
“Strickland. Todd Strickland.”
The mechanic’s expression softened. He seemed to have heard the name before. “And you say Maria sent you?”
“Yes.” Todd pulled himself to his feet and rubbed his forehead. “She said you were a ‘personal asset,’ whatever that means. But I know you helped Kent’s kids before, at a safe house in Nebraska. I don’t know what your ties to them are, but I think it’s safe to say we’re on the same side.” He paused and said, “I’m going to pick up my gun now and holster it. Okay?”
Mitch nodded, but he kept an eagle-eye on him as Strickland slowly picked up the Glock and put it away. “Johansson wants me to bring you to Langley. She wants to talk to you.”
“Mm-mm.” The mechanic shook his head. “She should know better than most that I’d never willingly step foot in that place again. You go back and tell her that if she wants to talk, she knows where to find me.”
“She’s not going to like that answer.”
“She’s not going to like any answers I have for her,” the mechanic grunted. “Tell her all the same. And sorry about the bump to the noggin.”
Bump? Strickland couldn’t remember the last time he’d been hit that hard.
“Sorry I broke your door,” he offered in response. He’d call Maria as soon as he was back at the car and see how she wanted him to proceed. “Be seeing you, Mitch. Or Alan. Whatever your name is.”
As he started toward the door to the office he heard the mechanic growl behind him, “What did you just say?”
“Nothing,” Strickland replied. “It was just something Johansson—”
His breath was suddenly cut off as a thick arm snaked around his neck in a three-point chokehold, the muscles flexing and pinching off the blood supply to his head. He tried to tuck his chin, but the mechanic was strong, stronger than him. He tried to go limp, but the bigger man had no problem holding him up. He tried to pinch the nerve in the hand, a hidden point between the thumb and forefinger that weakened the arm, but nothing happened.
“Nerve’s been dead for years,” the mechanic hissed in his ear. “Did she sell me out? Did she tell them who I am?”
Strickland could only respond with a choking rasp.
“I’m not going to kill you because I know you’re one of the good ones. But I need you to tell Maria not to forget where my loyalties lie. I’ve always been on his side, and always will be.”
The edges of Strickland’s vision grew fuzzy. But before he lost consciousness, he heard the mechanic whisper, “And if she’s not standing with us, then she’s against us.”
*
Todd awoke on the cold concrete floor of the garage with an intense pounding in his head and bruising around his neck. But the middle garage bay door was open and the car was gone; not the brown one with the shattered window, but the other one, the details of which Todd had barely noticed in his zeal to run down the mechanic.
He pulled out his phone. He’d only been unconscious for a few minutes, but he knew the chances of catching up to or even finding the man were close to nil. He called Maria’s cell.
“I’m going to guess it didn’t go well,” she said by way of greeting.
“You could have warned me. Jesus, he’s like a paranoid ox.”
“What happened, Todd?”
“I…” Rather than go through the whole ordeal, he simply fessed up to the important part. “I heard you call him Alan earlier. We both know that wasn’t
just a slip of the tongue. I might have called him that too.”
“Shit,” Maria sighed. “He’s gone.”
“He’s gone,” Strickland confirmed, “and we’re not likely to catch up to him.”
“At least not stateside,” Maria said. “But I know where he’ll go.”
He thought about what Mitch, or whoever he was, had said just before choking him out. I’ve always been on his side, and always will be. The mechanic would go to Kent. “I can track him,” Strickland offered quickly.
“No need,” Maria said casually. “With a little luck, we’ll soon know where Kent is… roundabout, at least.”
“How?”
“Seems that Kozlovsky’s people landed in Frankfurt, just as you said. And their plane is still there. A friend of mine in Interpol confirmed that some Russians that identified themselves as intelligence agents were sniffing around Dusseldorf,” Maria explained. “I’m heading down to Bixby right now to see if he can hack the phones of any of Kozlovsky’s known people and track their location.”
Strickland blinked. “You’re going to have him perform an illegal hack on Russian diplomats’ phones to find a wanted fugitive without the agency knowing?”
“When you put it like that, it sounds bad.” Maria’s tone softened. “Look, Todd, this could make the difference between Kent coming back in cuffs and him coming back in a body bag. Just get back here as soon as you can.”
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Karina exited the bathroom as Zero flicked idly through television channels. He had the TV on mute, but he found its glow somehow comforting. As if their time at the inn was just a perfectly normal thing.
“My,” she said dreamily. “The things we take for granted.”
He barely glanced up as she stepped around the bed to retrieve the shopping bag with the fresh change of clothes in it—and then he did a double take. Karina stared in a mirror affixed to the wall as she reinserted the pearl earrings she’d been wearing. Her dark hair hung damp and straight over the edge of the fluffy blue towel she had wrapped around her, tucked in the front between her breasts. The wet towel clung to her hips, her curves, stopping just midway down her thighs, showing off the contour of smooth muscle.
