Agent Zero

by Jack Mars

  I need to bring this fight to solid ground if I’m ever going to get an upper hand. He rolled over, got to his feet, and pushed himself forward into a baseball-style slide just as Rais was regaining his footing. Reid collided with the assassin and tackled him onto the level platform where the stairs began. The two men tumbled in a tangle of limbs.

  Rais ended up on top. He straddled Reid and swung his fists downward, one after another, pummeling him. Reid put both hands up to try to block the blows, but they kept coming, again and again. The assassin’s face was red, his expression pure ire, as he swung over and over. A fist glanced off his arm and split his lips. Another connected with his right temple. Reid’s vision swam. If he didn’t do something, he would lose consciousness. He tried to squirm away, but Rais squeezed his hips together, trapping Reid beneath him.

  The assassin grabbed both sides of Reid’s head and tried to press his thumbs into his eyes. Reid bucked his hips as hard as he could, throwing Rais off balance. The assassin faltered, and Reid shot a fist straight out and struck the assassin in the throat. A wet choking sound escaped his lips. Reid shoved him aside and rolled over, out of the way.

  He winced as something dull and rigid jammed into his side.

  He had forgotten all about it. He wasn’t unarmed at all.

  Reid reached into his jacket pocket and swiftly pulled out the Swiss Army knife. He flicked out the three-inch blade. Rais was struggling to regain his breath, but rising to his feet at the same time.

  Before he could, Reid buried the knife into the assassin’s side, all the way to its red hilt.

  Rais threw his head back and shrieked in pain as the knife pierced his kidney. Reid tugged the blade loose and let loose a primal shout as he stabbed again, this time in the muscles of his back. Rais howled and fell to all fours.

  Rais tried to crawl away, but Reid grabbed him by the back of his belt and yanked him backward. Then he jammed the thin blade into his side again.

  Rais screamed with each stab. The strength drained from his limbs. He couldn’t crawl forward. He could barely move.

  Reid stabbed once more, into his lower back, and twisted the blade. “Give Amun my regards,” he hissed into the assassin’s ear. “Maybe this time he’ll let you stay dead.”

  Rais couldn’t even scream anymore; his mouth yawned silently, etched with agony.

  Reid suddenly felt exhausted. He let himself slump backward into a plastic seat as Rais collapsed onto his elbows. He hurt everywhere. He wasn’t sure he could muster the strength to stand again, let alone to kill this man.

  We’re doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past unless we learn from them.

  The words that he had said to Maria less than thirty minutes earlier ran through his head. He now knew the mistakes of his past; at least some of them. Killing Rais before, or thinking he had killed Rais, had brought him no closure, no satisfaction.

  But this was no longer about satisfaction. He was going to kill Rais. He couldn’t let someone like that live.

  And yet, he understood now what he had failed to understand before.

  “Nnggh…” The assassin moaned in soft whimpers as he futilely flailed out an arm, as if he could crawl away, but he was weak and losing blood fast. There was nowhere he could go. With a sustained grunt, he rolled himself over onto his back. He stared up at Reid, his forest-green eyes wide and fearful.

  “I get it now,” Reid told him. “I understand. You… your people… your whole organization, Amun… you’re afraid of me. You’re afraid of Agent Zero. It’s never been just about the plot.”

  Amun had discovered that Kent Steele was alive, and they dispatched the Iranians to find and kill him. They sent Morris after him. They sent Rais after him. They tried to get to his girls. And now the false lead about an attack on the Olympics.

  It wasn’t just about the plot—it was about him. So much of what he had been through was to keep him from getting to where he was supposed to be. They were afraid of Agent Zero, because they knew from previous experience that he was capable of stopping them. They went to great lengths to try to kill him or, at the very least, keep him at bay. Agent Zero was their ghost, a haunting specter that they couldn’t rid themselves of.

  Reid maintained eye contact with Rais. He wanted to watch the life drain from his eyes.

  “You goddamn fool,” Reid said softly. “This was never about destiny. To them, you’re just a pawn. Someone to do their dirty work.”

  With a grunt, he got down from the chair and sank to his knees. He leaned forward, close to Rais’s face. He smelled the ample blood staining the floor beneath them. He saw the abject fear of death—or more likely of failure—in his adversary’s eyes.

  “Before you die,” Reid told him, “I want your last thought to be this: no matter what passed between us, no matter what you believe about destiny or reckoning, to me you’re still just one more body I’ll have to leave along the way.”

  He slipped the knife between Rais’s ribs, aimed at his heart.

  The assassin gasped a breath, his eyes wide and bloodshot. Slowly he exhaled as his eyelids fluttered closed.

  Reid left the knife there, buried in Rais’s chest, and stood. He didn’t know if Rais was the one who had taken Reidigger’s life, but still it felt like some form of poetic justice.

  Reid was in bad shape. He hurt everywhere, but he had to move.

  The fact that the false lead sent him to the Winter Olympics had to mean that the attack was not only elsewhere, but imminent. It was about to happen, if it wasn’t happening already.

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

  “Jesus, Kent, what happened to you?” Maria spotted him as he limped out of the steel door to the skating rink. She hurried over and slung his arm over her shoulders to help steady him.

  “It’s not Sion,” he said breathlessly. After killing Rais, Reid had retrieved his guns and then made his way back down the dark access corridor as quickly as he was able—which was not all that quick at all. His knee was more pained with each step; he must have torn something when he tumbled down the stairs. His right eye was swollen anew. Both lips were split and puffy. His left hand was covered in blood where his palm was sliced open—and all of that only accounted for the visible cuts and bruises. He knew there would be much more beneath his clothes.

  He had shoved open the employee exit of the skating rink and blinked in the sudden brightness of day, agitatedly eager to warn Maria and Baraf.

  “It’s not Sion,” he repeated. “This was a distraction, another false lead. To incite panic, to create a sensational worldwide news story. Get people looking the wrong way…”

  Maria blinked in astonishment. “That doesn’t explain what happened to you!”

  “Well, it was also an attempt to kill me.” He grunted in pain as she helped him toward the park’s exit.

  Maria pulled out her phone and hit a button with her free hand. “Baraf,” she said quickly, “I found him. Meet us at the entrance.”

  “Think about it,” Reid said once she had hung up. “Every news outlet in the developed world is covering this story right now. No one is paying any attention elsewhere. Maria, the attack is happening today—but not here.”

  She groaned in frustration. “How can we stop it if we don’t know where?”

  The Italian Agent Baraf trotted over to them, his frown deepening when he saw Reid’s state. “Oh, Dio,” he murmured. “What happened…?”

  “There’s a body in the stadium,” Reid said by way of explanation. “You’ll want to let security know before anyone else goes in there.”

  “What?” Baraf’s eyes widened in shock.

  “The attack isn’t happening here,” Maria told him. “This was a distraction.”

  “It’s not Amun’s style,” Reid said quickly, before the Interpol agent could ask anything. He scolded himself for not thinking of it before. He got so caught up in his conviction that he had solved the puzzle, that it had to be the Winter Olympics, he didn’t stop to think about what Amun w
as really after. “An attack here could have been large-scale, but they’re after much more than something as simple as a high body count. If this group is basing their ideology on the same cult of Amun that existed before, then they don’t just want to kill people. They want to sow political dissent with the intention of eventual control. They want to take out specific people, for a specific goal; people like leaders, heads of state, lawmakers…”

  But where would that be happening?

  Agent Baraf threw his hands up in frustration. “So all of this was for nothing? I cannot believe this! We have evacuated thousands! And now the entire world believes that terrorists were targeting the Olympics!”

  “Hey,” Maria shot back, “we had a responsibility to see this through! What if there had been an attack and we had done nothing?”

  Their heated voices became little more than background noise as Reid attempted to reason it out. Why a distraction in Switzerland? The Olympics were likely the biggest stage that Amun could ask for. With hundreds of members of the media present, word would get out quickly. But there had to be more to it than that. They could have simply set off a few bombs anywhere and created a temporary distraction.

  Sion was a fake target intended to mislead them, to obfuscate the real intended target. He chided himself for not recognizing it; the tactic of deception was one used frequently throughout history. His mind drifted to World War II, to the 1944 invasion of Normandy—more specifically, Operation Bodyguard, one of the largest military deceptions of all time. Allied forces appeared to make the Pas de Calais their primary target, forcing German troops to defend the location, and then took the Axis armies by surprise when they instead invaded France from the northern coast.

  “The same country,” Reid murmured. The Allies had planned Operation Bodyguard and targeted a location that was not only within the same country, but not all that distant from their intended target. “It was the same country.” His murmurs were lost over the veritable shouting match between Maria and Baraf.

  “…Pulled more than a dozen agents from an international summit!” Baraf was saying as Reid snapped back to reality. “Not to mention the Swiss Federal Police, and—”

  “Baraf!” Reid interrupted. The Interpol agent blinked in surprise at the sudden outburst. “What international summit? You said your agents were pulled from a forum?”

  “Yes, the World Economic Forum in Davos.”

  Reid had heard of it before. It was an annual gathering of world leaders and captains of industry, held at a mountain resort in the Swiss Alps, in the town of Davos.

  Baraf’s frown slackened. He seemed to forget all about his anger. “You don’t believe…?”

  “How many people are in attendance,” Reid demanded, “and who?”

  “Uh… almost two thousand guests total. Approximately seventy are heads of state, and the others are business leaders from all over the world. In addition, somewhere between four and five hundred members of the media.”

  Reid spun toward Maria. “We need to go, right now.”

  “You think it’s the forum?” Baraf shook his head. “Amun would be foolhardy to try anything there. Security has been heightened in light of recent attacks—”

  “Amun has been planning this for more than two years,” Reid interrupted. “There’s plenty of historical precedent for something like this. Creating a distraction this close to the forum would pull Swiss forces away from a Swiss event. Don’t you see? Amun isn’t foolhardy. They’re ready.”

  Maria supported him under one shoulder as they hurried out of the park through the entrance, cutting a swath through still-waiting Olympic spectators, toward the police car that had carried them here from the nearby airstrip. Reid’s knee throbbed angrily, but he did his best to ignore it.

  “Agents, wait!” Baraf called out as he rushed after them. “The forum does not even begin until tomorrow. We should alert the security personnel in Davos; they can assess the situation, and—”

  “We don’t have time for assessments,” Reid interjected. “Amun won’t wait. They have their window of opportunity today, while all eyes are on the Olympics.” His mind was working a mile a minute. Amun had incited a panic and created a distraction in the very same country that they planned to carry out their attack. It was bold, but he understood why; whatever resources Davos could spare would have been sent to Sion. The World Economic Forum had not yet begun; no one would suspect any threat at the moment. Amun would carry out their attack soon, likely that same evening, when the majority of heads of state had arrived at the alpine resort.

  “Even if the forum doesn’t start until tomorrow,” he continued, “you’re talking about two thousand people—I imagine most of them have already arrived or are en route.”

  “Well, yes,” Baraf confirmed, “they would likely be at the resort by now, in their suites, and…” He trailed off as the realization struck him.

  “Exactly.” Anyone who would imagine a strike on the World Economic Forum would guess it would happen during the three-day forum—not the day before.

  They reached the police car and climbed in, Agent Baraf riding shotgun and Reid and Maria behind him. “Take us back to the airstrip as quick as you’re able,” Reid asked the officer.

  “Agent, that would do us little good,” said Baraf. “Davos has no airport, and it is more than four hundred kilometers away. The nearest airport is Zurich, and even then it is an hour-long helicopter ride.”

  “Just get us to the airstrip,” Reid insisted.

  The officer switched on the car’s lights and sirens and sped back toward the waiting Gulfstream.

  “Agent Baraf,” he said, “can you get on the phone with Interpol and tell them to send their agents back?”

  “Of course,” he replied. “Should I alert Davos’s security?”

  “Yes, right away,” Reid replied. Then a thought occurred to him. “But… don’t relate the nature of the threat.”

  Baraf blinked at him in surprise.

  “I’m sure they have their own security protocols for instances like this,” Reid explained, “and I’m guessing it involves swift and immediate evacuation. We need them to handle this carefully. Otherwise, it could cast suspicion and cause Amun to act earlier.” He knew it was extremely risky—possibly a deadly gamble, but Amun had a plan, and he was confident they would stick to it unless they were given any inkling that they shouldn’t. “If they must start evacuation, they need to do it slowly. Make it seem natural. Put people in cars and send them away. For the sake of everyone there, it cannot look like an evacuation.”

  Baraf understood. “I will relate it.”

  “Maria.” Reid turned to her. “We’re going to need all hands on deck for this.”

  She nodded as she pulled out her phone and made the call, putting it on speaker.

  “You two had better have a hell of a good explanation for what you’re pulling.” Cartwright’s voice was tight and angry and more than a little distraught. “Director Mullen wants your heads on a plate for going over him again. Not to mention causing one of the biggest false alarms in recent history! What were you think—”

  “Cartwright, we’ve got bigger problems right now,” Reid interrupted. He quickly recounted his theory about the new target: the guests of the World Economic Forum.

  “How can you be sure?” Cartwright asked. “We need evidence, not hunches. We’ve already got an international crisis on our hands, and you want to create a second one?”

  “It fits perfectly,” Reid said firmly. “We’re not just talking about political leaders here, but heads of industry, CEOs, senior executives… we’re talking about the opportunity for them to eliminate hundreds of the world’s most powerful people.”

  Cartwright was silent for a long moment. Reid knew precisely what the deputy director was thinking: if he ignored Reid and passed it off as a hunch, and there was a legitimate threat, the fallout could be astronomical.

  “Christ,” he muttered. “Zero, you had better be sure about thi
s…”

  “I am sure.” Reid tried to sound as confident as possible. “This isn’t a lead from Amun. This is learning from the mistakes of the past. Sion was a deception. Davos is the target.”

  Cartwright groaned. “What do you need?”

  “Zurich is an hour away by helicopter,” Reid said. “I need you to send any available agent you can, immediately. We’ll meet them there.”

  “Kent,” Maria spoke up, “we can’t get to Davos in less than an hour.”

  “Yes, we can,” Reid told her. “And Cartwright?” he said into the phone. “We need to keep this as quiet as we can. If Amun gets any idea that we’re on to them, they may do something rash.”

  “Something rash seems like an incredible understatement,” Cartwright said. “All right, Zero. I’ll have them wheels-up in ten minutes.”

  Maria hung up. “You’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking… are you?”

  “Yeah,” Reid said, “I think I am.”

  Baraf twisted in his seat. Beyond him, through the windshield, the airstrip came into view. “Interpol agents are back en route to Davos,” he confirmed. “We can fly directly to Zurich, and I can have a helo waiting for us to take us—”

  “We’re not going to Zurich,” Reid said.

  “What?” Baraf glanced quizzically at Reid, then Maria, and then back to Reid. “Then where?”

  The police car screamed onto the airstrip and the pilot, in a white uniform and aviator shades, descended the plane’s stairs to greet them. His smile faded, however, as he saw the three agents racing toward him.

  “You fueled up?” Reid asked.

  “Yes sir, ready whenever you are.”

  “We need you to take us to Davos.”

  The pilot frowned. “Sir, there’s no airport in Davos.”

  “I know.” Reid dashed up the stairs and into the Gulfstream, followed closely by Maria and Baraf. The confused pilot trailed after them.

  “What’s the max speed on a G650? About six hundred miles an hour?” Reid asked.