Agent Zero

by Jack Mars

  “We split up,” he instructed. “Baraf, can you take the control room?”

  The agent nodded. “It would be my pleasure.”

  “Maria, go with him. I’ll check the steeple.”

  She scoffed. “You’re going in alone, on a bum leg? No way. You need me more than he does.”

  “Baraf?” Reid questioned.

  He grinned fiercely. “Do not let the suit fool you. I am quite capable on my own. Good luck, Agents.” He sprinted off again, heading toward the conference center.

  Maria took one of Reid’s arms and slung it around her shoulders. “Come on,” she said. “You’re not getting anywhere fast, and I’m not waiting around for you.”

  He couldn’t help but chuckle as she helped him along as quickly as they could. “Is this what it was like in the old days? You picking up my slack?”

  “Oh, definitely. Picking up your slack, cleaning up your messes… you have no idea how much you owe me.”

  “If I can’t remember it, it didn’t happen.” He grunted softly as they grew close to the church. The pain in his knee was getting worse.

  Baraf was right; the church must have been hundreds of years old, but it looked sturdy, the stone façade barely weathered. Clearly the people of Davos took good care of the landmark.

  Maria drew her Glock and shoved open the doors. She cleared the nave and then ushered Reid inside. “You’re not going to like this,” she said.

  The interior of the church was surprisingly small—it was doubtful that more than fifty people could have fit in the pews. At the rear of the building, just beyond the transept, was the onset of the steeple’s tower, and a spiraling wooden staircase that led to the top.

  Of course there are stairs, Reid thought bitterly. In his haste to find the bomber, he hadn’t considered that four stories stretched between them and the peak, and suddenly he wished he had opted to take the control room instead.

  He glanced upward, but he couldn’t see anything beyond the wooden ceiling at the top of the stairs that would serve as the floor for the small, circular room at the top. It was a small blessing—it meant that if the bomber was up there, he wouldn’t see them coming either.

  Maria must have been thinking the same, because she glanced upward dubiously. “Only one way up,” she said quietly. “We could really use a diversion right about now.”

  “No time,” Reid said, though he agreed that going in blind was less than ideal. “Besides, any diversion we might make could cause them to act early. If he’s up there, he won’t have line of sight on us. Let’s just get it done.”

  He went first. Even the initial few wooden steps made his knee burn with pain. He put a finger to his lips to warn Maria to stay quiet; every small sound seemed to echo up the tower. In response, she rolled her eyes, having already ascertained that.

  As they ascended carefully, trying not to make any noise that might serve as a warning up the cavernous spire, Reid’s leg felt as if it was on fire. What he first thought was a severely pulled muscle he now realized was more likely a tear. Before they had even reached the halfway point his leg began to tremble with the threat of giving out.

  Push through it, he insisted to his body. Lives are at stake.

  It certainly didn’t help that he could barely support himself on the banister—it was on his left side, the hand that Rais had sliced open. He began to lag again behind Maria.

  About two-thirds of the way up the spiral staircase leading to the top of the steeple, his leg folded beneath him, threatening to give out. He clutched at the banister for support and kept himself from falling.

  Maria reached out instinctively and grabbed his arm. “You okay?”

  “Go on without me,” he whispered. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’ll be fine. Just… be careful.”

  She hesitated a moment, but then nodded and hurried upward, doubling her pace, stepping heel-to-toe on each stair in an attempt to minimize any noise she might make. Reid followed as best he could, but she soon vanished from sight around the next curve of the spiral staircase. In just a few moments, he thought, she would be in the small round room overhead at the steeple’s peak.

  “Come on,” he grunted to his knee as he pulled himself up yet another stair.

  A sharp crack split the air and echoed down the length of the steeple, startling him. A single gunshot.

  Reid held his breath. It was Maria, he told himself. She got him. She shot the bomber, and any moment now she’ll call out the all-clear.

  He did not hear any shouts. Instead he heard a booming thud hit the wooden ceiling mere feet over him.

  There was no mistaking it. A body had just hit the floor.

  Reid gritted his teeth and forced himself higher. He hadn’t even realized that he had drawn his Glock, but there it was, gripped in his good right hand, doing his best to ignore the scorching pain in both his leg and his slashed hand as he supported half his weight on the banister.

  Please hold out, he begged of his body.

  Mercifully, it did. He made it to the end of the staircase, where an open arched doorway led into the small round chamber. With his gun aloft, he took a breath and entered, immediately tracking the barrel left and right.

  His gaze caught several things at once: Maria, down. Blood on her. A light-haired man. A gun in his hand. Aimed at Reid.

  He didn’t have time to process everything. He quickly took aim and fired.

  The bomber did too.

  In that same instant, Reid’s knee decided it had finally had enough. Just before his finger squeezed the trigger, his left leg went out from under him and he fell in a half-spin to the floor. His own shot went wild and hit the ceiling.

  The bomber’s shot missed his head by inches.

  Reid winced in pain as he collapsed to the floor beneath his bum leg. The bomber was on him in an instant, crossing the span of the room in two long strides.He kicked at Reid’s hand and the Glock flew from it, clattering down the wooden stairs.

  Reid glared up at him as he leered down. In his fist he held an ugly black pistol—a Luger P08. The bomber was unassumingly short with sandy hair. His dark eyes, notable overbite, and sharp nose that hooked slightly at the tip gave him an overall resemblance to a rat. On his neck, Reid could clearly see the branded glyph of Amun.

  “Agent Zero,” he said in a hiss. “I must say, this meeting is bittersweet.” His English was just barely tinged with a Swiss German accent. “On the one hand, it is an honor to meet such a legend. However, I have to assume that our mutual friend failed in Sion.”

  Reid ignored him and turned to Maria, who groaned in pain as she propped herself on one elbow. Her hand held the opposite shoulder, where the bomber had shot her.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Bastard had the drop on me,” she grunted. “But I’ll live.”

  “Is that so?” said the rat-faced bomber with a sneer.

  “Others will come,” Reid told him. “They would have heard the shots.”

  “Undoubtedly. And I’ll see them coming.” He motioned toward the table behind him, where three flat-screen monitors sat side by side, black-and-white images on each. Reid recognized one as the church entrance, and another as the inside of the church. The last monitor had a downward-angle view of the spiral stairs leading up to the steeple.

  “You saw us,” he murmured. “You were watching the whole time.”

  “Hidden cameras. Very small, and very discreet. Amun thought of everything, Agent Zero. The time that it would take anyone to reach us up here is more than enough time for me to detonate, if necessary.”

  On the table next to the monitors was Maria’s gun, and next to that was a trapezoidal black box, a few inches thick, with more than two dozen chrome toggle switches in rows. Each switch had a small red LED beside it. From the back of the box were a multitude of wires, each ending in a smaller black rectangular box—radio transmitters, Reid knew, a unique one for each bomb hidden thr
oughout Davos.

  He was watching us, Reid thought, but he didn’t detonate. Why?

  “You saw that I was injured,” he reasoned aloud.

  The bomber grinned viciously. “I took a risk, yes. My brothers would likely not approve. But I saw an opportunity, and I couldn’t resist. Soon, Agent Zero, you will die. Before that, however, you are going to watch the destruction of Davos and hundreds of world leaders.” He gestured to the only window in the steeple, a large keyhole-shaped frame with dark iron-framed glass. “We have the perfect vantage point for it.”

  Reid pulled himself up into a seated position. The bomber leapt back, the Luger pointed, clearly not interested in taking any more chances. Reid’s knee screamed in protest at the movement; there was no way he was getting back up onto it.

  Though maybe I don’t have to, he thought. He still had the small silver and black LC9 strapped to his ankle. Agent Baraf would certainly have reached the control room by now and realized that it was a dead end. He would either double back to the church or try to contact them by phone, and when that failed, he would come looking.

  As soon as anyone else entered the church and the bomber’s attention was diverted, he would go for his ankle holster, he decided. He would have only a sliver of an opportunity, but he had to try.

  The bomber glanced at his wristwatch. “I’m afraid our timetable has moved up a few hours,” he sighed, “but you have forced our hand, Agent Zero. Now, if you will please direct your attention to the resort below…” His hand hovered dangerously over the toggle switchboard.

  “Wait!” Reid exclaimed. “Amun didn’t think of everything.” He had to buy some time, somehow, and there was only one way he could think of doing that—prove to the bomber that Amun was not as flawless as he perceived.

  The rat-faced man raised an eyebrow. “There is no flaw in our plan.”

  “There’s one. You underestimated me. I figured out the locations of your bombs.”

  The bomber’s face spread slowly into a wide grin. “You’re stalling.”

  “I’m not. You sent people in as construction workers during the resort’s renovation. They hid the bombs behind walls and covered them with a light composite material that wouldn’t hinder the explosion.”

  The bomber’s grin collapsed. “How…?”

  “You’re not as smart as you think you are,” Reid said simply.

  “They’ve already… found a few,” Maria added slowly. Reid noticed with mild panic that her face was ashen; she was losing blood fast.

  Come on, Baraf.

  “No.” The bomber shook his head vigorously. “No, they haven’t found any.” His lips trembled in anger and trepidation. He took another step back, and again his hand hung in the space above the toggled switches. “If they had, then I suppose there’s a chance this would do nothing.” He locked his gaze on Reid’s as his finger touched a random toggle.

  “No, don’t—!” Reid heard himself shout.

  The bomber flicked the switch.

  Reid held his breath, waiting to hear an explosion, to feel the detonation beneath, to see an orange fireball rise into the sky through the keyhole window.

  Nothing happened.

  The small red LED light beside the toggle went out with the flick of the switch, but otherwise, silence reigned in the small round room at the top of the steeple.

  Reid breathed a sigh of relief. The triggered bomb must have been one that Hegg’s team had already found and disarmed. But his solace was short-lived.

  The bomber’s hands shook with silent fury as his face reddened in outrage. He spun on Reid. “You’ve ruined everything!” he screamed. His eyes were wild and murderous as he leveled the trembling Luger—but not at him.

  He pointed it at Maria.

  “Choose,” he hissed. “Either I shoot this woman right before your eyes, or I flip another switch. Choose.”

  “What?” Reid exclaimed in horror. “I… no. I can’t. I won’t.”

  “Choose!” the bomber shouted. He reached out with his left hand and rested a finger on a toggle.

  Reid stared in disbelief. Where Rais and the fake sheikh were dangerous fanatics, this man was simply a monster. There was no way he could make that choice. He refused.

  “Choose.”

  “Listen to me,” Reid said quickly. “You’re the one who has a choice. Amun’s plot has failed, whether you realize it or not. You can still walk away from this. Give us information, and we’ll grant you amnesty. You have my word.”

  The bomber shook his head slowly. “As Amun,” he said quietly, “we endure.”

  He flicked the switch.

  Reid winced.

  Nothing happened. No detonation occurred. Thank God, he thought.

  “Again,” the bomber declared. “Choose.”

  You’ve got to be kidding me. There were still nearly two dozen switches on the board. There was no way Davos would continue to get that lucky.

  “I won’t,” Reid insisted. “I won’t choose.”

  “I will.” Maria’s voice was weak, her eyes half-closed, all color drained from her face. Reid glanced over at her in surprise. Most of her shirt was soaked in blood, and she was no longer holding her wound—she had lost the strength to keep her arm up. “I’ll choose.”

  “Maria…” he started.

  “It’s okay, Kent.” A smile twitched on her lips. “We had a real good run, you and me.” Tears brimmed in her eyes. “I really loved you. You know that?”

  Reid nodded as he felt a sting in his own eyes. He wanted to say something, anything, but instead he stared at the floor. He couldn’t watch Maria die in front of him.

  The bomber leaned over her. “It is not your choice to make,” he said venomously. “It is his.” He wanted to shame Agent Zero, to torture him before he killed him. Reid was well aware that this madman would kill him, and Maria, and set off the bombs—just not necessarily in that order.

  And then a thought occurred to him. Maria was well aware of that as well. There was no reason for her to sacrifice herself.

  “I know that,” she told the bomber weakly. “I’m… stalling.” She gestured with her chin toward the monitors behind them.

  On the center monitor, Baraf and three security officers stormed into the church, transitioning to the rightmost monitor as they barreled up the spiraling stairs.

  “No!” the bomber screamed. He dropped the Luger to the floor and lurched for the switchboard.

  A burst of adrenaline coursed through Reid, numbing his pain as he saw his opportunity. He pitched forward, yanked the LC9 free of his ankle holster, and aimed it at the bomber. He popped off two shots, center mass, into the man’s back as he reached for the triggers.

  The bomber’s body racked with a violent spasm as the bullets struck him. He overshot the switchboard and fell across the table, sharply coughing blood onto the keyhole-shaped window.

  As his legs weakened and gave out beneath him, his hands grasped desperately for something, anything, to hold onto.

  A finger found purchase on a switch, and pulled it.

  CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

  Reid felt the thunderous explosion shake the boards beneath him. He heard the astonishingly loud detonation. He closed his eyes so he wouldn’t see the plume of gray smoke that rose against the otherwise blue sky over Davos, but it did nothing to drown out the screams and cries of those outside.

  He had failed. Even a single detonation was still a terrorist attack. He had failed to stop it.

  When he opened his eyes again, Maria was lying on her side, unmoving. He crawled over to her and checked her pulse. She was alive, though her breathing was shallow.

  “Hang on,” he told her. “Just hang on.”

  Feet pounded the stairs outside the room. Seconds later, Baraf and the three officers poured in, guns aloft, and more than a little shocked at what they found.

  “She needs medical attention right away,” Reid demanded.

  None of the security officers moved. They seemed as if t
hey were trying to piece together what had happened up in the church steeple.

  “Help her!” Baraf barked at them. Two of the officers hurried forward, lifting Maria gingerly and carrying her briskly down the stairs.

  The third officer checked on the bomber. “He is alive, sir.”

  “Good,” Reid said dispassionately. “Make sure he stays that way. I want to know everything he knows. And I want to make damn sure he knows what he did here today.”

  The officer immediately got on the radio to request a medical airlift.

  Baraf extended a hand and carefully helped Reid to his feet. He winced at the scorching pain in his knee and leaned on the Italian agent’s shoulder. They stood like that for a moment, side by side, both staring out the keyhole window as thick gray smoke continued to roil upward into the air.

  “The conference center,” Baraf said quietly. “Lives were certainly lost.” He turned to face Reid. “But you should be proud of what you were able to accomplish. You saved hundreds today—probably thousands.”

  “Still not enough,” Reid murmured. He didn’t feel like a hero, and he certainly didn’t want to stand there and stare out at the smoke, or hear the sirens that began to wail from somewhere nearby as emergency vehicles roared toward the location. Despite everything he had gone through, everything he had done, in some way—perhaps a very small way, but a way nonetheless—it still felt as if Amun had won.

  Agent Zero indeed, he thought bitterly as he turned and limped painfully out of the room to begin his slow trek down the stairs.

  *

  Deputy Director of Special Operations Group Steve Bolton was out to lunch when he heard the news. There was a sports bar less than ten minutes from Langley that served excellent cheesesteaks, and at least once a week he would skip the cafeteria and treat himself.

  The television behind the bar was playing highlights from the previous night’s hockey game, the Washington Capitals’ four-to-one victory over the Buffalo Sabres, when it was interrupted by a breaking news story out of Davos, Switzerland.