by Jack Mars
Pierson was on his feet in an instant. “What? By whom?”
“Agent Kent Steele, sir.”
Even with the makeup on his face, the president blanched.
“He used some sort of biological agent, a gas. All three are on their way to the hospital. But there’s more, sir. Our camera feed picked up an accomplice. The driver of his getaway car… it was Emilia Sanders.”
“What?” Pierson looked as if he might fall over.
Even Holmes was shocked at that news, but he also recognized opportunity when he saw it. “My god,” he murmured. “Steele had someone on the inside? On my staff?” Holmes put a hand over his mouth. “Mr. President, I think it’s time to acknowledge that you might not be safe here. Raulsen, what do you suggest?”
“My recommendation would be immediate relocation. Camp David, perhaps.”
Holmes nodded. “You can address the nation from there while we work to vet every person working in this building.” But Pierson said nothing. He hardly moved. “Sir?”
“Pete. This is too much.” The president appeared shell-shocked. “Sanders was just an aide. She never… She wouldn’t have…”
Holmes turned to Raulsen. “I’m making a judgment call here. Tell them to get Marine One prepped. You don’t leave his side, do you understand?”
“Yes sir.”
“Good. Get him out of here. Discreetly, Raulsen.”
The Secret Service agent took Pierson gently by the arm. “Please come with me, Mr. President.”
At last Pierson rose, and Raulsen ushered him out of the Oval Office.
“Thank you, Agent Steele,” Holmes murmured to himself as soon as he was alone. The CIA agent had made it much easier now that he had assaulted the DNI. But Emilia Sanders was a curious angle, and Holmes did not like it at all.
He pulled out his phone and made a call.
“Rigby,” the general answered gruffly.
“It’s Holmes. Zero got to Pierson, just as we expected. But he’s gone and attacked—”
“The DNI. I’ve already heard.”
“Then you know that we have to move quickly,” Holmes said quietly. “He’s out there, and he has help. I’ve already discredited him; now we need to get rid of him.”
“We’ve discussed this,” said Rigby. “We can’t just kill him. We don’t know who he’s told or what evidence he might have gathered.”
“I think we’re beyond that, General. Zero is no longer just an annoyance; he is a very real threat to our plan. Even with the attack on the DNI, I could see doubt in Pierson’s eyes. Whatever Zero said to him was enough to make him think twice. We need to…” He trailed off as a new notion struck him. “We might need to kill two birds with one stone.”
Rigby was silent for a long moment. “That is an absolute last resort, Holmes.”
“I’m aware. But we might be at that point, General.” Holmes rounded the desk and quickly rifled through the drawers, looking for whatever it was that Steele might have given the president. “Let’s keep it between us and in our pocket, for now.”
“In the meantime, I’ll get the CIA on the line and see what they plan to do about Zero.”
“Good.” Holmes hung up as he reached for the bottommost desk drawer. He tugged on it, but it was locked tight. And he was certain that whatever Zero had given Pierson was inside.
It doesn’t matter, he thought. The president would be en route to Camp David in minutes. Whatever was in the drawer could wait.
And if they had to use their absolute last resort, Pierson wouldn’t be alive long enough to retrieve it anyway.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Emilia Sanders, or whatever her real name was, pulled the car into the parking lot of a convenience store and cut the engine.
“What are we doing here?” Zero asked.
“Switching cars. There’s a good chance the White House was able to get an angle on this one. They’ll be looking for us.” She left the keys in the ignition as she pushed open the door. “Come on.”
Zero scoffed lightly, but he got out without further question. Despite Sanders rescuing him from Hillis and the Division, he didn’t know enough about her motivations to know whether or not she could be trusted. Still he followed her as they strode across the lot toward the gas pumps. There was a black sedan parked there, clean, late-model, nondescript. And standing beside it pumping gas was an athletic woman in a red T-shirt, her blonde hair pulled into a casual ponytail, sunglasses over eyes that Zero knew were slate gray.
“Maria.” He breathed a sigh of relief and concern in equal measure. “What are you doing here?”
She looked up sharply, and her own expression mirrored his—relieved but worried. “Kent.” She gave him a quick but tight embrace. “My Ukrainian contact called me. He told me you’d be here…” Maria threw a glance at Emilia Sanders. “Who’s she?”
“I’m Emilia Sanders, aide to the president.”
“She’s FIS,” Zero cut in. He had already guessed that Maria’s Ukrainian contact was the same person that Sanders had holding his documents in Richmond.
Maria scoffed. “I can’t get rid of you people, can I?”
“You shouldn’t be here,” Zero told her. Even as he said it, the memory of their tryst spun through his head once again. In a hotel room, amidst an op, before Kate’s death… He pushed it out. “There’s a reason I didn’t call you.”
Maria frowned deeply. “I’m sorry, it seemed like you could use some help, considering you’re at the very top of the CIA’s most-wanted list.”
Zero blinked at her. “What? Why?”
“The buzz about town says you threatened the president’s life…”
“No I didn’t,” Zero protested.
“And that you attacked DNI Hillis…”
“That wasn’t me!” Zero exclaimed.
“And that you killed two Division men in downtown Arlington.”
“I never—actually, that was me.” He sighed. “Who are they sending after me? Anyone we know?”
“No such luck,” Maria said as she finished pumping gas into the black sedan. “It’s not Watson or Strickland, though both are ready and willing to help you out at a moment’s notice. I’ve been keeping in touch with Cartwright, too. He’s on the outside looking in on this one.”
“Great. You have his number?”
“Yeah. Right here.” Maria passed him her burner.
Zero reared back and hurled it as far as he could, beyond the parking lot and into a narrow field of tall grass.
Maria stared at him blankly. “Why’d you just throw my phone?”
“Can’t trust Cartwright,” he said simply. He hadn’t forgotten Reidigger’s stern warning about the deputy director. “What about the Iran situation? Any developments?”
“No,” Maria replied. “Pierson hasn’t even made a public address yet. The media is buzzing about some sort of turmoil in the White House, but they don’t know what. All they know is that the president was moved. With the attack on New York, there are all sorts of theories flying around. But I know that Holmes, the White House Chief of Staff, contacted the CIA and put them on alert that Agent Zero had threatened his life.”
“Yeah. That snake Holmes is in on it,” Zero muttered. “This is what they wanted. I played right into their hands.”
“How so?”
“I took a risk trying to convince Pierson of the truth. Not only were they able to make me persona non grata, but they got the president out of the White House. He’ll be easier to manipulate from a distance.” He turned to Sanders. “I need those documents. Can you have your guy in Richmond meet us?”
“I’ll reach out.” Sanders pulled out her phone and climbed into the back seat of the black sedan to make the call.
Maria replaced the gas pump before turning to him somberly. “We’re three people with a couple of pistols between us and every law enforcement agency in the country looking for you. We’re not going to be able to get within a mile of the president, while conspirators
whisper in his ear. What the hell are we supposed to do about this?”
Zero stared at the ground. “I’m not sure yet.” Even if he recovered the documents from the Ukrainians, he wasn’t sure what he could do with them. It might be time, he thought, to consider going higher. To the United Nations or Interpol. He could make a call to his friend Vicente Baraf. But any avenue he considered would end in lengthy investigations, and they didn’t have that sort of time.
“Hey.” She put her hand on his arm. “We’ll figure it out. Together.”
The memory ran through his mind anew at her touch—the two of them together. Before Kate had died. He closed his eyes, but it didn’t stop. He knew it was a ridiculous thing to concern himself with, considering everything else that was going on. But the memory was there, lodged in his head like a kernel in a tooth, and he couldn’t get it out.
“I know you don’t like it,” she continued, “but we should get in touch with Cartwright.”
“No,” Zero said immediately. “I told you. Can’t trust him.”
“Why not? We both know he’s not in on this. He should know about it. He has connections that we don’t—”
“He’s done things, Maria.”
“We all have,” she argued. “You and I, we’ve done things too. And we don’t lose sleep over it. Cartwright came to me right away and told me what he knew. We should tell him what we know—”
“I remember, Maria.” He blurted out the words before he could think twice about it.
She stared at him for a long moment. “What do you mean? What do you remember?”
“All of it. Everything. Today, in the Oval Office, when I almost collapsed? It came back. My full memory came back.”
“Wow.” Maria ran a hand through her hair, considering the gravity of what he’d just told her. “That’s… good. That’s great news, Kent. Isn’t it?”
“You tell me,” he said quietly. He was trying to gauge her reaction, to see if she was at all worried that he could remember. But she seemed only to be concerned with how morose he was over the revelation.
“What are you getting at, Kent?”
“You told me that you and I were only together once, after Kate died, when you came to me in Rome. But that isn’t true, is it?” He wanted to summon some anger, but he couldn’t bring himself to. Maybe she had lied to him, and been part of the betrayal, but so had he. He had been weak too. In fact, he was the one who had been married at the time.
He expected some amount of anger or possibly even remorse from her, but Maria’s face was a mask of confusion. “That is the truth, Kent. Jesus, that’s what you want to talk about right now? The time we slept together?”
“Yes. Because it keeps coming back to me, and I’m not sure I can keep going with you knowing what we did to her.”
Maria shook her head. “Kent, I’m telling you. That’s the truth. It was one time, and it was after she died.” She tried to take his hand in hers, but he pulled it away. “Look. We don’t have time to process all this right now, okay? But I need you to know, and trust, that whatever you’re remembering about us didn’t happen. It didn’t, Kent. I can’t prove it to you. But whatever’s in your head, it’s not real.”
“But I…”
If this works, some of the things that you recall may be subconscious. Dr. Guyer had told him that in Zurich.
He remembered it so vividly. The feel of the sheets. The view out the hotel window.
Fantasies, wishes, suspicions from your past life. All of those non-memory aspects were removed with your actual memories.
Zero breathed into his fist. It felt so real, even now, thinking back on it.
They’ll be real to you.
How could he act on anything he thought he had known before if he couldn’t be sure whether or not it was real? What good was having his memory restored if he couldn’t trust what was in his own head?
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Maria prodded.
“I’m thinking…” He drew a long, even breath. “I’m thinking that I don’t know what’s real anymore.”
“Then let me help you,” she implored. “We’ll sort all of this out together.”
He nodded. He needed her there, he realized suddenly, needed someone there who could help him separate fact from fiction. “Okay,” he agreed quietly.
“Excuse me.” Emilia Sanders had rolled down her window and stuck her head partially out at them. “Not to intrude on whatever’s happening here, but how long have those cops been sitting there?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Zero looked over sharply, past the gas pumps, to the pair of state police cruisers sitting in the parking lot of the convenience store.
Idiot, he scolded himself. He’d been so overly concerned with the Maria ordeal that he had hardly been paying attention to his surroundings.
Maria frowned deeply, apparently thinking the same. “They’re probably just getting a coffee or something. They’re not here for us.”
“Even so,” said Sanders, “I’d prefer to not linger.”
“Agreed. I’ll drive.” Zero held his left hand out for the keys.
“You have one hand,” Maria noted.
“I’m good with one hand,” he replied. Though his real motivation was that if the cops gave chase, he might have to ditch Maria and Sanders fast. It would do them no good for all three to be caught at once.
Maria reluctantly handed over the keys and got in the passenger seat. Zero slid in behind the wheel, adjusted the seat and mirror, and then guided the black sedan slowly away from the gas pump. He pulled back onto the road casually, without drawing any attention to them.
“We’re fine,” he said aloud, more for his own benefit than theirs. A glance in the rearview showed him that the cruisers hadn’t moved from the lot. “This car is clean, right?”
“Of course,” Maria said. “Watson passed it off to me from his asset. The mechanic.”
“Mitch,” Zero murmured. He thought again of Reidigger and his girls, most likely on a plane by now heading west. The weight of the secret sat heavy inside him, begging to come out. Maria deserved to know; she had been part of the team, back then. Zero, Reidigger, Johansson, and Morris.
But it wasn’t Zero’s secret to tell.
He took the ramp back to the highway and maintained the speed limit to avoid any suspicion. “We need a safe place to hole up for at least a little while,” he said. “Until we can meet with Sanders’s liaison and get my documents back.”
“How did she get them in the first place?” Maria asked.
“I posed as his deceased wife and stole them,” Sanders said candidly.
“Seriously?” Maria twisted in her seat and shot Sanders a look of disgust. “What are they?”
“All of the evidence I was digging up two years ago,” Zero told her. “I don’t know if it’ll be enough to prove the conspiracy, but if we can get them into Pierson’s hands it might be enough to sway him. I have some bank records for offshore accounts that show hush money funneled to people in the NSA and FBI. There are a few transcripts of phone calls between congressmen. It’s vague at best, but coupled with what we know, it could be—”
“It won’t be enough,” Sanders interjected. “You know it.”
“Well, I don’t have a better idea,” Zero shot back. “We get the documents, and then… we’ll figure out what to do with them.”
“Agent Zero,” Sanders said suddenly from the back seat. “You should see this.” She passed her phone to him. The screen was open to a browser window, a news website—and staring back at him was his own face.
“I don’t believe it,” he muttered. He didn’t think they would go so far to smear his name across the headlines, but there he was—Professor Reid Lawson of Alexandria, Virginia, a wanted man. The photograph was taken from the university’s faculty website. The brief article said nothing about the CIA or the attack on Hillis; rather it claimed that he was being sought for treason and terroristic threats against the president. He
was considered armed and dangerous. Anyone with leads should immediately call emergency services.
“Looks like I’ve been disavowed. Again.” He passed the phone back to Sanders. “They can’t track you on that thing, can they?”
“Of course not. It’s not in my name and the GPS has been disabled.”
“Good.” Zero tried to come off as aloof, but internally he was panicked. The CIA, the White House, whoever was in league behind the plot, had just made an extremely heavy accusation against him—the real him, Reid Lawson. He was keenly aware that even if he managed to come out of this alive, there was now a good chance he could never go back to his ordinary life. And the girls… they would always be associated with him. What would they do? They’d have to move. Change their names. Possibly even his appearance, like Alan had done.
Whoop-whoop! A warning siren blared, jarring Zero from his thoughts. In the same instant red and blue flashers lit up behind them.
“Shit,” he hissed. There were two pairs of lights in the rearview, both state cruisers. Likely not the ones from the gas station. The cops at the convenience store must have recognized him—his injured hand was a dead giveaway, he realized—and they must have called it in. I bet the CIA told them not to engage until we were on the road again.
Sanders glanced casually over her shoulder. “Police.”
“No kidding. Thanks.” He turned to Maria. “You said this car came from Mitch?”
“I did.”
“Good.” Thank god it’s an automatic. He wouldn’t be able to shift gears with his right hand.
Zero slammed the gas and the car lurched forward, jumping to eighty in a few seconds. He’d driven cars from Mitch—or rather, Alan—before, and he knew that they were tailored for performance.
Behind him, Sanders fastened her seat belt. “This is not exactly how I thought this day would go,” she mused.
Both cruisers behind him turned on their sirens, startlingly loud even with the windows closed and the engine roaring. Even with Mitch’s modifications, Zero knew he couldn’t outrun the cops on the highway. Virginia State Interceptors were built with turbocharged engines capable of top speeds in excess of a hundred and fifty. And they were proving it quickly as they came up behind him, less than a car length from their front bumper to his rear.
