Trapping Zero

by Jack Mars

  The man stood in the center of a single wide space, part storage and part recreational area, it seemed. He was tall and lean, with jutting cheekbones and a thin beard. His angry gaze was fixed on Reid, and in one hand he held a small box, his thumb against the end of it.

  A remote detonator.

  Beside the insurgent was another man, on his knees, hands bound behind his back. The captive’s head was covered with a burlap sack, and his chest heaved in rapid, frightened pants. Reid could clearly see why; strapped to Idan Mizrahi’s torso was a vest laden with no fewer than a dozen blocks of C-4.

  “Put down your guns,” the Iraqi said evenly, “or I will blow this entire boat.”

  “I am a very good shot,” Mendel said quietly in English.

  “Don’t,” Reid warned. No matter how good a shot she was, they couldn’t risk that his thumb might press down on the button and blow them all sky-high. Reid bent slowly and set his gun down on the floor. Then he rose again and put his hands up.

  Agent Mendel scoffed, but followed suit.

  “Over here,” the man commanded, gesturing for them to move to the other side of the room. “On your knees.”

  Reid moved steadily, not taking his eyes off the insurgent, though his mind was racing. As he crossed the cabin he said in Arabic, “I know who you are.”

  The Iraqi cocked his head slightly, but said nothing.

  “You are Awad bin Saddam. Are you not?” He was taking a guess, but an educated one; the man who had planned this attack would be unlikely to leave its potential success up to anyone else.

  The man sneered. “That is right. I am Awad bin Saddam, and Allah, praise be unto him, has gifted me a most glorious purpose.”

  “I hate to tell you this,” Reid said as he lowered himself to his knees. “But your ‘glorious purpose’ just went over the side of the boat.”

  Bin Saddam’s lip curled in a snarl. “This is all part of the master plan.”

  Reid frowned. Part of the plan? What could that mean?

  “Is it wise to taunt the suicide bomber with his finger on the trigger?” Mendel murmured in English.

  “If his goal was to blow us up, he would have done it by now,” Reid reasoned.

  Mendel was quiet for a long moment. “Yes,” she agreed quietly. “He is bluffing. Look at his eyes. He is afraid.”

  “Quiet!” bin Saddam shouted at them in Arabic, waving the detonator.

  Reid scrutinized the man before him. Bin Saddam’s gaze was hard and intent; to him the expression did not look afraid, but nervous. A single bead of sweat rolled down the Iraqi’s brow, and his eyes flitted every few seconds—towards a narrow door on the other side of the cabin, adjacent to the entrance to the stairs.

  “Not bluffing,” Reid realized, “stalling. He doesn’t want to blow it because there’s something behind that door.”

  “Maybe the real weapon,” Mendel whispered.

  Bin Saddam grabbed the burlap sack over Idan Mizrahi’s head and jerked it violently. The helpless journalist yelped. “Do you want this man to die? Do you want to die with him?”

  “Mendel,” Reid continued in English, ignoring bin Saddam. “You have a backup weapon?”

  “Of course,” she said. “And since we might die in a few moments, you can call me Talia.”

  “Okay Talia,” Reid said, his heart pounding in his chest, his brain screaming at his insane notion. “I’m going to try to distract him, and we’re going to see just how good a shot you really are…”

  Bin Saddam shouted in anger and reached behind him, pulling a black pistol free from his belt. Reid surged forward in a roll from his kneeling position, closing the distance between him and the terrorist in a second.

  Bin Saddam’s pistol barked once, the bullet striking Reid in the chest at point-blank range. It was followed immediately by a second shot, this one from Talia behind him.

  The bullet tore bin Saddam’s thumb clean from his hand.

  The Iraqi screamed as the detonator toppled into the air. Reid ignored the burning, searing pain in his chest as he leapt forward onto his elbows, his hand outstretched.

  The detonator fell neatly into his palm.

  He breathed an enormous sigh of relief, which sent a new shockwave of pain through him. He rolled over and checked his vest; the material had stopped the nine millimeter round, even from only two feet away.

  It must be reinforced with graphene, he realized. Composite carbon fiber mesh, the width of a hundred atoms. Imperceptible, but stronger than steel. The site of the gunshot behind the vest would be terribly bruised and painful, but he wasn’t dead. He tugged the bullet from the vest and tossed it aside.

  Then he knelt and carefully disconnected the two thin metal rods from a block of C-4 on the journalist’s vest, effectively disarming the plastic explosives.

  “Idan Mizrahi?” he asked as he tugged the burlap sack loose from over the man’s head. The journalist blinked at him, the young man’s eyes bleary and red. “Are you alright?” He seemed as if he didn’t understand Reid, shell-shocked as he was from the experience. Reid cut the ties that held his wrists together and helped him into a nearby chair. “Sit tight a moment,” he said. “This isn’t over just yet. Whatever happens, I want you to—”

  Reid jumped at the sudden report of a gunshot. He spun, his mouth open in utter shock as Talia stood over Awad bin Saddam’s body, a fresh bullet hole in his forehead. In one of his lifeless hands was the black pistol.

  “He was going for his gun,” she said simply.

  “You couldn’t have disarmed him?” Reid asked in disbelief.

  “I am Mossad. This is how we disarm men like him,” she said, as if that explained everything. “He will never hold a gun again. Or a detonator.” She gestured toward the small black box that Reid still held in his hand.

  I guess we won’t get to question bin Saddam now, he thought bitterly as he stuck the detonator into his back pocket. He retrieved his Glock, handed the Jericho off to Talia, and gestured towards the narrow closed door that bin Saddam had been eyeing.

  “Ready?” he asked, positioning himself to one side of the door.

  “Ready,” she confirmed from the other side, her pistol aloft.

  Reid reached for the knob. As he twisted it, a long burst of automatic gunfire splintered the door to pieces from the inside.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  Talia ducked and covered as Reid threw himself to the floor. He rolled over, quickly surveying the clustering of the shots, and fired three times through the door.

  From the other side, someone groaned painfully.

  He nodded to Talia from his position on the floor. She swallowed, reached for the knob, and threw it open.

  Beyond the door was a tiny bathroom. Seated on the toilet was another insurgent. His gun was on the floor and one hand was over his neck as blood spouted from a wound.

  Most curious of all was the silver case open on his lap.

  Reid scrambled to his feet and snatched up the case, ignoring the man that would be bleeding out in seconds. He dropped it onto a table and examined it. The exterior appeared to be a silver stainless-steel briefcase, but the inside looked more like some sort of laptop computer. Mounted inside the lid was a screen illuminated mostly by a field of bright blue. The top third of the screen showed a curved field of orange and red.

  Reid frowned. “This looks like infrared.” The bottom portion of the case held a keyboard, a few unrecognizable controls, and a silver metal control lever, no more than four inches tall and reminiscent of a joystick.

  “What are we looking at?” Talia asked, peering over his shoulder.

  Something triggered in his mind; not a memory, but a familiarity. He had never used one of these before, but he had seen the tech in action. “This is a remote control array,” he said. “I was right. This is to pilot a drone.”

  “But then what are we seeing on the screen here?” she asked, pointing at the reddish orange mass at the top of the screen. “And what is this countdo
wn?” A green number in the top left of the screen reached six hundred, dropping quickly.

  Gears turned in Reid’s head. This is for a drone… but not aerial. They heaved it into the water when they saw us coming. It was all part of the master plan…

  “This is a submersible drone,” he said breathlessly. He grabbed the stubby joystick and turned it to the left and right, but the view on the screen did not change. “It’s not responding. I have no idea what to do.” He glanced over his shoulder at the insurgent in the bathroom. The man was slumped to the side, his head against the wall. He would be of no use anymore, not to anyone.

  Talia was on her radio in an instant. “USS New York, this is Agent Talia Mendel of Mossad. Copy?”

  “Roger, Agent Mendel,” said a husky male voice.

  “You have a submersible drone, likely armed, about five hundred and fifty meters from target,” she said quickly, looking again at the still-falling number in the top left of the screen.

  “Roger, checking radar.”

  Reid jerked the stick again, hoping it would respond. He slammed the keyboard in frustration and a small box appeared on the screen, displaying a single word in Arabic characters. He squinted at it; though he spoke Arabic fluently, it seemed his reading comprehension was a bit rusty.

  Secret? he thought. No, it’s asking for a code…

  “Agent Mendel,” the radio crackled, “we’re showing nothing on radar.”

  “Stealth,” Talia said quietly. The drone was, as Strickland had suggested, military-grade, equipped with countermeasures to redirect the electromagnetic waves of radar.

  Reid pressed a finger to his ear. “Maria! Maria, copy?” Please be in range. Please be in range…

  “I’m here,” Maria said, her voice choppy.

  “Did you secure the Libyan arms dealer?” Reid asked rapidly as the distance to target dropped to four hundred and fifty.

  “Yes,” she confirmed, “along with two other members of—”

  “Maria,” he interrupted, “I need the password to the drone controls, and I need it now.” That was the Arabic word he had trouble deciphering; the dead man in the bathroom must have set a trajectory and overridden the controls when he heard the shooting begin. But he didn’t have time to explain all that to Maria.

  Thankfully, she didn’t need him to. “Give me a minute,” she said.

  “We don’t have a minute,” Reid murmured to himself as the distance dropped below four hundred. He pointed at Talia. “Tell them to start evacuating that ship—”

  “There’s no time,” she protested.

  “They can save some!” Reid shouted back.

  Talia nodded tightly and relayed the message into the radio as the distance closed in on three hundred meters.

  “Maria…” Reid warned with a finger to his ear.

  “Hang on!” she grunted back. Her voice was nearly drowned out by the screams of a man in the background.

  Reid flexed his fingers anxiously as the distance dropped below three hundred. Then two hundred and fifty. There was nothing he could do, no way to stop it other than to get the password from the arms dealer. The only other people that might have known it were now dead, thanks to him and Talia and their reckless assault on the tugboat.

  You can’t save everyone.

  He squeezed his eyes shut in horrible frustration at the complete impotence of the situation. When he opened them again, the distance passed one hundred and fifty meters.

  “Christ, Maria, people are going to die…”

  “It’s Qafan!” she shouted in his earpiece. “Q-A-F-A-N!”

  Reid’s fingers mashed the keyboard as he entered the password and hit enter. He jerked the joystick.

  Nothing happened.

  Talia looked from him to the screen desperately as the display became dominated by the reddish orange field—which was undoubtedly the USS New York, its target.

  Reid took a calming breath and typed in the password again, slower this time. The distance hit fifty meters as he pressed enter. He turned the joystick to the left.

  The display shifted slightly.

  He sucked in a breath as he slammed the stick forward, forcing the drone down deeper into the water and under the ship. The distance reached the zero marker, but the drone’s display was entirely blue, deep in the water of the Mediterranean as Reid piloted it in a wide semicircle, away from the port of Haifa and the US destroyer.

  Talia let out a soft moan of relief. “I cannot remember the last time my heart beat that quickly,” she admitted.

  But Reid wasn’t out of the woods yet. He had no idea how to stop the drone, and the complex control panel surrounding the joystick was of no help. “I don’t know where to take it from here.”

  “Take it down,” she said. “Into deeper waters and into the sea floor.” She grabbed up her radio. “USS New York. Drone averted. Confirm?”

  “Confirmed,” said the husky male voice from the ship. “We thank you kindly, ma’am.”

  “Prepare for detonation on sea floor,” she said back.

  Reid took the drone out to sea until the entire display was lit in dark, dark blue. Then he pushed the stick forward as far as it would go. The drone dipped into deeper waters. Then the screen flickered and went black.

  “Is that it?” he asked, releasing the control stick.

  Talia’s radio crackled. “Detonation detected,” said the USS New York. “Just some choppy seas up here.”

  Reid let out a long breath he forgot he was holding. He slowly put a finger to his ear to radio Maria. “Crisis averted,” he said in a sigh.

  “Thank god,” Maria said back. “Hold tight, we’re en route to you.”

  Reid leaned forward on the table with his palms flat, relieved. So that was the “something new” that the Libyan promised them, he realized. An unmanned, stealth submersible drone with a payload big enough to take out a destroyer class ship. It was unnerving to know that that sort of weaponry was available outside of military hands, but with the Libyan in custody, they could discover his supplier.

  When he looked up again, Talia Mendel’s smirk seemed a lot more impressed than haughty. “It seems I misjudged you, Agent Zero.” She holstered her Jericho. “And I am big enough to admit when I was wrong.”

  Reid put away his own weapon and shrugged with one shoulder. “Well, it’s like Maria said. My ‘wild conjectures’ have worked out pretty well for us in the past.” He smiled too, and heat rose in his cheeks as he admitted to himself that Agent Talia Mendel was quite attractive when she wasn’t being arrogant. “IDF is on their way here with the arms dealer. We should go topside and—”

  Something struck Reid from behind, forcing him forward. He wasn’t expecting it and was thrown off balance, careening into the wall of the cabin. He spun as Talia reached for her gun—but she paused with her hand on the grip.

  Reid had nearly forgotten that Idan Mizrahi was there at all, but now he stood before them with an ugly sneer on his face.

  “Death to the infidels!” he shouted in Arabic as he lifted the small black box from Reid’s back pocket. The detonator to his own vest. “Glory to Allah, praise be unto him!”

  And then he pressed his thumb over the button.

  Idan frowned with his finger pressed firmly on the trigger. He released it and pressed it again. Then a third time.

  Reid watched him for a moment, curious about how many times he would try it before he realized that Reid had already disconnected the electric charge leads from the explosives.

  Apparently the answer was four, as “Idan” pressed the button once more before looking up in bewilderment.

  “You’re not Idan Mizrahi,” Reid said in Arabic as he reached for his Glock. “Where is he?”

  The member of the Brotherhood posing as the journalist dropped the detonator and bolted forward towards the stairs. Talia reached for him and grabbed the back of the vest, but he twisted his shoulders and shrugged out of it, leaving her holding several pounds of C-4. Reid gave chase, nav
igating the narrow stairway and dark cabin overhead before bursting out onto the deck under the night sky.

  He caught sight of the insurgent as he reached the stern of the ship. But the man did not hesitate. He put a foot up on the gunwale and leapt over the edge.

  “Wait!” Reid shouted. A splash was his only response.

  Talia hurried up after him and peered over the edge. “I don’t see him. Do you?”

  Reid surveyed every edge, the entire perimeter of the tugboat, before answering. “No,” he said. “I don’t.” They were more than a kilometer from shore, and with how cold the waters could be in April, Reid very much doubted that the man would survive. In fact, he believed the jump was intended to be suicide.

  A spotlight washed over them and the deck as the IDF boat returned, towing the idling white speedboat behind it.

  Reid could only hope that Todd Strickland was on it, and hadn’t succumbed to the same fate as the terrorist that had just leapt to his own certain death.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  “So you’re coming home?” Sara asked over the phone.

  Reid smiled and settled back in the comfortable seat of the Gulfstream. “I’m on my way right now. I’ll be there in a few hours.”

  “And you stopped… what needed to be stopped?” she asked.

  “I did,” he confirmed. “Kind of thanks to you.”

  “Good.” She sounded so much different to him now, a lot like she had on the slopes of the Alps in the brief time that they were having fun and able to forget about the past. “I can’t wait to see you.”

  “Me too, sweetheart. You two just sit tight. I’ll be there before you know it.” His girls were in the capable hands of Agent Watson, in a safe house outside of Arlington. “Why don’t you put your sister on the phone?”

  “Okay. Love you, Dad.”

  “Love you too.” Reid shifted in his seat as Sara passed the phone off. His chest still hurt where the bullet had impacted the vest, but he’d had it examined and the damage was superficial, just some bruising and a very minor crack in his ribcage.