Jack Mars - Hunting Zero

“Blue car.” He gestured with his chin and put the gun away. The girls walked slowly toward a dark blue sedan parked a few spaces away from Thompson’s truck. Sara’s hand trembled in Maya’s—or it might have been Maya doing the trembling, she wasn’t sure.

Rais pulled the car out of the rest stop and back onto the interstate, but not south, the way they had been going before. Instead he doubled back and headed north. Maya understood what he was doing; when the authorities found Thompson’s truck they would assume he would continue south. They would be looking for him, and them, in the wrong places.

Maya yanked out a few strands of her hair and dropped them to the floor of the car. The psychopath who had kidnapped them was right about one thing; their fate was being determined by another power, in this case, him. And it was one that Maya could not yet fully comprehend.

They had only one chance now to avoid whatever fate was in store for them.

“Dad will come,” she whispered in her sister’s ear. “He’ll find us.”

She tried not to sound as uncertain as she felt.

Reid Lawson moved quickly up the stairs of his home in Alexandria, Virginia. His movements seemed wooden, his legs still feeling numb from the shock he’d experienced only minutes earlier, but his stare was set in an expression of grim determination. He took the steps two at a time to the second floor, though he dreaded what would be up there—or, more appropriately, what wouldn’t.

Downstairs and outside was a flurry of activity. In the street in front of his house were no fewer than four police cars, two ambulances, and a fire truck, all protocol for a situation like this one. Uniformed cops stretched caution tape in an X over his front door. Forensics collected samples of Thompson’s blood from the foyer and hair follicles from his girls’ pillows.

Reid could barely remember even calling the authorities. He barely recalled giving the police a statement, a stammering patchwork of fragmented sentences punctuated by short, gasping breaths while his mind swam with horrifying possibilities.

He had gone away for the weekend with a friend. A neighbor was watching his girls.

The neighbor was now dead. His girls were gone.

Reid made a call as he reached the top of the stairs and away from prying ears.

“You should have called us first,” Cartwright said as greeting. Deputy Director Shawn Cartwright was head of the Special Activities Division and, unofficially, Reid’s boss at the CIA.

They’ve already heard. “How did you know?”

“You’re flagged,” Cartwright said. “We all are. Anytime our info comes up in a system—name, address, social, anything—it’s automatically sent to the NSA with priority. Hell, you get a speeding ticket the agency will know before the cop lets you drive away.”

“I have to find them.” Every second that ticked by was a thunderous chorus reminding him that he might never see his daughters again if he didn’t leave now, this instant. “I saw Thompson’s body. He’s been dead for at least twenty-four hours, which is a significant lead on us. I need equipment, and I need to go now .”

Two years earlier, when his wife, Kate, had died suddenly of an ischemic stroke, he’d felt completely numb. A dazed, detached feeling had overtaken him. Nothing felt real, as if any moment he would wake from the nightmare to find it had all been in his head.

He hadn’t been there for her. He had been at a conference on ancient European history—no, that wasn’t the truth. That was his cover story while he was on a CIA op in Bangladesh, pursuing a lead on a terrorist faction.

He wasn’t there for Kate back then. He wasn’t there for his girls when they were taken.

But he was sure as hell going to be there for them now.

“We’re going to help you, Zero,” Cartwright assured him. “You’re one of us, and we take care of our own. We’re sending techs to your house to assist the police in their investigation, posing as Homeland Security personnel. Our forensics are faster; we should have a bead on who did this within the—”

“I know who did this,” Reid interrupted. “It was him .” There was no doubt in Reid’s mind who was responsible for this, who had come and taken his girls. “Rais.” Just saying the name aloud renewed Reid’s rage, starting in his chest and radiating through every limb. He clenched his fists to keep his hands from shaking. “The Amun assassin that escaped from Switzerland. This was him.”

Cartwright sighed. “Zero, until there’s evidence, we don’t know that for sure.”

“I do. I know it. He sent me a picture of them.” He had received a photo, sent to Sara’s phone from Maya’s. The picture was of his daughters, still in their pajamas, huddled together in the back of Thompson’s stolen truck.

“Kent,” the deputy director said carefully, “you’ve made a lot of enemies. This doesn’t confirm—”

“It was him. I know it was him. That photo is proof of life. He’s taunting me. Anyone else might have just…” He couldn’t bring himself to say it aloud, but any of the other myriad foes Kent Steele had amassed over his career might have just killed his girls as revenge. Rais was doing this because he was a fanatic who believed he was destined to kill Kent Steele. That meant that eventually the assassin would want Reid to find him—and hopefully, the girls as well.

Whether or not they’re alive when I do, though… He gripped his forehead with both hands as if he could somehow pry the thought from his head. Stay clear-headed. You can’t think like that.

“Zero?” Cartwright said. “You still with me?”

Reid took a calming breath. “I’m here. Listen, we need to track Thompson’s truck. It’s a newer model; it has a GPS unit. He also has Maya’s phone. I’m sure the agency has the number on file.” Both the truck and the phone could be tracked; if the locations synced and Rais hadn’t ditched either of them yet, it would give them a solid direction to pursue.

“Kent, listen…” Cartwright tried to say, but Reid immediately cut him off.

“We know there are members of Amun in the United States,” he rattled on, unabated. Two terrorists had gone after his girls once before on a New Jersey boardwalk. “So it’s possible there’s an Amun safe house somewhere within US borders. We should contact H-6 and see if we can get any info out of the detainees.” H-6 was a CIA black site in Morocco, where detained members of the terrorist organization were currently being held.

“Zero—” Cartwright tried again to break into the one-sided conversation.

“I’m packing a bag and heading out the door in two minutes,” Reid told him as he hurried into his bedroom. Every moment that passed was another moment that his girls were farther away from him. “The TSA should be on alert, in case he tries to take them out of the country. Same with ports and train stations. And highway cameras—we can access those. As soon as we have a lead, have someone meet me. I’ll need a car, something fast. And an agency phone, a GPS tracker, guns—”

“Kent!” Cartwright barked into the phone. “Just stop a second, all right?”

“Stop? These are my little girls, Cartwright. I need information. I need help…”

The deputy director sighed heavily, and Reid immediately knew something was very wrong. “You’re not going on this op, Agent,” Cartwright told him. “You’re too close.”

Reid’s chest heaved, his anger swelling again. “What are you talking about?” he asked quietly. “Just what the hell are you talking about? I’m going after my girls—”

“You’re not.”