Jess Walter - The Zero

“It matters a little to me,” he said darkly, holding out his hand.

Remy had no idea what to do. “Maybe I should shoot myself,” he said.

“You tried that,” the man said without looking away, his hand still out.

Finally, defeated, Remy handed over the money.

As he counted, Jaguar said, “I’d better not see anyone there.”

Remy said nothing.

“I mean it. No one moves until I’m gone. Right?”

Remy said nothing.

Jaguar looked up. “Look, if I so much as see a patrol car while I’m making the drop, I’m out of there. Do you understand?”

“No… Not at all.”

Jaguar continued: “I sure as hell better not see you there.”

“See me where?” Remy asked quietly, already sensing the answer.

“Good,” Jaguar said. “That’s more like it.” He stuffed the money in his wool coat, tipped his finger to his head, and walked away.

Remy glanced over his shoulder, toward Wall Street, and saw the first tourists edging their way in, mouths open, cameras up. They posed for pictures on either side of a plastic American flag, which had been zip-tied to the railing. Remy watched this for a moment, and then he fell forward, his fingers locked in the wire fence surrounding the hole where the world had been.

THE WIRE room hummed with activity, translators pitched forward, agents coming in and out with printouts, computer screens registering the levels of voices. Remy edged in, breathless, as if he’d just run over here. The room was long and narrow, like a cheap motel conference room, with one bank of windows looking out over the river, the other long wall lined with bookshelves covered with bound books of transcriptions, and on either end of the room a station equipped with a computer registering the levels of digital recording. Translators sat next to technicians, headphones over their ears. Over a speaker, Remy could hear an Arabic drone in the background – “Bism-allah – al-Wadud. Ar-Rahim” – while two other men argued in whispers.

“Name of God loving… and merciful,” the translator said.

“Where have you been?” Markham whispered. “You almost missed it. We got three targets in a hotel room waiting for Jaguar. And then they’re gonna go. We’re listening to Kamal make his suicide videotape. It’s… cool.”

The agent Dave was standing, his head pitched forward like a vulture, looking over the shoulder of the seated translator, a man in his fifties with a dark tangle of black hair, who was concentrating on the drone in the background. He translated in a consonant-heavy English punctuated by pauses and hums: “…as… uh… commanded by Allah… um… something infidels… those who would enslave and uh… what’s the word… seduce…”

“Rape,” yelled the other translator from across the room.

“Right,” said the first translator. “Uh… rape… the Land of the Two Holy Places… the infidel wolf…”

Above the chanting Arabic was the sound of the other two men, whose whispered English was picked up by the wire.

“This is crazy,” said one of the men on the wire, above the background drone. “I am not going to do this.” Remy recognized the voice. It was Mahoud, the restaurant owner.

“Look, just say some crazy shit on the tape,” Bishir whispered back. “You don’t have to do anything after that. Just cover your face, hold the machine gun, and say infidels and wolves and shit like that.”

“No. I can’t do it.”

“Do you see that guy?” Bishir whispered. “Does he look like he’s fucking around? He’ll have us both killed if he thinks we’re backing out.”

In the wire room, Dave was chewing his thumbnail. “Come on, come on. Hold him.”

“But I never intended…” Mahoud began.

“Look, it doesn’t matter what you intended,” Bishir said. “We’re here now. Just make your tape, and then you can run. But if you leave now we’re both dead.”

“That’s right,” said Dave. “Keep him hooked, Bishir. Don’t let anyone out of that room.”

“He’s good,” Markham said in a low voice. “I wish we could’ve afforded someone like that.”

Remy felt the ground spinning.

The translator droned on: “…guide me in the straight path… not the path of those who have incurred the wrath of…”

“We’ve got to stop this,” Remy said.

Markham reached out and grabbed Remy’s arm.

“Is that Remy?” Dave asked. “Look, this is not the time, Remy. We’re trying to work here.”

“Somebody stop this!” Remy yelled.

Dave took a drink of the largest iced coffee drink Remy had ever seen, a pail of coffee and whipped cream. “No one does anything until Jaguar gets there with the bomb.”

“They have a bomb?” Remy asked Markham. He watched as agents and translators moved around the room like ants on ice cream.

“It’s not much of a bomb threat if they don’t have a bomb,” Markham said under his breath.

“We gave them a bomb?”

“The detonator isn’t real,” Markham said.

“This is crazy,” Remy said. He yelled again, “Look! You’ve got to stop this! Right now!”

“All right! That’s it. Get him out of here!” Dave yelled, pointing at Remy without looking back. “You had your chance, Remy. Now leave us alone and let us do our jobs.”

“This is insane!” Remy yelled.

Markham began pulling him by the arm out the door.

“And the seas shall boil,” the translator was saying, “and… uh… every soul shall know what it has done.”

“Wrought,” said another translator.

“Right, wrought ,” said the first translator as the door closed behind them.

In the hallway, Markham held Remy by the arm. “What’s wrong with you?”

Remy felt sick. “They’re all our guys.”

“Technically,” Markham said.

“No. They’re all moles. Every one of them.”

“Ye-e-eah,” Markham said, as if Remy had just mentioned that the sun had come up.

“They all work for us.”

“That’s what makes it so perfect. What can go wrong?”

Remy pushed away from Markham and began running down the hallway.

“Brian!” Markham called. “Come back.”

Remy turned the corner and still he heard Markham’s voice. “You’re gonna miss the raid!”

Remy ran out the door, into a long, empty hallway. The door behind him had a name that Remy assumed must be for a phony business – All Field Transit . There was a stairwell on his right. He crashed through it. An alarm went off somewhere, but he kept running down the dark stairs, taking two at a time, down three flights to the first floor. He burst out into a lobby, past a napping security guard, through the revolving door and out onto the street. He stood on the curb mid-block, eyes darting from building to building. Listening posts were often set up nearby; the cell could be meeting in one of these buildings.

It was a rainy morning, cabs jostling for lanes with delivery trucks and limos. He ran down the street. At the corner he stopped and looked both ways, glancing up at windows as if he might see a familiar face in one of them. Then, right in front of him, he saw the silver gypsy cab. The passenger door opened and Buff got out, a cord dangling from his ear, his middle finger on an earpiece.

“Jesus, Remy, should you be on the street? We’re expecting Iceman any minute. You listening to this shit?” he asked, like a teenager who’s found a peephole into a girls’ locker room. “We got three bogies in this hotel room saying prayers and talking crazy. Just like on TV.”

“You need to stop it!”

“Stop it? We got our CI in there and we got people all over the building.” He waved at the buildings. “We got enough snipers for fifty guys. Soon as the last guy shows up, we move.”