Agent Zero

Reid winced as a headache came on, spreading through his cranium like a storm cloud. At the same time, the vision blurred and faded. He squeezed his eyes shut and gripped his temples for a full minute until the headache receded.

What the hell was that?

For some reason, it seemed that the memory of this woman, Johansson, had triggered the brief migraine. Even more unsettling, however, was the bizarre sensation that gripped him in the wake of the headache. It felt like… desire. No, it was more than that—it felt like passion, reinforced by excitement and even a bit of danger.

He couldn’t help but wonder who the woman was, but he shook it off. He didn’t want to incite another headache. Instead he set the pen to the napkin again, about to write the final name—Zero. That’s what the Iranian interrogator had called him. But before he could write it or recite it, he felt a bizarre sensation. The hairs on the nape of his neck stood on end.

He was being watched.

When he glanced up again, he saw a man standing in Féline’s dark doorway, his gaze locked on Reid like a hawk eyeing a mouse. Reid’s blood ran cold. He was being watched.

This was the man he was here to meet, he was certain of it. Did he recognize him? The Arabic men hadn’t seemed to. Was this man expecting someone else?

He set the pen down. Slowly and surreptitiously, he crumpled the napkin and dropped it into his half-empty cold coffee.

The man nodded once. Reid nodded back.

Then the stranger reached behind him, for something tucked in the back of his pants.

CHAPTER FIVE

Reid stood with such force that his chair nearly toppled. His hand immediately wrapped around the textured grip of the Beretta, warm from his lower back. His mind screamed at him frantically. This is a public place. There are people here. I’ve never fired a gun before.

Before Reid drew his pistol, the stranger pulled a billfold from his back pocket. He grinned at Reid, apparently amused by his jumpy nature. No one else in the bar seemed to have noticed, except the waitress with the rat’s nest of hair, who simply raised an eyebrow.

The stranger approached the bar, slid a bill across the table, and muttered something to the bartender. Then he made his way to Reid’s table. He stood behind the empty chair for a long moment, a thin smirk on his lips.

He was young, thirty at best, with close-cropped hair and a five o’clock shadow. He was quite lanky and his face was gaunt, making his sharp cheekbones and jutting chin look almost caricature-ish. Most disarming was the black horn-rimmed glasses he wore, looking for all the world as if Buddy Holly had grown up in the eighties and discovered cocaine.

He was right-handed, Reid could tell; he held his left elbow close to his body, which likely meant he had a pistol hanging from a shoulder holster in his armpit so he could draw with his right, if need be. His left arm pinned his black suede jacket closed to hide the gun.

“Mogu sjediti?” the man asked finally.

Mogu…? Reid didn’t immediately understand the way he had with Arabic and French. It wasn’t Russian, but it was close enough for him to derive the meaning from context. The man was asking if he could sit down.

Reid gestured to the empty chair across from him, and the man sat, keeping his left elbow tucked all the while.

As soon as he was seated, the waitress brought a glass of dark amber beer and set it before him. “Merci,” he said. He grinned at Reid. “Your Serbian is not so good?”

Reid shook his head. “No.” Serbian? He had assumed the man he would be meeting would be Arabic, like his captors and the interrogator.

“In English, then? Ou francais?”

“Dealer’s choice.” Reid was surprised at how calm and even his voice sounded. His heart was nearly bursting out of his chest from fear and… and if he was being honest, at least a shred of anxious excitement.

The Serbian man’s grin widened. “I enjoy this place. It is dark. It is quiet. It is the only bar that I know of in this arrondissement that serves Franziskaner. It is my favorite.” He took a long swig from his glass, his eyes closed, and a grunt of pleasure escaped his throat. “Que delicioso.” He opened his eyes and added, “You are not what I expected.”

A surge of panic rose in Reid’s gut. He knows, his mind screamed at him. He knows you’re not who he’s supposed to meet, and he has a gun.

Relax, said the other side, the new part. You can handle this.

Reid gulped, but somehow managed to maintain his icy demeanor. “Nor are you,” he replied.

The Serbian chuckled. “That is fair. But we are many, yes? And you—you are American?”

“Expat,” Reid answered.

“Are not we all?” Another chuckle. “Before you I met only one other American in our, um… what is the word… conglomerate? Yes. So for me, it is not so strange.” The man winked.

Reid tensed. He couldn’t tell if it was a joke or not. What if he knew that Reid was a fake and was leading him on or buying time? He placed his hands in his lap to hide his trembling fingers.

“You may call me Yuri. What may I call you?”

“Ben.” It was the first name that came to mind, the name of a mentor from his days as an assistant professor.

“Ben. How did you come to work for the Iranians?”

“With,” Reid corrected. He narrowed his eyes for effect. “I work with them.”

The man, this Yuri, took another sip of his beer. “Sure. With. How did that come to be? Despite our mutual interests, they tend to be a, uh… closed group.”

“I’m trustworthy,” Reid said without blinking. He had no idea where these words were coming from, nor the conviction with which they were coming. He said them as easily as if he’d rehearsed it.

“And where is Amad?” Yuri asked casually.

“Couldn’t make it,” Reid replied evenly. “Sends his regards.”

“All right, Ben. You say the deed is done.”

“Yes.”

Yuri leaned forward, his eyes narrowed. Reid could smell the malt on his breath. “I need to hear you say it, Ben. Tell me, is CIA man dead?”

Reid froze for a moment. CIA? As in, the CIA? Suddenly all the talk of agents in the field and visions of detaining terrorists on airfields and in hotels made more sense, even if the entirety of the matter didn’t. Then he remembered the gravity of his situation and hoped that he hadn’t given any cues to betray his charade.

He too leaned forward and said slowly, “Yes, Yuri. CIA man is dead.”

Yuri leaned back casually and grinned again. “Good.” He plucked up his glass. “And the information? You have it?”

“He gave us everything he knew,” Reid told him. He couldn’t help but notice that his fingers were no longer trembling beneath the table. It was as if someone else was in control now, as if Reid Lawson was taking a backseat in his own brain. He decided not to fight it.

“The location of Mustafar?” Yuri asked. “And all he told them?”

Reid nodded.

Yuri blinked a few times expectantly. “I am waiting.”

A realization struck Reid like a heavy weight as his mind put the little knowledge he had together. The CIA was involved. There was some sort of plan that would get a lot of people killed. The sheikh knew about it, and told them—told him—everything. These men, they needed to know what the sheikh knew. That’s what Yuri wanted to know. Whatever this was, it felt big, and Reid had stumbled into its midst… though he certainly felt as if this was not the first time.

He did not speak for a long time, long enough for the smile to evaporate from Yuri’s lips into an expectant thin-lipped stare. “I don’t know you,” Reid said. “I don’t know who you represent. You expect me to give you everything I know, and walk away, and trust that it gets to the right place?”

“Yes,” said Yuri, “that is exactly what I expect, and precisely the reason for this meeting.”

Reid shook his head. “No. See, Yuri, it occurs to me that this information is too important to play whisper-down-the-alley and hope it gets to the right ears in the right order. What’s more is that as far as you’re concerned, there’s only one place it exists—right here.” He tapped his own left temple. It was true; the information they were looking for was, presumably, somewhere in the recesses of his mind, waiting to be unlocked. “It also occurs to me,” he continued, “that now that they have this information, our plans will have to change. I’m done being the messenger. I want in. I want a real role.”

Yuri just stared. Then he let out a sharp, braying laugh and at the same time slapped the table so hard it jarred several nearby patrons. “You!” he exclaimed, wagging a finger. “You may be an expat, but you still have that American ambition!” He laughed again, sounding very much like a donkey. “What is it you want to know, Ben?”

“Let’s start with who you represent in this.”

“How do you know I represent anyone? For what you know, I could be the boss. The brains behind the master plan!” He held both hands up in a grand gesture and laughed again.

Reid smirked. “I don’t think so. I think you’re in the same position I am, ferrying information, swapping secrets, having meetings in shitty bars.” Interrogation tactic—relate to them on their level. Yuri was clearly a polyglot, and seemed to lack the same hardened demeanor as his captors. But even if he was low-level, he still knew more than Reid did. “How about a deal? You tell me what you know, and I’ll tell you what I know.” He lowered his voice to nearly a whisper. “And trust me. You want to know what I know.”

Yuri stroked his chin stubble thoughtfully. “I like you, Ben. Which is, how do you say, um… conflicting, because Americans usually make me ill.” He grinned. “Sadly for you, I cannot tell you what I do not know.”

“Then point me to who can.” The words flowed out of him as if they bypassed his brain and went straight to his throat. The logical part of him (or more appropriately, the Lawson part of him) screamed a protest. What are you doing?! Get what you can and get out of here!

“Would you care to go for a ride with me?” Yuri’s eyes flashed. “I will take you to see my boss. There, you can tell him what you know.”

Reid hesitated. He knew he shouldn’t. He knew he didn’t want to. But there was that bizarre sense of obligation, and there was that steely reserve in the back of his mind that told him again, Relax. He had a gun. He had some sort of skill set. He had come this far, and judging by what he now knew, this went way beyond a few Iranian men in a Parisian basement. There was a plan, and the involvement of the CIA, and somehow he knew that the endgame was a lot of people being hurt or worse.

He nodded once, his jaw clenched tightly.

“Great.” Yuri drained his glass and stood, still keeping his left elbow tucked in. “Au revoir.” He waved to the bartender. Then the Serbian led the way toward the rear of Féline, through a small dingy kitchen, and out through a steel door facing a cobblestone alley.

Reid followed him into the night, surprised to see that it had grown so dark so quickly while he was in the bar. At the mouth of the alley was a black SUV, idling gently, with windows tinted nearly as dark as the paint job. The rear door opened before Yuri reached it, and two goons climbed out. Reid didn’t know how else to think of them; each was broad-shouldered, imposing, and doing nothing to try to hide the TEC-9 automatic pistols swinging from harnesses at their armpit.

“Relax, my friends,” said Yuri. “This is Ben. We take him to see Otets.”

Otets. Phonetic Russian for “father.” Or, on the most technical level, “maker.”

“Come,” Yuri said pleasantly. He clapped a hand on Reid’s shoulder. “It is a very nice ride. We will drink champagne on the way. Come.”

Reid’s legs did not want to work. It was risky—too risky. If he got in this car with these men and they discovered who he was, or even that he wasn’t who he said he was, he might very well be a dead man. His girls would be orphans, and they would likely never know what became of him.

But what choice did he have? He couldn’t very well act like he’d changed his mind suddenly; that would be far too suspicious. It was likely he had already taken two steps past the point of no return simply by following Yuri out here. And if he could keep up the charade long enough, he could find the source—and discover what was going on in his own head.

He took a step forward toward the SUV.

“Ah! Un momento, por favor.” Yuri wagged a finger at his brawny escorts. One of them forced Reid’s arms up at his sides, while the other patted him down. First he found the Beretta, tucked into the back of his jeans. Then he dug into Reid’s pockets with two fingers and pulled out the wad of euros and the burner phone, and handed all three to Yuri.

“This you can keep.” The Serbian gave him back the cash. “These, however, we will hang onto. Security. You understand.” Yuri tucked the phone and the gun into the inside pocket of his suede jacket, and for the briefest of moments, Reid saw the brown hilt of a pistol.

“I understand,” Reid said. Now he was unarmed and without any way to call for help if he needed to. I should run, he thought. Just start sprinting and don’t look back…

One of the goons forced his head low and pushed him forward, into the back of the SUV. Both of them climbed in after him and Yuri followed, pulling the door behind him. He sat beside Reid, while the hunched goons, nearly shoulder to shoulder, sat in a custom rear-facing seat opposite them, right behind the driver. A dark-tinted partition separated them from the front seat of the car.

One of the pair knocked on the driver’s partition with two knuckles. “Otets,” he said gruffly.

A heavy, telltale click locked the rear doors, and with it came a stark comprehension of what Reid had done. He had gotten into a car with three armed men with no idea where he was going and very little idea of who he was supposed to be. Fooling Yuri hadn’t been all that difficult, but now he was being taken to some boss… would they know that he wasn’t who he said he was? He fought down the urge to jump forward, yank open the door, and leap out of the car. There was no escape from this, at least not at the moment; he would have to wait until they arrived at their destination and hope that he could get out in one piece.

The SUV rolled forward through the streets of Paris.

CHAPTER SIX

Yuri, who had been so talkative and animated in the French bar, was uncharacteristically silent during the car ride. He opened a compartment alongside his seat and took out a well-worn book with a torn cover—Machiavelli’s The Prince. The professor in Reid wanted to scoff out loud.

The two goons across from him sat silently, eyes directed straight ahead as if they were trying to stare holes through Reid. He quickly memorized their features: the man on the left was bald, white, with a dark handlebar mustache and beady eyes. He had a TEC-9 beneath his shoulder and a Glock 27 tucked in an ankle holster. A jagged pale scar over his left eyebrow suggested a shoddy patch job (not all that dissimilar from what Reid was likely due for once his super-glue intervention healed). He couldn’t tell the man’s nationality.

The second goon was a few shades darker, with a full, unkempt beard and a sizable paunch. His left shoulder appeared to be sagging slightly, as if he was favoring his opposite hip. He too had an automatic pistol tucked under one arm, but no other weapons that Reid could discern.

He could, however, see the mark on his neck. The skin there was puckered and pink, raised slightly from being burned. It was the same brand he had seen on the Arabic brute in the Paris basement. A glyph of some sort, he was certain, but not one that he recognized. The mustached man did not appear to have one, though much of his neck was hidden by his shirt.

Yuri did not have a brand either—at least not one that Reid could see. The collar of the Serbian’s suede jacket rode high. Could be a status symbol, he thought. Something that had to be earned.

The driver directed the vehicle onto A4, leaving Paris behind and heading northeast toward Reims. The tinted windows made the night all the darker; once they left the City of Lights, it was difficult for Reid to make out landmarks. He had to rely on the route markers and signs to know where they were heading. The landscape slowly shifted from the bright urban locale to an idle, bucolic topography, the highway gently sloping with the lay of the land and farms stretching on either side.

After an hour of driving in utter silence, Reid cleared his throat. “Is it much further?” he asked.

Yuri put a finger to his lips and then grinned. “Oui.”

Reid’s nostrils flared, but he said nothing more. He should have asked just how far they would be taking him; for all he knew, they were going clear to Belgium.

Route A4 became A34, which in turn became A304 as they climbed ever further north. The trees that dotted the pastoral countryside grew thicker and closer, wide umbrella-like spruces that swallowed the open farmland and became indistinguishable forests. The gradient of the road increased as the sloping hills turned to small mountains.

He knew this place. Rather, he knew the region, and not because of any flashing vision or implanted memory. He had never been here, but he knew from his studies that they had reached the Ardennes, a mountainous stretch of forest shared between northeastern France, southern Belgium, and northern Luxembourg. It was in the Ardennes that the German army, in 1944, attempted to launch their armored divisions through the densely forested region in an attempt to capture the city of Antwerp. They were thwarted by American and British forces near the river Meuse. The ensuing conflict was dubbed the Battle of the Bulge, and it was the last major offensive of the Germans in World War II.

For some reason, despite how dire his situation was or might soon become, he found some small measure of comfort in thinking about history, his former life, and his students. But then his thoughts again transitioned to his girls being alone and scared and not having any idea where he was or what he had gotten himself into.

Sure enough, Reid soon saw a sign that warned of an approach to the border. Belgique, the sign read, and below that, Belgien, België, Belgium. Less than two miles later, the SUV slowed to a stop at a single small booth with a concrete awning overhead. A man in a thick coat and wool-knit cap peered out at the vehicle. Border security between France and Belgium was a far cry from what most Americans were used to. The driver rolled down the window and spoke to the man, but the words were muted by the closed partition and windows. Reid squinted through the tint and saw the driver’s arm reach out, passing something to the border officer—a bill. A bribe.

The man in the cap waved them through.

Only a few miles down N5, the SUV pulled off of the highway and onto a narrow road that cut parallel to the main thoroughfare. There was no exit sign and the road itself was barely paved; it was an access road, likely one that was created for logging vehicles. The car jostled over the deep ruts in the dirt. The two goons bumped against one another opposite Reid, but still they continued to stare straight forward at him.

He checked the cheap watch he had bought at the pharmacy. Two hours and forty-six minutes they had been traveling. Last night he had been in the US, and then woken up in Paris, and now he was in Belgium. Relax, his subconscious coaxed. Nowhere you haven’t been before. Just pay attention and keep your mouth shut.

Both sides of the road appeared to be nothing but thick trees. The SUV continued on, climbing up the side of a curving mountain and down again. All the while Reid peered out the window, pretending to be idle but looking for any sort of landmark or sign that would tell him where they were—ideally something he could recount later to the authorities, if need be.

There were lights ahead, though at his angle he could not see the source. The SUV slowed again and rolled to a gentle stop. Reid saw a black wrought-iron fence, each post topped in a dangerous spike, stretching to either side and vanishing into the darkness. Alongside their vehicle was a small guard house made of glass and dark brick, a fluorescent light illuminating the inside. A man emerged. He wore slacks and a pea coat, the collar flipped up around his neck and a gray scarf knotted at his throat. He made no attempt to hide the silenced MP7 hanging from a strap over his right shoulder. In fact, as he stepped toward the car, he gripped the automatic pistol, though he did not raise it.

Heckler & Koch, production variant MP7A1, said the voice in Reid’s head. Seven-point-one-inch suppressor. Elcan reflex sight. Thirty-round magazine.

The driver rolled down his window and spoke with the man for just a few seconds. Then the guard rounded the SUV and pulled open the door on Yuri’s side. He bent and peered into the cab. Reid caught the scent of rye whiskey and felt the sting of the frigid rush of air that came with it. The man glanced at each of them in turn, his gaze lingering on Reid.

“Kommunikator,” said Yuri. “Chtoby uvidet’ nachal’nika.” Russian. Messenger, to see the boss.

The guard said nothing. He closed the door again and returned to his post, pressing a button on a small console. The black-iron gate hummed as it rolled aside, and the SUV pulled through.

Reid’s throat tightened as the full gravity of his situation pressed in on him. He had gone to the meeting with the intention of getting information about whatever was happening—not just to him, but with all the talk of plans and sheikhs and foreign cities. He had gotten into the car with Yuri and the two goons in the heat of finding a source. He had let them take him out of the country and into the middle of a dense forested region, and now they were behind a tall, guarded, spiked gate. He had no idea how he might get out of this if something went awry.

Relax. You’ve done this before.

No I haven’t! he thought desperately. I’m a college professor from New York. I don’t know what I’m doing. Why did I do this? My girls…

Just give in to it. You’ll know what to do.

Reid took a deep breath, but it did little to calm his nerves. He peered out the window. In the darkness, he could just barely make out their surroundings. There were no trees behind the gate, but rather rows upon rows of stout vines, climbing and weaving through waist-high latticework… It was a vineyard. Whether it was actually a vineyard or merely a front, he wasn’t sure, but it was at least something recognizable, something that could be seen by helicopter or a drone flyover.

Good. That’ll come in handy later.

If there is a later.

The SUV drove slowly over the gravel road for another mile or so before the vineyard ended. Before them was a palatial estate, practically a castle, built in gray stone with arching windows and ivy climbing up the southern façade. For the briefest of moments, Reid appreciated the beautiful architecture; it was likely two hundred years old, maybe more. But they did not stop there; instead, the car circled around the grand home and behind it. After another half mile, they pulled into a small lot and the driver cut the engine.

They had arrived. But where they had arrived to, he had no idea.

The goons exited first, and then Reid climbed out, followed by Yuri. The bitter cold took his breath away. He clenched his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering. Their two large escorts seemed to not be bothered by it at all.

About forty yards from them was a large, squat structure, two stories tall and several times as wide; windowless and made of corrugated steel painted beige. Some sort of facility, Reid reasoned—perhaps for winemaking. But he doubted it.

Yuri groaned as he stretched his limbs. Then he grinned at Reid. “Ben, I understand we are now very good friends, but still…” He pulled from his jacket pocket a narrow length of black fabric. “I must insist.”

Reid nodded once, tightly. What choice did he have? He turned so that Yuri could tie the blindfold over his eyes. A strong, meaty hand gripped his upper arm—one of the goons, no doubt.

“Now then,” Yuri said. “Onwards to Otets.” The strong hand pulled him forward and guided him as they walked in the direction of the steel structure. He felt another shoulder brush against his own on the opposite side; the two large goons had him flanked.

Reid breathed evenly through his nose, trying his best to remain calm. Listen, his mind told him.

I am listening.

No, listen. Listen, and give in.

Someone banged three times on a door. The sound of it was dull and hollow as a bass drum. Though he couldn’t see, Reid imagined in his mind’s eye Yuri banging with the flat of his fist against the heavy steel door.

Ca-chunk. A deadbolt sliding aside. A whoosh, a rush of warm air as the door opened. Suddenly, a mélange of noises—glass clinking, liquid sloshing, belts whirring. Vintner’s equipment, by the sound of it. Strange; he hadn’t heard anything from outside. The building’s exterior walls are soundproofed.

The heavy hand guided him inside. The door closed again and the deadbolt was slid back into place. The floor beneath him felt like smooth concrete. His shoes slapped against a small puddle. The acetous odor of fermentation was strongest, and just under that, the sweeter familiar scent of grape juice. They really are making wine here.

Reid counted his paces across the floor of the facility. They passed through another set of doors, and with it came an assortment of new sounds. Machinery—hydraulic press. Pneumatic drill. The clinking chain of a conveyor. The fermentation scent gave way to grease, motor oil, and… Powder. They’re manufacturing something here; most likely munitions. There was something else, something familiar, past the oil and powder. It was somewhat sweet, like almonds… Dinitrotoluene. They’re making explosives.

“Stairs,” said Yuri’s voice, close to his ear, as Reid’s shin bumped against the bottommost step. The heavy hand continued to guide him as four sets of footfalls climbed the steel stairs. Thirteen steps. Whoever built this place must not be superstitious.

At the top was yet another steel door. Once it was closed behind them, the sounds of machinery were drowned out—another soundproofed room. Classical piano music played from nearby. Brahms. Variations on a Theme of Paganini. The melody was not rich enough to be coming from an actual piano; a stereo of some kind.

“Yuri.” The new voice was a stern baritone, slightly rasped from either shouting often or too many cigars. Judging by the scent of the room, it was the latter. Possibly both.

“Otets,” said Yuri obsequiously. He spoke rapidly in Russian. Reid did his best to follow along with Yuri’s accent. “I bring you good news from France…”

“Who is this man?” the baritone demanded. With the way he spoke, Russian seemed to be his native tongue. Reid couldn’t help but wonder what the connection might be between the Iranians and this Russian man—or the goons in the SUV, for that matter, and even the Serbian Yuri. An arms deal, maybe, said the voice in his head. Or something worse.

“This is the Iranians’ messenger,” Yuri replied. “He has the information we seek for—”

“You brought him here?” the man interjected. His deep voice rose to a roar. “You were supposed to go to France and meet with the Iranians, not drag men back to me! You would compromise everything with your stupidity!” There was a sharp crack—a solid backhand across a face—and a gasp from Yuri. “Must I write your job description on a bullet to get it through your thick skull?!”

“Otets, please…” Yuri stammered.

“Do not call me that!” the man shouted fiercely. A gun cocked—a heavy pistol, by the sound of it. “Do not call me by any name in the presence of this stranger!”

“He is no stranger!” Yuri yelped. “He is Agent Zero! I have brought you Kent Steele!”