Agent Zero

He slammed the SUV into drive and stomped the gas. The tires spun, kicking up gravel and dirt behind it, and then the vehicle lurched forward with a jolt. As soon as he pulled back onto the narrow access road, shots rang out. Bullets smacked the passenger side with a series of heavy thuds. The window—just to the right of Otets’s head—splintered in a spider web of cracked glass, but held.

“Idiots!” Otets screamed. “Stop shooting!”

Bullet-resistant, Reid thought. Of course it is. But he knew that wouldn’t last long. He pressed the accelerator to the floor and the SUV lurched again, roaring past the three men on the side of the road as they fired on the car. Reid rolled down his window as they rolled by the two bomb-makers, still running for their lives.

Then he tossed the switch out the window.

The explosion rocked the SUV, even at their distance. He didn’t hear the detonation so much as he felt it, deep in his core, shaking his innards. A glance in the rearview mirror showed nothing but intense yellow light, like staring directly into the sun. Spots swam in his vision for a moment and he forced himself to look ahead at the road. An orange fireball rolled into the sky, sending up an immense plume of black smoke with it.

Otets let out a jagged, groaning sigh. “You have no idea what you’ve just done,” he said quietly. “You are a dead man, Agent.”

Reid said nothing. He did realize what he had just done—he had destroyed a significant amount of evidence in whatever case might be built against Otets once he was brought to the authorities. But Otets was wrong; he was not a dead man, not yet anyway, and the bomb had helped him get away.

This far, anyhow.

Up ahead, the estate house loomed into view, but there was no pausing to appreciate its architecture this time around. Reid kept his eyes straight ahead and zoomed past it as the SUV bounced over the ruts in the road.

A glimmer in the mirror caught his attention. Two pairs of headlights swung into view, pulling out from the driveway of the house. They were low to the ground and he could hear the high-pitched whine of the engines over the roar of his own. Sports cars. He hit the gas again. They would be faster, but the SUV was better equipped to handle the uneven road.

More shots cracked the air as bullets pounded the rear fender. Reid gripped the steering wheel with both hands, the veins standing out stark with the tension in his muscles. He had control. He could do this. The iron gate couldn’t be far. He was doing fifty-five through the vineyard; if he could maintain his speed, it might be enough to crash the gate.

The SUV rocked violently as a bullet struck the rear driver’s side tire and exploded. The front end veered wildly. Reid instinctively counter-steered, his teeth gritted. The back end skidded out, but the SUV didn’t roll.

“God save me,” Otets moaned. “This lunatic will be the death of me…”

Reid wrenched the wheel again and righted the vehicle, but the steady, pounding thum-thum-thum of the tire told him they were riding on the rim and shreds of rubber. His speed dropped to forty. He tried to give it gas again but the SUV quaked, threatening to veer again.

He knew they couldn’t maintain enough speed to break the gate. They would bounce right off it.

It’s an electronic gate, he thought suddenly. It was controlled by the guard outside—who would no doubt at this point be aware of his escape attempt and be ready with the dangerous MP7—but that meant there had to be another exit to this compound.

Bullets continued to pound against the fender as his two pursuers fired on them. He flicked on the high beams and saw the iron gate coming up fast.

“Hang onto something,” Reid warned. Otets grabbed the handle over his window and muttered a prayer under his breath as Reid yanked the wheel hard to the right. The SUV skidded sideways in the gravel. He felt the two passenger-side tires come off the ground and, for a moment, his heart leapt into his throat with the notion that they might roll right over.

But he held control, and the tires set down again. He stomped the accelerator and drove right into the vineyard, crashing through the thin wooden trellises as if they were toothpicks and rolling grapevines flat.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Otets screeched in Russian. He bounced heavily in his seat as they drove over the planted rows. Behind him, the pair of sports cars squealed to a halt. They couldn’t follow, not through the field—but they were probably aware of what he was looking for, and they knew where to find it.

“Where’s the other exit?” Reid demanded.

“What exit?”

He yanked the Beretta from his jacket pocket (no easy feat, with the violent bouncing of the car) and pressed it against Otets’s already-shot leg. The Russian screamed in pain. “That way!” he cried, pointing a crooked finger to the northwestern edge of the compound.

Reid held his breath. Please hold together, he thought desperately. The SUV was sturdy, but so far they had been lucky they hadn’t broken an axle.

Then, mercifully, the vineyard ended abruptly and they were back on a gravel road. The headlights shined on a second gate—made of the same wrought iron, but on wheels and held together by a single link of chain.

This is it. Reid clenched his jaw and slammed the gas once more. The SUV lurched. Otets howled some indistinguishable curse. The front end collided with the iron gate and smashed it open, knocking one side right off its hinges.

Reid breathed an intense sigh of relief. Then the headlights flashed again in his rearview—the cars were back. They had doubled back and taken the other road, likely branching from the opposite side of the estate house.

“Dammit,” Reid muttered. He couldn’t keep going like this forever, and if they shot out the other rear tire he’d be dead in the water. The road here was straight, and seemed to be inclining upward. It was also better paved than behind the gate, which only meant that the sports cars would catch up that much faster.

The trees were thinning on the right side of the road. Reid’s gaze flitted from the road to the passenger window. He could have sworn, through the cracked glass, he saw a shimmer, like… like water.

A rush of memory came to him, but not the flashing visions of his new mind. These were actual memories, Professor Lawson’s memories. We’re in the Ardennes. The Battle of the Bulge took place here. American and British forces held the bridges against German panzer divisions on the river…

“Meuse,” he murmured aloud. “We’re on the river Meuse.”

“What?” Otets exclaimed. “What are you babbling about?” Then he ducked instinctively as bullets splintered their rear windshield.

Reid ignored him, and the bullets. His mind raced. What was it he recalled reading about the Meuse? It sliced through the mountains, yes. And they were on an incline, heading upward. There were quarries here. Red marble quarries. Sheer cliffs and steep drops.

The SUV shuddered in protest. A heavy and very disconcerting clunking sound rumbled from its underbelly.

“What is that?” Otets shouted.

“That’s our axle breaking,” Reid answered. He focused on the road ahead. They had very little time…

Another bang rocked the SUV and threatened to tear it from the road. Not a bullet, Reid thought. That was their other rear tire blowing out. He was out of time and running out of road. He scanned for a break in the trees wide enough.

The sports car immediately behind him must have noticed the blowout. It crept up on his rear end and bumped their fender. The SUV veered slightly. For a brief moment, Reid thought about slamming the brakes, letting the car crash into them. With the momentary distraction, he could gain the element of surprise. He still had two guns. But no; there was a good chance that the two pursuing cars had the same bullet-resistant plating as the SUV.

There was only one way he could think of to get out of this.

But that’s impossible, he thought. That’s lunacy.

No. It’s not. You still don’t understand? You’ve been trained for every situation. You’ve been in every situation. Look at what you’ve done so far. Don’t you get it yet? You are Kent Steele.

“I am,” he murmured. “I am.” He didn’t know how it was possible, and his brain was still an utter mess, but he knew it was true. And the voice in his head was right. There was a way.

He yanked the wheel to the right. The SUV screeched and groaned as it skidded sideways. Reid piloted it between two narrow trees, directly toward the river. “You’re going to want to jump out of the car when I say jump.”

“What are you doing?!” Otets screamed. “Are you insane?”

“I might be.” The car jolted with a teeth-rattling quake as the axle broke, but by that time their momentum was too much to stop it. Reid grabbed onto the door handle with one hand and steered with the other. “But if you don’t want to die, you’ll jump.”

Otets whimpered another prayer under his breath, his eyes squeezed shut.

Reid clenched his jaw tightly. Here we go. The sports cars behind him squealed to a stop, the drivers watching in disbelief as the SUV careened over the edge of the red marble quarry and plummeted sixty feet down into the darkness of the Meuse.

CHAPTER NINE

The fall felt impossibly long.

As the SUV’s front tires lost the ground beneath them and rolled out over nothing, Reid threw open the driver’s side door and, with a burst of adrenaline, leapt out of the car. A half second before that he shouted “Jump!” He heard Otets’s high-pitched moan of fear as he too threw open his door.

And then they fell through darkness toward the rushing water below. Reid thought it strange, in that moment, that there was no hypnic jerk, no falling sensation as they dropped quickly toward the Meuse—and then thought it was stranger still that his mind could be so cognizant and lucid while plummeting over a cliff.

They hit the river’s surface a half second before the SUV and several feet away. An electric shock scorched Reid’s entire body as they struck the frigid water. Every muscle went as taut as rubber bands stretched to their limit. The air rushed from his lungs so quickly he nearly passed out. The heavy vehicle bobbed for a moment and then sank; the suction of it sent them both tumbling over and over in the blackness until he didn’t know which way was up.

Finally, his head broke through the surface. He sucked in a ragged breath, his body already threatening to give out in the freezing water. He looked around for Otets but saw nothing but bubbles. It would be too dark for him to see beneath the surface. If Otets had sunk with the car, if he hadn’t gotten out in time, there would be nothing that Reid could do. He’d be dead already…

Something broke through the water a few feet from him. He reached for it and grabbed soggy clothing. The Russian’s body was limp. He had lost consciousness—at least, hopefully that was all it was. He hauled Otets toward him and made sure his head was out of the water. It would be difficult to get anywhere with an unconscious man.

Don’t panic. Move your limbs.

Reid positioned himself into a backwards butterfly stroke and wrapped his legs around Otets’s torso. He moved his arms in wide circles, slowly and methodically—he didn’t want to splash around too much and potentially give his position away to anyone looking down from above. He doubted the sports cars and Otets’s men would simply give up and go home.

The current was strong, but he let it carry them southeast as they made their way to shore. It took several minutes, but soon it was shallow enough that he could stand. He took Otets’s body over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry and hauled him onto a narrow span of rocky beach.

The cold was worse out of the water. The subzero wind blew right through him and stiffened his wet clothes. He dropped Otets and checked to make sure he was still breathing by holding one finger just below his nostrils. He felt shallow, uneven breaths—Otets was alive, but had likely swallowed a good amount of water.

Reid huddled down, rubbing his chest rhythmically with both arms. He would need to find some shelter for them, and fast, before they both succumbed to hypothermia. He estimated he had between five and ten minutes before they’d both be dead. He gritted his teeth to keep them from chattering and hefted Otets up once again. To distract his mind from the raw, biting cold and the suspicion that he could be frozen in minutes, he tried to think of something else, anything else. Warm beaches. Hot showers. A cozy fireplace. His mind went to his girls, sitting in a hotel somewhere and worried sick over where their father might be and what was happening. He thought of Kate, his deceased wife and mother to his kids, and what she would do in this situation. He almost laughed bitterly—Kate would never have gotten into a situation like this. He barely knew how he had gotten into a situation like this.

Kent knew. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind was that knowledge, Kent’s knowledge, of what had happened and why, for a while, he was no longer Kent Steele. It was clearer to him now; there was no denying it. They were memories, and they weren’t false implanted memories like some top-secret CIA mind-control project or other such urban myth nonsense. The CIA, these flashing visions… they were his. They were his instincts, his voice, his training. No implanted memories could simulate the intuition, compulsion, and situational awareness he’d exhibited back in the facility or in the basement with the Iranians.

He didn’t know how, but he was Kent Steele. Agent Zero. He didn’t know why, but he—or someone else, perhaps—had taken all of that away from him. Suddenly Professor Reid Lawson felt like the lie. That other life, the quiet life in the Bronx and walks to the deli and lectures about pirates, all felt implanted and false.

No, he told himself. That was your life, too. The girls are your children. Kate was your wife. It was all yours.

But so was this.

Reid didn’t even realize he had reached a road until headlights were blaring in his vision. He squinted, panicking, caught like a half-frozen deer in headlights. Otets’s men had found him. There must have been a bridge or some quick way across the river, and he had carelessly stumbled right into the road in front of them. He couldn’t run—even if he dropped Otets, he had so little strength left in his freezing limbs.

The car came to an abrupt halt and idled there for a few seconds. Then the driver’s side door swung open. Reid couldn’t see anyone, not even a silhouette, beyond the headlights.

“Hallo?” A woman’s voice, pinched with nervousness. “Heb je hulp nodig?”

No recognition of her words sparked in Reid’s mind. “Um, D-deutsche?” he stammered. “E-English? Francais?”

“Francais, oui,” she said back. “As-tu besoin d-aide?” Do you need help?

“Oui, si’l vous plait,” he said breathlessly. Yes, please. He took a couple of small steps toward her car. He heard her gasp in surprise—he must have looked awful. Frost had sprouted on his collar and in his hair, and it was likely his lips were a rich shade of blue. He told her in French, “We fell into the river…”

“Quickly!” she said urgently. “Into the car! Come along, get in.” Her French-speaking accent registered something inside him—not the Kent Steele side, but the Reid Lawson side. She was Flemish, and her first attempt to talk to him must have been Dutch.

She opened the back door and helped him lay Otets across the seat. Warm air rushed out at Reid like a welcome breeze. The woman retrieved a thin blanket from the trunk. Instead of laying it over the Russian, Reid balled it up and used it to prop Otets’s feet, to help the blood circulate to his heart and avoid shock. Then he climbed into the front seat and held his hands to the air vents.

The Flemish woman got back into the car and reached to turn the heater up. “Wait,” Reid said in French. “Slow is better.” He knew that if they tried to warm up too quickly after even the slightest onset of hypothermia, they could both go into shock—especially Otets, if he hadn’t already.

“I should take you to the hospital,” the woman said as she buckled her seatbelt. “It is not far—”

“No hospitals, please.” He had a feeling that Otets’s men might check the hospitals. Besides, he didn’t want to be questioned—in fact, he planned to do the questioning, as soon as he was in a position to do so.

“But what about your friend?” she protested. “He could die!”

“No hospitals,” Reid said firmly.

She glanced at him and her gaze met his. He could see the uncertainty flickering behind her green eyes, a conflict between wanting to do the right thing and potentially putting herself in some kind of danger.

He quickly looked her over; she was around forty, plain-featured, with calluses on her fingers and light etches crisscrossing the backs of her hands. A farmer. Mostly likely barley, considering the area.

The rest of their conversation was in French. It felt strange for Reid to speak it, to suddenly know the words as they came to his mind in English, but it was stranger still to hear a foreign language and instantly understand it as it was spoken.

“We were drinking,” he explained. “We weren’t watching where we were going, and we ran our car into the river…”

“Your car is in the river?!” she exclaimed. “You’re lucky to be alive!”

Reid rubbed his chest. His limbs were warming already, though his clothes were still stiff from the freezing night air. As he shrugged out of his wet jacket, he said, “Yes, but we’re not hurt. Not badly, anyway. If we go to the hospital, they will ask questions. And if they find the truth, they will have to call the police.”

She shook her head. “That was extremely stupid of you.”

“I know. But please, no hospitals. Is there any place we can stay the night? An inn or a hostel, perhaps.”

“But your friend,” she said again, “he looks like he needs help…”

“He’ll be okay. He’s just very drunk.” Reid hoped she hadn’t noticed the gash across Otets’s leg where the bullet had grazed him.

The woman sighed and shook her head. She murmured something in Dutch, and then in French she said, “I have a farm not far from here. There is a cabin. You can stay the night there.” Her hesitant gaze met his again as she added, “It would be very good if I did not later regret this.”

“You won’t. I promise. Thank you.”

They drove in silence for several minutes. Otets occasionally let out a soft moan, and at one point he vomited a small amount of river water onto the floor of the car.

At length, the woman asked him, “You are American?”

“Yes.”

“And your friend?”

“Also American.” Reid didn’t want the woman to be in anyone’s line of fire if the men from Otets’s facility went canvassing the area for an American with a Russian man.

The digital clock on her car radio told him it was nearly one in the morning. “May I ask what you were doing out this late at night?” he ventured.

“My mother is ill in Brussels,” she told him. “I was just returning from a visit.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Doctors say she’ll live.”

The rest of their drive was quiet. Reid had the distinct impression that the woman knew he was lying but didn’t want to ask. That was a good idea on her part—plausible deniability—and besides, he wasn’t going to share the truth, regardless of how hospitable she was being.

After about fifteen minutes they came to a dirt road that wound through a field of short-stalked winter barley. At the end of the narrow road was a small cabin, a single story made of stone and wood with a high peaked roof. She parked the car in front of it.

“Do you need help carrying him inside?” she asked.

“No, no. I’ll get him. You’ve done more than enough.” Reid did not want to leave the warmth of the car, but he forced his legs to move again. Nerve pain prickled up his thighs like needles, but he managed to sling Otets over his shoulders once more and carry him into the cabin.

The Flemish woman led the way, opening the door for them. She flicked on a switch and a single bare bulb glowed overhead. Reid set Otets down on a small green sofa that might have been older than he was. The cabin smelled musty and looked like it hadn’t been used in some time; there was a fine coat of dust on every surface, and when she turned on the electric stove in the corner it was accompanied by a mild burning scent.

“That odor will fade,” she told him. “There is a bed in the back room, some towels in the bathroom. There may be some food in the cupboards—help yourselves to whatever you’d like.” She bit her lip, as if considering whether or not to ask. “Are you certain you’ll be all right? It’s not every day one finds two frozen men on the side of the road…”

“We’ll be fine,” he assured her. “I can’t thank you enough.” I could at least try, he thought. He still had the bundle of euros in his pocket. They were soggy and wet, but he peeled off two bills, a hundred each, and held them out to her. “For your trouble.”

She shook her head. “No trouble. I’m happy to help those in need.”

“You didn’t have to.” He pushed the bills into her hand. “Please.”

She took them and nodded graciously. Then she gestured toward the window. “See that light across the field? That is my house.” She quickly added, “I’m not alone there.”

“We won’t be trouble. I gave you my word. We’ll be gone in the morning.”

The woman nodded once and then hurried out of the cabin. A moment later Reid heard her car’s engine as it pulled away down the dirt road.

As soon as she was gone he pulled the curtains shut and stripped out of his wet shoes and clothes. It was not easy, stiff with frost and clinging to his skin as they were. He realized how exhausted his muscles felt—how generally exhausted he was. When was the last time he slept that he wasn’t drugged or knocked unconscious? He could barely remember.

He draped his clothes on the mantel over the electric stove and then stood in front of it for several minutes, wearing just his boxer shorts and slowly warming his body and working his limbs to get the blood flowing fully again.

Then he turned his attention to Otets.

First he got the Russian out of his charcoal-gray suit. He pulled off his wingtip shoes, his cold wet socks, his jacket, trousers, and finally his white shirt. When he rolled Otets over to pull the shirt out from under him, Reid noticed that his back was covered in pale pink vertical scars, each about four to six inches long. They were either shallow swipes from a knife, or lashes from a whip; he couldn’t tell which, but they looked like they were decades old, acquired in youth.

Otets occasionally mumbled unintelligibly under his breath. Reid couldn’t understand if he was speaking Russian or English, but judging by the snarl of his lip, whatever he was saying wasn’t pleasant. He unceremoniously dumped the soggy clothes into a pile, and then rolled Otets off the sofa and dragged him over to the electric stove, laying him on the threadbare carpet in front of it.

The kitchen of the cabin was little more than a short corridor with a steel sink, a hot plate, a cutting block, and two drawers. Reid filled a glass with water from the tap. When he brought it back, Otets had managed to pull himself up slightly, propped on his elbows.

“You,” he said weakly in English. “You are madman. You know this?”

“I’m starting to figure that out,” Reid said. “Drink.”

Otets did not argue; he drank the entire glass, and when he was finished he took several small gasping breaths. He glanced down at himself as if only just now noticing that he was stripped to his briefs. “What is this you are doing?” he asked.

“I need you coherent.” Back in Otets’s facility, Reid’s plan had been to get the Russian out of there and turn him over to the authorities. But he needed to know what was happening—to him, and possibly to many others, if his cogent hunch about a threat was right. He’d heard mention more than once now about a plan of some sort. And he was, after all, Kent Steele, CIA agent. He had figured this out before, or at least some of it. He would find out what he could, and then turn Otets over to the powers-that-be and get his life back.

“I will not tell you anything.” Otets’s head lolled slightly. His eyes were half-closed and bleary. He was in no position to fight back, let alone escape.

“We’ll see.” Reid retrieved the Glock from his jacket pocket. The Beretta was gone; he had lost it in the river, most likely. He returned to the kitchenette, set the glass in the sink, and disassembled the pistol. He knew it would still fire just fine despite the plunge in the river, but water in the chamber could corrode the barrel. He set the pieces on a dish towel and then opened each of the two drawers.

All right, he asked himself, what can we use?

The contents of the drawers were sparse, but among them he found a serrated steak knife—old, yet sturdy and sharp. He held it aloft and looked at his reflection in the blade. His stomach turned at the very thought of using it on a person.

He decided it was time to amend his acronym. With his girls, he used to ask himself, “What would Kate do?” The letters were the same—WWKD?—but the name was different.

What would Kent do?

The reply came instantly: You already know the answer.

He shuddered a little. It was strange having another voice in his head—no, not another voice, since Kent’s voice was his own. It was another personality in his head, one that was so vastly different from the Reid Lawson that he thought he was that it was nearly nauseating.

Kent killed people.

In self-defense.

Kent went undercover in known terrorist cells.

Necessary for the security of our nation.

Kent drove cars over cliffs.

Out of necessity. Also, it was fun.

Reid leaned over the steel sink with both hands until the mild feeling of nausea passed. It was from swallowing river water and nothing else—definitely not insanity slowing creeping in, he told himself.

He desperately wanted the information that Otets knew, or even the information that Kent knew, but he couldn’t shake the awful feeling that maybe he had done this to himself. It didn’t seem to make sense, not based on what he currently knew, but still he couldn’t get the thought out of his head. What if he had stumbled upon something so dangerous and potentially damaging that he needed to forget it? What if he, as Kent Steele, had the memory suppressor implanted for his own safety—or for the safety of his family?

“Why?” he asked himself quietly. “Why did this happen?” No memories sparked. No visions flashed.

He sighed, and then he gathered his supplies. From the drawers he took the steak knife and an old brown two-pronged extension cord. He found a tea kettle in the cupboard and filled it with water, and then retrieved a towel from the tiny bathroom in the rear of the cabin. Then he brought them all back to Otets.

The Russian looked like he was regaining some of his strength, or at the very least, some of his sense. He stared at Reid evenly as he set out all four objects on the floor between them.

“You intend to torture me,” he said in English. It wasn’t a question.

“I intend to get answers.”

Otets shrugged with one shoulder. “Do what you will.”

Reid was quiet for a long moment. Was getting information really worth what he was thinking about doing?

If it means keeping people alive—especially my girls—then yes.

“I’m going to be honest with you,” said Reid. Otets glanced up in surprise, but his eyes remained narrow and suspicious. “You know who I am. Kent Steele, Agent Zero of the CIA, right? The problem is… I don’t know that. I don’t know what it means. Or at least I didn’t, until very recently.” He gestured to the butterfly bandage on his neck, where the Iranian interrogator had cut out the memory suppressor. “It seems I had my memory altered. I don’t know why. I know some things—they come back in flashes—but not enough.”

Why am I telling him all this?

You know why. Because he can’t leave this room alive.

I won’t kill an injured, unarmed man.

You’ll have to.

“I don’t believe you,” said Otets firmly. “This is a… um, how do you say… ploy. This is a trick.”

“It’s not,” Reid said simply. “And I don’t need you to believe me. I need to work this out for myself, really. I was on to something—rather, Kent was on to something. The men we apprehended at Zagreb, Tehran, Madrid… I’ve had this feeling that they were connected, and now I have the distinct impression that they were connected to you. The sheikh, Mustafar, he knew things. He gave us those things, but he didn’t know enough. I was building a case against some plan, an attack maybe, but I don’t know enough to know what it is.”

Otets smirked with half his mouth. “The sheikh knew nothing.”

“The sheikh gave us things,” Reid replied. He had seen it in his flashback. “Names, dates, locations…”

The smirk blossomed into a vicious grin. “The sheikh knew only enough to keep him involved. That is the beauty of our operation. Each of us is merely a piece in the puzzle, none more important than the next. Torture me if you wish, Agent, but I cannot tell you what I do not know—and I know only enough to keep myself involved as well.”

“The Iranians who captured me,” said Reid. “And Yuri, the Serbian, and the American he mentioned, and the Middle Eastern men in your facility… you’re all working together. What’s the connection?”

Otets said nothing. He merely stared in defiance, his mouth a straight line.

Reid casually picked up the extension cord and measured it out in spans, an arm’s width each. “Do you know what these things are for?” He picked up the steak knife and cut the extension cord into two pieces.

“Gulag,” said Otets. “You know this word, ‘gulag’?”

“Russian prison camp,” said Reid.

“Yes. Your government believes gulags were all closed when the Soviet Union dissolved. But no.” Otets jerked a thumb over his shoulder, gesturing toward the crosshatched scars on his back. “There is nothing you can do to me worse than what has already been done.”

“We’ll see.” Reid’s arm shot out and grabbed Otets’s wrist. The Russian tried to pull away, to struggle against him, but he was still too weak. Reid stuck out his opposite elbow and swiftly jabbed at Otets’s forehead. The blow stunned him just enough for Reid to bind both wrists together tightly with the severed extension cord. The other piece he tied around both ankles.