Chasing zero, p.11
Chasing Zero, page 11
part #9 of Agent Zero Spy Thriller Series
Simply put, Collins was not well liked by the cadet body, and Maya was no exception.
A sesame seed stuck in her teeth and she picked at it with a pinky.
“For God’s sake, Lawson!” Collins growled. “What is with you? Show some decorum—”
Maya slammed a hand down on the table, palm flat, hard enough to make the cadets around her jump a little. “I’m having a rough day,” she said through gritted teeth. “So maybe you can back off? Sir?”
Several of the students at her table went wide-eyed. Two of them grinned in anticipation of seeing Collins fly off the handle at her.
But instead he seethed and said quietly yet forcefully, “Stand. Now.”
Maya made a show of glancing down at the brace on his knee. “You first.”
“That’s it!” Collins pushed himself up from the table, nearly toppling his chair. “Let’s go. Or I’m calling the MPs…”
The sesame seed finally dislodged from her molar. So she stood, and she spat it in his face.
The collective gasp from those around her was almost as satisfying as watching the seed bounce off Collins’s nose. His cheeks flushed red, and despite his youth Maya feared he might pop a blood vessel in his forehead.
He ignored the metal crutch propped against the table and lurched for her, hands outstretched. Maya made a quick sidestep an instant before his hands would have wrapped around her lapels, and he grasped at nothing. Collins wobbled uneasily for a moment before his injured knee gave out and he collapsed to the Mess Hall floor.
To their credit, most cadets maintained their composure. But a few snickered and sputtered, unable to suppress their laughter.
Maya grinned and turned back to her seat—and nearly bumped into the barrel chest of a very stern-looking Corporal Brighton.
“Dean’s office,” he said in a low voice. “Now. Do you need an escort?”
She waved off the suggestion. “I know where it is.”
*
“This is not at all what I meant when I said to use your academic probation to your advantage.” Dean Hunt sighed and shook her head across the desk at Maya.
“This will work,” she insisted. “Look, no one trusts me. They think I’m a snitch. I needed to change things up a bit.”
To think like a spy, Maya thought.
For the last two days she had pored over a cadet list for each class, tracking down the four offenders who had been dismissed from the academy for attempting to use forgeries. Once she had identified them, she looked into their social circles, common friends close enough to share such a secret like the whereabouts of the forger—and she had identified one, a fellow Cow named James Bradley. Jimmy to his friends.
But Bradley wouldn’t even let Maya look his way if he thought she was up to something. So she needed a damn good reason to talk to him—and now she had one.
“What am I supposed to tell Collins? Or Corporal Brighton?” Hunt asked. “This sort of thing cannot go unpunished, and you’re already supposed to be on probation.”
“Tell them whatever you can,” Maya insisted, before adding, “ma’am. Tell them… I’m spending nights in solitary. Just buy me a day or two, and I’ll solve this.”
Dean Hunt stared without blinking. “Am I going to regret asking you to do this, Lawson?”
Probably.
But she couldn’t say that.
“You’re friends with the DNI, right?” she asked instead. “And I’m sure he told you a story or two about my dad.”
Hunt nodded, but did not elaborate. Maya didn’t need to either; they both knew what she was referring to. Any story about her dad as an agent would involve a monumental mess—but the job would get done.
“Fine,” the dean said at last. “I’ll get you a day or two. Go. Find them.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” Maya rose quickly before Hunt could change her mind.
But as her hand reached the doorknob, the dean called out to her. “Who’s your lead?”
“Sorry?”
“Your lead,” Hunt repeated. “You wouldn’t have acted so rashly if you didn’t have a lead.”
Maya smirked. Hunt was shrewd. “With all due respect, ma’am, I’m not going to tell you that. I can’t have anything jeopardize the operation. When it’s done, I assure you, you’ll get everything I know. But not until it’s done.”
Hunt returned the smirk. “As you were, then, cadet.”
Maya slipped out into the hall, doing her very best to look as if she had just been severely reprimanded. To her own surprise, she even managed to moisten her eyes a bit. Anyone passing by and glancing at her—and there were many—would probably think she was on her way out for good after the Mess Hall spectacle.
It was 1330. She’d memorized Jimmy Bradley’s schedule and knew just where to find him. She pushed out through a pair of double doors and was met by a sudden and almost breathtaking chill. March in upstate New York was freezing—hell, May in upstate New York was still cold. But she gritted her teeth and bore it, walking up to the track in long sleeves but no jacket.
Several boys were on the track, jogging in gray sweatshirts and pants emblazoned with West Point insignia. She approached the track, arms folded over her chest, ignoring the glances from some of the boys as they ran past her.
Then she spotted him, coming around the final bend. Bradley. He had brown hair, shorn short as usual for cadets, which didn’t suit his facial structure with his bony cheeks and hooked nose. He looked her way as he passed, a mixture of curiosity and amusement—he recognized her.
And she nodded, only slightly, as he passed.
Maya resisted the urge to shiver in the time it took him to come around again. A quarter mile at a minute forty-five. Not bad, though she could do better.
For a moment, she thought he would just keep going and ignore her a second time. But no; he slowed his pace as he approached the final bend, and by the time he reached her he was walking, chest heaving. Sweat ringed the neck of the gray sweatshirt, turning it a few shades darker.
“Lawson,” he said with a slight nod.
“Jimmy.”
“Only my friends call me Jimmy.”
“Then let’s be friends.”
He chuckled. “You’re not my type.” He turned toward the track.
“Wait.” She took a step toward him. “I need help. You heard what happened?”
Jimmy Bradley grinned. “Everyone heard what happened. What, did you snap or something?”
She shook her head. “Like I told Collins, I was having a bad day. He was getting on my case. I just did what everyone else wished they could do.”
He nodded. “Sure. So what’s it got to do with me?”
Jimmy wasn’t pals with the Firsties that had aligned with Greg and liked to make Maya’s life miserable—but that didn’t mean he would be kind to her or do her any favors. She had to play it carefully.
“I was already on probation,” she said. “I’m going to be gone if I can’t do something about it. I need a signed letter from my doctor saying that I skipped my meds and wasn’t in the right state of mind. Some insurance snafu kept me from refilling my scrips.”
Jimmy shrugged. “Too bad I’m not your doctor.” He turned again to leave.
“No, but you know him,” she called after. “And I bet he’s not cheap.”
Jimmy stopped. He sighed. “Who talked?”
“No one talked. I figured it out.”
“And how do I know you’re not a narc?”
Maya scoffed. “I spat in Collins’s face. I’m on probation. Jimmy, they’re going to expel me. And then my dad is going to kill me. Three years here down the drain. My life as I know it is going to be over.”
“Yeah. Guess you’re right.” Jimmy picked at a fingernail. “You know, there are a lot of cadets here that wouldn’t mind seeing you gone. Why should I help you?”
“For one? I have money. Name a price. Two?” She stared him right in the eye, as somber as she could. “If you turn me down I’ll go to Hunt with what I know and try to use it as leverage. It probably won’t work, but you’ll go down too.”
Jimmy tried to keep his cool, but Maya definitely noticed a flicker of fear cross his face for a moment. “You’ve got nothing. No proof.”
She shrugged. “No, I don’t. But that won’t stop them from looking deeper. At least talking to your expelled buddies. Maybe even opening an investigation. You really want them breathing down your neck?” She gave him a moment to process that. “But… if you help me out here, I’m implicit. If you go down, you can name me and I go down too.”
“I do like that.” Jimmy rubbed his chin. “All right, Lawson. Five hundred. You good for it?”
She nodded, trying to hide her surprise. She thought the price would be a lot higher. “Not a problem.”
He grinned at her. “No, no. Five hundred is my cost to tell you where to go. The real thing will be a lot more than that.”
Should have figured. She had already assumed that Jimmy wasn’t the forger but the intermediary between them and cadets. Now she knew it. That was just one reason she hadn’t given him up to Hunt; she didn’t want the dean sending any dogs after his scent before she could get answers herself.
“Of course,” she said. She reached for her bag for the money.
“Not here,” he said quickly. “You know Graham? He does the radio station.” She nodded. “Give it to him in the next twenty-four hours. He’ll pass it on to me. Got a pen?”
She pulled one from her bag and held it out. He took the pen and then grabbed her left hand. She instinctively pulled away and balled it into a fist.
“Chill, Lawson. Give me your hand.”
She scolded herself internally and held out her hand. He scribbled an address in blue ink on her skin. “Memorize it, and then wash it off right away. Got that? Go there. Tell him JB sent you. Don’t tell a soul about the address or me.”
“I won’t—”
“I mean it,” Jimmy said forcefully, his voice taking on an edge harder than Maya thought he could muster. “Anyone comes to me saying you sent them, I’ll deny everything and give you up.”
“I’m not interested in sending you referrals,” she said coolly. “I’m just doing this to save my own ass. I don’t see why we should ever have to talk again.”
He smirked at that. “See you around, then.” Jimmy took two steps back toward the track and paused. “Hey, is it true you broke Chad’s nose with a textbook two days ago? Behind the gym?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
Jimmy laughed. “Good. That guy’s an ass. Good luck, Lawson.” He reached the track and broke into a jog.
Maya looked down at the address inked on her hand. For the briefest moment, her mind flashed back to the memory of the train. Losing consciousness as the drugs the traffickers forced into her took hold. Carving the letters into her own calf with a sharpened metal clip torn from a sandal. A message for her father, who she had only been half certain was coming…
She shook the thought from her head. That was a long time ago. Yet it had set the stage for where she stood now. After her rescue was when she had made the declaration for her future that she now stood by. The scars were still there, thin and white and almost illegible. But they were there.
She still avoided shorts whenever possible.
The address was one line in blue ink: 817 Butler St, PK.
PK? Ah—Poughkeepsie, she realized. About thirty miles north of the academy.
It would have been a lot easier if Jimmy Bradley was the forger. But of course he wasn’t. It would have been equally easy if he’d pointed her in the direction of another cadet, someone on campus—but of course he hadn’t. No, the forger was off-campus. A civilian.
As she made her way back toward the building, shivering slightly in the chilly breeze, an idea came to her, one that could solve both her and Dean Hunt’s dilemma. She needed to get off campus, and the dean needed to make it look like punitive measures had been taken.
Maya licked two fingers and rubbed the address off the back of her hand. She could have just given it to Hunt, along with Jimmy Bradley’s name. But no. She’d been tasked with finding the forger, and that’s what she was going to do.
Armed with a new direction and feeling like she was close, she headed toward the dean’s office to ask Hunt to suspend her from the academy.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Zero shrugged into the blue blazer and straightened the lapels, It was a little snug around the shoulders but otherwise fit well. Penny had been thorough, not only making sure that their graphene-laced attire was businesslike enough for their purpose, blazers and collared shirts, but getting the fit mostly right.
He had to say “mostly” because at that moment Alan was struggling to fasten even one button of a tweed sport coat over his fairly substantial midsection.
He grunted. “Bet she did this on purpose.”
Zero grinned. “Consider it a subtle hint, maybe?”
The flight to Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv had been grueling. Almost twelve hours total with a stop to refuel in Zurich. He’d thought of his friend Dr. Guyer and wondered if he might be at his office. But of course there was no time for a visit, social or medical.
With the time difference, they’d left Dulles in the morning just after sunrise and landed the next day just before sunrise. A waiting car took them to their hotel, an upscale and admittedly nice place eight blocks from the Generali Building, where the treaty would be signed. Their aliases had been checked in there for two days already; their room keys had accompanied the fake press badges in Maria’s dossier.
Waiting for them in the hotel room was a video camera, two tape recorders, and a microphone, the instruments that would further verify their cover. Alan had taken one look at them and sighed.
“Could easily fit an LC9 in there,” he said, gesturing to the digital camera.
“Sure,” Maria retorted. “Could you imagine how every foreign press conference would be from here on out if supposed reporters started pulling guns out of cameras?”
Chip and Todd were in the next room over, adjoined to theirs with a connecting door. They came in, dressed in the smart garb Penny had provided them with and looking for all the world like they were about to attend a summit in Silicon Valley.
“Time?” Zero asked Strickland as he pulled on the brown boots, the three ballistic knives hidden in the left toe.
“Oh-nine-hundred,” Todd responded. “Sixty minutes to curtain.”
“What’s with the boots?” Maria asked him as she pushed a small silver stud through her earlobe. She was dressed in a charcoal gray blazer with a white blouse. The way her blonde hair flowed around her shoulders made her look, at least to him, like she really could be a news anchor.
“Uh… they’re very stylish?” he replied.
“Sure,” she said flatly. “Anything you want to tell me?”
“Yes.” He stood and kissed her gently on the forehead. “You look terrific in gray. Really makes your eyes shine.”
“Let’s save the foreplay until this is done,” Alan grunted. He hefted the camera—no one had said it, but everyone there knew that his appearance lent the most credence to being the cameraman in their troupe.
“Let’s go,” Maria announced. The group of them moved toward the door. Except Zero, who lingered. “You coming?” she said over a shoulder.
“Yeah. Be right behind you. Just… need to hit the head.” He rubbed his stomach and winced. “All that flying made me a little queasy.”
“Uh-huh,” she said in that way that meant she didn’t believe him for a second. “We’ll wait in the lobby. Make it quick.”
“Of course.” He waited for two full minutes after the door was closed, until he was certain they were at least on the elevator heading down, if not in the lobby. Then he hurried to the footlocker and pulled it open.
And for a moment, he just stared down at the object. He knew he should have known what it was, but its shape just confounded him. It was angular but smooth, with four propellers, and an odd little barrel on its underside…
“Not now, dammit!” He gripped his forehead as if he could squeeze the knowledge out like an orange. He had gone so long without an incident. And now? When he already felt so uncertain about what they were there to do? The last thing he needed to worry about was whether or not he’d forget where he was, or why he was there…
Calm down. Just breathe a minute.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, in through his nose and out through his mouth. And then again. Then a third.
He opened his eyes and breathed a fourth breath—this one a heavy sigh of relief.
“Drone,” he said aloud. “You’re a drone. I’ve got this.” He scooped it up and hurried out of the room, heading for the elevator.
It was at least a silver lining that it hadn’t happened with anyone else in the room. Alan knew something was amiss, ever since he’d witnessed Zero forgetting how to load a pistol in a firefight. Alan had told Maria about it—not to be a snitch, but out of genuine concern. And she, in turn, had told him that if she had reason to believe he could jeopardize an op, she’d pull him from it in a heartbeat.
Future wife or not, she was not above dealing with him bluntly when it came to his or any other team member’s safety.
From the elevator he found the access stairs to the rooftop and headed up. The heavy steel door, thankfully, wasn’t locked. It was surprisingly pleasant out, the temperature in the mid-sixties with clear skies. Or mostly clear—he heard the thrum of helicopter blades and saw at least two of them in the sky, no doubt circling near the Generali Building.
He found a spot in the corner of the roof where the drone was decently obscured from anyone who might come up there, behind n large square air conditioning vent. He shot Penny a quick text with the satellite phone—Placed, was all it said—and then hurried down to the lobby to meet with the team.
