Chasing zero, p.2
Chasing Zero, page 2
part #9 of Agent Zero Spy Thriller Series
The assassin, wearing the gray uniform of a janitor, was thin-framed but stronger than he looked. He hoisted Dawoud’s top half and together they unceremoniously deposited the body of the Palestinian president into the trash bin of the custodial trolley, his eyes still wide in shock and head twisted around unnaturally.
The assassin folded in limbs, dumped the restroom trash atop the body, and then cinched the black garbage bag tightly. The Double checked himself in the mirror, adjusting the blue tie. Smoothing the jacket.
He couldn’t believe that this had been the easy part.
The hard part had been the planning. Finding out where the meeting was going to take place. Discovering what the president was wearing and quickly procuring the necessary wardrobe. Planting the assassin as the janitor after the restaurant had closed. And, of course, stealing the president’s medical report, the one that determined he would most definitely be visiting the bathroom before leaving.
The Double stared at himself for a long moment in the mirror. “Himself”—that concept was laughable. He no longer knew what he looked like. What he would have looked like, had he not taken on the role. Had he not had his hair and beard carefully colored. Had he not had the top of his head waxed to match the growing bald spot. New creases around his eyes surgically folded. Thousands of hours listening to tapes, to speeches and laughs and inflection and repeating it, over and over, until he was the perfect Double for a paranoid Middle Eastern president.
“I am President Ashraf Dawoud,” he told his image.
Suddenly the door to the bathroom swung open, and a thick-necked guard took a large step inside, blocking the doorway with his bulk. The guard scowled deeply at the janitor and made a reach for the lump beneath his jacket.
“Marwan,” the Double said, easing into a relaxed smile. “All is fine. Come now, let the man do his job. Let’s go.”
Marwan hesitated, but nodded tightly. “Yes sir.” The guard led the way out of the bathroom, across the restaurant floor, and out to the car.
Not even Dawoud’s closest Presidential Guard, up close, could tell. Not even Dawoud’s wife would be able to tell. The Double had years of experience being someone else, and that someone was a president who was so paranoid of attack on foreign soil that he was blind to the threat directly in front of him, trusting his life to a man he should not have.
The janitor would dispose of the body and make sure no one ever found it. And in the meantime, the Double would work toward their end.
I am President Ashraf Dawoud. And Israel will know peace only in death.
CHAPTER ONE
“You know,” Maria whispered, her lips nearly brushing Zero’s ear, “this isn’t exactly what I meant when I said I hoped we’d get closer.”
Agent Zero would have laughed had he not been as equally troubled by the cramping in his limbs as he was the knowledge that this was not the first time he’d crammed himself into a small crate for the sake of an op.
Might not be the last, either.
Still, the company could have been worse. Hell, being stuck in a crate with Maria Johansson practically constituted a vacation these days. He could barely see, couldn’t make out the details of her blonde hair, pulled back into a practical ponytail for the sake of their goal, or her slate gray eyes, or the lips that he kissed each night before bed and again before each op in lieu of saying a potential goodbye.
“I think it’s rather cozy,” he whispered back, slowly and painfully extricating an arm from behind Maria’s back.
“I do not get paid enough to be privy to your pillow talk,” came Penny’s Camford-tinged accent in his earpiece. Dr. Penelope León was the twenty-seven-year-old wunderkind covert engineer of the CIA’s Special Operations Group who had succeeded Zero’s friend Bixby. She was currently six thousand seven hundred and eight miles away from their current position—but with them in more than just spirit.
“Where are you, Penny?” Zero asked.
“Me? I am currently in a La-Z-Boy I recently had installed in the lab. Suede, if you’re wondering. I’m wearing a VR headset and there’s a cup of Earl Grey at my left elbow—”
Zero scoffed. “No, Penny, where are you here?”
“Ah. Right. Drone is about an eighth of a mile northeast. I tell you, the optics on this are incredible. I can see the driver’s eyes through the windshield.”
“Terrific. Now tell us where we are?”
“You’re coming up on the compound in about a half a mile.”
Zero sighed. Another compound, another day.
Not three weeks earlier, President Jonathan Rutledge had created the Executive Operations Team, a subdivision of Special Operations Group in the CIA that consisted solely of Zero and his four-member team. It had seemed like a win-win at the time; Director Shaw didn’t want to deal with them, and Rutledge did. The idea was that this team would work in absolute secrecy (nothing new to them) and answer only to the president or, in his absence, the Director of National Intelligence.
It had seemed like a great idea. None of them had expected to become the president’s glorified errand runners.
“Glorified” might have even been overstating things; no one would ever know what they’d done. But in the interest of Rutledge’s quest for peace in the Middle East, they had successfully dismantled two terrorist cells in the Gaza Strip so far, and today would make three.
It’s always a compound. Each of these factions seemed to favor an isolated location, a collection of squat, nondescript, flat-roofed buildings surrounded by walls or sandbag-bolstered fencing topped with barbed wire.
They might as well hang a sign. “Beware of Insurgents.”
The plan was simple enough. Alan Reidigger’s extensive network of underground and underworld contacts had gifted them a munitions dealer that sold explosives to this particular Hamas-affiliated group. The deal of a wiped record yielded two crates in his most recent delivery that held a total of four CIA operatives. Zero and Maria were in one. In the other, the young agent and former Army Ranger Todd Strickland cozied up with their newest addition to the team, the Texan pilot Chip Foxworth. It was late at night, almost late enough to be considered early morning, and the hope was that the insurgents would drive their canvas-covered cargo truck into the compound and leave the crates until daybreak. At which point the agents would extricate themselves by way of a secret interior latch, locate the leader, and cut the head off the snake.
Penny would provide their eyes in the air via drone, scoping the layout and communicating any movement or vital intel. Reidigger was their wheel man, currently three miles due south in a Jeep waiting for the signal when they were ready to bug out.
Easy.
It was not at all lost on Zero that the desired effect could be obtained even easier with a drone strike, but the nature of this op was highly covert; no one below the DNI, not even the Secretary of Defense, Colin Kressley, knew they were here. In fact, earlier that night a man bearing Reid Lawson’s passport crossed the border to Canada to visit a friend. A woman named Maria Johansson had been pulled over for speeding. If Agents Zero or Marigold died on this op, it would be chalked up to an unfortunate accident and their ashes would be remitted to next-of-kin—in Zero’s case, his teenage daughters, Maya and Sara, and in Maria’s case, her father, Director of National Intelligence David Barren.
Zero did not want to know whose ashes they would actually be.
The rear wheel of the truck hit a rut and Zero bounced, grunting as his shoulder bumped roughly against the side of the crate. He was no stranger to pain, dull and insistent or sharp and fresh, but wondered how much longer he could keep doing this. He was in good shape for forty, healthy and strong—if no one was counting his deteriorating brain that would systematically destroy his memories before it eventually killed him…
“Rolling through the gates now,” Penny told them through the wireless earpieces. Sure enough, the truck slowed. Zero could hear voices shouting in Arabic, but despite his being fluent the rumbling truck engine drowned out the words.
Zero reached for his hip, feeling for the familiar and comforting shape of the Glock 19 holstered there. Across his chest affixed to a nylon strap was a Heckler & Koch MP5, a 9x19mm Parabellum submachine gun outfitted with an eight-inch suppressor and a forty-round magazine.
His other hand fumbled in the darkness of the crate, feeling a shoulder, then an elbow, and sliding down until he could give Maria’s tactical-gloved hand a squeeze. She squeezed back. Somehow, being in this tiny space with her, the scent of her hair filling his nostrils, warded off the usual pre-op butterflies. Maria’s presence was more than reassuring; it was reinforcing. Despite the struggles in their tumultuous relationship—her going from a fellow agent, to being nothing when his memories of her were erased, to a cautious colleague again, to a lover, a girlfriend, a boss, an agent once more, his team leader, and then to a live-in girlfriend—there was no one he’d prefer to have by his side.
The truck engine’s rumbling ceased and the voices became clearer, still muffled beyond the walls of the crate but clear enough for Zero to make out several distinct ones.
“Unload quickly!” commanded a sharp voice in Arabic. “Check the contents and stow them. Hassad has reason to believe we may be under satellite surveillance.”
Check the contents? Zero felt a knot of uncertainty in his gut.
“Penny?” Maria whispered into the earpiece.
“I heard it too,” said the engineer briskly. “Looks like they’re going to unload and open them right now. So much for the plan… Looks like you may have to improvise. I’ve got eyes on seven hostiles on the ground, plus one more still in the truck. Let me get closer and see what else I can see.”
“Strickland? Foxworth? Come in.” Zero pressed a finger to his ear as if that would help the signal. “What’s going on? Are they on another channel?”
“Might be interference from the electronics in these crates,” Penny admitted. “I can’t be sure—”
Zero lurched suddenly as the crate shifted, accompanied by the grunting of at least three men directly outside it. He braced himself against the crate walls with a forearm while Maria braced against him. Then there was a sudden acceleration. The crate quaked and clattered its way down a ramp of metal rollers. Zero gritted his teeth and held on—
And then the crate hit the bottom of the ramp, tipping precariously, and fell onto its side.
“Idiots!” cried a furious voice outside the crate. “Be more careful! Do you have any idea what is inside those? You could kill us all!”
Zero was on his back now, and Maria was on top of him. The latched side of the crate that should have been above them was now the side closest to their heads.
“Well, open it!” shouted the angry Arab voice. “We must make sure nothing is damaged.”
“Shit.” Maria grabbed her own MP5 and cocked it. Zero couldn’t reach his; it was pinned between his body and hers. “We’re going to have to make a move here…”
A sliver of light appeared overhead as the tip of a crowbar worked its way into the lip of the crate.
“I see seven total,” Penny told them, her voice tight. “Release the latch and roll out facing due north. There’ll be two on your twelve, two more at three and four, and—”
“I don’t know where due north is right now!” Maria hissed. “Are they armed?”
The crowbar wrenched and wood groaned as a corner began to lift.
“Armed, yes,” Penny confirmed. “But their guard is down. Go now!”
“You’re going to have to go first,” Zero whispered. “I’ll be right behind you…”
The crowbar wrenched again. Bright light suddenly flooded the crate, practically blinding Zero as the top lifted away. Floodlights, he realized.
A face peered down. Shock registered.
At the same time, Maria reached for the interior latch and flipped it, shoving the side of the crate open like a door. She tucked into a roll and pushed out, coming up on one knee and bringing the MP5 to her shoulder.
Zero raised his own SMG and fired a three-shot burst.
Even with the suppressor, the gunshots easily drowned out the frantic shouts of the insurgents as their shocked comrade’s head snapped back, bloody mist spraying in its wake.
Zero stood. The MP5 was tight against his shoulder as if it had always been there.
Pop-pop-pop.
Two shots to the chest and one to the head downed another man. Three yards to the right, one grabbed for an AK-47 dangling near his waist. Another short burst from Zero tore the man down before the assault rifle was in both hands.
He tracked to the right, his barrel swinging over Maria’s head as she took out two more with expert precision. It might have been three; he merely saw falling bodies in his periphery.
A man dressed in beige was running, his back to Zero. Two shots later he tripped on his own feet, skidding face-first to a stop in the dirt.
And then there were none. The only sound besides Zero’s own breathing was the buzz of four powerful floodlights, set up on poles around the truck. The silence reigned for several long seconds before Maria said, “Clear.” An eerie silence, because even suppressed shots were loud enough to wake the dead in the otherwise quiet desert at night, and Zero did not for a moment believe that there were only eight men in this compound.
“If there are others,” Maria said, as if reading his thoughts, “they’re rousing and arming. We need to move quickly.”
“I’ve got several heat signatures in the building to the northeast,” said Penny in their ears. “Moving quickly. Eight or nine, possibly more—the stone walls could be blocking my view.”
“Where the hell are Chip and Todd?” Maria asked suddenly.
Zero felt a blend of panic and shame. Shame, because he’d been so caught up in the mini-firefight that he hadn’t even thought about them since the shooting started. And panic, because they hadn’t sprung out to help. Radio issues were one thing, but this…
“Cover me.” He sprang up into the bed of the canvas-covered truck. “Strickland? Foxworth?” He knocked frantically on each of the seven crates in the truck’s rear, slapping the sides, hoping for a sign of life.
Knock-knock. It came from nearby. Zero dropped to his knees and knocked again.
Knock-knock. A muffled voice from within.
Of course—they couldn’t get free because another crate was stacked on top of theirs. Zero groaned; one thing they hadn’t planned for was these insurgents being negligent enough to stack volatile explosives in the bed of a rusty truck on rutted desert lanes.
“Hang on, guys.” He let the MP5 hang as he pressed both palms against the top crate and pushed. It budged barely an inch. “Maria!” The crate was bottom-heavy and weighed a few hundred pounds, easily.
“Busy!” she called back. She’d taken a kneeled position at the rear of the truck, aiming into the darkness beyond the floodlights as shouts floated to them. A muzzle flashed; Maria fired at it with pinpoint accuracy. A man yelped. She aimed upward and took out two of the floodlights to make their position less obvious.
Zero put his shoulder into it and heaved, teeth gritted, but the crate wouldn’t move.
Leverage. I need some leverage, he thought. No… I need inertia.
A burst of automatic gunfire tore from somewhere in the darkness. Wooden splinters stung his face as a bullet struck the crate nearest to him. These men had no qualms about firing at a truck laden with explosives.
Zero leapt out of the truck. At the same moment Maria fired upward again, taking out the other two floodlights and plunging them into murky blue darkness. He fumbled for the driver’s side door and wrenched it open.
The keys were still in the ignition. Finally, some luck.
The engine roared to life and Zero slammed down on the accelerator. He lurched back in his seat, surprised at the power this old bucket had. He accelerated rapidly, heading straight for the nearest squat, sand-colored building without letting up on the gas. In the rearview, he caught a glimpse of Maria; she had leapt up onto the bed, gripping a canvas strap with one hand to keep from falling out while laying cover fire.
But their position was obvious, and the truck was a big target.
“Here goes nothing.” Zero held his breath and yanked the wheel hard to the right, turning as tightly as he could. The back of the truck swung wildly. Tires kicked up a sandstorm of dust and gravel as rubber and steel groaned in protest. He felt the truck tilt slightly, the passenger-side wheels coming off the ground…
Behind him, the crate shifted with the sudden change in motion. It slid, teetered precariously for a moment, and then tumbled off the lower crate.
Zero winced as it fell. Please don’t explode.
The crate clattered heavily to the bed of the truck, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he pounded the accelerator again. The truck ran parallel to the building now, passing it by. Zero made another turn, doubling back as more gunfire split the air. The passenger-side window exploded.
He reached for a knob at the side of the steering wheel and flicked on the lights. A half a dozen men shielded their eyes against the sudden brightness, caught in the path of the high beams.
Most had the sense to leap out of the way. Zero felt at least one caught under the massive tires. Maybe two; it was hard to tell.
He cut the lights and hit the brakes, slowing the truck but not stopping. He let the nearest building do that for him, the front end of the truck colliding with a one-story flat-roofed structure and taking out a significant portion of the wall. The engine sputtered and died before he could turn it off.
Zero ducked instinctively and covered his head as gunfire split the air directly behind him. But they weren’t shooting at him. He hazarded a glance back to see the crate open, Chip Foxworth and Todd Strickland in standing positions, firing on the still-standing assailants, their shots going right over the head of Maria’s kneeling form.
