Chasing zero, p.6
Chasing Zero, page 6
part #9 of Agent Zero Spy Thriller Series
They drove in silence for a few minutes more. Maria desperately hoped that Sara wouldn’t be home when they arrived. Maya was off at West Point, and she’d asked Zero to get lost for a while… but it seemed like Sara was always coming and going, and Maria would much rather introduce the girl to her new home while it was just her and Mischa.
Her new home. It sounded so strange, even in her head.
“What is this?”
Maria looked over. Mischa had opened the folder from Shaw, and was pointing at a line on the adoption paperwork.
“Oh… that’s my last name. Johansson. Well—it’s your last name now, too. It’s what you’ll need to call yourself now.”
“Johansson. This is Swedish?”
This time Maria did laugh. The girl was not only sharp, but suddenly far more inquisitive, and even talkative, now that she was out of the cell. “Yes. It’s Swedish.”
A few minutes later she pulled into the driveway of the Craftsman bungalow—that’s what the Realtor had called it—home that she, Zero, and Sara shared. It was one story but spacious, with white shutters and dark brown siding made to look like wood. They had finally, after some months, finished the basement and Sara had moved down there, leaving the spare bedroom open for their new arrival.
“This is where you live?” Mischa asked. She leaned forward slightly. Outside of the day that Maria had brought her the Dostoyevsky book, this was the first time she’d ever seen the girl look genuinely interested in anything.
“Yes. It’s where you live now too.” She paused a moment. “Do you like it?”
“It is…” Mischa seemed to struggle to find the word. “Nice.”
“Well. Glad you think so. Come on, I’ll show you inside.” Maria led the way, unlocking the three locks on the door and punching in the six-digit security code to disarm the alarm. Living with Zero required extra security, as well as a basement panic room and seven hidden, loaded firearms throughout the house.
“So this is it. Pretty basic. Foyer, den, kitchen, dining room, and bathroom are back there, living room… my room is that way, and…”
Maria stopped herself. Mischa took two careful steps into the foyer, looking around disconcertedly—or at least in a way that she thought was disconcertedly, but quickly realized was something else, something entirely foreign to the girl.
Mischa simply did not know how to look at something in wonder.
“I… am to live here now?”
“That’s right. And, uh, if you come this way…” Maria led her down the foyer, through the kitchen, and around to another room. “This is your bedroom.”
“My bedroom.” Mischa seemed hesitant to cross the threshold. “My bedroom?”
“I know it’s not much,” Maria said quickly, “but it’s your space, to do what you want. Uh, the walls are green, because Sara painted them, but we can repaint if you like, it’s no problem—”
“I like green,” said Mischa softly. “Who is Sara?”
“Oh. Right. Uh… other people live here too.”
Dammit, Maria, you are really dropping the ball on this one.
“How many?” Mischa raised an eyebrow. Before Maria could respond, she quickly asked, “What are their ages? Genders? Relation to you?”
“Whoa.” Maria held up a hand. “Remember what I said about crossing bridges?”
“When we arrive at them. Yes. All right.”
“Good. Um…” Maria felt drained already. What did she know about raising twelve-year-olds, much less ones that had been raised as spies by former Russians and Chinese nationals?
Get out of your own way, she told herself. Just talk to her like you would anyone.
“So, there are fresh sheets on the bed. There’s some clothes in the dresser, some older stuff of Sara’s that she outgrew. Should fit you until we get you some of your own. What else? Oh! I have something for you.” Maria hurried to the closet.
“This is more than enough. I do not need anything more.”
“I know,” Maria said, pulling open the closet door. “This is a gift.”
Mischa frowned. “Like the book?”
“Yeah. Something like that.” There it was—the soccer ball she’d bought yesterday. “Here. For you. To, you know. Play soccer, if you want.”
Mischa set her book and the folder down on the bed and reached for the ball with both hands, taking it gingerly as if it was a balloon that might pop. “This is mine?”
“That’s right.”
“Hm.” The noise the girl made was not an inquisitive one, or a confused one, but a lilting one. If anything, it sounded like she had held back a laugh, however short it might have been.
It was leagues beyond any sort of reaction that Maria would have hoped for. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from shedding a tear.
“Okay then!” Maria said suddenly, more enthusiastically than necessary. “Bathroom is right around the corner, towels are in there. I bet after all that time, you’d like to at least freshen up, maybe shower or bathe with some privacy, huh? Take all the time you need. I’ll be in the, uh, kitchen.”
She retreated quickly, giving the girl some privacy and space for herself, something she hadn’t had in months, if she’d ever been allowed it. Once she was alone in the kitchen Maria let herself heave one sob, just one, and then quickly wiped her eyes and laughed at herself.
This was going to be a long, uphill road. To acclimate this girl to any sort of normal American life was going to require as much effort as teaching a Cro-Magnon man to use indoor plumbing. But her reaction to the soccer ball was real, and more visceral than anything she’d gotten out of Mischa in the months of visits to the cell at Langley.
This was real. It was happening. Maria had no misconceptions about her chances of having a baby at thirty-eight, but the instincts were there. And now Mischa was there.
How she would handle the job and the girl at the same time, she wasn’t yet sure. Hell, she didn’t even know how she was going to introduce Sara and Zero to her.
But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
CHAPTER SIX
Zero sat behind the wheel of his SUV, parked only three minutes from his house.
“Just get lost for a little while.” That’s what Maria had said. “I just don’t want to intimidate her.”
Zero had respected her decision to retrieve Mischa from Langley herself. He had no problem with that at all, and in fact agreed that it was a good idea.
But how am I intimidating?
He’d asked her that. She hadn’t answered. She only laughed at him, kissed his cheek, and said, “Just get lost for a while.”
“Penny?” he said into the phone. “You got anything?”
“You cannot rush genius, Agent Zero,” Penny replied. “You said his name was Connors?”
“Connors, yes. Seth Connors.”
Get lost for a while. Sure, that was easy enough. Usually that might have involved hitting up Third Street Garage, where Alan Reidigger had set up shop, for a couple of beers and a chat about the “good old days.” Or maybe he would have hit up the gun range. Or just cruise around for a while.
But he had not, in fact, gotten lost for a while. Instead he had driven a short distance, parked, and pulled out the secure and cloaked satellite phone that Penny had given him if he needed discreet and untraceable communication.
According to his friend and scorned CIA engineer Bixby, Seth Connors had been the only other agent, besides Zero, to have a memory suppressor installed in his head. There was, however, one key difference: Connors had volunteered for the procedure and the early prototype suppressor was still in his head. Zero’s best friend, Alan Reidigger, had stolen the suppressor chip, small as a grain of rice, and hired the Swiss neurologist Dr. Guyer to install it. And Zero’s chip had been unceremoniously torn from his head by an Iraqi member of the now-defunct terrorist organization Amun.
“Bloody hell,” Penny murmured. “We spend billions on security and I can back-door this system in under two minutes…”
Zero wanted to urge her, but he held his tongue. He’d waited this long; there was no rush.
Last month, while he and Maria and the team were chasing Saudi insurgents around the globe, his eldest daughter, Maya, had taken it upon herself to find Connors. All she knew was that her dad was looking for him and she had one single lead on his whereabouts. She’d done it, she later admitted, out of some need to prove herself, or to prove something to herself.
She didn’t have to say it. He knew exactly what she had been feeling: she needed to prove to herself that she was just as good as her dad. That she could be every bit the agent he could be.
And he’d be damned if she hadn’t gone and tracked the guy to a CIA safe house in Columbus.
He sighed. Why couldn’t she have wanted to be a doctor?
“Bingo!” Penny exclaimed. “Connors, Seth. Formerly Agent Condor. Condor? Not exactly a far cry…”
“Penny.”
“Right. Let’s see. Looks like they moved him to another safe house, this one in D.C. About… twenty-five minutes from your location. I’ll ping you the address.”
“Appreciate it.”
“Yeah, you owe me a pint.” She hung up. A moment later the phone chimed and the address came through, and Zero started the car.
Get lost for a while.
He took his time getting there. He didn’t speed up through any yellow lights or even attempt to pass anyone on multi-lane roads.
Truth be told, he wasn’t in a huge rush to see for himself what fate he might have succumbed to had the suppressor not been removed. On the one hand, the violent extraction was the most likely culprit to the havoc being wreaked on his limbic system. Losing memories, occasional blackouts, and—if Guyer’s assessment was to be believed—inevitable death. Would it be two years from now? Twenty? There was no telling without regular monitoring of his brain function and rate of deterioration.
But Connors, on the other hand, his suppressor was still in his skull. And according to what Maya had seen, it was failing. Just as Bixby had assumed it would after five to six years.
What was worse? Regaining everything only to lose it a little at a time? Or regaining memories of a life you never knew you had and thinking you’ve lost your mind?
Zero made a mental note to check in with Guyer. Despite the doctor being a few thousand miles away, he had colleagues, trusted ones in the States that could scan Zero’s brain and send the results to Zurich. In his mind he was already making excuses about why he’d waited this long.
Gee, Doc, I would’ve gotten my head checked sooner, but I’ve been so busy.
He hadn’t had an episode in two weeks. In past episodes, he’d forgotten his late wife’s name for about six minutes. Once he had forgotten Sara’s face. He’d very nearly bungled an op when he’d forgotten how to reload a Glock in the middle of a firefight. But that last one, from two weeks ago—recalling it sent a shiver down his spine.
Sara had been at an art class. Maria, on a visit to Mischa. And he had been at home, chopping an onion for chili. Whistling a tune. Knife in hand. When as suddenly as a blink, he didn’t recognize his own home. He had no idea where he was or how he had gotten there. But he was armed; he had a knife.
He’d gone from room to room, stalking silently, knife at the ready, heart pounding as he threw open doors and thrust the blade into closets. He’d cleared the basement last. It wasn’t until he entered his daughter’s domain, smelling strongly of her perfume and her acrylic paints and chalky makeup and unknown teenage scents, that he had snapped out of it.
Then, when he realized what had happened to him, he simply… went back to making chili. And he never spoke of it to anyone.
God only knew what might have happened if anyone had been home.
The phone dinged and told him that his destination was two hundred feet ahead on the right. Zero shook out of his thoughts; he was there already, following the GPS directions on some sort of mental autopilot. He glanced around; he didn’t know this neighborhood, but it looked rather plain. A quiet suburb of the nation’s capital, a nicely paved road of two-story colonials that ended in a cul-de-sac.
This wasn’t a place like any safe house he’d ever seen. Maybe someone at the agency had suddenly grown a conscience and realized Connors deserved better after what they’d done to him.
He parked right in front of a white house bearing the street number Penny had given him. There was no use hiding; if Connors was guarded, they were already watching. If he wasn’t, there was no use hiding or sneaking about.
So why are you just sitting here?
He found it difficult to move. To get out of the car and do the logical thing—walk up to the door and ring the bell. He wanted answers.
Didn’t he?
Then why were his hands wrapped so tightly around the steering wheel that his knuckles were white?
Come on. He forced himself to release the wheel. To take the keys out of the ignition. To open the car door. One thing at a time. Then his feet were moving, up the pavement.
He paused. The front door of the house faced him.
What if there’s no going back after I hear what this man has to say?
He couldn’t do this. He shouldn’t be here. He turned to leave, to hurry back to his car…
The front door opened behind him.
“Can I help you?” a man’s voice called out.
Zero stopped and turned, forcing a smile onto his face.
A sandy-haired man was standing in the open doorway, squinting out at him. He was barefoot, wearing jeans and a T-shirt. His file said that he was a few years younger than Zero, but the bags beneath his eyes were deeper, and he carried a little extra weight in his midsection.
“Hi. Um… are you Seth Connors?”
The man hesitated. Then his gaze flitted left and right quickly, as if he was looking for others. “They… tell me I am. Yes. Did the agency send you?”
“No, sir,” Zero said quickly. “My name is Reid Lawson. Last month, my daughter Maya found you in Columbus. They brought her, and you, back here. Do you remember her?”
He nodded, though his expression was hesitant. “I do.”
“I just want to—need to—talk to you. Just a few minutes. If that’s all right.”
Seth Connors thought for a moment. “I think you should come in.” He stepped aside for Zero to enter, and then glanced left and right once more before closing the door.
Zero glanced around. The house was very nice, modern, no more than twenty years old. The furniture all looked new, albeit a bit bland, in beige and brown. The walls were mostly white. The décor was spartan, not lending anything to a particular personality or taste.
It wasn’t like any safe house Zero had ever seen.
Because it’s not a safe house, he realized heavily. This is a convalescence home.
“Can I get you something to drink?” Connors called from the kitchen. “Water? A beer?”
“I’m fine. Thank you. But can we speak somewhere more… private?” He had no doubts this place was bugged to high hell.
“Sure. This way.” Connors pulled open a sliding glass door and they stepped out onto a patio, where the younger man lowered himself into an Adirondack chair before popping the tab on a beer.
Zero pulled out his phone. Penny had installed an app for him, one of her own design that scanned for specific radio frequencies transmitting a signal—a quick-and-dirty bug finder. A thirty-second sweep of the patio told him there were no discernible devices out there, so he lowered himself into a chair opposite Connors.
“I imagine this is all very difficult for you,” he began.
Seth Connors rolled his eyes. “You sound like a therapist. Is that what you are?”
“No.” Zero sighed. “Seth, no one can know what I’m about to tell you. Do I have your word?”
Connors narrowed his eyes slightly, but he nodded. “Okay, Mr. Lawson. You have my word.”
Zero tilted his head to the side and put one finger to his neck, behind his ear and just below the hairline. He couldn’t see it, but he knew exactly where it was. Slowly, he traced the thin, jagged white scar there, where his spine met his brain stem. Where Amun had cut him open to tear out the suppressor.
Connors leaned forward, his face a blank mask as two fingers instinctively touched the same spot on his own neck. He had no scar. But he knew.
“Jesus,” he whispered. “You too?”
Zero nodded.
“And it’s… out?”
“Yes. Not by choice, trust me.” He quickly held up a hand and elaborated, “And not by them, either. This was… someone else.”
Connors stroked his chin. “Did you get them back?”
The memories. “Yes. Not all at first. But eventually. And now I’m losing them again.”
“I’m sorry.” Connors took a long pull on his beer. “I didn’t know there had been anyone else like me. Hell, I didn’t know that I had been like me until recently. I thought I was losing my mind. These memories… they come back to me, a little at a time. Like just a few frames of a movie. A couple of seconds.” Connors stared ahead at nothing. “It’s like a flashback, except not one I’d ever seen before. But it was me. I can feel it. Feel what I was feeling in that moment. It was me.” He looked up. “So you were an agent too?”
Zero nodded. “Yeah.”
“They tell me I volunteered for this. Did you?”
“In a way.”
“Shit.” Connors shook his head. “Look, man, I appreciate the visit—I don’t see a lot of people these days. But I don’t know what I can do to help you. I don’t know who I am, let alone who you are. So if you came looking for answers, believe me, this is the very last place you’re going to find them.”
Zero nodded as if he understood, or even accepted that, but that’s not what he came to hear. “Seth, what I’m about to tell you is going to be rough. Maybe hard to accept. I’m sorry.”
Connors frowned. “What is it?”
“Okay.” Zero took a deep breath. “The CIA probably told you that they kept you around in that safe house because you volunteered for this and wanted to live a quiet life—and that part is true. They might have also told you that part of their experiment was to see how long the suppressor would last, if it would fail and when.”
