Chasing zero, p.8
Chasing Zero, page 8
part #9 of Agent Zero Spy Thriller Series
But she couldn’t help the smile that came to her lips and persisted there. The fear, the thrill, the payback, the look in his eye… it was a cocktail, and she felt a high unlike anything she’d felt before.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Zero took the long way home, meandering down back roads and through suburban developments. He kept the radio off and his phone on silent so he could think.
He thought about what Seth Connors had told him. He thought about what Seth Connors had showed him. But more than that, he thought about what Seth Connors didn’t show him. The man had broken down in front of him. Men like Connors and Zero, they didn’t reveal whole truths. Memories or not, that behavior was ingrained, subconscious. Connors was in a lot more pain and anguish than he’d let on.
Zero had vowed to return, and he would; not just for any information that might find its way to the forefront of Connors’s memory, but to check in on the man. He needed support, and there was no one who could relate but Zero.
As he neared the small home he and Maria shared in Fairfax, he found himself suddenly eager to talk about it, to tell her where he’d gone and what had happened. Maria had a way of elucidating scenarios like this in ways he couldn’t. She would either confirm or assuage his concerns. She would tell him he’d done the right thing and what the next right thing would be.
But when he spotted her car in the driveway, he suddenly remembered why he had been asked to get lost for a while in the first place, and a whole new wave of troubling thoughts came.
He was here. There was no delaying it.
Zero got out of the car and let himself into the house quietly. The alarm was disarmed, thankfully, so they wouldn’t hear the telltale beeps that signaled someone entering. Soft voices floated to him from the kitchen, with the aromatic scent of garlic.
“So I’ll simmer the garlic for just a minute or two,” he heard Maria saying, “before I add in the tomatoes and paste…”
He slipped out of his shoes before heading down the foyer, wondering at the same time what exactly he thought he was doing.
Sneaking in on them? Why?
Still he padded softly down the foyer and found Maria at the stove, an array of ingredients for her homemade pasta sauce laid out on the counter and a tall pot of water boiling.
And there she was, her back to him, watching Maria carefully. Before Zero could say a word she spun suddenly, her small, wiry body tense but her face an impassive mask.
Zero took a step back, unnerved. She looked the same as she had the last time he’d seen her. When she had been on the other side of the fight, trying to kill him and helping the Russian double-agent Samara cause a meltdown at the Culvert Cliffs reactor. But that’s not what was unnerving. She wore a pink T-shirt and corduroy pants—Sara’s old clothes. With her blonde hair and green eyes, she almost could have passed for his younger daughter, several years earlier, except that there was no joy or mirth in her expression.
“Hi,” Zero said cautiously, for lack of anything better to say. He knew this was coming, and yet now it was here. She was here, in their house. Here to stay.
“Hello,” Mischa said back. The tension in her shoulders slackened a bit, but not entirely.
“Hey, welcome back.” Maria strode to him quickly and kissed his cheek, likely more of a tactic to diffuse the situation than a display of affection. “We’re making pasta.”
“Yes. I see that. Smells great.” Zero cleared his throat. The girl watched him as he hung his keys on a hook and shrugged out of his jacket. “So you, you’re here. That’s good. Have you settled in okay?”
He wanted to smack himself in the forehead. He’d raised two girls, both of whom were independent and strong if not stubborn as hell. Why was this so hard all of a sudden?
“Yes,” the girl said. She looked him over, from his socks to his hairline. “You look the same.”
“Oh. Do I?”
Behind her, Maria mouthed, I think that’s a compliment.
“Um, thank you. You do too. Looks like the clothes fit okay.”
“Yes.” Mischa looked down at herself. “I do not like pink very much. But if I am to be an American girl now, I suppose I should learn to like it.” She looked up at Maria. “Is that right? American girls enjoy pink?”
Maria smiled. “American girls can like whatever colors they want.”
Jesus, I need a drink. Zero pulled open the fridge and retrieved a beer. He popped the cap and took a long swig.
“Tell me, are you still employed as a CIA operative?”
Zero coughed, nearly choking on the mouthful of beer. He rushed to the sink and spat it out, coughing for several moments.
Maria patted him on the back and whispered, “Yeah, it’s been a day.” While Zero coughed, she turned to Mischa and said, “Yes, he is. As am I. But you understand, much like your own history, that’s not something we discuss openly.”
“Of course,” Mischa replied. “I assumed we were speaking in confidence. I will be discreet.”
When he turned back, the girl was still watching him. It was eerie; she was like a little automaton. Like she wasn’t even human.
He felt a pang of shame at that thought. It wasn’t fair to her. She was a girl, and deserved a chance at a life. It was just going to take some effort. Besides, she knew the secret about him and Maria—one of the secrets, anyway—so having her here and in their trust was better than her being anywhere else.
The front door opened, and a moment later slammed shut again. Zero silently thanked all of the gods for the much-needed interruption.
“I’m home!” Sara called out. And then: “Is the little psycho here yet?”
Maria winced. Zero just shook his head as his youngest rounded the corner and stopped dead in her tracks.
“Oh. Hi,” she said sheepishly. “I guess that’s a yes…”
“I am not a psycho,” Mischa said quietly.
“Yeah, no, of course not,” Sara backpedaled. “That’s just something teenagers say. Like ‘lit’ or ‘sick.’ You know, ‘psycho.’”
“Jesus, Sara,” Zero muttered.
“Okay. So if anyone needs me, I’ll just be in the other room, putting my foot in my mouth—”
“Sara,” Zero scolded.
“Fine.” She turned to Mischa. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. Let’s start over. Hi, I’m Sara.” She put out a hand.
Mischa looked at it for a moment, and then took it carefully. “I am Mischa.” Then she glanced over her shoulder at Maria and said, “Mischa Johansson.”
“Nice to meet you.” Sara shot Zero a wide-eyed glance, and then set her backpack down on the floor. It clanked as if something heavy was inside—art supplies, most likely.
“Where you been?” Zero asked her.
“Art class at the community center.” Sara slid onto a stool at the counter. “And then took a bike ride.”
Zero was about to question it further—it was freezing out there—but Sara quickly asked, “So, Mischa, what do you like to do for fun?”
For the most part, Zero believed in being honest with his daughters. But there were just some things that he couldn’t tell them. So as far as Sara knew, Mischa had been in a psychiatric hospital and had been recently cleared for release. She had no known family, and Maria had decided to adopt her. Of course there had been a lot of follow-up questions, but Zero had ducked them with the age-old go-to that there were just some things she was better off not knowing.
“Fun,” Mischa said thoughtfully. “I don’t quite know yet. I would like to try soccer.”
“And she likes reading,” Maria added.
“Huh. You and Maya should get along well,” Sara said.
“Who is Maya?” the girl asked.
Sara shot Zero a look. “My older sister,” she explained. “She’s off at school right now. Kicking ass at West Point.”
“Sara,” Zero muttered, “language, please.”
“West Point,” Mischa repeated. “The American military academy in New York.”
“That would be the one, yup.” Sara ran her hands through her hair, and something tiny fell out of it, making a sound—tink!—against the tile. Ceramics, Zero told himself. Most likely. “Anyway, so I guess when these two get hitched, you and I will be stepsisters.”
Mischa frowned slightly. “There is much about that statement I don’t understand.”
“Well, ‘hitched’ means married. See, my dad and your new mommy are engaged—”
“Sara!” Zero put up his hands in exasperation. “Could you at least try to exercise a little bit of couth?”
At the stove, Maria pursed her lips to hold back a laugh as she spooned tomato paste into the pan.
“Then we will be… sisters?” Mischa asked.
“Yeah. Through marriage,” Sara told her. “Crazy, right? Just when I thought this family couldn’t get any weirder, here we are.”
“Why? Is this not normal?”
Maria turned to the girl. “Yes, it’s perfectly normal. People get married all the time, and sometimes those people have children from other relationships. That’s how new families are made. Just like adoption.”
Mischa nodded. “So what do you do for fun?” she asked Sara.
“Oh, the usual teen girl stuff. I go to a support group for my PTSD, smash car windows for catharsis…”
“Sara Jane Lawson,” Zero scolded firmly, leaning across the counter toward his smirking daughter. “Do you and I need to have a talk? Do not mess with her, you got it?”
“Sara is an artist,” Maria said. “She paints.”
“Oh.” Mischa thought about this for a moment. “I would like to see.”
“Really?” Sara seemed taken aback. “Uh… okay then. Come on.” She slid off the stool and motioned for Mischa to follow as she pulled open the door to the basement. “My room’s down here.”
Zero waited until the sound of footsteps retreated down the stairs before he sighed the heaviest sigh he’d heaved in a year. “I’m so sorry about her,” he said to Maria. “I don’t know what’s going on in her head sometimes.”
“It’s fine.” Maria smiled and waved it off with a sauce-stained spoon. “To be honest, that’s probably the most normal conversation we’ve had all day.”
Zero grinned too. “This is crazy, right?”
“Oh, absolutely crazy.”
“And how are you holding up?”
“Me?” Maria let out a short laugh. “I’m in so far over my head I don’t know which way is up.”
Zero wrapped his arms around her as she stirred the pan. “It’ll be okay. It’ll be great. We’ll get through it together. This was the right call and you know it.”
“Yeah.” Maria sighed into his shoulder. “So, where’d you go today?”
Zero just shrugged. He wanted to tell her, but it was far from the right time. “Nowhere important. Just… got lost for a little while.”
His phone buzzed in his pocket. It was a text message from Todd Strickland. Check the news.
Zero frowned as he opened the phone’s browser and navigated to CNN. It didn’t take long to determine what Todd was referring to; it was the top headline: PRESIDENT RUTLEDGE TO BROKER HISTORIC TREATY BETWEEN ISRAEL AND PALESTINE.
“Huh,” he said softly.
Maria glanced over his shoulder. “Oh my god,” she breathed. “He actually did it. That’s incredible!”
“Yeah,” Zero agreed in a murmur. “Sure is.”
“Is it? Then why do you look so concerned?”
He shook his head. He knew all about Rutledge’s goals in the Middle East, and that their work in Gaza had been blazing a trail toward this sort of end, but… but it seemed too easy. Too convenient. He was well-versed in the history of the region; Israel and Palestine had been at often-violent odds since the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1948. Multiple attempts at peace had been tried over the last seventy years, none to an even semi-permanent avail. The peace that was being offered couldn’t even speak for a unified Palestine; it would be between the Israeli government and the Palestinian National Authority, under President Ashraf Dawoud. There would be dissenters. There would be more violence.
And the speed with which this was happening… he hadn’t expected to see real results of their efforts for months. Was this to suggest that Rutledge had asked nicely, taken out a couple of troublemakers, and the two nations’ leaders were so satisfied they were ready to shake hands and sign on the line?
Not to mention that behind the scenes, Rutledge had famously bad luck dealing with volatile foreign powers. The Saudis, the Russians, the Chinese… any one of them would stick a knife in his back given the chance, and it was only through concerted efforts that there hadn’t been an attempt since the plasma railgun had been stolen from South Korea.
“Hey.” Maria took his arm gently, shaking him from his thoughts. “You have the president’s ear now. If you have concerns, he would listen to you.”
Zero nodded, but he couldn’t help but wonder if it was his own experiences and cynicism causing him such doubts. This was a win, to be sure. But something about it struck a chord of distrust within him.
“Call,” Maria prodded. “At least leave a message with his people. I’m sure he’ll hear you out…”
Zero’s phone buzzed. An incoming call. At the same time, Maria’s phone buzzed too, from inside her purse on the counter. His screen read “Private Number.”
She looked from him to the open basement door. They both knew what this meant. Zero didn’t have to call. They were being called in.
CHAPTER NINE
Zero had always found the Secret Service to be a little amusing. In general they were pretty ordinary guys—family men, many of them veterans, just sharper and in better shape than most. But when on duty, they were all business, spines straight, solemn and silent as three of them escorted Maria and Zero into the West Wing of the White House.
Funny, most people thought that the sole duty of the Secret Service was protective assignments, specifically of the president and vice president, but their agency was much farther reaching than that, including fieldwork, foreign liaisons, investigating financial and technological fraud, and much more.
Of course, the “faces” of the operation tended to be the stoic Men in Black who stood near the president in dark suits and sunglasses and transparent earpieces.
“Are you sure they’ll be okay?” Maria asked quietly and for the fourth time.
“Yes,” Zero assured her once again. “They’ll be fine. Sara may be a wiseass, but she’s responsible enough to feed and watch a twelve-year-old for an hour.”
Maria let out a sharp sigh. She didn’t say anything further but he knew she wanted to; that was no ordinary twelve-year-old, and Sara had no idea who Mischa really was or what she was capable of.
But it won’t come to that, Zero assured himself.
The private caller had been an aide to the Oval Office with a simple message: a car was en route to collect him and Maria and they should be prepared for pickup in ten minutes. They’d left immediately in the clothes they were wearing; for Zero, that meant jeans, a striped button-down, and a brown leather jacket. Certainly not his top wardrobe choice for visiting the White House, but this was far from his first time. He’d been there more times than he could remember—literally—and in the last two years of tumultuous American history, had shaken hands with three presidents in these halls: Eli Pierson, Samuel Harris, and Jonathan Rutledge.
“This way, please,” said one of the Secret Service agents as they led them down a corridor and toward an elevator.
“Oh,” said Maria resignedly. “Of course.”
Zero had already guessed that they were not there for a visit to the Oval Office, but for something a little… deeper.
The basement of the West Wing was called such, but was not like any basement the term typically brought to mind. It was more of a complex, comprised of conference rooms, waiting areas, a bowling alley, the president’s barber and dentist, and the John F. Kennedy Conference Room, a five-thousand-square-foot command center known by most as the Situation Room.
And since neither of them needed a root canal, he could guess where they were headed.
They stepped off the elevator and were led down two more corridors before they came to the wide double doors that granted entry to the command center where the president and his staff took their most important meetings. It was in this room where declarations of war were made, where operations were discussed, where the most sensitive information in America was given to the highest office in the land.
They were ushered inside and the Secret Service agents closed the doors after them, no doubt posting themselves just on the other side. Zero had been in this room before as well, at least three times on previous occasions of national security. Usually it entailed revealing to him some new or sinister threat, but he already had the feeling he knew why they were there—and what they were about to be asked to do.
President Rutledge rose as Zero and Maria entered the room. He was seated at the farthest end of the long table, at its head. There were two people to his left, Vice President Joanna Barkley and the White House Chief of Staff, Tabitha Halpern.
To his right was a single man, his brown hair going gray, his midsection going soft with age but his eyes just as discerning as ever. The Director of National Intelligence, David Barren, was the only boss to CIA Director Shaw besides Rutledge, and the only other boss that Zero and his team answered to in the event of the president’s absence.
He also happened to be Maria’s father.
“Mr. President,” Zero greeted, shaking Rutledge’s hand. “Ms. Vice President. Ms. Halpern. Director Barren.”
“Zero, Ms. Johansson, thank you for coming on such short notice,” said Rutledge, more cheerfully than Zero would have imagined for the Situation Room.
Maria nodded to the DNI. “Director.”
“Ms. Johansson.”
It was a very strange exchange for a third party like Zero to witness; very few people in the hierarchy were aware of the relation and both Maria and the DNI liked to keep it that way. Zero was well aware that their relationship had been strained ever since Maria’s mother died several years earlier, but it was made all the stranger by the fact that she had been born Clara Barren, named for her grandmother on her father’s side. During her brief tenure as a CIA deputy director, she had legally changed her name to her CIA alias of Maria Johansson, claiming it was easier since more people in her life knew her by that name than by Clara.
