Trapping Zero

“Not fair!” Reid called after them as he scrambled back to his skis.

After three hours of riding the slopes, they returned to the lodge and found seats in the large common area, in front of a roaring fireplace large enough to park a motorcycle in. Reid ordered three mugs of Swiss hot chocolate, and they sipped contentedly before the fire.

“I want to try a blue trail tomorrow,” Sara announced.

“Are you sure, Squeak? You just got that cast off your arm,” Maya taunted.

“Maybe in the afternoon we can check out the town,” Reid offered. “Find a place to have dinner?”

“That sounds fun,” Sara agreed.

“Sure, you say that now,” Maya said, “but you know he’s going to make us check out that monastery.”

“Hey, it’s important to get to know the history of a place,” said Reid. “That monastery was what started this town. Well, up until the 1850s, when it became a vacation spot for tourists seeking what they called ‘fresh air cures.’ You see, back then…”

Maya leaned back in her chair and pretended to snore loudly.

“Ha-ha,” Reid mocked. “Fine, I’ll stop lecturing. Who needs a refill? Be right back.” He scooped up the three mugs and headed towards the counter for more.

As he waited, he couldn’t help but mentally pat himself on the back. For the first time in a while, maybe even since the memory suppressor was removed, he felt that he’d done right by his girls. They were all having a great time; the events of the month prior already seemed to be becoming distant memory. He hoped it was more than just temporary, and that the creation of new, happy memories would shove out the anxiety and anguish of what had happened.

Of course, he wasn’t so naïve to believe that the girls would simply forget about the incident. It was important not to forget; just like history, he didn’t want the opportunity for it to repeat itself. But if it got Sara out of her melancholy funk and Maya back on track with school and her future, then he would feel he did his job as a parent.

He returned to their sofa to find Maya jabbing away at her cell phone and Sara’s seat empty.

“Went to the bathroom,” Maya said before he could even ask.

“I wasn’t going to ask,” he said as nonchalantly as he could, setting down the three mugs.

“Yeah, right,” Maya teased.

Reid straightened and looked around anyway. Of course he was going to ask; if it was up to him, neither of the girls would leave his sight. He glanced about, past the other tourists and skiers, the locals enjoying a hot drink, the staff serving patrons…

A knot of panic tightened in his stomach as he spotted the back of Sara’s blonde head across the lodge floor. Behind her was a man in a black parka, following her—or perhaps guiding her away.

He strode over quickly, fists balling at his side. His first thought was immediately of the Slovakian traffickers. They found us. His tense muscles were ready for a fight, ready to take this man apart in front of everyone. Somehow they found us here, in the mountains.

“Sara,” he said sharply.

She stopped and turned, her eyes wide at his commanding tone.

“You okay?” He looked from her to the man following her. He had dark eyes, a five o’clock shadow, ski goggles perched on his forehead. He didn’t look Slovakian, but Reid was not taking any chances.

“Fine, Dad. This man asked me where the bathrooms were,” Sara told him.

The man put up both hands defensively, palms out. “I’m very sorry,” he said, his accent sounding German. “I did not mean any harm—”

“You couldn’t have asked an adult?” Reid said forcefully, staring the man down.

“I asked the first person I saw,” the man protested.

“And that was a fourteen-year-old girl?” Reid shook his head. “Who are you with?”

“With?” the man asked in bewilderment. “I’m… with my family here.”

“Yeah? Where are they? Point them out,” Reid demanded.

“I-I don’t want any trouble.”

“Dad.” Reid felt an arm tug at his. “That’s enough, Dad.” Maya tugged at him again. “He’s just a tourist.”

Reid narrowed his eyes. “I’d better not see you around my girls again,” he warned, “or there will be trouble.” He turned away from the frightened man as Sara, bewildered, headed back towards the sofa.

But Maya stood in his path with her hands on her hips. “Just what the hell was that?”

He frowned. “Maya, you watch your language—”

“No, you watch yours,” she shot back. “Dad, you were speaking German just now.”

Reid blinked in surprise. “I was?” He hadn’t even realized it, but the man in the black parka had apologized in German—and Reid had simply picked it up without thinking.

“You’re going to freak Sara out again, doing things like that,” Maya accused.

His shoulders slackened. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I just thought…” You thought the Slovakian traffickers had followed you and your girls to Switzerland. Suddenly he recognized how ridiculous that sounded.

It was clear that Maya and Sara were not the only ones that needed to recover from their shared experience. Maybe I need to schedule a few sessions with Dr. Branson, he thought as he rejoined his daughters.

“I’m sorry about that,” he told Sara. “I guess I’m just a little overprotective right now.”

She said nothing in response, but stared at the floor with a faraway look in her eye, both hands wrapped around a mug as it grew cold.

Seeing his reaction and hearing him bark angrily at the man in German had reminded her of the incident and, if he had to guess, just how little she knew about her own father.

Great, he thought bitterly. Not even one day in and I’ve already ruined it. How am I going to fix this? He took a seat between the girls and desperately tried to think of something he could say or do to return to the cheerful atmosphere of only moments ago.

But before he had the chance, Sara spoke up. Her gaze lifted to meet his as she murmured, and despite the conversations around them Reid heard her words clearly.

“I want to know,” his youngest daughter said. “I want to know the truth.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Yosef Bachar had spent the last eight years of his career in perilous situations. As an investigative journalist, he had accompanied armed troops into the Gaza Strip. He had trekked across deserts in search of hidden compounds and caves during the long hunt for Osama bin Laden. He had reported from the midst of firefights and air raids. Not two years earlier, he had broken the story of Hamas smuggling drone parts across borders and forcing a kidnapped Saudi engineer to reconstruct them so they could be used for bombings. His exposé had inspired higher security at borders and increased awareness of insurgents seeking better technology.

Despite all he had done to risk life and limb, he had never found himself in more danger than he was in now. He and two Israeli colleagues had been covering the story of Imam Khalil and his small sect of followers, who had unleashed a mutated smallpox virus on Barcelona and attempted to do the same on the United States. A source in Istanbul told them that the last few of Khalil’s zealots had fled to Iraq, hiding somewhere near Albaghdadi.

But Yosef Bachar and his two compatriots did not find Khalil’s people; they had not even reached the city before their car was run off the road by another group, and the three journalists were taken hostage.

For three days they had been kept in the basement of a desert compound, bound at the wrists and kept in the dark, both literally and figuratively.