Agent Zero

“Idiot!” Otets snapped. “Bind him first! Yuri, go to file cabinet. There should be something there.”

Yuri hurried to the three-drawer oak cabinet in the corner and rifled through it until he found a bundled length of coarse twine. “Here,” he said, and he tossed it to the bald brute.

All eyes instinctively moved skyward toward the bundle of twine spinning in the air—both goons, Yuri, and Otets.

But not Reid’s. He had a shot, and he took it.

He cupped his left hand and arced it upward at a sharp angle, striking the bald man’s windpipe with the meaty side of his palm. He felt the throat give beneath his hand.

As the first blow landed, he kicked out his left boot heel behind him and struck the bearded thug in the hip—the same hip the man had been favoring on the ride to Belgium.

A wet choking gasp escaped the bald man’s lips as his hands flew to his throat. The bearded brute grunted as his large body spun and collapsed.

Down!

The twine slapped the floor. So did Reid. In one motion he fell into a crouch and yanked the Glock from the bald man’s ankle holster. Without looking up, he leapt forward and tucked into a roll.

As soon as he jumped, a thunderous report tore across the small office, impossibly loud. The shot from the Desert Eagle left an impressive dent in the office’s steel door.

Reid came out of the roll only a few feet from Otets and propelled himself forward, toward him. Before Otets could pivot to aim, Reid grabbed his gun hand from underneath—never grab the top slide, that’s a good way to lose a finger—and pushed it up and away. The gun went off again, a piercing boom only a couple of feet from Reid’s head. His ears rang, but he ignored it. He twisted the gun down and to the side, keeping the barrel pointed away from him as he brought it to his hip—and Otets’s hand with it.

The older man threw back his head and screamed as his trigger finger snapped. The sound nauseated Reid as the Desert Eagle clattered to the floor.

He spun and wrapped one arm around Otets’s neck, using him as a shield as he aimed at the two goons. The bald man was out of commission, gasping for breath in vain against a crushed windpipe, but the bearded man had loosened his TEC-9. Without hesitating, Reid fired three shots in quick succession, two in the chest and one in the forehead. A fourth shot put the bald man out of his misery.

Reid’s conscience screamed at him from the back of his mind. You just killed two men. Two more men. But this new consciousness was stronger, pushing his nausea and sense of preservation back.

You can panic later. You’re not finished here.

Reid spun fully around, with Otets in front of him as if they were dancing, and leveled the Glock at Yuri. The hapless messenger was struggling to free a Sig Sauer from his shoulder harness.

“Stop,” Reid commanded. Yuri froze. “Hands up.” The Serbian messenger slowly put his hands up, palms out. He grinned wide.

“Kent,” he said in English, “we are very good friends, are we not?”

“Take my Beretta out of your left jacket pocket and set it on the floor,” Reid instructed.

Yuri licked the blood from the corner of his mouth and wiggled the fingers of his left hand. Slowly, he reached into the pocket and pulled out the small black pistol. But he didn’t set it on the floor. Instead he held it, barrel pointed downward.

“You know,” he said, “it occurs to me that if you want information, you need at least one of us alive. Yes?”

“Yuri!” Otets growled. “Do as he asks!”

“On the floor,” Reid repeated. He didn’t take his gaze off of Yuri, but he was concerned that others in the facility might have heard the roar of the Desert Eagle. He had no idea how many people were downstairs, but the office was soundproofed and there was machinery running elsewhere. It was possible no one had heard it—or perhaps they were used to the sound and thought little of it.

“Maybe,” said Yuri, “I take this gun and I shoot Otets. Then you need me.”

“Yuri, nyet!” Otets cried, this time more stunned than angry.

“See, Kent,” said Yuri, “this is not La Cosa Nostra. This is more like, uh… disgruntled employee. You see how he treats me. So maybe I shoot him, and you and I, we work something out…”

Otets clenched his teeth and hissed a flurry of curses at Yuri, but the messenger only grinned wider.

Reid was growing impatient. “Yuri, if you don’t put the gun down now, I’ll be forced to—”

Yuri’s arm moved, just the slightest bit of an indication of rising. Reid’s instinct kicked in like an engine shifting gears. Without thinking he aimed and fired, just once. It happened so quickly that the report of the pistol startled him.

For a half-second, Reid thought he might have missed. Then dark blood erupted from a hole in Yuri’s neck. He fell first to his knees, one hand weakly trying to stanch the flow, but it was far too late for that.

It can take up to two minutes to bleed out from a severed carotid artery. He didn’t want to know how he knew that. But it takes only seven to ten seconds to pass out from blood loss.

Yuri slumped forward. Reid immediately spun toward the steel door with the Glock aimed at center mass. He waited. His own breath was stable and smooth. He hadn’t even broken a sweat. Otets took sharp, gasping breaths, cradling his fractured finger with his good hand.

No one else came.

I just shot three men.

No time for that now. Get the hell out of here.

“Stay,” Reid growled at Otets as he released his hold on him. He kicked the Desert Eagle into the far corner. It skittered under the file cabinet. He had no use for a cannon like that. He also left the TEC-9 automatic pistols that the thugs had; they were largely inaccurate, good for little more than spraying bullets over a wide area. Instead, he shoved Yuri’s body aside with his foot and grabbed up the Beretta. He kept the Glock, tucking a pistol, and his hands, into each of his jacket pockets.

“We’re getting out of here,” Reid told Otets, “you and me. You’ll go first, and you’ll pretend that nothing is wrong. You’re going to walk me outside and to a decent car. Because these?” He gestured to his hands, each stuffed into a pocket and wrapped around a pistol. “These will both be aimed at your spine. Make one single misstep, or say a word out of line, and I’ll bury a bullet between your L2 and L3 vertebrae. If you’re lucky enough to live, you’ll be paralyzed for the rest of your life. Understand?”

Otets glared at him, but he was smart enough to nod.

“Good. Then lead the way.”

The Russian man paused at the steel door of the office. “You won’t get out of here alive,” he said in English.

“You’d better hope I do,” Reid growled. “Because I’ll make sure you don’t either.”

Otets pulled the door open and stepped out onto the landing. The sounds of machinery instantly came roaring back. Reid followed him out of the office and onto the small steel platform. He glanced downward over the railing, looking out over the shop floor below. His thoughts—Kent’s thoughts?—were correct; there were two men working a hydraulic press. One at a pneumatic drill. One more stood at a short conveyor, inspecting electronic components as they slowly rolled toward a steel surface at the end. Two others wearing goggles and latex gloves sat at a melamine table, carefully measuring some sort of chemicals. Oddly, he noticed they were an assortment of nationalities—three were dark-haired and white, likely Russian, but two were definitely Middle Eastern. The man at the drill was African.

The almond-like scent of the dinitrotoluene floated up to him. They were making explosives, as he had discerned earlier from the odor and sounds.

Six in all. Likely armed. None of them so much as looked up toward the office. They won’t shoot in here—not with Otets in the open and volatile chemicals around.

But neither can I, Reid thought.

“Impressive, no?” said Otets with a smirk. He’d noticed Reid inspecting the floor.

“Move,” he commanded.

Otets stepped down, his shoe clanking against the first metal stair. “You know,” he said casually, “Yuri was right.”

Get outside. Get to the SUV. Crash the gate. Drive it like you stole it.

“You do need one of us.”