Agent Zero

Get back on the highway. Find a police station. Get Interpol involved.

“And poor Yuri is dead…”

Give them Otets. Force him to talk. Clear your name in the murders of seven men.

“So it occurs to me that you cannot kill me.”

I’ve murdered seven men.

But it was self-defense.

Otets reached the bottom step, Reid right behind him with both hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket. His palms were sweaty, each gripping a pistol. The Russian stopped and glanced slightly over his shoulder, not quite looking at Reid. “The Iranians. They are dead?”

“Four of them,” Reid said. The din of the machinery nearly drowned out his voice.

Otets clucked his tongue. “Shame. But then again… it means I am not wrong. You have no leads, no one else to go to. You need me.”

He was calling Reid’s bluff. Panic rose in his chest. The other side, the Kent side, fought it back down, like dry-swallowing a pill. “I have everything the sheikh gave us—”

Otets chuckled softly. “The sheikh, yes. But you already know that Mustafar knew so little. He was a bank account, Agent. He was soft. Did you think we would trust him with our plan? If so, then why did you come here?”

Sweat prickled on Reid’s brow. He had come here in the hopes of finding answers, not only about this supposed plan but about who he was. He had found much more than he bargained for. “Move,” he demanded again. “Toward the door, slowly.”

Otets stepped off the staircase, moving slowly, but he did not walk toward the door. Instead, he took a step toward the shop floor, toward his men.

“What are you doing?” Reid demanded.

“Calling your bluff, Agent Zero. If I am wrong, you will shoot me.” He grinned and took another step.

Two of the workers glanced up. From their perspective, it looked like Otets was simply chatting with some unknown man, perhaps a business associate or representative from another faction. No reason for alarm.

The panic rose again in Reid’s chest. He didn’t want to let go of the guns. Otets was only two paces away, but Reid couldn’t very well grab him and force him to the door—not without alerting the six men. He couldn’t risk shooting in a room full of explosives.

“Do svidaniya, Agent.” Otets grinned. Without taking his eyes off of Reid he shouted in English, “Shoot this man!”

Two more of the workers looked up, glancing between each other and Otets in confusion. Reid got the impression that these men were laborers, not foot soldiers or bodyguards like the pair of dead goons upstairs.

“Idiots!” Otets roared over the machinery. “This man is CIA! Shoot him!”

That got their attention. The pair of men at the melamine table rose quickly and reached for shoulder holsters. The African man at the pneumatic drill reached down near his feet and lifted an AK-47 to his shoulder.

As soon as they moved, Reid sprang forward, at the same time yanking both hands—and both pistols—out of his pockets. He spun Otets by the shoulder and held the Beretta to the Russian’s left temple, and then leveled the Beretta at the man with the AK, his arm resting on Otets’s shoulder.

“That wouldn’t be very wise,” he said loudly. “You know what might happen if we start shooting in here.”

The sight of a gun to their boss’s head prompted the rest of the men into action. He was right; they were all armed, and now he had six guns on him with only Otets between them. The man holding the AK glanced nervously at his compatriots. A thin bead of sweat ran down the side of his forehead.

Reid took a small step backward, coaxing Otets along with him with a nudge from the Beretta. “Nice and easy,” he said quietly. “If they start shooting in here, this whole place could go up. And I don’t think you want to die today.”

Otets clenched his teeth and murmured a curse in Russian.

Little by little they backed away, tiny steps at a time, toward the doors of the facility. Reid’s heart threatened to pound out of his chest. His muscles tightened nervously, and then went slack as the other side of him forced him to relax. Keep the tension out of your limbs. Tight muscles will slow your reactions.

For each tiny step that he and Otets took back, the six men took one forward, maintaining a short distance between them. They were waiting for an opportunity, and the farther they stepped from the machines, the less likely setting off an inadvertent explosion would be. Reid knew it was only the threat of accidentally killing Otets that kept them from shooting. No one spoke, but the machines droned on behind them. The tension in the air was palpable, electric; he knew that any moment someone might get antsy and start firing.

Then his back touched the double doors. Another step and he pushed them open, nudging Otets along with him with a shove from the Beretta’s barrel.

Before the doors swung shut again, Otets growled at his men. “He does not leave here alive!”

Then they closed, and the pair of them were in the next room, the wine-making room, with bottles clinking and the sweet smell of grapes. As soon as they were through, Reid whipped around, the Glock aimed at chest level—still keeping the Beretta trained on Otets.

A bottling and corking machine was running, but it was mostly automated. The only person in the entire wide room was a single tired-looking Russian woman wearing a green headscarf. At the sight of the gun, and Reid, and Otets, her weary eyes went wide in terror and she threw both hands up.

“Turn those off,” Reid said in Russian. “Do you understand?”

She nodded vigorously and threw two levers on the control panel. The machines whirred down, slowing to a halt.

“Go,” he told her. She gulped and backed away slowly toward the exit door. “Quickly!” he shouted harshly. “Get out!”

“Da,” she murmured. The woman scurried to the heavy steel exit, threw it open, and dashed out into the night. The door slammed shut again with a resonant boom.

“Now what, Agent?” Otets grunted in English. “What is your plan of escape?”

“Shut up.” Reid leveled the gun at the double doors to the next room. Why hadn’t they come through yet? He couldn’t very well keep going without knowing where they were. If there was a back door to the facility, they might be outside waiting for him. If they followed, there was no way he could get Otets into the SUV and drive away without getting shot. In here there was no threat of explosives; they could take a shot if they had it. Would they risk killing Otets to get to him? Jangled nerves and a gun were not an ideal combination for anyone, even their boss.

Before he could decide on his next move, the powerful fluorescent lights overhead went out. In an instant they were plunged into darkness.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Reid couldn’t see a thing. There were no windows in the facility. The workers in the other room must have thrown some breakers, because even the sounds of the machinery in the next room faded and fell silent.

He quickly reached out for the place he knew Otets to be and grabbed onto the Russian’s collar before he could make a run for it. Otets made a small choking sound as Reid yanked him backward. In the same moment, a red emergency light came on, just a bare bulb jutting from the wall just over the door. It bathed the room in a soft, eerie glow.

“These men are not fools,” Otets said quietly. “You will not make it out of this alive.”

His mind raced. He needed to know where they were—or better yet, he needed them to come to him.

But how?

It’s simple. You know what to do. Stop fighting it.

Reid took a deep breath through his nose, and then he did the only thing that made sense in the moment.

He shot Otets.

The sharp report of the Beretta echoed in the otherwise silent room. Otets screamed in pain. Both hands flew to hold his left thigh—the bullet had only grazed him, but it bled liberally. He spat a long, angry slur of Russian curses.

Reid grabbed onto Otets’s collar again and yanked him backward, nearly off his feet, and forced him down behind the bottling conveyor. He waited. If the men were still inside, they would have definitely heard the shot and would come running. If no one came, they were outside somewhere, lying in wait.