Assassin Zero

“Always ready,” Zero whispered back. He held a Ruger LC9 in his left hand, a small silver pistol with a nine-round mag, as he flexed the fingers of his right. He had to stay cognizant of the injury he’d sustained almost two years earlier, when a steel anchor had crushed his hand to the point of uselessness. Three surgeries and several months of physical therapy later, he had regained most of its operation, despite permanent nerve damage. He could fire a gun but his aim tended to track to the left, a minor annoyance that he’d been working to overcome.

“I’ll go left,” Reidigger laid out, “and clear the causeway. You go right. Keep your eyes up and watch your six. I bet there’s a surprise or two waiting for us.”

Zero grinned. “Oh, are you calling the shots now, part-timer?”

“Just try to keep up, old man.” Reidigger returned the grin, his lips curling behind the thick beard that obscured the lower half of his face. “Ready? Let’s go.”

With the simple, whispered command they both shoved off from the plywood façade behind them and split off. Zero brought the Ruger up, its barrel following his line of sight as he slipped around the dark corner and stole down a narrow alley.

At first it was just silence and darkness, barely a sound in the cavernous space. Zero had to remind his muscles to keep from tensing, to stay loose and not slow down his reaction speed.

This is just like all the other times, he told himself. You’ve done this before.

Then—lights exploded to his right, a severe and jarring series of flashes. A muzzle flare, accompanied by the deafening report of gunfire. Zero threw himself forward and tucked into a roll, coming up on one knee. The figure was barely more than a silhouette, but he could see enough to squeeze off two shots that connected with the silhouette at center mass.

Still got it. He climbed to his feet but stayed low, moving forward in a crouch. Eyes up. Watch your six… He whirled around just in time to see another dark figure sliding into view, cutting off the path behind him. Zero dropped himself backward, landing on his rear even as he popped off two more shots. He heard projectiles whistle right over his head, practically felt them ruffle his hair. Both his shots found home, one in the figure’s torso and the second to the forehead.

From the other side of the structure came three tight shots in quick succession. Then silence. “Alan,” he hissed into his earpiece. “Clear?”

“Hold that thought,” came the reply. A burst of automatic fire tore through the air, and then two punctuating shots from the Glock. “All clear. Meet me around the side.”

Zero kept his back to the wall and moved forward quickly, the rough plywood tugging at his tac vest. He spotted a blur of movement up ahead, from the roof of the flat-topped structure. A single well-placed headshot took out the threat.

He reached the corner and paused, taking a breath before clearing it. As he whipped around, the Ruger coming up, he found himself face-to-face with Reidigger.

“I got three,” Zero told him.

“Two on my side,” Alan grunted. “Which means…”

Zero didn’t have time to shout a warning as he saw the human-shaped figure glide into view behind Alan. He brought the pistol up, right over Alan’s shoulder, and fired twice.

But not fast enough. As Zero’s shots landed, Alan yelped and grasped at his leg.

“Ah, dammit!” Reidigger groaned. “Not again.”

Zero winced as bright fluorescent lights came to life suddenly, illuminating the entire indoor training course. Heels clacked against the concrete floor, and a moment later Maria Johansson rounded the corner, arms folded over her white blazer and her lipsticked mouth frowning.

“What gives?” Reidigger protested. “Why’d we stop?”

“Alan,” Maria scolded, “maybe you ought to take your own advice and watch your six.”

“What, this?” Alan gestured to his thigh, where a green paintball had splattered across his pant leg. “This is barely a graze.”

Maria scoffed. “That would have been a femoral bleed. You’d be dead in ninety seconds.” To Zero she added, “Nice job, Kent. You’re moving like your old self.”

Zero smirked at Alan, who furtively gave him the finger.

The warehouse they were in was a former wholesale packing plant, until the CIA purchased it and turned it into training grounds. The course itself was a product of the eccentric agency engineer Bixby, who had done his best to simulate a nighttime raid. The “compound” they had been storming was made of boxy plywood structures, while the muzzle flashes were strobe lights placed throughout the facility. The gunshots were reproduced digitally and broadcast on high-def speakers, which echoed in the huge space and sounded to Zero’s trained ear almost like real shots. The human-shaped figures were little more than dummies molded from ballistic gel and affixed to dolly tracks, while the paintball guns were automated, programmed to fire when motion sensors picked up movement at varying ranges.

The only thing genuine about the exercise were the live rounds they were using, which was why both Zero and Reidigger wore plated tac vests—and why the training facility was only open to Spec Ops agents, which Zero found himself once again being.

After the fiasco in Belgium, in which the two of them had confronted Russian President Aleksandr Kozlovsky and unearthed the secret pact he had with US President Harris, to say that Zero and Reidigger had landed themselves in hot water would have been a monumental understatement. They’d become international fugitives wanted in four countries for having broken more than a dozen laws. But they had been right about the plot, and it didn’t quite seem justified for the two of them to spend the rest of their lives in prison.

So Maria pulled every string she could, sticking her neck out in a big way for her former teammates and friends. It was nothing short of a miracle that she somehow managed to have the ordeal retconned as a top-secret operation under her supervision.

The trade-off, of course, was that they had to return to work for the CIA.

Though Zero wouldn’t admit it aloud, to him it felt like a homecoming. He had been working hard the past month, hitting the gym again, target-shooting at the range daily, boxing and sparring with opponents almost half his forty years. The weight he’d gained in his year and a half absence was gone. He was getting better at shooting with his injured right hand. Maria was right; he was very nearly back to his old self.

Alan Reidigger, on the other hand, had resisted at every turn. He had spent the last four years of his life with the agency thinking he was dead, living under the alias of a mechanic named Mitch. Coming back to the CIA was the last thing he wanted, but given a choice between that or a hole at H-6, he had reluctantly agreed to Maria’s terms—but as an asset rather than a full-fledged agent, hence Zero’s digs of him being a “part-timer.” Alan’s involvement would be on an as-needed basis, providing support whenever able and helping to train up younger agents.

But first that meant that the two of them had to get back into fighting shape.

Reidigger wiped at the green paint on his pants, only serving to smear it further across his thigh. “Let me clean this up and we’ll go again,” he told Maria.

She shook her head. “I’m not spending my whole day in this stuffy place watching you take shot after shot. We’ll pick it up again after the holiday.”

Alan grunted, but nodded anyway. He had been an excellent agent in his day, and even now had still proven himself to be sharp-witted and useful in a fight. He was quick despite the extra weight he carried around his midsection. But he’d always been something of a bullet magnet. Zero couldn’t recall how many times Reidigger had been shot in his career, but it had to be approaching double digits—especially since he’d been tagged in the shoulder during their Belgian escapades.

A young male tech wheeled out a steel-topped cart for their equipment while a team of three others went about resetting the training course. Zero cleared the round from the Ruger’s chamber, popped the magazine, and set all three down on the cart. Then he tore at the Velcro straps of the tac vest and tugged it over his head, suddenly feeling several pounds lighter.

“So, any chance you’ve reconsidered?” he asked Alan. “About Thanksgiving. The girls would love to see you.”

“And I’d like to see them,” he replied, “but I’m gonna take a rain check. They could use some quality time with you.”

Alan didn’t elaborate, and he didn’t need to. Zero’s relationship with Maya and Sara had been severely strained over the past year and a half. But now Sara had been staying with him for the past several weeks, ever since he found her on the beach in Florida. He and Maya had been talking over the phone more and more—she had almost jumped on the very first plane when she’d heard what happened to her younger sister, but Zero had calmed her down and convinced her to stay in school until the holiday. This week was going to be the first time in quite a long time that the three of them would all be under the same roof. And Alan was right; there was still substantial work to be done to repair the damage that had separated them for so long.

“Besides,” Alan said with a grin, “we’ve all got our traditions. Me, I’m going to eat an entire rotisserie chicken and rebuild the engine of a seventy-two Camaro.” He glanced over at Maria. “How about you? Spending time with dear old dad?”

Maria’s father, David Barren, was the Director of National Intelligence, essentially the only man other than the president that CIA Director Shaw answered to.

But Maria shook her head. “My father is going to be in Switzerland, actually. He’s part of a diplomatic attaché on behalf of the president.”

Alan frowned. “So you’re going to be alone on Thanksgiving?”

Maria shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. In fact, I’m way behind on paperwork, thanks to spending so much time down here with you two idiots. I plan on putting on some sweatpants, making some tea, and hunkering down…”

“No,” Zero interrupted firmly. “No way. Come have dinner with me and the girls.” He said it without fully thinking it through, but he didn’t regret the offer. If anything, he felt a stab of guilt, since the only reason she’d be alone on Thanksgiving was because of him.

Maria smiled gratefully, but her eyes were hesitant. “I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”

She had a point; their relationship had ended barely more than a month prior. They had been living together for more than a year as… well, he wasn’t sure what they had been. Dating? He couldn’t remember ever referring to her as his girlfriend. It just sounded too strange. But it didn’t matter in the long run, because Maria had admitted that she wanted a family.

If Zero was going to do it all over again, there wouldn’t be anyone else in the world he’d rather do it with than Maria. But when he took a good introspective look, he realized he didn’t want that. He had work to do on himself, work to repair the relationships with his daughters, work to exorcise the ghosts of his past. And then the interpreter, Karina, had come into his life, in a too-brief romance that was dizzying and dangerous and wonderful and tragic. His heart was still aching from her loss.

Even so, he and Maria had a storied history, not only romantically but professionally and platonically as well. They had agreed to stay friends; neither of them would have it any other way. Yet now he was an agent again, while Maria had been promoted to Deputy Director of Special Operations—which meant she was his boss.

It was, to say the least, complicated.