S H A D O W   Z E R O

(AN AGENT ZERO SPY THRILLER—BOOK 13)

J A C K   M A R S

Jack Mars

USA Today and #1 bestselling author Jack Mars is the author of numerous thriller series, including Luke Stone, Troy Stark, Spy Game, and Jake Mercer series. Jack’s latest releases are the Lara King, Grant Valor, and Axel Strike series.

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Copyright © 2025 by Jack Mars. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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SERIES BY JACK MARS

AXEL STRIKE

GRANT VALOR

LARA KING

TYLER WOLF

JAKE MERCER

THE SPY GAME

TROY STARK

LUKE STONE

THE FORGING OF LUKE STONE

AGENT ZERO

Contents

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

Commander Bakari Masai of the Waswahili Liberation Front stepped to the lip of the crater and peered down. The object at the bottom was no longer on fire, but acrid smoke—white tinged with yellow—still rose into the air as the last of its fuel evaporated.

The fire had incinerated the vegetation within the crater, leaving a gray-black coating of ash on top of the soil. The vegetation surrounding the crater was still unharmed. That was good. The mountain acacias and sausage trees packed densely for miles on all sides would shield the crater from view. The smoke would be assumed to come from a forest fire, as this was the dry season. The only way someone could see the object would be to fly directly overhead at a reasonably low altitude and happen to look down at exactly the right moment.

Around him, the younger men muttered anxiously to each other. Quite a few of them whispered the word “djinn” to each other as they regarded the smoke rising from the wreckage.

Bakari resisted the urge to snap at them for their foolishness. One paradoxical aspect of the Western world’s encroachment on Waswahili culture was that his people sometimes had less of an understanding of technology than those who had assimilated into the Western way of life. The older men—those who had fought against American imperialism for many years—were well aware of the natural origins of the object they were looking at.

Perhaps it wasn’t so paradoxical. After all, the easiest way to subjugate a people was to keep them in ignorance. When the scales fell from their eyes, as it were, his people would see the plight into which America and its allies had forced them, and they would understand the need to shake off that yoke.

He smiled slightly to himself at his use of the Christian metaphor. Even he wasn’t immune to the poison of the invaders.

All the more reason to use their poison against them.

“Commander?” a voice to his right said.

Bakari turned to the timid young man staring not quite into his eyes with wide orbs of his own. “Yes, my son?”

The young man swallowed. Bakari noticed the slight tremor in his limbs. He noticed also the group of men standing a few yards away, watching warily as their comrade approached the leader of their Liberation Front. Apparently this poor boy had drawn the short straw and must now inform their commander of the concerns shared by all.

“Commander,” the young man began again. “Forgive me, but some of the others were wondering—”

“Were you also wondering?” Bakari asked with a benign smile.

The young man swallowed again. “I… yes, Commander.”

“Then don’t give others the credit for your bravery. You came to me, not them. You hold the strength of your own convictions, yes?”

The tremor in the poor boy’s limbs became more noticeable. “Yes, Commander.”

“Then why give to others the spoils your actions will earn?”

A whimper started to escape the boy’s lips, but he cut it off quickly. “Yes, Commander. They… I am wondering, sir, if it is wise to disturb the resting… to disturb the object.”

“The resting what, young man?”

The boy’s shoulders slumped. Bakari imagined he was desperately wishing he hadn’t been the one chosen to speak to his leaders. “The resting place of the djinn.”

“The djinn?” Bakari asked innocently. “What djinn?”

“The… the spirit that inhabits the vessel below. The men… I… have heard rumors that those who disturb a djinn’s rest will receive rewards, but those rewards are only lies that will lead to the recipient’s downfall.”

Bakari looked down at the object. The smoke was thinning. In a few minutes, it would be safe to send his men down there. He turned his attention back to the young man. “What is your name, son?”

The boy swallowed once more. “Haki, sir.”

“Haki. Truth. It’s a good name.” Bakari turned toward Haki so his hips and shoulders were square. The six-foot-nine, two-hundred-eighty-pound Bakari towered over the younger man. “Tell the truth, Haki. Do you believe in djinn?”

Haki started to look back at his companions, but Bakari interrupted, “Don’t look at them, Haki. Be a man. Stand tall and tell me the truth. Do you believe in djinn?”

Haki’s voice was barely a whisper. “Yes, sir.”

Bakari nodded. He laid a massive hand on Haki’s thin shoulder. Haki flinched but didn’t pull away. “Thank you for being honest, Haki. You have lived up to your name. That is good. Had you lied to me, I would have executed you and all of the cowards who call themselves your friends.”

Haki stood as rigid as a piece of steel. No doubt he was afraid to say anything else that might incur his commander’s wrath.

“You are not a liar, Haki,” Bakari continued. “But you are a fool.”

He paused. After a few seconds, Haki stammered, “Y… yes, sir.”

Bakari nodded again. “That’s all right. You are young. So are your companions. You are all poisoned by the lies of the Western invaders. You can’t be blamed for ignorance when all around you the enemies of our people feed you ignorance.”

He cupped Haki’s chin and turned the young man’s face up to meet his eyes. Haki resisted for a moment. Making eye contact with one’s superior was extremely rude and arrogant. But Bakari persisted, and Haki soon determined that his commander intended him to break that social rule for the moment.

When Haki was staring at his face, Bakari said, “You may no longer believe their lies. Djinn do not exist. Gods do not exist, not the Western god, nor the god of the Arabs who arrived before them. If you must believe in something, believe in me. Believe in us. Do you understand, Haki?”

Haki’s head bobbed up and down in the affirmative. “Yes, Commander.”

“Good.”

Bakari held Haki’s gaze a moment longer, then released Haki’s chin. Haki sighed with relief when he was able to avert his eyes once more.

Bakari looked down at the wreckage. No more smoke emanated from the twisted metal below.

He turned back to Haki and smiled. “You have learned a very important lesson today, yes?”

“Yes, Commander.”

“You are wiser than you were a moment ago, yes?”

“Yes, Commander.”

Bakari clapped Haki on the shoulder. Haki winced but didn’t pull away this time. Good. There was hope for the young fool yet. “Congratulations, Corporal Haki.”

Haki frowned. He blinked and started to look up at Bakari, then thought better of it and dropped his eyes. “Corporal, sir?”

“Yes.” Bakari pointed at Haki’s companions, who continued to watch from afar. “Those are your subordinates, Corporal Haki. They are responsible for dismantling the machine below and retrieving any items of value. You will lead them.”

Haki snapped his eyes up to Bakari’s, his fright temporarily overwhelming his judgment. “Us? But—”

Bakari clapped his shoulder more firmly. Haki winced again. “Thank you, Haki, for passing along your newfound wisdom to your subordinates.” His smile disappeared, and when he spoke again, his voice was cold. “I expect the machine to be taken apart within the hour. Everything of value is to be brought to me. If you don’t know if an item is valuable, ask. Go!”

Haki looked miserable, but he was not so much a fool that he believed defying his commander was less dangerous than pissing off a minor god. He marched back to his companions and informed them of Bakari’s instructions. Bakari chuckled as the men protested, casting terrified glances his way. He waited for Haki to respond. When Haki drew himself up and issued his instructions in a strong, clear voice, Bakari smiled. Perhaps there was hope for him yet.

The men reluctantly proceeded down the mouth of the tunnel and began to dig through the wreckage. Bakari remained where he was, watching others slowly gain their courage and join Haki’s team. A few of the more senior commanders hung back and approached their leader.

“What do you think this is, sir?” Captain Zawadi asked.

“It’s a satellite,” Bakari replied.

Zawadi lifted an eyebrow. “I see. I thought satellites were bigger.”

“Some are.”

“Do you think we’ll find anything valuable from the wreckage?”

“Assuredly,” Bakari said. “If nothing else, the platinum, gold, and other rare metals we can harvest will bring some money. If this satellite turns out to be one of the CIA’s spy satellites, then we will make far more.”

No sooner had Bakari said this than Haki called back to him. Bakari’s heartbeat quickened as he watched two of Haki’s men lift a dull gray brick from the wreckage.

He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Bring that to me!”

Haki saluted and barked the order at his men. His two former equals struggled as they hefted the object up the crater.

“What is that?” Zawadi asked.

Bakari grinned at his lieutenant. “That, my friend, is enough money to finance a real revolution.”

Zawadi frowned. “Is that some sort of spy instrument?”

“Better,” Bakari replied. “That, my friend, is a hard drive.”

Zawadi’s eyes widened. The old warhorse had survived long enough to understand that the most valuable commodity in the entire world was information. Bakari now had information that, in the right hands, could spell disaster for the Western world.

And he had an idea exactly who might have use for that information. People who would pay a princely sum to obtain it.

He turned his face to Heaven, spread his arms and laughed. He didn’t believe in gods, but if they existed, they smiled on him today.

CHAPTER ONE

If Maya Lawson had learned one thing from her time with the CIA’s Executive Operations Team, it was the importance of using the right tool for the right job. If she’d learned one more thing, it was the importance of mastering every single tool in her arsenal. You never knew what sort of job you would be called to next.

Still, even after two years with the EOT and a year before that operating as a sort-of rogue agent combating terrorists and treasonous elements within the CIA itself, Maya found herself struggling with certain tools from time to time.

At the moment, the tool she struggled with was a thin, flat blade of plastic designed to seamlessly insert between two surfaces and allow manipulation of small objects without breaking them. That, for some reason, was far harder than it sounded.

“Come on,” she whispered. “Don’t break. Don’t break.”

She took a deep breath. On her exhale, she flipped the spatula. The egg landed with a barely audible plop and a slightly more audible hiss as the uncooked side hit the butter. She held another breath, and when no yolk bled through some unseen crack in the egg white, she released it in a sigh of relief.

She grinned and nodded approvingly at this egg and the other two. All three eggs had been flipped perfectly with no damage to the yolks. This was the first time Maya had seen such success with breakfast.

She waited for one minute, then carefully used the spatula to lift the over easy eggs from the skillet and set them on a plate in front of three strips of crisp bacon and a perfectly browned portion of seasoned potatoes.

She almost made it. As she slid the spatula underneath the last egg, a hand smacked her butt and a loud voice said, “Morning, sexy.”

She flinched, only slightly but enough to tear through the thin shield of egg white and split the yolk. She sighed as she watched the yellow run through the tear and sizzle on the butter underneath.

“Oops,” the loud voice said. “Sorry.”

Maya glared at her partner—both romantic and professional—and snapped. “This is your plate, Trent.”

Trent Coleman grinned sheepishly. “Yeah, that’s fair.”

Maya rolled her eyes and shook her head as she folded the destroyed egg and resigned herself to coming up one short of a perfect breakfast. “Honestly, I don’t know why I put up with you.”

Trent’s grin turned mischievous. He wrapped his arms around her waist and said, “I can think of one reason. Or was it four reasons last night? I lost count.”

“Hmm, well, if you’d like to retain use of two of those reasons, you’ll remove them from my waist before I hold them against the burner and turn the heat up to maximum.”

She blushed as she said that, though. One of the most wonderful and most annoying things about Trent was that even after two years of living together she was still head over heels for him. It was frustratingly stereotypical to fall in love with the tall, athletic all-American boy with sun-kissed brown hair and striking gray-green eyes, but Maya couldn’t help herself. In addition to being unfairly handsome, Trent was goofy and clumsy in all of the ways she found adorable.

And he really was good in bed. Not that it was that important. That’s not what love was about, anyway.

She scooped the scrambled egg on top of the two over easy eggs and handed it to Trent. “There. Go away.”

Trent took the plate and bowed deeply. As he did, one of the strips of bacon started to slide off of the plate.

“Trent!” Maya cried, quickly pushing the plate up before the bacon could fall. “God! Pay attention!”

“Oh,” Trent said, grinning sheepishly again. “Sorry. I’m just so distracted by your beaut—”

“Go!”

“Right.”

Trent finally took his food from the kitchen and gave Maya five seconds of flipping peace. She chuckled and rolled her eyes again. “What am I gonna do with that boy?”

His voice echoed in her head. I can think of a few things.

She giggled, then looked at her reflection in the microwave over the stove and forced her expression to return to normal. Mischa was more tolerant of Maya’s affection with Trent than Sara had been, but she still didn’t approve of what she called “mushy stuff.” Maya tried to keep it to a minimum when the three of them were home together.

She turned the stove off and picked up the other two plates resting on the counter, then joined Trent in the dining room. “Mischa! Breakfast!”

“Coming!” a voice called in a slight Russian accent.

A moment later, the owner of that accent—a fifteen-year-old girl with long blonde hair and soft green eyes—bounded down the stairs. She wore a pink t-shirt with an image of a cartoon unicorn on it and a caption that read, MAKE YOUR DAY SPARKLE! It was an odd choice for a girl who Maya had personally seen disarm and disable multiple armed men with less effort than it took her to tie her shoes.

Maya regarded her adopted sister with some pensiveness as Mischa sat at the table. At fifteen years old, she still had the lean, coltish look of youth—exacerbated somewhat by a growth spurt that had taken place over the summer and left her five inches taller than the year before—but she was beginning to fill out in her chest and her hips. Her lips looked fuller too. It hit Maya with a disconcerting shock that Mischa was becoming beautiful.

She bit her lip softly. Her other younger sister, Sara, had endured some horrible experiences when she was not much older than Mischa was now. Sara’s beauty wasn’t at fault for the actions of the horrible men who tried to traffic both of them and the other men who tried to take advantage of her while she struggled with addiction and trauma due largely to that misadventure. That was entirely the fault of evil men who felt they had the right to own whatever and whoever they wanted. Still, seeing Mischa transition from childhood to adulthood brought back bad memories.

She’s not Sara, and you’re not the same person you were four years ago. Besides, Sara’s doing just fine.

Mischa noticed Maya’s stare and misinterpreted the reason for it. “Thank you for breakfast, Maya.”

Maya blinked and pushed her dark thoughts from her mind. “Thank you. I’m glad you like it.”

“It is acceptable,” the former sparrow replied.

Maya and Trent shared an amused look. Mischa had adjusted well to life in America, but she hadn’t lost the stoic pragmatism of the child agent they had met three years prior. Mischa was trained from birth to be an assassin for Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, the formidable SVR. She had been adopted by Maria Johansson, their father’s second wife, shortly prior to their marriage.

Maya’s smile faded. She didn’t think about her father as often now, but when she did, the memories were always bittersweet. To most of the world, he was known as Agent Zero, the specter of American justice and vengeance that struck terror into the hearts of the nation’s enemies, without and within. To a few close friends, he was Kent Steele, the coldly brilliant man who was almost singlehandedly responsible for the safety of the world’s innocent, though of course, almost no one knew that. To his former colleagues and students at the various universities at which he’d taught, he was Reid Lawson, the strict but fair educator whose passion for world history was infectious and charming.

To Maya, he was all of those things and more. He was her dad, a man who had been far from perfect but who had fought with all of his might to keep his family safe and prepared for a world that would stop at nothing to tear them apart. He had made the ultimate sacrifice for that family and that world.

Except…

She shook her head. No. No except. Her father was dead. Clinging to some false hope given to her by a possibly mad scientist was foolish.

“Hey, honey, you okay?”

Mischa made a face at Trent’s pet name but continued to eat her breakfast. Maya smiled at Trent and said, “Yeah, I’m fine. Just got lost in thought for a moment.”

Trent gave her an understanding smile and placed a hand over his. “I get it. It’s hard for me too.”

Maya kept her smile but pulled her hand away from his, shoveling a bite of bacon into her mouth so it wasn’t obvious that she just didn’t want him to touch her. Trent tried hard to be empathetic, and he was, but sometimes he just said really stupid things.

“It’s okay,” she said. “We’re all doing well. I’m following in his footsteps, Sara has the normal life she’s always wanted, and Mischa is actually going to graduate high school.”

“Assuming I don’t burn the place down first,” Mischa said irritably.

Maya shared another look with Trent. Coming from Mischa, that wasn’t necessarily a joke. “What’s going on?” Maya asked.

“I spend all day with foolish children learning things I already know from foolish teachers. Actually, I spend most of the day hearing things that aren’t true and… how is the phrase? Swallowing my tongue.”

“Biting your tongue,” Maya corrected. “And I know it’s hard, but I am so proud of you for doing this anyway.”

Mischa sighed. “Yes, I know. You’ve told me many times.”

“And I’ll say it again,” Maya insisted. “I’m proud of you. I know it’s hard pretending to be normal when you’re not.”

“Why must I pretend to be normal?” Mischa asked. “Remind me again why I must hold myself back when I am capable of being an agent just like you? Better than you, even.” As an afterthought, she added, “No offense.”

Maya pursed her lips and reminded herself that while Mischa was indeed far more capable at some things than anyone else alive, she was also a fifteen-year-old girl and prone to the attitude issues from which all teenagers suffered. “Because you need to have a childhood.”

“I am having a childhood.”

“A real one,” Maya replied.

“Am I not real?”

“A normal one,” Maya insisted.

“I thought it was all right to be different. That’s what my teachers say.”

Trent pointed his fork at Maya. “She’s got you there, honey.”

Maya glared at him. He whitened a shade and focused on his plate.

She turned back to Mischa and sighed. How did she explain to Mischa the dangers of having her childhood interrupted? How could she tell her that Sara had very nearly lost her life—in more ways than one—because of what happened during her childhood? How could she explain that Mischa needed to be more than a deadly spy in order to have a fulfilling life?

In the end, she fell back on her old standby. “It’s what Dad wanted for you. A normal childhood, a normal education. When you become an adult, if you still want to be an agent, there will be a place for you. But right now, you need to be a kid.”

“How do you know what Zero wanted?”

“I just…”

Maya’s phone rang, interrupting her reply. She sighed heavily, then sighed again when she saw the number.

“It’s Todd,” Trent offered helpfully.

She lifted her eyes to the ceiling. “Gee, you don’t say?”

Deputy Director Todd Strickland was the head of the Executive Operations Team and Trent and Maya’s boss. He was also one of her father’s closest friends, or had been. The fact that he was calling her during breakfast on her first day off in weeks didn’t bode well.

She stood and walked to the living room to answer. Mischa called from the table, “I don’t know why you always do that. I can hear you.”

Maya rolled her eyes and didn’t dignify that with a response. She answered the phone. “Hey, Todd. What’s up?”

“I need you two at headquarters ASAP.”

Maya’s smile faded. Todd sounded tense, strained. She hadn’t heard him talk like that in years, not since before her father died. “What’s going on?”

“I can’t talk about it over the phone. Please get here as soon as you can.”

“Yep,” Maya said. “On our way.”

“Is everything okay?” Todd called from the kitchen.

She shook her head at him through the doorway, then said, “I’ll see you soon,” and hung up.

She returned to the kitchen to see Mischa finishing the last of her breakfast. She realized ruefully that she had barely touched her own. “Okay, Trent, break’s over. Todd needs to see us at the ranch.”

“Yeah, I figured,” Trent said. “You want to drive or me?”

“Me. Definitely me.” Among Trent’s less charming habits was a tendency to drive like terrorists were after him even when he was only navigating through D.C. area traffic.

She looked at Mischa. “Sorry kid. You’re gonna have to take the bus.”

“That’s all right,” Mischa replied. “I should blend in, right? Fifteen-year-olds don’t like when their family takes them to school. It crunches their style, no?”

“Cramps their style,” Maya said. “And… sure. Have a good day.”

“Okay.”

She started up the stairs, and Maya called, “Bye. Love you.”

“Yes. Of course.”

Maya rolled her eyes, but a bit of her smile had returned. Never change, Mischa.

She joined Trent in the living room. He reached for the keys to their Toyota Highlander, and she smacked his hand and took them herself. “I drive,” she reminded him.

“Right. Sorry.”

CHAPTER TWO

“How serious are we thinking?” Trent asked as soon as Maya started the car.

“Serious enough that he called on our off day sounding like the world was falling apart,” Maya said. “I think we’re looking at an actual problem here.”

“He didn’t say anything over the phone?”

“No, he said he couldn’t talk over the phone.”

“Hmm. I wonder if China finally decided to do something truly stupid?”

"Wouldn't surprise me. See if there's anything on the news that might clue us into what's happening."

The news obviously wouldn’t spill the details of a classified assignment, but usually events on the surface hinted at currents underneath. Maya liked to keep abreast of world news to have an idea of what might be happening beneath the surface that would eventually turn into work for the two of them. The CIA, of course, had actual intelligence channels, but sometimes those channels were better at finding things happening now than they were at predicting things that would happen in the future.

“I’m not seeing anything that jumps out at me,” Todd said. “More posturing bullshit in the South China Sea, a vague threat of serious consequences if the U.S. doesn’t stop backing Taiwan’s independence, a response from the U.S. that our concern is safe international trade… Yeah, and both nations are still signing the trade agreement the president has on the table, so just bullshit.”

Maya frowned. “Well, that’s not good. That means that this is something emergent.”

The past two years had been fairly quiet for the CIA. There was the usual international intrigues with China and Russia, the slightly less intriguing rivalries with allied nations, and the occasional minor scuffles in the Middle East, but nothing to write home about.

Judging by Todd’s tone, this was something to write home about. Maya couldn’t hide a touch of excitement at the prospect of a real mission. She was no longer Maya Lawson. She was Agent Specter, the CIA’s fastest-rising star and the youngest fully operational field agent in the organization’s history.

These transitions always disturbed her. One of the hardest things to accept when her father was revealed to be more than just the mild-mannered professor she knew was that the same man who played dolls with her and helped her with her math homework when she was a child also tortured and killed people for the world’s premier intelligence agency. Bad people who deserved what they got and needed to receive that fate for the safety of the innocent, but still. Most girls didn’t have to go to bed at night wondering if their dad was bleeding out in a back alley somewhere in Eastern Europe or tearing fingernails out of a terrorist’s hand in the Middle East or racing against time to disarm a nuclear bomb before Paris turned into glass and dust.

Of course, she had joined her father when they all raced against time to prevent six nuclear bombs from turning six of the world’s major cities into glass and dust. It was that mission—opposing the enigmatic Mr. Bright and his co-conspirators in the CIA—that had ultimately taken his life and left Maya as the head of their thrice-broken family.

He would be proud of her. She knew that. She had become one of the greatest agents in the CIA’s history, nearly as great as he was. She had saved the world from destruction several times over. She’d done all of this while helping Sara establish herself in a life apart from this world and keeping Mischa in check. She wasn’t just a great agent, she was a great caregiver.

But she feared this change that took place whenever she was called upon to serve. How long could she do this before she slid down the same path her father slid and became dangerous to everyone around her, good and bad?

“Babe.”

Maya stiffened and smiled apologetically at the slightly annoyed guard at the main entrance to Langley. She showed the guard her ID badge. He glanced at it, then waved her through.

She took a deep breath, and before Trent could finish the idiotic question he started to ask, she replied, “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“You keep saying that,” he said. “I’m not sure if I believe it.”

She sighed again and gave him a longsuffering look. “Trent, I love you more than life itself. I really appreciate your concern, but what I need right now is for you to back off a little bit. Let’s go talk to Todd, then go save the planet. I’m fine.”

Trent, thankfully, didn’t push. “All right. As long as you know I love you.”

“I wonder sometimes, but mostly, I believe you.”

“See? It’s crap like that that makes me think you’re not doing fine.”

Maya smiled as she pulled the SUV up to the entrance to the recently christened Steele Building. She really did love Trent. He was her anchor, both in her professional life and her personal life. As long as she had him, she remained firmly planted on the right side of sanity.

She handed the keys to the waiting valet, who would park the Highlander in the secure parking garage on site, then walked into the Steele Building.

The Steele Building—named after her father, obviously—served as the headquarters of the Executive Operations Team. When the team was first formed, it consisted of her father, Todd, Alan Reidigger, and a few other agents handpicked by her father. They had no headquarters and no official mandate but instead operated under the direct authority of the President.

That first experiment had proved problematic for numerous reasons, not the least of which being that the President by necessity couldn’t know a lot of what the CIA was involved in and that those who could know all too often turned out to traitors, including the Director of National Intelligence, David Barren, who also happened to be Maria Johansson’s father.

This second experiment was working out far better so far. With the fall of Mr. Bright and the arrest of most of the Intelligence Community’s senior leadership, the traitors appeared to have been rooted out of the Agency. The Executive Operations Team had been folded back into the CIA’s Special Activities Center—the former Special Activities Division—and the current leadership was both fiercely loyal to the people of the United States and willing to be hands-off when it came to the activities of their most important operational unit.

Maya and Trent met Todd Strickland in the Situation Room. The fact that he wanted to meet them here in the heart of the EOT’s intelligence apparatus and not in his office told Maya that whatever was happening was serious. Well, more serious than usual.

The Situation Room contained a large number of monitors connected directly to a server stack with more processing power than any computer except for a few at DARPA, one at NATO headquarters, and another at NORAD headquarters. Ordinarily, an endless stream of data would flow across those monitors, and a team of analysts would determine what, if any, of the flow of data constitute a problem large enough for the EOT to get involved.

Today, there were no analysts, and the monitors projected a single discrete set of data dominated by a blueprint that occupied the center six monitors. Todd Strickland was joined only by Penelope León, his wife and the EOT’s resident tech wizard.

Both of them looked terrified. Todd's light blue eyes stared like a man in shock, and his reddish brown hair was messy and damp with sweat. Penelope looked a little more poised, but the whites of her eyes had expanded, contrasting sharply with her dark skin and even darker pupils. More white showed at her knuckles as she gripped the edges of her armrests. Her hourglass figure, perfectly brushed hair, and flawlessly tailored white blouse and pantsuit prevented her from looking quite as desperate as Todd in his rumpled outfit, but her fear was no less evident.

 The last time Maya had seen them like this was when they scrambled to save the world from a daisy chain of Tsar Bombs. Whatever was going on now, it was probably just as serious.

“Is that a satellite?” Trent asked.

Without turning to him, Todd replied, “Yes, Captain Obvious, that is a satellite.”

“Not just a satellite,” Penny added. “It’s a DEDALUS. DEDALUS 2, specifically.”

“And that is?” Maya asked.

“A Defense Data Localized Unit of Storage.” Maya raised an eyebrow, and Penny returned a grim smile. “DoD likes its acronyms.”

“I guess so,” Maya said. She directed her attention to Todd. “So let me guess: someone accessed this satellite, and now we have to retrieve a bunch of sensitive information before they use it to destroy the world?”

Todd looked her squarely in the eye. His movie-star face showed no sign of humor. “I sincerely hope not, Agent.”

Maya shared a brief look with Trent before turning back to Todd. “Okay. What’s going on?”

Todd tapped a button, and the images on the monitors were replaced with a brief video. The video showed a rainforest rushing up to meet them before there was a flash of yellow-white light and the feed cut to black.

“I assume that was the last few seconds of DEDALUS 2’s life?” Trent asked.

His voice had lost all of its joviality too. The loss of a military data satellite was serious business, especially because unless Maya was greatly mistaken, that loss hadn’t occurred over Allied territory.

She wasn’t mistaken.

“Yes,” Penny replied in response to Trent’s question.

She turned back toward her keyboard and tapped a few keys. Maya allowed herself a moment of envy. Even when she was just turning around, Penny managed to make it look beautiful, like a Caribbean princess.

The screen changed once again to show a map of the southern half of Africa.

“The satellite went down in the East African rainforest,” Penny explained. “Its GPS receiver wasn’t working properly near the end of its life, so we were only able to get a rough location, but we believe it went down near the northern border of Tanzania in the vicinity of Mount Kilimanjaro.”

A red circle encompassing about thirty square miles of land appeared on the eastern portion of the map. Maya mentally catalogued the location, then asked, “Anything in the news?”

“So far no, thankfully,” Todd replied. “The crash was reported as a meteor strike, and thankfully people seem to be buying that. Tanzania hasn’t bothered to send anyone to investigate since it’s a solid fifty miles from anything remotely resembling civilization. Fingers crossed, you two can get in, grab the data core, and get out without any trouble.”

“Data core?”

Penny tapped a few more keys and the screen showed a more detailed version of the blueprints from earlier. “The DEDALUS is designed around a data core, essentially a very large and very robust solid-state drive that contains the classified data along with a few dozen terabytes of digital noise that serves as a final line of defense to prevent people from accessing the actual classified data. The satellite itself is relatively worthless. Space X makes dozens of chassis like it every year. The data core, on the other hand, is… well, I’m sure you get the picture.”

Maya did. “The DoD has some serious secrets in that core, huh? Anything we’re allowed to know about?”

“The launch codes to an orbital weapons platform,” Todd replied.

Maya blinked. “Say again?”

Penny tapped the keys once more. The DEDALUS was replaced with the image of a much larger satellite. It looked a bit like the International Space Station.

“Meet OWLS, the Orbital Weapon Launch System,” Todd said. “It is exactly what it says it is, an orbital launch platform. And before you ask, yes, the weapons it launches are nuclear.”

“What?” Trent exclaimed.

“Jesus,” Maya breathed. “How many?”

“How many what?” Todd asked.

“How many nuclear bombs will it drop?” Maya snapped.

Todd sighed and ran his hands through his hair. “According to the DoD, there are one hundred ninety-two W4 nuclear warheads.”

“Holy shit,” Trent said. “That’s… What is that, like one hundred fifty megatons?”

“Just about.”

“God,” Maya said, her throat tight. “Any reason we didn’t know about this sooner?”

“No one knew about this sooner. No one’s supposed to know about this sooner. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of people who knew it before the Chief of Staff of the Space Force called me in a blind panic. I can still fit the number on two hands. Your job, agents, is to make sure it stays that way. Get to the crash site, retrieve that data core, and get back home ASAP.”

Maya had many questions, not the least of which was how did the satellite fall from the sky in the first place, but when she started to ask, Todd lifted a hand. “I don’t know how it fell. DoD says accident. I don’t know if I believe them. Right now, I don’t care. Once we get that data core, I will enjoy a very pleasant few days of tearing new assholes right and left until I get those answers, but at the moment, I would very much like to not have to deal with another nuclear threat to the free world.”

“Right there with you, buddy,” Trent said.

Todd, Penny, and Maya both looked at him. Trent cleared his throat and said, “Uh, yes, sir.”

“One last thing,” Todd said. “In order to preserve the integrity of this weapons system, the two of you will not be permitted to contact headquarters. We can’t risk a signal being intercepted and spilling the beans about OWLS or DEDALUS.”

Maya’s lips thinned. Not only were she and Trent being sent on by far the most serious assignment of their young career, but they were also expected to handle this mission themselves without any help or guidance. She wanted to prove that she was good enough to fill the void her father had left in the agency, but now that she was staring that chance in the face, she was no longer so sure that she was ready.

“Your flight’s waiting for you at the airfield,” Todd continued. “Your equipment’s already on board. Good luck, both of you.”

“You can count on us, sir,” Trent said.

Todd smiled slightly at the eager young man. “Thank you, agent. I know I can.”

The two of them left the situation room and headed for the airfield. Maya still felt the coldly analytical Agent Specter in control, but there was a generous helping of excitement underneath that was one hundred percent Maya Lawson. Weird as it sounded, she lived for the thrill of missions like this. She was going to save the world. Actually, considering who her father was, that wasn’t strange at all.

She texted Mischa on the way. Heading out. Home in a few days. Please don’t skip school.

If she were leaving any other fifteen-year-old girl home alone for an indefinite period of time, Maya would worry, but Mischa was no ordinary fifteen-year-old girl. She’d be fine.

She sent another text to Sara. Heading on assignment. Check in on Dad and Mischa from time to time please. Love you.

She also typed and don’t worry but deleted it before she sent the text. Telling Sara not to worry would guarantee that she would worry.

As they stepped onto the ramp of the Bombardier Global 8000 jet that would fly them at Mach 0.85 over eight thousand miles to Tanzania, Maya and Trent shared a smile.

“Showtime, baby,” Trent said.

Maya giggled and gave him a peck on the cheek. “Dork.”

The jet accelerated as soon as the door closed behind them. Soon, they were in the air, and Agent Specter was on her way to protect the free world and follow in her father’s footsteps.

CHAPTER THREE

Mischa Johansson forced herself to smile and laugh. “That’s funny.”

“I know, right?” Jasmine replied. “And he’s so gross too. Like eww!”

“Eww,” Mischa agreed.

Jasmine sighed. “I wish Jose would look at me the way that freak does. If he wanted to take me to the movies, I would for sure go out with him. I would even wear makeup!”

“Imagine that.”

“Ugh. Boys.”

“Boys,” Mischa agreed.

She looked away so Jasmine wouldn’t see her upper lip curl. Did girls her age have any interests besides boys and hair and makeup? Was this really what Zero wanted her to act like?

If so, he was wasting his time. It was foolish to expect her to attend school with a bunch of ordinary children when she was smarter by far than all of them, including the teachers. It was even more foolish to insist that she lead an ordinary life when she was as far from ordinary as Washington, D.C. was from Moscow.

She was a secret agent and an assassin, a brilliant one, the best there ever was. She should not be wasted by being stuck in an environment where she was constantly reminded of how far she was from normal. And no one should have to listen to Jasmine complain constantly about all of the boys who couldn’t seem to get enough of her.

Her phone buzzed. She checked the text and fought to control her expression for a different reason.

Transfer tonight. Not sure where. Traffickers at shoe store in Arlington discussing.

She put her phone back and saw Jasmine grinning at her. “Is that Caleb?”

Mischa resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “No, it’s something else. I have to go.”

Jasmine’s brow furrowed. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes. My aunt is recovering from a broken leg and needs me to run some errands for her.”

“Oh my God. Tell her I hope she feels better.”

“Sure.”

“I’ll tell Mr. Rosenberg why you had to take the day off.”

Mr. Rosenberg was the assistant principal. Like most seconds-in-command, he was desperate to illustrate to everyone just how important and powerful he was. Mischa couldn’t wait for the lecture he was sure to give her when she returned.

But it didn’t really matter. She would join the CIA as soon as she turned eighteen. She would easily pass every test they gave her. She was just waiting until that day.

And in the meantime, she was occupying herself by destroying human trafficking organizations.

Her lips thinned as she boarded the bus that would take her to Arlington, a large suburb of Washington, D.C. located a short way south of their home in McLean, Virginia. She took her seat, ignoring the stares of a few other riders who no doubt wondered why a teen girl was riding a city bus on her own on a school day.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be normal. Since meeting Maria Johansson and eventually becoming a part of the family she built with Zero, Mischa had been exposed to a world she thought she would never see. She had learned what it was like to feel love—real love, not the facsimile she was taught to use when necessary to get close to her targets. She had learned what it was like to have people care about her. She had learned what it was like to share meals with others and to play games with them. She had become particularly fascinated with television and the myriad imaginary worlds it presented to her.

But she wasn’t normal. She wasn’t a part of this life. Try as she might—and at first, she did try—she couldn’t relate to the other children at her school. They had grown up with loving parents or other relatives from birth. As toddlers, they had played with dolls and slept with stuffed animals while Mischa had practiced against targets and learned how to clean and fire rifles. They had grown up obsessed with cartoon characters and celebrity singers and actors. They had worried over what cute shirt to wear that day, not whether it was better to snipe a target from afar or get in close and cut his throat.

She smiled a little and looked down at her unicorn shirt. The enjoyment of cute clothing was perhaps the only “normal” trait that had stuck with Mischa.

Her smile was replaced by a frown when she realized that there was a distinct possibility that she would get blood on this shirt today. Perhaps she should have changed into something else before she left the house.

Oh well. She could buy another shirt like this one. She knew the password to Maya’s Amazon account. Amazon would deliver her another shirt, clean and packaged in protective plastic, within a day or two. Maya would scold her when she found out about the transaction, but Mischa would simply protest that she’d gotten the shirt muddy. Maya wouldn’t believe her, but she wouldn’t bother to figure out what actually happened.

She felt bad again as she considered this. Maya didn’t mind if Mischa bought things from time to time, but this would involve another deception. Mischa didn’t like lying to Maya. Maya was good to her. She loved her, and while Mischa sometimes still wondered if she truly knew what love was, she believed she loved Maya. She would die for her without question.

She brushed her hair back from her face, using the motion to hide her glance as she scanned the bus to make sure no one was watching. No one was. There was a security camera near the door, but if she turned her back to the camera, she could hide its view of her backpack.

She pulled out her cell phone, opened her secure internet browser, confirmed the address and the other pertinent information of her target, closed the phone and replaced it. Aside from the phone and the schoolbooks she kept as part of her disguise, the pack contained only a combat knife. A gun would have been better, but carrying a gun onto a civilian transport was risky, even for her, and a properly silenced pistol was difficult to conceal, not to mention unwieldy.

Besides, the people she was facing today were far from a serious threat to someone of her caliber. If they were anything close to a real problem, then the woman who had provided Mischa with her information would never have escaped their grasp.

Mischa’s eyes hardened. There was no lower form of life on Earth than a man who would sell women like cattle. Her older sister Sara had suffered at the hands of such men. So had Maya, but Sara’s ordeal had been far worse and left her in terrible shape. This had occurred before Mischa arrived in their lives, but knowing that they had endured such treatment caused her blood to boil. Her own childhood had been far from ideal, but as greatly as Mischa had suffered at the hands of her instructors in the SVR, her sisters had suffered worse.

And others still suffered. If Mischa was not to be allowed to work for the CIA and fight terrorists and enemy nations, then she would work by herself and fight these slavers who thought of women as commodities to sell to the highest bidder.

The bus’s speaker announced that they were approaching the intersection of Washington Boulevard and North Pershing Drive. Mischa reached up and pulled the cord to request a stop.

“No need to do that, honey,” the middle-aged woman next to Mischa said. She smelled of liquor and urine, and her voice was wet with pneumonia that would likely remain with her until the end of her alcohol-shortened life. “The bus always stops at that intersection.”

Mischa smiled sweetly at her. “Oh, I know. I just like pulling the cord.”

The woman returned a smile of her own. “Where are you from, honey? Your voice sounds different.”

“Does it?” Mischa asked, getting to her feet and grabbing her backpack. “That’s odd.”

She walked off of the bus and crossed the street. She would eat lunch at the pizza shop and then head to the warehouse. She estimated she would reach it around two in the afternoon. It would be lightly manned if at all at that time of day. Traffickers almost exclusively used such hubs at night to reduce their chance of being seen. Mischa would quite possibly return here at night to follow them, but if all went well, she would learn a more useful destination from the intelligence she gained at the shoe store.

Early on, she had been too direct with her movements against traffickers. She had never been in any real danger, but she had attracted the attention of several organized criminal elements and had been forced to undertake some risky missions to eliminate the heads of those organizations. One day, she would be ready to execute such assignments, but for now, it was important to maintain secrecy. That meant moving quietly, and that meant moving patiently.

That was hard for her. While she was being patient, people suffered.

But if she wanted to succeed, to truly succeed, then she needed to be content with what she could do now and save what she wanted to do for a time when she was able to command the resources necessary to accomplish that goal. She would end human trafficking one day. In the meantime, she would rescue those she could and at least send the message that choosing a career in the slave trade was choosing death.

She entered the pizza shop and tried not to roll her eyes at the look of concern and mild judgment she received from the shopkeeper. He smiled at her and asked, “Hey, kiddo. Shouldn’t you be in school?”

Mischa gave him her “cute little girl” smile. She was well aware that she was getting older and soon couldn’t use that trick anymore, but he seemed to be a kindly older man, and he probably had a grandchild her age. “We have the day off. I guess there’s a teacher training day or something.”

“Ah.” He looked behind her. “Are your parents around?”

She shook her head. “They’re at home, but it’s okay. They said I could go out as long as I was home before dark.”

He nodded. “Just be sure you are. The streets aren’t safe for a young woman on her own, especially at night.”

“I know.” That’s exactly what I intend to change.

She ordered a slice with olives and sausage and sat at a table in the corner that allowed her to see the front and side entrances, the kitchen entrance, and the restrooms. It was an old habit. Always know where the exits are and take note of everyone who comes and goes.

As she ate, she thought about Maya. She wondered what her older sister was doing now. Whatever it was, she wished her safety and success. The world was a dark place. It needed people like the two of them to make it a little brighter.

Her thoughts drifted toward Zero, and a brief wistfulness crossed her mind. She rarely felt anything as powerful as true grief. Death was an unavoidable end of life, and a violent death was an unavoidable part of the life Zero—and Mischa herself—had chosen. She was proud of her adopted father far more often than she mourned for him.

Still, she wished he could see her now. He would be so proud of his little sparrow.

She sighed and finished her food, then left the pizza shop. The kindly old man waved goodbye. She returned the wave with another cute smile, then started toward the shoe store. Grief melted from her mind. She had a job to do. Soon, more slavers would learn the hard way how deadly their own chosen career was.

CHAPTER FOUR

The man standing on the porch of a small thatch-roofed hut on an otherwise uninhabited islet near the southern extremity of the Maldives was known to the locals as Masveriyaa, the Fisherman. Whenever he was asked his name, he answered only, “Call me whatever you want.” The locals chose to refer to him as Masveriyaa because he earned his living—such as it was—by catching fish and selling anything he didn’t eat.

Perhaps now, his name had gained a bit of mystique, maybe even respect. When Masveriyaa first arrived here, the locals gave him perhaps one month before he gave up and came to them begging for food, water, and transportation to Velana International Airport so he could take a flight back home to whatever safe, comfortable place he had come from. Now, twenty-three months after his month had expired, Masveriyaa was thriving. The locals didn’t know how this light-skinned traveler had managed to stumble through those first hard weeks, but he had done so, and now he lived as one of them.

Poorer than most, in fact. He had no running water, and until very recently, no electricity either. He caught and grew his own food as much as possible, made his own soap from oil and herbs, and traded his extra catch or crop for necessities like clothing, medicine, and tools. He gathered his own firewood—thankfully available in abundance on this forested tropical island—and completed any repairs that needed to be made to his small home himself. He had traded his outhouse in favor of doing his business in a small tide pool that was washed out every few hours by the rising sea, but he still had no real plumbing.

He did have a rudimentary water system now that filtered sediment from seawater and deposited it into a large aluminum drum. Masveriyaa would boil the water in that drum, and once it was sterilized, it could be piped to a smaller tub that—after cooling—could be used for bathing. From time to time, Masveriyaa would fix a large condenser formed from copper wire that he had bartered a fish catch for on top of the boiler. The steam would condense and travel along the coiled wire into another barrel placed next to the drum, and that was how Masveriyaa would obtain fresh water.

It was a tedious process, as was every process on this island. Masveriyaa had to clean the water boiler, condenser, bathtub and fresh water barrel religiously. The boiler especially was prone to corrosion from the salt that the distillation process left behind. The sediment filter needed almost constant replacement, which involved gathering and cleaning sand and gravel, trading for cloth or paper coffee filters, and treating charcoal leftover from his fire by placing it in a cooking strainer and steaming it for several minutes to open pores that would trap smaller impurities.

All of this work, combined with the work of fishing, tending to his garden, preparing food and the general necessities of survival, kept Masveriyaa very busy, very healthy, and reasonably happy. He was content.

But Masveriyaa had left more behind than the comfort and convenience of the modern world. From time to time, when he looked across the ocean, his soft smile would fade, and his hazel eyes would darken with memories he never shared.

Still, he had enough. Most days that kept his thoughts away from what he no longer had. He had good reason to focus on what was here and not what wasn’t any longer.

He kept only one reminder. One risk, so minor as to be inconsequential. That risk—a small radio—usually sat on a table behind his hut that faced the sun. It was brought inside only during the rains and quickly placed back outside when the rains stopped. Some days he hoped to use it, but most days, he was content to ignore it. After all, there was no point in chasing what no longer existed.

He completed his daily circuit of the island, checking his nets and the traps he set for crabs and the occasional sea turtle. Most of the fish he caught he caught a few hundred yards out to sea on a raft he’d built from palm trunks and coconut fibers, but some fish came inshore to breed and could more easily be caught in the small lagoons and tide pools near his hut.

He finished his circuit at his vegetable garden. The garden grew two hundred yards from his house on a sixty- by eighty-foot patch of land that faced the rising sun. Not all of the land was in use at all times since not all crops were in season at the same time, but it was still enough to keep him busy for at least an hour a day.

He attached a rubber hose with a shower head at one end to the spigot of his fresh water barrel, hefted the barrel and attached the Velcro straps he had bartered for over his shoulders. The barrel was heavy, over one hundred pounds full of water, but Masveriyaa felt no strain in his back as he opened the spigot and watered his garden.

He smiled at that. In addition to keeping him busy, this life kept him in shape. He was strong, stronger than he was when he left his life behind to become the Fisherman.

This was a good life, this new, simple existence. It was lonely, but it was good. Masveriyaa was proud of it. If that radio remained silent, he would live the rest of his days here watching the sunrise, catching fish, tending to his garden, and cozying up to the fire when it rained.

And if that radio didn’t stay silent… well, he would cross that bridge if he came to it.

He finished watering his sweet potatoes and chilis and set the barrel down with a sigh of relief. He took a brief rest before heading to his raft to check the nets he’d left beyond the surf. He sat on the stump of a screw pine, gazed across the ocean and let his thoughts wander. His eyes took on a faraway look, hardening slightly and looking beyond the horizon to the memory of what once was.

Masveriyaa sat for ten minutes, then got to his feet and headed to his raft. The Fisherman had fish to catch.

CHAPTER FIVE

“We’ve got to be the only people on Earth stupid enough to jump out of the world’s most luxurious business jet.”

Maya cinched the strap of her parachute tightly and, without looking at Trent, she replied, “I’d rather jump than try to crawl out of the wreckage after the pilot lands this thing in the middle of a rainforest.”

“Yeah, good point,” Trent replied. “What’s our extraction plan again?”

“We get to Kilimanjaro, and a helicopter picks us up from there.”

Trent frowned. “Isn’t Mount Kilimanjaro one of the most heavily trafficked tourist attractions in Africa?”

“It is,” she agreed, “but we’re not going to take any of the official climbing routes. We’re going to climb the north side away from the hiking trail to just above the tree line, get in a helicopter, fly to an airfield in Kenya, then take the same jet back home.”

“Seems complicated,” Trent said.

“We grab the data core, climb a few thousand feet, get into a helicopter, then get into an airplane. That’s four steps. How much simpler do you want it to be?”

Trent shrugged. “I just feel like we’re risking being seen this way.”

“It won’t matter as much once we have the core,” Maya replied. “So some tourists see a helicopter. There are a dozen good reasons why a helicopter could be flying over the forest. As long as no one figures out that we’re there to retrieve nuclear launch codes that fell from space, let the conspiracy theorists have fun with it.”

Trent chuckled. “You’re just as cavalier as your father.”

A bolt of anger flashed through Maya. “You didn’t know my father. You have no idea what he was like.”

Trent’s smile faded. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“We’ve reached the jump window, agents,” the captain said over the PA system. “You may jump anytime in the next five minutes.”

Maya moved to the door of the aircraft and performed a final equipment check. Aside from her parachute pack, she wore CIA-issue cargo pants, combat boots, and a vest with body armor and pockets all around containing her standard array of equipment: enhanced vision eyeglasses, flares, a flashlight, grenades, both conventional and sonic, a satellite phone, a backup radio, a necklace with an emergency beacon, and a few other odds and ends.

And, of course, weapons. She had a Ka-Bar Fighter with an eight-inch blade that sported a partially serrated edge and a full tang carbon steel blade. The modern world had a plethora of fighting and utility knives with impressive features, but in Maya's experience, the classic Ka-Bar was still the best at its job.

In addition to her knife, she had a Heckler & Koch HK45CT handgun with three magazines containing eight rounds each of .45ACP ammunition. She preferred the .45 for its stopping power and didn’t mind the slightly extra recoil compared to the 9mm handguns preferred by many female agents.

Her primary weapon was also Heckler & Koch, an HK416A5 carbine with an eleven-inch barrel and three thirty-round magazines of 5.56mm NATO ammunition. Plenty of people questioned the stopping power of the diminutive round, but unlike the 9mm, Maya had seen good results from the tried-and-true NATO round. In situations where that round wasn’t good enough, having a heavier rifle round wouldn’t have been enough to tip the scales in her favor.

Besides, while she could deal with the recoil of a .45ACP pistol, the recoil of a 7.62mm rifle round or even a 6.5mm round affected her accuracy at distance, and the much heavier build of rifles chambered for those rounds made them prohibitive for any long-term combat mission. If there was fighting to be had below—and Maya hoped very much that there wasn’t—then the short-barreled HK416 would be just fine.

She finished her checks and gave Trent a thumbs up. He returned one of his own, and she pulled the third exit lever on the door. Rather than opening down into its typical airstair door like the ordinary exit lever or causing the entire door to disconnect from the fuselage like the emergency lever, this third handle was a CIA modification that pulled the door inward and slid it to the side using a small hydraulically operated track.

The wind that buffeted her immediately upon opening the door was bracing. The jet had slowed to one hundred thirty knots, but even at that minimum possible speed, the force of the air was alarming.

Trent has a point, she thought drily. This fucking sucks.

Too late to back out now, though. She’d left once before and come back. Now she had to deal with what this job entailed.

“Fool me twice, shame on me,” she muttered.

“What?” Trent called over the howling wind.

“Nothing.”

She grabbed the jump handles, leaned back, and propelled herself through the door. She counted to five to give herself time to clear the aircraft’s wind shear, then pulled her cord. The ground rushed up at her, and when nothing happened after three seconds, she pulled the smaller red emergency cord.

Thankfully, that worked. The drag chute popped out and pulled the much larger main chute from the pack. It filled with air, slowing her with a jarring jolt that clapped her teeth together.

They had jumped at three thousand feet, the lowest possible altitude that gave them any sort of safety margin. Maya had used all of that safety margin, and while the parachute rapidly slowed her descent, the ground was still rushing to meet her with a far greater urgency than she liked.

She braced herself for a hard landing and aimed for the softest-looking tree. The seconds ticked by, and just before she reached her tree, she saw a sharp branch pointing straight at her chest.

She cursed and jerked her body to the side. The branch sliced through the air in between her left arm and her chest. She breathed a sigh of relief that was cut short when the smaller branches of the canopy sliced at her face as she impacted the tree.

She endured the assault until she stopped moving, then sit leaves out of her mouth and tapped her left ear to her shoulder to activate her earpiece. “Talon, are you there?”

When in the field, she preferred to use Trent’s codename and insisted that he use hers. It wasn’t especially likely that any active terrorists would associate her first name with Agent Zero, but it wasn’t impossible, and there was no need to take unnecessary chances.

She heard a crashing noise in the trees a dozen yards ahead of her. A groan came through her earpiece, followed by. “Yeah, Specter. I’m here.”

Maya took a deep breath and released it slowly. “Okay. Let’s cut ourselves down.”

“Uh, you might want to take a look down before you do that.”

Maya frowned and looked down. In the darkness, she could only see… well, darkness.

She pulled her enhanced vision glasses from her pocket and clicked the mode button until it reached night vision. Then she cursed. “Aw, shit.”

“Yep.”

It turned out that the softest-looking trees were also the tallest trees. She was suspended in the air about sixty feet from the forest floor. To make matters worse, she didn't seem to be anywhere close to a thick enough branch to support her weight.

Damn it, the trees weren’t even that soft.

She sighed. “Well, we wanted to be CIA agents. What’s your situation look like?”

“A long drop straight down.”

“No big branches you can use to hold your weight?”

“Nope. My chute somehow got caught in a bunch of twigs between two different trees and left me hanging in no man’s land.”

“Yeah, me too.”

She thought for a minute. “Okay, keep a hold of one of your parachute cords. Cut the others until you start dropping. That might slow your descent enough to keep you from breaking every bone in your body when you land.”

“Oh joy,” Trent replied sarcastically. “And should I expect that you are doing the same thing?”

She rolled her eyes. “No, Trent, I’m going to wait for the eagles to show up and carry me to the ground.”

“What?”

“It’s a Tolkien reference. Read a book sometime.”

She wrapped one of her parachute cords around her left hand and drew her Ka-Bar with her right hand. She cut the parachute cords one at a time, bracing herself with each one.

“For your information, I have read the Chronicles of Narnia before.”

“Wrong novel series,” Maya said, slicing through another parachute cord. “But you’re very cute.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Maya sliced the third to last rope. As soon as the cord separated, she moved toward the ground with alarming speed. She braced herself for impact, but thankfully, the parachute caught again. The cord stretched, and she slowed as it reached the limits of its tension.

She put her Ka-Bar to the cord, and as soon as the carbon steel blade reached the taut nylon of the cord, the fibers separated. She fell again, traveling about five feet before landing heavily on her backside.

She winced and rolled over, rubbing her sore buttocks. And with that dignified entry, she thought, getting to her feet.

She lifted both legs one at a time and twisted her back. Once she confirmed she wasn’t injured, she tapped her earpiece again. “Talon? How’s it—”

A snap followed by loud rustling answered her question. Trent descended at a somewhat less frightening clip than Maya, but he didn’t stop before reaching the ground. He landed with a whoomph and lay still. Maya rushed to his side and knelt next to him. “Talon? Are you all right?”

He groaned but lifted a thumb into the air. Maya sighed with relief and helped him to his feet. She grinned. “How did you like your first parachute jump?”

Trent returned her smile. “It was wonderful. Let’s never do it again.”

She giggled and kissed his cheek. She pulled her compass and satellite phone from her pockets and brought up Penny’s map on the phone. “All right. It looks like we landed right in the middle of Penny’s drop zone. That’s good. I say we start north until we reach the edge of the zone, then walk in a zigzag pattern traveling—”

“It’s a few hundred yards north.”

“What?”

“The satellite. It’s a few hundred yards north of us. I saw it when I jumped.”

Maya blinked, and Trent grinned again. “But that was a really good idea about the zigzag march. A-plus, Agent.” Maya rolled her eyes and slapped his chest lightly. “Lead the way, tiger.”

Trent obliged, staring forward through the dense jungle vegetation. Maya didn’t mind the bugs that she was certain crawled all over her now, but if she saw a snake, they were going to have some problems.

Are there black mambas in the rainforest? I forget.

Fortunately, any snakes that might have been interested in the hairless gorillas that fell from the sky didn’t show themselves to either agent as they made their way toward the crash site of one of the Department of Defense’s most valuable satellites.

“You know what gets me?” Trent said out of nowhere. “What happens if the OWLS satellite falls? Like, what happens if all of those nukes just crash into a random place? Does the military even think about crap like this before they do things?”

“First of all, no, they don’t. Second of all, let’s not just talk out loud about national security secrets.”

“Right. Sorry. Anyway, here we are.”

Maya walked to his side and gasped. The satellite’s fall had pushed a deep crater into the Earth’s surface. The sides of the crater were smooth, almost uniform, and appeared to be composed primarily of ash left behind when the crash and ensuing fire incinerated the trees and other plants that had fallen into the crater.

More importantly, the satellite below looked like it had been gutted. Twisted metal panels sat scattered across the ground, but from where she stood, she could see nothing that looked like a data core.

“We need a closer look,” she told Trent. “I think someone else might have—”

Something hit her on the shoulder and knocked her sprawling. She rolled over just in time to see a shadow swing something big at Trent’s face, sending him tumbling into the crater.

Her eyes widened as over a dozen individuals burst from the trees, all of them carrying guns.

She realized grimly that she was right about the satellite. Someone else had gotten to it before them. They were still here.

And they weren’t interested in sharing.

CHAPTER SIX

Maya drew her handgun with lightning speed and squeezed off two shots. The nearest attacker crumpled, and while the others dove for cover, she holstered her handgun and unshouldered her rifle.

How did they sneak up on us?

She fired a burst, dropping the first attacker to fire at her. His shots went wide, slamming into a tree a few yards to her right.

But the other attackers had recovered from the initial shock and were now aiming their rifles at her. Maya quickly thumbed the fire selector to full auto and emptied her magazine in a panoramic arc as she retreated into the trees behind her.

She switched her magazine using a technique her father had taught her: pulling the replacement mag from her belt, dropping the empty mag, slamming the new mag into the receiver and, catching the empty mag at belt level, then clipping it in the empty slot. The entire operation took a half second, and she was able to fell another attacker with a well-placed burst.

Even that brief tap of the trigger at full auto used a half-dozen rounds, so she switched the selector back to a three-round burst as she sprinted away from the crater.

She tapped her earpiece. "Talon, do you copy? Talon, come in!"

No response. A lance of fear shot up her spine. She hadn’t seen exactly what hit Trent, but his arms had gone limp as he fell over the edge into the crater. He could be unconscious. Or worse.

She spun around and fired at her pursuers. Two more fell before the others dove for cover. As soon as they did, she sprinted sideways for forty yards, then veered back to the crater. She needed to get to Trent. She needed to see if he was hurt, and if so, how badly.

She heard a loud voice call as she ran. “Hoja, punda! Anarudi kwenye shimo!”

She didn’t recognize the words, but considering where they were, she guessed it was Kiswahili or some other Bantu language. That meant locals, and unless something massive had escaped the CIA’s notice, that meant that these were likely run-of-the-mill scavengers rather than an organized fighting force sent specifically to recover the DEDALUS data.

Run-of-the-mill scavengers who still got the drop on two of the CIA’s best agents, incapacitated one, and sent the other running.

Her face flamed. Some agent she was. Her most important op to date, and she’d lost her partner fifteen minutes after leaving the damned airplane.

The hair on the back of her neck prickled. Trusting her instincts, she threw herself to the ground, narrowly avoiding a burst of fire from behind her. She rolled over and fired at a fuzzy shadow hiding behind another fuzzy shadow.

She cursed and changed her glasses to infrared mode. The forest instantly lit up with numerous heat signatures, all moving to her location.

God damn it.

She pulled a smoke grenade from her pocket, pulled the pin, and tossed it a few yards ahead of her. The smoke barely registered on infrared, but the confusion it caused her enemy was immediate and profound. The terrorists—or scavengers or militia or whatever they were—cried out and fired their weapons in random directions.

Maya stayed low and fired at the infrared signatures. Two of them dropped, and a third cried out and dropped his rifle.

“Wajinga nyie! Lenga miale ya muzzle!”

Once more, Maya couldn’t understand the Kiswahili words, but the English word at the end made the leader’s instructions clear. He wanted his men to aim at her muzzle flashes.

She rolled over several times, got to her feet, and moved toward the crater. Rifle fire dug grooves in the ground where she lay a few seconds ago, but the smoke gave her enough cover to reach the lip of the crater without being seen.

She saw Trent near the bottom. He lay on his back, unmoving.

Oh God, please be alive.

She looked back. Her enemies were cautiously moving through the smoke. They couldn’t see her yet.

She considered her move. If she entered the crater, she would be seen easily. On the other hand, if she left Trent, the enemy could kill him if they hadn’t already.

Leave him. Focus on the mission. You're outnumbered, and you've already burned through two of your rifle magazines. Get somewhere safe, then call Todd for backup. You can't help Trent now.

She knew that she was giving herself good advice. She also knew there wasn’t a chance in hell she was going to take it.

So, she went to plan B. She pulled one of the sonic grenades from a pouch clipped to her belt. The device—about the size of a silver dollar—would emit an ultrasonic frequency that would disorient and incapacitate anyone within about a twenty-yard radius. Maya gambled that the crater would protect her from the full brunt of its effects.

She twisted the two halves of the device in opposite directions, took a deep breath, and hurled the device toward the approaching enemy. Without waiting, she fell backward into the crater, covering her ears and squeezing her eyes shut.

She felt an odd pressure when the grenade went off. It seemed to come from inside her rather than outside. Her bones vibrated, her intestines rippled, and her muscles slackened. She fought grimly to keep control as she tumbled down the ash-covered bowl of the crater.

By the time she came to a stop, the worst of it had passed. She was right. Being below ground level had provided her some protection from the sonic grenade, enough that aside from a moment of dizziness, she was fine.

Meanwhile, the groans and retching of the enemy told her that the weapon had worked exactly as she needed it to. She got to her knees beside Trent and switched her glasses to optical enhancement. This would essentially make the glasses see-through and offer a touch of night vision without necessitating a green-light filter.

It allowed her to see that Trent was bleeding from the back of his head. She felt a chill and prayed silently as she pressed two fingers to his throat. When she felt a strong pulse, she released the breath she’d been holding.

“Oh, thank God. Oh, thank God.”

She took a deep breath and checked his injury. He had a bad knot at the back of his crown, but his skull didn’t seem fractured. He’d probably have a concussion when he woke up, but he would live.

She quickly looked through the wreckage of the satellite. What she could see was burned black and twisted from the impact and the heat. What she couldn't see was any sign of a data core or anything electrical at all. Either it had been destroyed in the crash, or the terrorists had already stolen it. She needed to find out which it was.

But before she did that, she needed to figure out a way to get them out of this mess. She didn't know exactly how many enemies she faced, but she didn't want to bet on being able to kill all of them before she ran out of ammunition. Carrying Trent out of the crater was going to be a bitch and a half. He was half again her body weight, and while she could drag him out given enough time, she couldn't do it and fight off dozens of men armed with rifles.

She would have to lead them away somehow and come back for Trent later. She had no idea how to keep the enemy away once she led them from the crater, but she’d have to figure it out as she went.

She hooked her arms under Trent’s armpits and pulled him behind a piece of wreckage to hide him from view. Trent groaned and mumbled something, and her heart leaped. If he woke up, then things would become much easier.

“Talon? Are you with me?”

Trent mumbled something else. Then his head lolled over his chest, and he fell silent.

She sighed and lowered him to the ground. “Hang in there. I’ll get us out of here.”

She started up the crater, pulling another sonic grenade from her pocket. She tossed it over the lip when she was close enough and threw herself against the side, once more covering her ears.

Once again, she felt that odd vibration inside of her. Her body went limp, and her senses muddied. She was closer this time, and the effect was stronger.

She fought for consciousness as the grenade released its payload. She needed to stay alert. If she could get to her feet and get past her enemy before they came to, she could fire from behind them and lead them away from the crater and from Trent.

She got to her feet and staggered toward the lip. When she crested it, she saw a dozen soldiers unconscious and several more staggering listlessly, bending over to vomit as their bodies tried to resort themselves after the sonic barrage.

She thought about shooting all of them while they were incapacitated but didn’t. She didn’t have much ammo left, and she didn’t want to be caught dry if a reserve force of attackers arrived and found dozens of their companions dead.

I should have taken Trent’s ammo, she thought. Damn it, Maya.

She moved into the forest. She made it about ten yards before she heard a shout behind her. Once more, instinct saved her life. She dropped to the ground just ahead of a volley of rifle fire that would have saved her from further embarrassment over her lapse in judgment regarding the ammo.

She rolled over, tapping her glasses until infrared returned.

What she saw took the wind out of her sails.

There were more of them now. At first, she had seen about a dozen of the enemy. As the fight continued, she counted perhaps twice that many.

There were well over fifty of them now, and more coming every second. Most of them had arrived too late to be affected by the sound grenades. They were fresh reinforcements, and there were more of them than Maya had bullets.

Crazy thoughts rushed through her mind. She could focus on her aim. She could keep moving. One bullet per enemy, and maybe a dozen or two left to dispatch with her knife. She could take one of their weapons and use it. She could keep taking weapons until she outfought them and slaughtered them all. She could do something, anything that didn’t end with her failing and leaving Trent to die.

Then she heard a booming basso voice shout, “Usipige risasi! Namtaka akiwa hai!”

She turned around. There were more terrorists behind her. Fourteen of them were within ten feet of her, and they all held rifles. One of them was far taller than the rest. In infrared, it was hard to tell how tall, but he was among the largest men Maya had ever seen.

Maya had no choice. If she fought back now, she would surely die and with her any chance they had at finding that data core or saving Trent. The best thing she could do now was surrender and let them take her away so they wouldn’t discover Trent unconscious and vulnerable. She grabbed her necklace and pressed the emergency beacon, then tore it off and flung it into the trees.

Then she dropped her rifle and raised her hands. I’m sorry, Trent.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“Heading home, boss?” George asked.

Mitch shrugged at his lead mechanic and thrust his chin toward the truck. “How are we looking?”

George scoffed. “Like shit. The tranny’s junk, the engine’s junk, the motor mounts are made of rust at this point, and the crossmember exists only in the truck’s memory.” He shook his head. “I know some of these Action Line trucks can see a million-plus and keep on truckin’, pardon the pun, but this one’s seen too many Virginia winters. It’s done for.”

Mitch nodded. “How’d Frank take it?”

George laughed. “You swear I’d be the one to tell Frank we can’t fix his baby.” He clapped Mitch on the shoulder. “That’s all you, boss.”

He moved off to check on the boys replacing the Jeep’s axles, leaving Mitch to sigh and hang his head. “Yeah, I figured.”

There were three vehicles in the shop at the moment: a five-year-old Jeep Gladiator moving to Dana 60 axles, a 2006 Toyota Sienna that needed a new radiator, and Frank’s beloved truck, an old Chevrolet K10 whose small-block V8 had finally shit the bed after nine hundred thousand miles. Removing the engine had revealed significantly rusted motor mounts and a front crossmember that was living on a prayer. Mitch would have to try to convince the old man who owned the truck to let it die and get himself a newer model. He wasn’t relishing that conversation.

He removed his cap and scratched his scalp. Still thinning. Not bald yet, but closer to that than not.

He headed back to the office. He might as well make the phone call and get it out of the way.

Frank, as expected, was unhappy.

“What the hell are you talking about? It just needs new valves.”

“It needs a lot more than new valves, Frank. The head’s cracked, three of your sleeves are cracking, two of your piston rings are a jolt away from snapping, the rod bearing’s useless… Honestly, at this point, a new block would be cheaper than fixing the old one.”

“So get a new block. A carbureted one. None of those bullshit fuel injected models.”

Mitch sighed. “The frame’s junk, Frank. I’m sorry. It’s rusted through.”

Frank was quiet for a moment. “Shit. You can’t fix it?”

“No, Frank.”

“Well, don’t do shit to it, then. I’ll come pick it up and take it to someone who knows what they’re doing.”

No one knows what they’re doing enough to make rust magically go away, Mitch thought. He kept that to himself, though. “Sounds good Frank. Make sure you bring something to tow it with. I can’t let you drive it out of here.”

“Well, no shit. I can’t drive it with a shot motor, can I?”

“No, sir.”

Frank hung up without saying anything else. Mitch sighed again. At least that’s out of the way.

He reached into his office refrigerator and pulled out the sandwich he’d saved for lunch. It was a little early, but he might as well eat it now. Conversations with stubborn old men always made him hungry.

He bit deeply into the sandwich and sighed with pleasure as the bratwurst’s juices ran down his chin into his beard. There was a time when the slovenliness of the act would have grossed him out or at least embarrassed him, but it fit well with his new persona, and anyway, he was going to shower as soon as he got home.

He took another bite of the bratwurst—sandwiched into a submarine roll with hot peppers, grilled onions, and a generous serving of stone ground mustard—and grinned as the zesty flavors combined pleasingly in his mouth. This sandwich was known as Mitch’s Miracle, and was on the secret menu of Bernie’s Deli in Lovettsville, Virginia—the town nearest his small cabin in the woods and where he worked five days a week at Miracle Mitch’s Auto Repair.

Mitch did very little auto repair himself. He had a staff of nine—eight mechanics and a receptionist—to handle most of the actual work. He spent most of his time maintaining contacts gained during his other life, the one he had never fully left behind.

In that life, he was known as Alan Reidigger, and along with his friends Kent Steele and Todd Strickland, he was a member of the CIA’s elite Executive Operations Team. Going further back, he and Kent had worked with the Special Activities Division, partnered with other elite agents to ensure that America maintained its hegemony over world affairs. He wasn’t quite as much of a badass as Kent Steele, nor was he as handsome as the debonair Strickland, but he could hold his own in the badass category, and he had one skill that neither agent possessed in nearly equal measure.

Alan Reidigger was amazing at finding friends. Good friends. Friends who knew things. Friends who had things. Friends who could find things. Friends who could make sure other people didn’t know or find things. Friends who, if needed, could show up almost anywhere in the world at a moment’s notice and help Alan with any number of problems.

This skill had come in handy on more than one occasion when Alan was an active CIA agent and even more often during those times—all too frequent near the end—when he was rogue or officially disavowed. Alan’s connections had helped the EOT and later Zero and a few others save the world more than once.

Alan Reidigger was retired. In fact, officially, Alan Reidigger was dead. He was Mitch Thurman, and it was a delicious irony that Mitch Thurman was actually his birth name, Reidigger being an alias the CIA created, just as Kent Steele was an alias created for Reid Lawson.

And yet you think of yourself as Alan and Mitch as the alias, he thought to himself. That’s the real irony.

These days, he didn’t do much of the badass stuff anymore. He consulted for the CIA every now and then, but mostly, he just ran his shop and kept an eye on Reid’s kids.

That part—keeping an eye on the kids—hadn't turned out to be difficult at all, no surprises there. The Lawson kids had been thrust into the most challenging situations into which young women could be thrust, and they had risen beautifully to each occasion. Maya Lawson was now a badass EOT agent, just like her dad. Sara was living a relatively normal life at the moment, but she could be just as deadly as her older sister when the situation called for it. And Mischa…

Well, Mischa was an entirely different kind of badass. When Mitch was Alan Reidigger full-time, he used to look at Zero with a mixture of awe and envy. In his mind, there was no way a human being could possibly be more dangerous than Kent Steele.

Mischa challenged that belief. Alan had seen her effortlessly dismantle entire teams of fully grown, well-trained men in everything from a firefight to hand-to-hand. As a twelve-year-old girl, she was capable of fighting her way through over a dozen terrorists singlehandedly while throwing a temper tantrum because Zero hadn’t waited for her before he started the op.

She was fifteen now, and while she was honoring Zero’s dying request that she stay away from the CIA at least until adulthood, she was engaging in some extracurricular activities that might give Alan’s old friend pause.

Mischa didn’t know that Mitch was aware of her campaign against human traffickers. Mitch had wrestled many times with the idea of confronting Mischa and warning her to stop or calling Maya and spilling the beans. If it were any other fifteen-year-old, there would be no question, but this kid was dangerous. Frankly, Mitch was pretty sure he would be in more danger than she was if he tried to do the same thing she was doing.

So he only watched her and made sure she didn’t get herself too far in over her head. A couple of times, she’d gotten a couple of Eastern European mafias a little too interested, but a few phone calls to Alan’s friends had made sure their attention was pulled elsewhere. She was doing better now, staying small and acting conservatively. At the moment, she was on the trail of a trafficking ring operating out of a couple of abandoned buildings in Arlington. These guys were chumps, so he was letting her do her thing and just watching over her in case things went sideways.

He had no idea how Zero would feel if he knew that Mitch was letting her get away with this. Actually, he knew exactly how Zero would feel. But hey, ridding the world of a few modern-day slavers wasn’t a bad thing, and besides, he didn’t think he could stop her if he tried.

He finished the last of his bratwurst and lifted himself out of his office chair with a groan that he only mostly didn’t feel. Alan had never been the most svelte of field agents, and Mitch hadn’t exactly slimmed down in the two years since he ditched active duty for good and dedicated himself to the maintenance of his network and the protection of Zero’s kids.

He started toward the service garage. Frank would be here soon, and it would be better if he was outside to talk to him instead of throwing George and the others under the bus.

He made it three steps when his phone buzzed. His other phone.

If it had been up to Mitch, he would have stood stock still and stared open-mouthed into space for a few seconds before reacting, but this was Alan’s phone. Alan’s training kicked in, and he finished the journey to his office without showing any sign of the fear he felt. When he entered, he locked the door and closed the shades before pulling the phone from his pocket and checking the alert.

He assumed it was Mischa. He figured she had stepped into it again, and he needed to pull a couple of shenanigans to bail her out.

It wasn’t Mischa. When Alan saw the alert, his jaw went slack, and a sharp chill lanced down his spine.

Maya had activated her emergency beacon.

Alan had given each of them a necklace with an emergency beacon. He’d told all of them to press it if they were ever in a life-or-death situation that they couldn’t escape and needed immediate help from him. It was one of the ways he kept his promise to Zero to keep Zero’s children safe.

In the past two years, none of them had ever activated that beacon. Sara had never been in any real danger since their little group prevented Mr. Bright from lighting the world up like fireworks. Maya was every bit the badass her father was, and Mischa was… well, Mischa.

Knowing Maya, she would never have activated that beacon unless she had completely run out of options. She was fiercely independent and had just a little chip on her shoulder about people always assuming she needed help or couldn’t do things on her own. That was another way she was like her father.

Alan swallowed and tapped the alert. His phone screen filled with data, including a map and a snapshot taken when Maya activated the beacon.

The snapshot showed a snarling giant of a man who had to go closer to seven feet than six striding toward Maya. He was surrounded by smaller men, all of whom carried rifles. The men were dark-skinned, and based on their outfits and the age of their rifles, he guessed they were one of the numerous feuding freedom fighter groups to be found on that continent.

Where they were on the continent was very important.

Please, God, let it be North Africa.

It wasn't North Africa. The data related Maya's vital signs—nothing alarming there, thank God—and GPS coordinates. Those coordinates and the map with a red dot placed at those coordinates revealed that Maya was in East Africa. He guessed Tanzania or Kenya, but he could figure out the exact location easily enough by plugging the coordinates into a GPS locator.

That wasn’t the problem. The problem was getting her help soon enough to make a difference.

Of course, it's East Africa. The one damned place on Earth where I don't have friends.

He called Todd immediately. Todd answered on the third ring. “Alan, is this important? I’m in the middle of something right now.”

“Does it have something to do with the fact that Maya just hit her emergency beacon?”

Todd was quiet for a moment. He broke the silence with an elegantly enunciated, “Shit.”

Alan frowned. “You didn’t know she was in trouble.”

Todd sighed. “I knew there was potential for trouble, but I didn’t know they’d found it already.”

“By they, I assume you mean Maya and Trent.”

“Yeah, I sent them on their first real assignment. Hell, the first real assignment we’ve had in two years. I know it was a lot to ask, but I figured they were ready. Damn it.”

“What exactly is the assignment?”

“I can’t go into details over the phone. I’ll… damn it. Look, I need to figure out what to do about this. I’ll talk to you when I can.”

Something in Todd’s tone worried Alan. “You’re going to send help, right? You’re going to go get them.”

Todd didn’t answer right away. When he did, it was with a far from encouraging, “I’ll do everything I can.”

Alan’s frown deepened. “Todd—”

“I have to go.”

Todd hung up, and Alan swore. “God damn it.”

He repeated the curse several times under his breath as he considered his next move. Todd hadn’t said it, but it was clear in his voice. He was going to burn Maya and Trent.

That was Todd’s greatest and most glaring weakness. He was by the book. The CIA’s standard response when their agents were discovered was to burn them. The technical term was “disavow.” They would purge the agents from any and all records, deny any involvement with them, basically treat them as though they never existed.

Alan hated that. He understood the logic behind it. The United States needed plausible deniability for its intelligence activities.

He still hated it. The CIA had disavowed Maya’s father, had, in fact, ordered Alan to kill him. Alan had ignored that order and nearly gotten himself killed over it. No one would order Todd to kill Maya and Trent, but that was only because they were sure the terrorists would take care of it for them.

Alan wouldn’t allow that to happen. The problem was figuring out how to get them home safely.

He could get an ID on the African soldiers or terrorists or gangsters or whatever they were. That was probably step one.

But in the meantime, how could he get to Maya? He could try going himself, but despite his arrogant thought earlier about his badassery, the fact was that two years of limited physical activity and a love affair with deli sandwiches had blunted any remaining sharpness to his edge. He could make a lot of noise before he was brought down, but he couldn’t get Maya out himself.

But someone could.

Alan stopped cursing. He sat in his office chair, leaned over his desk, and stared at the little microphone clipped to his computer. That microphone didn't work except if Alan spoke a certain code phrase. Then, it would link to a radio dish that would broadcast an encrypted signal to the CIA's satellite network. The signal would command the CIA satellites to broadcast whatever Alan wanted to the entire world on a few channels that only he and one other person knew about.

If that other person was still alive.

Alan steepled his fingers and leaned his head against them. If he did this, he would risk compromising possibly the greatest secret he’d kept from the CIA to date.

How many “greatest secrets” is that now?

He found no humor in that thought. If he didn't make this call, then there was a very real chance that Maya wouldn't receive the help she desperately needed and would end up losing her life somewhere deep in the middle of the devil's asscrack in East Africa.

When he thought about it that way, there was really only one choice.

He pressed a button that would activate a sound dampening system to render everything he said inaudible outside of the office. Then he picked up the microphone.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Sara Lawson loved every second of her new life. She loved her apartment, a small but well-appointed one bedroom five minutes from Maya, Trent and Mischa's house. She loved her car, a brand-new Honda Civic Hybrid that was as ordinary as a car could possibly be. She loved her part-time job at the Dolley Madison Library, the branch of the Fairfax County Public Library located in McLean, and her other part-time job at the Giant Food in Arlington. She loved her classes at George Washington University. She spent her free time either watching TV, reading a book, or taking a walk around her quiet residential neighborhood, and she liked that too.

So when she felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle as she finished the last of her peanut butter and jelly sandwich, her first reaction was to violently shove that feeling away. She was safe. She was out. She was her own person, and things like this didn’t happen to her anymore.

In a few more years, Sara wouldn't have to rely on anyone but herself. Both of her jobs paid minimum wage, and neither job offered health benefits to part-time employees, but she had government health insurance thanks to her sister's job at the CIA, and the money she earned was enough to pay for her modest rent, her car payment and insurance, and necessities like food and clothing. When she finished school, she would find a full-time job that paid for her own health insurance, so she didn't need to rely on Maya for that.

She would have her own life. A small life. A meaningless life. An ordinary life. A good life. One she’d always wanted and for a long time feared she’d never have. One free of the addiction, danger, and fear that had plagued her as a teenager.

Maya had embraced that danger. She had laughed in the face of that fear. Sara admired her for it, but it wasn't something she could do herself. She'd tried, God knows she had, but she wasn't cut out for that life.

And that was okay. Sara was fine with herself. For the first time in years, she was fine with herself.

But the feeling wouldn’t go away. With a frustrated sigh, she got out of her car and scanned the area around her. She saw several people entering and exiting the library, but none of them gave off the telltale signs that they were dangerous or that they were watching her.

And the feeling wouldn’t go away.

She checked her car for nails in her tires, scratches on her paint, leaks underneath the hood, and yes, any sign of a tracking device or explosive that might have been planted on her car while she worked her shift at the library. She found nothing.

When she finally convinced herself that absolutely nothing around her was trying to kidnap, assault or kill her and the sense of wrongness still lingered, she sighed and called Maya. She had read that one symptom of PTSD was random, unprompted bouts of anxiety. She was probably having one of those now. Once she spoke to her sister and confirmed that everyone was okay, she would be okay.

The phone call dropped. It didn’t go to voicemail. It didn’t ring and then inform her that Maya was unavailable. It didn’t even tell her that the number she dialed was no longer listed. It just dropped.

The prickling in the back of her neck became a chill that ran all the way down her spine. Sara swallowed and dialed Trent. When she got the same result, her breath escaped in a rush that doubled her over. A concerned but wary woman of around forty pulled her kids behind her and asked, “Are you all right?”

Sara forced a smile and lifted her hand. “Fine. Thank you.”

She got into her car and pulled out of the parking lot. She didn’t know where to drive, so she just drove toward school. After all, one of them was going to call her back and tell her everything was okay. She was going to laugh about it, then reach school, head to her class and shake her head in exasperation while she prepared for a droning lecture about the importance of the fall of Constantinople to history.

She called Mischa along the way, just to see how she was doing. Not to confirm that she was okay and that Maya and Trent were also okay. They were. Of course they were.

She breathed a sigh of relief when Mischa’s voice answered before a single ring sounded. “This is Mischa.”

“Oh, thank God!” Sara cried. She reddened instantly and said, “I mean—”

“I did not answer. Leave a message if you wish. I will respond if I deem it necessary.”

Sara’s smile faded. She dialed the number again. Straight to voicemail. She dialed a third time. Straight to voicemail. That time, she left a message. “Mischa, it’s Sara. Call me, please. Something’s going on. No one’s answering their phones.”

She hung up, shouted, “Fucking bitch!” and threw the phone onto the floor of her passenger seat. Had she not spent forty dollars on a stainless-steel case for the phone, it would probably have shattered.

Heads up purchase, Sara. You predicted your future.

She navigated around a stalled car and accelerated to match the speed of traffic. She tapped her finger on the wheel, then put her blinker on and took the next exit off of George Washington Memorial Parkway. She obviously wasn’t going to fucking school today.

She fought hard to keep from driving recklessly as she navigated the streets according to traffic laws to return to the Parkway and drive back the way she came. When she entered the Parkway again, she dialed one more number.

When Mitch answered with his other name, his old name, the one he used when he was partnered with Sara’s father, Sara finally knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that something was very wrong.

“Alan.”

"Mitch, what's going… I mean, Alan, what's going on? I'm trying to call Maya Trent, and Mischa, and no one's answering. Maya's and Trent's phones won't even work, and Mischa's keeps going to voicemail, and I'm freaking out right now.”

“Sara, calm down.”

Which, of course, was the absolute worst thing he could have said. “How the fuck am I supposed to calm down, asshole?”

“You’re right, I’m sorry, that was an asshole thing to say.” Alan sighed. “Look, Maya activated her distress beacon.”

Sara’s hand immediately went to the necklace around her throat. She clutched the pendant tightly, careful not to put pressure on the amethyst at the center that would activate her own alarm. She’d forgotten entirely about Alan’s gift to her. She’d finally convinced herself that she’d never need to use it.

“When?” she said. “Where?” Her voice sounded clear but distant, like a television played at low volume.

“Tanzania. Near Mount Kilimanjaro.”

“Kilimanjaro,” she repeated. “Is she on assignment?”

“I assume so,” Alan replied. “I’m talking to some people right now to get some more intel on what kind of trouble she’s in. We’ll get her out of there.”

“And Mischa?”

“She’s fine. She’s… out right now. She should be home not long after dark.”

“Not long after… Alan, where is she?”

“She’s fine. What you need to do right now is go to Maya’s house and stay with Mischa for the next few days. Don’t tell her about Maya. Don’t show her that you’re scared.”

Sara laughed shrilly. “Well, I’m pretty goddamned scared, Alan.”

“I know. But please don’t do anything foolish. Just keep Mischa company until this is all worked out.”

Sara realized now what Alan was really asking. Stay with Mischa and distract her so that she doesn’t try to rescue Maya by herself.

For the first time in two years, Sara wished desperately that she had kept up with her training. She was in good shape, and she could probably handle a fight with an average asshole or even a few assholes, but there was no way in hell she could rescue Maya. As for Mischa? She could handle a fight with a SEAL team or two, but if Maya found out that Mischa had risked her life to save her, then she would never forgive Alan or Sara for letting her go.

Sara sobbed. She hated this.

“Sara,” Alan said. “It’s going to be okay. Please trust me. I know this is hard, but—”

“Fine,” Sara snapped. “Fine, I’ll go home. Just please get Maya back.”

“I will. You have my word.”

He hung up, and Sara sobbed again, then took the next exit and changed direction again, this time heading for Maya’s and Mischa’s house.

The problem with Alan’s promise was that he was only human. He would absolutely try his best to get Maya back, but there were limits to what he could do. Like Sara, he was out of practice and out of shape. He could call in favors, but after two years, how many of those favors still held water?

And what happened if the CIA caught wind that Maya had been captured by an enemy force? That was almost certainly what had occurred. Sara knew what the CIA did with agents who were compromised.

A rod of steel worked its way through her fear. If the CIA disavowed her sister, then Sara would make them pay. Even if it took years for her to sharpen her rough edges, gather the resources she needed and make the right moves, she would make them pay.

CHAPTER NINE

Masveriyaa opened his eyes. It was pitch black outside. His internal clock guessed it was after midnight, but not long after. He lay in bed for a moment, waiting for his thoughts to gather.

Beep… beep… beep…

He frowned at the noise. A memory came to him. Beeping. Screaming. Cursing. Burning. Dying.

Beep… beep… beep…

His frown deepened into a scowl. Was ancient history coming back to haunt him again? Was his time in isolation driving him insane without his realization? Now he was hearing beeps that weren’t—

Beep… beep… beep…

His eyes widened. The radio. It was the radio.

Masveriyaa rolled out of bed and rushed to the radio, pausing only to slip his feet into thong sandals. When he reached the radio and saw the red light blinking, his heart first stilled, then began to pound in his chest.

This was it. The one risk he had taken. The one connection to life before the island. He swallowed, hearing his throat click.

Beep… beep… beep…

He stared at the radio without answering it. If he answered it, this would be the end of everything. The end of his life. The end of Masveriyaa.

Beep… beep… beep…

He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t endanger so much, so many others. He had to let the signal pass.

Beep… beep… beep…

A bead of sweat formed on his brow. His trembling hand lifted, moving toward the radio. He swallowed again.

Beep… beep… beep…

He picked it up. It was solid, cold, and heavy.

Beep… beep… beep…

He swallowed a third time, pressed the talk button, and said in a voice that was raspy and hoarse with disuse, “Hello?”

The voice that followed was one he knew. One he recognized from before. One he thought he would never hear again. One he hoped to never hear again, though he loved its owner as a brother.

“Zero?”

Masveriyaa felt a surge of grief and fear. Grief for the quiet, simple life he could no longer live. Fear for what was to come, for the damage that would occur if he replied.

But he replied. As soon as his hand closed around the radio, he had no choice in the matter. Masveriyaa wailed silently to the night, then passed away.

“Hello, Alan.”

“Oh my God,” Alan said softly. Then, louder, “Oh my God! It’s you! It is you! You’re alive!”

Alan Reidigger, Zero’s best friend and most trusted companion save perhaps for his late second wife, Maria Johansson, spoke these words with joy. Immediately after, his voice was tinged with anger. “What the hell, Zero? You’re alive? Where the hell have you been?”

The words stuck in Zero’s throat. It had been so long since he’d spoken other than to say a few words here and there when bartering for goods. “I’ve been away. I’ve been… gone. I wanted everyone to be safe.”

“Well, they’re not safe. Maya’s in trouble.”

The breath left Zero in a rush. He knew it. That could be the only reason Alan would make such a shot in the dark. That and…

“Did you call the CIA?”

“Yeah, I talked to Todd.”

“And?”

“And he said he’d do everything he could, but the way he said it suggested that there wasn’t anything he could do.”

Zero’s eyes narrowed. “Meaning he won’t do anything.”

Alan hesitated. “Well, Todd’s by the book, and you know what the book says.”

Zero’s hands curled into fists. He knew all too well what the book said.

Todd, you bastard.

“Where is she?”

“She’s on an op in Tanzania. Near Kilimanjaro. She activated an emergency beacon I gave her after… well, after everything. Based on the data I was able to retrieve, she appears to have been captured by some sort of insurgent group in the region. I’m not sure who. I’m going to call some friends and see if they can give me an idea what we’re looking at. In the meantime…” He sighed. “Look, I understand why you left. I don’t agree with it, but I understand it. You were trying to keep your family safe. The problem is that they’re not safe. I hate to ask this, man, but I’m out of shape, Sara’s out of this life, and Mischa… Well, she can handle the fighting part, but I don’t know if she’s up to the other stuff yet: intelligence gathering and all that.”

Zero didn’t answer right away. He took a deep breath and pushed it slowly through his nose. A lot of emotion roiled through him, but the strongest was anger.

Why was Todd making the same damned mistake he made the last time with Zero and Alan? Why was Maya on her own in an op in Tanzania? Where was her backup? Where was her plan? Why was Alan so out of shape that he couldn’t go rescue Maya when her life quite literally depended on it?

The answer to all of those questions was, “It doesn’t matter.” His daughter was in danger. He thought that hiding would keep her safe. It hadn’t. She needed help now, and he was the only one who could provide it.

“I’m on my way.”

“Thank God. Do you need me to come get you?”

Zero thought for a moment. "No. I'll make my way to Africa. In the meantime, I need you to get equipment ready for me. Also, an identity and currency. The standard loadout. Any resources you think I'll need to find Maya and bring her home safely."

“I’ll look into it.” Alan paused a second, then added. “It’s good to hear your voice again.”

Zero hated that he had to lie to his friend so soon, but he did it anyway. “It’s good to hear your voice too.”

“I’ll be in touch, Zero.”

The connection ended. Zero stood where he was for a moment. He searched himself for any trace of Masveriyaa, but the Fisherman was gone, dead and forgotten. The life he’d left behind two years ago had come forward and swallowed him despite his best efforts to avoid it.

He set the shortwave down and quickly packed his bags. Thirty minutes after waking, he had everything he needed to leave the island save for one thing.

His raft wasn’t designed for the open ocean, but it would be good enough to get him to Melé. From there, he could find his way to Maya.

By the time the sun rose over the Indian Ocean, Zero pushed his raft out to sea and sailed away from the island he’d called home for the past two years.

He didn’t look back.

CHAPTER TEN

Katerina Solnechno lifted the glass to her lips and sipped. The vodka she drank was a far cry from the bitter jet fuel the masses imbibed. This bottle of Beluga Epicure was one of only one thousand ever bottled. It was distilled with Siberian well water and malted wheat, flavored with honey and vanilla, and packed in a bespoke crystal decanter created by the framed French Lalique concern. It was clear, crisp and slightly sweet with a mellow body provided by the wheat. It was luxurious, expensive and the best possible vodka one could buy.

Everything Katerina owned was the best possible of its kind. The twenty-two-year-old owner of the eighth-largest business concern—legitimate or otherwise—on Earth would accept nothing less.

She sipped more of the vodka and lifted herself from her bespoke leather office chair and walked around her Parnian Executive desk—a two-hundred-thousand-dollar unit—and walked to the window of her penthouse office suite on the eighty-ninth floor of the Lenin Building overlooking Neva Bay. The recently completed Lenin Building was the tallest building in Europe, thirty-seven feet taller than the previous record holder, the Lakhta building, visible through another of Katerina’s windows.

Once more, Katerina had insisted on the best. Once more, she had obtained it.

The business empire she controlled owned seven different holding companies throughout the world. Those companies operated no fewer than one hundred twenty-four operational entities. Those entities combined provided an annual income of three hundred seventy-four billion dollars. Only one of those operational entities was known to any legitimate government.

Sunshine Realty had undergone a massive overhaul after its leader, Mr. Bright, was discovered murdered in his home in West Virginia. Unfortunately for the company, he was also discovered to be the leader of a multinational terrorist operation that involved several high-ranking members of the United States government and the orchestrator of a plan to set off six fifty-megaton nuclear devices at multiple locations around the world.

Needless to say, the company’s reputation took an enormous hit. It took a great deal of work to restore the company’s public face, and had that face not been the smooth, youthful skin, brilliant blonde hair and emerald-green eyes of a businesswoman just old enough that the men who controlled most of the world could lust after her without feeling guilty, it was likely that it would have gone under.

Not that it would have mattered much. It would have been easy for Katerina to start a new company, throw a few hundred million into establishing it and completely severed ties with anything related to the man that no one knew was her father.

But Katerina didn’t want that. She wanted Sunshine Realty to survive. She wanted Agent Zero to lose that little contest. She wanted that one little corner of his victory to be incomplete.

It wasn’t much. It was far from the best result, which meant it was far from enough. But it was a start. It was proof to Katerina that with enough time and enough patience, she could defeat this specter that had ruined everything her father had worked for. She could make Agent Zero suffer for what he did to Mr. Bright.

She didn’t believe for a moment that Agent Zero was dead. She couldn’t understand how anyone could have believed it. They had found no body. Blood, yes, but no body. If there was no body, then that body was still alive somewhere, in hiding like a snake, planning its next strike, venom dripping from its fangs—

She realized that she was gripping her vodka glass tightly enough to risk crushing it. She set it on the marble counter near her window and walked to her private restroom to regard herself in the mirror.

She was beautiful. One hundred seventy-three centimeters tall, fifty-five kilograms of taut, supple muscle, a perfect hourglass figure, full lips, the aforementioned hair and gemstone eyes, and fingers that she knew from experience could inflict exhilarating pain and unbearable pleasure with equal skill.

She took pride in her beauty. It was exceptional, like everything else about her. She was the pinnacle of human achievement. She had been born that way. In school, she had proven it, graduating at the top of every class she attended, even classes led by people who weren’t obsessed with her beauty.

In her two short years in business, she continued to prove it, growing Mr. Bright’s enterprises so that they were now the largest criminal enterprise in the world by a substantial margin. She had control of thirty-nine different crime syndicates, “mobs” to the uncouth. She had control of an equal number of terrorist organizations along with many corrupt elements in governments ranging from that of Fiji to that of the United States of America with many more in between.

The best part was that none of those elements knew who their leader was. None knew of their connection to anyone else. Most thought that Mr. Bright’s conglomerate had dissolved after his death and that their current leaders were a fragment of that entity.

None except a few very close trusted associates knew that Katerina Solnechno was the most powerful woman on Earth and at least at the same tier as the most powerful men. None knew that this little girl who looked like she should be blushing as she accepted her college diploma and stepping out with an awkward and equally youthful young man was in fact able to order the deaths of world leaders with nothing more than a phone call.

And still, she couldn’t find Agent Zero. It was beyond frustrating, almost as if the man really was a ghost.

Deep in the recesses of her mind, a kernel of doubt insisted that he could, in fact, be dead, and she could be wasting valuable time and money looking for him. She dismissed that doubt. He couldn’t be dead for the simple fact that she wanted him alive and wanted his death to come slowly and painfully at her own hands. She always got what she wanted. She was born to be the best, and the best was exactly what she was going to achieve.

A soft chime from her office indicated an important call. These calls were never related to legitimate business matters. Katerina had others to handle that. If a call reached her, it was due to an illicit question that she would prefer to answer herself rather than allow an underling to address.

She left the restroom, noting that her graceful stride was also superior to that of any other woman alive. She pressed her palm to a sensor embedded within her desk and spoke. “Yes?”

The voice that spoke was male, deep, husky, and professional. Boris, her right-hand man. “An American satellite has crashed near Kilimanjaro.”

She frowned. “Yes, I know this. Why are you calling me about it?”

“Because the CIA has sent agents to investigate.”

Katerina raised an eyebrow. That was interesting. It wasn’t common knowledge, but satellites fell from the sky all the time. Usually, they burned up in the atmosphere, but it wasn’t unheard of for remnants to impact the Earth every now and then. It certainly wasn’t the sort of problem the United States’ foreign intelligence service needed to bother itself with.

Unless, of course, there was something on that satellite they considered valuable. Something they were desperate to keep out of the hands of others.

“I see. Do we have any information on the satellite?”

“No. Our contact was only able to confirm that it was American and that field agents from the Executive Operations Team were sent to investigate.”

That was even more interesting. The Executive Operations Team was the most elite CIA paramilitary unit. They were used to address urgent, ultra-high-risk national security threats that other units weren’t capable of handling. Each EOT agent was expected to be able to achieve decisive success when every single metric pointed against them having even the slightest chance of achieving that success.

If the CIA had sent multiple agents from that elite team to look at this downed satellite, then there was definitely something there worth finding.

“Very well. Send a team of Dragons to investigate.”

The Dragons were Katerina’s private intelligence and security force. She was quite proud of them. She had created the unit before her father’s death, when she was still responsible for only a fraction of the empire she now ruled. They were highly trained, extremely capable, and unflinchingly loyal to her and her alone.

“As you wish. One more thing, ma’am.”

“Yes?”

“It appears that the Waswahili Liberation Front may have reached the crash site already.”

Katerina frowned. “May have? Did they or did they not, Boris?”

“I don’t have confirmation, ma’am, but I believe they did.”

“Are they a threat to the Dragons?”

“Some prudence will be required, but no, we shouldn’t have trouble.”

Katerina thought a moment. The Waswahili Liberation Front was known to her. They served as middlemen for certain South Asian cartels, transporting drugs from India and the surrounding nations to distributors in Europe. None of Katerina’s enterprises had ever worked with them, but they had a reputation for ruthlessness, especially toward those of Western ethnicity.

What interest could they have in satellite data, though? Would they even know what to look for or what to do with it if they found it? Or were they working for others? Perhaps it would be better to wait and see what the Front planned before they swooped in and took everything for themselves.

“For the time being, instruct the Dragons to observe and report back to me,” she said. “I’ll decide how to proceed once I have more information.”

“Of course, ma’am.”

Boris hung up without waiting to be dismissed. He alone knew her well enough to know when a conversation was finished without being informed.

Katerina returned to her chair and crossed long, supple legs. The silk skirt she wore fell deliciously around those legs, the design allowing the fabric to reveal just enough to tantalize but not enough to scandalize.

So the CIA was active again. For the past two years, they had been relatively quiet, putting out small fires here and there but in general dialing back on the police work and focusing on long-term intelligence operations. It seemed that this satellite situation was urgent enough to cause them to throw their weight around again.

Perhaps even serious enough to cause him to show his face.

She thought of Zero and the trail of blood he’d left behind next to her father’s body. Perhaps, after so long, she had finally caught a whiff of that scent.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Consciousness snapped back to Trent like a head-on collision with a brick wall. His eyes snapped open, his lungs sucked air in, and after a final stab that burst in his right eye and traveled down his spine, his pain ceased.

He lay on his back and stared up at the night sky. At first, he didn't know why he was there. Then the memories came flooding back, one at a time, but rapidly enough that he felt increasingly dizzy as he recalled everything.

He was in Tanzania. He and Maya were on an assignment to retrieve a data core from a DoD satellite that contained the launch codes for the OWL satellite. They had parachuted from a business jet, crashed into some tall trees, then somewhat uncarefully cut through their parachute and fallen to the ground. They'd trekked through the jungle for a few hundred yards and found the satellite crash site. Then something hit him on the head hard.

He winced and lifted his hand to the right side of his forehead. Sure enough, he had a welt there the size of an apricot. It was sensitive to the touch and dried blood had trickled down his temple and matted the side of his wavy light brown hair a little.

So they had been attacked, and he had been left for dead. As for Maya.

Maya!

He jumped to his feet, and the pain that had receded a moment ago returned, piercing his eye like a red-hot poker.

“God damn it,” he muttered. “Holy shit.”

He leaned against the wreckage for a moment. He must have been more seriously hurt than he thought.

You’ll have to deal with that later. Maya needs you.

He almost tapped his earpiece to call her, but he stopped when he considered his situation. He’d been knocked unconscious and fallen into the crater. He doubted seriously he had managed to fall in just the right way to be completely hidden from view.

He looked around. He doubted even more that his rifle had rolled to a stop, so it rested on its buttstock with the barrel carefully leaned against the satellite's gutted fuselage.

So Maya had moved him. Then she had…

Had what? He doubted like hell she’d leave him. She certainly wouldn’t move him out of the way then leave him.

Unless there was a large force of enemy attackers and she was leading them away, so they didn't find him in a compromising position.

He opened his pack—also conveniently placed nearby-and pulled out his first aid kit. As he dressed his head wound, he thought about his next steps.

Maya had led the attackers away. He didn’t know how long he’d been out, but it must have been a little while because he heard no signs of battle anymore.

The attackers were gone. Maya was gone. If she had beaten them already, then she would call him to see if he was awake. If she was still fighting them, then she wouldn’t be able to answer. If she had fought and lost, then she was either dead somewhere or captured.

In no case was radioing her a wise decision. At best, it would alert the enemy to his own survival. At worst, if Maya was hiding somewhere nursing her own injuries and trying to think of a way back to him, the radio noise might alert the enemy to her position. Their earpieces did a good job of keeping noise to a minimum, but not a perfect job.

And she really would have called him. She knew he was alive because she pulled him out of harm’s way and ensured his equipment was within easy reach. So she intended to come back for him later.

She just hadn’t yet. Was that because she was still engaging with the enemy, or was that because she couldn’t come back for him?

While he waited for his limbs to loosen and his head to stop pounding, he examined the wreckage of the satellite. It had burnt on impact, and possibly prior to impact. Much of the soft metal that formed the heat shields had shattered on impact, and the hard metal behind it had twisted and sometimes melted so that everything was now bent and warped beyond recognition.

More concerning was the absence of anything that looked electronic. No data core. Had the terrorists taken that too?

Who else, dumbass?

He pulled his satellite phone from his pocket. It was one a.m. local time. He couldn’t remember when they had reached the crater, but it couldn’t have been after midnight because they jumped at ten-thirty.

So he had been unconscious for two hours, give or take. That was more than enough time for Maya to defeat the enemy or be defeated by the enemy. She hadn't come back, so that meant that she had been defeated.

He shivered, and not from cold. The fact that Maya had lost didn't necessarily mean that she was dead. She could have made a tactical retreat, and circumstances could just make it difficult for her to get to him. She could have learned something about the data core that necessitated immediate action, even if it meant leaving Trent behind.

But no, she would have at least left him a note or something to let him know she was doing that.

So she was either dead or captured. He hated thinking about it, but he needed to accept it. The risks they took as EOT agents meant it was at least possible that one or both of them would die one day in the line of duty. He hoped desperately that this wasn’t Maya’s day to die, but he couldn’t wring his hands and wait for some fairy godmother to appear and give him the answer.

He needed to move. If the enemy had taken Maya, he could track them and find her.

He gathered his pack and his rifle and started up the side of the crater. His head ached slightly, but not enough to debilitate him anymore. It was slow going climbing the powdery ash surface of the crater, but he managed to reach the top without sliding or falling down.

At the top, one thing became clear. Maya had fought. Several bodies lay on the ground, and none of them were Maya.

Trent examined one of the bodies but found nothing that identified who they were working for. The bodies were all African, but Trent couldn’t immediately tell if they were soldiers, poachers, or rebels of some sort. Their weapons were in good condition but far from cutting edge, and most of them looked to be in average shape. That really didn’t confirm much—after all, Alan Reidigger flirted with fat for most of his career, and he was a certified badass—but it suggested to Trent that they were dealing with an amateur outfit.

A big damned outfit, though. They clearly hadn’t been a match for Maya one on one, but their sheer numbers had been enough to overcome her.

He found a set of footprints smaller than the others. When he shone his flashlight over the prints, he recognized the tread as belonging to a pair of standard-issue Navy combat boots, the type Maya wore.

He followed her tracks into the forest. In several places, the tracks were broken or muddled where Maya had stopped or taken cover before moving on.

The tracks continued for a quarter mile or so into the forest. More bodies were sprinkled along the route where Maya had encountered more of the… the… He was just going to call them terrorists for now.

He reached a small clearing in the forest. Maya’s footprints shifted, and a few other sets muddied them up. He saw no bodies here and no blood either. What he did see was a set of three pairs of footprints walking abreast at the opposite end of the clearing.

Maya’s footprints were in the middle.

So this was where Maya lost. There was a brief skirmish, but then she had been taken and led away, probably bound. Besides her footprints and those of her guards, there were many more. In fact, after a few yards, it was impossible to discern between one set of footprints and another.

The footprints were moving southwest. Trent saw no blood along the route, so he was confident that Maya was still alive.

That encouraged him but terrified him at the same time. None of the plans they could have for her were good.

Guilt filled him for the first time. He sighed and cursed himself inwardly.

You idiot, Trent. Letting some bastard get the drop on you and take you out of the fight before it even began. Yeah, real cool. Look at the badass CIA agent. Gets conked in the head and takes a nap while his partner fights singlehandedly to keep him alive.

His guilt deepened when he thought about what Maya’s father would say if he were here to see it.

Agent Zero was Trent’s hero. He was to Trent what Lebron James was to every little kid who wanted to be a basketball player, what Lionel Messi was to every aspiring soccer star. He was the greatest field agent of all time, a legend more than a man, a warrior whose very name cast terror into the evil hearts of the world.

And he didn’t like Trent. Trent could tell that right away when the two of them met. He had come face to face with the man he wanted to be like more than anything, and that man had looked at him with annoyance, disdain, and distrust.

And he was right to feel that way. Trent had just proven that Agent Zero’s instincts about him were accurate. No way Zero would have been caught snoozing like Trent was. No way he would be sleeping while his partner was struggling for her life. If Zero was here now and knew that Trent had let his daughter be kidnapped because he was smacked in the head once, he would look at Trent and say, “I knew you were worthless.”

No, he wouldn’t say it. He wouldn’t have to. His eyes would communicate it.

Maya’s voice cut through his pity party. You can feel sorry for yourself, or you can stop moaning and do something about it.

He smiled slightly. She had said words to that effect several times when the two of them—and later, with the addition of Maya's younger sister, Sara, the three of them—had been hiding out from a CIA bounty on their heads. Life sucks sometimes, but bitching about it wouldn't change anything.

This sucked. Trent was bitching about it. That wouldn’t change anything.

So, he shouldered his pack and continued to move through the jungle, following Maya’s trail. After a mile or so, he came to a slope that dropped sharply downward. It didn’t seem likely to him that the terrorists had gone straight down the slope. They must have a path somewhere nearby that allowed them to descend with less risk.

He swept his flashlight beam slowly over the ground in front of him, keeping the beam pointed low. He didn’t know how close he was to the terrorists’ compound, but he couldn’t be that far. Even if he was wrong about that, there was always the possibility of patrols in the jungle who could see his light and prepare another ambush.

His first couple of sweeps didn’t reveal anything, but when he pushed a clump of bristle grass aside, he saw a boot print pressed firmly into the mud beyond. He followed that print and soon found…

Nothing. Not a damned thing. No more boot prints. No sign of Maya or any other terrorists. No trampled vegetation or scuff marks on trees that could have indicated where the group had gone. There wasn’t even a clear path.

He cursed and ran his hands through his hair. He had been taught tracking skills, but he'd never had a need to use them in the real world. Of course, they would be necessary now when his inexperience could lead to the death of the woman he loved and the loss of nuclear launch codes.

His eyes hardened. No. He wouldn’t fail. It didn’t matter that the task was impossible. This was the work he’d signed up to do. If Zero was standing in Trent’s position, he wouldn’t focus on how difficult the circumstances were. He’d find a way through.

And that’s what Trent would do.

He shouldered the pack, checked the load on his rifle, and started downward. His fear and guilt faded, replaced by steely resolve. He would rescue Maya. He would prove his worth to himself and to the memory of his father.

Most of all, he would prove his worth to the woman with whom he’d decided to spend the rest of his life.

I’m coming for you, Maya. Just hold on.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Warmth caressed Maya’s cheek. For a fleeting instant, she thought she was back at home, and the East Coast sunrise was filtering through her window and bringing her gently to wakefulness.

Then she remembered the night before. With a groan, she sat up, pressing against the concrete walls of her cell and pulling herself up by the shackles that chained her wrists above her head. Her shoulders ached, likely due to the hours she’d spent hanging from those shackles while she slept. Her wrists were wet and slick, but when she opened her eyes and looked, she was relieved to see that it wasn’t blood that made them that way. Not that the grime that coated the shackles and just about everything else in the cell was particularly wonderful.

Look at that. Your first imprisonment as a CIA agent. Congratulations.

Her first imprisonment as an agent, yes, but far from her first imprisonment, and despite the desperation of her situation, for from the worst, at least so far. She looked around and took stock of her surroundings.

Her cell was a six- by seven-foot concrete block with rusty steel bars forming one wall. A gate was set in the steel bars. From the back, she could only see a plate of steel, but she guessed that plate hid a simple tumbler lock. That didn’t mean it wasn’t robust, but the rust on the bars looked thick.

She looked back at her shackles. Those were more green than red. Rough green scaling coated the surfaces, some sort of limescale. The concrete walls of the cell were covered with more of that green scaling along with a liberal amount of black mold. More mold colonized the concrete floor, and a pungent odor wafted from a mat of fuzzy gray that grew nearly to overflowing out of a pan on one end of the room that had probably served to collect the waste of the previous prisoner. None of this was great to breathe, but she had more pressing things to worry about than a mold infection at the moment.

She looked back through the bars. The cell was located in a corridor that was open on both ends. On either side, she could see terrorists in groups of three to five moving around the compound. From her limited perspective, it was difficult to tell just how big this compound was, but assuming a square shape, it was probably one hundred feet by one hundred feet. Not especially big, especially not for all the men she’d seen the night before. So say longer than it was wide, maybe two or three hundred feet. That would be large enough for a well-equipped compound supporting a group of this size.

She felt a pang as she thought about Trent. He would surely have woken by now, and what would he have done then? What would she have done in his position?

Well, that was easy. She would have tried to find him. She would have looked for his trail and followed it.

The problem was that she didn’t know how far she’d come. She had spent the first couple of hours of their journey conscious, but when her guards tripped and she tried to take advantage of their mistake to escape, the giant man—clearly their leader—had picked her up and slammed her into the ground hard enough to make her nose bleed.

She had passed in and out of consciousness after that. She didn’t know how far they had walked, only that the sun was starting to rise when she was finally dumped into the cell and shackled to the wall.

They couldn't have moved that fast through the jungle. She guessed they had made it maybe ten miles at the most. Trent should be able to cover that distance in five hours, depending on how clear her trail was. More if the trail was obscured or otherwise difficult to follow.

And then what? Say he arrived here. What would he do? He was a damned good fighter, but these odds were beyond him. She’d learned that the hard way last night. Both of them together might have a shot at holding their own, but one of them at a time, and they would simply be overwhelmed.

She feared that wouldn’t stop him. If she was on the outside, and Trent was in here, and she didn’t know what was happening to him, she could see herself coming in guns blazing and risking it all out of fear. Hopefully, he would be smarter than that and take the time to think about a workable plan instead of letting his worry for her cloud his judgment.

Actually, it was a little surprising to her that she was still alive. She had killed close to twenty of the terrorists by her count. If she were a terrorist leader and had finally disarmed and captured someone that dangerous, she would want that person killed immediately.

Of course, she wasn’t a terrorist leader, so she couldn’t expect herself to think like them. Besides, as far as they were concerned, they had her dead to rights. At the moment, she couldn’t disagree.

So perhaps they intended to sell her. Human trafficking was, unfortunately, profitable throughout most of the world, and she wasn’t being arrogant by assuming she would fetch a good price. She had inherited her mother’s natural beauty, and her chosen career had kept her in incredible shape. She had already experienced how desirable some men found her.

Or perhaps they intended to ransom her. That would never work. The CIA would deny any knowledge of her existence, but maybe the terrorists wouldn’t know that.

That could buy her some time. Whether they intended to ransom her or sell her, she had at least a few days to figure a way out of this mess. She could possibly even learn where the data core was and make a plan to retrieve it when she escaped.

As for Trent… She’d just have to hope he didn’t do anything foolish while she found a way out of here. Once she was gone, she could contact him, and…

And God damn it, she had no radio. No earpiece. No enhanced vision glasses. No equipment or weapons of any kind.

She sighed and leaned her head back against the wall. Heat climbed her cheeks, partly from frustration and partly from embarrassment. She had been on assignments before, but she realized now that they had all been softballs, minor jobs meant to give her experience but lacking the kinds of challenges that came with serious intelligence work.

She was very well-trained. Now, for the first time since joining the EOT, she had to look past her training and figure things out on her own.

A few terrorists walked down the hallway toward her, talking amongst themselves. Maya closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep. It was a shot in the dark that she would hear anything worth knowing from a few foot soldiers just passing through, but any shot was worth taking.

Fortunately, the men spoke English rather than Kiswahili. While Kiswahili was rapidly supplanting English as the primary working language of Tanzania, the majority of its inhabitants still spoke English as their first or second language. These men appeared to be complaining about their superior.

“Haki doesn’t give a shit anymore,” one man said. “He’s a Corporal now. He thinks his shit smells like roses.” He followed this up by spitting on the ground.

A second man said, “You don’t think the stories are true, though, do you? About djinni?”

“Do you think the stories are true about your sister?” a third asked. “If so, could you give me her address? It’s been a while since I’ve felt a woman.”

A thump followed this, then laughter. The second man said, “Shut the fuck up, Azaan.”

“Yeah,” the first man agreed. “What do you want a pig like Jabari’s sister for anyway? You have a real woman right there, all tied up and waiting for you.”

I wish you’d try it, Maya thought darkly. I’ll rip that part of you off and shove it down your friend’s throat.

Fortunately for her—or maybe unfortunately—Azaan didn’t seem eager to try it. “No thanks. I actually like my penis. I prefer it attached to my body.”

“Hey!” a fourth voice shouted. “What the hell are you three doing? This isn’t social hour!”

There was some scuffling. Maya kept her eyes closed but guessed that the three men were snapping to attention. “Yes, Haki,” Jabari said, a slight sneer in his voice. “We’re so sorry to offend, sir.”

“Get back to work!” the infamous Haki commanded.

The men shuffled away, muttering to themselves. A few seconds later, a fifth voice spoke. This one was familiar, a deep sonorous basso. “Well done, Haki. You have surprised me. You have the makings of a great leader.”

“Thank you, Commander.”

Maya resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the fawning tone Haki adopted. Of course, the asshole supervisor was a complete sycophant to the boss.

“Follow them. Make sure their work is to my expectations.”

“Of course, Commander. It will be done. I will ensure it.”

Haki stalked off. Maya kept her eyes closed, but she could just imagine his lifted chin and puffed out chest. Like a child trying to impress his father.

Of course, that was how many dictators portrayed themselves. Like a benevolent father who rewarded his children if they made him proud and punished them severely if they disappointed him.

The gate to her cell slid open. She stirred softly, acting as though she’d just woken. She opened her eyes and met the smiling face of the commander.

She returned his smile. “Hello, Commander. It’s so nice to meet you. I gotta say, though, this isn’t the most comfortable guest room. Bit drafty.”

The commander chuckled. “I apologize for that. Perhaps I can find you a room underground where no outside air can reach you.”

Me and my big mouth. “I have a better idea. How about you let me go, give me what you took from the satellite, and I’ll call off the massive military response that is eager to turn your little villa into ash?” Guess I’m still gonna talk big.

The commander knelt in front of her. “The data core, agent. How do we access its information?”

He was fishing, and Maya didn’t intend to give him anything easily. But she could fish too. “Why do you need it?”

He chuckled. “Guess.”

Maya thought about playing stupid, but she got the sense that he wanted to boast. Maybe she could lean into that and get information from him. “You’re a group of freedom fighters hiding in the jungle. This compound is impressive, but I’m guessing you don’t have much in the way of heavy weaponry, nothing that can help you overcome the leaders you’re trying to overthrow. You need money. People would pay a lot of money for the information on that core.”

“Would they? What information is that?”

Instead of answering him, she said, “I imagine you’re on a bit of a timetable too. Now that the word is out, you can’t wait for the U.S. to show up and obliterate you. Which will happen soon.”

“It will have to happen very soon. Our buyers will arrive here in five days. By that time, you will have told me everything you know because you will either have grown smart enough to release that information without pain, or you will have suffered so much that you will do anything to end that suffering.”

Maya hid her excitement. Five days. Now she knew how much time she had. Maybe she could figure out who he was selling to. “Five days? They must be coming from overseas.”

“Don’t worry about that,” he said. “Tell me how to access the data.”

“No.”

He reached forward with a massive hand and caressed her cheek. She flinched away, and his smile widened. He reached closer, cupped her chin, and yanked her head back to face him.

He was still smiling, but his eyes were as dark and hard as obsidian. “Tell me what is on that data core, or I will tie your legs open, cut your clothing off, and let my men take turns.”

Maya chuckled. “I guarantee you there’s nothing you and your men could do to me that others haven’t done worse.”

He sighed and pulled his hand away. “Perhaps we’ve started on the wrong foot. I am Bakari Masai, Commander of the Waswahili Liberation Front. You are Agent Specter of the Central Intelligence Agency. You are here to retrieve the data core that is now in my possession.

Maya tried to hide her shock, but it must have shown on her face. Bakari grinned, revealing twin rows of yellowed teeth. “Yes, I know who you are. You are here to take back what is rightfully yours.”

Maya’s head was reeling at the revelation that her identity had somehow fallen into the hands of these terrorists, but she collected herself and tried for boldness. “I am. And I guarantee you that I’m not the only one coming. When I don’t report back to my superiors, they will send others after you, a lot of others, and they won’t be as nice as I am.”

“You weren’t very nice, though. You killed over twenty of my men.”

“Exactly. Think about how much worse it can get.”

“Hmm.”

Bakari sighed and looked over her shoulder at the wall. He tilted his head as though considering something. Maya saw his shoulders tense and braced herself for the blow to come.

And come it did. His hand moved like a blur, the back of it striking her face with the force of a cast iron skillet. Her ears buzzed, her eyes fluttered, and her head lolled forward on her chest. She breathed harshly, fighting for consciousness. She could feel the swelling begin over her right eye.

“I suggest that you think about how much worse it could get,” Bakari replied. Despite the violence he’d just showed, his voice remained calm. “I wasn’t bluffing about the men. Many of them have never lain with a woman. You are rather ugly, but when a man is desperate, anything female looks beautiful to him. I will give you some time to think better of your actions.” He stood to his full height. “But not much.”

He left the cell. Maya waited until he was gone, then muttered, “Who are you calling ugly?”

For some reason, she found that hilarious. When her laughter finally subsided, that humor faded, though.

She knew a few important things. The data core was here somewhere. The terrorists still couldn’t figure out how to crack into it. They were planning to sell it within five days. They knew her identity. Not her real name, or else he would have boasted that, but they knew her Agency handle. That suggested a mole in the CIA. She’d have to deal with that, but not right now. She needed the data core first.

And she was alive because Commander Bakari believed she could help them access that information. That meant she wouldn’t be killed or tortured so badly that she wasn’t useful to them. She wasn’t ready to say that Bakari’s threats were empty, but she wouldn’t be subjected to anything too severe.

Yet. One thing Bakari said that she was absolutely sure was true was that she didn’t have much time. Just because the Waswahili Liberation Front couldn’t access the satellite’s data didn’t mean their buyers couldn’t.

She had to do more than just escape. She had to escape and find that data core. The safety of the world depended on it.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Zero had made a mistake. A profound one.

At the time, it seemed like a good idea. Taking a helicopter from the Maldives to Africa would cause a commotion. Whoever had captured Maya would notice an aircraft leaving from whatever random location Alan called it from, flying to the Maldives, then dropping him off in the jungle near Kilimanjaro. They would know someone was there to rescue Maya, and there was at least a good chance they would know who that someone was. He thought that making his way to Africa himself would keep his movements quiet long enough for him to get close to Maya before they knew he was back.

So, he sailed to the town and traded everything he owned for a fishing boat. The owner of the boat laughed at first, but when he saw the steel in Zero’s eyes, his laughter faded. He sold Zero the boat, and in return got Zero’s entire island. Zero had no idea what legal claim he did or didn’t have to the island. He wasn’t familiar with how the law worked in the Maldives.

But he didn’t care. The island’s new owner could work that out. All he needed he had taken with him. He had his radio. He had his tools, and he had his only weapon: a combat knife that was the only remaining object he carried from his old life.

And now his new life. Zero wasn’t Agent Zero and had no plans to ever be an agent again, but he was definitely going to be the specter whose name had been whispered in fear among the evil people of the world. He had to be. His daughter needed him.

Except that Zero didn’t think about just how far it was to Africa or the fact that he was sailing to Africa in the middle of cyclone season. His thirty-eight-foot fishing boat was sturdy and in seaworthy condition, but it was very small and very slow, and he was still hundreds of miles from shore when a tropical storm arrived out of nowhere.

Zero was not an experienced boater. As with many things, he had some experience with boating, typically in short-duration emergency situations when it was perfectly acceptable to end his acquaintance with the boat by crashing, capsizing, or otherwise sinking it. And, of course, there was his fishing raft that he'd taken a few hundred yards offshore in calm weather.

But he wasn’t ready for this. He was completely unprepared for the storm and the suddenness with which it arrived. One moment, the storm was an ominous line of dark clouds on the horizon, and the next, it was a raging hurricane with ninety-mile-per-hour winds, torrential rain whipped by those winds into shards of glass that stung his face, and waves that towered twelve feet high and crashed over the deck with enough force to send him sprawling.

Finally, he lashed himself to the wheel of his boat, using makeshift rope he’d constructed from palm fibers and brought with him along with a ration of food and fresh water he’d purchased from the town before leaving the Maldives for good.

He struggled grimly against the hurricane, baring his teeth to the storm and keeping his boat pointed west. He would reach Africa. He would rescue his daughter. He had to. This storm was just another obstacle to overcome, just another hurdle in his way. He was Zero. He was Kent Steele. Damn it, he was Reid Lawson, and his daughter was in danger. No hurricane on Earth was enough to stop him.

Nature, as it had so many times throughout history, cared nothing for Zero’s determination and even less for the flimsy aluminum tub that he trusted to carry him across an angry ocean. The waves grew taller, the wind grew stronger, and the rain beat down, tossing his boat like a child’s toy across the ocean. The vessel somehow managed to remain upright as the hurricane strengthened, but it felt heavier by the second and sunk deeper with each wave.

Zero realized that he was taking on water. Of course he was. Several thousand gallons of water were washing over the boat every ten seconds.

He cursed and cut the ropes from his wrist just in time for the boat to buck underneath his feet and send him flying backwards. He burst through the door that led belowdecks, tumbling down the stairs and landing with a thud and a splash in the boat’s saloon.

He got to his feet, tasting copper and salt in his mouth, and looked around. Water had flooded the saloon a foot deep. Worse, with the noise of the storm somewhat muffled by the deck above, he could hear the choked burble of the engine below. It had been flooded out. It gave a final cough, then died.

He was now stranded and at the mercy of the waves.

Oh yeah. Because you were totally in control of the situation before.

He looked around for the pump control to bail the water from the boat. The man who had sold it to him said it was in the engine room.

The engine room that was now flooded.

Fear struck his heart like a bolt of lightning. He couldn’t die. Not out here. Not like this. Maya needed him.

The boat tilted again. Zero stumbled and struck his head on a bulkhead. Pain shot through him. He winced and growled, pressing his hand to the bruise and gritting his teeth.

The pain centered on him. He was still alive. Until the last of his breaths left his body, he would fight. He sloshed his way through the deepening water to the stairs that led to the engine room, took a deep breath, and dove.

He grabbed the rail and used it to pull himself below, where he ran into another problem. The lights were out, and the engine room was pitch black. He had to feel his way around and hopefully find the pump handle.

And he had to do it quickly. He dove often on his little island, sometimes fishing for mussels and sometimes just enjoying the little reef that surrounded his home. He could hold his breath for four minutes under heavy exertion like this, but four minutes might not be enough time.

Yes, it is. It has to be.

He felt along the walls, kicking off of the ceiling and pulling himself along. His hand touched something warm, and he realized he had reached the engine. Despite being surrounded by frigid seawater, it had overheated, probably from friction as the oil was replaced by saltwater.

Because that’s important right now. Focus!

He turned his mind solely to the pump. If he was at the engine, then he was in the back third of the deck. He tried to recall where the owner had pointed out the pump.

We were near the engine. He was explaining to me how to prime the engine if it stalled. I was impatient and asked if he had an owner’s manual I could read on the way. He told me the manual was written in Dhivehi, and I wouldn’t be able to understand it. I sighed and turned away so he wouldn’t see the frustration in my face. My eyes fell on a red handle sitting near the rear corner of the room to the left of the engine.

The handle's image flashed in Zero's mind. That was it! He needed to get to the left of the engine. He was on the right side now because he had touched the warm engine with his left hand.

His lungs burned. The boat swayed as he pulled himself around to the other side, but the swaying seemed far less than it was before. Had the boat sunk already? Was he only wasting his time trying to pump water from a boat that was already well on its way to the bottom of the ocean?

You have to try. To the utmost of your strength, you have to try.

Zero pulled himself around the engine, ignoring the fire burning in his lungs. He kicked and pulled to the back of the room and felt around for…

There it was! The handle!

He pulled on it, but with no leverage, he only moved his own body. Another surge of fear ran through him. He forced calm and pulled his body so that his legs were bent underneath him. He tried to push the handle upward, but his feet slipped, and he floated toward the ceiling again.

He had too much carbon dioxide in his lungs. It was making him buoyant.

Despite his instincts crying out for him to inhale, he forced himself to push the air out of his lungs. His chest cramped. His diaphragm spasmed, and against his will, he inhaled a small amount of seawater. The acrid liquid seared his already melting respiratory system.

He grunted, pushing the liquid and the last of the air from his lungs. He could see spots forming in his vision. He didn’t have long.

But he wasn’t buoyant anymore. He sank to the floor and was able to brace himself and get good leverage on the handle.

The handle moved slowly, so slowly. Then all at once. Pain shot through his right hand as the sudden motion caused him to wrench his fingers.

But he had succeeded. The pump was working. He could feel the water moving, and when he stepped closer to the wall, he could feel the turbulence the pump caused as it sucked water out of the boat.

Elation filled his heart, but he didn’t have time to celebrate. He had held his breath for far longer than the four minutes he could comfortably hold it. He needed to breathe soon, or he would fall unconscious and drown.

He walked forward, pushing against the current of the water that now tried to pull him backwards. He reached the stairs, grabbed the railing and pulled himself upwards. His arms and legs began to tremble. His fingers lost their strength. His hands began to slip, and the spots in his vision seemed to push deep into his brain.

No! You will not die!

A last bout of strength surged through him. He grabbed the railing firmly and pulled himself up through the water. Just before he reached the saloon deck, his head broke the surface of the water. He drew in a ragged breath, his lungs flaming anew as his body forced him to gulp a copious amount of fresh air. He coughed and shuddered, slipped on the damp but no longer flooded deck, gulped more air, and finally staggered back to his feet.

He raised his hands in joy and tried to laugh. What came out instead was a hoarse cough that sounded like the bark of a sea lion. A few more barks followed at the sound, Zero’s elation at surviving—no, at winning—temporarily overriding his sanity.

But he had won. He had defeated the hurricane. He had saved his boat from sinking. Already, it felt lighter. His engine was no doubt done for, but he had a mast for emergencies, and he could run up the sails when the storm finished and complete his journey to Africa.

He took one more deep breath, then climbed the stairs to the top deck. He cast a fierce grin at the raging storm.

And all of the strength left his body.

The wave approaching his boat had to be forty feet tall. It towered over the vessel like the vengeance of a wrathful god. It was no wonder so many cultures feared and worshipped the ocean. Zero had used every ounce of his strength, and the ocean was about to swat him like a fly anyway.

Tie yourself to the mast. Do it now!

He wasn't sure whose voice was commanding him to do that. It sounded like his own. At the same time, it sounded like Alan's. It also sounded like Maria's. Like Kate's. Like Maya's and Sara's. Like Mischa's. The collective consciousness of all of Zero's memories of his loved ones urged him not to give up, even if his efforts were nothing in the face of a god's fury.

He moved without being fully conscious of it. The command of that collective voice stole his agency and forced him to the mast of his soon-to-be stricken vessel. He found a length of palm rope, miraculously still here and not washed overboard by the storm. He looped the rope around his waist just as the boat began to tilt sideways, lifted by the storm.

As he looped the rope around his wrists, fingers deftly tying a bowline knot, he shouted in defiance at the wave that was now tilting his boat upside down. He felt gravity shift, pulling him first sideways, then upside down. He saw the ocean rush up toward him as the storm god closed its fist.

Then the boat struck the water, and Zero slipped into darkness.

***

A hand slapped Zero’s cheek, lightly at first. He groaned and shifted, his head lolling to the side. The hand slapped him again, more firmly, and he gasped and sat straight up. His hand seized the one slapping him, and he snarled into the face of an African fisherman.

The man recoiled, eyes wide. He tried to pull his hand away, but Zero’s grip was iron. He shouted something Zero couldn’t understand and reached toward his belt for a long fishing knife hanging from a loop.

Zero released the wrist and opened both of his hands in an apologetic gesture. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry. I was startled. I… thank you.”

The man stared at him warily, keeping one hand on the handle of his knife. “Tsy maintsy adala ianao.”

Zero recognized the language as Malagasy, but he didn’t speak a word of it. He lifted his hands and bowed his head slightly. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

The man slowly released his knife. He nodded and asked, “inona no nataonao tao anatin'io tafiotra io?”

Zero didn’t understand what the man was asking, but he answered as best he could. “I need to get to the mainland. Do you understand? Mainland?”

The man looked at him the way a man might look at a homeless man spouting gibberish on a street corner after making the mistake of engaging him in conversation. Two parts pity, one part disgust, and seven parts resignation to his fate. He looked ahead and thrust his chin. “Ho entiko eny amoron-dranomasina ianao. Avy eo ianao irery.”

Zero followed his gaze. Realization sparked in his head with the explosive force of a firecracker.

He was on a fishing boat. Not his fishing boat. That was gone. He looked behind him and saw a splintered section of mast five feet long attached to a portion of the deck about nine feet long. The palm rope lay in pieces around it, cut off of his wrists and waist, probably by one of the long-bladed knives that the man talking to him or one of his three equally wary companions wore on their belts.

The voices in his head had given him good advice. The wave had broken his boat apart, but the portion of the deck to which the mast was anchored had somehow remained upright and kept his head above water until the storm subsided and he was found by this boat.

He looked back in the direction his rescuer had gestured. He assumed the landmass ahead, about ten miles distant, was Madagascar.

He had done it. Somehow, despite everything, he had reached Africa. Not quite mainland Africa and still hundreds of miles from where he needed to be, but much closer than he was the day before.

He looked up at the sky. The sun was high. It blazed down on him with a warmth that was just on the verge of being too hot.

He wasn’t sure what time of night it was when he had gone unconscious. For all he knew, he had been unconscious for days. He was certainly thirsty as though it had been days.

He turned toward his rescuer. “Can I have some water, please?”

The man nodded and called to one of his companions. A moment later, a canteen was thrust into his hands. He drank, forcing himself to take small sips. When he’d had his fill, he handed the canteen back. “Thank you.”

The man gave him a nervous smile, then said something to the others. They laughed and returned to their duties. Zero’s rescuer left him alone, and Zero turned his face toward shore.

He was weak, sore, and dehydrated. But he was alive, and he was coming for his daughter.

Hold on, Maya. Just a little longer.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Todd Strickland knew that the meeting with CIA Director Yolanda Harris was going to suck. He thought that would prepare him for what was to come, but he was wrong.

“How in the name of Jesus Henrietta Christ could your agents have screwed up so badly?”

At five-foot-two, one hundred pounds in a winter coat, and with a voice the same size as her body, Yolanda Harris’s words didn’t exactly thunder across the desk to Todd’s ears, but the fury in her eyes and the authority of her stance made up for her soft, nasal whine.

That and the fact that she could end his career with a snap of her fingers. She wasn’t corrupt either. He had checked. Thoroughly. So he couldn’t use that as an excuse to have her arrested and thrown into the next open cell at Hell Six.

He cleared his throat and tried for professionalism. “We don’t have details yet, ma’am. We believe that our agents were ambushed by a superior enemy force. We further believe that same force absconded with the data core from the DEDALUS satellite and—”

“Gee, really? You think bad guys stole the satellite and kidnapped or killed your agents? Wow. A-plus work, Strickland. Real fucking brilliant.”

So much for that. “Ma’am, this sort of work entails a certain amount of risk. The fact that the risks turned out to be too great is a sign that we need to respond with more resources.”

“I’ll pretend you didn’t just talk to me like I didn’t spend twelve fucking years in the field,” Yolanda said, “and I’ll also remind you that the whole point of sending two of your supposedly elite agents was to avoid making noise. If we send a SOG team after the data core, people are going to find out about it. This is the twenty-first century. Every time a Navy SEAL farts, it’s front-page news.”

Todd didn’t quite follow that analogy, but he decided it was better not to ask. “I understand that, ma’am, but considering the alternative, I don’t think we have a choice.”

"Yeah, no shit, we don't have a choice," Yolanda said.

She started to pace back and forth. heels clicked distractingly on the floor. Todd found the noise off-putting. Or maybe he was just so thrown by everything right now that he was easily put off.

How the hell had Maya and Trent flubbed this so badly? They were still green, but he didn’t think they were this green. Hell, they had held their own alongside him, Alan, and Zero. He had no idea they were going to screw up so badly so quickly.

Granted, he hadn’t sent them on anything besides milk runs so far, but that was only because they hadn’t had anything but milk runs to do for the past two years. And before those past two years, the two of them had evaded the most elite agents of the CIA, including himself for God’s sake. He didn’t expect this to be a walk in the park, but he didn’t expect for his two best prospects to be captured within minutes of landing in Africa.

Yolanda stopped in front of him. She took a deep breath and clasped her hands in front of her face. Todd hated when people did that. That whole exaggerated, This is frustrating, but I’m going to try to control myself to be polite thing, which was really just their way of making it clear how angry they were with you.

He hated her next words even more.

“Burn them.”

He expected her to say that, but it was still a jolt to his system. “What?”

“You heard me. Burn them. Both of them. Specter and Talon.”

And now anger was overriding his professionalism. This had to be the worst rule the CIA had ever created. It was just ridiculous. “Ma’am, you can’t seriously be telling me to disavow my two best agents because of a temporary hiccup in an operation that is far from unsalvageable.”

“I just did.”

The last of his professionalism vanished. “Well, with all due respect, that’s bullshit. They’re worth far too much for me to wash my hands of them just because they couldn’t fix the DoD’s fuckup in time for breakfast. Not to mention the fact that we do have to retrieve that data core, and we do need to bring it back pretty fucking A-S-A-P. So I hear what you’re saying, ma’am, and I am sorry to have to be a pain in your ass so soon into your tenure, but no, I will not burn Specter and Talon.”

Yolanda took another deep breath, then stalked behind her desk. Considering the tone of the conversation so far, Todd wouldn’t have been surprised if she pulled a gun from one of the drawers and put two in his chest.

Instead, she pulled a single page from the top drawer. She walked over to Todd and handed him the paper.

It was an NSA report on a communication intercepted between an unidentified number stateside and an also-unidentified recipient in Tanzania. Todd’s jaw went slack as he read the report.

When she spoke again, she was much calmer. She even seemed to feel bad. “I apologize for not telling you that the NSA was still monitoring all communications from CIA agents, but I think you’ll agree that it’s necessary after reading that report.”

Todd swallowed. His tongue felt thick and furry, and his throat clicked. He loathed the words that left his mouth, but he had no choice but to utter them. “Yes, ma’am.”

"I'm also sorry for what happened to your agents and for what's about to happen to them. It wasn't their fault."

A tongue of anger flamed in Todd’s chest. “Whose fault was it, ma’am?”

Yolanda sighed. “We don’t know that yet. Obviously, you’ll be the first person I talk to when I find out, but in the meantime, the damage is done. Agent Specter’s identity has been given to the Waswahili Liberation Front. While Agent Talon wasn’t mentioned in this communication, we have to assume his identity is compromised as well.”

Todd frowned. “The Waswahili Liberation Front? Why does that sound familiar?”

“They’re ostensibly a nationalistic freedom fighter group, but in practice, most of their business has involved running drugs for the Triads. Before you ask, no, we don’t know why they want the satellite data. We assume they want to sell the information, but we don’t know if they’re working for themselves or on behalf of someone else. We do know that they know who Agent Specter is.”

“But they don’t know who she is,” Todd realized. Hope flooded him. “They only know her call sign. They don’t know her real name.”

“We don’t know that for sure.”

“Oh, come on,” Todd said. “Look at this. Read it. It mentions Agent Specter. It doesn’t say anything about…” He stopped himself. He didn’t know how the mole got Maya’s call sign, but he probably shouldn’t say her name out loud. He doubted like hell Yolanda Harris was the mole, but the mole could have a listening device somewhere in the office that a standard CIA sweep didn’t pick up. He made a mental note to have Penny assign members of her team to sweep the entire headquarters campus.

Yolanda sighed. “Deputy Director Strickland, I order you to immediately and permanently disavow Agents Talon and Specter.”

“What about the data core?” he challenged. “Are we giving up on that?”

“We will handle that. Your team’s involvement in this operation is ceased. Disavow the compromised agents and await further instructions. Am I clear?”

As polar ice and just as cold. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Good.”

She stalked back to her desk and began shuffling papers. Todd decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that she actually needed to look at those papers and didn’t just need him to see her shuffling them around so he could see how unimportant he was compared to her. After all, she did show some remorse, even if it was only briefly.

He got to his feet and left the office without another word. As he walked through the Valley of the Shadow of Death (his name for the executive leadership wing of the Administration building) he noticed surreptitious glances from other bigwigs.

Yeah, yeah, go ahead and look. If I get canned, this won’t be the first time.

His bravado felt a little thin to his own ears, considering his earlier fears for his career.

Penny waited for him in his office. He didn’t bother checking for listening devices. Penny would have done so the moment she entered, and she was far more tech savvy than he.

“How’d it go?” she asked.

He pointed at his face.

“That bad, huh?”

“Worse. They want me to disavow Maya and Trent.”

Penny’s eyes popped open. “What? She can’t do that! That’s horseshit!”

Her English accent grew stronger when she was angry, so shit came out as shite. That somehow made the curse seem stronger to Todd, which made it seem more appropriate.

“Yes,” he agreed. “It is horse shite.”

“You’re not going to do it, are you?”

His shoulders sagged. “I don’t have a choice. If I don’t do it, Yolanda will find out, and then she’ll do it herself and can me.”

Penny’s eyes flashed. “Are we seriously going to have this conversation again? Doing the right thing is more important than following the rules, Todd.”

That hurt worse than anything Yolanda had said, mostly because of the memories Penny brought up. Their relationship had once ended because of Todd’s choice to support the CIA’s campaign against Zero. He believed at the time that it was better to follow the rules. The CIA made mistakes, but going rogue made things worse. He thought he was doing the right thing by following the rules. Penny felt differently. They had fought over it, and Penny had elected to help Zero. Doing so had nearly gotten her killed and had ended—he thought for good—their future. They had reconciled at the end, as had Todd and Zero, when Todd decided to help Zero defeat Mr. Bright and bring the corrupt leaders of the Intelligence Community to justice, but Penny had made it clear that she wasn’t interested in Todd’s explanations for his actions.

“I know,” he told her. “But I have resources now that I won’t have if I’m not in the CIA anymore. Maya and Trent have friends outside of the Agency. I need to be their friend inside. So do you, so please refrain from storming into Yolanda’s office and telling her what a bitch she is.”

He picked up his phone. Penny crossed her arms and cast a venomous look through the door, presumably at Director Harris. “Who are you calling?”

“One of her friends outside the Agency,” Todd replied.

A moment later, a familiar voice answered. “This is Mitch.”

“Not right now. I need this to be Alan.”

“Yeah, no shit it’s Alan,” Alan Reidigger replied. “What the hell’s going on, Todd? Are you really going to burn—”

“We have friends listening,” Trent interrupted, “and I’m no longer confident they can’t hear this line.”

After a brief pause, Alan offered the sage opinion of, “Shit.”

“I very much agree, but listen up. I need your help. Yolanda wants me to disavow Specter and Talon.”

“Yeah, I figured. Let me guess. You’re going to do it because you have no choice, and you can’t treat them any differently because they’re your friends, and yadda yadda—”

“Alan, shut up and listen! I’m going to delay this disavowal as long as I possibly can. In the meantime, I’m going to get them home, and you’re going to help me.”

Alan blinked. “Well... Okay. I didn’t expect that.”

Todd frowned. Something about the way Alan said that sounded odd. “What do you mean you  didn’t expect it?”

“I just mean… You’re so by the book…”

Todd’s eyes narrowed. “What’s going on, Alan? What did you do?”

“I’ll tell you later,” Alan said. “Tell me what you need from me.”

Todd shared a look with Penny. She lifted her hands, and he sighed. Something was going on, and Todd really hated to be left out of the loop, but he’d have to deal with that later. His agents’ window of opportunity was closing fast, and certain things needed to happen quickly or that window would shut and never open again.

“Okay, Alan. Here’s what I need.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Maya grunted as Bakari’s fist slammed into her midsection. She gritted her teeth, struggling to keep from revealing how much the blow hurt, but she couldn’t help herself. She released a soft, keening cry and her legs collapsed.

The two guards holding her—Azaan and Jabiri—laughed wickedly and held her upright. Bakari lifted her face, studied the defiance there, then drew his hand back and backhanded her hard. She grunted again, then moaned. Her head spun, and her ears rang. She felt the thud as her body hit the ground, but she was too close to unconsciousness to feel pain.

A hand tangled in her hair, almost gently. There was nothing gentle about the way it lifted her off the ground. She hissed, and though she came back to alertness, it was only to feel every nerve ending in her body scream in agony.

“Is this worth it?” Bakari said. “I assure you, I haven’t hurt you nearly as much as I can. You remember my earlier warning, yes?”

Maya’s first instinct was to tell him to do his worst, but she had a feeling he would do exactly that if pushed, so she stayed silent. Bakari sighed. Then he drove another fist into her midsection.

She threw up. She couldn’t stop herself. Her body had lost control of itself. Bakari dropped her in the filth. “I’ll allow you another chance, agent, but my patience is running thin. I’m beginning to think we should cut parts of you off until you start talking.”

He waited for Maya to say something. She didn’t, but the soft moan that escaped her lips seemed to satisfy him. He turned to leave. Jabiri stepped on the back of her head as he followed, grinding his face into the concrete with his weight. She hissed again and coughed, then breathed heavily as her body tried to recover from the damage it had taken.

Azaan shackled her back to the wall. He lifted Maya’s face to his and grinned. “Good. Still pretty.”

He caressed her cheek, and she flinched away. He laughed and followed his fellows.

As beatings went, this wasn’t the most debilitating one in the long term. She didn’t feel like she was bleeding internally, and nothing was broken.

But God, it hurt. And if she didn’t give them answers soon, things would start breaking. She needed to think of a solution before then.

If only Trent would show up. She smiled slightly, thinking of him bursting into the compound and rescuing her like a knight in shining armor. It wasn’t so much for her sake that she imagined this. She just wanted to see him to know that he was alive, to know that he had survived and the two of them still had a chance to get out of here alive.

But she couldn’t wait for him. She needed to break out of this prison and find the data core before it was too late. Once she had that, she could look for Trent. She could be his knight in shining armor.

She laughed at that, but it ended in a sob. Sure you still want to be a secret agent, Maya?

The answer to that was easy enough. She did. She absolutely did. It gave her a chance to stop people like Bakari.

And she would stop them. They thought they had beaten Agent Specter. They would learn soon enough that they were wrong.

***

Alan got off of the phone with Todd and rubbed his eyes. "Christ on a pogo stick. Of course, Todd would pick now to start being something other than a smarmy prick."

He knew that wasn’t fair. Todd was in a tough spot. And Alan had to admit—grudgingly—that sometimes sticking a middle finger into the face of CIA leadership did more harm than good.

Alan sighed and reached for his phone to make some phone calls. His contacts in South Africa were giving him some flak about helping him in Tanzania. Apparently, regional tensions were rising to the point that South Africa was restricting movement between the two nations. It didn't help that Alan couldn't be honest about who they were helping and why.

He made a mental note to find better friends in that region. What use were resources when they couldn’t be called upon when they were needed?

He dialed the number of his last contact in the region, but just before he pressed the call button, his radio buzzed.

“Alan?”

"Oh, thank God," Alan said. "Zero, where are you?"

“I’m in Madagascar.”

“Madagascar? I thought you were going to Tanzania.”

“No,” Zero replied. “I’ll tell you the full story later. Right now, I need you to get me supplies and transportation. Do you know exactly where Maya is?”

Alan slipped to the forefront. The former EOT agent sat back in his chair and said, “No. I know she was taken in the vicinity of Mount Kilimanjaro, but where she went after that, I can only speculate.”

“Do you know who took her?”

“Yes. I just talked to Todd. Director Harris just told him that a mole in the CIA sold her call sign, role, and mission to the Waswahili Liberation Front.”

“A mole?”

“Looks that way.”

Zero was quiet for a long moment. “That explains a lot.”

“Todd’s going to work on the mole,” Alan said. “And it’s actually good that you’re in Madagascar, because getting supplies to Tanzania is turning out to be problematic. I’ll have an easier time sending help to Madagascar.”

“All right. What can you tell me about the Waswahili Liberation Front?”

Alan tapped a few keys and brought up the rap sheet Baraf had given him. Vicente Baraf was a Director at Interpol and a good friend of Alan’s and Zero’s from back in the day. God, are we that old?

The Mitch side of his personality immediately replied, I hope not. Two good kids are relying on you.

“Yeah, I know.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” Alan glanced at the sheet and said, “The Waswahili Liberation Front is supposedly a freedom fighter group in the Swahili diaspora. They’re primarily active in Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda, but I use the term active loosely, at least in the freedom fighter sense. Most of their operations seem to revolve around running drugs for the Triads.”

“Which Triads?”

“Couple of mid-level outfits based in Sri Lanka, but I don’t think the Triads are behind this. In fact, I don’t think the Triads are even aware of what the Liberation Front is doing.”

“So what are they doing?”

“Well, the op Maya and Trent were on was a retrieval mission. A DoD satellite went down, but not just any satellite. This satellite contained the launch codes for an orbital weapons station that contains enough nuclear firepower to turn the eastern half of the United States into glass.”

“Jesus. And this is now in the hands of drug runners?”

“Looks that way.”

“And once again, there’s a mole in the CIA that had the ability to sell out my daughter’s identity to these people, and they don’t see the problem with giving terrorists access to nuclear weapons.”

There was an edge to Zero's voice. Alan was glad to hear that, even if the circumstances that brought it out were shitty. "Yep. Just like old times."

Zero sighed. “All right. Well, the first priority is getting Maya out of there. We can deal with the CIA mole later.”

Alan smiled. “Does this mean you’re coming back?”

“One step at a time, Alan. I’m going to rescue my daughter. I’m also going to stop these terrorists from using those launch codes.”

“To be clear, Todd’s pretty sure they plan to sell those codes, not use them.”

Zero sighed again. “Well, damn it. It can never be easy, can it?”

“Not for us, muchacho. They call us for the hard jobs.”

“They’re not supposed to call us anymore.”

Alan’s smile faded. “Well, they called Maya and Trent. So that means we’re involved whether we want to be or not.”

Zero must have picked up on the edge in Alan’s voice because he sounded guilty when he said, “Yes. You’re right. I’ll get her home, Alan. You have my word.”

“Them.”

“What?”

“Them home. Maya and Trent.”

Zero paused for a moment. “Right.”

“He’s a good kid, Zero. He makes Maya happy, and he’s good with Mischa.”

“I said all right.”

“You said right, not all right.”

Alan could imagine Zero rolling his eyes during the brief pause. “I’ll bring them home, Alan. But I need weapons, equipment, and transportation. How soon can you arrange that?”

“It’ll be faster if you take a detour to South Africa.”

“Fine. Just tell me where to go.”

“Get to Richards Bay. It’s a little port town on the east coast of South Africa. I’ll have my guy meet you there.”

“I will. Will I be able to contact you if I need you?”

“Yes. Penny set up this radio for me. I’ll bet my life that there’s no mole or NSA anywhere that can listen in on us.”

“You’re betting my daughter’s life. Are you willing to do that?”

"Yes. Also, your son-in-law's life."

“They’re married?”

Alan chuckled at the discomfiture in his old friend’s voice. “In all but name.”

“Jesus.”

“Give him a chance, Zero. He’s a good kid.”

“You’ve said that. All right. I’ll get to Richards Bay. How will I recognize your man?”

“He’ll find you.”

“I don’t look the same as I did when I left, Alan.”

Alan resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Zero was still as dramatic as ever. "Tanner, skinnier, and more facial hair?"

A brief pause. “Yes.”

“He’ll find you. We’ve got this, buddy.” He hesitated a moment, then added, “It’s good to hear your voice, Reid.”

“Yes,” Reid replied. “You too, Alan.”

He hung up, and Alan pumped his fist again. He picked up his cell phone and dialed the number again. For the first time since receiving Maya’s distress call, Alan was confident that she’d come home safely.

And if it was already too late for her, then it was too late for the Waswahili Liberation Front and too late for whatever asshole in the CIA thought it was a good idea to sell her out.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“That’s what you said two days ago!” Sara shouted into the phone.

“I know, I know,” Alan replied. “Look, I didn’t know she was going to go this far with it.”

Sara ran her hands through her hair and looked through the kitchen window at the house Maya, Mischa, and Trent shared. This was the second day she had called in sick from her jobs and from school. This was the second day her younger sister hadn’t returned home after going on whatever extracurricular activity Alan had allowed her to pursue.

“She’s not answering her phone either, Alan.”

“I know that too. She’s not answering me either.”

“Well, that’s a fucking problem! How do you know she’s not hurt?”

Alan paused a moment, then said, “Seriously?”

Sara closed her eyes and pushed air through her nose. "Alan, I get that she's a badass, but she's also fifteen years old. Tell me where she is now, or tell me you don't know so I can go look for her."

“No, don’t do that,” Alan said sharply. In a softer voice, he added, “She’s in Baltimore.”

“Baltimore? What the hell is she doing there?”

Alan hesitated again. Then he sighed. “Oh, kid. You don’t want to be involved in this.”

“Alan—”

“She’s going after traffickers, Sara.”

Sara’s legs turned to jelly. She half-stumbled to the couch and lowered herself onto the cushion. A thousand horrible memories crossed her mind.

His foul breath wafted across her nose, but in her drugged state, Sara couldn’t scream. The moan she released instead gave her captor the wrong idea.

“That’s right, little girl,” he crooned, sliding his fingertips over her thigh. “You’re going to love every second of this.”

“Sara? Are you there?”

“I’m here,” she replied tonelessly.

“She can handle herself. I know you and Maya went through some terrible things, but Mischa’s different. Not that there’s anything wrong with you. I just mean—”

“I get it,” she said curtly, rubbing her temples. “You don’t want me going after her because you’re afraid I’ll lose control and make the situation worse than it needs to be.”

Alan hesitated once more, only briefly. “Yes.”

Sara nodded, then took a deep breath. “Okay.”

Alan seemed surprised. “Okay?”

Sara lifted her left hand—the one not holding the cell phone—and let it fall to her lap. “Okay. I won’t go after her. It’s not like she’d listen to me anyway. My older sister is missing in Africa, and my younger sister is hunting people whose job it is to kidnap girls her age and sell them into sexual slavery, and if I get involved in either situation, I’ll make things worse.”

“Sara—”

“Just…” She lifted her left hand to her face, then closed her fingers into a fist. “Just don’t, Alan. I’ll stay here. I’ll wait for her. I’ll trust you that she’s good enough to handle the men she’s trying to punish. And if you turn out to be right, and she comes home, then you and I are good. Okay?”

Left unspoken was the fact that if Mischa didn’t come home or came home in any state other than “good,” she and Alan wouldn’t be okay.

“Okay. Look, I’m only an hour away. If you want me to bring you anything or just keep you company—”

“I want you to keep an eye on my sisters, Alan. I want you to make sure they come home alive. Do that, and we can grab dinner and a movie later.”

“Okay. Sure.” He paused a moment, then added, “I love you guys. I haven’t said that before, but I do. I hope you know that.”

Sara sighed. “I know. I just… I guess this is why I’m not in this life anymore. The only thing that keeps me from being a nervous wreck in situations like this is drugs, and I’m not going back to that.”

“No, you shouldn’t. And I’m sorry. Believe me, there are days I wish everyone I loved had a normal career, and I could just tinker with cars and never worry about anything but bills.”

She smiled slightly. “But we don’t get to have that. That’s the price we pay for being in a family of superheroes.”

“Yep. Two normal people stuck in a tribe of freaks.”

She giggled. “Yep. That’s us.”

“I’ll call you later, kid. Be safe.”

“I will. Thank you.”

He hung up, and Sara took a deep breath. She would follow Alan’s instructions for the most part, but there was one request he’d made that she could no longer keep. They were family, and family didn’t hide things from each other, not even to keep them safe. That was one lesson she’d learned from her father’s mistakes.

So she picked up her phone and sent Mischa a text. She didn’t know if Mischa would respond or even read it, but she sent it anyway. It didn’t ease her fear much, but it relieved some of her guilt. Right now, she needed at least that much.

***

Mischa crouched on a rooftop and watched the two men lead the young woman into a warehouse near the harbor. Her upper lip curled in a sneer. What pathetic dogs. How weak did you need to be to sell women? Was that seriously the only way they could get attention from girls?

She had tracked the traffickers from the shoe store in Arlington to this warehouse in Baltimore. Her informant was correct about the transfer but not correct about the date. The transfer was happening tonight, and it was happening here in Baltimore, not in Arlington.

Mischa could have taken the traffickers out back in Arlington, but then she wouldn’t have had a chance to rescue these women. She didn’t know where they were before being brought here. Others would have come for them, and it would be too late for anyone to save them.

So, she would rescue them and take the traffickers out all at the same time. Tonight would be a good night.

She pulled out her cell phone and took pictures of the three of them, the warehouse, the lot around it, and the vehicles parked in that lot. The pictures automatically backed up to a private folder encrypted with software she had stolen from Penny. It was unfortunate that Mischa had to lie to people she considered family, but despite their experience with her, they still treated her like a normal child sometimes.

She was about to put the phone in her pocket when it buzzed. A text from Sara.

Actual guilt flitted through Mischa’s mind when she saw that number. She had ignored Sara’s calls because she didn’t want her older sister to try to help her. Sara had suffered greatly at the hands of men like these, and while Mischa trusted Sara’s combat ability, she didn’t trust her judgment when it came to this. Dismantling a human trafficking ring required a cool head, and after what Sara had suffered, she couldn’t have one in this situation.

She read the text. Mischa, it’s Sara. I know what you’re doing. I’m not going to follow you. I’m not going to try to stop you, and I’m not going to try to help you. I don’t agree with you going by yourself to stop these men, even if you are you, but I won’t get in your way.

I just want you to know something, and since you won’t answer your phone, I’m going to text it to you. Maya’s in trouble. Her op went sideways, and now she’s missing in Tanzania. Alan’s trying to find her and get her out of there, but no one knows where she is right now.

Alan didn’t want me to tell you because he’s afraid you’ll go by yourself to find her. I hope you won’t. I know you’re a good fighter, but you don’t have the training to gather the intelligence you need to find her. But you need to know. I don’t want you to find out about this from someone who isn’t family. Please don’t be mad at Alan. He’s only trying to keep you safe.

PLEASE be safe. I love you so much. Sara.

Mischa’s blood boiled as she read that message. If Sara knew what Mischa was doing, then someone must have told her. Maya didn’t know, or Maya would have tried to stop her long ago. For that matter, Sara would have told Maya. Hell, she probably would tell Maya when Maya got home.

So Alan must have told her. Which meant Alan knew. Which meant Alan had been watching her.

Her anger faded. Of course, he was watching her. Father asked him to. He was watching Maya, too. That's how he knew that she was in trouble.

Her blood boiled again. Why hadn’t he told her? Sara was right. She needed to know if her older sister was in danger. It wasn’t Alan’s right to decide what she needed to know. Yes, she would have wanted to go after Maya, but it wasn’t Alan’s right to tell her she couldn’t do that either.

She looked down at the warehouse. The woman and the two men were inside now. She looked back at her phone and bit her lip.

Maya was in danger. Whatever Alan’s or Sara’s mistrust, Mischa could help. She wasn't just an assassin. She was a spy and a good one.

But so was Maya. Maya was as good as Father was, probably better than he was at the end when age and injuries slowed his body. It was frightening to be on the outside and not know exactly where she was or what was happening to her, but she could handle herself.

The woman in that warehouse—or women, probably—couldn’t. They were helpless.

Mischa put her cell phone in her pocket. After a moment, she pulled it out and texted Sara again. I love you too. I will be home soon.

She touched the DO NOT DISTURB button and put the phone in her pocket. She would free these women and gather the intelligence she needed. She would then go home to keep Sara company and to wait and see if Maya needed her. She could act on the information she gathered once Maya was home safe.

She jumped from the rooftop and pushed herself from wall to wall as she descended to the ground. She landed softly and sprinted toward the warehouse, drawing her knife as she did so. The warehouse was poorly protected, as places like this often were. She vaulted over the eight-foot chain link fence and landed as softly as a cat on the other side.

There was one guard protecting the entrance. He caught sight of her just in time for his eyes to widen before her knife severed his voicebox along with his windpipe, both jugular veins, and both carotid arteries.

She didn’t wait to watch him die. She ran into the entrance and straight for two other men with guns tucked into their waistbands. There was little need for stealth here. These men were simple thugs, brutish and stupid.

They turned toward her. One of them reached for his gun. The other widened his eyes and said, “What the—”

She assumed either the word hell or the word fuck was meant to follow those two. She wasn’t sure if she believed in hell, but the man who uttered that sentence would surely never fuck again.

The man reaching for his gun cursed. She allowed him to draw the weapon, then shoved her knife through his arm, severing the radial nerve. His fingers relaxed, and she caught the gun as it dropped.

She fired two shots, one through the head of another man on the opposite side of the warehouse and one through the base of the final man’s spine. Both men dropped, but only one man remained alive to scream.

The man with her knife in his arm punched her. It was a horrible blow, poorly aimed and thrown with the bicep rather than the hip. She released her knife, slipped the blow, and slid behind him. As her hands wrapped around his head—one under his chin, one on the crown of his head—he cried out, “No, please!”

She allowed herself to hesitate just one moment. She pressed her lips to his ear and hissed, “Did you stop when those women begged?”

Before he could reply, she twisted viciously. There was a wet snap like the crack of a glowstick. Then he fell.

Mischa walked to the screaming man, who was trying to drag himself to the door. His useless legs trailed behind him. The women held here gasped and murmured to themselves. Mischa heard one exclaim, “She’s just a kid!”

She reached the brand-new paraplegic and flipped him onto his back. He snarled and tried to stab her with a switchblade he had hidden under his right hand. She caught his wrist and twisted sharply. She felt several ligaments tear as the knife fell from his grasp.

She kicked it away and planted her knee on his throat to stifle his fresh screams. His eyes bugged out, and he tried to push her off of him, but he had only one working limb, and she knew how to make her one hundred pounds of weight feel thrice as heavy. She waited until his efforts grew desperate, then lifted her knee just enough to allow him the tiniest of breaths.

“If you answer my questions, I will let you live. If you don’t, I will kill you.”

The man stilled. She stood, and he coughed and croaked, “Who are you? What are you?”

“Neither answer is of consequence,” she replied. “Who do you work for?”

“Fuck—Ahh! God!”

The cry came when she dislocated his other wrist. “That is your one warning,” she told him. “Answer me, or I will snap your neck next.”

“God. Ti jebena đavolja pičko.”

She recognized the language as Bosnian. A childish insult. She sighed and lifted his head almost tenderly. His eyes flew open. “No! No, please! I’ll talk!”

“So talk.”

“The Confederacy. I work for the Bosnian Confederacy. Okay?” His face twisted in an ugly snarl. “And they’ll kill you for—”

She twisted. His body jumped, then fell still.

She got to her feet and walked toward the women. Several of them shrank away as she cut through their bonds. That was all right. It was a natural reaction, especially after what they had witnessed.

"I have freed you," she said when she released the last one. "Call the police. Do not tell them that I rescued you, or I will be unable to continue my work. Tell them that a male assassin did this, but you could not see his face or any identifying features."

“We don’t have our phones,” one of the women said. “We don’t know where they took them.”

“Use one of theirs,” Mischa said. “Good luck.”

She turned around, and another of the women called to her. “Wait! Who are you?”

She turned back to them and smiled softly. “I’m a sparrow.”

She left the way she came. When she was a mile from the warehouse, she discarded her bloody jacket in a bus stop trash can, then walked another mile to a different bus stop. While she waited, she texted Sara that she was on her way home.

She lifted her eyes to the darkening sky and smiled. It was so good to be using her talent to make a difference in the world.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“Machame is that little village over there. You’ll find Andwele there.”

So saying, Wikus Bakker—Alan’s contact—touched the helicopter down. He sighed with relief and said, “There. This is where we part ways.”

Zero regarded the pilot. Wikus Bakker was a nervous, ferrety fellow, and his ashy skin and rheumy eyes made Zero suspect that Alan’s contact was a drug addict, but he had given Zero equipment, and he had transported him here. “Thank you.”

“Right. Of course.”

Wikus glanced nervously over his shoulder, and Zero obliged him and left the helicopter. It lifted into the air immediately and accelerated south.

There was a part of Zero—small but growing bigger by the moment—that was excited to be back in the game. He was afraid for Maya, yes, but the old feeling—the one that had kept Kent Steele in the game for years past what should have been the end of his prime, the one that had brought him back when he remembered that he was more than Reid Lawson—was coming back.

The man now wearing cargo pants, a military vest, combat boots, and body armor and carrying a G38 carbine and a Beretta 92X handgun was no longer the Fisherman. He was the name whispered in the dark, the bane of terrorist and traitor alike, the ghost that haunted evil men around the globe.

He was Zero, and he was coming to rescue his daughter.

According to Wikus, Machame was a popular spot for seasoned hikers who wanted to avoid the crush of the more well-known Kilimanjaro base camps. It was also a popular place for the Waswahili Liberation Front to launder some of the money they earned transporting heroin for the Triads.

Zero had elected to begin his journey there rather than try to search across the thirty square miles of land that Alan had identified as Maya’s possible location. He was good at finding hidden places, but he was better at convincing people to tell him what he wanted to know.

The man he wanted to see, according to Wikus, was Andwele Joseph, the proprietor of the Machame Tour Agency. He could be found during normal business hours inside the building that bore the company’s name. Outside of business hours, he could be found outside of the village meeting with representatives of the Liberation Front.

Zero would reach the village at the end of business hours. Perfect timing as far as he was concerned.

He carried his carbine under his vest with the stock folded and the magazine removed and stored in his pack. He didn’t think he’d need the carbine yet, and he wanted to avoid starting a panic. As it was, he got a few odd looks from people as he walked through the village, but their expressions suggested they thought him an amateur climber who thought his tactical gear made him better equipped for Kilimanjaro somehow.

The Machame Tour Agency was located in an earth brick building near the center of town. It was one of only a few brick buildings, the rest being prefabricated huts made of corrugated steel. Andwele Joseph was doing well for himself.

He walked in right at six o’clock. The man behind the counter looked up and smiled apologetically. “Welcome, friend,” he said in accented English. “I am afraid we are closed today. Besides, you don’t want to start your hike at night. Come back in the morning, and we will get you a guide and some…”

His voice trailed off when Zero drew his gun and laid it on the counter, shielding it from the windows with his body. “Keep smiling,” he told the alarmed man. “Signal anyone in here or outside, and I will kill you. I need to speak with Andwele Joseph.”

The way the man flinched told Zero that he was already speaking with Andwele Joseph. The man tried to lie anyway. “He is not here, I’m afraid. If you leave me a message, I can—”

Zero’s hand shot forward, grabbed a fistful of Joseph’s collar and yanked the man forward. “Keep smiling,” he whispered, maintaining an easy grin of his own. “If anyone comes in here, I will kill you.”

Joseph swallowed and nodded. His smile looked more like a rictus, but Zero decided to give him credit for trying.

“Get up and walk to the back room. I have a handgun on you, remember, so don’t try anything foolish. Will there be other men inside when we enter?”

Joseph shook his head. “No, they don’t come until later.”

He wasn’t trying to hide the fact that he dealt with the Liberation Front. That was good. “If they interrupt us—”

“They won’t,” Joseph promised. “If you are quick, then they won’t.”

“I shouldn’t be long,” Zero said. “Move.”

Joseph got to his feet and walked slowly to the back door. He paused with his hand on the handle, but when Zero pulled the Beretta’s hammer back, he gave up whatever foolish thought had come to his head.

He opened the door, and Zero followed him through. As soon as the door closed behind him, Zero drove his knee into Joseph’s back. The man cried out and fell to the floor. He rolled over and stared at Zero in utter terror, backpedaling until he was pressed against the front of a cheap desk made of particle board and plywood.

Zero looked around the room. Aside from the desk, the twenty- by thirty-foot space consisted of shelves stacked high with wooden crates. Zero had a feeling he could guess what those crates held.

“Please,” Joseph said. “I have money. Two hundred thousand dollars. I can give it to you if you let me live.”

“I don’t want your money,” Zero said. “I want information. Give that to me, and I will not only let you live, but I won’t turn you over to the authorities.”

Joseph blinked. “Okay.”

Zero didn’t mince words. “The Waswahili Liberation Front has something very important to me. Tell me where I can find their compound.”

Joseph blinked again. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Zero sighed. He holstered his Beretta and drew his knife instead. Joseph’s eyes popped open as wide as saucers. “I don’t! I swear it!”

Zero crouched low. Joseph squealed and tried to back away. Zero’s fist shot out, catching him squarely on his jaw. His head slammed into the desk, then lolled over his chest. Zero slapped his cheek lightly. “Hey, hey, wake up.”

Joseph stiffened, then looked at Zero and whimpered.

“Joseph,” Zero said, “there are circumstances when I can be a patient man. This is not one of those circumstances. I will get the information I need from you. The only question is how much of you do I have to cut off first.” He planted his forearms on his knees and let the knife dangle in between Joseph’s thighs. “And where do I start.”

Joseph shuddered. His eyes followed the tip of the knife like a mouse watching a snake. “They’ll kill me if I tell you anything.”

“I’ll kill you,” Zero reminded him. “Right now. If you talk to me, you might have time to flee. You can drive to Moshi and take the train to Dar es Salaam. Then you can take a flight or a boat anywhere in the world. I doubt like hell the Liberation Front will be able to find you, and I doubt even more that the Triads will care to expend the effort. But you will talk.”

Joseph swallowed. He muttered something in a language Zero didn’t recognize—Swahili, probably—then said, “Okay. The Liberation Front has a compound on the north side of the mountain, away from the climbing routes.”

“Where exactly?”

“I don’t know the coordinates. I know it is five miles from the border with Kenya and fifteen miles west of Endoinet. That’s all I know.”

Zero didn’t know where Endoinet was, but he could figure out easily enough. Among the equipment he had obtained from Wikus was a satellite phone. “Describe the compound.”

Joseph blinked. “What?”

“The compound. Describe it. How many buildings? How many people? What is the terrain like? What armaments do they have? Do they have vehicles?”

"No, no vehicles. The compound is at the foot of a valley surrounded by steep slopes with thick vegetation. I don't know how many people. Eighty? A hundred? And they all have rifles. I assume grenades and rocket launchers, too."

“Buildings?”

“Just one. A big one. Almost the size of a soccer pitch. I think it used to be a military outpost.”

“How many floors?”

Joseph frowned. “Floors?”

“Stories. How tall is it?”

“Oh. Two stories.”

Zero nodded. He stood and holstered his knife. “I will remember your face, Andwele Joseph. If I run into trouble because of what happens after I leave you, I will find you, and I will take my revenge. Do you understand?”

Joseph gulped and nodded.

“Good.”

Zero left through the front door, keeping his posture relaxed. He checked his satellite phone and determined a one-kilometer-square region that fit with Joseph’s descriptors.

He frowned. Getting to it would be treacherous, and night was beginning to fall.

A kernel of doubt sprouted in his mind. He had handled Joseph easily enough, but the man was unarmed and far from a threat. What would happen when he faced armed men who outnumbered him by an unholy ratio after a miles-long forced march through mountainous jungle terrain? Zero’s hips were already slightly sore from his trek to the village.

He looked at his arms and frowned. The muscles there were hard and wiry, but smaller than they were before his “death.” His earlier conceit about being stronger than he was before he left was just that: a conceit. The knife and pistol had felt comfortable and familiar in his hands, but he hadn’t used a knife in anger in years, and he hadn’t so much as seen a firearm during that time. Was he really up to the task of rescuing Maya from terrorists?

You have to be. There’s no other option.

The voice in his head was that of Kent Steele, the Agent Zero who had been the CIA’s greatest weapon for years before dropping the Agent moniker and fighting to expose traitors within the agency.

And Kent was right. Zero had to be good enough. Rusty and out of shape or not, he had to be good enough to defeat the Waswahili Liberation Front. Maya was counting on it. The world was counting on it.

Once more into the maelstrom, I go.

He pressed his lips together and started toward the mountain.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Mia watched Azaan glance down both sides of the hallway. He saw no one there. He grinned and approached Maya’s cell, licking his lips. The keys jangled on his hips.

Okay, Maya thought. That works too.

She had planned to break out during the guard change, but if Azaan wanted to make it easier for her, she didn’t have a problem with that. She was still sore from the beating she’d endured the day before, but she wasn’t so sore that she couldn’t make quick work of a brute like Azaan.

It had been two days since she was taken. Trent hadn't arrived. That meant she had either greatly misjudged the distance her captors had traveled after taking her, or Trent had never woken up. She felt all of the emotions associated with that raging underneath the surface, but she kept them underneath the surface. She could feel grief later. Right now, she has work to do.

“Hey there, pretty girl,” Azaan said, unlocking her cell door. “You look lonely.”

She resisted the urge to say something sarcastic. She needed him close in order for her plan to work, and she didn’t want to change his mind and make him decide to kick her instead.

“Don’t worry,” Azaan said, closing the door carefully. “We’re going to have great fun, you and I. Be quiet, though. I don’t want the others to hear you.”

Neither do I.

She kicked herself away from him as he approached, but made herself look weak, struggling impotently against the shackles. “No,” she whispered. “Please.”

He crouched low and put his hand over her mouth. “Quiet!” he hissed. “Or I will cut you!”

He pulled a knife from his pocket and held it in front of her eye. My, what a helpful boy you are, Azaan.

He set the knife next to her and reached for his belt, keeping his other hand over her mouth. She resisted the urge to grin under his touch and tensed her shoulders, preparing to yank the shackles from the wall. She had worked the bolts loose over the past two days, stripping the concrete little by little until it was now only barely strong enough to remain in place.

He began to push his pants down. She waited until they were at his knees and would restrict his mobility the most. Then—

“Azaan! What the hell are you doing?”

Azaan leaped off of her like a cat, jumping at the sight of a mouse. He stared in horror at Haki and Jabari as the two men strode toward the cell. Haki looked furious. Jabari stifled laughter.

Maya tried not to roll her eyes. So much for that. Plan A it is.

Azaan scrambled to his feet, pulling his pants up with one hand and warding off his enraged corporal with the other. Haki threw the door open and backhanded him sharply. Azaan cried out and fell to the ground, blubbering like the weakling he was.

Even though Maya wasn’t worried about his pathetic assault, she still felt a touch of satisfaction at seeing the would-be rapist weeping on the ground. “She… She seduced me! She must have cast a spell on me! She’s a witch!”

Haki kicked him in the ribs, hard. Azaan squeaked and curled into a fetal position. Jabari hid his laughter behind a coughing fit.

“You pathetic fool,” Haki sneered. “Disgusting.”

Maya would have loved to watch the rest of this rebuke, but all three men were looking away from her. If she was going to make a move, now was the time.

She yanked the shackles from the wall and rolled over, grabbing the knife and getting to her feet. The men turned, frowning in confusion.

Jabari was the closest, so he was the first one to die. She jammed the knife through his throat and pulled it out. Blood sprayed from both sides, and he staggered back against the bars.

“What the—” Haki began.

She drove her shoulder into him, shoving him against the concrete wall. Then she dove on top of Azaan. The man opened his mouth to cry out, and she jammed the knife up through the roof of his mouth and into his cranium. He stiffened and convulsed as his brain short-circuited.

Haki might have been the leader, but with his underlings gone, he was no braver than either of them. He ran for the door, his eyes wide with terror. “He—”

She assumed he was crying for help, but she didn’t give him the chance. She wrapped her shackles around his neck and threw him over her hip, pulling the shackles tight as she did. His neck snapped, and she unwrapped the shackles and let him fall to the ground to convulse next to Azaan.

Jabari was still alive, but only barely. He gasped weakly as his blood continued to pour out of the twin wounds in his neck.

Maya took the keys from Azaan’s pocket and unlocked her shackles. She walked to Jabari to put him out of his misery, but he was gone by the time she returned to him. She wasn’t surprised to find it difficult to drum up any sympathy for him.

She left the cell, stopping to pull the knife from Azaan’s head. None of the three men were carrying guns, a surprising and annoying development that meant the knife was the only weapon she had.

She ran to the left, stopping at the edge of the hallway. There were no guards in sight. Were they seriously so confident that they didn’t even post lookouts?

Maybe judge the terrorists after you find the data core and get out of here.

The question was, where would she find the data core?

She rounded the corner and sprinted toward the end of the building. As she ran, she looked around for anything that looked promising: a door, a window, a light still on, maybe a room that was actually guarded.

She saw nothing and no one. A chill ran through her as a sobering possibility came to mind. Had they left with the data core already? Haki had said they were selling the core in five days, but he never said the sale was going to take place here. After the first day, when Bakari interrogated her, he hadn't returned. Granted, he hadn't given her any food or water for the past three days either, but that could just be out of spite. Maybe he'd figured a way into the data core without her.

She nearly decided to leave the compound and find a way to contact Todd, but she had no radio, and they were many miles from civilization. She at least needed to find a radio before she could leave.

She heard a noise from behind her and ran behind the other side of the building. She poked her head around the corner and saw Bakari exiting through a hidden door. The door had no handle from the outside, and when it closed behind him, its edges fit seamlessly into the wall.

That had to be it. That must be where the data core was located.

Bakari hummed to himself as he strode toward the other side of the building. For a moment, Maya feared he would turn down the central hallway and find her escaped and his guards dead, but he continued onward and entered another door—an ordinary one—near the opposite end of the compound.

She released the breath she was holding, then rushed to the door he had left. Her exertion was causing her to feel her thirst more prominently, but she pushed it aside. She could deal with it once she was out. Physical hardship was something she had long ago learned to ignore.

Up close, the gap between the hidden door and the wall was noticeable. Still thin, but large enough that she could work. She drew Azaan’s knife and slid it through the gap at chest height. She moved it down a foot, then up. About six inches above her initial insertion point, the knife came into contact with the lock. She glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then carefully moved the blade around the lock mechanism, searching for openings.

The tip of the narrow dagger slid in between the upper and lower latch. She twisted softly, trying to work deeper into the metal. It was slow and agonizing, mostly because she was out in the open, and if she was discovered, she would lose her best chance at retrieving the core.

Just when she was about to give up and hope that Bakari returned, she heard a click. She pulled her knife out and backed away.

The door opened slightly. She pumped her fist, then worked her fingertips against the door’s edge and pulled it open. She glanced around a final time, then slipped inside.

She was in an office. Judging by the mahogany desk, overstuffed leather chair, and Persian rug, it was Bakari’s office. A flag bearing a crest she didn’t recognize hung behind the desk, and two Zulu spears crossed in front of it.

The data core sat on top of the desk. It was about three feet long, one foot wide and ten inches tall. She sighed. When she thought of a data core, she imagined a small brick the size of a normal hard drive, not a massive chunk of metal that probably weighed more than she did.

She tested its weight. It wasn’t heavier than she was, but it was damned heavy. She could carry it, but she couldn’t move very fast. She’d have to take it part of the way from the compound, then hide it until she could contact Todd and figure out an extraction plan.

Speaking of.

She looked around the room for a radio. She struck gold when she opened one of the drawers of the big mahogany desk. A handheld radio sat atop a pile of paperwork.

Really? Terrorists have paperwork?

She picked up the radio and turned toward the door just in time to see it open. She cursed and dropped behind the desk.

Bakari entered, still humming to himself. He closed the door behind him. Maya readied the knife and tensed.

Bakari rounded the desk, and she launched himself at him. He cursed, then moved far faster than Maya thought possible, deflecting the knife and driving his knee into her stomach.

She was trained, but she was also less than half his size, and she was weak after two days without food or water. When his knee hit her, she gasped and dropped the knife.

He held onto her wrist and planted a meaty hand on the back of her head, then drew his knee back. That blow would definitely knock her unconscious, so she rushed forward, driving her shoulder into his hip instead.

He laughed and wrapped his hands around her waist, then lifted her upside down, intending to slam her headfirst into the floor. Maya wrapped her legs around his neck and squeezed. His eyes widened as his air was cut off, and Maya took advantage of his momentary shock to twist her legs forward.

She intended to flip him, but he was too strong. He bent at the waist and stumbled, but didn’t go down. In desperation, Maya aimed for the one part of his body she knew was sensitive enough to feel her blow.

When her fist made contact, Bakari’s eyes popped open. He pushed her off of him, and she rolled to her feet, spun, and slammed her own knee into his face. She felt a rush of satisfaction as his nose burst. Not so invincible after all.

Bakari roared and launched forward, planting his hands on her chest and shoving her backwards. Her feet left the ground, and she crashed into the door with enough force to drive the air from her lungs.

You can’t fight him. Not weakened like this.

She rolled out of the way before Bakari slammed into the door hard enough to shake the entire building. He turned to her, blood and snot streaming from his destroyed nose, his eyes red with pain and animal fury. “You bitch!”

Heard that before.

She dove for her knife, rolled and thrust upward toward Bakari’s groin. He batted the weapon from her hand, then lifted his boot. She rolled again just in time to avoid having her head crushed.

Shouting filtered in through the doors now. The sound of the fight was bringing others.

Maya cursed inwardly. It was too late. She needed to leave now, or she’d be overwhelmed again, and this time, Bakari would surely have her killed.

She would have to come back for the data core.

Bakari roared and rushed her again. She sidestepped, then sprinted for the door, flung it open, and rushed out into the night.

She nearly collided with two terrorists. They cried out and jumped backwards, but Maya was faster. She sliced the throat of one of the men. He dropped to his knees, clasping his hand to the wound.

Maya continued to run.

“Wajinga nyie! Risasi yake!”

Maya didn’t know what Bakari said exactly, but the meaning became clear when rifles cracked behind her and bullets whipped past her head.

She reached the jungle and kept running, sprinting up the steep hill and ignoring the branches and laves whipping her face. Her lungs were on fire, and her legs trembled. Her stomach ached for food and her dry mouth begged for water, but she ignored her body and pushed forward, not stopping until she could no longer hear sounds of pursuit.

Then she collapsed to the ground, chest heaving. She sighed and cursed at her failure to retrieve the core, then cursed again when she realized she had forgotten to take the radio.

Some agent you are, she thought ruefully.

She stared into the night sky and wished that Trent was still with her. The last few days had worn her self-confidence to a thread. If she had her partner, she would still believe that they could stop these terrorists. As it stood now, she wondered if she had escaped one death only to watch a far worse death engulf the entire world.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

When Trent finally looked through the trees and saw the massive building below, he nearly cried out with relief. He’d spent three nights and two days looking for the compound, and he was halfway through his third night. He lost the trail several times, but each time, he forced panic away and kept looking. He couldn’t leave Maya behind.

And finally, here he was. He had found the compound. He had discovered the hornet’s nest, and now he could exterminate the insects inside.

Take a breath, Tiger. You’re one guy, and you don’t know where Maya is. You don’t even know if she’s still there. Information first, then rescue.

He tapped the zoom function on his glasses twice, increasing the magnification to ten times. The night vision was too fuzzy to be useful, so he switched to infrared. He scanned the building slowly. From this distance, infrared was muddy too, but he could distinguish a number of shapes oozing around the grounds. Two of them walked into a central hallway that split the large building in half. Another pair marched around the outside, and a few more drifted lazily back to a side door near one end that Trent guessed contained the barracks.

The patrolling soldiers stopped in front of the slope several hundred yards from him. They faced each other for a few seconds. Their forms seemed to merge for a moment. Then they climbed rapidly into the trees.

Trent had a feeling he knew what was happening there. He would almost root for the amorous couple except for the part where they had left him for dead and kidnapped his girlfriend.

He switched his glasses to optical and realized with a touch of chagrin that the building had lights. That was why night vision was so fuzzy. He felt a pang as it occurred to him that not checking for that was another sign of his inexperience.

This whole assignment was a wake-up call. Trent was sure that he and Maya were more than prepared for the challenged of field work, but the missions they’d undertaken before hadn’t pushed them. They were being pushed now, and two years of relatively easy living had left them badly underprepared for their jobs.

Don’t blame the training. You guys fucked up. That’s all there is to it. Learn from your mistakes and don’t make them again.

Good advice, but he could focus on the lessons later. He had a woman to rescue.

He started down the slope but only made it a few feet when he saw a figure come out of the central hallway. The figure was more slender and much lighter-skinned than the ones that had entered a few minutes ago.

His heart leaped. That was Maya! She had escaped!

Elation filled him. Hell yeah, Maya! Way to go!

He watched with pride as Maya moved along the edge of the building. She wasn’t trying to flee, and that told Trent that she believed the data core was still there.

He thought about the two men who had entered the hallway but not emerged and amended his assessment. She must know the data core was still there. She had probably picked it up from one of those terrorists before incapacitating them.

A door opened seemingly out of nowhere. Maya sprinted to the left (from Trent’s perspective) of the building and hid around the corner. A giant of a man stepped through the door. He looked like a WWE wrestler, nearly seven feet high, and all shoulders and chest. He walked toward the central hallway but passed it and reentered the building through another door.

Maya left her hiding spot and crouched next to the door the big man had exited. Trent didn’t see a doorknob.

He put two and two together. That was a hidden door. That must be where the data core was being kept.

Maya pulled the door open. Somehow, she had managed to jimmy the latch. God, she was so awesome.

He started down the slope, moving as quickly as he could. He would join her down there, and together, they would take the data core away and call Todd. Mission successful. Not clean by any means, but successful.

Getting to the bottom of the hill turned out to be easier said than done. The slope was uneven, and the vegetation obscured the steeper portions. Several times, Trent reached what he thought was a bush, only to discover too late that it was the top of a tree. Most of the time he was able to avoid falling all the way to the ground, but twice, branches broke under his weight and he tumbled to the forest floor, landing hard enough to bruise his already battered body even more.

After the second time, he was forced to accept that he had to move more slowly, or he risked injuring himself and being unable to help Maya.

I should have waited at the top of the ridge, he thought. I could have seen which way she went, and if she was attacked, I could provide cover fire.

Yet another mistake. Another lesson to learn. He could just see Zero’s disapproving stare.

He sighed and resumed his journey. The minutes passed with agonizing slowness. When he finally reached the edge of the compound, he breathed another sigh of relief, but just as he was about to enter the compound, the two soldiers who had left for a tryst earlier burst out of the trees only a few feet to his left.

He cursed inwardly and dove back to cover, bringing his rifle to his shoulder.

They didn’t run toward him, though. Instead, they ran for the building. Trent frowned, confused, but the reason for their approach became clear a moment later when the hidden door opened and Maya sprinted out of the building. She nearly collided with the two returning guards and veered to her right.

As she passed them, she flicked something across the neck of one of the guards. The man clasped his neck, eyes huge, and dropped to the ground. His companion cried out and dropped to his side, gripping the fallen man’s shoulders and shouting at him in Kiswahili.

The giant ran through the hidden door an instant later. His face was covered in blood, and it looked like his nose had been smashed. Trent felt a rush of pride for Maya as the giant screamed at the soldier crouched next to his fellow.

The man kissed the dying man’s lips, earning a look of shock from the giant, then got to his feet, rage in his eyes. He aimed his rifle at Maya, who was now almost at the edge of the forest.

Trent lifted his rifle and fired a burst at the same time as the terrorist. The terrorist’s shot went wide as Maya zigzagged away. Trent’s shot was right on the money. The terrorist’s head snapped sideways as three 5.56mm rounds blew out the right side of his skull.

The giant turned toward Trent, eyes searching. Trent backed away slowly, careful not to disturb any branches in front of him. The big man stomped his foot and cursed, then shouted orders to the terrorists who were now pouring from multiple doorways.

Trent turned around and made his way back up the slope. This time, even though he was moving quickly, he didn’t stumble. A calm had settled over him, blunting both his excitement at Maya’s survival and the tension that the pursuit brought.

He reached the top of the slope after ten minutes of hard climbing, then cut to the right to rendezvous with Maya. She probably had the data core with her, which meant they could evade these terrorists, contact Todd and make their way to an extraction point. They only needed to survive a little longer, and—

He registered the movement but not in time to react to it. A hand shoved his rifle barrel up, and another slammed into his jaw. Stars erupted in his vision, and only his training allowed him to plant a foot on the attacker and kick him away.

Except that the attacker turned his body, and Trent's leg pushed harmlessly past him. The attacker put a hand on Trent's heel and lifted up. Trent lost his footing and fell onto his back. He released the rifle and rolled to his feet, drawing his handgun as he did so.

He came up to find himself looking down the barrel of a rifle, the attacker’s not his. His finger tightened on the trigger, but a voice said, “You’re a half-second away from death, young man. Set that weapon down, or I guarantee you, I’ll pull my trigger before you can pull yours.”

Trent frowned. Something about that voice sounded familiar. He looked more closely at his attacker. The light from the compound below was very dim now, and the attacker’s face looked to be covered in mud, so it was impossible to tell the skin tone, but the voice was very much American. As Trent examined the attacker, he realized the bone structure was Caucasian as well.

The attacker’s eyes narrowed. Then they widened. “Trent? Is that you?”

Now Trent knew who this was. “Zero? You’re here?”

Zero nodded. “Yeah. I’m here.”

“We thought you were dead,” Trent whispered. For two years.”

"Yeah, well, what can I say," Zero said, slightly irritated. "I needed some time to myself. Maya close?"

Anger flooded Trent. He glared at Zero. “You fucking asshole.”

Zero's smile vanished. "Okay. I can accept that I probably deserved that. Starting with a joke maybe wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done. Needless to say, it's been a stressful past few days. Now tell me where Maya is."

“She’s out there,” Trent said, gesturing with his head behind Zero. “She escaped, but she’s being pursued. I was going after her, but then you attacked me out of nowhere and… what the hell? We all thought you were dead, you know.”

“I know. Like I said, I probably deserve your anger, but we can save it for later. Let’s go find Maya, get that data core, and get out of here.” In a softer voice, he said, “When we get home, you can tell me everything you want to tell me, okay? For now, let’s just focus on the job.”

Trent glared at Zero, but he nodded in agreement.

“Perfect,” Zero replied. “Come on. Let’s go.”

The two of them moved in the direction the terrorists had taken, not saying another word to each other. Trent was still angry at Zero for leaving and letting them believe he was dead, but he couldn’t shake a feeling of excitement.

Zero was here! The most legendary field agent in history was helping Trent rescue Maya and retrieve the DEDALUS data.

The enemy had no chance now.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Maya heard the sound of her pursuers behind her and forced herself to her feet. She cursed as she realized that she had wasted precious time feeling sorry for herself when she could have been looking for water.

She needed water. At the compound, she had been able to ignore her body’s cry. Excitement at her escape and anticipation of retrieving the core had blunted the edge of her physical suffering.

Now, after a brief but intense fight with Commander Bakari and a less brief and equally intense climb up a thickly vegetated mountain slope, her weakness was glaringly clear. Her legs felt like rubber, and her breaths seemed less effective than before as her dehydrated lungs working overtime to obtain oxygen. Her heart thumped with each beat, and she imagined her blood, thick as syrup, struggling to move through stiffened arteries.

She needed water. Behind her, she heard shouting and gunfire—distant at the moment and not aimed her way, but closer than it was a few moments ago. She didn’t have time to conceal her trail, and she couldn’t move slowly enough to minimize the damage she was doing to the thick undergrowth.

They could track her, and they hadn’t spent the past two days starved and dehydrated while chained to a wall and forced to sleep sitting up on a concrete floor. Nor had they fought with someone the size and strength of an NFL linebacker.

At those memories, her shoulders ached and tingled with the aggregate pain and soreness of sixty hours shackled above her head. Pain radiated from her wrists, and her hands began to tremble.

Neither of those pains was as debilitating as the way her stomach twisted, remembering Bakari's knee as it impacted her abdomen hard enough to lift her off of the ground. Her hunger pangs mixed with that memory, and she cried out and fell to the ground, curling in a fetal position as though she'd been struck again.

She whimpered and pulled her shirt up with her trembling hands. Her only light was provided by the moon and the stars filtered through a canopy of leaves, but that light was still enough to show her the angry purple bruise that covered the top half of her abdomen.

She whimpered again and looked up through the canopy at the stars. It hurt so badly.

A memory flashed across her mind of another incident of imprisonment and torture many years ago. Not so many, actually. It only seemed that way. It seemed almost like another life. She was much younger and far more scared. She didn’t have the skill set she had now, and when the traffickers hurt her, she could do nothing but endure it and hope that her father would somehow rescue her and her sister.

She needed water. Voices carried through the jungle, closer again. She got to her feet and ran, forcing the pain aside, pushing the weakness down, repeating to herself over and over, You are Agent Specter. You will not fail.

She ran in a circuitous route, hoping both to elude her pursuers by moving sideways instead of straight away and to remain close enough to the compound that she could return later and recover the data core.

Are you serious? You're barely alive, Maya. You need to get out of here, find extraction, and come back with a proper SOG team. This is too much for you. You're in over your head.

No! The agent’s voice interjected. You are Agent Specter. You will not fail.

But God, she was so thirsty. She needed water so badly.

She was so focused on this need, that she didn’t notice the shadows ahead of her darken to blackness. She stepped into that blackness to feel the ground disappear. If she was fresh, she might have been able to stop herself or at least throw herself against the cliff and grab the edge.

But she wasn’t fresh. She was on her last rope. She was bruised and beaten and demoralized and dehydrated, and by the time she realized she was falling, she was already on her way down.

She did the next best thing she could. She curled into a ball and protected her head as she crashed into tree trunks and whipped through branches and bounced off of rock and rolled down dirt.

She had no idea how far she fell. It could have been a few dozen feet or a few hundred or a few thousand. She only knew that when she landed, the world fell away.

***

The taste of blood brought Maya back to semi-consciousness. She opened her eyes halfway and looked up at a sliver of stars pouring through a jagged wound in the pitch-black sky. She stared at that wound for a brief eternity before realizing that the wound was formed by the two sides of the ravine into which she’d fallen.

She was still alive. That surprised her. The ravine appeared to be about two hundred feet deep. Even with her fall broken by repeated obstacles, she should have stayed asleep. Part of her wished she had. Sleep was comfortable. Sleep was pain free. The longer she stayed awake, the more her pain returned. She knew it would get bad soon, very bad.

Something tickled her ear. She assumed it was an insect or a rodent of some sort. She tried to muster up the energy to slap the offending creature away, but the best she could manage was to lazily lift her left arm and let it fall next to her head.

It fell not onto a skittering creature but into a trickle of wetness that wrapped around her fingers and sluiced past her knuckles to reach her head once more, this time behind her ear.

Water.

Water!

With a hoarse cry, she rolled over and opened her mouth to the water. What entered her mouth was thick mud that tasted like mold and fermented death.

She spit the offensive brew out, retching and shaking her head. But the brief taste had forced some alertness into her mind, and when she got to her knees and looked, she saw that the mud was formed by a slight trickle of water that had forced a small opening in a riverbank.

She was next to a river. This ravine housed a river. She cried out again, shuffling forward, and when she put her lips to the river, the water was cool and clean and crisp and the most delicious thing she’d ever tasted.

She sipped too much, and a voice warned her to stop or she’d cause a sodium imbalance that would kill her. She nearly ignored the voice, but when the voice also told her that she would throw up all of the water she was drinking, she pulled her head free, gasping and shivering with joy instead of pain.

"Oh God," she gasped. "Oh, thank you, God."

Maya didn't believe in any god, but she offered her thanks anyway. As hydration brought more clarity to her mind, it hit her just how dependent humans were on their basic necessities. Her training—and, let's face it, her pedigree—had led her to believe that she was above such trivialities, but after what she'd experienced so far in this jungle, she realized in no uncertain terms just how frail she really was.

A pang in her stomach reminded her that thirst wasn’t the only pain she suffered. She got to her feet and looked around. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and with no trees to block the night’s light, the river, at least, was illuminated well by the sliver of moon and starlight overhead.

The water was indeed clear, something she was grateful for as her growing clarity reminded her now of the infection she could suffer from drinking dirty water. She thought of the mud she’d tasted and hoped she’d managed to spit it out before any microbes could find their way into her gut.

She needed food, though. She was glad for the clean water, but it would have been nice to see fish or turtles, anything she could cook and eat inside of that water.

She heard a rustling sound to her left and looked over in time to see a creature emerge from the shadows and approach the water. It was about four feet long and two feet tall. It had a stout body somewhat resembling a pig, a ratlike tail, long thin ears like a rabbit, and a protruding snout like an anteater.

Another memory crossed her mind. She was little, maybe five years old, and her mother was reading a book about animals, showing her pictures and singing the words.

"Aardvark, Aardvark, look at me! Ants and termites are what I eat! I have a big, long nose, and I snuffle food like this! Won't you come over and give me a little kiss?"

After reading that, her mother would make a snuffling sound against Maya’s neck and pretend to be an aardvark eating her. Maya would giggle and struggle, and her mother would snuffle and tickle her until they both collapsed into laughter and just smiled at each other.

A tear ran down her face, and a soft sob escaped her lips. The aardvark jerked its head up, and Maya stilled. Her hand slid slowly down her pants and confirmed that she still had the dagger she had taken from Azaan in her pocket.

That was the moment she realized she was going to kill and eat that aardvark. She felt a touch of sadness at that. She wasn’t vegan, and she didn’t have a problem with killing animals for food, but this was the first time she had to kill something herself.

Her stomach twisted, and her sadness faded, replaced by the timeless animal urge to eat. She didn’t have a choice. She needed food, and this was what was available.

Sorry, buddy, she thought. This is what I have to do.

The aardvark, responding to another timeless animal urge—that of prey to flee—turned and started to bound away.

Too late. Maya rushed forward with catlike speed, pouncing on the animal and driving her knife into his throat. The aardvark shrugged her off—it was far larger than she expected it to be—and trotted forward a few steps, but Maya’s knife stroke had taken its toll. The animal collapsed to the ground, released a soft, wet bleat that reminded her disconcertingly of the baby goats at the petting zoo at the National Zoo in Washington, then stilled.

Maya sighed with grief and relief in equal measure, then began to gather firewood. An hour later, she bit into a slice of roasted aardvark. Maybe it was only because she was starving, but the meat tasted like the most delicious pork chop she had ever eaten, even if it was a little tough.

She ate until the voice in her head warned her again about overindulging. When she was full, she set the rest of the meat above the flame to smoke and thought about her next steps.

There wasn’t really much to think about. She had a job to do. Her body ached everywhere, but her takedown of the aardvark showed her that none of her injuries were debilitating. She could still fight, and now that she had water and food, she could fight with strength.

She was going back for that data core. She was going to stop Bakari from selling that data to terrorists who would use it to kill millions of people, even if she had to do it by herself.

She was Agent Specter, and she would not fail.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

Katerina interlaced her fingers and rested her chin in the hammock they formed above her desk. She looked at the slideshow of images moving across her screen at a pace of one photograph every five seconds and felt her interest in this operation grow.

One photograph showed a white woman who appeared to be running from a large African man—nearly as large as Boris—who had just left a room of a large building and was pointing at her with blood dripping from his face. She was drawing a knife across the throat of another African man, this one of average size. Interestingly, she wasn’t looking at her target. Her eyes were focused on the jungle ahead, presumably where she intended to escape. That suggested both great skill and great confidence. This must be the EOT agent.

The hulking figure to her left spoke in a husky baritone. “The woman is Agent Specter of the EOT.”

“The name sounds familiar.”

“She was part of the team that broke up the Malvinas Cartel last year,” Boris replied.

"Ah, yes. I remember now."

The Malvinas Cartel was one of the Bright concerns, albeit a minor one. Their loss was annoying but easily addressed by bribing officials within the Peruvian government and increasing the output of the Rio Azul Cartel.

“As you can see,” Boris continued, “She was unable to retrieve the data core.”

“Yes,” Katerina agreed. “Do we know if the Waswahili Liberation Front was able to access the data?”

“We don’t believe so,” Boris replied. “There have been no reports of sensitive CIA data on the black market. However, it does appear that the Front has secured a buyer.”

“Who?”

“The North Korean government.”

Katerina raised an eyebrow. “A surprisingly bold move from them.”

“Their new supreme leader is brash. He intends to follow through on the promises of his predecessors and lay waste to the United States.”

Katerina scoffed. “Well, good luck to him. Unless that data core contains the launch codes for the U.S. nuclear arsenal, they have about as much chance of doing that as I do of winning the heavyweight boxing championship.”

Boris gave her a smile, revealing his golden left incisor. With his bald, craggy head, rough beard, and enormous build, the smile always reminded Katerina of a pirate. “You are a fine boxer. You could have won a championship if you wanted.

Katerina scoffed. “Please, have you seen those women? They look like gorillas.”

She uncrossed her legs and stretched, lifting her hands above her head and arching her back so her breasts pressed against the fabric of her low-cut dress. Boris had never shown any sign of attraction to her—or any other woman for that matter—but she wasn't showing off for him. She just liked the feel of her body moving. It reminded her that in beauty, as in all other things, she was better than others.

"Well, I think the Dragons' best chance is to retrieve the core after the transfer is made. Presumably, the North Koreans aren't sending a battalion of soldiers to purchase the core?

“No, ma’am. Five men. One buyer and four bodyguards. Elite bodyguards but no match for the Dragons.”

“Is that all? In that case, instruct the Dragons to slaughter the North Korean retrieval team and take their place prior to the transfer. Have them bring the core to Sarajevo. Our team at Advanced Intelligence will read the data.”

Advanced Intelligence was a legal but highly classified organization that provided artificial intelligence services to the Bosnian military and moonlighted by providing technological services to Katerina whenever she needed them.

Boris nodded. His smile vanished, replaced by a sober expression. “There is one more image you must see, my lady.”

Katerina lifted an eyebrow. “Oh?”

Boris leaned over her and tapped the keyboard with fingers as thick as sausages and as hard as old leather. The image of the escaping CIA agent disappeared, replaced by an image of a man entering the jungle. The light was somewhat darker here. The photograph appeared to have been taken at dusk without the benefit of the artificial lights that illuminated the Liberation Front’s compound.

The man was Caucasian, of above average height and with a lean but powerful build. He wore cargo pants, combat boots and a combat vest with body armor sewn into the lining. The vest contained many pockets and all of them were filled, also the ones on his pants and several pouches clipped to his belt. She could see no weapons other than a tactical knife in a sheath on that belt, but she assumed he carried some.

“Is that the other EOT agent?” she asked.

Boris shook his head. He tapped a few more keys, and Katerina’s facial recognition software began to analyze the figure. The face was obscured by a hat and a beard almost as long and ragged as Boris’s, but as the software worked through the data, Katerina realized what Boris was trying to show her.

She looked at him, eyes wide. He nodded, and she gasped and turned back to the computer.

The software beeped. It had found a match.

Not a good match. According to the software, there was only fifty-seven percent confidence that the person in the satellite image was who the software believed it might be.

That person was none other than Agent Zero.

Katerina took a deep breath and released it slowly through gently parted lips. “Agent Zero,” she whispered, letting the name slide over her tongue like poison.

She said it again, this time letting it spew from her mouth like venom. “Agent Zero.”

“We can’t be confident that’s who it is,” Boris said. “It’s very unlikely that he’s still alive, and if—”

“He’s still alive,” Katerina insisted. “I know it.”

“If he is,” Boris continued patiently, “he has no reason to be in Tanzania. The CIA has disavowed him and declared him dead. They wouldn’t want him interfering with their operation.”

“It’s no longer their operation. The CIA has disavowed Agent Specter as well.”

“True,” Boris admitted. “As I said, it’s possible. I just don’t want you to hope too much and be disappointed.”

Katerina laid an affectionate hand over Boris’s meaty forearm. “You have always been kind to me, Boris. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps this is not the man I seek. Instruct the Dragons to confirm that man’s identity, and if he is Zero, have them capture him and bring him to me.”

Boris frowned, clearly not agreeing with Katerina’s decision, but he didn’t argue. “As you wish, ma’am.”

He laid his massive paw over hers for a moment, then left. Katerina stared at the image on the screen, her heart beating rapidly, her chest heaving.

“Agent Zero,” she repeated. “I pray to God that this is you. I pray to God I will be able to look you in the eye and collect what I am owed for the loss of my father. I pray to God that we will meet soon.”

She leaned back in her chair and rested her arms on the upholstered arm rests. She crossed her legs, lifting the left one high and sliding it over her right thigh. She smiled at the image and let herself fantasize about the moment when she would sit just as she was now and look her enemy in the face.

Hello, Zero she would say. It’s time to receive what you are due.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

When Zero saw the terrorists moving back toward their compound without Maya, he felt an odd mixture of relief and anger. Relief that they hadn’t found Maya, anger that she was still missing, still away from him.

And possibly dead? Could they have killed her and left her behind?

He and Trent had spent hours tracking them but seen no sign of Maya. Surely they would have heard something if the terrorists had found her.

“We need to talk to one of them,” Trent said softly. “We can’t keep playing from behind.”

Zero agreed. He wanted to rush forward and kill all of them, but until he found Maya, he couldn't go that far. He needed to know where she was, and killing everyone who might have that answer was bad business.

That, and the little issue with the nuclear launch codes. He couldn’t forget about that.

He looked at the terrorists and found a straggler walking near the back of the group. “That one,” he said. “I’ll take him. You cover me in case they notice.”

“Right.”

Zero and Trent moved quietly through the trees, keeping out of sight of the terrorists and waiting for their opportunity. The man in the back was lost in his head, talking to himself and grinning. He had a swagger that Zero was certain he hadn’t earned yet. He probably looked at his leaders and fancied himself like them. One day, he would be the leader of an outfit like this. Then the world would fear him.

Sorry to burst your bubble, kid, Zero thought. Except that I’m not.

The man walked past Zero. Zero struck like a snake, wrapping his arms around the man’s neck and squeezing tight. The man struggled for a few seconds, then went limp. Zero dragged him away. The other terrorists didn’t so much as look back.

“Damn, Zero!” Trent said, “That was awesome!”

Zero resisted the urge to roll his eyes and also resisted the brief surge of pride he felt at the younger man’s admiration. “Help me tie him to a tree.”

Trent worked quickly, binding the man’s wrists above his head with a length of vine and looping the vine over a tree branch. The man moaned and stirred softly.

Zero helped him by slapping him hard across the face. The man gasped and stared at the two Americans in bewilderment and shock. When he realized who he was looking at, his eyes narrowed. “Fuck you.”

“What’s your name?” Zero asked. “I’m Zero.”

“Talon,” Trent added.

“Abdulla,” the terrorist replied, jutting out his chin. “Do your worst to me.”

Zero shrugged. “If you say so.”

He drove his fist into the terrorist’s liver. The man’s eyes rolled back in his head, and when he retched, his legs drummed on the ground.

Trent shifted uncomfortably, and Zero resisted the urge to roll his own eyes. The kid would need to get used to this if he was going to be a CIA agent.

“I’m going to level with you, Abdulla,” Zero said, lifting the man’s chin to confirm that his captive was still conscious. “I’m starting to get worried. We’ve spent all night looking for our comrade. It’s now daylight, and we haven’t found her. That concerns me.”

Zero was telling the absolute truth, although he was projecting far more calm than he felt.

And it was daylight now. Still early, only a few minutes after sunrise, but daylight was daylight, and hours were hours, and miles were miles, and Zero was very unhappy that the light, the hours, and the miles hadn’t brought him to either of his destinations.

The terrorist shivered and wouldn’t meet Zero’s eyes. Zero balled his fist, but before he could launch another blow, Trent placed a hand over his fist. Zero snapped a glare to him, but Trent winked.

Zero frowned, but instead of explaining, Trent turned to the terrorists. He laid a hand on Abdulla’s shoulder and said, “Hey buddy, I need you to listen, okay?” in a soft croon.

The terrorist turned toward him with a wary expression.

Trent smiled, and it bothered Zero to notice how handsome he was even covered in dirt. Damn it, that’s not enough, though. Not for Maya.

That was Reid Lawson speaking, and while Zero agreed with every word, he couldn’t dwell on his irritation with his daughter’s beau. He ignored the feeling and focused on the interrogation.

“You have to start talking,” Trent said, still crooning. “This guy’s bigger and stronger than I am, and if I wanted to stop him from hurting you, I couldn’t. And I’ll be honest, buddy, I’m not sure I want to keep stopping him.”

Trent somehow managed to say that without sounding threatening. His tone was that of a concerned friend. The terrorist sighed and replied, “I… don’t know… anything.”

Zero took a step forward, but Trent planted a hand on his chest to stop him. “See, that’s a problem, Abdulla. If that’s true, then we have no reason to keep you alive. I’d rather keep you alive, but like I said earlier, I don’t want it as badly as I want you to tell us what we need to know. We need to know where our companion is. We need to know what’s going to happen with that data core. We need both of those things now, or we have to kill you and find out another way. Do you hear what I’m saying?”

The man looked between both of them. He licked his lips, and his eyes flicked to the left.

“No,” Zero said. “No lies. The truth, or I ignore my friend’s squeamishness and start taking pieces off of you.”

To emphasize the point, Zero drew his combat knife. The terrorist’s eyes widened. He licked his lips again and protested, “But I am fighting for my people.” His eyes hardened. “I am fighting for my people.” He glared at Zero. “Do your—”

Zero reached down and yanked the man’s pants down. The man’s eyes popped open again, and when Zero grabbed his jewels and held the knife to them, he shrieked, “No! No! I’ll talk! I’ll talk, please, please!”

Zero smiled and released him. He stepped back and wiped his hand on the shivering terrorist’s shirt. Behind him, Trent whispered, “Jesus Christ.”

The terrorist choked a sob, averting his eyes from Zero. Zero used the tip of the knife to lift the man’s chin, and the man flinched. “Hey,” Zero said. “Relax. It’s over. You still have your little buddies. If you want to continue to have them, I suggest you become a lot less brave a lot more quickly. Tell us what you know. Now.”

The man groaned. He muttered something in Swahili, then said in English. “The Koreans. We’re selling it to the Koreans.”

Zero’s eyes widened. He shared a sober look with Trent. It was pretty clear that Abdulla wasn’t talking about the South Koreans.

“When?” Zero demanded. “When is the sale taking place?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t. Commander Bakari said five days, which would be tomorrow, but I heard him on the phone, and he said he was going to be rich by tomorrow night. That was last night, so he means this night.”

“Where?”

“Here. The buyers are coming here.” The terrorist sobbed. “Please. I was only trying to fight for my people. You know what that’s like. You know that means sometimes being a criminal.”

Zero’s eyes narrowed. It wasn’t possible that this man knew who he was, but the fact that he’d struck so close to home made Zero suspicious.

“Where’s our companion? The female agent?”

Abdulla sighed. Then he chuckled. He lifted his eyes to Zero, and Zero nearly flinched when he saw the beatific smile the terrorist wore. “She’s gone. They’ve taken her back. We received the call to return to the base. That would only happen if Commander Bakari had his prize.” His grin widened. “I imagine he’s had his prize several times by now. Your women are thin, but they feel just as nice inside, don’t they?”

Zero’s lips pulled back from his teeth, but it was Trent’s knife that pierced Abdulla’s chest. Abdulla jerked and coughed, spewing blood, but he continued to laugh as he died.

When his head finally lolled forward—still wearing that deathly grin—Trent pulled his knife out and glared at Zero. “I only did that so you’d stop torturing him. We got what we needed already. There’s no point in torturing him further.”

He was right, but it rubbed Zero the wrong way to hear Trent scold him over this, especially after what Abdulla had just said. “Frankly, Trent, you need to get used to the brutality of this job. You don’t have to like it, but this is the kind of work that requires us to be even more brutal than our enemies.”

“I understand that,” Trent said tersely. “But we already had what we needed.”

“You don’t know that. You don’t know what he could have revealed if we’d kept working him.”

“Working him?” Trent shook his head. “I’ve seen enough torture in my life. I won’t be part of it.”

This time, Zero did roll his eyes. “If you’re looking for pity, you’re talking to the wrong person.”

Zero regretted the jibe a moment later when Trent flinched and stared at Zero with a look that was just hurt enough not to be hateful. “Pity? You think I want your pity?”

Zero sighed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t—”

“No, you shouldn’t. You shouldn’t act so high and mighty, like you’re the seasoned veteran, and I’m just a stupid kid who isn’t cut out to be a spy or to be your daughter’s lover.”

“I didn’t say—”

“No, you didn’t. Because you weren’t here. For two fucking years! You were off God knows where living some quiet little life acting like the job was done just because you were done with it. Meanwhile, your daughter and I have been fighting to make sure that the world you created doesn't fall apart. Meanwhile, your other daughter is fighting every day just to smile without the help of a needle. Meanwhile, your youngest daughter has no friends because she spent her life learning how to kill people while other girls were learning how to sing dance, and play.

“Guess what, Zero? The love of my life is stuck in some rotting cell at a terrorist’s compound. The woman I love more than anything else is either dead or being tortured for information so that terrorist can sell a superweapon to an even more dangerous terrorist. The woman I want to spend the rest of my life with dragged me behind the wreckage of a satellite than fought her ass off to keep those terrorists from finding me and finishing the job because when the going gets tough, she doesn’t fake her own death and piss off to nowhere. She fights. I fight. So take your judgment and shove it up your absentee ass.”

Zero’s lips thinned, and his eyes narrowed. He wanted to explain himself. He wanted to remind Trent that it was because of him that Sara had fallen into drugs and Maya had chosen a life of danger. Mischa had been born into the life of an assassin, but having the world’s number one target as her father wasn’t helping. He had left to protect them, and it wasn’t his fault that even when he was as good as dead, danger found his family against his will.

But this wasn’t the time to argue. “You’re right. I have no right to judge you. I’m sorry. All I can do is be here now and help now. And we will get Maya out of there. You have my word on that.”

"Your apology and five bucks will buy me a hot dog," Trent spat. "As for your word? I guess we'll see." He looked up at the sun, now a comfortable three inches above the horizon and beginning to lend heat to the jungle's moisture. "We'll go back at night. In daylight, we're too outnumbered, even with you. At night, we have a chance to find Maya and rescue her if she's…" He pressed his lips together. "We'll get that data core too."

Zero noted the even with you. That sparked a fresh current of worry.

He’d done well so far. Despite being out of shape and very rusty, he’d managed to hold his own.

But he hadn’t really been tested yet. The fight coming up would be a real fight, one that would require him to be at the top of a game he hadn’t played in years. Would he be able to keep up when it really counted?

I guess we’ll see.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

The morning found Maya well-rested, well-fed, and well-watered. What it didn’t find her was well-prepared. She had nine pounds of aardvark jerky, but she wasn’t going on a hike, and her destination wasn’t close to the river, so having nothing to hold water was a problem.

Aside from that, there were her injuries to consider. None of them were serious, but now that her hunger and thirst were sated, her bruises were far more painful. Her abdomen was swollen enough that it hurt to breathe, and both of her shoulders ached desperately, a pain that became a piercing scream when she exerted her arms. On top of that, her fall had damaged her worse than she realized. Several spots on her back were tender to the touch, and she had a welt on her head above her left ear.

Perhaps the worst injury was to her right knee. When she woke after napping through the last few hours of the night, the joint was swollen to the size of a grapefruit. Twenty minutes of massaging and flexing it gently, and she was able to put weight on it, but she limped noticeably, and she had a two-hundred-foot climb straight up, a hike of at least a few miles, and a fight against overwhelming odds ahead of her.

And she was going back. Waking to her battered body hadn’t blunted her resolve. Too many millions of lives depended on her for her to give up.

Trent's smile flashed across her mind, and pain worse than anything she'd suffered physically nearly doubled her over. She squeezed her eyes shut and willed the tears to wait. She could mourn for him later. She had work to do.

A small voice in her head reminded her that she didn’t know for sure that he was dead. He could still be out there looking for her or maybe waiting for the cavalry to arrive so he could rescue her.

But she didn’t want to get her hopes up. With those hopes came a million reasons why he couldn’t have survived, and she didn’t want to wrestle with those feelings right now.

So, after another drink of river water and a breakfast of aardvark jerky, she set about making tools for the coming day and night.

First and foremost, she needed weapons. All she had was the dagger she had taken from Azaan. The knife was of surprisingly high quality, but it was only good for very close quarters. She needed some sort of ranged weapon, and she wanted the knife to have a little more reach.

The ravine provided her with good raw materials. No trees grew down here, but wind and rain had washed branches down. She selected several branches of rich brown hardwood that had resisted rot and dryness and remained strong and sturdy despite being separated from their mother trees.

One of the branches was five feet long and thick, with a knot at one end that vaguely resembled a knob. She would use this as a walking stick. She chose four other branches for their thinness and straightness. These she whittled with the knife, smoothing out any bumps or angles and sharpening one end to a point. Four throwing spears weren't much ammunition for ranged weaponry, but none of the wood here was suitable for making a bow, and the aardvark's bones were too small and brittle to serve.

A final branch, shorter but stouter than the throwing spears, she selected as a thrusting spear, lashing her knife to the end using fibers stripped from reeds growing at the riverbank.

Thus equipped, Maya enjoyed a final meal of aardvark jerky and drank her fill of the river water. That would have to be enough to sustain her until the job was over.

She lashed her spears across her back with reeds and looked around for a way out of the ravine. There weren’t many options. The easiest route appeared to be to follow the river for several miles until the ravine widened into a slope.

She wasn’t going to do that. It would take far too long and leave her much farther from her destination than before.

That left climbing straight up. Looking at the slope where she had fallen, she could see a path, but it would be difficult. And by difficult, she meant hellish. Several places would require climbing up with hands and feet over rock faces. Others would require using her walking stick as an anchor in dirt so she didn’t slip and fall back down to the ravine.

She sighed and said, “Okay, Specter. Time to put on your big girl pants.”

Then she started up the slope.

The first ten feet showed her just how challenging the climb was going to be. The rock here was slick with moss that fed off of the moisture from the dew that condensed at the bottom of the ravine. The first time she tried to climb, her foot slid, and she barked her shin on the rock. The second time, she made it halfway up, and her other foot slipped, twisting her injured knee and sending a crisp jolt of pain through her right leg.

She cursed and forced herself to continue. If she allowed her knee to swell again, she wouldn’t be able to climb.

Each step following those two mishaps was agony. Once she scaled the rock, she came to her first long slope of loose dirt. In order to gain any traction at all, she needed to jam her walking stick two feet into the dirt, pull herself up, dig her feet in to brace herself, then pull the walking stick out and jam it into the dirt again.

After repeating that motion a few times, her shoulders and back reminded her that they were hurt too. Before she had made it halfway up the slope, her entire body pulsed with agony.

“Come on, Specter,” she hissed through gritted teeth. “You’ve got this. You’ve got this.” She wasn’t sure if repeating this over and over made a difference, but it gave her something to think about other than her pain.

Halfway up was another rock face. This one was more difficult than the first. No moss ruined her traction here, but the rocks jutted out over the ravine forming an undercut. Maya had to jam her fingers into grooves in the rock to lift herself up, an action made more challenging by the need to keep from dropping her walking stick. Her feet scrabbled for purchase on the dirt below, and once, she felt her balance tip as gravity threatened to pull her backwards down the slope.

She cried out and pulled herself forward. Her upper body slammed into the rock, and when her head smacked the surface as well, her body buzzed with an electric pain that nearly short-circuited her nerves.

“Bitch!” she hissed. “God damn it.”

She gritted her teeth and forced each breath out through them until the pain subsided enough that she could continue. She looked up and sighed. There were no more handholds. The rock was smooth up until the top of the face, which formed a flat ledge about eighteen inches wide. Even that was split down the middle, and the gap was nearly two feet wide.

It was also two feet above where she was hanging. She considered her options. Once more, none of them were good. She could either try to back down, move to the side of the face and climb back up, or she could jump and hope she could somehow catch the edge of the rock in between the gap and pull herself up.

An idea came to her. She wasn’t sure if it was a good idea, but she had to do something. Her arms were beginning to shake, and she could feel weakness spreading from her elbows to her wrists. If she lost her grip now, it was a long way down, and she didn’t fancy her chances of surviving another fall.

Here goes nothing.

She lowered herself a few inches, gathered her strength, and pulled up with all of her might. At the peak of her thrust, she released the rock, spun the walking stick around and threw it over the ledge. She grabbed the stick through the gap and held it tightly.

She cried out when her shoulders absorbed the full weight of her body as it fell. Her fingers slid around the wood, but she held on, gripping the stick like a pull-up bar.

“God,” she hissed.

She took a deep breath and pulled herself upward. When she shifted her wrists to switch from pulling up to pushing up, the walking stick wobbled, nearly throwing her back down the slope, but she regained her balance and got her legs up, one on either side of the gap.

She lifted her walking stick, threw herself against the dirt and gasped. Her entire body trembled with exertion. She allowed herself a moment to recover from that exertion and the accompanying terror of nearly falling to her death, then looked up.

She had thirty feet to go to reach the top. The dirt here was firmer than below, and there were roots sticking up from the ground. If she could place her feet correctly, she should have an easier time scaling this last bit.

She gave herself one more minute of rest to let the trembling in her arms subside. Then she jammed her walking stick into the dirt and resumed the journey.

Three times, she slipped. The last time, she slid backwards ten feet—half of the distance she had traveled after leaving the rock ledge.

“Come on, Maya. You’ve got this. You can do this.”

She pulled her thrusting spear loose and used it and the walking stick like ice picks, jamming them one over the other in the dirt and pulling herself up. When possible, she placed her feet on roots or packed dirt and propelled herself upward, but the last thirty feet of her climb remained mostly an upper-body exertion.

When she finally lifted herself over the lip of the ravine, she cried out with relief, exhaustion and triumph all at once. She rolled onto her back, spread-eagled, and stared up at the canopy, breathing heavily and letting her entire body relax.

“That… has got to be… the hardest… thing I’ve done.”

It wasn’t, really. She had endured far more painful and challenging circumstances than a little climb up a ravine. Still, in terms of percentage of physical potential used, it had to rank near the top.

“They need to… include… rock climbing… in training.”

Maybe that’s what she’d do if she left the field. Become the rock-climbing instructor at Langley. She would bore every class with the story of how she climbed a ravine in Tanzania, then make them use improvised spears and walking sticks to muscle-up their way up a sandy slope interrupted by rock ledges. She’d be the most hated instructor in the Agency.

It was several minutes before her heart rate calmed. When she rolled over, her arms and shoulders felt like jelly. Even with the help of the walking stick, it seemed challenging to get to her feet. That didn’t bode well for the fight to come, but the second half of her journey would be all walking. Her upper body would catch a break, and her legs would pay the balance.

Or both upper and lower body will be weak as hell when I get back to the compound, she thought wryly.

Well, that was all right. She probably shouldn’t attack until nightfall anyway. She needed as much stealth as she could get, especially because they would most likely be on the lookout for her.

She’d get back to the compound, hide in the trees, and wait for the sun to go down. Then, tired or not, injured or not, she would get that data core.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

“Yeah, I got the coordinates,” Alan said, “the problem is that from the sky, all I can see is trees.”

Zero frowned. “Why is that a problem? Can’t you just send people to these coordinates?”

“Well, like I said, there’s some bullshit going on at the CIA. Maya and Trent are technically supposed to be disavowed.”

“So what? Tell them you know where the data core is.”

“I can’t. I’m retired, Zero. I’m not supposed to know anything.”

“Then tell—”

Trent spun around in alarm and lifted his finger to his lips. The two of them were in the trees near the Liberation Front compound, waiting for dusk to deepen before they began their assault.

Zero pressed his lips together, then said in a quieter voice, “Then tell Todd to tell them. For Christ’s sake, Alan, figure it out.”

“I’m going to,” Alan said, a touch of irritation creeping into his voice, “but Todd’s not going to be able to send more than a few guys, and it’s a crapshoot whether he’ll be able to get a helicopter.”

“Why is it a crapshoot? You got me a helicopter. Get his guys a helicopter.”

Alan hesitated a moment, then said, “I don’t want them reporting about my connection to the CIA.”

A migraine was starting to form behind Zero’s left temple. Had two years really changed things so much? Alan never used to be so cautious.

He forced himself to stay calm. “Alan, Maya is a prisoner in that compound. She could be dead already. She could be suffering torture, or…” he couldn’t quite bring himself to specify other things she could be suffering. “Can you just forget about the risks for a moment and give me the tools I need to get her out of there? And, you know, prevent a nuclear war?”

“I already said I’m going to,” Alan replied. He seemed to be struggling for calm as well. “But I’d like to do this without landing Todd, Trent, and Maya, not to mention the both of us, into hot water again. You and I built a career out of being rogue agents, and it fucking sucked. I’d much rather not put them through the same thing.”

“I’d much rather Maya survives.”

Alan sighed. “Me too. But being very blunt, Zero, the chances of her being alive right now are very low. I hope I’m wrong about that, but… Look, I’m going to get you help as soon as I can. I’m going to try to see if I can get some good images of the situation on the ground that I can pass along to Todd so his extraction team has a good chance of success. Either way, help is coming. But you need to manage your expectations here. At the moment, no one involved in this operation is allowed to be. Whether we agree with it or not, there will be consequences if we're discovered before we have a chance to succeed and take the wind out of Harris's sails."

Zero frowned. “By manage my expectations, you mean handle this myself.” Trent flashed him a glare, and he corrected that to, “ourselves.”

Alan sighed again. “Yeah. That’s basically it. I can get you help in time to extract you, but realistically, you’re going to have to get Maya and the core by yourselves. But hey, you’re Zero, the badass of badasses. You can handle it, right?”

Zero looked down at the compound, just visible through the thick foliage. “I guess I’ll have to.”

“If it makes you feel better, you can kick my ass when you get home.”

Zero smiled slightly, but a more serious consideration stifled laughter. He hadn’t even thought about what happened after this.

Was he coming home? Alan wanted him home. No doubt Maya would want him to return to. But could he? Should he? From the little he’d heard, it seemed like Harris was just as much of a hardass as his old bosses in the Agency. She might not be a traitor, but that didn’t mean she would want the most famous renegade in the CIA’s history back on her radar or anyone else’s.

And would coming home protect his family from danger like this or put them right back in the danger he hoped to avoid.

That’s something to figure out later. You have other priorities right now.

He looked up at the darkening sky. The first stars were already flickering on. It was time to go.

“I’ll hold you to that,” he told Alan. “Make something happen ASAP.”

“You first.”

This time, he did chuckle. “Fair enough. Talk to you later.”

He put his radio away and looked at Trent. “Okay. You ready for this?”

Trent scoffed. “Probably more than you are.”

Zero hated how accurate that statement almost certainly was. He checked his weapons, then nodded at the younger agent. “Then let’s go.”

They moved to the edge of the trees and peered at the compound beyond. There were a dozen guards standing at regular intervals on this side of the building. Zero assumed an equal number of guards on the other side. More irritating was the twenty yards of open ground between them and the compound. The depth of this valley might mean that satellites only saw trees, but anyone on the ground would see Zero and Trent at least three seconds before they reached them.

“We’ll have to create a distraction,” Trent said. “We can fire some shots here and pull the guards to the other side. Meanwhile, we move ASAP to the other side of the compound. Hopefully, the distraction brings the guards to this side and gives us time to get close without being seen.”

Zero raised an eyebrow. “That’s a good idea.”

Trent chuckled drily. “Well, it’s a crappy idea, but it’s the least crappy one we have. And don’t look so surprised. I’m young, not stupid.”

“I never said you were,” Zero replied. “Although I would suggest using a grenade to create the diversion. An explosion is a lot more alarming than a gunshot.”

“Good point,” Trent said. He offered Zero a grin. “Look at that. The old dog has some teeth left.”

God, I hope so. Zero pulled a grenade and pulled the pin.

“Oh, shit, now?” Trent said.

“Unless you’ve got something more pressing to do.”

Trent cursed and sprinted sideways. Zero waited until his footsteps faded, then dropped the grenade and took off after him. After four seconds, the grenade exploded. Dirt showered Zero’s back, but he didn’t stop to see the effects of their ploy.

He caught up to Trent on the other side of the building. The brief sprint left him breathing heavily. He was a little chagrined to see Trent reveal no sign of his exertion.

Trent tapped his shoulder and gestured onto the compound. Zero’s heart leaped when he saw the guards rushing toward the sound of the grenade. A booming voice carried over the distance, shouting something that Zero couldn’t understand.

“That’s their leader,” Trent said. “If he’s over there, we have a good chance. Come on.”

He started down the slope, Zero at his heels. The short journey across the flat ground was nerve-wracking, but they reached the other side without incident.

Trent kept moving when they reached the building. “The jail is up ahead in the central hallway,” he explained. “If Maya’s still here, she’ll be there.”

Zero didn’t like that if. Maya had to be here. She had to be alive. If he’d come all this way only to fail to save his daughter…

Don’t think about that. Focus on the mission.

They reached the central hallway, and Trent came to a halt. Zero stopped behind him and listened. Soft shuffling noise from inside told him that there were terrorists guarding the cells.

He put his rifle over his shoulder and drew his knife. Trent did the same, then held up three fingers.

He pulled them down one at a time. Zero’s heart started to pound. This was it. He would learn soon if he was still cut out for this sort of work or if his time off had permanently disabled him.

Trent’s hand closed into a fist, and the two of them moved around the corner.

There were three guards, all holding rifles. Trent reached the first one, cupped his hand around his mouth and slit his throat. Zero kept going, driving his knife through the neck of the second guard.

The third guard turned, having caught sight of their movement through the corner of his eye. He saw Zero approaching and swung his rifle toward him.

Zero lunged forward and slid his finger behind the AK74's trigger. The terrorist's eyes widened further when he realized he couldn't fire. He opened his mouth to scream, and Zero head-butted him, flattening his nose and turning his scream into a hoarse choke.

He jammed the butt of the terrorist’s rifle backwards, further splintering the man’s already shattered face. The man released a hoarse cry, and Zero cursed and jammed the rifle into the man’s throat. The cry cut off, replaced by a wet gasp as the terrorist’s windpipe deflated.

He still wouldn’t let go of the damned rifle. Zero twisted him sideways and ran him into the concrete wall. It made a thump that was far louder than Zero would have preferred.

God damn it, let go!

He head-butted the guard again and again and again. Each time, he felt the bones in the man’s face break further. Still, it took a half-dozen headbutts for the man to finally go slack and release the rifle.

Zero dropped the rifle on top of the man and regarded his caved-in features. That was brutal, but worse, it was clumsy. And slow. And loud. It was the work of an old bruiser, not a sophisticated and highly capable fighter.

“Damn it!” Trent hissed. “She’s not here.”

Zero turned around and found himself facing a line of five cells. As Trent had pointed out, all of them were empty.

His shoulders slumped. Maya was gone. The empty cells didn’t necessarily mean she was dead, but it meant that he still hadn’t found her, still hadn’t saved her.

“We’ll check inside,” Trent said. “I know where the leader keeps the data core. He might have locked her in there too. Shit!”

He followed up the curse by flicking his rifle to his shoulder and firing a burst. Zero spun the same way and fired a burst of his own, but the fact that he hadn’t been aware of the approaching terrorists until Trent alerted him was just another sign of his rustiness.

God, I’m slow.

His aim was still good, although at a distance of five yards, it wasn’t that impressive that all of his shots found vital organs. Three of the terrorists fell, but eight more were pouring into the hallway, and the two of them were forced backwards.

They ran around the corner and came face to face with two more groups of terrorists pouring around the other side. They each emptied their clips, dropping four more of the enemy, but the terrorists were aiming their rifles now, and there were a lot of them.

Zero’s instincts took over. He dropped to the ground, pulling Trent with him. The terrorists’ volleys struck their companions on either side instead, killing several more.

A bullet smacked the ground next to Zero’s head and blew sand in his eye. He cried out and jerked his head back, trying to blink the silt away.

A hand pulled him roughly to his feet and then just as roughly through a door. When the door slammed behind him, Zero looked at Trent and saw that the younger man had led them into the building.

“Keep moving,” Trent told him. “I locked the door, but that won’t hold them for long.”

As though to prove his point, a half-dozen rounds punched through the door behind them. One of them creased Zero’s left side, leaving fire in its wake.

They rounded a hallway just before another bullet whipped through his beard.

The battle had begun in earnest. The element of surprise was lost. It was now the two of them against over a hundred terrorists.

And somewhere out there, Maya still needed rescue. Zero felt a rush of a familiar but entirely unwelcome emotion.

He was afraid.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

Maya had just reached the edge of the slope that led down to the Liberation Front Compound when she heard an explosion below. She cursed and pulled her thrusting spear off of her back, but the explosion was too far away to reach her, and the shouting that followed sounded distant.

When her initial shock faded, she realized what that explosion must be. Help had arrived! Her excitement was blunted an instant later when she realized it could also be the buyers arriving and choosing to take the data core instead of buying it.

Still, this worked to her advantage. She ran to her right around the edge of the compound. While the guards were distracted, she would infiltrate the compound and steal the core. If she moved quickly, she could retrieve the object and get up the slope before she was found.

The fifty-pound object.

She cursed. She hadn’t thought to make a sling or pouch of some sort to help carry the core. She would have a hell of a time getting back up the slope with her arms occupied.

Well, there was no helping that. She could leave her weapons behind and use the reeds that lashed them to her back to help support the core. If she had a chance, she would steal a weapon from one of the terrorists, but the core was most important. Once she was in the jungle, she was confident she could evade the terrorists. They had gotten the drop on her and Trent the first night, but she was paying better attention now.

She reached the other side and quickly moved through the trees, her thrusting spear ready. She left her walking stick at the top. She wanted the other hand available for her throwing spears.

She reached the bottom and looked through the trees. She heard gunfire and saw muzzle flashes in the center hallway, but she didn’t see anyone. Whatever battle was taking place, this side was still clear.

She started forward but cursed and remained where she was when she saw dozens of terrorists moving from the other side to flank whoever was inside the hallway. She sighed in frustration and tried to think of another way inside without being seen and overwhelmed.

Then she saw something that drove all other thoughts from her head. Two men backed out of the hallway carrying rifles. One of the men was bearded and covered in several days’ worth of dirt. She didn’t recognize him, but he moved like he was well-trained.

The other man also carried several days’ worth of dirt and grime, but she would have recognized him even if he was caked in mud. Trent was here. He was alive, and he had come back for her.

She grinned and pulled a throwing spear from her back. Alone, she would have faced an impossible task fighting such an overwhelming force with only a few spears. With Trent, she would take on the world if she had to.

She took a step forward, but movement out of the corner of her eye stopped her. She turned toward it, and her grin disappeared.

Bakari ran from the building, looking over his shoulder to make sure he wasn't being followed. In his hands, he held the data core.

Maya looked back at Trent and his friend. They were trying to fight all three groups of terrorists, but the sheer numbers involved made that impossible.

She looked back at Bakari. He had reached the slope and was starting to climb up.

She turned back to Trent. His friend appeared to have been injured. Trent was pulling him through a doorway, slamming it shut before the terrorists could reach it. That was a smart move. In the close quarters of the building, the terrorists’ superior numbers would be less of an advantage compared to Trent’s training.

She looked back at Bakari. He was already several feet up the slope and beginning to disappear into the trees, the core tucked under his arm.

She looked back at the building where Trent was currently fighting off the majority of the Waswahili Liberation Front. She wanted nothing more than to run after him and help him.

But she couldn’t let that core fall into the wrong hands. She couldn’t be the reason the world fell to a storm of nuclear warheads. She cursed and sprinted toward the terrorist leader, adrenaline blunting the pain in her joints. Bakari was nothing more than a shadow now. He would disappear from her view in seconds.

Shen she was twenty yards from the edge of the slope, she pulled her throwing spear back and with a cry, threw it toward Bakari. The wooden spear whistled through the air and disappeared into the darkness. Maya heard a cry and a moment later, she saw the spear bobbing in the air, embedded in Bakari’s back.

The terrorist leader cursed and dropped the core, reaching over his shoulder to try to remove the spear. Maya planted her thrusting spear in the crook of her right arm and rushed toward him, lips bared in a snarl.

He looked up just before she reached him. His eyes widened, and she thrust with the spear.

And missed. Bakari was so damned fast for a big man. The spear sliced through his shirt and traced a thin line over one enormous pectoral muscle.

Maya cursed and pulled the spear back. Bakari grabbed it and tried to pull Maya forward, but she had the advantage of leverage. She planted her feet and tugged with all her might. Bakari was strong, and for a second, he managed to keep his balance, but when Maya pushed with her legs, he tipped over, falling into Maya and sending them both tumbling down the hill.

Maya rolled to her feet when she hit the ground and lunged toward Bakari, who was on his hands and knees a few yards from her. The fall had knocked her throwing spear out of his back, but the big man was slow to get up.

She planted her thrusting spear again, but just as she drew close, Bakari whipped around like a snake, leaning away from her spear and sending the throwing spear straight for her heart. She was barely able to knock the weapon out of the way with her own spear, but her momentum carried her straight into the giant terrorist.

He reached for her with his other hand, grabbing a fistful of her shoulder-length hair. He wrenched, yanking her to the ground. The blow knocked the wind from her lungs, but she retained enough presence of mind to roll out of the way of the throwing spear that he drove toward her chest.

The spear hit the ground instead. The force of that splintered the thin spear. Maya got to her feet, flicking the tip of her spear toward Bakari’s face. He flinched as the tip of the dagger opened his right cheek.

She thrust again, but he rolled over and got to his feet, facing her from ten feet away, lips pulled back, yellow teeth bared under bloodshot eyes.

“You bitch,” he snarled. “You fucking whore.”

“Very original,” she replied drily.

She feinted toward his face, and when he brought his hands up to protect it, she flicked the point downward, thrusting into his thigh again. The spear went in about three inches before it torqued and nearly pulled out of her hands. It felt like stabbing an oak tree.

She pulled the spear out, but he caught it with both hands. With a bellow of rage, he spun the spear around, dragging her in a circle and tearing it from her grip.

She rolled, drawing a throwing spear as she did. When she got to her feet, she threw the spear, but he dodged, the weapon sailing harmlessly past his neck. He grinned and flipped her thrusting spear around so the dagger now faced her.

Maya pulled another throwing spear but kept it in her hand. Once more, the two combatants faced each other, circling like boxers looking for an opening.

An explosion sounded in the building behind them, and Maya’s eyes flicked toward the noise. Bakari took advantage of her mistake, rushing forward and shoving the spear. Maya reacted too late to do anything but backpedal. She smacked the thrusting spear out of the way with her throwing spear, but Bakari overpowered her, thrusting again and again and again, forcing her backwards and not giving her a chance to recover.

In desperation, she kicked up at the spear. He pulled the spear away, laughing, then lunged forward at an angle. Fortunately, Maya had anticipated that. She dropped to the ground, pushed forward with her arms, and rolled to her feet, thrusting upward with the throwing spear.

Once more, Bakari demonstrated shocking speed. The spearpoint meant for his abdomen entered his bicep instead. He cried out, dropping the throwing spear, but instead of backing away, he yanked his arm close, trying to pull Maya toward him.

Maya had the presence of mind to release the throwing spear, but when she bent to pick up the thrusting spear, Bakari kicked. The blow caught her in the middle of her sternum with enough force to lift her off of the ground.

She hit her back with a gasp, writhing as pain radiated through her body in deep rapid waves.

Bakari pulled the throwing spear from his arm. Blood spurted from the wound, clotting the dirt where it fell. He snarled at the stricken agent. “Now you die!”

Time seemed to slow. A cold voice spoke in Maya’s head. She recognized the voice as her father’s, but not the goofy sweetness of Reid Lawson. This was the calculating viciousness of Kent Steele.

He’ll bring the spear high and try to impale you with it. When he does, kick him hard in his groin. Roll to your feet and use the other throwing spear to stab him through his neck. Move quickly. You’ll only have a moment.

This advice flitted across her mind in a fraction of a second. By the end, Bakari had the spear aloft, roaring with the delight of the coming kill.

Maya kicked upward with every ounce of force she could muster. The toe of her boot landed solidly on the softest part of Bakari’s body. His mouth and eyes popped open comically, and the spear fell from his hands as he stumbled backwards, hands pressed to his stricken manhood.

Maya got to her feet. Since Bakari dropped his spear, she picked that one up and rushed him with it. He raised a hand to ward off the blow, but her father’s voice was right. Bakari’s judgment had short-circuited as his body struggled to cope with a pain that no man could endure.

Just before her spear pierced Bakari’s throat, a hole opened in his forehead. Maya cursed and dropped to the ground, then turned around, intent on scolding Trent for risking a shot so close to her head.

It wasn’t Trent. Above her, in the trees, nine men wearing full battle gear and carrying scoped rifles clustered around the data core. A deep warbling noise erupted from the dying Bakari. One of the men lifted his rifle and shot the leader again, cutting the sound off.

Bakari fell, and Maya sighed with relief. The CIA had rescued her.

“Geu yeojado jug-yeo. ppalli umjig-yeo.”

Maya’s blood chilled. The man who had killed Bakari turned toward her, his eyes cold.

Not CIA. These were North Koreans. The “buyers” had arrived.

Maya spoke Korean. The CIA anticipated that the new Supreme Leader would become trouble. It appeared they were right.

More pressing were the words the North Korean Leader had spoken.

“Kill the girl too. Move quickly.”

Maya, armed only with a throwing spear, threw it with all of her strength. It hit the Korean's body armor, and the tip splintered without so much as making the man flinch.

He aimed his rifle at her, and Maya prepared for the end.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

Alan Reidigger sat in the basement of his cabin outside of Lovettsville and wiped sweat from his brow. His fingers flew over three different keyboards, and six different monitors streamed images and information while his eyes flicked over each one and tried to make sense of all of it.

An ordinarily smooth English voice, now fraught with worry, spoke over the speaker to Alan’s right. “Okay,” Penny said. “That should do it.”

When the textured expanse of green that filled Alan’s screens was replaced with infrared images of the compound and the surrounding jungle, Alan pumped his fist and cried, “Yes! Hell yeah! Penny, if I wasn’t reasonably sure that Todd could kick my ass, I’d kiss you on the mouth!”

Penny giggled. “Well, I have a tendency to drink myself into a stupor after saving the world. Catch me at the right moment, and you might get lucky.”

Alan grinned and tapped a button on the speaker. “Hey, Todd. You hear that, buddy?”

“I heard,” Todd said drily. “Fortunately for you, you’re an hour away from me, and I’m busy committing treason.”

“We’re all committing treason,” Penny reminded him.

“It’s not a contest,” her husband replied. “What do you see, Alan?”

“I see the compound. I’ve got two figures engaged in combat near the trees. Based on their movements, one of them is definitely Maya. The other one is big and mad, but Maya’s outfighting him.”

“Wonderful. What else?”

“Well, I’ve got two people acting like Grade A badasses fighting in the building against a whole bunch of bad guys.”

“Wait. Two people?”

Alan caught his mistake, but it was too late. He still wasn’t ready to reveal Zero’s return yet, though, so he replied. “Yeah, I’m guessing Trent made a friend.”

“So Trent’s alive too?”

“Unless Maya made two friends.”

“Outstanding!” Todd said. “If I wasn’t reasonably sure that Penny would kick my ass, I’d kiss you on the mouth, Alan.”

Alan laughed heartily. “Well, I’ve always thought you were a fine hunk of All-American, Todd. We might all get lucky.”

Penny giggled again. “Okay boys, focus. Our heroes are winning right now, but if I hear you correctly, Alan, they’re badly outnumbered.”

“They are. How soon can help get there, Todd?”

“The team’s on their way from Dar es Salaam already. Figure an hour and ten, maybe an hour and fifteen.”

Alan’s smile faded. “Seriously? That long?”

“It took a bit of doing to get everyone to Africa without raising alarms,” Todd said, a little guiltily.

“Well, for God’s sake, Todd, you couldn’t raise a few alarms in the interest of saving your agents?”

“That’s not fair,” Penny said, coming to her husband’s defense. “We’re all doing our best here, Alan.”

Alan sighed. He remembered his conversation with Zero and understood completely why his old friend was frustrated with his own reticence. “Yeah, I get it. I’m sorry. I think I just celebrated too soon.”

“We all did,” Todd replied. “I guess we’re out of practice. I’m used to letting the kids handle the stress now.”

“I sure as hell feel too old for this,” Alan grumbled. “I don’t suppose Harris’s SOG team is any closer?”

“If they were, I would happily fall on my sword to pass this information along to her,” Todd said, “but they just took off from Langley three hours ago. They’ve got another twelve hours to go before they parachute in.”

Alan sighed and pressed his fingers to their temples. Penny calmed them both down by reminding him, "You said they're fighting like Grade A badasses. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt. All they need to do is find a way into the jungle, and then they'll be home free, right?"

Alan nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, they can evade these guys.” He looked back at the screen. Trent and Zero were moving through the building toward the exit. Their progress was slow, and they were still slogging through dozens of bad guys, but they were moving.

As for Maya, her fight with the other man still raged, but he was slowing down while Maya was maintaining her pace. She was dancing around him, still using her superior skill to evade her opponent’s presumably superior size and strength.

They would be okay.

He took a breath and pushed it out slowly. “Okay, yeah, they’re doing all right. Tell your team to be ready to rain hellfire and brimstone just in case they’re still at the compound, but I think we might get out of this one all right.” He chuckled. “Christ this family. They have the worst and the best luck of any family I’ve ever met.”

“Story of our lives,” Penny said.

“Just talked to Bolton,” Todd said. “They’re ready to raise hell. I asked politely for them to try to be quiet, but you know Bolton. Anything he can do to blow things up, and he’ll do it.”

Alan frowned. “I don’t know Bolton. One of yours?”

“Oh yeah, you don’t know Bolton. I forget you’re not Agency anymore. Yeah, he’s one of mine. I poached him from SOG a few months ago. He’s more of a sledgehammer than a scalpel, but there are times—like now—when you need sledgehammers.”

Alan nodded. “Yep. Just like the Peter Gabriel song.”

“What?”

He waved his hand. “Never mind. You’re too young to know that.”

“I got it,” Penny piped up.

“Yeah? Good for you. You have good taste.”

“Thank you.”

Alan folded his hands and watched the battle unfold, but his newfound calm disappeared when new infrared signals appeared on his monitors. He frowned and said, “Hey, Todd, how sure are you that the CIA doesn’t have any other assets in the area?”

“Pretty damned,” Todd replied. “Why?”

A pit formed in Alan’s stomach. “Because if the CIA doesn’t have assets there yet, then the nine men approaching the compound are not our friends.”

“What?” Todd barked.

“Yeah,” Alan said. “Shit!”

“What are they doing?” Todd asked. “Are they joining the fighting?”

“Not yet. They’ve stopped on the edge of the forest. Penny, are you sure you can’t get me optical?”

“Not through the trees, no. I can get you some CGI images, but I can’t provide distinguishing features. It would just be the computer’s guesswork.”

“It’s the buyers,” Todd said, his voice clipped with concern. “It has to be.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right,” Alan said. “Hold on.”

A streak of yellow flashed between one of the newcomers and the man fighting Maya. A moment later, another streak hit the man, and he fell to the ground. Alan’s brow furrowed. “Well, they just killed Maya’s opponent, and it doesn’t look like they’re trying to kill her.”

“Todd,” Penny interrupted. “They have the core.”

Alan blinked. “What?”

“The newcomers. Here.”

Alan’s screen changed. Magnetic lines overlaid the infrared. The lines converged on a point in between the nine newcomers. Penny had searched for the core’s electromagnetic signature and found it in the company of their new arrivals.

His eyes widened. The identity of the newcomers became glaringly, horribly clear.

“Oh shit. It’s the buyers.”

He watched helplessly as Maya threw a weapon at one of the new enemies. Alan couldn’t see the weapon through the infrared image, but he could see that whatever it was, it didn’t phase the attacker at all.

Oh God, no. We’re too late.

***

Sara gasped and sat bolt upright. She had been napping on the couch in Maya’s living room. She had no idea how she managed to fall asleep while Maya was missing and possibly dead.

Might have something to do with the fact that I spent the previous sixty hours awake.

She checked her phone. She had only slept for twenty minutes, but she felt no trace of weariness anymore. In its place was a sharp, sick fear.

Maya’s in trouble. She’s in trouble.

“Sara? Is everything okay?”

That was Mischa. She sounded so damned calm. Sara admired Mischa’s steel and loved that her younger sister was able to remain sanguine, but at the same time, she hated it so much.

She shook her head. “No.”

“What’s wrong? Did you hear something about Maya?”

Sara snatched her phone off of the coffee table and swung her feet forward. She checked her messages. No updates. The last bit of info came from Alan a few hours ago. Working with Penny to get image of compound. Maya believed alive. More info soon.

Sara took a deep breath. “No. No new information.” She tried to convince herself that was a good thing, but a sick fear clenched her heart, and she couldn’t shake the sense that something terrible was either about to happen or happening right now.

Mischa sat next to her and slipped her hand into Sara’s. Sara squeezed it tightly. Later, she would feel guilty about relying on her fifteen-year-old sister for calm when she was technically the adult, but right now, it was all she could do not to panic.

“We should be there,” Sara said. “We should be with her. I was wrong. Alan was wrong. We should have gone to her.”

“Hush,” Mischa said firmly. “Maya is strong. She will be all right.”

Sara shook her head. “How do you know? How can you know?”

“I don’t know,” Mischa said, “I believe.”

Sara turned toward her. “You believe?”

“Yes. I don’t know if Maya is okay because I don’t have the information I need to know. I can’t see her. I can’t see the battlefield on which she is fighting. I can’t hear her voice. It’s impossible to know for sure if she’s okay. But I believe she is because I believe there are no threats on Earth which could cause her to lose her resolve, and I further believe that her resolve is strong enough to overcome anything.” She frowned, her youthful face wrinkling adorably. “I feel like I have said the same thing twice. I don’t know if I’ve made my point correctly.”

Sara kissed her forehead. “I think you made it perfectly.” She surprised herself by managing a real smile. “You’re right. Maya’s the strongest person I know. She can handle anything.” Sara laughed. “Hell, the two of us embarrassed the CIA for months. Well, the three of us, but Trent was kind of just there.”

“Trent is there now,” Mischa said. “Do you believe he is all right?”

Sara frowned. “Do you?”

“I’m not sure. I admire him as a lover for Maya, but I don’t dwell much on his abilities as a CIA agent.”

Sara wasn’t very comfortable with the way Mischa phrased the first half of that statement, but the second half was more important anyway. “Well, from what Maya says, he’s very capable and very strong. And he loves Maya. If Maya’s in danger, then there’s no force on Earth that will keep Trent away from her.”

She nodded. “So, yes. I believe he’s all right. I think they’re both fighting like heroes right now and showing the world why you don’t mess with the United States of America.”

“But they do. People mess with the United States all the time. Do you mean they are showing the world why people are never successful when they mess with the United States?”

Sara laughed and kissed Mischa’s forehead. “Yes. That’s what I mean.” She jumped to her feet. “Come on. I feel like some ice cream. Let’s grab a couple of pints from the convenience store.”

Mischa shrugged. “If you wish.”

Sara really didn’t feel like ice cream at all right now. Her conversation with Mischa was encouraging, but the dread in her chest remained a pit in the middle of her core that sucked all of her calm and hope into its abyss. She just needed something to do to keep enough of her mind occupied to keep the rest from spiraling out of control.

“Let’s walk too,” she told Mischa. “Burn off some calories before we ingest them right back.”

“If you would like,” Mischa called from her bedroom upstairs.

Sara closed her eyes and took deep breaths until Mischa joined her again. Come on, Maya. Hang in there, please.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

Zero dropped a terrorist with another burst. “Out!” he called.

Trent spun around and covered Zero while he reloaded. He slammed the next clip into the G38 just in time to fire at the terrorists trying to shoot Trent in the back.

This was his last clip. That probably wasn’t a big problem since the ground was now littered with AK74s that no longer had owners, but it was worth noting that they were still fighting through a sea of the enemy despite having felled over twenty.

“How many did you say were here?” Zero asked.

“A lot,” Trent replied, dropping another terrorist and sending the rest to cover.

They were in a storage closet in a hallway within the building. Twice, they had tried to push out of the room only to be driven back by the sea of bad guys. Zero hoped to thin their numbers enough that they could find a way to an exit, but they just kept coming.

Trent jerked him back into the room just before a bullet splintered the door frame in front of him. “God, Zero, pay attention!” Trent snapped. “There’s a firefight going on!”

Zero felt a stab of embarrassment. They were both fighting well, but it was rapidly becoming clear that Trent was the superior combatant. He dropped two terrorists to every one of Zero’s and that was the third time he’d saved Zero from death by simply being more aware.

A terrorist rushed them, holding a grenade and shouting. Zero pushed his emotions to the side as he shot the man in the abdomen. The man stumbled, but didn’t fall until Trent put a bullet in his head.

“Get down!” the younger man cried.

That time, Zero was way ahead of him. He hit the deck and covered his ears. The blast shook his teeth, and he felt shrapnel pepper his body armor. At least two pieces of shrapnel sliced through his legs, trailing fire through Zero’s nerves. He got to his feet and decided the wounds weren’t immediately debilitating.

They hurt like a bitch, though. His body still ached from his ordeal in the ocean. That wasn’t helping his slowness at all.

“Come on,” Trent said. “This is our chance, let’s move, Zero.”

Zero blinked and realized that the terrorist’s attempt to explode them had instead shredded several of his comrades. They had a chance to move while the enemy was still dazed.

He ran after Trent, checking each side of the hallway. A terrorist staggered in front of Zero, and Zero shot him.

Trent turned around, cursed and fired behind Zero. Zero heard a thud as a man he hadn’t seen fell.

“Shit,” Zero cursed, turning around to cover their rear. “Sorry.”

Trent didn’t dignify that with a response, and Zero didn’t blame him. He should have known to cover the rear. It was basic combat knowledge.

That was one thing Zero hadn’t predicted. His fears had to do with his body being slow, not his mind. After overcoming the hurricane and making his way here, he actually thought he was as sharp as ever.

It hit him like a ton of bricks that if Trent wasn’t here, he would have failed. He would already be dead, and that data core would be in the hands of terrorists.

A pang pierced his heart. Poor Maya. He hadn't been able to rescue her. He was gone while she was being tortured, and God knows what else.

The insidious thought, the one that he couldn't accept, wormed its way to the front of his psyche again. Maya could be dead. She probably was dead. Maybe she was holed up in that office Trent was talking about, but the logical part of Zero's brain doubted it. If he was a terrorist leader, he wouldn't keep Maya alive. The data core was far more valuable than an agent, so even if he didn't know about the CIA's policy to disavow captured agents, he would see no reason to carry even the slight risk that came with imprisoning an agent for ransom. Unless Maya was able to convince the leader of this outfit that she would help them crack into the data core, she was almost certainly gone.

“Zero!”

Zero snapped his attention back to the battle. He fired off three quick bursts, dropping the terrorists shooting at them. He felt a dull ache in his right side and looked down to see a third bullet wound in his right side. Once more, he was lucky that it was only a flesh wound and hadn’t hit any vital organs, but he wouldn’t get many more mulligans like that one.

“What’s wrong with you?” Trent implored. “I know it’s been a while, man, but come on.”

Zero gritted his teeth, but instead of replying to that, he asked, “How close are we to the office you talked about?”

Trent turned a knob and opened the door. Without looking, he shot the terrorist inside.

“Got it,” Zero said.

He followed Trent into the room. He knew immediately that it had to be the terrorist leader’s office. A genuine Persian rug lay on the floor, and the furniture looked like it had been stolen from the office of the CEO of a large bank. A flag Zero didn’t recognize hung on the wall along with two spears that looked like tourist trap versions of traditional Zulu weapons.

Maya wasn’t there.

Zero’s shoulders slumped as all of the weariness of the past several days fell over him like a weight. He didn’t realize until that moment how much he still hoped to find his daughter alive. Hurt, maybe, but alive.

But she wasn’t here. The voice in his head continued to insist that she could still be alive, but that voice was only a whisper now. She was in trouble, and he wasn’t here to rescue her.

“Zero!”

Zero flinched, realizing that Trent was speaking to him. “Yes. Sorry. Um… what did you say.”

Trent took a deep breath. Zero felt another flash of guilt at the tolerance in the younger man’s voice. “I said the data core’s not here. Maya must have escaped with it.”

At Trent's words, hope flared in Zero's breast again. Of course! Why hadn't he thought of that? Surely, by now, Maya was a far more capable fighter than he was. She might have been taken back here after escaping the first time, but that was probably by design so she could get close to the core.

He grinned and drew his handgun. His rifle was out, but that mattered a lot less now. “Well then. Let’s go find her and get the hell out of this dump.”

Trent returned his grin. “Actually, I think this place is pretty beautiful. But I get your point.”

He opened a door opposite the one they entered through, and Zero followed him outside.

A terrorist ran past them just as they stepped out. He turned his eyes to look at them, but Trent lunged forward, plunging his knife into the man’s throat before he could cry out.

Zero pulled the younger man back into the room just before several more terrorists ran past. He felt a touch of pride at saving Trent’s life the way the younger man had saved his.

That pride faded when he looked toward the tree line.

A dozen or so of the terrorists ran toward the opposite corner of the compound. At that corner, just behind the trees, stood nine men in combat gear. Two of the men held a black box between them about the size of a desktop computer. That had to be the data core.

And in front of those men, standing next to the body of a man the size of a professional wrestler, was Maya.

A lot of things ran through Zero’s mind when he saw her. Maya as a baby, looking up at him with large, solemn eyes. Maya giggling as he and Kate took turns chasing her around their home. Maya staring in wonder at Sara and kissing her tiny little forehead over and over. The girls laughing with him, hugging him, telling him they loved him and that they missed mom too. Maya struggling not to cry as he held her close shortly after rescuing her from traffickers. Maya standing against traitors and terrorists, as she was now, brave and strong.

She’d become a force for good. She’d stayed strong and kept her family together.

Now he was back, and now she was in danger again. Now he was back because she was in danger again. He had left to keep her safe. He was back because she wasn't safe. He'd fought hard to protect his family, only to watch them face extreme danger over and over again. He had left to protect his family, and now his oldest daughter faced extreme danger again. Everything he tried came to nothing. All of his efforts to protect the people he loved ended in failure.

All of these thoughts crossed his mind in a half-second. In the next half-second, he saw Maya throw a sharpened stick at one of the soldiers in front of her. It bounced off of his body armor, and he aimed a rifle at her.

The man who moved next, firing his handgun at the rifleman from a distance of one hundred yards and placing the bullet perfectly through his Adam’s apple wasn’t Zero, agent or otherwise, although it was Zero’s skill that allowed him to make the shot. He wasn’t Kent Steele, although it was Steele’s icy calm that kept him from panic.

The man who was now sprinting toward the terrorists and releasing a primal shout of rage wanted nothing more than to allow his family to have a normal life. That man tried over and over to give them that life, only to watch all of his efforts crumble to dust. That man now felt nothing but hate for all of those who insisted on hurting the people he cared about, all of those who insisted on spiting his desire to protect his family.

That man’s name was Reid Lawson. And he was coming for his daughter.

Time snapped back to normal speed as Reid fired his gun at both the new enemies ahead and the nearby terrorists who turned around from their rush toward the others to address the storm approaching them at full sprint. Each bullet found a home as Reid called upon Kent Steele’s intelligence and Agent Zero’s training to weave out of sight lines, avoid return fire, and kill enemy after enemy.

By the time his clip ran out, the enemy ahead had abandoned their attempt to shoot him and were now fleeing up the slope with the data core. Maya started after them, apparently not caring that she had no more weapons, not even sticks.

That’s my girl.

A bullet—not Reid’s—dropped a terrorist who intended to sacrifice his life by stabbing Reid to death. Reid turned to Trent, who waved him forward. “Go! Get Maya! I’ll handle them!”

As though to prove his ability to do just that, Trent fired behind him, killing a terrorist approaching from the rear, then followed through with the movement, spinning and kicking a terrorist in front of him to the ground while shooting another.

Reid turned back toward Maya to see her engaged in combat with four of the surviving enemy. The other two were continuing their flight up the slope with the data core.

Reid snarled and launched toward the men. He had never been much of a sprinter—Maria was the speed demon of the group—but these men were aiming guns at his daughter.

They had no chance. Reid drew his knife, and when Maya’s heroics finally proved unable to keep all four terrorists from shooting at her, he threw it from a distance of ten yards. It buried itself in the neck of the man who aimed his rifle at Maya with enough force to knock him to the ground.

The others turned toward Reid, but they were too late. Reid jammed the index and middle finger of his left hand into one of the men, bursting his eye. The man cried out and lifted his hand to his head. Reid kicked him into the farther of the two remaining men, causing both to fall to the ground and the second man’s shot to sail harmlessly up into the canopy.

The third man cursed and dove to the ground, firing at Reid as he went. Reid kicked his barrel up, sending his shots harmlessly overhead as well. He brought his boot heel down hard onto the man’s throat, feeling the crunch as his windpipe was crushed.

The man’s eyes popped open, and Reid put him out of his misery by stomping again. He convulsed, his eyes rolling into the back of his head, but Reid didn’t have time to watch him die.

The last remaining man shoved his stricken friend off of him and raised his gun. Reid ducked under the barrel and came forward, shooting both hands up through the surprised terrorist’s arms. He placed one hand on the crown of the head and the other underneath the chin and twisted sharply. The man’s head spun almost entirely upside down as his neck broke.

The half-blind man shouted in rage, and Reid grabbed the man he’d just killed by his body armor and held the body in front of him as the terrorist fired his rifle. He rushed forward, using the man as a shield, then dropped him onto the half-blind man’s good side.

The man shrieked and fired toward his blind side, assuming Reid would go there. He didn’t. He jumped over the terrorist’s good side, shoving the rifle to the ground and pulling a knife from the dead man’s belt.

Reid assumed the final survivor screamed before he plunged the enemy’s knife into his good eye, but the roar of a vehicle engine drowned out the noise. He got to his feet and turned to his daughter.

Maya was looking toward the slope. “Damn it! How the fuck did they get a vehicle here?”

“Language,” Reid said instinctively.

Maya snapped her eyes toward him. She frowned. Then she gasped. She took two steps backward. Her mouth worked for several seconds before she could manage to breathe, “Dad?”

Reid smiled at her, tears welling in his eyes, a lump forming in his throat. “Hey, Maya.”

Maya stepped forward, lifting a trembling hand to his cheek.

“It’s been a long time,” he said.

She stared at him in utter shock. Then her lips pulled back in a snarl. Reid had just enough time to frown in confusion before she drew her hand back and slapped him hard across the face.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

Maya’s hand stung from the force of the slap. Her father’s head snapped to the side, and he staggered backward, eyes popping open in shock.

“You bastard,” she breathed. Then a shout. “You bastard!”

Her dad rubbed his cheek. “Yeah, I’ve been getting that a lot lately.”

“You… bastard!”

He stepped toward her, his hands open. “Maya.”

She shoved him hard, sending him to his backside in the mud. “Fuck you!”

She kicked at him, and he parried the blow. She didn’t try the kick again, but she repeated her sentiment. “Fuck you! You asshole! You piece of shit! Where the hell were you?”

“I can explain.”

If she had been asked to name three words he could have said that were worse than the ones he chose, she would have been unable to do so. “Explain? Explain? How the fuck are you going to explain two years, Dad? We thought you were dead! We thought…”

Her lips trembled as she recalled her conversation with that doctor, Dillard or Dillmore or whatever his name was. For a while, she hoped her dad was alive, but when he didn’t show up for months and made no attempt to contact them, she no longer allowed herself to hope, stifling the feeling whenever it dared to intrude on her life.

“I’m sorry, Maya.”

“Yeah, you are,” she said through a noise that was halfway between a laugh and a sob. “Yes, you are. You are the sorriest piece of shit I’ve ever had the misfortune of knowing.”

She met his eyes and saw tears welling in them. She was very displeased to feel tears welling in her own eyes. “Two years, Dad. Why?”

“I wanted you to be safe,” he said. “I thought that if I wasn’t around, you and your sisters would finally be safe.”

He didn't meet her face when he said that, though. The coward.

“Bullshit. You just wanted—”

A branch snapped behind her, and she spun around. Trent burst through the trees, and when he saw her, his face lit up in a grin. “Maya.”

His smile faded when he saw her expression. And that was another thing her dad had ruined. Damn it, she couldn’t even have a heartfelt reunion with her boyfriend because her bastard father had appeared out of nowhere.

“Okay,” Trent said, looking between Maya and her dad, who was still on his ass like some damned bum. “I can see you two have a lot to work through. Let’s maybe try to figure out how to get the data core back first.”

Maya blinked, suddenly remembering that they were in a firefight. “Shit. What’s going on below in the compound?”

“Well… I think we might have gotten them all.”

She stared at him incredulously. “All of them? There were over a hundred terrorists down there!”

Trent shrugged and smiled. “Well, I had Zero with me.” Her eyes narrowed, and he cleared his throat and said, “I think we probably killed between thirty and forty. As soon as they saw Bakari was dead, the rest started running away. I figured we had more important things to do than chase them.”

“We do,” Zero said, getting to his feet. “I’ve been talking to Alan. I’ll call—”

Maya whirled on him. “Alan knows you’re alive?”

“He didn’t know for sure until after you were captured,” Zero replied. “He got your distress signal and sent me a message.”

“How did he know how to contact you?”

“Guys, later,” Trent said more firmly.

Maya turned her glare to him, but damn it, he was right. God, she hated this.

Her dad was alive? What the hell? Why hadn’t he told her? Why hadn’t he come home? Why had he come here now? Just to rescue her? Why not just never leave in the first place?

“Alan, it’s Zero. I’ve linked up with Maya and Trent, but someone took the data core.” He glanced at one of the bodies. “They look Korean. I’m assuming North.”

He paused to listen to whatever Alan had to say. Maya took advantage of the opportunity to rip the radio out of his hand. Zero flinched, looking for a moment like he was going to take the radio back, but in the end, he thought better of it.

“Alan?” Maya said. “Hey, it’s me. Agent Specter.”

“Hey, Maya. I was just telling your dad—”

“Yeah, I know. And you both can go screw each other in hell, but Talon has reminded me that we have more important things to worry about right now. Since I’m in charge of this op, you can tell me any information you have on the North Koreans.”

Alan, at least, was smart enough not to test her any further. “I’ve been working with Todd and Penny to get a handle on the situation. It looks like the North Koreans have a plane at an abandoned airstrip on the Kenyan border about five miles north of you.”

Maya’s heart sank. In a vehicle, they could easily have covered those five miles during the time the three of them had already spent here. “Then they’re probably in the air already,” she said, hiding her disappointment. “Tell Todd someone needs to bring that plane down. It’s very visible, but I don’t think we have a choice anymore.”

“Actually, they’re not in the air. The vehicle has to take a winding route to the airfield. They’re traveling twenty-eight miles. According to my satellite data, they’ve managed four of those miles so far. I’m thinking it’ll take them another forty-five minutes to get to their plane if they don’t care about beating their truck to hell on the way. If you guys move, you can beat them.”

Maya nodded. “Thank you. We’re on our way.”

“Perfect. Todd has an extraction team on the way. They’ll be about fifteen minutes behind the North Koreans. If you can’t stop them, at least try to hold them off until Bolton and his team gets there.”

“Bolton’s coming?” She grimaced. “Have Todd warn him against using too many explosives.”

Alan chuckled. “Already did. I’m told that’s not something he can promise.”

Maya sighed. “Good enough. I’ll talk to you soon.”

Zero held his hand out for the radio. Maya ignored him and put it in her pocket. “Grab weapons,” she commanded the other two. “Then follow me. We have forty-five minutes to get to the Kenyan border over crap terrain.” She looked her dad in the eye. “I hope you’ve kept in shape, because I’m not going to wait if you fall behind.”

She hated it, but a small part of her was happy to hear the edge in his voice when he replied, “I won’t fall behind.”

She grabbed a rifle and two spare magazines from the North Koreans. The rifle was an AK-12M1, the latest generation of the Kalashnikov rifle family that began with the storied AK-47. The rifle was chambered in 5.45x39mm, a round that was roughly equivalent to 5.56x45mm NATO. A little less powerful, but that was splitting hairs.

Zero and Trent followed suit, and Zero also grabbed a helmet so he could use the night vision goggles attached to it. Maya’s cheeks burned as she realized she should have had that idea herself, but she swallowed her pride and took another helmet without a word to her father.

She started up the slope, bounding through the foliage like a lemur. Her anger and adrenaline pushed her forward in spite of the pain still radiating through her body. Trent cursed under his breath as he started after her.

They reached the top of the slope in three minutes. Once on level ground, Maya broke into a run, heading due north. She realized she hadn’t asked Alan for the coordinates of the airfield, so she pulled the radio out. “Alan, can you see us?”

“I’ve got you,” he replied. “You’re going the right way. The airfield is due north of your position.” He paused a second, then said, “Go easy on your dad, huh? He was just doing what he thought was best.”

Maya gritted her teeth. “Not the time, Alan.”

“Yeah, right. Sorry. Keep going. I’ll call if anything changes.”

She dropped the radio in her pocket and looked behind to make sure the two men were keeping up. She felt a perverse satisfaction when she saw Zero in the rear, five yards behind Trent. He was breathing steadily but heavier than she was.

He lifted his head, saw her looking, smiled, and gave her a thumbs up. When he did that, he looked exactly like her father, not Zero or Kent Steele but Reid Lawson, the man who had bandaged her scraped knees and read her bedtime stories.

A lump formed in her throat, and she turned her eyes ahead. She wasn’t sure yet if she was glad he was back or if she wished he really was dead, but she’d figure that out later.

They had a nuclear war to stop.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

Zero's lungs burned within ten minutes of leaving the compound. His brief moment of heroism where his old skill came through had lost most of his endurance, and he was now running on fumes.

So much for thinking I was in shape, he thought ruefully.

He kept up with Maya and Trent, though. Even when the terrain grew rough, and they spent half of their time sliding downhill and the other half scrambling over rocks and pulling themselves up loose dirt slopes by roots and branches, he stayed close to them.

He was man enough to admit that part of the reason he pushed through his exhaustion was just to prove to Maya that he could. He hadn’t expected a warm welcome, really, but he hadn’t expected the level of hate he received from her, especially after saving her life.

Trent hadn’t reacted much differently, now that he thought back. Come to think of it, Alan hadn’t reacted much differently either. So far, everyone who had learned of Zero’s return had seemed more angry to see him than happy to see him. Well, Alan hadn’t actually seen him, but the point still stood.

Well, you already said you didn’t expect a hero’s welcome.

The voice that rebuked Zero was Reid Lawson’s, but Zero couldn’t use split personalities as some kind of excuse. Reid Lawson was Zero was Kent Steele. He couldn’t blame the actions of one on the thought processes of another.

As he pistoned his legs, churning dirt on his way up a slope that didn’t have roots to hold onto, he wondered how the rest of his family would react. Todd would probably be just as pissed as Alan but probably let go of his anger quickly enough. More than any of them, he knew about making serious sacrifices to do the right thing. Penny would probably be the only one not angry with him. In his short time knowing that woman, she had proven excellent at allowing bygones to be bygones. Well, except for a brief spat with Todd, but that was different.

But Mischa and Sara? How would they feel when the father they thought had died two years ago appeared out of nowhere? Was it even fair of him to go back and put them through this?

Stop that. We went over this. You’re going back. People will be upset with you. Grow a pair and deal with it.

Zero frowned. That argument was unassailable, which took away any chance he had of finding some way to justify his feelings.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to dwell on that for very long because they burst through the trees a moment later and came into view of the airfield.

“Damn it!” Maya exclaimed. “They’re already boarding the plane!”

Zero looked across the grassy field ahead of them at the airfield. The hangar and control tower were cracked and crumbling, and the tarmac looked to be in similarly poor condition, but the runway was remarkably smooth and looked recently paved. He guessed that the Waswahili Liberation Front used the runway to receive shipments from the Triads and send them north to Europe.

At least they used to. With their leader dead and the others scattered, Zero suspected that the Waswahili Liberation Front was no more.

Of more immediate concern was the airplane Maya had pointed out. It was an enormous Antonov An-22 transport, the largest turboprop plane in the world. Its four massive engines with contra-rotating props were already turning. Two men were dragging a hose away from the wing, presumably having just filled the fuel tanks. The vehicle the two surviving North Koreans had used to escape the Liberation Front compound—a truck that looked like a clone of a Chinese BAIC four-wheel-drive SUV—was driving up the ramp of the transport. The men on the ground looked at the approaching Americans, tossed the fuel line on the ground and ran for the airplane.

Kent Steele’s knowledge took over. He sprinted toward the airplane. “Maya! go to the end of the runway and cover for me! Shoot the airplane’s tires if it starts picking up speed. Trent, get to that fuel line and prepare to set it on fire on my command!”

“No!” Maya grabbed his wrist. “Zero… Dad… You need to let me do this.”

He frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“You’re the least physically fit out of the three of us right now. You’ve been out of practice for two years. You’re already nearly out of energy; I can see it. You go to the runway and cover me. I’ll board the plane.”

Zero looked pensively at the runway. Maya had a point, but he couldn’t put her in danger again. He couldn’t watch her die so soon after finding her.

“Dad.”

He looked back down at her, at the hazel eyes she’d gotten from him.

“I’ll be okay,” she said. “I can do this.”

Zero swallowed. Then he nodded. “Okay.”

She gave him a brief smile, then rushed toward the airplane’s cargo door, just starting to close as the airplane turned ponderously toward the runway.

Zero sprinted toward the front of the runway, willing himself to reach it before his lungs gave out.

God, I feel so old.

Reid Lawson replied immediately. Feel old later. You just put your daughter in danger. If you can’t handle the hard part, then make damned sure you can handle your part.

He checked his magazines as he ran. The two spare box magazines each held thirty rounds, and the one currently in his rifle held twenty-seven. The previous owner of this gun had only fired one burst before Zero killed hm.

That should be enough for what Zero planned to do, but what he planned to do hinged on Maya being able to retrieve the core and get out of the airplane, preferably before it was too far down the runway.

He nodded and when he reached the end of the runway, he slid down the grass embankment, aimed his rifle at his target, took a deep breath and waited.

It’s up to you now, Agent Specter.

***

Maya was far more worn out than she let on after the past three days and the five-mile sprint through the jungle. To make matters worse, she was beginning to feel thirsty again. She knew that she was far from seriously dehydrated the way she was the day before, but it was just one more straw on top of all of the other crap she had to work through.

Suck it up, Agent. Don’t let Zero see you falter.

She wasn't sure what it said about her that a large part of her motivation to succeed right now was just a spiteful desire to prove that she was better than her father. Probably, it said that the two of them had a lot of things to work through, and they would have to spend some quality time doing just that when they got home.

But that was for later. The cargo door at the rear of the airplane was closing, and she needed to be inside the plane before that happened.

She pushed herself to her limit, running faster than she ever had in her life. She had won several West Point competitions when she was in school, but she wasn’t beaten, dehydrated, starved, thrown off a ravine, then beaten again prior to those competitions.

Enough focus on the negative. Focus on the positive.

She jumped, and when her leap carried her not to the lip of the door but straight through it, her confidence soared. You see that, Dad? I’m a freaking Jedi.

Her celebration ended when a North Korean soldier stepped forward and swung a knife toward her throat with a backhand blow. She slipped outside the blow, wrapped her arm around the man’s chest in a seatbelt grip and threw him over her hip. As she did, she brought her rifle up and shot a second man who tried to throw his knife at her. The knife went wide, clattering against the wall.

She shot the man below her before he could recover, then moved deeper into the cavernous hold. Two men popped up from behind the truck and threw knives at her head, but she dropped low and fired at them. They ducked, and her bullets poked holes through the aircraft’s ceiling instead.

One of the men cried out, “Ani, meongcheonghan nyeon-a! No, you dumb bitch!”

It occurred to her that the reason her attackers were using knives was because they didn’t want to punch holes in the aircraft that could affect the hull’s pressurization and force them to fly at a lower altitude. Airplanes had less range at lower altitudes. She didn’t know what the range of this behemoth was, but North Korea was a long way away.

She took that idea and ran with it, aiming her rifle at the ceiling and firing repeated bursts. Sunlight streamed through the openings like Swiss cheese.

“Andwae! Geumanhae! No, don’t! Stop it!”

The owner of that voice rushed toward her. She switched her empty magazine out for a new one. He reached her before she could shoot him, so she flicked the butt of the rifle at his nose instead. It bursts in a shower of blood and snot, and he staggered backwards.

She spun her rifle around and shot him, then aimed at the other man, who was fleeing toward the cockpit.

She didn't pull the trigger, though. Her instincts told her to wait and follow instead.

She did, and a moment later, her instincts paid off. The man pounded on the door of the cockpit. He turned around and saw her, cursed and spun toward her, drawing his handgun. The cockpit door opened just as she fired.

The man who opened the cockpit cursed and tried to close the door, but the dead man fell into it, pushing it open. He kicked the body out of the way, but Maya was on him by then. She fired, but he moved like a blur, pushing the barrel away. Her burst spiderwebbed the windshield instead.

The pilot flinched, turned toward her, cursed, and pushed the throttles forward. The airplane started to accelerate.

Maya couldn’t let the airplane take off. When her father told Trent to prepare to light the fuel, Maya deduced his plan right away. She would retrieve the data core and leave the plane. Then Trent would set the fuel on fire, and the three of them would get as far away as they could before the underground tanks ignited and blew up the entire airfield.

That probably wasn’t that far, but it would make sure that the North Koreans didn’t make it home to tell their superiors about the American agents who tore apart their whole operation. It was a good plan, a great one even. That both irritated Maya and filled her with pride.

Whatever her feelings, though, she needed to stop the plane taking off. The first officer still had hold of her rifle, so she released it and ran into the cockpit. She raked her fingernails across the first officer’s eye as she passed him. He cried out, but she didn’t look to see how much she’d debilitated him.

She grabbed the throttles with both hands and pulled them backwards, straining to overpower the pilot. The pilot cursed and turned around, holding a handgun. She threw herself to the side, and the bullet meant for her struck the first officer instead.

The pilot’s eyes popped open as his companion fell to his knees, eyes fluttering, blood spurting from his neck. Maya took advantage of his distraction, lunging forward and throwing a hard left hook behind his ear. His head smashed against the window, and he twisted the yoke.

On the ground and moving slowly, the aircraft couldn’t bank, but it did shudder violently, slowing it further. She pulled the throttles to idle and looked around for the core.

It wasn’t in the cockpit. Duh. It was probably still in the vehicle.

She ran back into the cabin. The truck’s doors were locked, so Maya shielded her face and slammed her elbow into the window, shattering the glass. She opened the door and looked in the cabin of the truck for the core. It wasn’t there, but there was no bulkhead between the cabin and the passenger compartment of the truck, so she climbed over the driver’s seat and into the compartment.

The core was strapped to one of the benches. She breathed a sigh of relief and hefted it, then turned toward the front of the cabin.

The plane lurched forward, causing her to fall backward. The pilot must have woken up.

Sher cursed and got to her feet, leaving the core in the truck. She would need to finish the job first, then come back for the core.

She jumped out of the truck and stopped. The pilot stood in the doorway, snarling and holding her rifle.

Maya, you idiot! You left your damned gun!

She couldn’t spend any more time scolding herself, though. The pilot fired, and she leaped out of the way just before the rifle burst took her head off. It punched more holes in the plane’s hull, but considering the pilot was accelerating and not pulling up on the wheel to lift the plane into the sky, she guessed he didn’t care about that anymore.

The pilot blinked and looked forward with alarm. So he did care about it, he just forgot to think about it for a moment.

Maya took advantage of her opponent’s distraction once more, sprinting to the front of the plane. She made it nearly to the pilot when the plane lurched. A shrieking sound came from outside, and Maya stumbled forward into the pilot, knocking him sprawling into the dash.

She grabbed the throttles and pulled them back to idle. The pilot cursed and tried to aim the rifle at her, but she threw her weight into him and wrestled him back against the dash.

Through the window, she caught a glimpse of her father at the end of the runway, firing his rifle at the airplane. She realized the reason for the lurch now. Zero had shot the nosewheel out.

The plane lurched again and veered toward the left as he shot one of the port side main gears out. That slowed the plane but caused Maya to lose her leverage. The pilot shoved her off of him, and she fell over the pilot’s seat.

He tried to aim at her again, but she kicked him hard, shoving him back over the first officer’s seat. She got to her feet, and the plane lurched once more, this time to starboard.

She fell on top of the North Korean terrorist, sprawling into his arms like a lover. She felt a flash of irritation at having her attack foiled once again. Dad, I love you, but this is too much of a good thing.

The shrieking from outside became a roar as more and more tires exploded. The terrorist shoved Maya off of her, but Maya was able to tear the rifle from his grasp. He got to his feet, and Maya slammed the butt of the rifle into his face. She felt his orbital bone crunch and hit him again before he could react. He released a hoarse, wet scream, and she hit him again, then again, then again.

Finally, she backed away, breathing hard. The terrorist’s face was caved in on the right side. Maya turned away, her stomach lurching. The image of the brutal killing she’d just committed fought to remain at the forefront of her mind, but she shut it out and forced herself to focus on the task at hand.

She returned to the truck and grabbed the core. The airplane was still moving somehow despite being at idle and losing all of its tires. Maya staggered toward the cargo door and half-pressed, half-fell against the button to lower it. Her knee throbbed. Her shoulders screamed. Hell, her entire body hurt, whatever adjective you wanted to use.

The cargo door lowered, the smooth operation of the hydraulics an odd contrast to the screaming of the landing gear. Maya waited until it was halfway open, then stumbled out. The right landing gear failed when she was near the end of the ramp, dropping the starboard side of the plane to the ground. Maya tried to keep her balance, but the aggregation of exhaustion, malnutrition, and injury was too much. She fell headfirst off of the ramp.

Instead of shattering her skull on the runway, she fell into a pair of strong arms. The owner of those arms staggered under the weight of both Maya and the core but didn’t fall.

Maya looked up at her father’s face as he ran with her off of the runway. His face was more lined than she remembered, his skin tan and leathery. Wherever he’d gone, it must have been somewhere tropical. There was the beard and the long hair that he’d never had before.

But his hazel eyes radiated the same strength and love that she remembered. The same hardness tempered by kindness.

He was her father, and he was home.

Maya felt weightless for a moment. It took her another moment to realize that the sky was blazing a bright yellow. They hit the ground, and Zero fell on top of Maya and shielded her with his body.

Dirt and chunks of concrete rained on top of them. Maya’s awareness returned, and she realized that Trent had blown up the runway. A thrill of fear ran through her, and she wriggled out from under her father and called, “Trent?”

“Yeah, I’m here,” Trent said breathlessly.

Maya got to her feet and saw Trent with his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. She pulled him close and kissed him deeply for a few seconds, then threw her arms around him. “I love you,” she said. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too, baby,” Trent said, squeezing tightly. “I’m so glad you’re safe.”

He released her, and Maya turned to see Zero getting to his feet. He gave the two lovers a resigned smile. “Guess I’m gonna have to get used to that.”

The three of them turned and faced the runway. A plume of smoke rose high in the air, bolstered by a tower of yellow flame. The heat of that flame baked Maya’s skin, but not enough to burn. Somehow, Zero had managed to run over one hundred yards from the runway while carrying over one hundred fifty pounds of extra weight in only fifteen seconds, carrying them safely away from the explosion.

Guess the old man still has some life in him.

A staccato chopping rhythm sounded behind her. She turned around to see a stealth Blackhawk helicopter come to a halt a few feet in front of them.

The door opened, and a well-muscled man a few years younger than Zero with eyes silver enough to be nearly white and hair almost the same color grinned at the three of them. "Aw, man," the stranger said. "I wanted to blow up the runway."

Maya chuckled. “Good to see you, Bolton.”

The three of them climbed onto the helicopter. As soon as they were on board, Bolton slid the side door closed and called. “Git along, Hoosier!”

“I’m from Illinois, dipshit!” the pilot called.

“Same difference!” Bolton fired back.

The pilot grinned and offered Bolton a finger, then lifted the bird into the sky.

Maya sighed with relief and turned to the two most important men in her life. “That was fun. When can we do it again?”

Both men smiled and said, “That’s my girl.”

Maya burst into laughter when Trent and Zero turned to each other with the same look of chagrin on their faces.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Ten minutes after their flight touched down at Langley, Zero found himself in a familiar position. He was sitting in a chair in the office of a director-level CIA employee, staring placidly at said employee, who was standing in front of him with arms crossed and a scowl on his face. His wife stood next to him with the same scowl, although her hands were on her hips.

Some things never change, he thought drily.

That wasn’t entirely true, though. The director in question wasn’t a traitor. That was a nice change. He was also one of Zero’s best friends.

And his daughter sat next to him. That was also a nice change. Her boyfriend sat next to her, holding her hand. Zero wasn’t sure how he felt about that change yet, but considering how close all three of them had come to dying, he would take the good with the bad.

Todd broke the silence. “Fuck you.”

Zero smiled. “You look like you’ve been eating well, Todd. Penny must be a damned fine cook.”

Todd glanced at his belly and reddened a little. Penny covered her mouth and coughed, trying to stifle laughter. Todd rolled his eyes and addressed Zero again. “Where the hell have you been?”

Zero took a deep breath. There would no doubt be quite a few much longer conversations with many more people before he could say that he’d completely answered that question, but he gave Todd—and Maya and Trent—the abridged version.

“I was in the Maldives.”

“The Maldives?”

“Yes. I lived on an uninhabited islet near the southern end of the chain. I fished and grew vegetables. No one knew me.”

“Why? Why leave like that?”

“After we took down Mr. Bright, I… Well, I thought it would be best if I left.”

“You thought it would be best if you abandoned your friends and family, disappeared to the middle of nowhere, left us to clean up the mess, then never talked to us again?” Penny asked.

“Yes.”

"Seriously?" Todd snapped. "What, did you think that the world would stop just because you were gone? Our enemies would shrug and go home because they couldn't chase Zero anymore. We'd all be safe because after all, if they can't face the Great and Glorious Agent Zero, what's the point?"

Zero’s cheeks heated further. “That… about sums it up, I guess. I thought that my family—and that includes you and Penny, Todd—would be better off without me as a lightning rod for all of the evil in the world. I figured you wouldn’t have to constantly deal with trouble from people who just had to come after me. And I thought that with Bright gone and the traitors in the CIA exposed, things would level out a little bit. I didn’t think I was really needed anymore. And they did. From what I understand, that incident in Tanzania was the first time in two years that the CIA suffered a major threat.”

“And you think that was because you left.”

Zero didn’t answer that right away. Logically, it made no sense to think that, but on the other hand, he was the target of just about every evil organization on Earth. His presence had led to his family being put in danger. Many times.

“Sounds to me like you were an idiot,” Penny opined.

Zero didn't respond. He still didn't know if it was better for him to stay or to go. True, his arrival had been helpful this time, but what about next time? What if word got out that the great Agent Zero had returned and had heroically saved two CIA agents? He hadn't killed all of his enemies. The big names, sure, but little names had a tendency to get bigger with years to stew and think and plan and act. What if someone came out of nowhere wanting to try their hand against the great Zero? How many times could he get lucky before someone succeeded at taking his family away from him?

But he couldn't convince the others of that. They loved him, and because they loved him, they wanted him close, even if it meant they were in danger because of it. They wouldn't accept that he would rather endure their hate than watch them die.

Todd broke the silence. “We really missed you, Reid.”

A lump formed in Zero’s throat. He glanced at Maya and saw the same judgment, the same heartbreak, and the same love in her eyes. “I missed you too.”

Todd took a deep breath and stared at Zero for a few seconds longer. Then he smiled softly. “All right. Come here. We’ve gotta get this done, or Penny will never let me hear the end of it.”

“Damned straight,” Penny said.

Zero got to his feet and hugged both of them. Penny kissed him on the cheek and said, “It’s so good to see you again.”

Zero felt arms wrap around him from behind. When Maya laid her head on his shoulder, he nearly broke down. It was only Trent’s presence that kept him from bursting into tears. He didn’t want his daughter’s boyfriend to see him cry. Yeah, that was silly, but whatever.

When the embrace ended, Todd said, “Okay. On a more serious note, Zero, the CIA still thinks you’re dead. Not a lot of people have seen you so far, and all of them work for me, so we can keep a lid on this for now. We’ll figure out how to reintroduce you to the world soon enough.”

“Actually,” Zero interrupted, “I don’t think I’m ready to be reintroduced yet.”

Todd blinked. “You’re not seriously gonna go into hiding again, are you?”

“No,” Zero said. “I’m going back home.”

“Well, we’ll have to talk about that,” Maya said. “We sold our old house.” Zero looked at her, and she quickly added, “You’re welcome to stay with us, of course, at least for now, but… well, we’ll talk about it.”

Zero felt a pang when he heard that, but it wasn’t too sharp. Maya was an adult now, all the way an adult. She had a boyfriend she lived with and a younger sister she was taking excellent care of. She ran that house, and she ran it well. Zero needed to respect that. That might mean getting his own place and letting his daughters continue to live the lives they had built for themselves.

But like she said, they would talk about it later.

“Okay,” Todd said. “So you’re going home, but we’re gonna what? Say you’re a long-lost uncle or something?”

“Something like that,” Zero said. “I just don’t want the world knowing that Agent Zero is back yet.”

“Yet?” Trent interjected.

The corners of Zero’s mouth turned up despite the stab of fear he felt. “Yet.”

Trent grinned. “I like the sound of that.”

Damn the boy, he really did look handsome. It would be so much easier to despise him if he was too ugly for Maya.

“Well, ‘Agent’ Zero isn’t on the table right now,” Todd said. “I’m up to my ears in shit as it is with this op. Which leads me to the next topic of conversation.” He turned to Maya and Trent. “You guys are officially suspended.”

Zero frowned. Maya and Trent both started to protest. Even Penny cast a glare on Todd's way. Todd raised both of his hands and said, "Stop and listen for a moment!"

The room quieted, and Todd continued. "You guys are officially suspended pending an official inquiry into this operation. That inquiry will find that the two of you successfully retrieved the data core from the fallen DEDALUS satellite, prevented a North Korean attempt to steal U.S. defense secrets, and broke up an international terrorist organization. That last one is a bit of a stretch, but we can get Interpol to cooperate on that with a little handshaking. Your disavowal will be retroactively expunged, and you two will return to active duty with the EOT. I estimate that the process will take two weeks. Consider those two weeks your vacation."

Maya stiffened. “Disavowal?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Todd replied. “As far as the CIA is concerned, it never happened. But it almost did. And you two need to be very aware of the circumstances that led to that decision. I’m not saying I agree at all with it, but I do understand it. You two were very nearly compromised. That can’t happen. I’m not going to lecture you right now, but we will have a discussion upon your return about this.”

Maya and Trent looked unhappy with that decision, but they didn’t argue. Zero also kept his thoughts to himself. It looked like Todd didn’t want to talk about the CIA mole right now. Zero wasn’t sure he agreed with the decision, but like Todd said, he could understand it. Todd no doubt intended to use those two weeks to try to identify that mole and follow it to its ultimate source. When he talked to his agents again, he probably hoped to have the problem resolved. It was a bit ambitious of a goal—assuming Zero was correct—but that was Todd’s game now. Zero was out, and if he was going to stay out, then he needed to keep that promise. He would be available if Todd needed him, and if the existence of this mole became a threat to Maya and Trent again, he would intervene, but in the meantime, he would allow his family to do their jobs without interference.

Maybe that would be enough. Maybe he could find a way to have his family without putting them in danger. Maybe.

“All of that being said,” Todd concluded, “the main points of today’s meeting are: one, good job, agents; and two, welcome sort-of back, Zero.”

Zero chuckled. “It’s good to be—”

The door burst open, and another familiar figure burst into the room. He stalked straight to Zero and stuck a finger in his face. “Fuck you!”

“Yep,” Todd said. “Got that part covered already, Alan.”

“Well, I’m covering it again,” Alan Reidigger said. “Seriously, dude, fuck you.”

Zero nodded. “That seems to be the general consensus.”

Alan shook his head. A smile cracked his face. “You’re lucky I’m so damned happy to see you, or I’d have Trent kick your ass right now.”

Zero laughed, got to his feet, and pulled his old friend into an embrace. “It’s good to see you too, buddy.”

Maya’s phone buzzed. She swore when she saw the number. “Hey, Todd, can we get an email with the rest of the meeting? Sara’s freaking out a little bit, and I’d like to go home to reassure her that I’m alive.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Todd said, shooing them toward the door. “Meeting’s over. Go. Please use the back entrance so Zero’s ugly mug doesn’t sear itself into anyone’s mind, but go.”

“But come visit!” Penny called. “Soon, please!”

“Count on it,” Zero said, waving goodbye.

Zero, Alan, Trent, and Maya left Todd’s office and walked through a secret corridor to an equally secret underground parking garage that Maya told Zero was part of the EOT’s new subcomplex at Langley.

These kids with their fancy new gizmos, Zero thought with a smile.

That smile remained as he boarded Maya’s SUV, but the reason for it changed.

He was going to see Sara and Mischa again. He was going to be part of his family once more.

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

Zero’s excitement was tempered with a powerful dose of anxiety as Maya parked the Highlander in the parking lot of the quaint two-story Victorian house. They had detoured to drop Alan off at his cabin—he didn’t want to intrude on Zero’s reunion with his daughters—and Zero had been very impatient with the extra time. Now, though, he almost hesitated before leaving the car to follow Maya and Trent up the cobblestone walkway.

A lump formed in his throat as he noted the pastel blue trim bordering the white paint and deep indigo asters in the brick planter that ringed the house. The design was so much like the dream house Kate had once described when Zero was much younger and still able to dream of a happy, gentle future.

Maya knocked on the door, and a moment later, it opened to reveal a beautiful young woman with light brown hair and bright blue eyes. When Zero last saw that hair, it was short—not quite a Pixie cut, but close—and sat atop a face that still retained most of the roundness of childhood.

That face was still soft and youthful, but it was no longer childish, and the hair grew past her shoulders now. But there was no mistaking the bright blue eyes of his middle daughter. They were the same eyes her mother wore, and looking at Sara all grown up reminded Zero viscerally and powerfully of his first love.

Sara gasped. Her mouth fell open in a cute little bow, and now Zero saw the child who used to bounce up and down the stairs like a little princess. He smiled and swallowed the lump in his throat. “Hi, Sara.”

“Dad?”

Her voice was a breathy whisper. She lifted a trembling hand to his face. When her fingertips touched him, she flinched and gasped again. “Oh my God. Oh my God!”

She threw herself into his arms and burst into tears. At that display of affection, Zero could no longer hold back his own, Trent or no Trent. He held her tightly as they both wept, and when he opened his eyes, he saw Maya wiping away tears of her own. He smiled and picked Sara off of the ground, spinning her around. She giggled, and when he put her down, she pulled away and cradled his face in her hands. “Oh my God. You’re alive. You’re here. You’re…” She frowned. “Where were you?”

He braced himself for her anger, but she only pulled him close again and repeated, “Oh my God.”

“I’m here,” he promised. “I’m back. And I’m never going away again.”

He felt another stab of guilt when he said that. He couldn’t promise that. He shouldn’t promise that. But seeing his girls again after so long away, he couldn’t imagine going back to not seeing them.

Please God let me be able to stay. Let me stay here, please.

“You better not,” she said into his neck. “You better not.” She laughed. “Oh my God, you have so much hair.”

He grinned. “Yeah, don’t get used to it. I’m going to get rid of it as soon as I can.”

“Sara?” another familiar voice called. “Is Maya here?”

Sara released her dad and called back, “Yes, she’s here. Come downstairs!”

Sara half-dragged Zero into the house. The interior of the home reflected Reid Lawson’s more minimalist style, but some of Kate’s good taste still showed in the oak dining room furniture and the well-arranged leather sofas and oak coffee table. The houseplants in pottery vases that stood in between the couch and loveseat and on either side of the white stone fireplace looked a little bit like Reid’s old office at Columbia University, but Reid wouldn’t blame Maya for that. She was cursed to have his genes just like she was blessed to have Kate’s.

Sara grinned up at the stairs while a long-limbed, athletic figure descended. When the figure’s head came into view—revealing blonde hair even longer than Sara’s and soft green eyes—Zero felt another lump form in his throat.

Mischa stopped and raised an eyebrow. "Ah. I see why Sara is grinning like a fool, and Maya is fighting so hard to act mature and removed from the situation."

Sara laughed, and Maya flushed beet red. "I am not!"

Mischa shrugged. “If you say so.”

She continued her descent and accepted Zero’s embrace. He held her close, marveling at how much bigger she was. He pulled back and said, “My God. You’re so tall!”

Mischa’s brow furrowed. “An odd thing to say to the shortest person present. Has your extra hair affected your vision?”

Zero smiled. “Same old Mischa.”

“Another odd thing to say. I am also the youngest person present.”

“Not as young as you used to be,” Zero said, holding her at arms’ length and looking her up and down.

She still looked like a child, but signs of the woman she was becoming were starting to make themselves known in her strengthening facial features, and of course, her height. Her figure was developing, too, but he let his mind bounce off of that fact. He had just returned home. He didn't feel like adding his youngest daughter's rapid march to adulthood to his list of worries.

“Of course not. No one is as young as they used to be.” When no one reacted, Mischa smiled slightly. “That was meant to be humorous.”

Zero laughed and pulled her into another embrace. This time, he spun her around like he did Sara. Mischa laughed, a pretty, airy sound that eased a lot of Zero’s fears about her impending adulthood. He put her down and said, “Was that a giggle? You giggle now?”

Mischa frowned. “No. Perhaps you heard Sara laugh again.” She grinned a moment later, though. “It’s good to see you, Father.”

“I’ll order some pizza,” Trent said. “I’m kind of the fifth wheel right now, and I feel awkward standing here like a dork.”

“You’ve never stood any other way, honey,” Maya said, patting his arm. “But yes, please order pizza.”

At the mention of pizza, Zero’s stomach rumbled. He realized for the first time how much he missed food. He ate well enough on his little island, but fish, sweet potatoes, and eggplants got old after a while.

He rubbed his belly and called after Trent, “Olives, please!”

His daughters groaned, but Trent pumped his fist. "Hell yes! Finally, someone else who likes olives!"

Well, look at that. A reason to like the little turd.

***

Maya downed the shot and closed her eyes, letting the warmth of the liquor push against the chill of the Virginia evening. She heard the glass door behind her open but kept her eyes facing outward at the forest beyond their back porch. Fireflies danced across the field and lit the trees beyond like shooting stars.

She poured another shot, and Zero said, “Really? Gin?”

“Yep,” she said. “I’m twenty-one now, Dad. It’s legal.” Her tone was more clipped than she intended it to be, so she added, “You want some? There are glasses inside.”

“That’s okay,” he replied. “I’m more of a whiskey guy.”

“Really? I thought you and Maria liked gin.”

“Maria liked gin. I tolerated it.”

She chuckled. “The things we do for love, right?”

“Right.”

They fell into an awkward silence. Maya swirled her glass and didn’t look at her father. This was the moment she had feared since first seeing him in the African jungle. They were alone, and they weren’t on assignment. Mischa and Sara were asleep, and Trent was being a good boyfriend and playing video games in their room so she could have alone time with her father. Asshole.

“The girls are asleep,” Zero said.

“So I’m not a girl?”

Zero sighed. “I thought so, but I couldn’t tell for sure, and I didn’t want to ask.” She rolled her eyes, and he said, “Sorry. I’m a bit out of practice with dad jokes.”

“You’re a bit out of practice with everything, Dad.”

He didn’t reply. Maya sighed and downed the second shot. She poured herself a new one, and Zero said, “Be careful with that stuff. It sneaks up on you.”

“That is a really crappy way to start being a dad again,” Maya replied.

“Right. You’re an adult now. Sorry.”

“I’ve been an adult,” she retorted. “Since even before you left.”

Zero tapped his fingers on the porch rail. “I am sorry, you know.”

She sighed again and turned toward him. “That isn’t enough. You know.”

"I know," he replied. Now, it was his turn to avoid her gaze. "I have a lot to make up for."

She cast an exasperated look at the sky and said, “It’s not about making up for. God, why does everything have to be so complicated with you?”

Of course, it wasn’t her father that was complicated. It was her own feelings that were all over the place. She didn’t feel like letting him off of the hook, though.

“You know, you act like you’re some martyr, Dad. Like it’s up to you to sacrifice yourself to right all of the world’s wrongs or fix all of the world’s problems. It’s not. There are other people doing the same work you do. Doing a damned good job of it too.”

“I know. I’m really proud of you.”

She turned around and started pacing back and forth across the deck. A little of her gin spilled, so she finished the shot, capped the bottle and set both of them on the porch railing. “You say you know, but you don’t act like you know. You say you trust us, but when shit hits the fan, things have to go your way. You leave, thinking, I guess, that you’re protecting us, but you’re not the reason we're in danger. Maybe you were a little bit at the beginning, but not anymore. We chose this life, Dad. All of us."

She thought of Sara and amended that. “Well, not all of us, but you know what? Sara’s okay. She’s fine. No one’s trying to kill her because she’s Agent Zero’s daughter. For that matter, no one’s trying to kill me because I’m Agent Zero’s daughter. I have my own enemies. I face my own evils. Not yours, mine.”

“I…” Zero closed his mouth, probably to keep from saying “I know” again. He opened it again and said, “I was afraid.”

“Everyone’s afraid, Dad.”

“I’m not making an excuse,” Zero replied. “I’m just explaining.” He sighed and turned to her. “You know how my memories were suppressed for a while, right?”

“Yeah, I remember. That’s how we found out about you. You were kidnapped by Amun, and Sara and I were almost kidnapped too.”

Amun—known in CIA circles as the Brotherhood—was a terrorist organization that was once the archenemy of Agent Zero and the free world as a whole. Thanks to Zero’s work—with help from Maria Johansson and Alan Reidigger—the group had eventually been defeated, but not before putting Zero and his family through a lot of pain.

“Well, things changed after that. For you and Sara, obviously, but for me too. I lost my…” He chuckled. “Well, my steel, pardon the pun. No, that’s not true. I didn’t lose it. I just gained…” He sighed. “This is tougher to explain than I thought.

“Before the memory suppression, I was Kent Steele. I was Reid Lawson too, but Reid Lawson was Kent Steele. There was no difference between the two. After, I was Reid Lawson and Kent Steele, but they were two very different sides of the same coin. Before the CIA first disavowed me and Alan concocted the plan that saved my life, my goals were singular. I would bring down Amun and kill the people who took your mother from me. After… Well, I started caring more about other things.”

“Other things like what?” Maya asked.

“Like you and Sara. Not that I didn’t care about you before, but… I moved on. When I was Reid Lawson, I didn’t fixate on your mother’s death. I missed her terribly, but I was focused on being a father to you guys. I wanted to give you a normal life, have fun with each other, make sure you were happy and healthy and safe and loved.”

A lump formed in Maya’s throat, but she kept her reaction from showing.

"When Amun took me, and my memories resurfaced… I guess… I guess I resented that a little. I was happy with you guys. I was happy as Reid Lawson. I resented that Kent Steele was back, and I had to be Agent Zero again. A part of me couldn't accept that I was part of a world that placed you guys in constant danger. For a while, I tried to keep those parts of my life separate. We both know how that worked out."

Maya chuckled in spite of her confusing feelings. “Yeah, that didn’t go so well.”

“No, it didn’t,” Zero replied through a chuckle of his own. “Anyway, I guess I never really let go of that resentment. After the deal with Mr. Bright and even more traitors in the U.S. government, I just… I convinced myself that the problem was Agent Zero. If I got rid of him, then you and Sara and Mischa could just live normal lives and be happy.”

“But these are our lives, Dad,” Maya said gently. “Not yours. You can’t protect us anymore.” She stepped forward and laid a hand on his arm. “And that’s okay. You don’t need to. We can protect ourselves. All we need from you is to be here. Can you do that?”

“I can. I will.”

Maya looked into his eyes and saw all of the love she remembered. The fear was familiar, too. She'd gotten used to it. Their line of work came with fear.

But she also saw uncertainty. Zero wasn’t sure if he could keep his promise. Maybe he wasn’t sure he could stay out of the way, or maybe he wasn’t sure that they could protect themselves without him. Maybe he wasn’t sure that staying here was the right thing to do. Maybe he was still afraid that just being near him meant being in danger. It broke her heart to see that uncertainty.

But he was here now. They were all alive. There was a time when she worried that they wouldn’t be. It was good enough for now to see him home.

She took a deep breath and smiled. “In that case, welcome home, Dad.”

Zero broke into a grin. Maya laughed and hugged him fiercely. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Maya. Always.”

The two of them held each other for a long moment, then walked inside. Maya meant everything she said about being big enough to take care of herself, but as she walked into her house holding her dad’s hand, she felt like his little girl once more.

It was the happiest she’d been in a long time.

EPILOGUE

Katerina stared at the image on her screen. It showed the CIA agents and their new friend boarding a U.S. stealth helicopter and leaving the burning airfield in Tanzania behind. The Dragons had failed. They had slaughtered the North Koreans and commandeered their equipment, but they had failed to retrieve the data core.

Thanks to the arrival of one man. It was that man Katerina stared at now.

He was leaner than before. He had long hair and a beard that he didn’t have two years ago. His skin was darker and more lined.

But there was no forgetting those eyes or that arrogant, superior smile. No forgetting his prowess in battle either. Several other satellite images showed his takedown of the transport and his sprint away from the burning airfield carrying the female agent and the data core. He was in phenomenal shape. Two years away didn’t seem to have blunted his abilities in the slightest.

He was Agent Zero, and he was the man who had killed her father. He was the man on whom she would exact the sweetest and most complete revenge possible.

She tapped the intercom. “Boris?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Meet me in my office. We have much to discuss.”

NOW AVAILABLE!

COMMAND ZERO

(An Agent Zero Spy Thriller—Book #14)

“You will not sleep until you are finished with AGENT ZERO. A superb job creating a set of characters who are fully developed and very much enjoyable. The description of the action scenes transport us into a reality that is almost like sitting in a movie theater with surround sound and 3D (it would make an incredible Hollywood movie). I can hardly wait for the sequel.”

--Roberto Mattos, Books and Movie Reviews

COMMAND ZERO is book #14 in the #1 bestselling AGENT ZERO series, from #1 bestselling and USA Today bestselling author Jack Mars (with over 10,000 five-star reviews). The series begins with AGENT ZERO (Book #1), a free download.

The fate of international commerce hangs by a thread as Agent Zero finds himself amidst roiling waves, facing off against an army of explosive-laden ghost ships set to detonate in major ports worldwide.

In this relentless quest against the clock—and amidst nature's fury—Zero has just 36 hours to outsmart an enigmatic terrorist cabal’s deadliest chess move yet, ensuring that every second counts in preventing economic devastation across the globe.

The AGENT ZERO saga offers a gripping journey packed with unexpected turns and dynamic action, keeping you enthralled from start to finish. At the core of this thrilling series is an engrossing relationship between a father and his daughter, which is sure to keep you reading voraciously until the early hours.

Books #15--#24 in the series are also available!

“Thriller writing at its best.”

--Midwest Book Review (Any Means Necessary)

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“Thriller enthusiasts who relish the precise execution of an international thriller, but who seek the psychological depth and believability of a protagonist who simultaneously fields professional and personal life challenges, will find this a gripping story that's hard to put down.”

--Midwest Book Review, Diane Donovan (regarding Any Means Necessary)

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“One of the best thrillers I have read this year. The plot is intelligent and will keep you hooked from the beginning. The author did a superb job creating a set of characters who are fully developed and very much enjoyable. I can hardly wait for the sequel.”

--Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto Mattos (re Any Means Necessary)

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

COMMAND ZERO

(An Agent Zero Spy Thriller—Book #14)

Jack Mars

USA Today and #1 bestselling author Jack Mars is the author of numerous thriller series, including Luke Stone, Troy Stark, Spy Game, and Jake Mercer series. Jack’s latest releases are the Lara King, Grant Valor, and Axel Strike series.

Many of Jack’s titles are available for free. Please visit Jack’s author page to find out more.

Please visit jackmarsauthor.com to learn more, join the email list, receive free books, and stay in touch.

SERIES BY JACK MARS

AXEL STRIKE

GRANT VALOR

LARA KING

TYLER WOLF

JAKE MERCER

THE SPY GAME

TROY STARK

LUKE STONE

THE FORGING OF LUKE STONE

AGENT ZERO