Assassin Zero

It seemed an odd question—especially one to ask of a covert operative whose identity was supposed to be confidential, but Zero told him, “Yes. Two daughters.”

“Same here. Fourteen and sixteen.” Rutledge put his elbows on the table and at last looked Zero in the eye, or his best approximation through a camera. “I need you to find these people. Find this weapon. Put a stop to this. Please. This cannot happen again.”

Under even normal circumstances, which these were far from, Zero would not be able to deny an order from the President of the United States. Still, he didn’t need Rutledge to implore him to take on the operation. From the time Maria had announced an attack on US soil, he’d already known that this was not something he would be able to turn away from. It was coded into his DNA; if there was something he could do about it, he would do it.

“I will.” He glanced over at Strickland and corrected himself. “We will, sir.”

“Good. And tell Johansson that you are to have every resource made available to you.”

Zero frowned at that; it seemed like an odd emphasis to put on the statement, one that was likely meant more for Maria than for him.

“Godspeed,” said Rutledge, and he ended the video call abruptly.

Zero passed the tablet back to Maria, who immediately checked for incoming updates on the scene in Kansas.

Strickland sighed heavily. “There’s just one problem. Havana’s a dead end now, and if they can travel as quickly as they did, there likely won’t be anything to find in Kansas either. We have less to go on than we did before.”

“That’s not entirely true.” Maria looked up from the tablet. “An eyewitness in Springfield, an elderly man, reported that he passed a woman on the street just moments before the attack—a white woman with bright red hair. Just like in Cuba. And this man claims he heard her speaking Russian into a radio.”

“Russians?” Zero parroted. He shouldn’t have been surprised, not after everything that had happened in the last year and a half. But the previous plots had involved secret cabals, huge sums of money, powerful people. This didn’t feel at all like the same MO, nor could he ascertain a motive for this kind of attack beyond some sort of revenge scheme.

“Even so,” Strickland pointed out, “‘Russian redhead’ doesn’t exactly narrow things down.”

“You’re right.” Maria pulled out her cell phone. “But there’s something that can.” She pressed a button and then said into the phone, “I’m coming down. I need OMNI.”

“What’s OMNI?” Strickland asked before Zero got the chance.

“It’s… complicated,” Maria said cryptically. “But I’ll show you.” She rose from her chair, bringing the tablet with her as she headed for the door.

Zero knew that “coming down” likely meant going to Bixby’s lab, the subterranean research and development arm of the Central Intelligence Agency. They were already on a sublevel, and the odd engineer was the only one below them—at least as far as Zero was aware.

He also knew by now that he was not going home, not having dinner with his girls. Once they were out in the empty corridor he said, “Hang on. Can I make a call?”

Maria hesitated, but nodded. “All right. But make it quick. We’ll meet you at the elevators.” The two of them headed down the hall as Zero pulled out his cell phone—as well as the small white card that Strickland had given him.

With his finger on the call button, he changed his mind and instead opened the video calling app, holding the phone in front of him at an angle so his face was in view of the camera.

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