Agent Zero. Джек Марс

number to Pap’s Deli in the Bronx, and called.

      A young male voice answered quickly. “Pap’s, how can I help you?”

      “Ronnie?” One of his students from the year prior worked part time at Reid’s favorite deli. “It’s Professor Lawson.”

      “Hey, Professor!” the young man said brightly. “How’s it going? You want to put in a takeout order?”

      “No. Yes… sort of. Listen, I need a really big favor, Ronnie.” Pap’s Deli was only six blocks from his house. On pleasant days, he would often walk the distance to pick up sandwiches. “Do you have Skype on your phone?”

      “Yeah?” said Ronnie, a confused lilt in his voice.

      “Good. Here’s what I need you to do. Write down this number…” He instructed the kid to make a quick run down to his house, see who, if anyone, was there, and call back the American number on the phone.

      “Professor, are you in some kind of trouble?”

      “No, Ronnie, I’m fine,” he lied. “I lost my phone and a nice woman is letting me use hers to let my kids know I’m okay. But I only have a few minutes. So if you could, please…”

      “Say no more, Professor. Happy to help. I’ll hit you back in a few.” Ronnie hung up.

      While he waited, Reid paced the short span of the awning, checking the phone every few seconds in case he missed the call. It felt like an hour passed before it rang again, though it had only been six minutes.

      “Hello?” He answered the Skype call on the first ring. “Ronnie?”

      “Reid, is that you?” A frantic female voice.

      “Linda!” Reid said breathlessly. “I’m glad you’re there. Listen, I need to know—”

      “Reid, what happened? Where are you?” she demanded.

      “The girls, are they at the—”

      “What’s happened?” Linda interrupted. “The girls woke up this morning, freaking out because you were gone, so they called me and I came right over…”

      “Linda, please,” he tried to interject, “where are they?”

      She talked over him, clearly distraught. Linda was a lot of things, but good in a crisis wasn’t one of them. “Maya said that sometimes you go for walks in the morning, but both the front and back doors were open, and she wanted to call the police because she said you never leave your phone at home, and now this boy shows up from the deli and hands me a phone—?”

      “Linda!” Reid hissed sharply. Two elderly men passing by looked up at his outburst. “Where are the girls?”

      “They’re here,” she panted. “They’re both here, at the house with me.”

      “They’re safe?”

      “Yes, of course. Reid, what’s going on?”

      “Did you call the police?”

      “Not yet, no… on TV they always say you have to wait twenty-four hours to report someone missing… Are you in some sort of trouble? Where are you calling me from? Whose account is this?”

      “I can’t tell you that. Just listen to me. Have the girls pack a bag and take them to a hotel. Not anywhere close; go outside the city. Maybe to Jersey…”

      “Reid, what?”

      “My wallet is on my desk in the office. Don’t use the credit card directly. Get a cash advance on whatever cards are in there and use it to pay for the stay. Keep it open-ended.”

      “Reid! I’m not going to do a thing until you tell me what’s… hang on a sec.” Linda’s voice became muffled and distant. “Yes, it’s him. He’s okay. I think. Wait, Maya!”

      “Dad? Dad, is that you?” A new voice on the line. “What happened? Where are you?”

      “Maya! I, uh, had something come up, extremely last minute. I didn’t want to wake you…”

      “Are you kidding me?” Her voice was shrill, agitated and worried at the same time. “I’m not stupid, Dad. Tell me the truth.”

      He sighed. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I can’t tell you where I am, Maya. And I shouldn’t be on the phone long. Just do what your aunt says, okay? You’re going to leave the house for a little while. Don’t go to school. Don’t wander anywhere. Don’t talk about me on the phone or computer. Understand?”

      “No, I don’t understand! Are you in some kind of trouble? Should we call the police?”

      “No, don’t do that,” he said. “Not yet. Just… give me some time to sort something out.”

      She was silent for a long moment. Then she said, “Promise me that you’re okay.”

      He winced.

      “Dad?”

      “Yeah,” he said a bit too forcefully. “I’m okay. Please, just do what I ask and go with your Aunt Linda. I love you both. Tell Sara I said so, and hug her for me. I’ll contact you as soon as I can—”

      “Wait, wait!” Maya said. “How will you contact us if you don’t know where we are?”

      He thought for a moment. He couldn’t ask Ronnie to get any further involved in this. He couldn’t call the girls directly. And he couldn’t risk knowing where they were, because that could be leverage against him…

      “I’ll set up a fake account,” said Maya, “under another name. You’ll know it. I’ll only check it from the hotel computers. If you need to contact us, send a message.”

      Reid understood immediately. He felt a swell of pride; she was so smart, and so much cooler under pressure than he could hope to be.

      “Dad?”

      “Yeah,” he said. “That’s good. Take care of your sister. I have to go…”

      “I love you too,” said Maya.

      He ended the call. Then he sniffed. Again it came, the stinging instinct to run home to them, to keep them safe, to pack up whatever they could and leave, go somewhere…

      He couldn’t do that. Whatever this was, whoever was after him, had found him once. He had been supremely fortunate that they weren’t after his girls. Maybe they didn’t know about the kids. Next time, if there was a next time, maybe he wouldn’t be so lucky.

      Reid opened the phone, pulled out the SIM card, and snapped it in half. He dropped the pieces into a sewer grate. As he walked down the street, he deposited the battery in one trash bin, and the two halves of the phone in others.

      He knew he was walking in the general direction of Rue de Stalingrad, though he had no idea what he would do when he arrived there. His brain screamed at him to change direction, to go anywhere else. But that sangfroid in his subconscious compelled him to keep going.

      His captors had asked him what he knew of their “plans.” The locations they had asked about, Zagreb and Madrid and Tehran, they had to be connected, and they were clearly linked to the men who had taken him. Whatever these visions were—he still refused to acknowledge them as anything but—there was knowledge in them about something that had either occurred or was going to occur. Knowledge he didn’t know. The more he thought about it, the more he felt that sense of urgency nag at his mind.

      No, it was more than that. It felt like an obligation.

      His captors had seemed willing to kill him slowly for what he knew. And he had the sensation that if he didn’t discover what this was and what he was supposed to know, more people would die.

      “Monsieur.” Reid was startled from his musing by a matronly woman in a shawl gently touching his arm. “You are bleeding,” she said in English, and pointed to her own brow.

      “Oh. Merci.” He touched two fingers to his right brow. A small cut there had soaked the bandage and a bead of blood was making