Agent Zero. Джек Марс

more. See, I asked you about Amad.” He shook his head as he bared his teeth. “There is no Amad among them.”

      It seemed odd to Reid that these men seemed to know the Iranians, but not who they worked with or who they might send. They were certainly connected somehow, but what that connection might be, he had no idea.

      Otets muttered curses under his breath in Russian. Then in English he said, “You tell Yuri you are messenger. Yuri tells me you are the CIA man. What am I to believe? You certainly do not look like I imagined Zero to be. Yet my idiot errand boy speaks one truth: the Iranians despise Americans. This does not look good for you. You tell me the truth, or I will shoot you in your kneecap.” He hefted the heavy pistol—a TIG Series Desert Eagle.

      Reid lost his breath for a moment. It was a very large gun.

      Give in, his mind prodded.

      He wasn’t sure how to do that. He wasn’t sure what would happen if he did. The last time these new instincts took over, four men ended up dead, and he, quite literally, had blood on his hands. But there was no way out of this for him—that is, for Professor Reid Lawson. But Kent Steele, whoever that might be, might find a way. Maybe he didn’t know who he was, but it wouldn’t matter much if he didn’t survive long enough to find out.

      Reid closed his eyes. He nodded once, a silent acquiescence to the voice in his head. His shoulders went slack and his fingers stopped trembling.

      “I am waiting,” said Otets flatly.

      “You wouldn’t want to shoot me,” Reid said. He was surprised to hear his own voice so calm and even. “A point-blank shot from that gun wouldn’t blow out my knee. It would sever my leg, and I’d bleed out on the floor of this office in seconds.”

      Otets shrugged one shoulder. “What is it you Americans like to say? You cannot make omelet without—”

      “I have the information you need,” Reid cut him off. “The sheikh’s location. What he gave me. Who I gave it to. I know all about your plot, and I’m not the only one.”

      The corners of Otets’s mouth curled into a smirk. “Agent Zero.”

      “I told you!” said Yuri. “I did well, yes?”

      “Shut up,” Otets barked. Yuri shrank like a beaten dog. “Take him downstairs and get all of what he knows. Start by removing fingers. I don’t want to waste time.”

      On any ordinary day, the threat of having his fingers cut off would have sent a shock of fear through Reid. His muscles tensed for a moment, the small hairs on the nape of his neck standing on end—but his new instinct fought against it and forced him to relax. Wait, it told him. Wait for an opportunity…

      The bald goon nodded curtly and grabbed onto Reid’s arm again.

      “Idiot!” Otets snapped. “Bind him first! Yuri, go to file cabinet. There should be something there.”

      Yuri hurried to the three-drawer oak cabinet in the corner and rifled through it until he found a bundled length of coarse twine. “Here,” he said, and he tossed it to the bald brute.

      All eyes instinctively moved skyward toward the bundle of twine spinning in the air—both goons, Yuri, and Otets.

      But not Reid’s. He had a shot, and he took it.

      He cupped his left hand and arced it upward at a sharp angle, striking the bald man’s windpipe with the meaty side of his palm. He felt the throat give beneath his hand.

      As the first blow landed, he kicked out his left boot heel behind him and struck the bearded thug in the hip—the same hip the man had been favoring on the ride to Belgium.

      A wet choking gasp escaped the bald man’s lips as his hands flew to his throat. The bearded brute grunted as his large body spun and collapsed.

      Down!

      The twine slapped the floor. So did Reid. In one motion he fell into a crouch and yanked the Glock from the bald man’s ankle holster. Without looking up, he leapt forward and tucked into a roll.

      As soon as he jumped, a thunderous report tore across the small office, impossibly loud. The shot from the Desert Eagle left an impressive dent in the office’s steel door.

      Reid came out of the roll only a few feet from Otets and propelled himself forward, toward him. Before Otets could pivot to aim, Reid grabbed his gun hand from underneath—never grab the top slide, that’s a good way to lose a finger—and pushed it up and away. The gun went off again, a piercing boom only a couple of feet from Reid’s head. His ears rang, but he ignored it. He twisted the gun down and to the side, keeping the barrel pointed away from him as he brought it to his hip—and Otets’s hand with it.

      The older man threw back his head and screamed as his trigger finger snapped. The sound nauseated Reid as the Desert Eagle clattered to the floor.

      He spun and wrapped one arm around Otets’s neck, using him as a shield as he aimed at the two goons. The bald man was out of commission, gasping for breath in vain against a crushed windpipe, but the bearded man had loosened his TEC-9. Without hesitating, Reid fired three shots in quick succession, two in the chest and one in the forehead. A fourth shot put the bald man out of his misery.

      Reid’s conscience screamed at him from the back of his mind. You just killed two men. Two more men. But this new consciousness was stronger, pushing his nausea and sense of preservation back.

      You can panic later. You’re not finished here.

      Reid spun fully around, with Otets in front of him as if they were dancing, and leveled the Glock at Yuri. The hapless messenger was struggling to free a Sig Sauer from his shoulder harness.

      “Stop,” Reid commanded. Yuri froze. “Hands up.” The Serbian messenger slowly put his hands up, palms out. He grinned wide.

      “Kent,” he said in English, “we are very good friends, are we not?”

      “Take my Beretta out of your left jacket pocket and set it on the floor,” Reid instructed.

      Yuri licked the blood from the corner of his mouth and wiggled the fingers of his left hand. Slowly, he reached into the pocket and pulled out the small black pistol. But he didn’t set it on the floor. Instead he held it, barrel pointed downward.

      “You know,” he said, “it occurs to me that if you want information, you need at least one of us alive. Yes?”

      “Yuri!” Otets growled. “Do as he asks!”

      “On the floor,” Reid repeated. He didn’t take his gaze off of Yuri, but he was concerned that others in the facility might have heard the roar of the Desert Eagle. He had no idea how many people were downstairs, but the office was soundproofed and there was machinery running elsewhere. It was possible no one had heard it—or perhaps they were used to the sound and thought little of it.

      “Maybe,” said Yuri, “I take this gun and I shoot Otets. Then you need me.”

      “Yuri, nyet!” Otets cried, this time more stunned than angry.

      “See, Kent,” said Yuri, “this is not La Cosa Nostra. This is more like, uh… disgruntled employee. You see how he treats me. So maybe I shoot him, and you and I, we work something out…”

      Otets clenched his teeth and hissed a flurry of curses at Yuri, but the messenger only grinned wider.

      Reid was growing impatient. “Yuri, if you don’t put the gun down now, I’ll be forced to—”

      Yuri’s arm moved, just the slightest bit of an indication of rising. Reid’s instinct kicked in like an engine shifting gears. Without thinking he aimed and fired, just once. It happened so quickly that the report of the pistol startled him.

      For a half-second, Reid thought he might have missed. Then dark blood erupted from a hole in Yuri’s neck. He fell first to his knees, one hand weakly trying to stanch the flow, but it was far too late for that.

      It can take up to two minutes to bleed out from a severed carotid