Trapping Zero. Джек Марс

said nothing. When Reid looked over his menu again, her face was scrunched into a pensive frown. “Sara?” he asked.

      She looked up at him. “Did Mom know?”

      The question had been a curveball once before when Maya had asked, not much more than a month earlier, and it took him by surprise again hearing it from Sara.

      He shook his head. “No. She didn’t.”

      “Isn’t that…” She hesitated, but then took a breath and asked, “Isn’t that kind of like lying?”

      Reid folded his menu and set it down on the table. Suddenly he wasn’t very hungry anymore. “Yeah, sweetheart. It’s exactly like lying.”

*

      The next morning Reid and the girls took the train north from Engelberg to Zurich. They didn’t talk any further about his past, or about the incident; if Sara had any more questions, she held them back, at least for now.

      Instead they enjoyed the scenic views of the Swiss Alps on the two-hour train ride, snapping photos through the window. They spent the late morning enjoying the breathtaking medieval architecture of Old Town and walked the shores of the Limmat River. Despite not claiming to enjoy history as much as he did, both girls were stunned by the beauty of the twelfth-century Grossmünster cathedral (though they groaned when Reid began to lecture them about Huldrych Zwingli and his sixteenth-century religious reforms that took place there).

      Though Reid was having a great time with his daughters, his smile was at least partially forced. He was anxious about what was coming.

      “What’s next?” Maya asked after a lunch at a small café with views of the river.

      “You know what would be really great after a meal like that?” Reid said. “A movie.”

      “A movie,” his eldest repeated flatly. “Yeah, we definitely should have come all the way to Switzerland to do something we can do at home.”

      Reid grinned. “Not just any movie. The Swiss National Museum isn’t far, and they’re showing a documentary on the history of Zurich from the Middle Ages to the present. Doesn’t that sound neat?”

      “No,” said Maya.

      “Not really,” Sara agreed.

      “Huh. Well, I’m the dad, and I say we go see it. Then we can do whatever you two want to do and I won’t complain. I promise.”

      Maya sighed. “Fair is fair. Lead the way.”

      Less than ten minutes later they arrived at the Swiss National Museum, which really was showing a documentary about the history of Zurich. And Reid genuinely was interested in seeing it. And even though he bought three tickets, he only intended on using two of them.

      “Sara, do you need to use the restroom before we go in?” he asked.

      “Good idea.” She ducked into the bathroom. Maya started to follow, but Reid quickly grabbed her by the arm.

      “Wait. Maya… I have to go.”

      She blinked at him. “What?”

      “There’s something I have to do,” he said quickly. “I have an appointment.”

      Maya raised an eyebrow warily. “Doing what?”

      “It has nothing to do with the CIA. At least, not directly.”

      She scoffed. “I can’t believe this.”

      “Maya, please,” he pleaded. “This is important to me. I promise you, I swear, it’s not fieldwork or anything dangerous. I just have to talk to someone. Privately.”

      His daughter’s nostrils flared. She didn’t like it one bit, and worse, she didn’t truly believe him. “What do I tell Sara?”

      Reid had already thought of that. “Tell her there was a problem with my credit card. Someone back home trying to use it, and I have to get that cleared up so that we don’t have to leave the ski lodge. Tell her I’m right outside, making phone calls.”

      “Oh, okay,” Maya said mockingly. “You want me to lie to her.”

      “Maya…” Reid groaned. Sara would be exiting the bathroom at any moment. “I promise you I will tell you all about it afterward, but I just don’t have the time right now. Please, go in there, have a seat, and watch the movie with her. I’ll be back before it’s over.”

      “Fine,” she agreed reluctantly. “But I want a full explanation when you’re back.”

      “You’ll get one,” he promised. “And don’t leave that theater.” He kissed her forehead and hurried away before Sara came out of the bathroom.

      It felt awful, once again lying to his girls—or at least keeping the truth from them, which as Sara had astutely pointed out the night before, was pretty much the same as lying.

      Is that how it’s always going to be? he wondered as he hurried out of the museum. Will there ever be a time that honesty is really the best policy?

      He hadn’t just lied to Sara. He had lied to Maya as well. He had no appointment. He knew where Dr. Guyer’s practice was located (conveniently close to the Swiss National Museum, which Reid had considered in his plan) and he knew from an anonymous call that the doctor would be in today, but he did not dare leave his name or make a formal appointment. He didn’t know who this Guyer was at all, other than the man that had implanted the memory suppressor in Kent Steele’s head two years earlier. Reidigger had trusted the doctor, but that didn’t mean Guyer didn’t have some kind of link to the agency. Or worse, they could be watching him.

      What if they knew about the doctor? he worried. What if they’ve been keeping tabs on him all this time?

      It was too late to concern himself with that now. His plan was simply to go there, meet the man, and find out what, if anything, he could do about Reid’s memory loss. Consider it a consultation, he joked to himself as he walked briskly down Löwenstrasse, parallel to the Limmat River and towards the address he had found online. He had about two hours before the documentary at the museum was over. Plenty of time, or so he assumed.

      Dr. Guyer’s neurosurgery practice was located in a wide, four-story professional building right off a main boulevard and across a courtyard from a cathedral. The structure was medieval in architecture, a far cry from the bland sort of American medical buildings he was accustomed to; it was nicer than most hotels Reid had stayed in.

      He took the stairs up to the third floor and found an oak door with a bronze knocker and the name GUYER inscribed on a brass plate. He paused for a moment, unsure of what he would find on the other side. He wasn’t even certain of how common it was for neurosurgeons to have private practices in upscale buildings in Old Town Zurich—but then again, he couldn’t recall ever needing to visit one before.

      He tried the knob; it was unlocked.

      The Swiss doctor’s taste and affluence was immediately apparent. The paintings on the walls were mostly Impressionist, colorful open compositions in ornate frames that looked as if they cost as much as some cars. The van Gogh was most definitely a print, but if he wasn’t mistaken the lanky sculpture in the corner appeared to be an original Giacometti.

      I wouldn’t even know that if it wasn’t for Kate, he thought, reinforcing his reason for being here as he crossed the small room towards a desk on the opposite side.

      There were two things that immediately caught his eye on the other side of the reception area. The first was the desk itself, carved from a single irregularly-shaped piece of rosewood with dark, swirling patterns in the grain. Cocobolo, he realized. That’s easily a six-thousand dollar desk.

      He refused to let himself be impressed by the art or the desk—but the woman behind it was another matter. She regarded Reid evenly with one perfect eyebrow arched and a smiled on her pouting lips. Her blonde hair framed the contours of an exquisitely shaped face and porcelain skin. Her eyes appeared too crystalline blue to be real.

      “Good afternoon,” she said in English with only a slight