Trapping Zero. Джек Марс

door opened again, and anger spontaneously swelled in Reid’s chest as Deputy Director Ashleigh Riker entered the small room, wearing a gray pencil skirt and matching blazer. Riker was head of Special Operations Group, a faction of Cartwright’s Special Activities Division that handled covert international operations.

      “What’s she doing here?” Reid asked pointedly. His tone was not friendly. Riker, in his book, was not to be trusted.

      She took a seat beside Cartwright and smiled warmly. “I, Mr. Steele, have the distinct pleasure of telling you where you’ll be going now.”

      A knot of dread formed in his stomach. Of course Riker would take pleasure in doling his punishment; her disdain for Agent Zero and his tactics was hardly masked. Reid reminded himself that he had gotten his girls to safety, and he knew this was coming.

      It still didn’t make it any easier. “Okay,” he said calmly. “Then tell me. Where will I be going?”

      “Home,” Riker said simply.

      Reid’s gaze flitted from Riker to Cartwright and back again, unsure he had heard her correctly. “I’m sorry?”

      “Home. You’re going home, Kent.” She pushed something across the table. A small silver key slid over the polished surface to just within his grasp.

      It was a handcuff key. But he didn’t take it. “Why?”

      “I’m afraid I can’t say,” Riker shrugged. “The decision came from above our pay grade.”

      Reid scoffed. He was relieved, to say the least, to hear that he wouldn’t be thrown into a miserable pit like H-6, but this didn’t feel right to him. They had threatened him, disavowed him, and even sent two other field agents after him… only to set him loose again? Why?

      The painkillers he’d been given were numbing his thought process; his brain was unable to work out the kinks in what they were telling him. “I don’t understand…”

      “You’ve been away for the last five days,” Cartwright interrupted. “Conducting interviews, researching a history textbook you’re editing. We have names and contact information for several people that can corroborate the story.”

      “The man that committed the atrocities in Eastern Europe was confronted by Agent Strickland in Grodkow,” said Riker. “He was discovered to be a Russian expatriate masquerading as an American in an attempt to cause international strife between us and the Eastern Bloc nations. He drew on a CIA agent and was shot dead.”

      Reid blinked at the flood of false information. He knew what this was; they were giving him a cover story, the same one that would be issued to governments and law enforcement agencies around the world.

      But it couldn’t be that easy. Something was certainly amiss—starting with Riker’s bizarre smile. “I was disavowed,” he said. “I was threatened. I was ignored. I think I’m owed a little bit of an explanation here.”

      “Agent Zero…” Riker began. Then she chuckled slightly. “Sorry, old habit. You’re not an agent; not anymore. Kent, this wasn’t our decision to make. As I said, this comes from higher up. But the truth of the matter is, if we look at the sum and not the parts, that you eliminated an international human trafficking ring that has plagued the CIA and Interpol for six years now.”

      “You took out Rais and, presumably, the last of Amun with him,” Cartwright added.

      “Yes, you killed people,” Riker said. “But every one of them has been confirmed to have been a criminal—some of the worst of the worst. Murderers, rapists, pedophiles. As much as I hate to admit it, I have to agree with the decision that you did more good than harm.”

      Reid nodded slowly—not because he agreed with the logic, but because he realized his best course of action at the moment was to stop arguing, accept the pardon, and figure it out later.

      But he still had questions. “What do you mean I’m not an agent anymore?”

      Riker and Cartwright exchanged a glance. “You’re being transferred,” Cartwright told him. “That is, if you accept the job.”

      “The National Resources Division,” Riker chimed in, “is the CIA’s domestic wing. It’s still within the agency, but doesn’t require any field work. You’ll never have to leave the country, or your girls. You’ll recruit assets. Handle debriefs. Meet with diplomats.”

      “Why?” Reid asked.

      “Simply put—we don’t want to lose you,” Cartwright told him. “We’d rather have you onboard in another function than not with us at all.”

      “What about Agent Watson?” Reid asked. Watson had helped him find his girls; he had gathered equipment for him and gotten Reid out of the country when he needed to. As a result, Watson had been caught and detained for it.

      “Watson is on an eight-week medical leave for his shoulder,” Riker said. “I imagine he’ll be back as soon as he’s adequately healed up.”

      Reid raised an eyebrow. “And Maria?” She had helped him as well—even when her orders from the CIA were to apprehend Agent Zero.

      “Johansson is stateside,” said Cartwright. “She’s taking a few days’ respite before reassignment. But she’ll be heading back into the field.”

      Reid had to keep himself from visibly shaking his head. Something was definitely wrong with this—it wasn’t just him being pardoned. It was everyone associated with his latest rampage. But he also had the instinct that told him it wasn’t the time or place to argue about going home.

      There would be time for that later, when his brain wasn’t bogged down with sleep deprivation and painkillers.

      “So… that’s it then?” he asked. “I’m free to go?”

      “Free to go.” Riker smiled again. He didn’t at all like the look of it on her face.

      Cartwright looked at his watch. “Your daughters should be arriving at Dulles in about… two hours or so. There’s a car waiting for you if you want it. You can get yourself cleaned up, changed, and be there to greet them.”

      The two deputy directors rose from their seats and headed for the door.

      “Good to have you back, Zero.” Cartwright winked at him before he left.

      Alone in the room, Reid looked down at the silver handcuff key before him. He glanced up at the cameras mounted in the corners of the room.

      He was going home—but something was very, very wrong about that.

*

      Reid hurried towards the parking garage at Langley, free of the cuffs and detention room—free of being a field agent. Free of fear of repercussion against those he loved. Free of a dirt hole in the ground at H-6.

      A startling notion struck him as he navigated through the gates and out onto the street. They could have simply thrown him in Hell-Six. They could have at least threatened him with it, held that black cloud of never seeing his family again over his head. But they didn’t.

      Because if they did, I would have every reason to talk, Reid reasoned. There’d be nothing to keep me from spilling everything if I thought I’d be spending the rest of my life in a hole.

      Though it felt like weeks ago, it had only been four days prior that a fragmented memory had returned to him; before the memory suppressor, Kent Steele had gathered intel about a pre-planned war that the US government was designing. He hadn’t told anyone about it, though he did disclose to Maria that he had remembered something that could spell a lot of trouble for a lot of people.

      Her advice had been simple and straightforward: You can’t trust anyone but yourself.

      He didn’t see it earlier, in the detention room with his fate in question and the painkillers addling his brain. But he saw it now. The agency knew that he knew something, but they didn’t know how much he knew—or how much he might remember. He wasn’t even sure how much he truly knew.

      He