File Zero. Джек Марс

like he was getting any more answers out of the mysterious mechanic. “Thanks,” he murmured once more. Then he turned back to say goodbye to his girls.

      “You’re back,” said the mechanic behind him. “Aren’t you?”

      Zero turned. “Yeah. I’m back.”

      “When?”

      He chuckled. “Today, if you can believe it. It’s been a very strange afternoon.”

      “Well,” Mitch said. “I wouldn’t want to disappoint you.”

      Zero froze. An electric tingle ran up his spine. Mitch’s voice had changed suddenly, no longer the grunting basso from just seconds prior. It was smooth and even, and so oddly familiar that Zero forgot about the Division and his situation and even his waiting daughters for a moment.

      Mitch reached up beneath the brim of his trucker’s cap and rubbed his eyes. At least that’s what it looked like he was doing, but when his hand came away there were two tiny concave discs on his fingertips, crystalline blue.

      Contacts. He was wearing colored contacts.

      Then Mitch took off the trucker’s cap, smoothed his hair, and looked up at Zero. His brown eyes looked forlorn, almost ashamed, and in an instant Zero knew exactly why.

      “Jesus.” His voice came out in a hoarse whisper as he looked at his eyes.

      He knew those eyes. He’d know them anywhere. But it couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible. “Christ. You… you were dead.”

      “So were you for a couple years there,” the mechanic said in his smooth, almost lilting tone.

      “I saw your body,” Zero choked out. This can’t be real.

      “You saw a body that looked like mine.” The burly man shrugged one shoulder. “Let’s not pretend I wasn’t always smarter than you, Zero.”

      “Good god.” Zero looked him up and down. He’d put on about thirty pounds, maybe more. Grown out the beard. Wore the trucker’s cap and colored lenses. Changed his voice.

      But it was him. He was alive.

      “I don’t believe it.” He took two steps and hugged Alan tightly.

      His best friend, the one who had his back on so many ops, the one who had helped him have the memory suppressor installed instead of killing him on the Hohenzollern Bridge, the one that Zero thought he had found dead, stabbed to death in an apartment in Zurich… he was here. He was alive.

      He thought back to the discovery in Zurich. The dead man’s face had been puffy and bloated, and his mind had immediately linked the doppelganger to Reidigger. Your mind fills in the blanks, Maria had once told him.

      Reidigger had faked his own death, just like he had helped Kent Steele fake his. And he had been living under the guise of a well-connected mechanic only twenty minutes away.

      “All this time?” Zero asked. His voice was hoarse, and his vision blurred slightly as a well of emotions bubbled to the surface. “You’ve been keeping an eye on us?”

      “As best I could. Watson helped.”

      That’s right. Watson knows. It was John Watson who had first introduced Reid Lawson to Mitch the mechanic—but he had only done so when Reid’s daughters were taken, when the stakes were too high and the CIA was of little help.

      “Does anyone else know?” Zero asked.

      Alan shook his head. “No. And they can’t. If the agency catches on, I’m a dead man.”

      “You could have told me sooner.”

      “No, I couldn’t have.” Alan smiled. “Without your memory intact, would you have recognized me? Would you have believed me if I simply told you?”

      Zero had to admit he had a point.

      “Was it Dr. Guyer? Did you go to see him?”

      “I did,” Zero said. “It didn’t work at the time. It happened later, with a trigger word. And now…” He shook his head. “Now I know. I remember. I have to stop it, Alan.”

      “I know you do. And you know that there’s nothing I’d like more than to be by your side while you do.”

      “But you can’t be.” Zero understood completely. Besides, Alan had a task that was, in Zero’s eyes, just as significant to stopping a war. “I need you to keep them safe.”

      “I will. I promise I will.” Alan’s eyes lit up suddenly. “That reminds me, I have something for you.” He reached through the open window of his truck and pulled out a Sig Sauer pistol. “Here. Compliments of the Division merc that assaulted your house.”

      Zero took the pistol incredulously. “The Division was at my house? What happened?”

      “Nothing we couldn’t handle. Those two are definitely your kids.” Alan grinned, but it faded quickly. “You need help too, you know. Call Watson. Or your new pal, the Ranger.”

      “No,” Zero said adamantly. He refused to compromise Watson or Strickland any further than he already had. “I’m better on my own.”

      Alan sighed. “Just as bullheaded as ever.” In the distance, the telltale rotors of a helicopter drew nearer. “That’s our ride. You take care of yourself, Zero.”

      “I will.” He hugged Reidigger once more. “Thank you for doing this. When all this is over, you and I are going to sit down and have a very long conversation over several beers.”

      “You got it,” Reidigger agreed. But there was a melancholic dip in his tone, one that suggested he was thinking the same as Zero was at the moment—that one or both of them might not survive this ordeal. “Until then—don’t trust them.”

      He frowned. “Who?”

      “Anyone in the agency,” Alan said. “They were ready to kill you before, and they were happy to have me as the triggerman. They’re not going to make that same mistake again. This time around they’ll send someone who won’t lose a minute of sleep putting a bullet in the back of your head.”

      “I know.” Zero shook his head. “I was thinking of at least getting in touch with Cartwright. I don’t think he’s in on it—”

      “Christ, what did I just say? No one, you understand?” Alan’s gaze bored into his. “Especially not Cartwright. Zero… two years ago, Cartwright was the one that sent me and Morris after you on the bridge.”

      “What?” A shiver ran up Zero’s spine.

      “Yes. He didn’t send the Division. He didn’t send any killer asset. The order came down the chain for your assassination and Cartwright didn’t argue it. He sent us.”

      A wave of fury rose like heat in his chest. Shawn Cartwright had pretended to be a friend, an ally, and had even warned Zero against trusting others like Riker.

      The pounding of the chopper’s rotors roared overhead as it hovered over Meadow Field. Alan leaned in and said in his ear, “Goodbye, Zero.” He clapped his friend on the shoulder and strode away to meet the helicopter as it descended to the tall grass.

      Zero hurried over to his waiting girls and hugged them both tightly once more. “I love you both,” he said in their ears. “Be good and take care of each other.”

      “Love you too,” Sara told him with a squeeze.

      “We will,” Maya promised as she wiped her eyes.

      “Now go.” He let them go, and they hurried over to the black helicopter. They both glanced back at him once more before climbing into the cabin with Alan’s help. Then the door slid closed, and the chopper lifted off again. Zero stood there for a long moment, watching it as it got smaller and smaller in the sky. His head was still spinning from the knowledge that Alan Reidigger was somehow alive, but knowing that his daughters were in Alan’s hands gave him hope—and all the more determination to survive this.

      Finally