Agent Zero. Джек Марс

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      He nodded once, his jaw clenched tightly.

      “Great.” Yuri drained his glass and stood, still keeping his left elbow tucked in. “Au revoir.” He waved to the bartender. Then the Serbian led the way toward the rear of Féline, through a small dingy kitchen, and out through a steel door facing a cobblestone alley.

      Reid followed him into the night, surprised to see that it had grown so dark so quickly while he was in the bar. At the mouth of the alley was a black SUV, idling gently, with windows tinted nearly as dark as the paint job. The rear door opened before Yuri reached it, and two goons climbed out. Reid didn’t know how else to think of them; each was broad-shouldered, imposing, and doing nothing to try to hide the TEC-9 automatic pistols swinging from harnesses at their armpit.

      “Relax, my friends,” said Yuri. “This is Ben. We take him to see Otets.”

      Otets. Phonetic Russian for “father.” Or, on the most technical level, “maker.”

      “Come,” Yuri said pleasantly. He clapped a hand on Reid’s shoulder. “It is a very nice ride. We will drink champagne on the way. Come.”

      Reid’s legs did not want to work. It was risky—too risky. If he got in this car with these men and they discovered who he was, or even that he wasn’t who he said he was, he might very well be a dead man. His girls would be orphans, and they would likely never know what became of him.

      But what choice did he have? He couldn’t very well act like he’d changed his mind suddenly; that would be far too suspicious. It was likely he had already taken two steps past the point of no return simply by following Yuri out here. And if he could keep up the charade long enough, he could find the source—and discover what was going on in his own head.

      He took a step forward toward the SUV.

      “Ah! Un momento, por favor.” Yuri wagged a finger at his brawny escorts. One of them forced Reid’s arms up at his sides, while the other patted him down. First he found the Beretta, tucked into the back of his jeans. Then he dug into Reid’s pockets with two fingers and pulled out the wad of euros and the burner phone, and handed all three to Yuri.

      “This you can keep.” The Serbian gave him back the cash. “These, however, we will hang onto. Security. You understand.” Yuri tucked the phone and the gun into the inside pocket of his suede jacket, and for the briefest of moments, Reid saw the brown hilt of a pistol.

      “I understand,” Reid said. Now he was unarmed and without any way to call for help if he needed to. I should run, he thought. Just start sprinting and don’t look back…

      One of the goons forced his head low and pushed him forward, into the back of the SUV. Both of them climbed in after him and Yuri followed, pulling the door behind him. He sat beside Reid, while the hunched goons, nearly shoulder to shoulder, sat in a custom rear-facing seat opposite them, right behind the driver. A dark-tinted partition separated them from the front seat of the car.

      One of the pair knocked on the driver’s partition with two knuckles. “Otets,” he said gruffly.

      A heavy, telltale click locked the rear doors, and with it came a stark comprehension of what Reid had done. He had gotten into a car with three armed men with no idea where he was going and very little idea of who he was supposed to be. Fooling Yuri hadn’t been all that difficult, but now he was being taken to some boss… would they know that he wasn’t who he said he was? He fought down the urge to jump forward, yank open the door, and leap out of the car. There was no escape from this, at least not at the moment; he would have to wait until they arrived at their destination and hope that he could get out in one piece.

      The SUV rolled forward through the streets of Paris.

      CHAPTER SIX

      Yuri, who had been so talkative and animated in the French bar, was uncharacteristically silent during the car ride. He opened a compartment alongside his seat and took out a well-worn book with a torn cover—Machiavelli’s The Prince. The professor in Reid wanted to scoff out loud.

      The two goons across from him sat silently, eyes directed straight ahead as if they were trying to stare holes through Reid. He quickly memorized their features: the man on the left was bald, white, with a dark handlebar mustache and beady eyes. He had a TEC-9 beneath his shoulder and a Glock 27 tucked in an ankle holster. A jagged pale scar over his left eyebrow suggested a shoddy patch job (not all that dissimilar from what Reid was likely due for once his super-glue intervention healed). He couldn’t tell the man’s nationality.

      The second goon was a few shades darker, with a full, unkempt beard and a sizable paunch. His left shoulder appeared to be sagging slightly, as if he was favoring his opposite hip. He too had an automatic pistol tucked under one arm, but no other weapons that Reid could discern.

      He could, however, see the mark on his neck. The skin there was puckered and pink, raised slightly from being burned. It was the same brand he had seen on the Arabic brute in the Paris basement. A glyph of some sort, he was certain, but not one that he recognized. The mustached man did not appear to have one, though much of his neck was hidden by his shirt.

      Yuri did not have a brand either—at least not one that Reid could see. The collar of the Serbian’s suede jacket rode high. Could be a status symbol, he thought. Something that had to be earned.

      The driver directed the vehicle onto A4, leaving Paris behind and heading northeast toward Reims. The tinted windows made the night all the darker; once they left the City of Lights, it was difficult for Reid to make out landmarks. He had to rely on the route markers and signs to know where they were heading. The landscape slowly shifted from the bright urban locale to an idle, bucolic topography, the highway gently sloping with the lay of the land and farms stretching on either side.

      After an hour of driving in utter silence, Reid cleared his throat. “Is it much further?” he asked.

      Yuri put a finger to his lips and then grinned. “Oui.”

      Reid’s nostrils flared, but he said nothing more. He should have asked just how far they would be taking him; for all he knew, they were going clear to Belgium.

      Route A4 became A34, which in turn became A304 as they climbed ever further north. The trees that dotted the pastoral countryside grew thicker and closer, wide umbrella-like spruces that swallowed the open farmland and became indistinguishable forests. The gradient of the road increased as the sloping hills turned to small mountains.

      He knew this place. Rather, he knew the region, and not because of any flashing vision or implanted memory. He had never been here, but he knew from his studies that they had reached the Ardennes, a mountainous stretch of forest shared between northeastern France, southern Belgium, and northern Luxembourg. It was in the Ardennes that the German army, in 1944, attempted to launch their armored divisions through the densely forested region in an attempt to capture the city of Antwerp. They were thwarted by American and British forces near the river Meuse. The ensuing conflict was dubbed the Battle of the Bulge, and it was the last major offensive of the Germans in World War II.

      For some reason, despite how dire his situation was or might soon become, he found some small measure of comfort in thinking about history, his former life, and his students. But then his thoughts again transitioned to his girls being alone and scared and not having any idea where he was or what he had gotten himself into.

      Sure enough, Reid soon saw a sign that warned of an approach to the border. Belgique, the sign read, and below that, Belgien, СКАЧАТЬ