Hunting Zero. Джек Марс

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СКАЧАТЬ swung the door open, and Maya gasped in horror.

      Inside the crate, squinting in the dim yellow light, were several other young girls, at least four or five that Maya could see.

      Then she was shoved from behind, forced inside. Sara was too, and she fell to her knees on the floor of the small container. As the door swung behind them, Maya scrambled to her and wrapped Sara in her arms.

      Then the door slammed shut, and they were plunged into darkness.

      CHAPTER NINE

      The sun set quickly in the overcast sky as the quadcopter raced north to deliver its cargo, one determined CIA operative and father, to the Starlight Motel in New Jersey.

      His ETA was five minutes. A message on the screen blinked a warning: Prepare to deploy. He glanced out the side of the cockpit and saw, far below, that they were soaring over a wide industrial park of boxy warehouses and manufacturing facilities, sitting silent and dark, illuminated only by the dots of orange streetlights.

      He unzipped the black duffel bag sitting in his lap. Inside he found two holsters and two guns. Reid struggled out of his jacket in the tiny cockpit and put on the shoulder rig that held a Glock 22, standard-issue—none of Bixby’s high-tech biometric trigger locks like he had with the Glock 19. He pulled his jacket back on and tugged up the leg of his jeans to attach the ankle holster that held his backup weapon of choice, the Ruger LC9. It was a compact pistol with a stubby barrel, nine-millimeter caliber in a nine-round expanded box magazine that stuck out just an inch and a half further than the grip.

      He had one hand on the rappelling crossbar, ready to disembark from the manned drone as soon as they reached a safe altitude and speed. He was just about to tug the headset from his ears when Watson’s voice came through it.

      “Zero.”

      “Nearly there. Just under two minutes—”

      “We just got another photo, Kent,” Watson cut him off. “Sent to your daughter’s phone.”

      Icy fingers of panic gripped Reid’s heart. “Of them?”

      “Sitting on a bed,” Watson confirmed. “Looks like it could be the motel.”

      “The number it came from, can it be traced?” Reid asked hopefully.

      “Sorry. He already ditched it.”

      His hope deflated. Rais was smart; so far he had sent photos of only where he had been, not where he was. If there was any chance of Agent Zero catching up to him, the assassin wanted it to be on his terms. For the entire ride in the quadcopter, Reid had been nervously optimistic about the motel lead, anxious that they had might have caught up to Rais’s game.

      But if there was a photo… then there was a good chance they had already moved on.

      No. You can’t think like that. He wants you to find him. He chose a motel in the middle of nowhere specifically for that reason. He’s baiting you. They’re here. They have to be.

      “Were they okay? Did they look… are they hurt…?”

      “They looked okay,” Watson told him. “Upset. Scared. But okay.”

      The message on the screen changed, blinking in red: Deploy. Deploy.

      Regardless of the photo or his thoughts, he’d arrived. He had to see for himself. “I have to go.”

      “Make it quick,” Watson told him. “One of my guys is calling in a false lead at the motel matching Rais’s and your daughters’ description.”

      “Thanks, John.” Reid pulled off the headset, made sure he had a tight grip on the rappel bar, and stepped out of the quadcopter.

      The controlled descent of fifty feet to the ground was faster than he anticipated and took his breath away. The familiar thrill, the rush of adrenaline, coursed through his veins as wind roared in his ears. He bent his knees slightly on approach and touched down onto asphalt in a crouch.

      As soon as he released the rappel bar the line zipped back up to the quadcopter, and the drone buzzed away into the night, returning to wherever it had come from.

      Reid glanced around quickly. He was in the parking lot of a warehouse across the street from the dingy motel, dimly lit by only a few yellow bulbs outside. A hand-painted sign facing the street told him that he was in the right place.

      He scanned left and right as he hurried across the empty street. It was quiet here, eerily quiet. There were three cars in the lot, each spaced out along the row of rooms facing him—and one of them was clearly the white SUV that had been stolen from the used car lot in Maryland.

      It was parked right outside of a room with a brass number 9 on the door.

      There were no lights on inside; it didn’t seem like anyone was staying there at the moment. Even so, he dropped his bag just outside the door and listened carefully for about three seconds.

      He didn’t hear anything, so he pulled the Glock from his shoulder holster and kicked the door in.

      The jamb splintered easily as the door flew open and Reid stepped inside, the gun level at the darkness. Yet nothing moved in the shadows. There were still no sounds, no one crying out in surprise or scrambling for a weapon.

      His left hand felt along the wall for a light switch and flicked it on. Room 9 had an orange carpet and yellow wallpaper that was curling at the corners. The room had recently been cleaned, insofar as “cleaned” seemed to go at the Starlight Motel. The bed had been hastily made and it reeked of cheap aerosol disinfectant.

      But it was empty. His heart sank. There was no one here—no Sara or Maya or the assassin that had taken them.

      Reid stepped carefully, looking over the room. Near the door was a green armchair. The fabric of the seat cushion and back was slightly discolored with the imprint of someone who had sat there recently. He knelt beside it, outlining the shape of the person with his gloved fingertips.

      Someone sat here for hours. About six-foot, a hundred and eighty pounds.

      It was him. He sat here, next to the only point of entry, near the window.

      Reid tucked his gun back into its holster and carefully peeled back the bedspread. The sheets were stained; they hadn’t been changed. He inspected them cautiously, lifting each pillow in turn, careful not to disrupt any potential evidence.

      He found two blonde hairs, long strands without the roots. They had fallen out naturally. He found a single brunette strand in the same fashion. They were here, together, on this bed, while he sat there and watched them. But why? Why had Rais brought them here? Why had they stopped? Was it another ploy in the assassin’s cat-and-mouse game, or was he waiting for something?

      Maybe he was waiting for me. I took too long to follow the clues. Now they’re gone again.

      If Watson had called in the fake report, the police would be at the motel in minutes, and Strickland was likely already on a chopper. But Reid refused to leave without something to go on, or else all of it would have been for nothing, just another dead end.

      He hurried to the motel office.

      The carpet СКАЧАТЬ