Trapping Zero. Джек Марс

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      Sara tilted her head towards him, just enough so that her gaze met his. Then she nodded slightly.

      “Yeah? Good. Then that’s what we’ll do.” He reached over and took her hand in his, and he was pretty sure he felt a slight squeeze from her fingers.

      This will work, he told himself. For the first time in a while he felt good about something.

      And the girls didn’t need to know about his ulterior motive.

      CHAPTER FIVE

      Maria Johansson walked the concourse at Istanbul Atatürk Airport in Turkey and pushed open the door to the women’s restroom. She had spent the last few days on the trail of three Israeli journalists who had gone missing while covering the story of Imam Khalil’s sect of zealots, the ones who had nearly unleashed a deadly smallpox virus on the developed world. It was suspected that the journalists’ disappearance might have had something to do with surviving followers of Khalil, but their trail had gone cold in Iraq, short of their destination of Baghdad.

      She very much doubted that they would ever be found, not unless whoever was responsible for their disappearance claimed responsibility. Her orders currently were to follow up on an alleged source that the journalist had here in Istanbul, and then return to CIA regional headquarters in Zurich where she would be debriefed and possibly reassigned, if the op was deemed dead.

      But in the meantime, she had another meeting to attend.

      In a bathroom stall, Maria opened her purse and took out a waterproof bag of thick plastic. Before she sealed her CIA-issued phone inside it she called the voicemail of her private line.

      There were no new messages. It seemed that Kent had given up trying to reach her. He had left her several voicemails in the past weeks, one every few days. In the short, one-sided snippets he told her about his girls, how Sara was still dealing with the trauma of the events she’d endured. He mentioned his work for the National Resources Division and how bland it was compared to field work. He told her he missed her.

      It was a small relief that he’d given up. At least she wouldn’t have to listen to the sound of his voice and realize how much she missed him too.

      Maria sealed the phone into the plastic bag and carefully lowered it into the toilet tank before replacing the lid. She did not want to risk any prying ears to listen in on her conversation.

      Then she left the bathroom and headed down the terminal to a gate with a couple dozen people milling about. The flight board announced that the plane to Kiev would be leaving in an hour and a half.

      She sat in a rigid plastic chair in a row of six. The man was already behind her, seated in the opposite row facing the other direction with an automobile magazine open in front of his face.

      “Calendula,” he said, his voice husky but low. “Report.”

      “There is nothing to report,” she replied in Ukrainian. “Agent Zero is back at home with his family. He has been avoiding me ever since.”

      “Oh?” said the Ukrainian curiously. “Has he? Or have you been avoiding him?”

      Maria scowled, but did not turn to face the man. He would only say such a thing if he knew it was true. “You’ve tapped my private cell?”

      “Of course,” the Ukrainian said candidly. “It seems that Agent Zero very much wants to speak with you. Why have you not contacted him?”

      Not that it was any of the Ukrainian’s business, but Maria had been ducking Kent for the simple reason that she had, again, lied to him—not once, but twice. She had told him that the Ukrainians she was working with were members of the Foreign Intelligence Service. While a few of their faction might have been, at one time, they were about as loyal to the FIS as she was to the CIA.

      The second lie was that she would stop working with them. Kent had made clear his distrust of the Ukrainians while they were en route to rescuing his daughters, and Maria had agreed, halfheartedly, that she would put an end to the relationship.

      She hadn’t. Not yet. But that was part of the reason for the meeting in Istanbul; it wasn’t too late to make good on her word.

      “We’re done,” she said simply. “I’m through working with you. You know what I know, and I know what you know. We can swap intel for the sake of building a case, but I’m finished doing your errands. And I’m leaving Zero out of this.”

      The Ukrainian was silent for a long moment. He casually flicked the page of his auto magazine as if he was actually reading it. “Are you certain?” he asked. “New information has recently come to light.”

      Maria’s eyebrow rose instinctively, though she was sure this was just a ruse to keep her in their employ. “What kind of new information?”

      “Information you want,” the man said cryptically. Maria could not see his face but she got the impression, based on his tone, he was smirking.

      “You’re bluffing,” she said bluntly.

      “I am not,” he assured her. “We know his position. And we know what might happen if he remains in his stance.”

      Maria’s pulse quickened. She didn’t want to believe him, but she had little choice. Her involvement in uncovering the conspiracy, her decision to work with them and attempt to obtain information from the CIA, was more than just a matter of doing the right thing. Of course she wanted to avoid war, to keep the perpetrators from their would-be ill-gotten gains, to keep innocent people from being hurt. But more than that, she had a vested personal interest in the plot.

      Her father was a member of the National Security Council, a high-ranking official in international matters. And though it shamed her to even think it, her biggest priority, bigger than saving lives or keeping the United States from initiating war, was finding out if he was in on this, if he was a coconspirator—and if he wasn’t, to keep him safe from those that would have their way by any means necessary.

      It wasn’t as if Maria could simply call him up and ask him. Their relationship was somewhat strained, limited mostly to professional banter, talk of legislation, and the occasional short-lived catching-up of personal lives. Besides, if he was aware of the plot, he would have no reason to openly admit it to her. If he wasn’t, he would want to take action; he was a decisive man who believed in justice and the legal system. Maria tended to lean towards the cynical, and as a result, cautious.

      “What do you mean, ‘what might happen’?” she demanded. The Ukrainian’s cryptic statement seemed to suggest that her father was none the wiser, while also carrying a certain weight of threat with it.

      “We don’t know,” he replied simply.

      “How did you find this out?”

      “Emails,” said the Ukrainian, “obtained from a private server. His name was mentioned, along with others who… may not comply.”

      “Like a hit list?” she asked plainly.

      “Unclear.”

      Frustration roiled in her chest. “I want to read these emails. I want to see them for myself.”

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