Hunting Zero. Джек МарсЧитать онлайн книгу.
several long moments the dock was quiet. The droning of machinery at the other end of the port echoed in the night, likely drowning out any chance of Maya’s screams having been heard. She and the two men waited for Rais to return—the former praying desperately he came back empty-handed.
A short shriek shattered the silence, and Maya’s limbs went limp.
Rais emerged from the darkness again. He had Sara under one arm, the way one might carry a surfboard, with his other hand clasped over her mouth to quiet her. Her face was bright red and she was sobbing, though her cries were muffled.
No. Maya had failed. Her attack had done nothing, least of all get Sara to safety.
Rais stopped a few feet short of Maya, staring her down with pure fury in his bright green eyes. A thin rivulet of blood ran from one nostril where she had struck him.
“I told you,” he hissed. “I told you what would happen if you tried to do something. Now, you’re going to watch.”
Maya flailed again, trying to scream, but the man held her tight.
Rais said something harshly in the foreign tongue to the one in the leather jacket. He hurried over and took Sara, holding her still and keeping her silent.
The assassin unsheathed the large knife, the one he had used to murder Mr. Thompson and the woman in the rest stop bathroom. He forced Sara’s arm out to one side and held it firmly.
No! Please don’t hurt her. Don’t. Don’t… She tried to form words, to scream them out, but they came out only as shrill, muffled cries.
Sara tried to pull away as she wept, but Rais held her arm in a white-knuckled grip. He forced her fingers apart and wedged the knife in the space between her ring and pinky fingers.
“You’re going to watch,” he said again, staring directly at Maya, “as I cut off one of your sister’s fingers.” He pressed the knife to skin.
Don’t. Don’t. Please, god, don’t…
The man holding her, the chubby one, muttered something.
Rais paused and looked up at him irritably.
The two had a quick exchange, not a word of which Maya understood. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway; her gaze was locked on her little sister, whose eyes were clenched shut, tears running down both cheeks and over the hand that held her mouth tightly.
Rais growled in frustration. At long last he released his grip on Sara’s hand. The chubby man released his grip on Maya, and at the same time the one in the leather jacket shoved Sara forward. Maya caught her sister in her arms and hugged her close.
The assassin stepped forward, speaking quietly. “This time, you’re lucky. These gentlemen suggested that I not damage any merchandise before it gets to where it’s going.”
Maya trembled from head to toe, but she didn’t dare move.
“Besides,” he told her, “where you’re going will be far worse than anything I might do to you. Now we’re all going to get on the boat. Remember, you’re only good to them alive.”
The chubby man led the way up the ramp, Sara behind him and Maya right behind her as they stepped shakily onto the boat. There was no use in fighting back now. Her hand throbbed with pain where she’d struck Rais. There were three men and only two of them, and he was faster. He had found Sara in the dark. They had little chance of making it out on their own.
Maya glanced over the side of the boat at the black water below. For just a split second, she thought about jumping; freezing in its depth might be preferable to the fate that awaited them. But she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t leave Sara. She couldn’t lose her last ounce of hope.
They were directed to the stern of the ship, where the man in the leather jacket took out a ring of keys and unlocked the padlock on the door of a boxy steel crate, painted a rusty orange.
He 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