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tariffs on the massive amount of exports manufactured there, which was forecast to cause leaping inflation and, in the long term, potentially destabilize the American economy.
It was bad enough that it was Thanksgiving, for Christ’s sake.
“Sir?” Tabby prodded gently.
Rutledge hadn’t realized he’d been lost in his own head. He snapped out of it and rubbed his eyes. “All right, brass tacks: do we have reason to believe the United States might become a target?”
“Currently,” said Director Shaw, “we should operate under the assumption that the US will be a target. We can’t afford not to.”
“Any intel on who’s behind this?” Rutledge asked.
“Not yet,” Johansson said.
“But this doesn’t quite fit the MO of any of our Middle Eastern friends,” offered General Kressley. “If I was a betting man, I’d put hard cash on the Russians.”
“We can’t make any sort of assumptions,” said Johansson firmly.
“Given our recent history,” Kressley argued, “I’d call it an educated guess.”
“We are an intelligence agency,” Johansson fired back across the table, even wearing a thin smirk as she did. “And as such, we’ll gather intelligence and work on facts. Not guesses. Not assumptions.”
Rutledge found himself very fond of the slight blonde woman who refused to back down from a scowling four-star general. He turned to her and asked, “What do you propose, Johansson?”
“Our top engineer is currently devising a method of tracking this sort of weapon. Based on Havana, I would say the perpetrators are most likely to stay close to the water and target a coastal area. With your approval, sir, I’d like to send a Special Ops team to find them.”
Rutledge nodded slowly—a CIA operation sounded far more preferable than sounding the horn on the potential for an attack. Keep it small, keep it quiet, he thought. Then an idea came, sudden as an actual light bulb coming to life.
“Johansson,” he asked, “one of your agents was the guy that cracked the Kozlovsky affair, yes? He found the interpreter and retrieved the recording?”
Johansson was oddly hesitant, but she nodded once. “Yes, sir.”
“What was his name?”
“That would be… well, his call sign is Zero. Agent Zero, sir.”
“Zero. Right.” Rutledge rubbed his chin. “Him. I want him on this.”
“Um, sir… he’s not quite field-ready at this time. He’s transitioning back to operations work.”
The president didn’t know what that meant, but it sounded like an excuse or a euphemism to him. “It’s your job to make him ready, Deputy Director.” There was no swaying him now; Rutledge knew that this was the right call. The agent had singlehandedly rescued former President Pierson from assassination, and uncovered the secret pact between Harris and the Russians. If anyone could find the perpetrators and this ultrasonic whatever-it-was, it was him.
“If I may,” Johansson said, “the CIA has one of the very best trackers in the world at our disposal. A former Ranger, and a highly decorated agent in his own right—”
“Great,” Rutledge interrupted, “send him too. As soon as possible.”
“Yes sir,” Johansson acquiesced quietly, staring down at the tabletop.
“Is there anything else?” he asked. No one spoke, so Rutledge rose from his seat, and the four others in the Situation Room stood as well. “Then keep me updated, and, uh… try to enjoy the holiday, I suppose.” He nodded to them and strode out of the conference room, where the two Secret Service agents instantly fell in step with him.
Always being watched. Never truly alone.
Actually, he realized, he was wrong about that. In the moment it felt quite the opposite—no matter how many people were around him, advising him, protecting him, prodding him in one direction or another, he did feel truly alone.
CHAPTER FIVE
Zero woke to sunlight filtering through the blinds, warm on his face. He sat up and stretched his arms, feeling well rested. But something wasn’t right; this bedroom was bigger than it should have been, yet familiar. Instead of a single bureau opposite him there were two, one of them shorter and topped with a mirror.
This was not his condo in Bethesda. This was his bedroom from New York—their bedroom, in the house that they shared. Before… before everything.
And when he slowly turned his head he saw, impossibly, that she was there. Lying beside him, the comforter pulled halfway up her torso, sleeping peacefully in a white tank top as she so often did. Her blonde hair was arranged perfectly on the pillow; there was a light smile on her lips. She looked angelic. Carefree. Peaceful.
He smiled and settled back down on the pillow, watching her sleep. Noting the perfect contours of her cheeks, the slight dimple in her chin that Sara had inherited. His wife, the mother of his children, the greatest love of his life.
He knew this wasn’t real, but he wished it could be, that this moment could go on forever. He reached for her and gently touched her shoulder, running his fingertips along her smooth skin, down to the elbow…
He frowned.
Her skin was cold. Her chest was not rising and falling with breath.
Not sleeping. Dead.
Killed by a lethal dose of tetrodotoxin, administered by a man Zero had called a friend, a man that Zero had let live. A decision he regretted every day.
“Wake up,” he murmured. “Please. Wake up.”
She did not stir. She wouldn’t, ever again.
“Please wake up.” His voice cracked.
It was his fault that she died.
“Wake up.”
It was his fault she was murdered.
“WAKE UP!”
Zero sucked in a breath as he sat bolt upright in bed. It was a dream; he was in his bedroom in Bethesda, white walls and plain with only one bureau. He wasn’t sure if he had actually shouted or not, but his throat was hoarse and a powerful headache was coming on.
He groaned and checked his phone for the time as he came around to reality. The sun was up; it was Thanksgiving. He had to get out of bed. He had to get the turkey in the oven. He couldn’t dwell on a nightmare, because that would mean dwelling on the past, and dwelling about…
About…
“Oh my god,” he murmured under his breath. His hands trembled and his stomach turned.
Her name. He couldn’t remember her name.
For a long moment he sat like that, his gaze darting around the bedspread as if the answer was going to be written there on its surface. But it wasn’t there, and it didn’t seem to be in his head either. He could not remember her name.
Zero tore the blankets off of him and practically fell out of bed. He dropped to his hands and knees and reached underneath it, pulling out a fireproof security box the size of a briefcase.
“Key,” he said aloud. “Where’s the damn key?” He scrambled to his feet again and tore open his top dresser drawer, nearly pulling it out completely. He snatched up the small silver key that laid there, amongst balls of socks and curled belts, and flopped to the floor again as he unlocked the security box.
Inside was an assortment of important documents and items—among them his and the girls’ passports, his birth certificate and Social Security card, two pistols, a thousand dollars in cash, and his wedding ring. He pulled all of those out and made a small pile on the floor, because none of them were what he was looking for. He paused briefly on a picture, a photo of the four of them in San Francisco one summer,