Hunting Zero Read online

  H U N T I N G Z E R O

  (AN AGENT ZERO SPY THRILLER—BOOK 3)

  J A C K M A R S

  Jack Mars

  Jack Mars is the USA Today bestselling author of the LUKE STONE thriller series, which includes seven books. He is also the author of the new FORGING OF LUKE STONE prequel series, comprising three books (and counting); and of the AGENT ZERO spy thriller series, comprising six books (and counting).

  ANY MEANS NECESSARY (book #1), which has over 800 five star reviews, is available as a free download on Kobo!

  Jack loves to hear from you, so please feel free to visit www.Jackmarsauthor.com to join the email list, receive a free book, receive free giveaways, connect on Facebook and Twitter, and stay in touch!

  Copyright © 2019 by Jack Mars. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  BOOKS BY JACK MARS

  LUKE STONE THRILLER SERIES

  ANY MEANS NECESSARY (Book #1)

  OATH OF OFFICE (Book #2)

  SITUATION ROOM (Book #3)

  OPPOSE ANY FOE (Book #4)

  PRESIDENT ELECT (Book #5)

  OUR SACRED HONOR (Book #6)

  HOUSE DIVIDED (Book #7)

  FORGING OF LUKE STONE PREQUEL SERIES

  PRIMARY TARGET (Book #1)

  PRIMARY COMMAND (Book #2)

  PRIMARY THREAT (Book #3)

  AN AGENT ZERO SPY THRILLER SERIES

  AGENT ZERO (Book #1)

  TARGET ZERO (Book #2)

  HUNTING ZERO (Book #3)

  TRAPPING ZERO (Book #4)

  FILE ZERO (Book #5)

  RECALL ZERO (Book #6)

  Agent Zero - Book 2 Summary (recap sheet to be included in book 3)

  Samples of an ancient, deadly virus are stolen from Siberia and unleashed in Spain, killing hundreds in hours. Though his memory as a CIA agent is still fragmented, Agent Zero is reinstated to help find and secure the virus before a terrorist organization can release it in the United States.

  Agent Zero: More memories of his former life as a CIA agent have returned to him, most notably that of a clandestine plot by the American government to initiate a pre-planned war for insidious motivations. The details of what he knew two years ago are muddied and faded, but before he had the chance to dig further he returned home to discover that his two daughters had been kidnapped from their home.

  Maya and Sara Lawson: While their father was away, the girls were under the watchful eye of Mr. Thompson, their neighbor and a retired CIA operative. When the assassin Rais broke in, Thompson did his best to fend him off but was ultimately killed, and Maya and Sara were taken.

  Agent Maria Johansson: Once again Maria proved an indispensable ally when she helped to secure the smallpox virus from being released. Though her newfound relationship with Kent borders on the romantic, she has secrets of her own, having met with a mysterious Ukrainian operative in the airport at Kiev to discuss where Agent Zero’s allegiances lie.

  Rais: After being beaten and left for dead in Switzerland, Rais recovered for several weeks in a hospital under guard and handcuffs. With nothing but time on his hands, he engineered not only a daring and bloody escape, but also managed to abscond to the US before international borders were shut down due to the virus. From there it was not difficult to find the Lawson home, kill the old man, and kidnap Agent Zero’s two teenage daughters.

  Agent John Watson: As part of the team sent to secure the smallpox virus, Watson made it abundantly clear that he has a distaste for Agent Zero’s daredevil tactics. Nevertheless, after their success in stopping Imam Khalil, the two reached an understanding and a mutual respect.

  Assistant Director Ashleigh Riker: A former intelligence officer who has worked her way up the chain to Special Operations Group, Riker works directly under Deputy Director Shawn Cartwright on the op to secure the virus. She does not mask her disdain for Agent Zero and the license the agency gives him. After another agent attacked Zero unprovoked, he began to suspect that Riker might be in on the conspiracy—and therefore not to be trusted.

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY THREE

  CHAPTER ONE

  At age sixteen, Maya Lawson was mostly certain she was going to die soon.

  She sat in the backseat of a large-cabbed pickup truck as it barreled down I-95, heading south through Virginia. Her legs still felt weak from the trauma and terror of what she had experienced barely more than an hour earlier. She stared straight ahead impassively, her mouth slightly open in a shell-shocked, blank gaze.

  The truck had belonged to her neighbor, Mr. Thompson. He was dead now, likely still lying in the tiled foyer of the Lawson home in Alexandria. The truck’s current driver was his murderer.

  Seated beside Maya was her younger sister, Sara, only fourteen. Her legs were drawn up beneath her and her body curled into Maya’s. Sara had stopped sobbing, at least for now, but each breath escaped her open mouth with a soft moan.

  Sara had no idea what was going on. She knew only what she had seen—the man in their house. Mr. Thompson dead. The assailant threatening to break her sister’s limbs to get Sara to open the door to their basement panic room. She didn’t know any of what Maya knew, and even Maya knew only a small part of the whole truth.

  But the elder Lawson girl did know one thing, or at least she was mostly certain of it: she was going to die soon. She did not know what the driver of the truck was planning to do with them—he had made the promise that he wouldn’t hurt them as long as they did what he asked—but that didn’t matter.

  Despite her slack-jawed expression, Maya’s mind was working a mile a minute. Only one thing was important
now, and that was keeping Sara safe. The man behind the wheel was alert and capable, but at some point he would falter. As long as they did what he asked, he would get complacent, even for just a second, and in that moment she would act. She did not know yet what she would do, but it would have to be direct, ruthless, and debilitating. Give Sara the opportunity to flee, to get to safety, to other people, to a phone.

  It would likely cost Maya her life. But she was already very much aware of that.

  Another soft moan escaped her sister’s lips. She’s in shock, Maya thought. But the moan became a murmur, and she realized that Sara was trying to speak. She bent her head close to Sara’s lips to hear her quiet question.

  “Why is this happening to us?”

  “Shh.” Maya cradled Sara’s head against her chest and gently stroked her hair. “It’s going to be okay.”

  She regretted it as soon as she said it; it was an empty sentiment, something that people say when they have nothing else to offer. Clearly it was not okay, and she could not promise that it would be.

  “Sins of the father.” The man behind the wheel spoke for the first time since he had forced them into the truck. He said it casually, eerily calmly. Then louder he said, “This is happening to you because of the decisions made and actions taken by one Reid Lawson, known to others as Kent Steele, known to many more as Agent Zero.”

  Kent Steele? Agent Zero? Maya had no idea what this man, the assassin who called himself Rais, was talking about. But she knew some things, enough to know that her father was an agent of some government group—FBI, possibly CIA.

  “He took everything from me.” Rais stared straight ahead at the highway beyond them, but he spoke with a tone of unadulterated hatred. “Now I’ve taken everything from him.”

  “He’s going to find us,” Maya said. Her tone was hushed, not defiant, as if she were simply stating a fact. “He’s going to come for us, and he’s going to kill you.”

  Rais nodded as if he agreed with her. “He will come for you; that is true. And he will try to kill me. Twice he has made attempts and left me for dead… once in Denmark, and again in Switzerland. Did you know that?”

  Maya said nothing. She had suspected that her dad had something to do with the terrorist plot that unfolded a month earlier in February, when a radical faction tried to bomb the World Economic Forum in Davos.

  “But I endure,” Rais continued. “You see, I was led to believe that it was my destiny to kill your father, but I was wrong. It is my fate. Do you know the difference?” He scoffed lightly. “Of course you don’t. You are a child. Destiny is comprised of the events that one is supposed to fulfill. It is something we can control, something we can dictate. Fate, on the other hand, is beyond us. It is determined by another power, one we cannot fully comprehend. I don’t believe I am allowed to perish until your father dies at my hand.”

  “You’re Amun,” Maya said. It wasn’t a question.

  “I was, once. But Amun is no more. I alone endure.”

  The assassin had confirmed what she had already feared; that he was a fanatic, someone who had been indoctrinated by the cultlike terrorism group of Amun into believing that his actions were not only justified, but necessary. Maya was gifted with the dangerous combination of intelligence and curiosity; she had read much on the subjects of terrorism and fanaticism in the wake of the Davos bombing and her speculation that her father’s absence at the time it had happened meant he had been a part of stopping and dismantling the organization.

  So she knew very well that this man could not be swayed with pleas, prayers, or supplication. She knew there was no changing his mind, and she was aware that hurting children was not beyond him. All of it only strengthened her resolve that she had to act as soon as she saw the chance.

  “I have to use the bathroom.”

  “I don’t care,” Rais responded.

  Maya frowned. She had once eluded an Amun member on the New Jersey boardwalk by feigning the need for the bathroom—she didn’t believe her father’s cover story about the man being a local gang member for even a second—and had managed to get Sara to safety then. It was the only thing she could think of in the current moment that would allow them even a precious minute alone, but her request had been denied.

  They drove for several more minutes in silence, heading southbound on the interstate while Maya stroked Sara’s hair. Her younger sister seemed to have calmed to a point that she was no longer crying, or had simply run out of tears.

  Rais put the blinker on and eased the truck off the next exit. Maya peered out the window and felt a small surge of hope; they were pulling into a rest stop. It was tiny, little more than a picnic area surrounded by trees and a small, squat brick building with restrooms, but it was something.

  He was going to let them use the bathroom.

  The trees, she thought. If Sara can get into the woods, maybe she can lose him.

  Rais parked the truck and let the engine idle for a moment as he scanned the building. Maya did too. There were two trucks there, long tractor trailers parked parallel to the brick building, but no one else. Outside the bathrooms under an awning were a couple of vending machines. She noted with dismay that there were no cameras, at least none visible, on the premises.

  “The right side is the women’s restroom,” Rais said. “I will walk you there. If you try to scream or call out to anyone, I will kill them. If you so much as gesture or signal to anyone that anything is amiss, I will kill them. Their blood will be on your hands.”

  Sara was trembling in her arms again. Maya hugged her tightly around the shoulders.

  “The two of you will hold hands. If you separate, Sara will get hurt.” He twisted around partially to face them—specifically Maya. He had already assumed that of the two, she would be the one more likely to give him trouble. “Do you understand?”

  Maya nodded, averting her gaze from his wild green eyes. He had dark lines beneath them, as if he hadn’t slept in some time, and his dark hair was shorn short on top of his head. He did not seem all that old, certainly younger than their father, but she could not guess his age.

  He held up a black pistol—the Glock that had belonged to her father. Maya had tried to use it on him when he broke into the house, and he had taken it from her. “This will be in my hand, and my hand will be in my pocket. Again I will remind you that trouble for me is trouble for her.” He gestured toward Sara with his head. She whimpered slightly.

  Rais got out of the truck first, sticking his hand and the pistol into his black jacket pocket. Then he opened the rear door of the cab. Maya climbed out first, her legs shaky as her feet touched the pavement. She reached back into the cab for Sara’s hand and helped her younger sister out.

  “Go.” The girls walked in front of him as they headed for the bathroom. Sara shivered; late March in Virginia meant that the weather was just starting to turn, lingering in the mid- to high fifties, and both of them were still in their pajamas. Maya wore only flip-flops on her feet, striped flannel pants, and a black tank top. Her sister had on sneakers with no socks, poplin pajama pants emblazoned with pineapples, and one of their dad’s old T-shirts, a tie-dyed rag with the logo of some band neither of them had ever heard of.

  Maya turned the knob and pushed into the bathroom first. She instinctively wrinkled her nose in disgust; the place smelled of urine and mold, and the floor was wet from a leaking sink pipe. Still she pulled Sara along behind her into the restroom.

  There was a single window in the place, a plate of frosted glass high up in the wall that looked like it would swing outward with a good push. If she could boost her sister up and out, she could distract Rais while Sara ran…

  “Move.” Maya flinched as the assassin pushed into the bathroom behind them. Her heart sank. He wasn’t going to let them be alone, even for a minute. “You, there.” He pointed to Maya and the second stall of the three. “You, there.” He instructed Sara to the third.

  Maya let go of her sister’s hand and entered the stall
. It was filthy; she wouldn’t have wanted to use it even if she actually had to go, but she would at least have to pretend. She started to push the door closed but Rais stopped it with the palm of his hand.

  “No,” he told her. “Leave it open.” And then he turned his back, facing the exit.

  He’s not taking any chances. She slowly sat on the closed toilet seat lid and breathed into her hands. There was nothing she could do. She had no weapons against him. He had a knife and two guns, one of which was currently in his hand, hidden in the jacket pocket. She could try to jump him and let Sara get out, but he was blocking the door. He had already killed Mr. Thompson, a former Marine and a bear of a man who most would have avoided a fight with at any cost. What chance would she have against him?

  Sara sniffled in the stall beside her. This isn’t the right time to act, Maya knew. She had hoped, but she would have to wait again.

  Suddenly there was a loud creak as the door to the bathroom was pushed open, and a surprised female voice said, “Oh! Excuse me… Am I in the wrong restroom?”

  Rais took a step to the side, past the stall and out of Maya’s view. “So sorry, ma’am. No, you’re in the right place.” His voice immediately took on a pleasant, even courteous affectation. “My two daughters are in here and… well, maybe I’m overprotective, but you just can’t be too careful these days.”

  Anger swelled in Maya’s chest at the ruse. The fact that this man had taken them from their father and would dare to pretend to be him made her face hot with rage.

  “Oh. I see. I just need to use the sink,” the woman told him.

  “By all means.”

  Maya heard the clacking of shoes against tile, and then a woman came partially into view, facing away from her as she twisted the faucet knob. She looked to be middle-aged, with blonde hair just past her shoulders and dressed smartly.