Agent Zero

  “Yessir. You’re doing a good job, sir.”

  Like you can tell. But Bronson nodded. “I’m going to go home and get some clothes. Call me if anything happens, and for God’s sake, don’t let Three offbase.”

  “Wasn’t planning on it, sir. Um, should we... I mean, um, should I feed her?”

  “Feed her, water her, whatever. Just keep her on the damn base, and be careful with Eight.” Bronson glanced at the door. “By the book, nice and slow, don’t cut any corners.”

  “Yessir.”

  By the time Bronson reached the end of the hall, his headache was starting to fade. He decided not to ask Three what she thought of Eight’s calm, steady agreement to do what needed to be done. He had a handle on this himself, and all of a sudden, his entire body itched. He couldn’t wait to get into clean clothes.

  * * *

  Another evening, another motel, a dispirited brick lump right at the edge of another city. A truck-stop diner crouched across the parking lot, a vast expanse of pavement behind it studded with diesel pumps and dozing semis. The headlights were stars, taillights rubies, or maybe it was just that she was hungry and tired.

  “Are we stopping for the night?” She sounded whiny, she realized, and sighed deeply. He was quiet and thoughtful, a good traveling companion, but he wouldn’t let her drive. I’m fine, he kept saying. You just rest.

  “Maybe. Mostly I thought you could use something warm, and to stretch your legs a little.” He cut the engine, set the parking brake, and his gaze roved over the lot. “Not sure I like the idea of sleeping here.”

  “Still not going to tell me where we’re going?”

  “I don’t want you to—”

  “—know where you’re headed, right. But you can easily go somewhere else if they end up catching us. So can I. So give.”

  “South. We’ll slip over the border at a likely place—”

  “Without passports?”

  “You’ll have one by then. Once over, we’ll vanish. Probably live in a city, nice and anonymous. Get to know each other, rent a little house.”

  “That takes money.” That was just the first flaw in the plan that she could see. There was a whole cavalcade of others, ones she was too tired to list. Sleeping in a car all day was oddly exhausting.

  “Money’s easy.” He scratched at his stubble, frowning at the diner’s gold-glowing windows. Incandescents always made the light so warm. “You can learn Spanish.”

  “How is money easy?”

  “Think about what I’m trained for, Holly. Anyway, it’ll be nice. You’ll get a tan.”

  “If I don’t keel over and die first.” Her chin settled. She was sulling up, as her father would have put it.

  Dad might have liked Reese. At least, they would get along, in that military-man way. Not when Dad was sick, though.

  Before. When he’d still been the brawny, gruff linchpin of the world. Now Holly wondered if he’d ever felt this kind of fear, struggling through the chemo. Maybe his withdrawal hadn’t been strength, closing himself off from the world that had treated him so shabbily.

  Maybe he’d just been scared.

  “You’re not going to keel over.” Endlessly patient. What would it take to make him angry?

  Did she want to know? She’d better find out, soon. Just in case. “You can’t smell cancer.”

  “Some dogs can.”

  “You’re not a dog.” You keep calling yourself one, but you’re not.

  “Mmh.” That noncommittal sound again. “Why don’t you go in and get us a table. I’m going to check the motel.”

  “Okay.” She reached for her backpack, felt for the doorhandle. Was he just trying to get rid of her? Probably.

  “Holly.” Very quietly.

  “What?” Why can’t I look at him? At least the diner was bound to have something good on its menu, even though hoping for a decent salad or some pasta was foolish in the extreme. On the other hand, maybe truckers were health nuts. Barb had worked at a truck stop once—good tips, she’d said, but be ready to smack a few hands away from your rear.

  She would never see Barb again. Tony was probably pulling his hair out in fistfuls, bemoaning her lack of reliability. They would think something had happened to her...which, really, something had, but they’d forget her soon enough.

  She probably wouldn’t even be able to eat here anyway.

  “I am not going to let anything happen to you.” He said it quietly, almost as if he meant it.

  That’s a nice thought. “Okay.” She scrambled to get out of the car, inhaling sharply as the cold hit her. Shouldn’t south be warmer? Of course, they were tending westward, too, for whatever reason Reese had in his weird little head.

  Her stomach growled, so she closed the car door carefully and headed for the diner.

  * * *

  It was all too familiar—a hum of conversation, clinking dishes, something hitting the grill with a steaming hiss, hurrying feet. It even smelled just the same, grease and heat and overcooked coffee and a faint tang of chlorine from the bleach rinse. Holly’s knees almost buckled, but she told herself it was just from spending so long in the car.

  “Hep ya?” the waitress on greet duty said, blinking sleepily. Her graying hair, pulled back under a net, was still neatly braided, and though she sounded halfway to dreamland there was a sharp twinkle in her hazel gaze.

  “Hello. Two, please.”

  “Where’s the other?”

  What? “At the motel. He sent me to get a table.”

  “Just passin’ through?” She fished out a couple of plastic-covered menus, and slight unease began under Holly’s hair, right at her nape.

  “We’re on vacation.” Holly’s tone plainly said, Is it normal to get the third degree when asking for a booth? Maybe she looked shabby, or just too tired.

  Or maybe this was a truckers-only place? Who knew?

  In any case, it must have been the right response, because the waitress nodded. “Ah. We get all types here. Smoking or non?”

  Holly dredged up a smile. “I prefer non, but whatever you have free. It looks busy.” You need someone to wipe your board, too. I could have that done in a hot minute, if you’d hire me. Was here far enough away to hide?

  “It is.” The woman paused. “Most people go straight on into the city from here, except for the boys. They like to stop.”

  “The boys? Oh, we saw the truck stop.” She followed, nice and docile, and asked for decaf.

  The smoking side was packed, and the counter on the nonsmoking side, too. Broad backs, T-shirts and heavy jackets, male laughter. The booths were empty, just a sprinkling of heavyset men, very few women. A bright spill of jukebox music ricocheted from the smoking side, and Holly settled on cracked mauve vinyl, keeping her back stiffly away from the needlepoint cushion. Nothing was going to make this sad little place look new again, and she put her backpack on the window side of the booth just to be safe.

  The decaf came, half-burned by the smell of it, and she had just picked it up when a shadow fell over her.

  It wasn’t Reese. It was a burly man in a flannel shirt, his blue baseball cap settled firmly enough that it might have been glued on and his beard neatly trimmed. His eyes were bloodshot, his jeans were worn and he looked as though he was having some trouble staying upright.

  “Hello there, sweet thing,” he slurred, and the intense, inappropriate desire to laugh burbled up inside of Holly.

  “I’m sorry?” she managed, politely, frozen with her coffee cup halfway to her mouth.

  “How much?” He leaned over, and she caught a breath of unwashed, sweaty man with a little more fat than muscle, but still plenty of both. It wasn’t like Reese’s clean healthy scent.

  I could smell it on you. What else could he smell?

  ?
??I’m sorry?” she repeated. “You seem a little confused.”

  He rested his elbow on the back of her booth, effectively trapping her, and the unease was full-blown now. “Give you fifty for a blow,” he semiwhispered. “Pretty mouth of yours, and all. I got a nice truck. Private.”

  Several pieces fell together at once. Truck stop. Motel. The waitress’s questioning.

  Oh, God, he thinks I’m a hooker. “I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else,” she managed, with just the right tone—not overly amused, not overly offended—even though her heart had started hammering and sweat prickled under her arms.

  Out of nowhere, help appeared. “Hey, sweetheart.” Reese, tall and a little rumpled, smiled benignly at the heavyset man, but he didn’t slide into the other half of the booth. “Who’s your friend?”

  “I think he’s confused,” she began, diplomatically.

  “Really.” Reese’s open, pleasant expression didn’t change, but something in the set of his shoulders made the other man straighten self-consciously, taking his arm away from the back of the booth. “Can we help you, sir?”

  “Just asking,” the man mumbled, darting another glance at Holly. “Pretty girl there.”

  “That’s one reason I married her.” Reese’s hands were loose and easy, but she suddenly had the idea he was about to do something silly. “What did you want?”

  “Nothin’.” Thankfully, he backed off, with one last lingering look.

  Holly’s skin crawled. She set the coffee cup down carefully, as if it was porcelain instead of thick heavy industrial china.

  Reese lowered himself into the other half of the booth, cautiously. “You okay?”

  “I think...” She coughed a little, and managed something slightly above a whisper. “He thought I was a lot lizard.”

  “A...” A curious expression drifted over Reese’s face. “Oh.” His dark eyes narrowed fractionally. That was all.

  Fifty for a blow. “I’m having all sorts of new experiences nowadays.” She managed a nervous half laugh. “I just...do I look that bad?”

  “Of course not. You’re too pretty for a place like this. The motel’s a dump. Rents hourly.”

  “Oh.” Her skin was crawling even more now. “I... Reese, I’m not hungry.”

  He was already reaching for his wallet. “I don’t blame you. We can find someplace nicer.”

  “God, yes.” She all but scrambled for the edge of the seat. The waitress was shuffling back, bright interest all over her avid little face. “I, um... I need to use the restroom.”

  “Me, too.” A tight smile, and he motioned to the shuffling hag. “I’ll wait for you, okay?”

  “Okay.” She made it away, and just as she reached the front she saw her erstwhile suitor heading into the men’s room.

  Oh, God. It took a little while, locked in an indifferently cleaned stall, for the shaking to stop. I want to go home.

  She couldn’t. She knew she couldn’t, but still. It wouldn’t be that hard to find a pay phone, would it? He couldn’t stay with her all the time. Just to hear Barb’s scratchy voice again, or just to tell someone, anyone, that Holly Candless still existed and wasn’t a truck-stop prostitute.

  Funny, I wanted to vanish, but not like this.

  At least the water from the sink was hot, and there was industrial-grade soap. She scrubbed at her hands a long time, staring at the wan blue-eyed woman in the mirror, and found herself hoping Reese would leave her behind.

  If he did, though, what might she be reduced to just to stay fed? Or to get home?

  And what might be waiting for her there?

  * * *

  He paid for the overcooked coffee and was pleasant enough, but every nerve in him was a wire brush standing straight up. Her distress was still ringing in his head, that acrid undertone to her smell, fear and adrenaline all over again. He knew the man was in the bathroom, maybe taking another hit of whatever metallic drug he jacked himself on to stay awake on the road. It was too harsh to be bennies, so probably meth.

  What are you thinking, Reese?

  Except he wasn’t. He was very far from thinking.

  He couldn’t let her out of his sight for thirty seconds, for God’s sake. Maybe it was the vulnerability on her drawing predators to the water hole. It was more likely his fault, bringing her here. They stuck out like sore thumbs, her more than him, and the waitress’s knowing little smile mounted his fury another notch.

  He palmed the bathroom door open and found himself in a sorry hole with three urinals and a boxed-in stall, its walls and door cut off at ankle instead of knee height. It could be hosed down with little trouble, and the half-formed idea in the back of his head subsumed under a hum of alertness.

  The stall was closed, and he could smell the man through a reek made up of every other nastiness crawling through this room. A silver box attached to the tiled wall promised condoms and cologne, for just a few quarters per.

  She didn’t belong here, and he’d put her right in harm’s way.

  Again.

  There was a sniff, a heaving snort, a sound like a lowing cow, and the stall door swung open.

  The man in the blue baseball cap blinked at him, rolling down his sleeve. He’d develop track marks before long if he was shooting instead of snorting now, and lose a lot of that pudge. Reese’s lips pulled back from his teeth.

  It took so little. Weight dropping, his booted foot flicking forward, hooked behind the trucker’s knee and yanked forward just enough, a blurted sound from the man’s wet shapeless mouth lost under the formless noise of the jukebox in the smoking section. Another light strike, open palm on the chest, to get him to fall correctly. Backward, the angle gauged just right, and the man’s head hit sturdy porcelain with a sickening crack. Another crack underneath was the shearing of a neck snapping, and the drug-fueled kicking of the empty body was easily avoided.

  Death by toilet. Fitting.

  Reese pushed the stall door closed with the tip of his boot. The diner outside made its usual, normal hum.

  He ran his hands through his hair, checked himself in the mirror. Just fine. The next person to come in here would assume the trucker had slipped and fallen, if they noticed him at all. Autopsy would chalk it up to a drug-fueled accident. Clean, untraceable and proof positive that he was still functioning at peak.

  Good work, agent. Now collect your civvie and get out of here.

  When Holly came out of the little girls’ room, pale and huge eyed, he had his thumbs hooked in his pockets and turned from the rack of newspapers near the door. Winter Storm Approaching, the headlines screamed, and wasn’t that the truth. They might outpace it, but the smell of impending snow outside was thick enough to cut with a spoon.

  “Let’s go.” He got close enough to put an arm over her shoulders, and the hostess smirked behind the counter. For a moment the urge to step over, fold his hand just right and give the old woman a knuckle strike to the throat drifted through him.

  Holly sniffed, as if she’d been crying in the bathroom, and the small sound cut through everything else.

  You’re safe now, he wanted to tell her.

  Even if it was a lie.

  * * *

  Two hours later she pulled back the covers, staring at the hotel bed as if she couldn’t quite figure out what to do with it. This place was much nicer, on the other side of the damn city, and there had even been mints on the plump pillows. She’d carefully set them aside on the nightstand and then just stopped, looking down at the crisp white sheets.

  She was exhausted, and he was starting to get foggy after being too painfully, hurtfully awake for too goddamn long. Even the little bastards in his blood couldn’t keep him going much longer, not with this sort of stress. He was now reasonably sure they hadn’t been killed off by the gas, whatever it had been.
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  Lucky him.

  Once she fell asleep he could settle.

  She stared at the pillow for a long moment, and when she spoke, the words didn’t make sense immediately. Soft and flat, her pretty voice a monotone.

  “I can’t do this.”

  What? “Sure you can.” So tired. I made it safe for you. Safe as possible, at least, and that jackass will never bother another woman again. Probably made the freeways a little safer, too. “Brush your teeth and lie down. Sorry about the fast food, but I thought you wouldn’t want to get out of the car.” You didn’t eat much, anyway.

  “No.” She turned, and there was a glint in her beautiful smoky eyes he didn’t like the look of. “It just... Reese, I’m sorry, but I can’t do this.”

  “Just lie down. Sleep will—”

  “I don’t want to.” She picked up the backpack, and he heaved an internal sigh. This was going to get difficult. “I want to go home.”

  He reached for patience. “That’s not a good—”

  “I don’t care what they do to me. I don’t care what happens.” She skirted the bed, and yes, friends and neighbors, she was heading for the door. Hitching the backpack onto her shoulder. Did she have a plan? Not likely. “I just want to go home.”

  “That’s rabbit talk, Holly.” His nerves pulled taut as guitar strings, he took a deep breath and stayed where he was, next to the table. There was no way she was getting out of this room, but if he could avoid upsetting her, if he could just defuse her verbally, maybe—

  “I don’t care. I’m going home.”

  “You think you can just hop on a bus and go back to working at the diner? They’ll nab you before you cross the state line, Holly, and then—”

  She just shook her head, a tendril of black hair falling in her face, and she was almost in the critical zone, passing the door to the bathroom.

  Stop it, he pleaded, silently. Don’t make me do this.

  “I won’t tell them anything, Reese. Just—”

  Moving, sliding past her faster than a normal human being could even think of moving. The thing about moving that fast was how it made the rest of the world seem so goddamn slow.