he was pulled away from Thanksgiving, from reuniting his family? He felt for the victims of the Havana attack, but his skills were typically put to use stopping nuclear wars and avoiding mass casualties, not to go off on a wild goose chase for a weapon that had claimed a single life.
“We do have something,” Maria told Strickland. “A handful of eyewitnesses at the harbor claim to have seen a group of men, four or five of them, wearing some sort of protective mask or helmet, and loading a ‘strange-looking object’ onto a boat immediately following the attack. The details are sketchy at best, but a few people also reported seeing a woman with bright red hair, possibly Caucasian, among them.”
“All right, that’s something,” Strickland agreed, appearing to shove down any further protests he might have voiced. “So we go to Havana, find out about the boat, who owns it, where it was going, where it is now, and follow the trail.”
Maria nodded. “That’s the long and short of it. Bixby is working up some tech that should help. And I don’t mean to be pushy, but President Rutledge did use the words ‘as soon as possible’ on this order, so—”
“Can we talk?” Zero blurted suddenly, before Maria could give the official go-ahead for them to act. “Privately?”
“No,” she said simply.
“No?” Zero blinked.
She sighed. “I’m sorry, Kent. But I know what you want to say, and I know that if you do I’ll likely give in and try to get you off the hook. But this came from the president. Not from me, not from Director Shaw—”
“And where’s Director Shaw now?” Zero found himself asking heatedly. “At home, I’m guessing? Getting ready to enjoy Thanksgiving with his family?”
“Yes, Zero, that’s exactly where he is,” she replied firmly. She never called him Zero; coming from her, it felt like being scolded. “Because it’s not his job to be here. It’s yours. Just like it’s not my job to put my own neck on the block for you again and again. My job is to tell you where you need to go and what needs doing.” She tapped the tablet twice with a finger. “This is where you’re going. This is what you’re doing.”
Zero stared down at the tabletop, smooth and polished to a reflective sheen. He had foolishly thought that he and Maria could still be friends after all they’d been through. But at the end of the day, this was how it would shake out. She was his boss, and this was what it felt like to have rank pulled on him.
He did not at all like the feeling, not any more than he liked the idea of the president commanding that he be put on this. As far as he was concerned, this was a complete waste of his skills. But he didn’t bother saying that.
“Just look at the state of things.” Maria’s tone softened, but she didn’t look directly at either of them. “We’ve got a trade war on our hands with China. Our ties to Russia are all but severed. Ukraine is less than pleased with us. Belgium and Germany are both still pissed about what they believe was an unsanctioned op last month. No one trusts our leadership—least of all our own people. We don’t even have a vice president yet.” She shook her head. “We cannot allow for the possibility of an attack on US soil, even if it’s just a possibility. Not if we can help it.”
Zero wanted to argue. He wanted to point out that the efficacy of two men, highly trained or not, was still paltry compared to a cooperative effort of law enforcement agencies. He could understand why they didn’t want to make a big public issue out of this, but even so—if they truly wanted to find these people, if they really thought that an attack on the US was likely, they could put out an APB, starting with coastal areas of Florida, Louisiana, Texas, the best estimates of potential targets considering the Havana attack. Have the Cuban government investigate the missing boat. Work together, as they should, to protect their respective citizens and anyone else who might be hurt along the way.
And Zero was about to suggest it aloud too, but before he got the chance, Maria’s cell phone rang.
“One sec,” she told them before answering with her typical greeting: “Johansson.”
Then her face fell slack, and her gaze met Zero’s. He had seen that expression before, many times—far too many for comfort. It was a look of shock and horror.
“Send me everything,” Maria said into the phone, her voice a hoarse whisper. She ended the call, and he already knew what she was going to tell them before she even said it.
“There’s been an attack on US soil.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Already? Zero was stunned by the speed with which a subsequent attack had come—he had clearly underestimated the severity of the situation.
But he was even more shocked when Maria told them where it happened.
“The attack was on a small town in the Midwest.” Maria studied the tablet screen, scrolling through the intel just as fast as it was coming in. “A place called Springfield, in Kansas—population of eight hundred forty-one.”
“Kansas?” Zero repeated. If they had gotten all the way to Kansas since the Havana attack, that meant… “They must have traveled by plane.”
“Which means this was planned,” Strickland added. The young agent stood suddenly, as if there was something he could do in that moment. “But why? What could possibly be significant about a one-horse town in Kansas?”
“No idea,” Maria murmured. Then her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my god.” She looked up at Zero, her eyes wide. “There was a parade going on. College kids, families… children.”
Zero took a deep breath, working to mentally put distance between the part of him that was a father and former professor, and the part of him that was an agent. “Fallout?”
“Unclear,” Maria reported, staring back down at the tablet. “This just happened. The first nine-one-one call was twenty-three minutes ago. But…” Her throat flexed in a gulp. “Initial reports from first-responders are claiming sixteen dead at the scene. Though it’s likely more.”
Strickland paced the short length of the conference room like a tiger waiting to be sprung from a cage. “We can’t assume the casualties were entirely the result of the weapon. Some could have been from panic.”
“But maybe that’s the point,” Zero murmured.
“Hang on, we’ve got a video incoming.” Maria tilted the tablet, and both men crowded at her shoulders to see it. She pressed play, and the screen filled with the shaky perspective of someone filming with a cell phone. The scene was of a small town’s main stretch, the camera angle directed up the block, catching in its lens the sidewalks jammed with people and chairs on both sides of the avenue.
From around the corner up ahead came a group of young people in green and white uniforms—a marching band, stepping in time with their instruments aloft, the approaching music drowning out the din of applause and cheers.
“They’re almost here, Ben!” said a cheerful female voice, presumably the woman behind the camera phone. “Are you ready? Wave to Maddie!”
The camera panned down briefly, showing a little boy who couldn’t have been more than five or six, an enormous smile on his face as he waved at the oncoming band. Then it panned back up, showing a group of young men in green jerseys coming around the corner behind the band—a football team, it appeared, tossing handfuls of
