Page 13 of Agent Zero
Look harder.Look again.
There.He found the source of the nagging.Brown and brown, black baseball cap, hooded sweatshirt, eleven o’clock.Sweating through the rain-dew and condensation hanging on everyone.The man’s gaze kept sliding over Holly from top to toe, flicking away and returning far too many times.
It was like watching a hungry cat eye a distracted mouse.He added the man up, didn’t like the answer he got.If she noticed, stared him down or made the effort to appear a little less tired and oblivious, he might move on to another target.As it was, she was broadcasting weakness, and predators were at the water hole.
She telegraphed her stop, tucking away the book and stretching, wincing as if the movement hurt.When she got off the train Mr.Black Cap did, too.Reese swore internally, drifting behind them.Footsore and exhausted, she might as well have had a neonRob Mesign over her head.
Why was Reese speeding up a little?Why were his hands tensing and his pulse picking up?How would he explain it if?—
She turned sharply into the same tiny store she had last time, maybe on impulse.It gave him the opening he needed, and Black Cap never knew what hit him.A silent, ghosting dash, a low “Hey...”to grab Black Cap’s attention, quick shot to the knee, another to the throat to keep him quiet.Crunch of bone breaking—it was just the man’s arm, and he was lucky Reese didn’t want to kill him.
What the hell am I doing?
A handy alley loomed nearby; it couldn’t have been more perfect if he’d planned it.Propping the jackass next to an overflowing dumpster didn’t take long.The pain would wake him up soon, but by then Holly would be home safe and sound.Anything else wasn’t Reese’s concern.
Bad part of town.Should get her out of here, somewhere safer.How exactly to do it was tricky, sure, but he’d already achieved primary contact, so...
He halted at the alley’s mouth, flattening himself against the right-hand side.Tried to get his pulse back down.He could almost hear Bronson’s dry, uninterested tone.
Emotional noise is also a variable, agent.
Well, fine.There was noise.Now he had to decide what to do about it.How likely was it that he could keep her hidden?Just like kiping a blank passport from stock or hoarding a bit of cash, the medkit he kept taped inside a heating duct or the little hidey-holes, potential or actual, in different cities.
Train a dog to dig, and he goes and digs.Simple, really.They had to have expected it.
So what was he going to do?She might not even be interested.What would she believe?He wasn’t much of a honeypot agent, preferring the more direct methods.There might have been Romeos in the program, but he wasn’t one of them.
Familiar footsteps.He went completely still, gapping his mouth and slowing his pulse.The breeze had picked up; he caught a breath of that elusive, mouthwatering smell.A shadow against the streetlight shine, her wet hair dripping on her coat, stuffing a bottle of ibuprofen into her purse.
Of course.She’d been on her feet for hours, running around taking orders from oblivious civilians.
She sniffed, wiping at her nose with the back of her hand, an impatient movement.She should really have an umbrella.A better raincoat.Something.
And you’re going to get right on that, huh, soldier?
Even the rain wasn’t keeping him down.At all.The one time he needed to be thinking with his big head, and he couldn’t manage it.
He kept back, waiting until she got inside her building.He couldn’t follow her home every day.They’d send him out on a mission as soon as he cleared his next blood draw; the itching was already going down, which meant the little buggers in his bloodstream had eaten whatever he’d been dosed with.
That was another worry.Hi, I’ve been mutated.They injected me with a virus that changed some of my chromosomes, I’m starving, and you smell like cupcakes.
Yeah, that would go over really well.
He checked the street and stepped into her building.Just the same, her smell on the mailbox, stealthy sounds in the walls.A baby crying somewhere, and a tang of smoke.Someone had burned dinner.
He touched the mailbox’s closed, secretive door again, quelled the urge to go up the stairs and decided that was enough for one night.
TEN
Her face was a mask,and Three took care to keep it that way.
A windowless office surrounded her, familiar from its short vinyl carpet to the sleek black electronics and Bronson’s chair off center, pushed up against his desk.Beside Three, gazing at the screen bolted to the wall, was the stolid, middle-aged, rancid man himself.The rot had something to do with the garbage he poured into his body on a regular basis, congealed grease masquerading as food.Halitosis, his sweat full of cortisol and poisons his body couldn’t metabolize, all contributing to a cloud-haze of nastiness.
Three leaned back slightly, away from his reek.How many inches would give her a little relief from the smell and still keep him within striking distance?
If, of course, she had a reason to disobey her orders.
It was a puzzle she was no closer to solving, for all her careful thinking.Why did she even have the capacity to contemplate disobedience?They hadn’t answeredthatin training.
