Page 21 of Agent Zero
With that came other things.She’d been just walking down Montrose, about to go to a coffee date.With...who?
A sharp, frustrated sound.“How much did they dose her with?She’s useless.”Male, a light tenor, each syllable precise and crisp.Very businesslike, and somehow...cruel.
“Just let her metabolize.”Another male voice, deeper and somehow...anxious?Worried?
What the hell?She was in a chair.The light was too bright, but her eyes wouldn’t close properly.
“We may not have time.Whose bright idea was it to scoop her up?”Flipping paper.The precise tenor sounded distinctly underimpressed.
“We’re thinking Six?—”
“Oh, yes.Tell me again how that happened?”
“The civilian doctor went A-45.Pumped a nerve agent into the?—”
“That was rhetorical, Caldwell.Three, do we have anything?”
“Nothing yet.”This was a new voice—contralto, female, weirdly uninflected.Sounded like a middle-school Home Ec teacher Holly had once hated.“We had a ping on him near the site where we picked her up.A meet, maybe.”
She concentrated on sitting up, and blinking.It sounded almost doable.
“There’s nothing here.No gray-side contact, nothing.”The tenor sounded disgusted.“It wasn’t necessary to acquire, for God’s sake.”
“Protocol, sir.”The woman sounded like a robot.
More shuffling paper.“What a mess.Caldwell, can’t we give her something to wake her up?”
“If we want a dead body on our hands, sure.They overdosed her, medics say, anything else and her heart might shut down.She’s lighter than she looks.”
“Fine.Three?”
A slight noise of shifting cloth, and the woman spoke again.“We either keep subject until she metabolizes, or we return her.We watch, and see if Six bites.I calculate ten percent odds on that.”
“He’s probably not even in the city anymore.Give him another twenty-four and he’ll be out of the goddamn country.”It would be hard for the tenor to sound any more disgusted.
“Then this subject is collateral damage.A forty percent chance of breach, given Six’s apparent interest and subsequent events.”The woman was very calm.Her voice...it just wasn’t right.Too flat, too emotionless.Like a robot’s.
The tenor sighed.“Fine, fine.But put her back, for God’s sake.I don’t want to sign the paperwork for a cremation.”
This, Holly decided,is a dream.One she would wake up from in a little bit.Then she’d hop in the shower, check the clock and hurry to make her coffee date.
That’s what I was doing, right?
The light faded.That was nice, because it was giving her a pounding headache through the cotton filling her skull.Everything turned warm and gooey, and she slid down a long greased tunnel into velvet blackness.
FOURTEEN
Four calls loggedon the desk, three on his phone, but he’d been busy, dammit.Bronson toggled the transmitter and was only halfway gratified when it immediately went through.
Control must have been waiting.
Yep.He had been.“What thehellis happening out there?”Control did not sound happy, even through the identity-protecting modifications.
Bronson sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.He finished settling in the chair, and was glad his palm would cover his expression.“Civilian doctor went A-45.Thought the operatives were contagious.Had himself convinced they were going to infect the whole population, that he was going to be a big damn American hero and stop it.He’s in interrogation now with Caldwell.”
“Well.”Control paused.“This is...unfortunate.”
Bronson was used to the other man’s habit of understatement, but this was a little much.He pinched a little harder.Next Control was going to ask how the hell the doctor had cottoned on, and?—
