Zero Day Read online

Every now and then voices—television?—interspersed with “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” that eighties song from the British pop band, Tears for Fears.

  Yona’s gloved fingers tracked the uneven walls of a row of buildings, sweat forming on her palm. May wasn’t the time of year for her to wear kevlar under her black shirt and hooded denim jacket, but she had to blend in with the Mozart crowd at the music festival a block away while waiting for the locator software to work—although her kevlar-reinforced backpack would have given her away had anyone taken the time to study her movements.

  It had taken over ninety minutes, but it worked. And just in time too, as the rain that fell heavily across Prague finally slowed down. When Yona received Kelvin Gallagher’s location, she was on the wrong side of Charles Bridge, but made a mad dash across the river from Malá Strana to Old Town.

  If Mossad found out that she had paid some people to hack into the Metsada field network in Prague in order to track the USA Central Intelligence Agency operatives hunting down Kelvin, the unit commander would come looking for her. She’d have a lot to answer for, especially when she was no longer a katsa, the field agent she had dreamed of since high school and achieved before she was thirty.

  And now all that went out the window because she had decided not to rest until she tracked down Kelvin, the hacker responsible for putting her mentor in the crosshairs of the terrorist, Molyneux.

  Kelvin handed a veteran Mossad agent over to the terrorists, and the Mossad wasn’t going to do anything about it.

  Or did he?

  Yona hadn’t been a hundred percent sure that Kelvin was complicit in the situation until Reuel pointed all fingers at him.

  Yona had no reason not to believe Reuel. Next to Issachar, Reuel was the only other person in the entire Mossad Yona trusted with his life.

  Sure, Molyneux had been captured alive and was now standing trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague in the Netherlands, but she had left an anonymous successor who had rebuilt their international underground computer network—with huge help from a team that included Kelvin, her quarry tonight.

  That was why Yona had to leave Mossad.

  Why she had to do this alone.

  A dark alley opened up at the top of the stairs just as the last drops of rain fell. Yona kept her hood on as she stepped carefully on the cobblestones, her black combat boots supporting her heel on the uneven surface.

  The alley smelled of ammonia and sewage and rain. Yona held her breath half the time as she made her way through the alley.

  Suddenly she pulled back, held her breath.

  Splayed her palms against the wet wall behind her.

  Shadows crossed the other end of the small alley. One, two, three shadows.

  Probably nothing.

  Yona drew a deep breath.

  She inched forward.

  The shadows ahead of her slowed down.

  She did too.

  They were going in the same direction as she was.

  It could be a simple coincidence.

  Yona tried not to worry. Prague was crowded today due to the music festival. Concertgoers were all over the place, walking about, eating, singing, dancing in the streets. All day and all night.

  Those were probably just—

  Someone glanced her way.

  Yona froze.

  There was no way for her to backtrack. The alley might be small, but it was between two tall walls. There was literally no place to hide.

  Suddenly someone groaned. Then another. They spoke in Czech. Something about getting another drink. They laughed.

  Then the couple appeared in the dim light, staggering and singing out of tune.

  The shadows ahead shook their heads and kept walking.

  Thank You, God.

  Yona followed the couple out onto the street and sidewalk. From the corner of her eye, she saw the three figures step toward a door. Under the streetlights, two of them pushed through the heavy wooden door.

  They disappeared.

  Yona’s eyes widened as she looked at her watch. That was the same location she was heading. An abandoned building. Nobody lived there—except maybe Kelvin.

  Who were those people?

  She waited a few more seconds before she made her move.

  She wished she hadn’t come alone.

  Chapter 3

  Having covered her nose and mouth with a black mask which she had brought with her, Yona climbed the stairs in the musty stairwell, the Sig Sauer she had picked up from a local contact in her right hand. Personally, she preferred a Glock, but that was all Issachar’s friend had available. He wanted Kelvin dead as much as Yona did, so the Sig was free.

  Yona’s intel said Kelvin was on the fourth floor of this abandoned building. She wished the rain had continued to fall because the natural noise-cancellation would have masked her presence.

  She felt exposed, but the musty stairwell was her fastest way up. Her intel also said there was an elevator somewhere, but it was on the other end of the building. Besides, she had no time to test if the elevator even worked in this once-office complex that had seen better days some fifty-odd years before.

  A piece of cement broke off from the edge of a step under Yona’s combat boots. She held her breath and froze.

  She couldn’t hear anything else but the silent sound of something foreboding, as though she was walking into a trap.

  What trap, exactly?

  What did she care?

  This mission of hers had effectively ended her illustrious career at the Mossad. No retirement check, no bonus, no advancement, no commendation. It was all over the moment she quit her job and flew to Europe to hunt down Kelvin.

  And here he was, holed up in this condemned building.

  On the third floor, she heard something.

  Fist on flesh? Fist on bone?

  Accompanied by a muffled groan.

  Was someone being tortured? Kelvin torturing someone else?

  The truth remained that Yona still had a hard time believing that Kelvin sold out Issachar. To whom, exactly? To Molyneux and her now defunct organization? To her successor? To the owners of MedusaNet?

  What good was a dead Issachar to those terrorists?

  He would be worth his weight in diamonds if he had been alive.

  Yona sniffled.

  Stepping across the dark floor, and then up the final flight of stairs, Yona wondered if she was in the right mental state of mind to be here.

  Maybe that was why even Issachar’s best friend in Prague had warned her to grieve first before taking vengeance.

  “How long must I grieve?” Yona remembered asking.

  “At least six months. Three years, if needed.” Reuel had always been wise, but he knew his deceased friend’s protégé was impatient. “But if you must go now, let me help you.”

  And help her, he did.

  Yona arrived in Prague a week before on a tourist visa, with tickets to whatever classical concerts were happening this month. She even stayed through an entire Antoine Dvořák concerto performed by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, even though she preferred Béla Bartók, although not as much as her parents. They would have loved to be in the city at this time.

  However, this wasn’t a family vacation.

  This was a mission of vengeance.

  Before she left the hotel, Reuel had warned her again not to do it.

  “You’re emotional right now because you’re sad that Issachar is dead.”

  Reuel’s words peppered her mind as she climbed the last flight of stairs.

  How dare he recite Deuteronomy 32:35 to her? Now she couldn’t get it out of her head.

  To me belongeth vengeance and recompence; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.

  “Child, vengeance belongs to the Lord,” Reuel reminded her.

  Yona hated being called a child.

  She was thirty-four years old. What
was Reuel thinking, insulting her like that?

  A smell of decayed fish assaulted her nose. What on earth?

  She realized then that her mask was useless. However, it hid her face from anyone who could identify her and send word to Mossad about her unofficial visit to Prague to meet with Reuel, who had been tracking Kelvin for her, even as he protested all along the way.

  In her head now, Yona could hear Reuel read another Bible verse. The same verse over and over. Yona didn’t like how he used Romans 12:19 against her.

  Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.

  Yona knew she had to be reminded not to take matters into her own hands, but to give that prerogative to God.

  It was God’s Word to her, was it not? Delivered through Reuel as the eighty-eight-year-old man implored and begged her to call off her pursuit of the hacker.

  But Issachar…

  She blinked.

  Maybe Reuel was right. She wasn’t in the right emotional state to be meting out vengeance and vigilante justice—

  No.

  Kelvin must die.

  Tonight.

  She head a woman’s voice coming from a room down the hallway. The door was partially hanging off the frame. There was something like flashlights inside.

  The voice sounded familiar.

  Very familiar.

  She had heard it before on a mission with Issachar.

  Before she could make a guess, something brushed past her calf. She was surrounded by darkness, so she couldn’t tell what it was. It felt like a feather duster or maybe something else just as soft.

  Or she was merely imagining things.

  Then she heard a quiet meow, the sound going away from her.

  A cat in the night.

  Chapter 4

  One more blow to the head, and Kelvin fell over on his side, hitting his head on the wooden floor. With his arms tied behind his back and his ankles duct-taped together, he was unable to speak through the dirty cloth taut across his mouth.

  His head spun.

  Aspasia was saying something, but he couldn’t decipher it. It was in English, yes, but what was she saying?

  Mumble, mumble.

  Kelvin closed his eyes. This was how his life would end. Here in an old city where he had no family, no friends, no one. He had been waiting for weeks for a bevy of assassins to come get him.

  Unfortunately, he wasn’t as popular as he had thought.

  The only person who had come to the door in the last two months was Aspasia. She wasn’t even looking for him per se. All she wanted was information on Ulysses. For that, she was willing to kill, but only to get to her goals.

  Maybe nobody else cared if Kelvin was dead or alive.

  Perhaps it would have been wiser for him to turn himself over to the CIA. They should be around here somewhere. Weren’t they everywhere?

  “Get him up.” Aspasia’s voice again.

  Strong arms lifted his shoulders and put him back on his bended knees. He felt like that samurai warrior about to be beheaded.

  At least Aspasia wasn’t asking him to commit harakiri.

  Kelvin tuned out Aspasia, and began to pray for forgiveness from God.

  I know what got me here, Lord. I need… Help me, Lord. I need You now. If You think I should get out of here, then please hurry. If You think this is the end of me on earth, please let it be painless.

  “When was the last time you communicated with Ulysses?” Aspasia asked.

  Make it painless.

  Kelvin couldn’t return the ten million dollars that Aspasia had paid him for the work on MedusaNet. It was too late. The money was tainted, his reputation ruined, and now his life was at stake.

  For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

  I Timothy 6:10 offered no comfort to Kelvin.

  He was finished.

  Tears pooled in his eyes.

  Thank God his mother wasn’t here to see this cesspool he was swimming in.

  He closed his eyes and let the tears wash over his face. They stung his cheeks a little. He felt his own warm tears flow down his chin, his neck, and onto his shirt.

  A sudden flash of bright light startled him. Had he been shot?

  The light was so bright he couldn’t open his eyes. Weirdly, it made him almost rejoice, as if he were in a passageway out of this sorry world.

  Suddenly he heard a familiar voice calling his name.

  He hadn’t heard the voice in four years.

  It can’t be.

  Kelvin was a bag of bones, perhaps as heavy as the rucksack Yona had to carry in basic training a long time ago when she had been on Parris Island, South Carolina. That seemed like eons ago, way before her parents decided to move to Jerusalem and become Israeli citizens.

  After Yona finished eight years with the US Marines, she joined her parents in Israel and found herself recruited by the Mossad.

  Five years later, she had betrayed her newly adopted country.

  All because of this man.

  Yona dragged Kelvin by his collar out of the room until his ragged shirt ripped.

  Behind them, CIA Protective Agent Dario de la Cruz gone rogue and Dmitri’s men—mostly former FSB—were cleaning the floor with Aspasia’s men.

  As for that elusive snake, she had escaped by leaping out of the window before Yona could catch her. She missed Aspasia’s boots by a hair’s breath.

  Yona watched Aspasia parachute four floors down to the rained-out dark alley below. Never looking back, the woman once known as Meta Hoon vanished into the night.

  Yona counted five of Aspasia’s men against Dario and Dmitri. She jumped in, but Dario brushed her away.

  “Get Kelvin out of here!” Dario yelled at her.

  And so she did.

  The hallway was dimly lit, but most of the lights were out, so Yona could not see into the dark distance. Somewhere at the end of the hallway, there should be an elevator.

  In front of them was the top of the stairs. Four flights down.

  “Can you walk?” Yona asked Kelvin.

  He didn’t answer.

  Passed out, but not dead.

  Could she drag him down the stairs?

  The fighting continued behind her. She didn’t trust the CIA nor FSB—retired or otherwise.

  She should have expected Dario to arrive soon after she did. She had beaten them to the building by a few minutes, but former agents of the FSB?

  Why would Dario work with them?

  Granted, they were Dmitri’s men. Dmitri was now a naturalized American citizen living on a farm in North Georgia, and having very little contact with the outside world—until the year before, when he had been called in to help Binary Systems, the same company that Kelvin worked in.

  Kelvin groaned. One eye opened.

  “Can you get up?” Without waiting for an answer, Yona pulled him to his feet and dragged him to the stairs.

  “Wait—Yona?” Kelvin rubbed his eyes. “What are you doing here?”

  To kill you. “Talk later, dude. Right now we need to get you out of here before we both get killed.”

  “Where’s Aspasia?”

  Yona shrugged. She pushed Kelvin forward. He limped down the stairs, but otherwise he said nothing about whether that was his route of choice or if they should have taken the elevator.

  “Walk faster.” Yona knew the stairway was dark, but they had to get out of here.

  “I can’t see where I’m going.” Kelvin pointed into the abyss. “I don’t usually come down these stairs at night.”

  Ping!

  Yona spun around. She heard it again.

  Someone’s shooting at us!

  “Whoa.” Kelvin must have realized it now because he lowered his voice. He picked up his pace.

  He still had his sense about him, Yona thought.

  They ran down the stairs in the low light, guided by a dim light on the ground floor
. Kelvin was in front. Yona picked up the rear, praying that nobody would shoot at her head, where she had no protection.

  She heard a ping again, and this time the pressure was on her backpack.

  The noise of boots on the stairs became louder.

  “Hurry!” Kelvin barked.

  “You’re telling me?” Yona held onto the handrail with one hand as she took two steps at once, knowing that the crumbling cement and tiles on the old floor weren’t reliable.

  In the daylight, this was probably some glorious stairs.

  In the night, it was a death trap.

  “One more floor.” Kelvin leapt onto a landing.

  Yona heard footfalls and boots on the stairs right behind them.

  Without warning, something sudden and hard hit Yona’s backpack and she lurched forward directly into Kelvin. He lost his footing, and went down.

  They toppled on top of each other, twisting, turning, and tripping down the stairs. Jack and Jill tumbled down the last flight of stairs, shoes kicking each other’s face, and both trying not to scream, as they performed their impromptu flight of fancy all the way down—

  Landing on top of something squishy.

  And headless.

  Chapter 5

  Gunfire.

  “Run!” Dario’s voice came from above. “Get up, you two!”

  More gunfire.

  Someone running down the stairs.

  Kelvin pushed himself off the dead body. Glanced over to see Yona sitting up on the harlequin floor, holding her head.

  Is she real?

  “Yona?” He helped her to her feet, but realized that something was wrong with his elbow. He touched it. No bones sticking out. But it was starting to hurt just as something sticky flowed down his arm.

  She groaned. “I’m going to be black and blue in the morning.”

  “Anything broken?” Kelvin peeled back. Didn’t want to touch her.

  Three years before, he would have tried. In fact, he had asked her out on a date one day when they had a lull in their work. However, Yona was one of those people who kept her work separate from her personal life.

  She said no.

  Kelvin understood why, though. Yona was a busy observer in Project Pericarp, and Kelvin was busy keeping the systems running so that Binary Systems and Ulysses could do their work.