Zero Day Read online

  Thank God this wasn’t more than a virtual private network.

  Perhaps all these good deeds he had done or were doing would help him get a lighter sentence. However, if they did not, Kelvin was prepared to accept whatever came his way.

  If he had to go to prison for many years, then that was what he deserved.

  His only regret would be losing Yona.

  God would still be with him in prison, but would Yona wait for a convict?

  Why would she?

  Chapter 17

  At lunch the next day, Kelvin whispered to Yona that the peanut butter and jelly sandwich almost tasted homemade.

  Yona had no idea what he was referring to, and there was no way to ask him to explain without listening ears and prying eyes on the ceiling and all around them.

  He mentioned home a few more times.

  Oh.

  Maybe he was referring to the homing beacon.

  Danika started to cry and Vivek comforted her.

  Yona prayed for them silently. At some point, people could break under a tremendous amount of stress, especially if they hadn’t slept much all week.

  “Maybe they’ll let you rest for a few days,” Yona said. “What’s next?”

  “Whatever they want us to do, I guess,” Kelvin said.

  “I’m surprised that Ulysses broke so easily.” Yona ate the little breadcrumbs left on her paper plate. The bread was stale, but food was food. There was probably too much sugar in the jam.

  “It’s only been about eighteen hours,” Vivek said.

  “That’s an eternity on the internet.” Yona drank some water.

  “Maybe, but considering Ulysses is not a techie, maybe they have no idea their network has been compromised.”

  “True, Viv.” Kelvin folded up his paper plate into a half-moon shape.

  Yona didn’t know why he did that. Something to do, perhaps.

  Lunch was over and they were separated again after the guards tied up their wrists. Yona nodded to the trio and headed in another direction from them, back to her room upstairs, which she called her holding pen.

  Every now and then, after lunch, Reuel talked with her, as if that would absolve him of his sins. It did nothing for Yona. She couldn’t even pray for him.

  Reuel had betrayed her trust.

  More importantly, he had used Bible passages to gain Yona’s trust. He knew that Yona was a Christian who believed that Jesus Christ was the Messiah of the world. The Savior. The Redeemer. The Lord of all.

  And he had exploited her belief and shaken her faith.

  Perhaps it was a good thing.

  I don’t know.

  Walking on both sides of her were her two usual guards. They would remove her ties before they locked her into her pen. She had thought of fighting back, but the two men were like Goliaths to her David-sized self.

  She didn’t have five river stones.

  Walking along the upstairs hallway, Yona heard the noise of people fighting in a room with its door ajar.

  What on earth?

  At first the guards ignored the commotion.

  Yona heard voices. Reuel and Issachar were yelling at each other.

  Then Yona heard a shot. And another.

  Weapons raised, one of the guards let go of Yona’s arm and rushed to the room. The other guard held Yona back.

  The door opened.

  On the floor inside the room, someone was sprawled on the floor.

  Standing over him, Reuel put away his pistol. “Now I get a hundred percent.”

  Yona lunged forward, pulling the guard with her.

  As she got closer to the door, she saw the face of the man on the floor. A growing pool of blood spread on the floor beneath his torso.

  “Issachar!” Yona choked out the words.

  “Shut the door!” Reuel waved frantically.

  A guard slammed the door in Yona’s face.

  The guard took her back to her room, leaving her alone to weep.

  Chapter 18

  “Truth be told, he was already dead to his family, and at one point, to you as well.” Reuel sat on a chair that his guard had brought into the holding pen.

  Yona sat on her small bed, her back against the wall, and her chin on her folded knee. She didn’t know how to respond to Reuel, who had felt the need to explain away what he had done.

  It might look weird for her to converse with a murderer. However, there was no one else to talk to the rest of the day—not until dinnertime, anyway.

  Besides, if she could gain Reuel’s trust—in their new non-relationship—perhaps she could find a way to defeat him.

  Maybe.

  Maybe not.

  Still, she was willing to give it a shot—uh, try.

  “I know you don’t care what I have to say, but we had a fight, and I won.” Somehow Reuel must have felt a need to explain his actions.

  “Must everything be about you winning?” Yona sighed. Ever since she had known Reuel, he had always been competitive, but must every competition end in the death of his opponents? “I thought Issachar was your friend, or at least a business partner.”

  “He outlived his usefulness.”

  “As will I.” The solemn realization hit Yona harder than she expected.

  “Yes, but I need you alive. Issachar—well, he was redundant, to be honest with you.”

  “What was that about anyway? What couldn’t you resolve with a discussion rather than death?” Yona wiped tears on her sleeves.

  She didn’t know why she grieved so much a second time. Together with Issachar’s family, she had come to the point of accepting that he had died, only to find him very much alive in the Czech Republic, and trying to become the next terrorist leader after Molyneux.

  “He wants fifty-one percent of Telemachus.”

  “What’s one percent?”

  “It cost him his life, didn’t it?”

  Yonan sniffed. “How about living to fight another day?”

  “You think I’d be compassionate toward him tomorrow? He wants another one percent. That essentially means I will lose one percent. Do you know what one percent of a hundred million dollars is?”

  “Is Telemachus worth that much?”

  “And more.”

  “Are you hoping to replace Molyneux?” Yona thought that Ulysses wanted that position.

  “I already have.”

  “It’s greed, isn’t it? You want to rule the world, and you don’t want to share the throne with Issachar.”

  “I’m already sitting on the throne.” Reuel stroked his trimmed beard.

  “So you have Telemachus all to yourself. Happy now?”

  “Very much so.” Reuel slapped his own thighs. “It’s a happy day today.”

  “At the expense of someone else’s life.”

  “We make sacrifices.”

  “As long as the sacrifice is not yours?” Yona could see that if she continued that way, jabbing at his conscience, he might snap. She needed to calm him down. “So Issachar was your sacrifice at the altar of power.”

  “That might have been his reason for existence.”

  “May I see his body?”

  “It’s being disposed of.”

  “What if that wasn’t him on the floor?”

  “It was. Trust me.”

  Yona stretched out her legs on the thin mattress. Her ankle didn’t hurt anymore. “People have ‘died’ and then come to life. Vivek and Danika for example. How?”

  “We hid them—Issachar and I. Hacked into the DNA labs and changed the data to match the dead stand-ins.”

  “Who hacked?” Yona hoped it wasn’t Kelvin.

  “Well, we have people.”

  “Are they still around?”

  No reply.

  “Maybe stashed away for another day.”

  “Maybe.”

  “So how do we know you aren’t hiding Issachar somewhere?”

  Reuel laughed. “You know me better than that. Does a throne have two kings?”

&n
bsp; “Does a serpent have two heads?”

  “I don’t even know what that means.”

  “I don’t either.” Yona dared not make eye contact. “You know, I wonder if, in the process of hunting down Israel’s enemies, you have now become one.”

  “Me? Nah. I’m everybody’s enemy, not only Israel’s. In fact, sometimes I’m my own enemy.”

  Yona had to agree with him. Estranged from his own wife of fifty years and his three sons who didn’t want to have anything to do with his activities in Europe, Reuel lived a sad and lonely life indeed, isolated from his family and friends.

  Yona wondered if he could have found happiness had he been truly saved. All those Bible verses Reuel had recited had probably been to gain her trust. Why take the trouble? He could have applied those Bible verses to himself, his own life.

  Jesus could forgive him of his sins. “There’s forgiveness in Jesus Christ.”

  Reuel got up from his chair. They were still alone in the room. His guards were outside. “That’s for you, not for me. I’m outside the reach of God.”

  Yona felt sorry for Reuel. He wasn’t a real believer in Christ after all. And yet… “No one is beyond the reach of God.”

  Reuel stopped at the door. “Then let me ask you a question. Why didn’t God stop me before I shot Issachar?”

  “You were filled with rage all on your own. God didn’t plant sin in your heart.” Yona felt brave enough to keep talking. “However, Jesus’ blood at the cross cleanses us from all sins.”

  “All your work at Mossad? You killed people too.”

  “Enemies of Israel.”

  “There’s that word again. What is an enemy, Yona? Pray tell.”

  Before Yona could speak, Reuel cut her off. “I’ll figure out my own way to the other side. You don’t have to try to help me at all.”

  “There’s only one path to Heaven and His name is Jesus.”

  At first Reuel turned quiet. Then he burst into a chortle. “Why, Miss Yona. If I didn’t know you any better, I’d say you were trying to preach some Jesus into me.”

  “Just telling you what I know, is all.”

  “I have to give it to you. You’ve always cared for my well-being.” Reuel’s voice turned pensive. “I came here to do a pulse check on you. I don’t want you to be angry with me, but I know you probably are. Issachar was your mentor. For that, I’m sorry.”

  “That he was my mentor or that you killed him?”

  “Maybe a bit of both.”

  Reuel slowly called her name. “I’ve always been patient with you. Treated you like my daughter.”

  “Yet somehow I know you will not let me leave this place.” Yona straightened up. “Not me, or Kelvin, or Danika, or Vivek. Am I right?”

  “I need a network administration team.”

  “I’m not in IT. You know that. You also don’t trust me enough to put me in your security team. What am I doing here? This is a huge VPN. You’re going to need more IT staff than Kelvin and his friends.”

  Reuel shrugged. “I think they can handle it.”

  “The VPN is worldwide. It cannot go down ever if you want your clients to call your system reliable.”

  “I know that, Yona. I know that.” He didn’t look worried.

  “Now that you’ve eliminated your business partner, how are you going to grow your business alone?” Yona wouldn’t use those words to describe a terrorist organization, but she had to find Reuel’s soft spot.

  “Are you trying to get yourself a job?” Reuel laughed. Then he turned serious. “You’re insurance.”

  “Insurance? When I’m of no use to you any more, what then? Will you Issachar me?”

  Reuel laughed. “You know me too well. But I tell you what. If you don’t comply, then I’ll get rid of your friend downstairs.”

  “Then you’ll have no IT department.”

  “I’ll find people. There will always be people.”

  “Not as good as them. You have some of the world’s top computer specialists working for you for free. It will affect your bottom line if you get rid of them.” Yona only said that because she didn’t want Reuel to kill them prematurely, not before Kelvin’s homing beacon worked.

  Yona prayed someone would come to rescue them. Her job now was to buy as much time as possible.

  Reuel seemed to study her. “You’re a confusing person, you know?”

  Yona didn’t say anything.

  “I saw you and Kelvin every day at lunch. I would assume that you two have a thing for each other.” Reuel didn’t wait for her to answer. “I don’t know how you feel about eliminating Kelvin, but I know he would do anything not to lose you.”

  “Lose me? We’re not an item. There’s nothing—no one—to lose.”

  “Not yet. Just not yet.”

  Chapter 19

  That night, the rain fell hard on the old castle, and Kelvin could hear the thunder from the computer room. He was worried that the electricity would go out and that they would be no uninterruptible power supply. Without UPS and a generator, they might have to stop working altogether.

  Sure enough, the power fluctuated several times, accompanied by Danika’s screams. Kelvin hadn’t pegged her as one who’d be afraid of the dark, but there she was, huddled in a corner screaming murder.

  Kelvin asked for time out from Reuel.

  Any delay is a good delay.

  It would buy time for his homing beacon to work.

  “I’m surprised you don’t have a backup generator,” Kelvin said.

  On screen, Reuel looked like he was about to doze off. Kelvin wondered where the other man went, and what his name was. He almost asked, but he didn’t let his curiosity get the better of him. Better stay out of politics.

  “If we don’t shut down the computers in this room, one lightning strike might take them all out,” Kelvin warned.

  “You’re trying to scare us.” Reuel pointed a finger at the camera.

  “I’m just sharing my own experiences. I worked at a place once that had backups, but their entire building wasn’t properly grounded—”

  Craaaccckkk!

  And the lights went out.

  “As I was saying…” Kelvin spoke into the utter darkness, his words pierced by Danika’s screams in concert with thunder strikes that seemed to be right above them or on the ground outside their dungeon.

  “There is a God,” Vivek said.

  Yona awoke with a start. Sitting in the dark on her bed, she listened to the heavy rain and thunder. There were no windows in her holding pen, and the walls were stone, but the thunder was so loud she felt like it was just on the other side of the wall.

  The ceiling light had gone out.

  Whether Yona closed or opened her eyes, it made no difference. The room was completely dark. In these times, her hearing sharpened.

  Thunder. Rain. Thunder. Rain—

  Footsteps outside her door.

  Boots.

  Heavy boots.

  Then an explosion so bright and loud that Yona covered her eyes and ears.

  “Yona Epstein?” A man’s voice said.

  He had an accent.

  Who are they?

  She didn’t reply.

  “Yona?” Louder this time.

  “Yes, yes.” Yona turned her face away from the flashlight.

  “Let’s go home!” It was in Hebrew.

  “My friends are downstairs,” Yona replied.

  “Show the way.” He motioned for someone to give Yona a vest.

  By that gesture, Yona knew who they were. They would never say so in public, but these were the people in the world who would come to her rescue anywhere, no matter what. These were the elite of the elites.

  “Thank you.”

  “You have some explaining to do.” Another voice broke through.

  Uh oh. A long-time buddy in the Metsada, Hadassah had partnered with Yona many times. This time, Yona had left her university friend behind. In fact, she had left the entire Mossad behind.
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br />   “Deserting us when we need you most.” Hadassah shook her head. “What did you have? A lapse of judgment?”

  “Nice to see you too.” Yona buckled up her vest. “A Beretta for me?”

  “No. You don’t work for us any more, remember?”

  “Bummer.” Yona showed them the stairs. Reluctantly, she let them usher her out of the building.

  Rain poured in buckets. Yona could hardly see where she was going. She followed the Mossad agent in front of her, who handed her over to another agent. Never once did they turn her over to anyone who wasn’t Mossad.

  The castle was surrounded by military personnel and their armored vehicles. Here and there, Yona spotted local police vehicles with the word Policie emblazoned on the doors and hoods.

  Unmarked vehicles of unknown origins filled the rest of the entrance.

  Yona stayed a safe distance away, inside a large van to keep out of the rain. No one said anything to her. They knew who she was, and someone motioned for her to sit down in an empty seat, but she preferred to stand.

  She monitored the bank of screens they were all looking at. She tried to find one that showed Hadassah and her team.

  “Down the hallway,” someone said. “At the end of the hallway… There.”

  Their flashlights shone at once in the dark, making shadows here and there. The door was bolted.

  “I think it’s six inches thick,” Yona told them.

  Someone nodded and relayed the information to Hadassah. They set the charges, and brought the wall down in no time.

  A piercing scream pushed through the smoke.

  “Danika.” Yona smiled. She was alive. Maybe the rest might be too.

  Hadassah’s team brought out Vivek and then Kelvin.

  Yona was so relieved to see Kelvin that she had to sit down.

  Twenty minutes later, the joint Israel-Czech paramilitary team came out, and the police went in.

  Still no sign of Reuel. “Where is Reuel?”

  Yona’s question went unanswered. The castle was clear. There were dead guards here and there, but no Reuel.

  Hadassah entered the van, all wet. “They knew we breached the compound.”