The Kingmaker

26 - Roam

She was out of her mind.

Zero stared out the tinted passenger window of the SUV, this time from the backseat because Chief had decided to ride with them instead of the other squad today. With the unit leader in the vehicle, neither Ben nor Sam were cracking their usual jokes, and it was in utter silence that they drove back to the safe house following rotation.

It was 2AM and he couldn't stop thinking about the recklessness he had witnessed this morning. He had lingered a moderate distance behind when the mark suddenly rushed out of the archive room in the library, thanks to the fortunate appearance of a young school-age boy who had impatiently knocked on the door and demanded when she would be done.

That had solved one problem for him. He just hadn't expected the other one.

When she had slipped out of the jacket and thrown herself into traffic directly into the path of an oncoming car, he had been too late, too slow to grab her by the arm. She had been too quick and decisive in her movements as if she had practiced this before, or as if she had been ready even though she couldn't possibly have known she was being followed.

And she had moved with purpose: as if she had been on the offensive rather than escaping. It rattled him that she had been stupid enough to risk her life that way, and yet had she been stupid at all? It had gotten her exactly what she wanted. His hands had been tied as he let the crowd of pedestrians crowd around her fallen body, and even though he had followed the ambulance to the hospital afterward, she was long gone by the time he had managed to ask someone about her.

He'd shown the nurse the folded jacket draped over one arm, the one that the mark had slipped out of and left with him. "She's not wearing her jacket," he had told the nurse. "She gets cold easily."

"I can't let you in to see her if you're not family."

"Then could you take it to her?"

And so the nurse had trotted off with the jacket, but five minutes later, she had reappeared with an ashen face. "We can't seem to find her," she had stammered. "But I'm sure it's a mix-up, maybe they took her down for X-rays without signing her in -"

He had taken off then. There had been no point in sticking around; she was long gone.

Because she had thrown herself in front of a f*****g car.

"s**t," muttered Sam from the driver's seat as he peered out the windshield. They were parked on the grass next to the house, minus Chief who had told them all to stay in the vehicle while he went inside. "That's why he rolled home with us. He's doing a shakedown."

Ben surged up from the other side of the backseat from Zero. "f**k!" he swore.

"Relax. All you do in your room is j******f while watching titties bounce around on your phone, what's he gonna throw out? My room's the one with the bra on the floor, now I gotta tell him I took it off that girl last night to bring it home with me so that he doesn't think I brought over a hooker -"

"No, I took some of Zero's stash and left half of it by the bed. f**k me." Ben collapsed back onto the seat. "That's my whole f*****g night canceled."

"What, you can't shoot your load without being high? They have pills for that."

"f**k off, Sam. Anyway, Zero's the one who's gonna be hip-deep in horseshit. Probably keeps it by the megaton, just sitting there. How much money you gonna lose off that, man?"

Zero glanced over at the other man before returning his gaze to the window. "Two hundred."

"Alexandria's s**t with the prices," remarked Ben. "You should have rolled some up before you got here, these street dealers f*****g gouge you for an eighth."

"You're the one who bummed it off him. Maybe give him some cash then."

"f**k you." Ben kicked at the back of Sam's seat with a heavy, booted foot. "I already told you I don't carry cash on me in Alexandria. That s**t's just asking for trouble."

The other man snorted and sent him a look through the rear view mirror. "Yeah, because you're worried about a mugger or two. Man, if you're going to be a b***h and mooch off of everyone, at least have the balls to admit it."

While the two men bickered next to him, Zero could only think about dark hair half-hidden under a hood, of a slender wrist peeking out of a pocket. She'd looked more fragile from up close than she ever had on camera or from five hundred feet away on the roof of the next building over. What was she doing in a place like this, he thought, where there was no protection, no safety?

Except he knew that every vulnerability she possessed was premeditated and weaponized. She was as dangerous as she was in danger, prey in appearance but armed like a predator. Everyone who'd been assigned to her in any capacity had been warned as much, even if most of them never took it as seriously as they should have. After all, eight years of mellow cooperation was hard to fake, and who could stand to stay on their toes around her for that long?

Zero, apparently. But if not for him, no one else would have known she was even missing. They would have gone on surveilling the dupe instead for weeks,if not months before realizing anything was wrong. But that was because he'd only been attached to the job for less than three years, and he'd been able to see her with fresh eyes whereas everyone else had become numb.

And also because there was something unforgettable about her, something that couldn't be duplicated no matter what lengths she went to in order to secure a body double. Underneath the pretty face and bright eyes, there was something with knives for teeth and full of poison.

He'd made a mistake this morning when he had tried to grab her off the street as if she were a common stray animal, or a misbehaving pet gone missing. She was a wild animal that had been held in captivity, now back in her native habitat. She was more desperate than she looked, more reckless than he had thought possible.

Jumped in front of a goddamn car.

His heart had plummeted at the sound of her body thumping against metal, and for a second he had thought that she'd miscalculated, or that she'd panicked. That he had frightened her and now she was broken -

- but then he'd seen that focused, bright-eyed glint in her eyes just before she slid off the car's hood, and he realized he'd been played.

She was insane. More than he'd ever thought she was.

A hard thump on the window made Zero's eyes flicker up, and he found Chief's angry gaze waiting on the other side of the glass. He made sure to wait another second before responding with a lazy twitch, and as expected, the older man's mouth twisted into an even uglier snarl. He banged on the window again, twice this time, and from the driver's seat, Sam rolled down the glass instead.

"You're out."

A short silence rolled around the SUV's interior as Ben and Sam shared quick glances with each other, and then turned to look at Zero.

"You hear me, kid?" Chief snapped. "You're out. Now. Pack your s**t and go."

Zero straightened in his seat with a slow stretch. "What's the problem. I'm still signed on for another nine weeks."

"Not anymore you're not. I warned you already that I don't have time to babysit a grown man's ass. Get out."

"I don't have a job lined up," said Zero. "I don't have the resources to relocate. What am I supposed to do?"

"Should have thought of that before you decided to f**k around in a place like this. Good luck finding a new job in Alexandria when everyone hears you couldn't even stick it out long enough to last one job for DaleCorp, because you're gonna be stuck here for a long ass time, kid."

"Come on, Chief -"

"No. Last warning before I start putting holes in you."

Five minutes later, Zero was on the concrete with his gear packed into his bug out bag, and he was checking a map posted by the closest bus stop bench. He probably had enough funds to last him only three more weeks in the city, but that was just as well: the expulsion from the unit had been a long time coming. Now he was free to roam around Alexandria as a hapless free agent - all he had needed DaleCorp for was a credible cover to enter the city in the first place.

He would have to stay low in order to avoid getting a curious visit from any of the watchers paid to keep an eye on high-risk people like him. But he had time. They would be expecting him to be looking for a new job, and with him now being effectively blacklisted, of course it would take a while.

Which gave him the flexibility to do what he had actually come here to do in the first place. His stint with DaleCorp had been good for one critical thing, which was sensitive intel on the status of the city's inner workings and ongoing, stormy conflicts, but the time for gathering information had passed.

Now was the difficult part, the legwork and the hunt, but Zero had been handling exfiltrations solo since he was fourteen years old. He'd survived Sudan, Libya, and the DR - if he could sniff out that rat-faced, disgraced kingpin hiding in a hut on the banks of the Congo, then he could find one pretty little mark traipsing around in Alexandria. She had come here for a purpose, and she wouldn't be quiet about it. Not when she had come for payback.

He would hear something soon, and when he did, he would follow the trail and force their paths to cross. He wasn't leaving, but neither would she, and there were only so many places to run.

He'd find her. It was just a matter of time.

And if he was lucky, she might even come to him first.