The Zero

“No,” the voice said from the car. “You keep saying it the same way. It’s the other way around.”

Buff shrugged. “Anyway, don’t sweat it. We got it under control. Soon as Ice Guy gets here, we move. Fuckers at the agency are go

Remy rubbed his brow.

Just then, the agent in the car leaned across the seat and hissed, “Ice on the pond!”

Remy’s eyes drifted across the street, to where an older Middle Eastern man, face and head clean-shaven, wearing new rectangular glasses, was walking toward the brownstone. He carried an athletic bag over one shoulder and had his wool coat under the other arm. The sidewalk traffic parted and Jaguar reached for the door of the building, his eyes darting about.

“Look natural,” Buff said, and he grabbed Remy in the most u

As Jaguar entered the building his head turned a few degrees, his gaze narrowed, and Remy wasn’t sure, but he thought, for just the briefest moment, that Jaguar might’ve seen him.

“Target is inside. Move into positions,” Buff said into his wrist. The other agent eased out of the car and began wading into traffic, as Buff let go of his smothering hug and stepped in behind the other agent.

Remy was left on the sidewalk, his feet glued to the spot. He turned to his left and saw, in the building he’d just left, Dave and Markham and another agent from the wire room emerge on the street. They began crossing the street in the middle of the block, and then Dave turned to look up the street, to where Buff was crossing at the corner, his head bobbing above the cab line.

“Come on. You’ve got to be kidding me,” Dave yelped. He began moving faster.

Buff turned, saw Dave and began ru

“Wait,” Remy said helplessly. He looked up to the building Jaguar had gone into and saw two men suddenly appear in the top-floor windows, wearing black Kevlar jackets, rifles strapped across their backs. They began rappelling down the face of the building. “This is crazy,” Remy muttered, to no one. And that’s when the phone at his waist buzzed. He reached down and saw the number. April-

“HELLO?” REMY stood in a crowd, breathing heavily. He was covered in sweat, as if he’d been ru

“Yes?” asked a confused man in return. “Do I know you?” The man had a long burn on his face, like a baby’s footprint. He was sitting on a wheeled trunk.

“Oh. No. I’m sorry. I was just,…” Remy looked around. “Talking to myself.”

“You said ‘Hello’ to yourself?”

“I guess I did.” Remy tore his eye from the man’s face and looked around. He was standing at the gate of a subway station, between MetroCard machines, in front of a map encased in Plexiglas. Remy moved past the confused man to the wall map, which showed subway lines snaking toward the bottom of the island and then going hard left – red, blue, orange, green, and brown – like the plumbing schematic for a high-rise. A huge piece of pale green chewing gum was stuck to the map. After a moment, Remy pulled the gum away and saw the You Are Here arrow. He was at a subway stop at the train station.

Remy turned away from the map. He put his hands to his head, as if he could locate his memory manually. April had called. Yes. Remy pulled his cell phone out, but there was no service down here. His breath shortened; he felt a twinge of the same creeping claustrophobia he’d felt that helpless morning (standing on the street… paper raining… no-service message on his cell…)

Remy looked around wildly. He tried to concentrate, but there was nothing. She had called. Was she leaving on a train? She’d be going west, home to Kansas City, or maybe to San Francisco. Perhaps a bus? The bus depot was only a block away. No, she wouldn’t take a bus. Maybe the train to one of the airports; he remembered there was a line to Newark Airport. The platforms would be across the terminal, two underground blocks away. He tried to remember: Was it New Jersey Transit or Amtrak that went to Newark?

Remy ran down the stairs and sprinted along the tu

He came into the great terminal, but here he was slowed by the crowd, by streams of subway riders with backpacks and bags and crosscurrents of rail riders with briefcases and rolling suitcases, their faces flipping past his good eye like snapshots. Though he’d grown used to having a blind side, now and then he still bumped someone and mumbled his apologies. He stopped in the middle of the huge terminal for a moment, surrounded by travelers, their voices low and humming, like droning bees on a nest. Something felt wrong, and familiar (turning back suddenly… stopping on the stairs… trickle of people moving down…).

The crowds thi

(emerging into the empty plaza… white paper and smoking pieces of steel and bodies… and for the briefest moment he was alone, paper falling… he’d never heard the city so quiet… and then: a deep, low moan…)

He bounced from window to window, reading the train schedules, the list of departures: Trenton and the NE Corridor. Dover. New Brunswick. The Acela Express.

“Where the hell is Newark?” he yelled. People on line turned and stared at him. Finally he found the gate number, and was turning to run when he heard a familiar jingle.

April! He had service again. Remy nearly dropped the phone pulling it out.

“Where are you?” Remy asked.

“Where do you think I am? Making myself scarce.” It was Markham. “I assume you’re shredding documents. That’s what I’m headed to do. Obviously… any work you did for us no longer exists.”

“What?”

“God, what a mess that was. The bureau and agency are go

“You killed them?” Remy’s head fell to his chest.

“Well… yeah,” Markham said: another stupid question from Remy. “They were making suicide videos. They were holding a machine gun, Brian.”

“You got all of them?”

“All but Jaguar. They figure he got spooked by something because he never made it up to the apartment. He got on the elevator but they think he got off on two, went down the stairs and slipped out a loading dock in the back. But they don’t think he got far. I would not want to be that guy right now. It’s only a matter of time.” And then he paused. “You know, the more I think about it… maybe you can race time. But I don’t think you can win.”

Remy surprised himself by hanging up. It was as if his hand snapped the phone shut on its own – as if his hand had finally had enough of this lunacy. He stuffed the phone in his pocket. He felt the urge to leave. Find April and just go with her, wherever she was going. Maybe back to San Francisco. He edged his way through the crowd. Markham called again, but he ignored it. He moved through the station, watching the flow of people. And then Remy recalled Jaguar’s stare. All but Jaguar. And then came an awful thought: Soft target. Crowds. Major disruptions. Easy media access. Home videos and camera phones to maximize the horror. He stopped and looked around the train station.