Maria laughed. “I think it’s what we used to call a dive bar, but with fancier food.”
“Got it.”
Inside was cozy, if not a bit small, with brick interior walls and exposed wood beams in the ceiling. The lighting was hanging Edison bulbs, which provided a warm, dim ambience.
Why am I nervous? he thought as they were seated. He knew this woman. Together they had stopped an international terrorist organization from murdering hundreds, if not thousands, of people. But this was different; it wasn’t an op or a mission. This was pleasure, and somehow that made all the difference.
Get to know her, Maya had told him. Be interesting.
“So, how’s work?” he ended up asking. He groaned internally at his halfhearted attempt.
Maria smiled with half her mouth. “You should know I can’t really talk about that.”
“Right,” he said. “Of course.” Maria was an active CIA field agent. Even if he was active too she wouldn’t be able to share details of an op unless he was on it with her.
“How about you?” she asked. “How’s the new job?”
“Not bad,” he admitted. “I’m adjunct, so it’s part-time for now, a few lectures a week. Some grading and whatnot. But it’s not terribly interesting.”
“And the girls? How are they doing?”
“Eh… they’re coping,” Reid said. “Sara doesn’t talk about what happened. And Maya actually was just…” He stopped himself before he said too much. He trusted Maria, but at the same time he didn’t want to admit that Maya had guessed, very accurately, what it was that Reid was involved in. His cheeks turned pink as he said, “She was teasing me. About this being a date.”
“Isn’t it?” Maria asked point-blank.
Reid felt his face flush anew. “Yeah. I guess it is.”
She smirked again. It seemed she was enjoying his awkwardness. In the field, as Kent Steele, he had proven he could be confident, capable, and collected. But here, in the real world, he was just as awkward as anyone might be after nearly two years of celibacy.
“What about you?” she asked. “How are you holding up?”
“I’m good,” he said. “Fine.” As soon as he said it, he regretted it. Had he not just learned from his daughter that honestly was the best policy? “That’s a lie,” he said immediately. “I guess I haven’t been doing that great. I keep myself busy with all these unnecessary tasks, and I make excuses, because if I stop long enough to be alone with my thoughts, I remember their names. I see their faces, Maria. And I can’t help but think that I didn’t do enough to stop it.”
She knew exactly what he was referring to—the nine people who had been killed in the single successful explosion set off by Amun in Davos. Maria reached over the table and took his hand. Her touch sent an electric tingle up his arm, and even seemed to calm his nerves. Her fingers were warm and soft against his.
“That’s the reality we face,” she said. “We can’t save everyone. I know you don’t have all your memories back as Zero, but if you did, you would know that.”
“Maybe I don’t want to know that,” he said quietly.
“I get it. We still try. But to think that you can keep the world safe from harm will make you crazy. Nine lives were taken, Kent. It happened, and there’s no way to go back. But it could have been hundreds. It could have been a thousand. That’s the way you need to look at it.”
“What if I can’t?”
“Then… find a good hobby, maybe? I knit.”
He couldn’t help but laugh. “You knit?” He couldn’t imagine Maria knitting. Using knitting needles as a weapon to cripple an insurgent? Certainly. But actually knitting?
She held her chin high. “Yes, I knit. Don’t laugh. I just made a blanket that’s softer than anything you ever felt in your whole life. My point is, find a hobby. You need something to keep your hands and mind busy. What about your memory? Any improvements there?”
He sighed. “Not really. I guess I haven’t had much going on to jog it. It’s still kind of jumbled.” He set the menu aside and wrung his hands on the tabletop. “Although, since you mention it… I did have something strange happen just earlier today. A fragment of something came back. It was about Kate.”
“Oh?” Maria bit her lower lip.
“Yeah.” He was quiet for a long moment. “Things with Kate and me… before she passed. They were okay, right?”
Maria stared straight at him, her slate-gray eyes boring into his. “Yes. As far as I know, things were always great between you two. She really loved you, and you her.”
He found it hard to hold her gaze. “Yeah. Of course.” He scoffed at himself. “God, listen to me. I’m actually talking about my late wife on a date. Please don’t tell my daughter.”
“Hey.” Her fingers found his again across the table. “It’s okay, Kent. I get it. You’re new to this and it feels strange. I’m not exactly an expert here either, so… we’ll figure it out together.”
Her fingers lingered on his. It felt good. No, it was more than that—it felt right. He chuckled nervously, but his grin faded to a perplexed frown as a bizarre notion struck him; that Maria still called him Kent.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Nothing. I was just thinking… I don’t even know if Maria Johansson is your real name.”
Maria shrugged coyly. “It might be.”
“That’s not fair,” he protested. “You know mine.”
“I’m not saying it isn’t my real name.” She was enjoying this, toying with him. “You can always call me Agent Marigold, if you prefer.”
He laughed. Marigold was her code name, to his Zero. It was almost a silly thing to him, to use code names when they knew each other personally—but then again, the name Zero did seem to strike fear into many he’d encountered.
“What was Reidigger’s code name?” Reid asked quietly. It almost stung him to ask. Alan Reidigger had been Kent Steele’s best friend—no, Reid thought, he was my best friend—a man of seemingly unyielding loyalty. The only problem was that Reid barely remembered anything about him. All memories of Reidigger had gone with the memory implant, which Alan had helped coordinate.
“You don’t remember?” Maria smiled pleasantly at the thought. “Alan gave you the name Zero, did you know that? And you gave him his. God, I haven’t thought about that night in years. We were in Abu Dhabi, I think, just coming off an op, drunk at some hoity-toity hotel bar. He called you ‘Ground Zero’—like the point of a bomb’s detonation, because you tended to leave a mess behind you. That shortened up to just Zero, and it stuck. And you called him—”
A phone rang, interrupting her story. Reid instinctively glanced at his own cell, lying on the table, expecting to see the house number or Maya’s cell displayed on the screen.
“Relax,” she said, “it’s me. I’ll just ignore it…” She looked at her phone and her brow knitted perplexedly. “Actually, that’s work. Just a sec.” She answered. “Yes? Mm-hmm.” Her somber gaze lifted and met Reid’s. She held it as her frown grew deeper. Whatever was being said on the other end of the line was clearly not good news. “I understand. Okay. Thank you.” She hung up.
“You look troubled,” he noted. “I know, I know, you can’t talk about work stuff—”
“He escaped,” she murmured. “The assassin from Sion, the one in the hospital?