e>Jack Mars
Jack Mars is the USA Today bestselling author of the LUKE STONE thriller series, which includes seven books. He is also the author of the new FORGING OF LUKE STONE prequel series, comprising three books (and counting); and of the AGENT ZERO spy thriller series, comprising six books (and counting).
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Copyright © 2019 by Jack Mars. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
LUKE STONE THRILLER SERIES
ANY MEANS NECESSARY (Book #1)
OATH OF OFFICE (Book #2)
SITUATION ROOM (Book #3)
OPPOSE ANY FOE (Book #4)
PRESIDENT ELECT (Book #5)
OUR SACRED HONOR (Book #6)
HOUSE DIVIDED (Book #7)
FORGING OF LUKE STONE PREQUEL SERIES
PRIMARY TARGET (Book #1)
PRIMARY COMMAND (Book #2)
PRIMARY THREAT (Book #3)
AN AGENT ZERO SPY THRILLER SERIES
AGENT ZERO (Book #1)
TARGET ZERO (Book #2)
HUNTING ZERO (Book #3)
TRAPPING ZERO (Book #4)
FILE ZERO (Book #5)
RECALL ZERO (Book #6)
Agent Zero: More memories of his former life as a CIA agent have returned to him, most notably that of a clandestine plot by the American government to initiate a pre-planned war for insidious motivations. The details of what he knew two years ago are muddied and faded, but before he had the chance to dig further he returned home to discover that his two daughters had been kidnapped from their home.
Maya and Sara Lawson: While their father was away, the girls were under the watchful eye of Mr. Thompson, their neighbor and a retired CIA operative. When the assassin Rais broke in, Thompson did his best to fend him off but was ultimately killed, and Maya and Sara were taken.
Agent Maria Johansson: Once again Maria proved an indispensable ally when she helped to secure the smallpox virus from being released. Though her newfound relationship with Kent borders on the romantic, she has secrets of her own, having met with a mysterious Ukrainian operative in the airport at Kiev to discuss where Agent Zero’s allegiances lie.
Rais: After being beaten and left for dead in Switzerland, Rais recovered for several weeks in a hospital under guard and handcuffs. With nothing but time on his hands, he engineered not only a daring and bloody escape, but also managed to abscond to the US before international borders were shut down due to the virus. From there it was not difficult to find the Lawson home, kill the old man, and kidnap Agent Zero’s two teenage daughters.
Agent John Watson: As part of the team sent to secure the smallpox virus, Watson made it abundantly clear that he has a distaste for Agent Zero’s daredevil tactics. Nevertheless, after their success in stopping Imam Khalil, the two reached an understanding and a mutual respect.
Assistant Director Ashleigh Riker: A former intelligence officer who has worked her way up the chain to Special Operations Group, Riker works directly under Deputy Director Shawn Cartwright on the op to secure the virus. She does not mask her disdain for Agent Zero and the license the agency gives him. After another agent attacked Zero unprovoked, he began to suspect that Riker might be in on the conspiracy—and therefore not to be trusted.
CHAPTER ONE
At age sixteen, Maya Lawson was mostly certain she was going to die soon.
She sat in the backseat of a large-cabbed pickup truck as it barreled down I-95, heading south through Virginia. Her legs still felt weak from the trauma and terror of what she had experienced barely more than an hour earlier. She stared straight ahead impassively, her mouth slightly open in a shell-shocked, blank gaze.
The truck had belonged to her neighbor, Mr. Thompson. He was dead now, likely still lying in the tiled foyer of the Lawson home in Alexandria. The truck’s current driver was his murderer.
Seated beside Maya was her younger sister, Sara, only fourteen. Her legs were drawn up beneath her and her body curled into Maya’s. Sara had stopped sobbing, at least for now, but each breath escaped her open mouth with a soft moan.
Sara had no idea what was going on. She knew only what she had seen—the man in their house. Mr. Thompson dead. The assailant threatening to break her sister’s limbs to get Sara to open the door to their basement panic room. She didn’t know any of what Maya knew, and even Maya knew only a small part of the whole truth.
But the elder Lawson girl did know one thing, or at least she was mostly certain of it: she was going to die soon. She did not know what the driver of the truck was planning to do with them—he had made the promise that he wouldn’t hurt them as long as they did what he asked—but that didn’t matter.
Despite her slack-jawed expression, Maya’s mind was working a mile a minute. Only one thing was important now, and that was keeping Sara safe. The man behind the wheel was alert and capable, but at some point he would falter. As long as they did what he asked, he would get complacent, even for just a second, and in that moment she would act. She did not know yet what she would do, but it would have to be direct, ruthless, and debilitating. Give Sara the opportunity to flee, to get to safety, to other people, to a phone.
It would likely cost Maya her life. But she was already very much aware of that.
Another soft moan escaped her sister’s lips. She’s in shock, Maya thought. But the moan became a murmur, and she realized that Sara was trying to speak. She bent her head close to Sara’s lips to hear her quiet question.
“Why is this happening to us?”
“Shh.” Maya cradled Sara’s head against her chest and gently stroked her hair. “It’s going to be okay.”
She regretted it as soon as she said it; it was an empty sentiment, something that people say when they have nothing else to offer. Clearly it was not okay, and she could not promise that it would be.
“Sins of the father.” The man behind the wheel spoke for the first time since he had forced them into the truck. He said it casually, eerily calmly. Then louder he said, “This is happening to you because of the decisions made and actions taken by one Reid Lawson, known to others as Kent Steele, known to many more as Agent Zero.”
Kent Steele? Agent Zero? Maya had no idea what this man, the assassin who called himself Rais, was talking about. But she knew some things, enough to know that her father was an agent of some government group—FBI, possibly CIA.
“He