This original short story takes us back in time to show us how it all began. On a whirlwind, action-packed thriller ride through Italy, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, it shows us the beginning of CIA operative Agent Zero's career - and brings us up to the fateful moment when his memory came to be lost.

Jacob Snow—elite soldier-turned-CIA agent, haunted by his tortured past—is one of the CIA’s greatest assets and is dispatched when the stakes are highest. When an ancient Egyptian relic goes missing under mysterious circumstances, Jacob knows this is no run-of-the-mill robbery: The relic holds a secret—one that could destroy everything.

When nuclear waste is stolen by jihadists in the middle of the night from an unguarded New York City hospital, the police, in a frantic race against time, call in the FBI. Luke Stone, head of an elite, secretive department within the FBI, is the only man they can turn to. Luke realizes right away that the terrorists' aim is to create a dirty bomb, that they seek a high-value target, and that they will hit it within 48 hours.

Defense Intelligence Agency operative Matt Drake broke a promise. A promise that cost three people their lives and crippled his best friend. Three months later, he's paralyzed by survivor's guilt and haunted by the memories of the fallen. Matt may have left Syria, but Syria hasn't left him. In the midst of his self-imposed exile, Matt is dragged back into the world of espionage and assets that he tried to forget. A Pakistani scientist working for an ISIS splinter cell has created a terrifying weapon of mass destruction.

Evan Smoak is a man with skills, resources, and a personal mission to help those with nowhere else to turn. He’s also a man with a dangerous past. Chosen as a child, he was raised and trained as an Orphan, an off-the-books black box program designed to create the perfect deniable intelligence asset: An assassin. Evan was Orphan X - until he broke with the program and used everything he learned to disappear. But now someone is on his tail.