Shadow Agenda: An Action Suspense Thriller (10 page)

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Walter Lang hated being overnight duty officer. It was thankless, and it was rare that anything important or actionable happened. But for some reason, he always got called in nonetheless. Even then, protocol was to call in the deputy director, so in effect he was a message boy delivering an unwelcome message, waking someone up for something that typically amounted to a question of protocol.

The sniper report out of Europe wasn’t an American security issue, but La Pierre was an important figure to the continent’s far right, and that always came with implications, the possibility of more trouble in retaliation. It came in at just after six in the morning, as Lang prepared to end his shift and go home for a solid eight hours of sleep. He contemplated pretending not to see it and leaving it for the morning duty officer, but instead decided to call Jonah Tarrant for an assessment; as David’s de facto right-hand man, he thought, Jonah would know whether it was worth hauling the deputy director out of bed and risking his wrath.

Tarrant answered right away and Lang explained what had happened. “There’s no word yet on a suspect or motive,” he concluded.

“The administration is a big fan of the environmental committee,” Tarrant said. “We can’t completely ignore it; at the very least, within a few hours, they’ll want to know if it jeopardizes the committee’s operations.”

“Should I call David?”

“That’s up to you,” Jonah said, wanting deniability, realizing that Walter had called him for the same self-interested reason. “But we have a good working relationship with the French right now, and the Brits don’t. We could offer assistance There are points to be scored.”

But scoring points just required the work, not the oversight, and Lang had made the mistake when younger of waking up a superior unnecessarily. It was a fine line; it was also ridiculous and unprofessional to have to worry about calling him in the first place. But it was what it was. So instead, Lang roped in the analysts early and set them to work, six of his brightest young minds.

When David Fenton-Wright finally arrived at the bullpen, the analysts had been pulling research and making calls for two hours. They were seated at a half-dozen terminals, the results displayed simultaneously on projections across one wall.

Fenton-Wright watched Lang overseeing it all for a handful of seconds then waded in. “Assessment report,” he said.

“A delegate to the WTC enviro committee was assassinated four hours ago,” Lang said. “Single shot, from distance. Real craftwork; locals are saying six hundred yards plus, so totally concealed.”

“What about the victim? What can you tell me about him?”

“Her,” Lang said. “Marie La Pierre, fifty-two. She’s a former provincial politician from Limoges, southwest of Paris. Highly nationalistic, a conservative but not a traditionalist; she has won support in the weakened French economy for her stance against immigration and she has a fairly extensive list of enemies.”

Fenton-Wright seemed deep in thought for a moment.

“Sir?” Lang said.

“La Pierre. La Pierre. That’s interesting.” But he didn’t elaborate.

Lang couldn’t stand the man. David struck him as a political predator, always on the lookout for the easy answer and the positive press clip.

“Is that meaningful to us in some way? The name of the victim?”

“Need-to-know,” Fenton-Wright said. “It’s related to Fawkes. I’ll let you know what I can. Are we working on an enemies list?”

“Paris has already sent one out through Interpol. It’s long.” Lang recognized the codename for the agency’s deep-cover man in Britain. He knew nothing about him other than his existence, a secret discussed only at the highest levels. “So it could be personal instead of political?”

“It’s possible,” Lang said. “At this point, it’s too early to rule anything out.”

“What do we have in France right now?”

“A handful of assets on standby and a team at the embassy in Paris. Not much.”

“Get them into play,” Fenton-Wright said. “Let’s see if we can help our Euro friends narrow this down – with their permission, of course. Anything on the hitter?”

“Meticulous, professional. Picked up his shell casing and even brushed dirt over the spot on the building ledge where he set his rest. Likes a western weapon, doesn’t mind an absurdly long shot. No prints, no fibers. As for matching a name to it? Your guess is as good as mine, David.”

“Anyone else?” he called out loudly.

A young analyst to his left spoke up. “Sir? We’ve got a full workup.”

That was a neat trick
, Lang thought,
given that we don’t know detail one about the shooter yet
.

“Go ahead,” said Fenton-Wright.

“White male, late thirties, about six foot tall, extensive military experience.”

“Elaborate.”

“According to French police, the furthest smudges from the wall were one and seven-eighths of a foot away on the rooftop, indicating his kneeling distance and putting him at a likely height between five-feet-eleven inches and six-feet-two inches. The bullet was a .338, suggesting a military shooter from a western nation, possibly American, British or Canadian.”

It sounded fancy, but what it amounted to was nothing, Lang thought. The projects would be based on common variables from multiple cases; but commonalities were never guaranteed. All they needed, for example, was a suspect with arms two inches longer than the norm, and their height profile could be off substantially.  “Why late thirties?” he asked.

“The profile suggests someone with recent activity, based on the availability of shorter kill shots. The shooter was very confident, sir,” the analyst said. “Older snipers who’ve been out of the game for a while? I don’t think they go over five hundred yards just to get a marginally better escape route. But this guy was supremely sure of himself.”

Even though it was just a more formal repetition of what Lang had told him, Fenton-Wright nodded, hands on hips, pleased with himself, as if he were the one doing the actual work. “Have we contacted our European and British friends yet?”

“Yes sir,” Lang said. “They’re waiting for our queue. They’re expecting us to contribute because the president has been the environmental committee’s biggest fan, but they’re going to want to sign off on anything we do and take a lead, of course.”

“Would that it weren’t so,” Fenton-Wright said. “Okay, let’s get to work people. Let’s see how we can shake that shooter loose.”

Sept. 8, 2015, PARIS, FRANCE

Under a cool-but-sunny sky, the gray Rolls Royce Phantom sedan pulled up to the curb outside the squat, brown glass building housing La Banque de Commerce Francais on Rue Chabon, just a few blocks away from the Champs Elysees. The driver wore a matching gray uniform with a peaked hat. He got out quickly, his patent leather boots glinting as he avoided the oncoming traffic and moved around the back of the car to open the rear door.

Yoshi Funomora stepped gingerly out onto the near-vacant sidewalk, looking both ways as he did. The shooting two days earlier had made them all nervous, he supposed. Any one of them could have been in Montpellier giving that speech.

Funomora was a heavy man with typically thick, dark hair. The Japanese representative wore a three-piece suit and bowler hat with spat-style brogue shoes, and even though it was sunny, he carried an umbrella with him at all times, just in case. He covered the few feet to the bank’s entrance without incident, scanning the street behind him one more time before heading inside.

The public portion of the business was immense. Along one wall were a dozen teller windows, all staffed and busy and with waiting lines. Along the other were a series of offices used to conduct loan business and interviews. Customers milled around the center of the room, waiting for a turn on either side. At the very back, under a porcelain wall-hanging depicting Charlemagne on horseback and adjacent to the vault, was the double-sized entrance to a large conference room. The doors were usually locked, as only one group was authorized to use it, a group that, as far as most of the world was concerned, did not exist.

The chamber was functional, a semi-circular table taking up most of the room. It faced a series of screens hosting newscasts and political channels from around the globe. The five others had already arrived, each with the table ahead of them lit, a small card featuring the name of their home nation in small black print but their faces shrouded in the adjacent shadow. The chairman turned in his seat slightly and watched Funomora as he made his way to the last seat, next to La Pierre’s empty chair.

“Now that Japan has graced us with his presence,” the chairman said, “he can perhaps fulfill his obligation as the ACF’s security adviser and explain what happened to France.”

Funomora understood the implication in the chairman’s tone, that somehow he was responsible for what had taken place. Personally, he blamed La Pierre. She was continually inflaming domestic politics in her home country, paying more attention to her supporter base than her responsibilities. The ACF had become accustomed to her absence, despite her stated loyalty. She had spent increasing amounts of time working on environmental issues. Now, her life was under a microscope, which meant outside attention. Outside attention was never particularly welcome.

“I would have thought it obvious,” Funomora said. “France was shot dead by an assassin.”

The chairman leaned towards his microphone. “Perhaps instead of being glib, Japan can explain why this happened and why he did not predict it.”

“My apologies, chairman,” Funomora said. He recognized the chairman’s power and had no desire to make an enemy of the man. Besides, it was counterproductive. The ACF existed to extend the power of its contributors, not to divide them in the same manner as the nations they purported to represent.

“It is my belief at this point that we are dealing with a disgruntled individual, mostly likely someone angry with La Pierre’s domestic politics, and further to that, someone standing to profit from her environmental work being truncated. There is a fairly long list of suspects.”

“Have we had an opportunity yet to confer with our international security partners?” The chairman knew that the ACF had a long reach, supporters and admirers recruited from the ranks of covert intelligence around the globe.

Funomora had spent the entire prior evening at a brothel, but had no intention of sharing that tidbit. “Not as of yet, although experience tells us that at this point those agencies will be modeling hypotheticals and trying to narrow down a list of assailants.”

“Why should it be someone disgruntled?” another panel member asked, his British accent clipped and formal. “And who among them would have the resources and contacts to hire an accomplished assassin?”

Funomora had no idea, no answers. But he’d learned over his lengthy political career that saying something was usually better than saying nothing. He’d also come to understand the massive advantages to protecting the ACF: the members offered diplomatic access to national leaders and security services, and the chairman’s vast family oil reserves could underwrite almost unlimited funding and manpower, the ability to drop into any part of the world and, though force or commerce, affect enough change to meet each member’s requirements. In some cases, that may have simply meant a small change in government policy with great financial benefit down the road; in other, more lawless places, it had meant tactical intervention; and it was done with aplomb, never a hint that the ACF’s efforts had been compromised by international authorities.

“The first part is easy,” the Japanese diplomat said. “La Pierre’s use of division to succeed domestically has united the political left against her. She incited hatred of immigrants, Anglophobia and held an elementally fascist/neo-conservative approach to her role.”

“And the funding for this venture?” the chair asked. “Is there anyone on her enemies list well-heeled enough to put this all together?”

“A few,” Funomora said. “It should not take us long to get an idea of where this originated and who may have made the call.”

The chairman was skeptical. “Perhaps,” he said. “We shall have to wait and see what the security establishment comes up with. For all of our sakes, Japan, we had better hope you are correct.”

Britain spoke up, his tone clipped, upper class. “Is there any reason to believe the ACF’s secrets have been compromised? Could someone be aware of La Pierre’s clandestine activities on our behalf?”

Funomora had been suspicious of ‘Britain’s’ motivations for six months, ever since his replacement of the now deceased ‘America’. He ignored the source of the question. “No, chairman. The group is secure. Of that you can be assured.”

The chairman nodded, but said nothing. He was far less confident in Japan’s security efforts.

China spoke up. “Shall we replace her?”

The chairman shook his head gently. “Not immediately. Eventually, of course, we must grow stronger. But we must ensure, first and foremost, that we maintain secrecy. There are simply too many interested outside participants to make any sort of noise right now. To ongoing business. China…”