Shadow Agenda: An Action Suspense Thriller (7 page)

Wilkie frowned. “Are you sure that’s the best approach, David? We’re talking about someone who has been in deep sleep; the embarrassment if he was exposed, both to him and to our British colleagues…”

“I realize that, director,” Fenton-Wright said. “But we have little choice. And we have the added benefit of his social stature; were he caught, he could always claim he was acting on behalf of Queen and country, independent of their security services.”

“Aren’t we risking the possibility that he’s working with MI6, trying to embarrass us, compromise us and put us in a position where we owe them a rather larger favor? He’s been ingrained into high society there for decades. He hasn’t been a regular contributor since the seventies. It seems exceptionally strange that he’d come out of the woodwork now; he must be nearly eighty.”

Fenton-Wright smiled ruefully. “Seventy-seven. With respect, director, it won’t be that long for either of us…”

“Yes,” Wilkie said, “but I don’t expect either of us will still be here. Keep a lid on him, David. Make sure this doesn’t blow up in our faces.”

Brennan had agreed to meet Walter at a small bar off Eighteenth Street, a brew pub run by Czech immigrants who made Lang’s favorite draft. Brennan hated driving into D.C., leaving Carolyn and the kids alone in Annandale for the afternoon just so that Walter could tell him what he already knew or suspected: that he wasn’t going back to work any time soon.

The pub was near-empty, the lunch crowd having already left. The U-shaped wooden bar was next to the entrance as Brennan walked in. There were a couple of regulars still hanging around; a weathered looking man in a flat cap was chewing a toothpick; a younger guy with dark mutton chops sat talking to the barkeep; the  sturdy-looking guy with short blond hair had his sleeves rolled up as he cleaned pint glasses.

Brennan automatically assessed the room for threats, eyes flitting between the tables and the booths along the back and side walls; he scanned each person in turn quickly, looking for facial hints, small ticks or changes that indicated they were paying too much attention, or any at all. He noted the second exit at the back. He
eHe
liked the place: quiet, unassuming, private.

Lang was waiting in the back corner booth, one of three along the rear wall; he was rubbing his hands together slowly under the bare wooden table, hunched forward a little and looking nervous, as ever.

Flat cap’s eyes followed Brennan has he crossed the room, cutting between a few four-person tables. Brennan slid into the booth opposite his friend, vaguely annoyed that he had taken the seat with his back to a corner and the best view of the room.

Lang shook his hand. “Thanks for driving in. I know Carolyn’s on vacation right now so I appreciate…”

“Skip the playbook sentiment, Walter, it’s me,” Brennan said. “I don’t need the caring boss speech.”

“I know. It’s just…”

“Get over it. None of this is your fault. Sending you down there was foolhardy to begin with.” He didn’t tell Walter what he really thought: that leaving a senior agent to die for the sole reason of covering up a bad decision was a betrayal in itself, one that he pinned squarely on Walter’s boss, deputy director David Fenton-Wright. “So how did it go?”

“It’s still going. They want me back in for another go on Monday; I think the chairman sees me as fodder for his next campaign slogan. And that ass Morris asked me the same question in a different form at least nine times over the four hours.”

“What are they hoping to get out of this?”

“Ammunition. The GOP dominates the committee. When word got out …”

“You mean when someone leaked it to the press.”

“Sure. Anyway, when word got out the Dems went into such a frenzy of denial in the first three days that they might as well have been hanging a sign over the President in neon saying ‘he ordered it’. So they’re going to spend probably a whole week testing the limits of human boredom in closed session, trying to get me to admit it.”

“Have you…” Brennan was hesitant.

“What? Named anyone? Of course not.” Even in the relative anonymity of a near-empty pub he was cautious.

“Who’s the committee chair?”

“Junior senator out of Tennessee named Addison March. Have you followed what’s going on these days?”

“Not so much.”

“He’s the new GOP golden boy. Young, ambitious, on point. Well… young compared to the rest of those skeletons, anyway. He’s charming in public and a piranha in the House. I think he scares the liberal elite to death. Hey... when’s Carolyn coming back, anyway?”

Brennan said, “That’s up to her. We’ve got plenty of help with the kids; not that we really need it right now. I’m home all day.” He couldn’t hide the bitterness.

They were dancing around the issue of his suspension, neither man wanting to get to the moment, like a convict who knows he no chance at his parole hearing. It was difficult for both; Lang’s guilt at Brennan paying the price for Colombia was considerable. But he was a good soldier. Even though Lang’s move to management gave him the authority to bring Brennan back in, the chain of command meant that he needed Fenton-Wright’s permission to do so.

“So,” Brennan said.

“Yeah. Look…”

“It’s a ‘no’, right?”

“Yeah. I’m sorry buddy,” Lang said. “Shot down again. Pretty strongly this time, too.”

Neither wanted to consider the other possibility: that at the highest level he’d been blacklisted, burned. The agency had an inglorious history of paying former operatives not to work. Their pay never went up beyond prescribed increases, it never went down, and they were never called in again.

“They’re putting me out to pasture, aren’t they?” Brennan said. “Walter, I’m thirty-nine years old. I can’t become a house husband at thirty nine. I can’t walk away ... it’s just wrong.”

Lang had mentored Brennan for seven years and his soft spot for the former Navy SEAL was considerable. But he wasn’t going try and soften the blow, or infuse him with false hope. “I’ll keep fighting for you, you know that. But it doesn’t look good, Joe. It’s the timing, that’s all. If we weren’t going into a new election cycle…”

“We’re always in an election cycle in this country,” Brennan snapped. “They run for office permanently when they should be running the country.” Then he regretted the tone. Walter wasn’t the enemy. “I’m sorry, Walter, I didn’t mean to bark at you. You know what I mean.”

“I know. It drives us all crazy, watching a country run on three- and four-year plans instead of looking long-term, just because some narcissistic jerk who managed to raise a few bucks wants a title and a free ride. But that’s not going to change any time soon, and they’re not going to change their minds. You’re a cliché to them, Brennan, a relic of a different era. These are pen pushers, guys who have two-hour country club lunches. They don’t want anyone drawing attention to how little they actually do. It’s got nothing to do with the op, or the purpose, or the public. It never has. It’s about their townhouse in Georgetown and their McFuck You Mansion in Jackson Hole. They have to keep the politicians happy. They don’t give a shit about the public, and they sure don’t give a shit about you. Or what you can offer.”

“That’s…”

“Bureaucracy,” Lang said grimly.

“I was going to say it’s all kinds of bull. But we both knew that, too. I’m going to have to resign, you realize that, right?”

Lang frowned. “I’m not even sure they’d accept it right now. They want you under wraps.”

“They know I can’t talk publicly.”

“It’s not publicly they’re worried about. Besides, think of Carolyn.”

“What about her?”

“If you walk away against their wishes, she’s left working at the agency. She’s on a career track, Joe. She’ll be in executive before long. You really want to ruin that?”

For a second, Brennan wanted to ask Walter whose side he was on -- and who saved who; but he did as taught in leadership training and reframed it dispassionately; he knew Walter was just being bluntly honest.

“Yeah, I guess,” he said.  “She’s worked so hard in the last year. I was pretty bad to be around for the first few months after I was suspended and she hung in there for me.”

“It can’t have been easy for either of you,” Lang said. “Again, you know how sorry…”

Brennan shook his head vehemently. “No, cut that stuff out right now. You’d have done the same for me.”

It was probably true, Lang thought. Probably. He wondered whether he’d have had the courage. It was one thing to work undercover. If you were doing it right, conflict was usually off the table. He’d blown it, and he knew it, and Joe Brennan had paid for it. But would he go into a heavily armed compound for Joe? He wasn’t sure he had the guts.

“What are you doing for the rest of the summer?” he asked, changing the subject.

“Carolyn’s rented a place in the Napa Valley for the next four weeks; then we’re going to play it by ear. She might come back to work at that point.”

“Napa?”

“Wine tours. She figures we can get zonked while the kids go horseback riding, or something.”

“And when you get back?”

He shrugged. “Like you said, it’s probably not up to me.”

“You could always work freelance. They’ve never cared much what work agents did in their own time, as long as it didn’t lead back anywhere and isn’t intelligence related. And there’s a lot of work out there for a good contractor. There’s no shame in security consulting, for example.”

Brennan gave an affirmative but he kept what he was really thinking to himself. Walter had a guilty enough conscience already. “Sure. Did you manage to figure out the press leak?”

“No. But I’ve got a few ideas.”

“NSA?”

“Possibly. More likely one of ours. There are a lot of different interests on this one trying to massage it for leverage, progress on some angle or project of their own.” The distaste on Walter’s face was obvious, Brennan thought; for a second, he thought about the year past and wondered again why they both did it, why it was still important to them.

The thought was interrupted by a new arrival. Even with the door in his left rear periphery, Brennan spotted her the moment she walked in, her cream-colored overcoat sticking out like a neon light in the dingy surroundings. He turned his head quickly, knowing everyone at the bar would be doing the same.

“You know her?” he said quietly to Lang.

“Familiar. Can’t place her.” They both knew that could be good or bad, and it merely heightened the tension. Brennan got up. “I’m out of here. Call me.” He moved towards the back door.

Lang nodded in return. Brennan didn’t need to explain; Walter was an old hand. When someone suddenly appears who’s out of place, it’s better for an agent keeping a low profile to play the short odds and get out. Otherwise, questions might ensue, or conflict, or both.

The woman approached Lang’s table, watching Brennan for a moment as he disappeared through the pub’s back door. She was young, Lang thought, maybe twenty-seven or twenty-eight, five-seven, fit but not muscular, short brown hair, wearing heels, which aren’t conducive to a foot chase. If she was an operative, she was playing a cover. In fact, she reminded him of his ex-wife, Vicki, at the same age.

“Mr. Lang?”

Lang took a casual sip of his pint of draft. Then he leaned back against the booth. “I’m sorry; I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure…”
If her hand goes into her purse too quickly
, he thought,
it’s a quick downward heel strike to her ankle bone. In those stilettos, it’ll break like a twig
.

She held out a hand to shake. “Alex, Alex Malone.” She glanced at the back door. “I think I scared your friend off. Sorry about that.”

Walter waved a hand at the door. “It’s nothing. He had to run, get back to work. You’d like him.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, architect from Michigan, in town for a lecture at George Washington.”

She nodded and smiled. “Do you have a few minutes to talk?”

“That depends what you’d like to talk about, miss.”

“May I sit?”

He gestured to the opposing bench. “Please.”

She sat down, placing her purse on the seat next to her. “A friend of mine at State suggested you’d be the person to talk to. I’m working on a story about…”

He stood up and cut her off. “Good day, Miss Malone. I don’t talk to the press.”

She stood up with him. “Please! Mr. Lang, my pieces have wide readership, and I really think we can help each other…”

Lang paused for a second and studied her. She had an earnest face, an expression of hope and nervousness. He’d seen it before on young reporters; he hadn’t talked to them, either. “Not interested, miss.” He headed for the back door.

“I’d like to talk about David Fenton-Wright,” she said.

He stopped in his tracks again. That was a surprise, which was probably why she’d thrown it out, a last gambit to keep him interested. But Lang had been around too long. “No one’s stopping you,” he said, before pushing the back door open and stepping outside into the bright sun.