Shadow Agenda: An Action Suspense Thriller (8 page)

As he made his way to his car, Lang made a mental note to run a check on Alex Malone. Anyone who knew his habits well enough to find him at the Czech pub was someone he needed to worry about.

When Brennan got home, Carolyn considered not asking him what had happened.

She was in the kitchen, cutting vegetables for the casserole she’d planned to make for dinner, her pale golden hair pulled back, cheeks flushed from the heat. The cutting board was covered in tiny pieces of celery, onion and carrot; occasionally, as she chopped, she’d push a piece towards the pile too firmly and have to scoop it up off the cheap yellow-and-white tile floor.

She’d known the answer before he left, but was forbidden from telling him. They knew it would happen when they got together, that sharing careers in intelligence would be difficult. Careers full of secrets, twists and turns that married couples weren’t supposed to take, worse by far than the secrets couples normally keep.

She had plenty of other things to worry about, too. She worried that she’d never look again like she did before she’d had kids, or whether she’d even find enough time to get back into shape. And she worried about her husband, who had come and gone throughout their marriage, disappearing for weeks at a time on national security issues.

It wasn’t getting any easier, she told herself. Maybe if they could just find more time for each other, they’d stop feeling tense, resentful. The trip could give them that, time to just spend with each other, no expectations. Lately, everything had been an argument; the simplest things seemed to prompt harsh words, like they’d lost patience with one another after years of diplomacy.

“Babe,” he said perfunctorily as he closed the front door behind him and hung his coat up. He didn’t sound down or up, but it was obvious he wasn’t going back to work. Not that she needed any sort of explanation; David had made it clear to her that Joe was persona non grata at the agency as long as he was deputy director.

She watched him out of the corner of her eye as she kept chopping; he retrieved a can of beer from the fridge nearby. “Are the kids excited about the trip?” he asked.

“I suspect the fact that we’re going to be within a couple of hours of a certain theme park is why they’ve been such little angels all week. I take it the answer was no.”

“You take it correctly,” he said. He popped the beer can open, slurping away the froth that rose quickly. He stared at the can for a moment, obviously more satisfied with it than with the rest of his day. “They let Walter give me the news in person, which is a typically cowardly David Fenton-Wright move, trying to make Walter feel guilty for the deputy director’s failed mission.”

The one advantage to a wife with Top Secret security clearance was that Brennan could talk about work. Sometimes. Sometimes, she really didn’t need to know the details. In this case, he knew, she was probably fully versed in what was going on; she was probably bursting to talk to him about it even before he got home. He’d stopped being delicate about her boss in front of her. A year off the job did that to a guy.

She paused in her chopping, tense at the return of the push-and-pull between her career at the agency and Joe. She didn’t want to talk about that stuff.

He looked annoyed, standing there in a sweater and jeans, beer can in hand. She just wanted it to go away. “Well, for four weeks we get to put all that stuff to one side, right?”

“That’s the general idea,” he said. “A little sun, a little fun, a little vino…” For professional reasons, Brennan rarely drank. He was planning on putting his normal routines to one side for the duration. “This was a really good idea, I have to admit.”

She reached over and grasped his right hand in her left, then squeezed it. It was quick, but it said a lot, he thought. She knew how isolated he felt, how cut adrift. And she was trying to be there for him, even though he seemed to make her uncomfortable these days, as often as not.

Brennan said, “Where are the kids? I don’t get the big ‘daddy, daddy!’ greeting anymore.”

Carolyn turned back to her work. She picked up her knife and scraped the diced vegetables off of the cutting board and into a bowl. “They’re six and seven, now, hon; they’re getting less clingy as they get older.”

It was stunning to Brennan to contemplate how quickly they’d grown. Josh was becoming a little version of his father, only instead of intelligence work he was the foreman of the world’s least-efficient Tonka construction company. Jessica was so smart, always head of her class, always the playground mediator, getting along with everybody. He was amazed, when he truly thought about it, at the job Carolyn had done; he was away too much to take any credit. He worried sometimes that his relationship with them would fall by the wayside, as it had with his own father, who had spent twenty years in the military, often posted overseas and on occasion without his family.

He moved over to her and put his arms around her waist. “Do they have their mother’s wisdom?”

“They do, I think.”

“And do they have their father’s good looks?”

She slapped him with a tea towel. “That’s a terrifying thought. Especially Jessica. Let’s just hope they avoid your lactose intolerance and the subsequent wind damage.”

He let go of her waist, and she laughed. “Hey!” he said. “No fair!”  They caught the moment, the look in each other’s eyes of happiness and comfort, exactly as it had been when they were younger and delirious with each other.

And then it faded, and they let it go, smiles slowly disappearing, both acutely aware that the tension in their lives was pulling them further apart.

Carolyn turned back to her vegetables.

She said, “It’ll be good, you know? It’ll be good to get away for a while, leave the Beltway behind.”

“And when we get back?” he said. They knew eventually she’d have to make a decision; he didn’t want her to return to work. It wasn’t as if they were hurting for money and they were both skilled, able. But he couldn’t ask her to stay away.

She stopped chopping again and gave him a strained smile. “Let’s worry about that when we get to it, okay babe?” Then she changed the subject as adroitly as possible. “How was Walter?”

“Tense; which is to say, he was Walter. He’s still chewing antacids like candy and blaming himself for everything. He thinks the NSA has a mole in the agency feeding it budget damage.”

“He always thinks there are moles in the agency,” Carolyn said, walking over to the refrigerator. She opened it and retrieved the stewing beef she’d bought that morning. She took it back to the cutting board. “And he’s probably right. I’m sure we’ve probably got people looking in on a few of our colleagues as well. Some things never change.”

Brennan looked around for toys or other signs of play. “Where are the kids, anyway?”

“Backyard.”

He walked to the window over the kitchen sink. Jessica had Josh down on the ground. She had him pinned, her knees on his arms.  She was growing faster than her brother and was several inches taller, her long blonde hair hanging down over his face.

“Hey!” Brennan called. Then he opened the window, a turning handle swinging it outward. “Hey! Jessie, get off your brother!”

“He tried to stick gum in my hair!”

“Let him up! Josh, leave your sister alone!”

They got up reluctantly, dusting themselves off. Brennan contemplated how surreal it was, to be surrounded by so many normalcies; how stark the contrast was with Barranquilla, or Fallujah, or Sri Lanka. He’d always told himself that, for all his sense of duty, he preferred home. Watching his kids, his wife a few feet away supporting him, it was the first time he was certain of it. Maybe…

He shook the thought off. He’d never been one to settle, to lose focus or give up early. He loved his job, believed in it. His kids gave him joy, but the work gave him purpose. Brennan took his beer into the living room, grabbing the remote control from its familiar spot on the arm of the old tan leather couch and turning on the six-year-old TV. She’d left it on CSPAN, and a press conference was about to start. The anchor was talking about the committee hearing earlier that day.

“And that was Sen. David Morris, the veteran Republican from Alabama, on his disappointment in today’s testimony. Again, hearings into the recent CIA Colombian operation scandal are closed to the public for reasons of national security, a fact that opposition politicians have called deplorable. And with that, we take you now to the press availability at the government services building with Sen. John Younger, the President’s economic security advisor and a National Security Council member. Our correspondent, Tom Barr, has been there waiting for his speech. Tom?”

Brennan turned the volume down then changed the channel completely. He’d had enough of that world for one day.

Senator Younger watched the television on the corner of his desk with growing amusement. The senator was medium height, stocky, with a crown of greying hair and strong features, eyebrows too bushy for their own good. He was leaning back in the antique typing chair that sat behind his desk. The TV feed was a recording of the earlier press conference by Senator Morris. Younger chuckled heartily and shook his head; Morris looked a hundred and twenty years old. Addison March must have cringed watching it, imagining the puzzled looks on the faces of a key demographic.

Younger’s own presser had been smooth by comparison, a few quick jokes, some pithy quotes for the reporters he knew fairly well. His phone intercom sounded. “Sir, Mark Fitzpatrick from the National Security Agency is here to see you.”

“Send him in in Alice,” Younger said, his eyes still on the now-mute press conference. He couldn’t help but beam a smile as Fitzpatrick joined him.

“Senator. You look like you just won a new car.” The NSA man liked the senator. In another life, Fitzpatrick figured, he’d have been longshoreman or a shop teacher.

“Mark, my boy. Good to see you.”

“You must be watching Morris.”

“He’s like a wrecked steamship about to crash into port. He wrangled his way onto the select committee without March having much to say in it, and now it’s costing him. He looks like another old, white Republican beating up on POTUS.”

“Don’t these people watch the numbers? The public loves this stuff; rogue agents on unauthorized rescue missions, undercover operations taking on nefarious drug dealers. If we could figure out the name of the nut who went in and grabbed Lang, we could run him for VP. If they keep this up,” Fitzpatrick suggested, “you’ll be in an ideal position to announce…”

Younger cut him off. “Now, let’s not go there quite yet, Mark. There’s still the matter of the president’s endorsement. I’d much rather know for certain… I’m sure you understand that POTUS’ backing means a lot right now. His numbers are finally tracking north again, we’re out of the worst of our overseas adventures, and the donation base is building.”

It wasn’t that Younger distrusted the president; he just wanted everything locked into place before any of their policy differences intruded, or one of the ‘also rans’ began to raise offense. His relationship with the man had been tenuous until the last year, when both started to become nervous about leaving a legacy.

“You know you’ve got my support, John.”

Younger got up from his desk chair and pushed it in, then walked around his desk and offered Fitzpatrick a hand to shake. “You’ve been loyal and I won’t forget it; just know that.”

“I know, I know. And I’d like to think that if anyone in House has a respect for the long tradition of naming new directors for a new administration, it would be you. That’s why you can be sure I’ll be there for you when you need me. ”

“You’re still clear of any agency grief?”

“Sure,” Fitzpatrick said. “Your NSC role gives me a plausible rationale for our visits.”

Younger patted him twice on the shoulder. Fitzpatrick was nothing if not straight about his ambitions; he wanted the director’s spot when Wilkie retired; judging from appearances, it could come any day. “Better days ahead, my friend. Better days ahead. Did we get any word on what the final disposition was?”

“The agent who went rogue is suspended. Walter Lang is back in a purely admin role, though Fenton-Wright taps him for a lot of advice.”

“Suspended? Unfortunate,” Younger said. “Is there anything we can do about that?”

“Uncertain. I’ll keep my ears open.” The trick, Fitzpatrick knew, was talking to the right folks; nothing slipped out of the agency without someone having an ax to grind. But there were plenty of those.

Younger was sure he would. Fitzpatrick had become a dependable asset, able to get things done, willing to roll the dice on the senator before a nomination was tied down. Fitzpatrick wanted passage to the corridors of power, and he knew the price was unswerving loyalty.

Sept. 4, 2015 PARIS, FRANCE

The asset arrived at Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport at just after nine o’clock in the morning, a man with dirty blond hair cut short under a black baseball cap, a quilted navy blue vest jacket, a tan turtleneck sweater, jeans, dark blue hikers. He was tall and had a blue-and-white carry-on bag over his shoulder and was about as anonymous as any of the million or so blond westerners who’d pass through the airport on any given day; and he looked younger than his actual age, which accentuated the effect.

Not that it mattered. He was trained to move with a natural gait, deliberate, head down, uninterested in those around him and uninteresting in return. He blended into the crowd effortlessly despite his height. If he did catch an eye, his facial mimicry would convey a perfect expression of ambivalence or fatigue.

No one paid attention as he passed between the glass-case walls of the duty free area, where he managed to turn his head the seventy degrees required to obscure his face from each security camera in turn; nor as he stopped and bought a small decaf coffee; nor at Passport Control, where his thoroughly forged documents were stamped and passed through without so much as a question by the bored-looking officer in the booth.

The inside of the airport was the closest he’d seen to a 1960s science fiction set, like they’d decided to design it using cast-off props from Barbarella; the escalators were inclined planes: sliding, stepless walkways at acute angles, enshrouded in Perspex bubbles. Some passengers looked around with an obvious mixture of puzzlement, amusement and admiration, but the asset remained nonplussed and completely uninteresting to anyone.

The baggage carousel was mercifully quick. The case was the fourth item offloaded, and it circled its way around to him inconspicuously, looking every bit the hard-sided electric guitar protector it appeared to be when run through the airport’s supposedly infallible scanners. He picked it up, slung his carry-on back over his shoulder, and headed for the sliding doors that led outside, to the taxi stands and pick-up zone.

He flagged the next cab in line.

“Où voulez-vous aller?” the driver said in African-accented French.

The asset gave him an address in Clichy-Sous-Bois, a nearby suburb, and the driver made a disappointed noise. The thirty-minute ride would have few opportunities to stretch the trip for additional fare and the neighborhood in question was not good; the driver knew – he lived there himself.

“Voulez-vous prendre le ‘D40’ ou l‘N370’?” the driver asked.

“D40, d’accord?” The asset said it forcefully to make it clear he didn’t want the driver messing around.

The trip took ten minutes longer than expected, even with the driver cutting in and out of traffic so quickly the asset found it difficult to sit up straight in the back seat. He was at least twenty over the speed limit most of the way, the asset noted, but the road congestion was significant, and every so often they would grind to a halt for a few minutes.

The contact’s apartment was in a ten-story block just off Av. Paul Cezanne. It was early evening and getting dark, and it was wet and drab, with numerous street lights either broken or burned out. The apartments were built with white concrete-and-rebar blocks; the building’s non-descript exterior was long mottled and stained by dirt and water, just another in a line of mottled concrete blocks. Across the street, a building was broken down completely, the two remaining exterior walls covered with elaborate graffiti. It was the last in a row and had fared worst; most of the apartments lacked balconies, making the surrounding buildings hard to tell apart from offices. Even the inhabited blocks had been scrawled upon with spray paint, though mostly by untalented taggers, the signatures woeful attempts at artistic style, slashing black scribbles that did little but accentuate the grime.

Six wide concrete steps ran up to the front doors of his destination. The asset scanned the street; cars were crammed end-to-end on both sides but it seemed quiet otherwise. Housing in the neighborhood was cheap, and along with the poor it drew the unfortunate and those who preyed upon them. He wasn’t surprised the contact lived here; the contact was considered unreliable and untrustworthy, a backup plan, to be used only in the most necessary of circumstances due to inherent risks. But the asset was working without a net; no handler, no support. He had limited assets and fewer options. Anyone more reliable might check back on him, as well; the last thing he needed was outside static.

The front security door’s lock was broken and it swung open freely. The building’s lobby was near featureless, a plain linoleum floor, the tiles dirty and torn, with the right-hand wall covered in tiny metal mailboxes. At the end of the lobby was the elevator. To its left was an office, and to its right, the stairs.

The elevator car smelled of urine. The asset took it to the fourth floor, the doors beginning to open before it had actually settled and was level with the hallway.

Only one hallway light bulb still functioned, along with an exit light at the very end of the corridor that cast a red shadow. The contact was in Apartment 4D and was expecting him. The door wasn’t the standard issue, but rather a steel reinforced barrier, painted off-white, with a spy hole and a camera above it. He knocked three times, the metal echoing deeply. After a pause, a panel slid back near the top of the door.

“Yeah?” The voice was deep.

“I’m here to see Petr,” the asset said in French.

The panel slid shut. Twenty seconds later, he heard the bolt being drawn back. The door swung open. The man guarding it was large, well-built in overalls and a t-shirt, toting a Mac-Ten machine pistol. Inside, the main hallway opened into a bachelor apartment, with everything but the bathroom contained in an open floor space. The walls were empty, painted a drab green and the floorboards were scuffed and dull. At the back of the room, a dark brown wooden desk sat before the windows, and behind it was the contact, Petr. He was short, with a mop of blond hair that went to just below his collar and green eyes hiding behind undersized glasses. He had a guard on each side, both muscular again, both standing with their hands politely in front of them. The asset didn’t see any weapons, which he assumed meant they were concealed, probably just tucked into waistbands. The one to the asset’s right had a bulge by his ankle suggesting a backup piece. Both seemed focused.

“Come in my friend, come in,” Petr said. “So I’m told through a mutual acquaintance that you require some special paper.”

“You got my specifications?” The asset had forwarded them before leaving the U.S. If he’d had his preference he would have used someone back home for the detailed work; but his mission was off the books, strictly unofficial. Anyone working with spooks was out of the question. So he had gone to Petr, who had a reputation as a ruthless gangster but a superb forger.

“Sure, of course,” the man said, his accent eastern European. “It wasn’t easy, pulling that many identities together that quickly. Why you want this, anyway?”

That made the asset anxious. Solid suppliers knew not to ask those sorts of questions. “I like to travel a lot,” he said. “And I’m collecting airline points.”

Petr laughed at that and his boys quickly joined in. “Funny guy eh? I like funny. You got the money?”

The asset took a wad of crumpled euros from his inside pocket and threw it onto the desk. “That’s five thousand.”

Petr nodded. “That is what we agreed. I tell you, Mr. American, you have some balls to come see me, eh? I mean, we don’t know each other, you just get my name from some contact I haven’t seen or heard from in two, three years. If I didn’t know better,” he grinned, “I would think you might be a cop. Or planning something illegal.”

“Just give me my paper and I’ll be on my way.” Keep it cordial and professional, the asset told himself. No reason to suspect…

The wire looped around his neck swiftly and silently from behind, but the asset’s training kicked in and he managed to get two fingers under it as the guard from the door tried to pull the garrote tight, to choke the life out of him. He dropped his case onto the ground, freeing up his other hand.

“Maybe since we don’t know you,” Petr said, “we take whole thing and keep paper, yes?”

The wire cut into his hand. The asset threw himself backward, the weight bowling the strangler over, the pressure released for a moment. The wire was still in place, and his attacker grabbed at each of the wooden handles on its either end, then wrapped his legs around the asset’s waist, making him near impossible to pry loose.

“It is nothing personal,” the forger said matter-of-factly, “just business.”

The wire cut deep, blood beginning to drip in busy patterns all over the floor.

“Don’t struggle,” Petr said, “Victor is much too strong for you, my friend. It will all be over sooner if you just give in.”

Both men lay on their side battling for control; the asset tried to kick backwards with his heels, to catch a shin or kneecap; but instead, the garrote got tighter as the attacker pulled with all of his might. He felt his air diminishing, face flushed from the artery that was being cut off in his neck. He pushed his left hand upwards, so that his arm was between the wire and his neck, knowing he’d only have one chance for the move to work. He thrust the arm through the loop, pulling it away from his skin, then flung his head backwards, smashing the man in the face with the back of his skull.

The tension in the wire temporarily slacked off and the asset pushed hard against it with his arm, the attacker letting go of one end of the noose. The asset threw a hard elbow backwards, catching the guard on curve of his cheekbone right below his eye socket and sending him to the ground screaming, clutching the bone.

Guards number two and three were coming for him now. The one on the left had already retrieved a pistol from the back of his waistband and tried to level it; but the asset was nimble, ignoring the pain in his hand and arm from the cuts, rolling sideways and coming to his feet, wrist-locking the gunman’s arm, swinging it toward his colleague even as the guard opened fire, the three shots catching the second guard flush in the chest.

As his partner went down, the asset broke the first man’s wrist with a hard twist, the crunch of the small bones audible, then drove the side of his hand into the man’s larynx, crushing it and sending him to the ground, spluttering for air, his pistol bouncing loose and sliding a few feet. The first assailant was almost to his feet again, and the asset turned smoothly, grabbing the man by his hair and driving his knee into the man’s face, the initial cheek damage compounded with a shattered eye socket. He repeated the action twice with furious strength, the guard dead before he hit the floor.

The asset picked up the pistol. Petr hadn’t moved throughout, seemingly stunned by how efficiently his men had gone down, but now reached quickly for the gun that lay flat on his desktop. As he grabbed it, the asset used his free hand to grab the letter opener that lay next to it and drove it through the top of Petr’s hand, pinning it to the desk top. The forger screamed.

The asset twisted the letter opener slightly and the man screamed again, this time ending it with a deep, woeful moan of pain.

“The paper: did you get it done or was rolling me the plan all along?”

The man looked at him blankly, sweating profusely, the shock of the moment paralyzing him. The asset twisted the opener blade again and the man moaned once more. “No! Please, no more! Top drawer, is in top drawer!”

A manila envelope sat on top of the other drawer contents and the asset grabbed it. Then he contemplated the forger. The man could identify him, and had proven completely unreliable; it was unfortunate, the asset thought, but the police would probably be there soon, drawn by the gunshots. Response times were likely as bad as any country, in the fifteen to twenty minute range. In any case, there was no point being quiet about things. He turned back to Petr who was wide-eyed with fear.

“No, please… I have family,” the forger said.

The asset picked the wad of money back up off the desk then shot Petr once through the forehead; the gangster slumped forward on the desk, his life draining away like so much spilled ink, his eyes wide open but empty, his face displaying nothing less than a final moment of surprise.