by Sam Powers
FALLOUT ZONE
The Conclusion of the Joe Brennan Trilogy
By Sam Powers
Kindle Edition
This edition uses U.S. spellings of common words.
Copyright 2015 J.I. Loome. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment. 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 purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Epilogue
1./
JUNE 24, 2016, MARSEILLE, FRANCE
The port warehouse was thirty thousand square feet of emptiness, a corrugated tin giant with a dirt floor under a wood-beamed, a-frame roof that towered forty feet overhead.
Joe Brennan and Victor Moutiere parked the dirt-caked Citroen outside the entrance; the building’s fourteen-feet-high sliding doors were open to the elements, and an unseasonably cool drizzle of rain gently flecked its way inside; the warehouse sat at the far end of a row of similar buildings, each with an exit on one side to the loading area and another on the opposite side to the docks.
They glanced around carefully as they got out, wary of unwelcome company. The car doors thunked closed behind them; the area was quiet save for the odd cry of a seagull. It was cool in the early morning, the sun barely up.
Their steps crunched in the dirt as the two men walked over to the entrance. The site was private, as requested, and there were no other vehicles around at six in the morning; the air smelled strongly of fish and seawater.
“This is it,” Victor said. The Frenchman had bags under his eyes and a gathering layer of stubble. “As I said, keep your head down and let me do the talking. They’re not the types of men who follow the news, so you should be okay; and their work is first-rate.”
Brennan hated taking the risk; but he had no option when it came to getting a new passport. His treacherous boss at the agency, David Fenton-Wright, had set him up for murder and now, instead of tracking a rogue nuke or figuring out who was killing diplomats, he was on the run. He needed paper to keep moving. Victor had assured him the new document could be obtained, but it was going to eat most of his remaining ten thousand. Then he planned to make his way to London by train before driving to the coast and taking the ferry to Ireland.
With some deft work by Myrna, a pilot would meet him with a Gulfstream, a jet just big enough to get them across the Atlantic without refueling. Where she planned to obtain a pilot, let alone a jet, Brennan did not know. He glanced over at Victor as the Frenchman peeked inside the building then waved for Brennan to join him.
“Looks okay,” Victor said. “They’ll come in from the other side, probably drive right in.”
“So tactically, we’re overwhelmed in this place if they bring heavy firepower.”
Victor seemed pensive. “I suppose. I’ve known their boss a long time now, a man named Guy. He’ll give you a fair shake as long as he thinks it’s his best move.”
“What if he thinks numerical superiority gives him the right to take what we’ve got?” Brennan asked.
Victor shrugged. “He’s a crook, not a school teacher. The thought will probably cross his mind.”
“And if it does?”
“First, we see what he does with it. Then, if things go bad, we kill him.”
So, an old-fashioned sort of solution, Brennan thought wryly. “Maybe we can avoid all that,” he suggested.
“Perhaps,” Victor said.
Brennan had expected a flash ride, maybe an SUV like the gangsters back home. Instead, a brown Peugeot sedan pulled into the other side of the warehouse and parked. If they were planning a double-cross, he thought, they would have driven in further, given themselves a quicker escape.
A non-descript man in a white linen suit and blue shirt got out, flanked by three guards dressed casually. Their boss was middle-aged, with collar-length brown hair, slightly Gallic features. He had a briefcase in his left hand.
“That’s your contact?” Brennan said under his breath.
“I know he doesn’t look like much, but he’s ruthless,” Victor said. “Just be cool.”
The four men strode over to meet them, the guards checking the perimeter but the suitcase holder seemingly disinterested in the surroundings.
“My friend,” Victor said, extending a hand, which the man shook. “This is another friend of mine, Bernie. He’s the guy …”
“I saw his headshots when we had the paper made,” the gangster said. “He’s the guy who needs the passports. So how much is he kicking back to you?”
“Just doing a favor for an old friend.”
“Uh huh, for sure,” Guy the Gangster said. “And I’m Charles Aznavour. This guy….” He looked at the Brennan again, then opened his suitcase to take out an envelope, “… he looks familiar to me, Victor. That’s never a good thing in our line of work, when you can’t remember why you know someone.” The gangster had that hint of concern on his face, a slight suspicion.
“But if we didn’t deal with people who have a little trouble here and there, they wouldn’t need your paper… or anything else you sell, my friend,” Victor said.
Guy seemed to ponder the notion for a moment. “That’s true. You have the money?”
“Ten thousand,” Brennan said, handing his own smaller envelope over.
The man leaned in to hand Brennan the larger manila envelope… then stopped halfway, then leaned back. “That’s an interesting accent. Your French is perfect, but you’re not from here…”
“The paper?” Brennan said, smiling, his hand still out. His nerves were on end, alert for just such a pause.
The gangster had taken on a curious look, his eyes darting as he searched his short-term memory for something playing at his subconscious. “I think… I think I know exactly who you are now. You’re the American the police in Montpellier are looking for…”
All six men stood silently, within reaching distance of one another, the moment’s tension ratcheted up.
Brennan was worth a lot of money to whoever caught him.
Each looked at the other. When the bodyguard closest to Guy glanced at his boss, the smaller man nodded just slightly, almost imperceptibly. Victor saw the move, saw all three guards going for the pistols in their waist holsters at the same time. Before anyone else could react, he drew and raised the nine millimeter, took a half-step forward and rammed the barrel into Guy’s mouth, while grabbing the gangster by the back of the head with his other hand.
“Nobody draws,” he said. “Guns down on the ground. Now!”
Guy nodded his agreement, unable to talk. “Dngghf!” he demanded.
Brennan said, “Are you sure…”
“Yeah,” Victor said. “I’ve played poker against this guy for fifteen years and he has a big tell. I didn’t have a choice.” He nodded back towards the men. “Now kick the guns across the room.”
All three obliged. “What do we do with him?” Brennan said.
“We don’t do anything wi
th him,” Victor said. “You’re going to take that Peugeot over there and leave, because you have a trip to take. I’m going to take Guy here for a little drive and talk in my car while his men wait here.”
Brennan wasn’t sure what to say. In six months of almost having his head handed to him, Victor was one of the few honorable men he’d met – despite the fact that, by all social convention, he was supposed to be the worst. “You didn’t have to do this,” he finally said.
“It was the right thing,” Victor said. “Chances are if you don’t grab me in that apartment, I wind up dead. Besides, you’ve been paying me a lot of money. This gives me a chance to earn it.”
Brennan smiled. “I thought you were primarily a thief…”
“And it’s hard work, believe me,” Victor said. “Now go!”
“I owe you an enormous debt. I won’t forget that,” Brennan said.
“Yeah, yeah. Go get misty somewhere else. Leave the men to deal with things. Guy might want to kill me for a while, but you already paid him; he has no real reason to complain. And he understands that sometimes, business is business.”
“Is that what this is?”
Victor smiled, a rarity. “Good luck, my friend,” he said.
AMMAN, JORDAN
Ahmed Khalidi felt awkward in his own skin, fidgety. He sat on the sofa in his white linen kadura robe and keffiyeh head scarf, bored, leaning back into one corner in repose with an ice-cold glass of ginger ale in his right hand as he watched the flat-screen television on the wall.
The room, a small lounge at his father’s palace, was near empty; the barest rays of light made their way through the wide, tilted window shutters. Adjacent to the sofa was a modernist armchair in steel and white leather, in which Faisal was perched, rubbing his hands nervously.
The television was on a news network, the reporters discussing Funomora’s death, the EU’s decision to sanction Khalidi’s companies, and the isolation of the Association’s remaining two members in their homeland. Facing numerous political challenges at home and a domestic scandal involving his wife, Fung was probably happy to return to Harbin, avoid Khalidi. He still had opportunities to save political face.
The Jordanian’s own future was less assured. It wasn’t that Khalidi had lost all of his power; he was still an influential figure in certain circles, particularly in Arab nations. But the newspaper revelations of his involvement in funding insurrections combined with the assassinations had enshrouded him in a cloud of public suspicion. And so his eighty-four-year-old father had called him home, suggesting he needed time away from the limelight, in a secure and private environment.
It felt absolutely appalling. Insulting, even. Confined.
An anchor discussed the next story. “Does the Middle East have too much influence in American politics? The surprising answers when we come back,” he teased.
The image flashing on the screen as the network went to commercial was a split screen of Khalidi and Addison March, the Republican candidate.
He rolled his eyes. “I fully expect an expose by the end of the day on how I sell white women into slavery and eat their babies. How is it possible, Faisal, for me to extract myself from this situation?
Faisal had always found Khalidi to be arrogant, vain. He wanted to to point out the inevitable downfall of all such men. Instead, he sighed inwardly and did his job, which was the healthy thing to do. “Lie low. Stay away from public attention for a while. Let the people who want to cluck and make noise do so, and then come back with purpose and the drive to succeed.”
“It will be that easy, eh?” Khalidi said with a wry smile.
“You have alternatives that will take less time, but they are all risky and prone to making the situation even worse than it already is.”
But sitting back meant handing over control to others, and Khalidi hated that. He had controlled his own destiny since childhood, the eleventh of thirteen sons and yet the most successful financially, the most prominent. No one told Ahmed Khalidi where to go, what to do, how to behave. No one except his father.
Khalidi respected and admired the sheik. But there were days when he wished the old man would make his way to paradise with a little more urgency.
“So you are saying I must sit here and wait for my future to be determined by others. Unacceptable,” he said. “Have you ever known me to behave thusly?”
Faisal, who had a master’s degree in economics from Cambridge, was intuitive enough to know that most of Khalidi’s decisions were grounded as much in ego as logic, as much in personal gain as adhering to any larger social ethos. Unlike the sheikh’s son, Faisal had been handed very little in life, and had worked his way off of the streets of Alexandria to get to university, and to win a scholarship for his advanced degree. He was paid exceptionally well for his advice, but never once perceived Khalidi to be actually listening.
“I know that you will eventually make the wise and right decision, your highness,” Faisal said.
His phone rang.
“It’s David,” the other party said.
“Just a moment,” Faisal answered. He cupped his hand over the phone’s speaker. “It’s our U.S. intelligence asset,” he told Khalidi.
Khalidi rolled his eyes. “Doubtless more excuses about why he has not managed to track down either his agent or the report. Is there anything else he can do to help us at this point?”
“Respectfully… Mr. Fenton-Wright’s ongoing failures and diminishing stature with his own people suggest he is becoming more of a liability than an asset; certainly, he is of no use in the immediate.”
Khalidi acknowledged the advice and made a sweep-away gesture with his hand to dismiss the caller.
Faisal went back to the phone. “Mr. Fenton-Wright, your support has been much appreciated,” he said. “Thank you for calling in, but we would ask that, for the next while, you make an appointment if you wish to contact myself or Mr. Khalidi…”
“Appointment?” Fenton-Wright said, sounding irritated and surprised at the same time. “When you needed a piece of information quickly, you had no trouble calling me…”
“Thank you, Mr. Fenton-Wright. I believe I’ve stated our position clearly…”
“Are you actually shutting me out?!? Do you know who the fuck I am?” Fenton-Wright said, angry. “Do you realize who you’re dealing with?”
“Mr. Fenton-Wright, that sort of language is not very productive or conducive to…”
“Fuck what you find conducive, you little asshole,” Fenton-Wright said. “You’re the man’s secretary. Put me on the phone with him. I’m the deputy director of the fucking…”
“Thank you for calling. Goodbye,” Faisal said, before disconnecting.
Khalidi turned his head away from the television slightly. “That sounded… uncouth.”
“Nothing significant,” Faisal said. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
Fenton-Wright stood in the agency parking lot, phone in hand, contemplating how quickly things were getting out of control.
The hit team in Montpellier had missed Brennan and was frantically searching the region and contacts across Europe for any sign of him. Fenton-Wright had seen a window of opportunity in the Aquarium meet and had paid through the nose to use local undercover assets, a renowned team of close-up hitters from Paris who would ensure the job was done right.
Instead, they’d blown it. Fenton-Wright had turned it to his advantage and Brennan was a wanted man --- by the hit team, by the police, by security officials across Europe. But in the meantime, the deputy director’s own value to his employer had become a question, obviously. He’d taken care of Walter Lang but failed with the reporter; it wouldn’t take Brennan long to piece together why Fenton-Wright had asked him to stay in the French city, instead of pursuing leads on the so-called nuke. If Brennan ever returned safely to the U.S., Fenton-Wright would have a whole other series of questions to potentially answer.
He needed to close the intelligenc
e loop; Walter had been a start, but someone else had to be helping the reporter, Malone. There was no way she was getting so much valuable intel without someone at the agency helping her, and since Walter was already dead, that meant another contact.
He dialed human resources. “John? David. Yeah. Yeah, I know, long time. Anyway, I’m trying to work up a profile on someone who may be tipping the press without my say so. Yeah… yeah, I know, you’d think so. Anyway, can you round me up a profile of Walter Lang’s closest agency contacts? Retired and active, yeah… the top ten names.”
Walter had been an agency legend, but he’d never been social or political. One of the names on the list would probably be Malone’s other source. Once he’d found the source, he’d be able to find the reporter. Once both were silenced and his own exposure minimized, he would only have the problem of Joe Brennan to still handle.
On that front, he thought, he had an ace in the hole. He dialed the phone again. “Carolyn? It’s David. Are you free this afternoon for a quick chat?”
Carolyn’s stomach hadn’t stopped churning in hours as she sat at their kitchen table and nursed a mineral water.
She’d been on a week of administrative leave, granted to her after Joe’s alleged shootout in France, a story that had been molded and massaged before release to draw minimal North American press attention. But he was cut off from the agency and its resources, wanted by the police, a killer.
She didn’t believe a word of it.
Carolyn had always known that covert work got dirty, even deadly on occasion. They’d married when she was just a new recruit and Joe was a SEAL, trying to figure out what to do with his life right after the Marines. Early in their relationship, they’d agreed to stop discussing the details, as much for national security as to spare her the gory details; Carolyn wasn’t a shrinking violet by any means.
Then David had called. And now she faced a prolonged meeting about her husband, the contents of which were completely unknown to her. She’d already told herself one thing: she wouldn’t be forced to choose between her husband and her job. She wouldn’t let DFW put her in that position.