FALLOUT ZONE (Joe Brennan Trilogy Book 3)

by Sam Powers

  “Call Bernie…”

  “No, dammit! Stay with me. I’ll have an ambulance here…”

  Myrna closed her eyes for a second and coughed hard. The wounds were flowing hard now, the blood gathering in a widening puddle. “Going to see Walter,” she said gently.

  And then she closed her eyes for the final time.

  20,000 FEET ABOVE THE ATLANTIC OCEAN

  The cockpit door closed and Eddie Shaw entered the luxuriously appointed cabin of the Gulfstream jet. It had seating for twelve, chairs facing each other for a more social atmosphere; but the spy with the ridiculous black dye job, moustache and aviators was the only passenger.

  Eddie shook his head mournfully. “You look like an extra from a Beastie Boys video.”

  “You’re dating yourself, Ed,” Brennan said. Eddie took the seat across from his.

  “We have to stop meeting like this,” Eddie said. “Although on the upside, no one was shooting at the plane this time. Thank bloody God; you know how much one of these things costs?”

  Brennan looked around quickly. “How did you manage this anyway?”

  “Pulled in a lot of markers; one of the guys I trained as a young whelp had some success in the business world, so he loaned her to me. We have to stop to refuel and clear customs in Halifax; Vancouver’s another six hours beyond that.”

  “I’m sorry for pulling you into this,” he said.

  Eddie seemed nonplussed. “When I heard about Walter I knew something bad was going down; then the agency started putting out feelers to see who’d heard from you and I got real worried, bro. But you seem okay.”

  “It’s been a hell of a few months, Ed. I haven’t seen Carolyn and the kids since before Christmas, I’ve got a growing list of agencies that want my scalp and you know what the kicker is? Despite everything I haven’t prevented a damn thing; there’s a loose nuke out there…”

  “Damn.”

  “And on top of that my boss at the agency is trying to set me up, take me out.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “I wish I was.”

  “Joe, you know why I stayed a pilot after coming back from the Gulf? Because up here, there are just fewer problems. I don’t know how you do it…”

  Brennan had been on autopilot for so long, he hadn’t really thought about it. “It’s all just second nature now, I guess. Whenever I take my mind off the immediate and start pondering the why of it, I end up in trouble.”

  “Yeah? Well, the why part is easy for me, man,” Eddie said. “I’m here because you asked me to come.”

  Brennan felt a glow of support but was embarrassed, too. “Geez, Ed, you don’t have to say…”

  “No,” the pilot said quickly, cutting him off, “it’s true. You know, when you got on board, the first thing you said before you settled back into your seat and I went into the cockpit was “thanks Ed, I guess I owe you another one. But that’s the thing, Joe: you don’t owe me a damn thing. Not one thing. People like Walter and me – God rest his soul – people like Walter and me, we support you because we know your character; we know you’re a good man, Joe, and in your line of work, that’s a difficult thing to be.”

  Brennan smiled a little grimly. He didn’t feel good about his “line of work.” Mostly, he felt dirty.

  The pilot wasn’t done. “So when you go get stuck in some hemorrhoid of a backwater and you need me to come get you, I don’t do it so that you’ll ‘owe me one’. I do it because I figure whatever you’re up to, it’s probably the right side to be on. My old man always told me that whether we like it or not, life is about one side or the other. It’s inevitable.”

  Brennan’s phone rang. It was Myrna’s number. “Talk to me,” he said.

  “Is this Bernie?” a familiar voice said.

  “Alex?”

  “Yes … who… Joe?”

  “Yeah. I’m on route to Vancouver. Where’s Myrna?”

  Malone gave him the news.

  “We have to make that son of a bitch pay, Joe,” she said. “Myrna saved my life and yours, and he killed her. He killed her, Joe. He left her bleeding in the hallway of her building.”

  “He’ll pay, believe me,” Brennan said. “I’m going to resend you the file I sent to Myrna. Chances are he’s either wiped her computer already or, at the least, the recording I mailed. Take it to your intelligence contacts. They’ll know what to do with it.”

  “But what about…”

  “That’s what will make it happen. There’s a snippet of a conversation on there with Funomora in which he confirms DFW set me up, potentially on Khalidi’s orders.”

  “Potentially?”

  “It’s enough to have him taken in, questioned. He’s done, Alex. And if this doesn’t get him, I promise you that I will.”

  Malone smiled grimly, then used her free hand to wipe away her tears. “So what now?”

  “I find Konyakovich and see if I can figure out the Korean connection. I’d assumed Han was working for the Association when she stole the item in Cabinda, but that’s not the case.”

  “I can ask my source about that, as well. Why would South Korea have any interest in a rogue nuke? It makes no sense.”

  “In the meantime, you need to get to Vegas, see if you can figure out this DynaTech connection your guy mentioned.”

  “If you’re still looking for a potential sniper motive, maybe it’s Dmitri, clearing out the collective memory with respect to the device. He certainly has the contacts. He brokered the deal, allegedly, in which the Koreans double-crossed Abubakar, so he must be working with them, maybe to smuggle it into the country in the first place.”

  “That’s one more reason to get someone inside DynaTech.”

  “You have any suggestions on how I can cultivate a high-level source in a matter of hours?” Malone had faith in her ability to get information out of people, but that was asking a bit much.

  “You’ve got two options,” Brennan said. “You can either find someone inside the company who’s got an axe to grind…

  “Or?”

  “Or someone outside the company with an even bigger one. The last time I talked to Myrna she sent me a basic agency backgrounder on Konyakovich, including his suspected criminal affiliations. That’s our in. I’ll send it along … along with a little surprise for DynaTech.”

  LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

  It was just before midnight when the charter flight got into McCarran airport, south of the city. Jefferson Kane watched dispassionately through the picture window as the cream-colored twin-prop plane landed, his hands in the pockets of his mink overcoat, which he only wore during chilly desert nights and on special occasions.

  He had a richly colored purple dress shirt underneath it, and a large platinum rope chain. Even though it was night, he still wore the same Carrera-style sunglasses, blowing the odd bubble from a wad of pink gum, a three-year-old affectation substituting for cigarettes. His hair was in narrow cornrows and he was heavy, at least three hundred pounds, which caused him to wheeze slightly when talking, a result of the hot, dusty daytime air and years of marijuana smoke.

  “You want us to go out and meet the plane?” one of his underlings said. There were three of them, just hanging and waiting for him to tell them what to do. They were dressed in linen suits but without ties, perhaps in deference to the town’s vacation nature.

  “Nah. We’ll pick her up in arrivals like normal folk. Just be cool, yo,” he said. “We still got a long night ahead of us.”

  Kane was uncommonly nervous for a man with a reputation of being stone cold when he needed to be, when business demanded it. He had no idea how the job was going to go because it wasn’t like anything he’d handled before. At the same time, it was the business opportunity of a lifetime. He knew if he’d let it pass, he’d miss his shot, maybe his one shot, to become the biggest dealer in Sin City.

  It had started eight hours earlier with a call from a reporter in D.C. She had information about him, she’d told him, informati
on supplied by the kind of people who could shut him down in a minute. But instead, she needed his help, and was going to offer him a bigger chunk of his marketplace in return.

  “And how, pray tell, are you going to pull that off?” he’d asked. “Who the fuck are you, anyway?”

  Malone had pointed him to her recent bylines. “I think we can help each other. Meet me; you have nothing to lose.”

  “Except my valuable time,” he’d said. “Give me one reason why …”

  “Paul Parker.”

  Parker was Kane’s main rival in the local trade. Or vice-versa, given that Parker controlled most of it. “I’m listening,” Kane said.

  “I’ll come down tonight. There’s a charter flight this evening out of Dulles.”

  They picked her up in arrivals, watching unsurprised as she gazed up at the giant neon “Welcome to Las Vegas!” sign, and at the slot machines in the arrival terminal, most occupied by elderly women. Malone wondered where they’d all come from or were going; or whether they were maybe locals who just liked losing their money among the relative anonymity of international travelers.

  Ten minutes later, her new associates were pulling Kane’s SUV out of the pay lot, on the road into the city core.

  “So, you going to tell me how my name came up as the guy to talk to for this “deal” of yours?” Kane asked her.

  “Let’s just say there are a lot of weird people in Washington and leave it at that,” Alex said. “It’s one of those questions no one really wants answered.” It sounded ominous enough, she supposed, without being too much of a shot at the gangster’s manhood.

  “So explain.”

  “You have one of your men break into the offices of a company called Dynatech.”

  “You want us to steal documents or something? Take a little ‘proprietary’ technology?”

  “Nope. We’re going to leave something behind.”

  Dynatech’s new five-story office building was in the far west of the city in a business development park; it was made of light-colored concrete and dark tinted windows, so sterile and featureless it could have been doctors’ offices, or a school, or a public library. In front, a massive parking lot held three hundred slots, all empty in the wee hours, but illuminated for safety by the dull glow of the stylized street lamps.

  They pulled up alongside the curb near the glass front doors.

  “Clarify,” Kane said. “What, exactly, are we going to leave behind? Because if it’s a horse’s head or some freaky shit like that, then yo, this shit is already over.”

  “A piece of malware, designed to open their system up to someone outside.”

  “So…?”

  “We can get in and taken things whenever we want, including their shipping records. My sources tell me the company’s owner, Mr. Konyakovich, imports a dubious amount of off-market product from the Golden Triangle and South America. Most of it winds up with your friend Mr. Parker.”

  Kane nodded slowly. “Uh huh.” The ramifications were more clear. “And you’re just going to share this information with me…”

  “In exchange for you getting me access to it, yes.”

  “Uh huh.” The rotund dealer considered the possibilities. “So if you plan on poking around somewhere down the line, I suppose you want us to figure out a quiet way to handle this, is that it?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Okay then. Give us a few minutes to make sure everything’s cool, then follow us in.” He undid his seatbelt. “Shorty, Malcolm, you’re with me. Malivai: stay here and take care of the lady.”

  Malivai was the driver. He was busy texting someone something. “What?”

  “I said get your ass off your phone and pay attention, dumbass. We’re going inside. Take care of the lady.”

  “Okay Jeff.”

  They got out of the car and made their way across the parking lot. The front doors were locked, and there was a manned security station just twenty yards beyond them. Jefferson noticed a buzzer pad by the doors and keyed it.

  Inside, the middle-aged, tall, thin security guard leaned forward nervously into a mic. “Office hours are over for the evening,” he said.

  “Yo man, let us in,” Kane said. “I got to ask you something.”

  The guard pushed up his glasses, then shook his head then keyed his mic again. “I can’t do that sir, sorry. You need a security clearance pass. You can come by in the morning after eight, however, and they can set that up for you if appropriate.”

  Kane needed to employ some bargaining leverage. He pressed the button again. “Yo man … your employer give you good benefits for this job?”

  The guard seemed a bit surprised by the question. “Not… really, I guess.”

  “So how much you figure they was willing to spend on the glass in these here front doors? If I take out my Glock and unload a clip, you think this stuff is bulletproof? You think I can get in there before the police arrive to save your ass? Or, you can let us in and have a quick word. I swear man, that’s all.”

  He held a pistol up to the glass for the guard to see, as did both of his colleagues. The security guard looked at them wide eyed, mouth slightly slack-jawed. Then he pushed the door buzzer.

  Kane walked over to the desk casually. “What you make here, man?”

  “Pardon?” The guard had a terrified look on his face and his hand was one inch from what looked like some sort of panic button.

  “How much they pay you here, man? What’s your… you know, hourly wage?”

  “Nine-fifty.”

  Kane though about how much he stood to make if Paul Parker’s business was badly damaged. Nine-fifty? And people in Vegas called him a crook. “Yeah? Well I think anyone making nine-fifty deserves a coffee break right about now.” He took out his money clip and pulled off two hundred-dollar bills. “Mr. Franklin thinks you should turn off the security system for a few minutes and take a walk.”

  The guard was frozen. “I…”

  “Yeah?”

  “I…”

  Kane rolled his eyes. “Man, we ain’t going to hurt you, okay?”

  “But I’ll lose my job if anything goes missing…”

  “We ain’t going to steal shit, just look around, is all.” He pulled off another hundred. “This make it easier?”

  “I…”

  “Stop saying ‘I’. Man, I’m telling you, we ain’t going to disturb a goddamn thing. We’ll be out before you get back in a half hour. Or…” He put the Glock down on the edge of the security desk, “… we can do this the hard way, yo.”

  The guard took the three hundred from his other hand. “A half hour?”

  “Uh huh. You got security file access?”

  “Sure.”

  “You wipe the last half hour, too, or we come back and find you, you dig?”

  “Uh huh.”

  The guard got up, hastily stuffing the bills in his pocket and heading quickly for the front doors. He’d been gone about a minute when Alex came through the entrance. “What did you say to that guy? He was white as ghost.”

  Kane shrugged nonchalantly. “We overcame a difference of opinion. You got thirty minutes, sweet thing.”

  Alex planned on following Joe’ s instructions to the letter: find the largest secretarial desk on the top floor, find the computer, plug in the tiny memory stick to one of its rear slots, and get out.

  She moved towards the elevator.

  “Uh uh,” Kane said, wagging a finger. “Those will be turned off at night. Probably need a security key or something.”

  She looked around. “So where…?”

  He pointed to the dual exit signs in each corner of the lobby. “Those probably lead to the stairwells. People got to use the stairs during a fire. Elevator makes a pretty good oven, you think about it…”

  The stairs took a few minutes, but Alex was fit and took her time. They were in no rush; it was approaching two in the morning. On the fifth floor, she pushed the door open; predictably, it opened to an elevator
lobby again. She followed one of the narrow side corridors that flanked each of the elevator banks. They led directly into an executive reception area, complete with sofas and modern art, lit only by the exit signs and the moonlight that made its way through the vertical blinds covering the side windows.

  She saw the glow of the flashlight, almost too late. A second later it emerged from the door on the opposite wall and the other side of the room, and Alex ducked behind the nearest desk as the arc of light swept across her surroundings.

  A second security guard. She thought about the look on the other guard’s face as he’d left, watching him slink away from the building. He’d probably been scared to death by Jefferson Kane; for the first time, she found herself seriously doubting Joe’s judgment, getting her involved with the gigantic gangster.

  The guard was taking his time sweeping the room. Had he heard something? Alex could imagine the professional humiliation of being caught in a burglary while covering a story with political overtones, like some sort of Watergate in reverse. But the issues at play were just as important, bigger than the story itself, matters of many lives and deaths.

  The guard made his way between the rows of desks. Alex huddled in the foot space under one, the chair pulled in as well to make it appear an unlikely hidey hole. A set of black shoes passed briskly by and she stole a quick peek; from the back, he looked short, but also older, like his desk mate in the lobby, a thatch of grey-silver hair sticking out from beneath the back of his cap.

  If he went right to the lobby, things could get messy, she thought. Hopefully he was doing a floor-by-floor check. She waited until the guard had passed down the corridor to the elevators and got out from under the desk. She crossed the room to another pair of similar parallel corridors, this time on either side of the copy room. Beyond them, another seating area was more appointed, with couches and matching short black-leather armchairs. A large teak desk sat in front of a set of glass doors.

  Bingo. It had a tower on a pull-out tray below the desk, one of the possibilities Brennan had suggested. “Whatever you do,” he’d told her, “don’t pull the tower out.” Chances were good, he’d noted that snared plugs would be pulled out of the back of the computer, increasing the risk of discovery on several fronts – in the immediate, as she struggled to plug things back in, or a day later when someone pulled the tower out again to try and figure out why their keyboard wasn’t working.