by Sam Powers
The night was stretching on, and Perry Moore was bored; the machine gun rested across his crossed arms as he strolled, the black fleece sweater keeping him warm in the growing damp chill.
He’d been walking the foredeck of the container ship Liberty Lady, his only companion the gentle lapping of the water against the hull, and the occasional check in from the other guards via walkie talkie. It was mind-numbing, spending hour after hour moving from point ‘A’ , on the north side of the metal staircase to the bridge, to point ‘B’, at the other end of the ship’s upper level, past row after row of twenty-foot shipping containers.
The ship was over seven hundred feet long and more than a hundred feet wide, its form not much more than the gigantic, ocean-going equivalent of a flatbed truck. There was a bridge, near the bow, a crew cabin area that extended under the stern and into the bowels of the ship, and a lift crane. Other than that, it was row after row after row of cargo containers. And over the course of the past six hours, he’d seen them all.
Liberty Lady had moored at just after five o’clock on a gloomy Seattle afternoon. Perry and his crew, who were considered notable local muscle to more than one criminal organization, had been hired to guard it. The money was good… but that didn’t mean he had to enjoy it.
About seventy feet away, behind the rows of metal boxes, his friend Richie Kessler was performing the same function. His feet had probably started to hurt, too, Perry thought. But their instructions had been clear: no breaks, shift change after eight hours, three days of work.
Plus, they got guns, and maybe a chance to shoot someone. Their employers wouldn’t have provided so much firepower if they weren’t potentially expecting trouble.
So that had made the offer exciting to Perry and his hoodlum friends, despite the high potential for boredom.
Sixty bucks an hour was sixty bucks an hour, just to be a rent-a-threat. On Sunday, he figured, I’m going to go get me an eighty-inch LED flat-screen, watch the Sounders become life-sized.
“Cool,” he said to no one. He stopped for a few seconds and listened to the water, the sounds of the harbor, the background white noise of it all combined with the drifting remnants of the city’s natural din. He looked around quickly; fuck it, he thought, nobody’s coming. Perry fished a small, tightly rolled joint from his top pocket and lit up, the glare from the lighter momentarily ruining his night vision, so that when the lighter went out, he could barely see around him.
The forearm circled quickly around his throat from behind, his carotid artery caught in the sharp crook of its elbow; instinctively, Perry grabbed for the arm to pull it away instead of sounding the alarm; he tried to pry his fingers under it, loosen it before …
Brennan gently laid the unconscious guard down on the deck then slung the man’s gun over his own shoulder using the thin black strap.
He’d dressed entirely in black, his face smudged over. He glanced up at the stairs to the bridge, before turning his attention back to the containers. He headed in their direction. There were four rows, each thirty containers deep; that probably meant four guards… or perhaps just three now, Brennan assumed. The one he’d laid out with a sleeper looked like a local, probably just some minor league gangster.
There were gaps every ten containers and he moved quickly to the corner of the first, listening for footfalls, getting a bearing on the guard before he could see him. He waited until the man passed, then stepped in behind him, applying the sleeper hold again, careful to catch the man’s gun with his free left hand as he lowered him down.
It was too easy, he thought. If there was a nuclear weapon on board, the now-dead Russian gangster hadn’t done much to protect it. The guards looked like kids; and how did the South Korean contingent figure in the whole thing? Why weren’t any of its number present?
A spotlight from above the bridge swept across the deck, and straight down the second row. Brennan quickly stepped back into the gap between containers. Chances were good that no one was paying attention to the light anyway, that it was just there to dissuade would-be thieves and mischievous kids. But there was no point in being reckless.
He heard the radio chatter a second later, the guard in the next row over talking to someone; he was agitated. “What the fuck? Perry! Perry, you better not be fucking with me…” A second passed and Brennan heard him say, “Yeah… I think we got a situation.”
Footsteps, multiple, inbound from all sides. There must have been more in the crew cabins, maybe another shift’s worth of guards, probably two. He moved back to the corner of the containers and peered around … then snapped his head back, the nightstick slamming into the side of the metal and just missing him as the guard rounded the corner; he had a machine pistol in his left hand, an Ingram or MAC-Ten, Brennan thought. The guard was raising it, time slowing down as Brennan’s adrenaline kicked in, the pistol spitting bullets and fire at a thousand rounds a minute, even as Brennan crouched low, swinging his leg out and around in a wide sweep, taking the guard’s legs out from under him, the gunfire off into the air as he left his feet, his back slamming into the deck a moment later. Brennan’s palm caught him flush under the chin, and the guard was unconscious.
Sixty feet away down the row, a handful of the guard’s friends were closing on him. Brennan cut back between the rows then sprinted south until he was at his full head of steam, running up the side of one cargo container and pushing off with all his strength, using the boost to catch the top edge of the box across the aisle, pulling himself up quickly so that he was ten feet above them. He waited until they rounded the corner between rows, then dropped down behind the last, dragging him back with Brennan’s left hand over his mouth, his right arm choking the man out again.
The gun clattered to the ground; alerted, the guard just ahead turned around and leaped out of the container gap, spraying machine gun fire across the row. Brennan held the first guard ahead of him as a shield and grabbed for the man’s sidearm as the bullets’ impact drove both of them over backwards, pulling it from the holster just before they hit the deck, firing twice, the first shot missing, but the second catching the other guard in the thigh. He screamed and went down, clutching at the wound, and trying to reach for his machine gun even as his two other squad mates emerged from the next row over. Brennan moved in one smooth motion, throwing himself in their direction and landing on his knees and shins, sliding across the smooth deck to the spot between them before either could open fire, then reaching up, right hand smashing the wrist even as the left grabbed the barrel, then spinning, the butt end of the rifle catching the second guard flush, putting him out. And finally a spinning elbow strike followed by the rifle butt in the reverse direction, catching the first man in the temple and stunning him, a short front kick laying him out.
The remaining guard was crawling for his gun, his thigh wound bleeding badly, Brennan swung the machine gun around. “Uh uh.” The man stopped crawling; he leaned on his right elbow and raised both hands in surrender. Brennan crouched down next to him, placing the barrel against the man’s temple. He used his left hand to retrieve a black plastic wrist tie from his pocket. “Hands behind your back. Put this on,” he said. The man complied, looping it over his hands. Brennan pulled it taut. “How many more?”
The man spat at him.
Brennan raised the butt end of the rifle then feinted to strike the man’s head.
He cowered backwards. “No! No…. don’t hit me, man! There’s two more, in the cabins.” Brennan pulled a gym sock and a small roll of duct tape from the little black bag. He stuffed the gym sock into the man’s mouth and placed a strip of the silver tape over both.
He made his way to the cabins, his footfalls on the deck accompanied by the waves lapping against the hull. The hatch door was ajar, the lights out inside. Someone was expecting him; judging by the lack of skill on deck, they’d be nervous, trigger-happy, probably right inside the door. Brennan kicked it inward, the hinge swinging back with a squeal, the heavy door slamming into the man standi
ng behind it. He went down hard, and Brennan could hear him scrambling to get up. The agent reached inside the room with his left hand, to where a light switch would instinctively be. A single bulb illuminated the cabin, the shadows cutting across the yellowed walls.
The man on the floor had a bloody welt on his forehead and a nine millimeter in his right hand. He reached up and Brennan jumped sideways out of the line of fire as he squeezed off two shots, the bullets ricocheting against the steel roof. The guard tried to rise but Brennan locked up the man’s forearm then bent it backwards quickly at the elbow until the joint popped; the man went down, screaming, and Brennan picked up the pistol, then slammed the butt into the man’s temple, driving him to the ground.
There was a second doorway at the back of the room and Brennan pirouetted around the corner, covering the room with the pistol.
The knife flashed across his field of vision, cutting his hand so quickly he didn’t have time to react. He dropped the pistol and caught a glimpse of the glinting blade to his left as it swung back toward him on a double slash. Brennan ducked backwards, then jumped back a foot to regain his posture. The knifeman stepped in, a blade in each hand, thrust after thrust; Brennan allowed him close so that he could parry the man at the forearms. He brought his right foot up hard, catching his assailant in the testicles. The man winced and began to double over and Brennan snapped the leg outwards, a powerful side kick catching him flush, knocking him out.
He bound and tied both men then headed back out onto the deck. If the count was right, that was everyone. Brennan took the small digital Geiger counter from his waist pouch, rented from a local outlet that afternoon, and slowly began to sweep the containers, row on row.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
In his twenty-five years in civil service, the director had maintained calm above all else. It was his trait, the gift for which others knew him, to be unruffled in any circumstance. It had brought him to the head of five different government agencies, after first exiting his military career and obtaining a law degree.
This scenario was no different; more sensational, perhaps, with more potential for public embarrassment. But a problem to be solved, just the same; and a cool head was what the agency needed to deal with its most recent crisis, he decided. Otherwise, he’d have stayed out of it all, let Jonah or one of the other senior ‘decision makers’ … well, make the decisions.
And so even though the news was not good, Nicholas Wilkie was smiling warmly when Carolyn and Jonah entered the office. “Have a seat, won’t you both? I’m just finishing up something,” he said.
He pushed the pile of papers to one side. “Right: here’s the scenario. We need this disseminated to anyone inside with an interest; but for pity’s sake keep it away from the general staff and the press.”
“Sir?” Jonah inquired. It was obviously leading to something important.
Wilkie composed himself again. “We’ve had an eyewitness report that David Fenton-Wright has become embroiled in the Euro sniper affair in some manner, and has shot and killed at least one person, possibly two. One, Walter Lang, you both know well. The other was a retired analyst named Myrna Verbish.
Carolyn gasped audibly.
“You knew her?” Wilkie said. “I thought Myrna was slightly before your time.”
“I knew her through Joe,” Carolyn said.
His eyes narrowed. “Was she in contact with him? You’re aware he’s been off the reservation for some weeks now.”
“I know, director,” she said. Carolyn had to choose her words carefully. “I haven’t been in contact with him either. But I think he met Myrna through Walter; she and Walter were very close, I understand.”
“Yes… well, we’re sweeping her belongings looking for any signs of contact,” Wilkie said. “Myrna had, by all recollection, some of the best contacts of any analyst in agency history. That would make her, even in retirement, a valuable ally for an agent on the run. But we believe it also put her in DFW’s crosshairs; the indication from our eye witness source is that he was working for a foreign agency, supplying information on the sniper case and performing counterintelligence.”
Jonah looked aghast. He was the closest DFW had had to a protégé. “I can’t believe it,” he said finally. “David spent a decade building the sort of power base needed to accomplish things, the sort of discipline that could have only benefited the agency.”
“Or,” Wilkie said, “the sort of power base that merely gave him power, to exercise positively or negatively as he saw fit. I’m sure you’re aware that I’m retiring in two years, both of you; I haven’t been as involved day-to-day as I should and I’m afraid David took advantage of that, consolidating control beneath me. This was my miss, Jonah, not yours.”
Jonah nodded but didn’t reply. He wondered how much of it was true, and how much of it was the director protecting his own position. Did he see DFW as a threat? Was that what this was about? Surely it was some sort of setup, a way push David out?
He had to say something. “Director, are we absolutely certain the evidence of his complicity is solid? Do we know for sure that he’s guilty?”
Wilkie leaned on both elbows on the desk, looking reflective for a moment. “No. But things don’t look good for him. Officially, of course, the agency is looking out for its employee and will support David in any way we can. Unfortunately, he did not show up for work yesterday, or today, and D.C. metro police are rather concerned we might be shielding one of our own. That had best not be the case; make sure that message is conveyed to the right people, as well.”
“What’s our next step?” Carolyn asked.
“We need to find the reporter who leaked the evidence to the NSA, which of course leaked it to us. Multiple parties seem to want her head. We need to know what she’s working on, what the ramifications might be to the agency’s reputation, its ability to move forward proactively.”
“And then what?”
“We decide once we know what’s going on,” he said. “If the story she’s working on has security implications, we get involved. If it’s merely an attempt to damage our reputation… well, there are other approaches that can be taken. Pressure can be brought to bear.”
6./
Fenton-Wright had known something was wrong the moment he’d returned home, after dealing with the Verbish woman. He’d taken care of some minor housekeeping and stopped into the office for a while, then driven home to Spring Valley, a neighborhood in the west of the metro area.
When he arrived, a police officer was knocking on his front door, and he quickly pulled the car into a side street then turned around so that he could park it at an angle that let him view his home. A few moments passed and a second officer walked out from behind the house, shaking his head about something. While the two cops talked, a black sedan pulled up to the curb and parked. He recognized the men who got out, both NSA investigators, colleagues of Mark Fitzpatrick.
He was blown. Somehow, they knew about Faisal, or perhaps about Walter and Myrna.
Fenton-Wright considered his options. He needed a scapegoat, a rationale for taking Khalidi’s money; he needed a way to pin the whole thing on Joe Brennan. He needed an out.
But for once, he was unprepared.
His phone buzzed. The few outside contacts he still had from his younger days had been tapped; hopefully one of them had found something. He opened the email; a former field freelancer in Canada had sent him a note that Brennan was wanted in connection with the shooting of Konyshenko, the Russian arms dealer, in Vancouver.
What the hell was he doing in Vancouver? He followed the thread of the thought back, considering Brennan’s objectives up until that point. He must have pegged Konyshenko as being connected to the missing nuke, Fenton-Wright thought.
It was a puzzle, and he didn’t have all of the pieces, DFW decided. But he knew who did: the reporter, Alex Malone, had been one step ahead of the agency throughout; her sources were impeccable and he was beginning to believe she might even be in
contact with Brennan.
He knew where she lived, had a recent address. Eventually, she’d return home, perhaps sooner rather than later. With few other options, Fenton-Wright began to plan a stakeout.
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
Brennan met Malone at a restaurant near the harbor, where she was busy using her tablet to try and find a source on the New York docks, someone who could keep an eye out until they could get out there.
“So?” she asked as he approached the table. She’d been sipping coffee, waiting to find out if the Liberty Lady was laden with danger. “Anything?”
He shook his head. “Plenty of guards, so there might have been some interesting product in those shipping containers. But nothing radioactive.”
“I heard the sirens. Things got messy?”
“A little bit, yeah. I get the sense, though, that it was only as difficult as it needed to be.”
“Huh?” What was he getting at?
“A half-dozen guys, poorly trained but heavily armed. Enough to make it seem like someone cared…”
“But not enough to actually protect something of real value?” she offered.
“Exactly.”
“So this was for show?”
“Yeah, a way to delay us … but not really.” He looked puzzled.
“What?”
“Well… it’s like Cabinda. When I was being held by Han; if she wasn’t working for the right team, she could have just shot me. Why leave me there? Why give me a chance to get back into the game? Then there’s tonight. If they’re expecting us to inspect the ship, why send a handful of boys to do a man’s job?”
Alex considered the point; he made a lot of sense, but she had no idea what was behind the decisions. “You think we’re being set up somehow, led to a conclusion?”
“It’s possible, yeah. I mean, we were getting nowhere; the second I got close enough to Konyakovich to get some solid intel on what’s really going on, he was iced by a sniper, probably the same shooter as in Europe.”