FALLOUT ZONE (Joe Brennan Trilogy Book 3)

by Sam Powers

  And that was just scraping the surface.

  She sighed a little, both tired and dismayed. Malone knew what she had to do. She got up and found her phone on the nightstand; then she dialed Kenny.

  “Hey boss … yeah… yeah, I know, me too…but we have to kill it. We have to kill the story, just go with the basic wire piece for now, on the site. Something’s up. Look… yeah… I know, but look, just trust me on this. We can’t get this wrong. The stakes are too high. Besides, everybody else is going to draw the wrong conclusions. Think how good we’ll look when we get it right.”

  She’d barely gotten off the line when her phone rang. “Yeah?”

  “It’s Brennan.”

  “Joe! Where the hell are you? You didn’t make the flight back…”

  “I had something to take care of and some things to check out. So you’re in D.C.?”

  “Yeah. What’s going on?”

  “Checking into some loose ends,” he said. “You file a story yet?”

  “Yeah...”

  “Kill it. Like I said, loose ends.”

  The tone was decisive. Tired as she was, Malone’s reporter instincts kicked in. “You know, don’t you? You know what’s actually going on.”

  “Yeah. And I’m so goddamned tired of running, Alex. Get your tape recorder out. There are a few things you need to know.”

  In the end, Malone wasn’t surprised that her part in the whole thing came down to meeting with her same secret source, away from prying eyes and the Capitol Hill crowd.

  Only this time, it was at a small pub about twenty blocks away, a favorite of an old friend of Joe Brennan’s. Walter would have wanted to be there, Malone thought as she walked into the bar with Ken Davis at her side. Myrna, too.

  The place was busy, lots of young college types hanging around drinking the cheap eight-ounce glasses of draft. Fitzpatrick was at the back of the bar, in a booth by himself. He had a glass of water in front of him but looked otherwise unfazed by the events of the days prior.

  “Ms. Malone, Mr. Davis,” he said, raising the glass. “To a job well done. Please, join me.” He motioned to the bench seat across the table.

  Alex was composed. She’d had a few hours’ sleep, finally. “Well, that’s a tempting offer, Mark,” she said. “But I thought you’d like to see the headline we put together for a special edition of the magazine.”

  She tossed the mockup onto the table. Addison March’s face grinned back, almost taking up the whole page. The headline indicted him thoroughly.

  Fitzpatrick grinned, a rare show of emotion. “Spectacular,” he said. “Absolutely perfect.” He picked it up and nodded approvingly. “I especially love the picture you used. He looks like such a stereotypical evil Republican robber baron type. Just perfect.”

  “I guess you’ll be disappointed, then, because it’s never going to run,” Davis said. The editor picked up the cover mockup and folded it into two, then in half again. “In fact, for posterity’s sake, I’m just going to hang onto this.” He put it into his coat pocket.

  Malone peered at him. “You have weird priorities sometimes, boss.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Fitzpatrick asked. “Alex, what is this…?”

  “You can stow the act,” Malone said. “We know you hired Callum McLean and Terrence Corcoran – your old CO back in the day, right, Paddy?”

  Fitzpatrick’s face was cold, impenetrable. “That’s pretty clever, Ms.Malone. Mr. Brennan, I presume?”

  “Once I told him you were my source, he looked you up. As cover agent, he’d had virtually zero dealings with the NSA, so he didn’t make the connection until he saw your photo.”

  Fitzpatrick leaned back against the rear corner of the booth, relaxed and confident, beer in hand. “It’s a shame that connection will do you no good. Corcoran is unlikely to testify on anyone’s behalf, as you’re well aware, and Callum McLean was so unfortunately shot by his old Navy buddy, Joe Brennan.”

  She could have sworn the corners of his mouth twitched slightly, as if he was suppressing a gleeful smile. He was pure poison, Malone thought, and he had to go down. “Yeah, about that…” she said.

  She looked back towards the door. Callum and Nicholas Wilkie entered together, alone with a pair of police officers. Callum walked slowly over to the table. He was still recovering from the bullet wound to his shoulder, with one arm in a sling.

  “Paddy,” Callum said, nodding towards him.

  “Well,” Fitzpatrick said. “Well, well. It seems news of your demise was greatly exaggerated.”

  “Oh yeah, no doubt. You underestimated Joe; not that he’d take the shot even if he knew it was me. He would have, in the circumstances. Joe’s nothing if not about doing his duty, so you were right about that. I see him, I pause because of who it is, he takes me out. He closes the information loop for you. But you severely underestimated how good a shot he is from fifty yards, on the run. We didn’t even get a good look at each other before he put me down.”

  “What have you told them, Callum? I’m sure he’s come up with all sorts of stories to try and account for his complicity in this,” Fitzpatrick said.

  “I told them what you offered me: a chance to get revenge against the men who got away with my sister’s murder.”

  “This is all complete nonsense, of course,” Fitzpatrick said. “Some vague association we had twenty years ago, a conspiracy theory.”

  “I have evidence; wire transfers to my account, recordings of your voice claiming this was an off-the-books mission, making it sound official.”

  The NSA man had a shocked look, and it immediately struck Malone for its naïveté.

  “And I have pictures of our meetings in the parkade,” Alex said. “Then there were the tips you offered, each designed to get us closer to the target, but each a little off, or coming up empty like in Seattle; everything pushing us closer to Khalidi, then the ties between Khalidi and Addison March. The donation that you check washed and redirected via a plant in the March campaign – which is what Christopher Enright figured out. There’s a hotel security camera that has footage of him meeting Agent Park in the hotel bar, by the way.”

  “Well…” Fitzpatrick said.

  “Well indeed. You led us on a chase, Mark,” Alex said. “You used Callum’s grief, and Corcoran’s greed. But the techs have examined the weapon. It would never have gone off. That was why you had to kill Konyakovich and Park, close the information loop. This was never about an attack. It was about winning a campaign, ruining a candidate’s reputation. Joe Brennan was supposed to see Callum and take him down, his sense of duty giving him the drop on Callum’s remorse. You probably had Khalidi’s murder arranged, as well. And the public is left believing that a man running for president almost financed a nuclear terrorist.”

  The NSA man had a look of futility. “I want my lawyer,” Fitzpatrick said. “And then I want to cut a deal.”

  July 8, 2016

  MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE, 10:26 p.m.

  Four days later, the attempted terrorist attack continued to dominate the television news, and like the faithful braying sheep they were, the broadcast journalists spent hour after hour outlining the story that had been leaked on the day: that Ahmed Khalidi’s money purchased a dirty bomb, that his radical associates tried to blow up New York … and that Republican presidential candidate Addison March was a supporter.

  Sen. John Younger had been following the coverage religiously, watching his opponent’s reputation disintegrate before his very eyes. He sat alone in his hotel room, smiling, his tie undone and a scotch and ice in one hand. He was, he had already decided, having the single finest week of his life.

  March had held several press conferences to angrily deny the associations, but the paper trail made it impossible. Every day of that week there had been calls – demands, even – for his resignation not only from the presidential race, in which he was now thirty points behind and dropping quickly, but from his House seat as well.

  Young
er took a fat cigar from his pocket, a King Edward Invincible corona, thick and musky. He bit one end off, then spit the tobacco into his hand and put it in the ashtray on the table. Then he took out his lighter and proceeded to puff, glad that he could have a smoke away from the glare of the campaign spotlight.

  The lighter flame flickered heavily, then blew out. Younger turned his head to follow the source of the gust. The tall, sealed hotel window had been forced open, and a man had just finished climbing through it, dressed all in black.

  He had a silenced pistol in one hand.

  “Senator,” Brennan said.

  Younger looked at the gun. “Are you going to shoot me?”

  “This is the part where I’m supposed to tell you that you won’t get away with it. That we know Mark Fitzpatrick was working on your behalf when he planned and executed everything.”

  “And I suppose I’m supposed to cower in fear and repent my sins? Is that it, Mr….?”

  “You can call me whatever you want,” Brennan said. “It doesn’t really matter. Fitzpatrick told us everything: how you planned the sniper shootings to draw America into this, knowing of Lord Abbott’s role as an undercover agent and Khalidi’s tie to the weapon. One investigation would meld perfectly into the other. You led me on a hell of a chase.”

  The senator slowly swallowed the rest of the glass of scotch. “Not that anyone would believe any of this nonsense,” he said. “I assume you must be here to arrest me, if Mark had some sort of evidence to support this flight of fancy.”

  “He doesn’t,” Brennan said. “He tried to cut a deal, give you up in exchange for a lighter sentence. But he had nothing really to give, except claiming a series of meetings, instructions from you.”

  “Ah,” Younger said. Then his face soured as he realized the alternative. “That would explain the entrance through the window, then. So you’re here with a silenced gun, but you’re not here to arrest me.”

  “No senator.”

  “It doesn’t occur to you that Fitzpatrick is trying to save his own skin? I mean, certainly, he offered guidance and advice to me when I sat on the NSC, and he was a loyal supporter…”

  “He took a polygraph, senator. And he passed.”

  The color had begun to drain from Younger’s face. “A polygraph wouldn’t be admissible evidence in court,” he said haltingly.

  “I’m not here to arrest you, like I said,” Brennan reminded him. “But sometimes we have to work around the law. We have no evidence with which to prosecute you, Senator Younger, nothing to prevent you from continuing on in your presidential campaign, which you would doubtless win. And I’m not your judge and jury.”

  “Then…”

  “I’m just the executioner,” Brennan said. He raised the pistol and fired.

  EPILOGUE./

  July 9, 2016, WASHINGTON, D.C.,

  For the first time in her career, Malone put a story to bed knowing part of it was a lie.

  When the public read that week’s edition of News Now, they would learn that Mark Fitzgerald had arranged the sniper attacks and the failed nuclear threat, all under the guidance of presidential candidate Sen. John Younger, with the fallout designed to engulf Khalidi – a known Muslim radical – and Republic candidate Addison March. Upon learning his role would come out publicly, Younger had committed suicide via a single gunshot to the head.

  Of course, the last part wasn’t true. She’d heard all of Fitzgerald’s interrogation statements, given access as part of her deal with the agency, a deal that would see the deceased Younger rightly take the blame in her exclusive, while Malone ignored the fact that Fitzgerald’s statements had contained not one shred of hard evidence against the late politician.

  She sat at her desk reading the edition, just delivered from the printing plant. So much else had been excluded from the piece; there was no mention of Joe Brennan, or Walter Lang, or the agent known as Fawkes. But the story was solid, a labyrinthian tale of crooked companies, smuggling and spies.

  “You look happy.” She looked over the top of the magazine. Ken Davis had taken the seat across from her.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I am,” she said.

  “I know you don’t like cutting deals…”

  “But this was different, I know.”

  “Look…” He paused for a moment.

  “Yeah?”

  “I just want to apologize for making this harder on you than it had to be. I should have trusted you more.”

  “You were just doing your job.”

  He nodded. “Sure. But you were going above and beyond that, Alex. A lot of people… they probably won’t remember the byline tomorrow. But they’ll remember the story, even if they don’t know you helped save a lot of lives.”

  She blushed, embarrassed. “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say to that.”

  “Say you’ll be back at work next week. We need you.”

  She smiled. “I’ll be back at work next week.”

  “Well good,” he said, rising. “But if I were you I’d cool it on hanging out with spies for a while.”

  She thought about Joe, about how he’d told her just a night earlier how much he wanted to get home. “I don’t think that will be a problem,” she said. “I think, for now, everything is good.”

  Carolyn sat at the kitchen island and sipped on her coffee. Ellen McLean had visited earlier in the evening, driving back home after a get-together that had been nothing short of miserable. They’d told her that her husband had been duped, tricked into serving what he thought was a government paymaster. But it didn’t matter; he’d admitted he knew it was wrong anyway, technically unsanctioned, that he’d done it to avenge his sister.

  And so he was still going to jail. The only question was for how long.

  It was just after ten; the kids had just gone to bed, and she waited for the phone to ring. Despite everything that had gone down in the few prior days, she still hadn’t heard from Joe. He had to be hurting, tired, not just from what she’d gathered from the news reports, but for what had happened to his best friend. How would he deal with it? And did it mean more time away from them, away from his family, more of his fear that he might expose them to his other life?

  The front door lock turned. It opened slowly, a figure stepping into the house quietly, trying not to wake anyone.

  “Joe?” she said.

  He stepped out of the hallway and into the living room, a suitcase in one hand, a gym bag in the other. He looked tired, thinner. Older.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi back,” she said. She went to him, put her arms around his neck and he leaned in, kissing his wife gently on the lips.

  “I missed you,” he said. “I missed you and the kids so much…”

  “I know,” she said. Before the assignment had begun, six months earlier, they’d been fighting, stressed, frustrated and tired of one another. Now, in the dark and quiet of the evening, they stared into each other’s eyes and forgot all about that. They remembered that they lived for each other, for their family.

  Brennan smiled and kissed her again. It made it all worth it, he knew, to be with his family; to see those he loved, safe and sound.

  THE END

  From Sam: Thanks for reading “FALLOUT ZONE!” I hope you enjoyed the Brennan Trilogy. If you get a moment, please help me out by leaving a review.