by Sam Powers
The chamber was functional, a semi-circular table taking up most of the room. It faced a series of screens hosting newscasts and political channels from around the globe. The five others had already arrived, each with the table ahead of them lit, a small card featuring the name of their home nation in small black print but their faces shrouded in the adjacent shadow. The chairman turned in his seat slightly and watched Funomora as he made his way to the last seat, next to La Pierre’s empty chair.
“Now that Japan has graced us with his presence,” the chairman said, “he can perhaps fulfill his obligation as the ACF’s security adviser and explain what happened to France.”
Funomora understood the implication in the chairman’s tone, that somehow he was responsible for what had taken place. Personally, he blamed La Pierre. She was continually inflaming domestic politics in her home country, paying more attention to her supporter base than her responsibilities. The ACF had become accustomed to her absence, despite her stated loyalty. She had spent increasing amounts of time working on environmental issues. Now, her life was under a microscope, which meant outside attention. Outside attention was never particularly welcome.
“I would have thought it obvious,” Funomora said. “France was shot dead by an assassin.”
The chairman leaned towards his microphone. “Perhaps instead of being glib, Japan can explain why this happened and why he did not predict it.”
“My apologies, chairman,” Funomora said. He recognized the chairman’s power and had no desire to make an enemy of the man. Besides, it was counterproductive. The ACF existed to extend the power of its contributors, not to divide them in the same manner as the nations they purported to represent.
“It is my belief at this point that we are dealing with a disgruntled individual, mostly likely someone angry with La Pierre’s domestic politics, and further to that, someone standing to profit from her environmental work being truncated. There is a fairly long list of suspects.”
“Have we had an opportunity yet to confer with our international security partners?” The chairman knew that the ACF had a long reach, supporters and admirers recruited from the ranks of covert intelligence around the globe.
Funomora had spent the entire prior evening at a brothel, but had no intention of sharing that tidbit. “Not as of yet, although experience tells us that at this point those agencies will be modeling hypotheticals and trying to narrow down a list of assailants.”
“Why should it be someone disgruntled?” another panel member asked, his British accent clipped and formal. “And who among them would have the resources and contacts to hire an accomplished assassin?”
Funomora had no idea, no answers. But he’d learned over his lengthy political career that saying something was usually better than saying nothing. He’d also come to understand the massive advantages to protecting the ACF: the members offered diplomatic access to national leaders and security services, and the chairman’s vast family oil reserves could underwrite almost unlimited funding and manpower, the ability to drop into any part of the world and, though force or commerce, affect enough change to meet each member’s requirements. In some cases, that may have simply meant a small change in government policy with great financial benefit down the road; in other, more lawless places, it had meant tactical intervention; and it was done with aplomb, never a hint that the ACF’s efforts had been compromised by international authorities.
“The first part is easy,” the Japanese diplomat said. “La Pierre’s use of division to succeed domestically has united the political left against her. She incited hatred of immigrants, Anglophobia and held an elementally fascist/neo-conservative approach to her role.”
“And the funding for this venture?” the chair asked. “Is there anyone on her enemies list well-heeled enough to put this all together?”
“A few,” Funomora said. “It should not take us long to get an idea of where this originated and who may have made the call.”
The chairman was skeptical. “Perhaps,” he said. “We shall have to wait and see what the security establishment comes up with. For all of our sakes, Japan, we had better hope you are correct.”
Britain spoke up, his tone clipped, upper class. “Is there any reason to believe the ACF’s secrets have been compromised? Could someone be aware of La Pierre’s clandestine activities on our behalf?”
Funomora had been suspicious of ‘Britain’s’ motivations for six months, ever since his replacement of the now deceased ‘America’. He ignored the source of the question. “No, chairman. The group is secure. Of that you can be assured.”
The chairman nodded, but said nothing. He was far less confident in Japan’s security efforts.
China spoke up. “Shall we replace her?”
The chairman shook his head gently. “Not immediately. Eventually, of course, we must grow stronger. But we must ensure, first and foremost, that we maintain secrecy. There are simply too many interested outside participants to make any sort of noise right now. To ongoing business. China…”
“Yes chairman?”
“Can you advise on the situation in Harbin?”
“The suppression of the south city gangs has, as we predicted, been a massive boon to the narcotics sales of their rivals to the north. Along with our consulting fee, we have agreed to the gangs’ request to pressure the regional assembly for a drug crackdown, in order to justify price increases.”
“Excellent,” Khalidi said. “Our Afghan operation are still producing a steady supply?”
“They are, despite competing with Tilo Bustamante’s operations for the best prices on poppies by the ton,” Russia said. “When we cut them off…”
“The blowback will start a war between the two sides that will decimate the Harbin underworld for years,” China said. He leaned forward into the light, turning towards the chairman. “Once again, chairman, masterfully executed.”
Khalidi ignored the compliment. “Britain, have you had any luck on the tobacco issue?”
“Not as yet,” Britain said, his accent clipped, old school Eton or Harrow. “However, my discussions with the Health Minister and others continue. I think we’ll get there.”
“Good, good,” the chairman said, satisfied. “Germany, how are we on the hydrogen fuel cell funding?”
“I continue to exert pressure on the chancellor, chairman,” Germany said, his voice older, more hesistant. There was always something slightly tired about Herr Doktor, Funomora felt. “There is little opposition, in principle, to anything that will help the automotive sector, and the sector owns most of the research into Hydrogen systems. However, some sectors of the cabinet are leery of further inflaming the nation’s relationship with France and Spain.”
Khalidi nodded. “Fine, but don’t let it get away from you, Germany. Gentlemen, we are on the precipice of our most productive year since the ACF’s formation. Let us not let La Pierre’s death deflect us from that fact. We still have much important work to do.”
After the meeting had broken up and the ACF board members had gone their separate ways, the man designated as “Britain” took an older-model, boxy white Renault taxi to Rue Jacob, just a few blocks south of the River Seine in the city’s sixth district. The area was, like most of Paris, flanked by six- and seven-story walkups in light grey concrete, the ground floors mostly devoted to shops, boutiques, cafes and wine bars. The area was also home to a series of chic hotels and the apartment prices were surprisingly affordable for Paris, as far as Abbott was concerned.
The TGV to Paris only took four hours from London these days, which also made the apartment sensible; it wasn’t that Abbott had tired of hotel rooms after years as a diplomat and bureaucrat. It was the mere fact that, despite the French tolerance for marital infidelity, Abbott had no desire for his relationship with a local woman to become public.
He’d worked within the British intelligence community for decades, so he knew better, knew that Annalise was a weakness a man of his stature could ill affo
rd. And yet, he loved her as much, in her own way, as he did his wife. It was selfish; she was thirty years his junior, just reaching middle-age and still extravagantly beautiful.
At the building’s lobby front desk he gestured a greeting to the doorman before taking the adjacent flight of marble stairs to the third floor. He was breathing heavily and cursing his age by the time he reached the apartment. He began to fumble with the lock but before he could insert his key, the door swung inwards.
“Anthony!” She was wearing a dinner gown, already made up for the evening, her honey blonde hair pushed up, eyes made up, lipstick fresh. “I wasn’t expecting you for another half hour.”
“My meeting ended early,” he said, leaning in to kiss her on the cheek. “A spot of dinner up the street, then back here for dessert, hmmh?”
“That sounds lovely,” she said. “Did you bring me back anything nice from London?”
“As a matter of fact…” he said, producing the skinny jewelry box from his inside jacket pocket.
She chewed her lower lip nervously then pulled the little green bow, undoing its knot so that she could open the box. She lifted the lid. The locket was gold, small, wafer thin. Her eyes widened. “It’s lovely,” she said.
He took it from the box and helped her put it on, attaching the little clasp above the fine hairs of her lower neck. “To remind you of me when I can’t be here,” he said.
9./
Oct. 1, 2015, LAKE ACCOTINK, VIRGINIA
Brennan stared over the water, his line dipping just below the surface but immobile, the lake top almost still. He had hoped to land something he could take home to Carolyn for dinner but it had been a multi-hour exercise in frustration.
Callum McLean looked on, amused.
They’d been casting lines off of the bank on the tributary creek that led into Lake Accotink, south of Annandale; they sat on the mossy ground, under the overhanging tree branches, in an area where the grass had been trampled down by repeat visits. The weather was cool and the water was placid, dark green. They’d brought a whole cornucopia of live and artificial bait: crickets, worms, red jigglers; fuzzy leaders and purple divers; but nothing was biting. The lake had been drained a few years earlier but the trout stock was supposed to be getting healthy again.
Brennan checked his friend for a moment and received a placid smile back. Callum was the epitome of a services man; he still got up at dawn, still rolled his clothes to pack them, then rolled them out under the hotel mattress when he traveled to keep them pressed; and he was fitter now than Brennan had been during active duty.
He’d also warned Brennan the creek was so low these days that not much was biting. But he hadn’t listened, figuring he knew the lay of the land better than his ex-SEAL buddy, who’d only moved to Annandale a year earlier. McLean set his rod against a fallen tree trunk but was watching the line, just in case. He’d cracked a ginger ale and was sitting back in a folding chair, watching Brennan cast and recast.
“You can drop bait as many times as you want,” McLean said. “Ain’t going to make the fish magically appear.” McLean knew he could talk to Joe openly, without worrying about offending him. He had stayed in when Brennan discharged seven years earlier; but now his own time in the services had come to an end. They didn’t talk about it much. Both realized how difficult it would be for the larger man. “Besides, it’s too hot for trout now. We should have gotten here earlier in the day.”
Brennan was unconvinced. “Look at all those reeds and rocks: if that’s not trout country right there…”
“It’s not,” McLean said. “For someone trained to be a survival expert, you sure are one lousy fisherman, you know that? You might find a jackfish down there normally, maybe some rock bass. But not in this stream. You notice how few flies there are buzzing the surface? No organic matter to attract them. They may say they restocked this stretch of water, but it sure hasn’t taken yet.”
“You could have told me two hours ago, before we got here.”
“I tried, remember? But you were busy reminding me of how you were an old grizzled country hand who ‘knew this creek like the back of his hand, doggone it’.”
“Uh huh. You knew that was idiotic though, right?”
“Hey, if I stopped you every time you were about to do something dumb you’d never have learned anything in Iraq. Come to think of it, I did, which is why you’re still here. I guess I just haven’t learned yet, either.”
Brennan reeled in, then cast out again, not even bothering to check the condition of his live bait. Both men fell silent for several minutes, the only sound the slight rippling of the water and the birds in the surrounding trees. “Felt weird, watching them burying Bobby,” Brennan finally said. “After everything that went down at Al Basrah, I’d figured we’d lost him a long time ago. But he almost made it; he almost got it together again.”
McLean nodded but said nothing. He’d already brought up Chief Warrant Officer Terry Corcoran’s aborted mission once that week, and knew how difficult it was for Brennan.
His friend had had confidence in the Chief, trust. He’d helped keep him alive, too, through a second tour in the Gulf. Then they’d been assigned to help take back an offshore pipeline control facility, one of two teams of SEALS who stole in under cover of darkness to ‘liberate’ the key facility from Saddam Hussein’s forces.
They’d taken the control room within an hour, as ordered, and rounded up the Iraqis, locking them away in a storage room, unarmed and dressed only in their underwear, waiting for a larger force to arrive and secure the place long-term. But during the short gun battle, the second unit had disappeared into the bowels of the facility. When they didn’t respond to radio hails, Brennan had volunteered to go find them.
What he’d discovered instead was a massive vault, filled with some of the late dictator’s obscenely large collection of stolen art, jewels and gold – and Corcoran leading the second unit as it pillaged the place. He’d struck a deal with his friend, a warrant officer nicknamed Paddy, that they’d divide the spoils without reporting the find.
Brennan had played it by the book, threatening to report them, and things had come to a head quickly, weapons drawn, all pointed at one another. Then Bobby had gone looking for Brennan at McLean’s request; he had almost reached the vault when a figure carrying a weapon had burst out of one of the offices. Bobby opened fire, center mass, without thinking. The child, a son of one of the Iraqi officers who had been widowed during the U.S. bombing campaign, died instantly.
Eventually, they’d diffused the situation in the vault and the find had been reported, though Corcoran had insisted Brennan would have a target on his back for life. The only real casualties had been the little boy and Bobby’s mental health. He was never the same after that, McLean thought.
“He liked you a lot, you know,” McLean said. “He admired you.”
Brennan smiled at that. Bobby had been a great guy once, a long time ago. And Callum was the best friend he’d ever had, a brother, someone he could tell anything. He was surprised they’d been out for two whole hours, and his buddy hadn’t raised his stalled agency career.
As if on cue, McLean used one of his giant hands to set the ginger ale can down. “You know, you could always re-enlist.”
“If I wanted, I still couldn’t,” Brennan said. “One particular guy at the agency has me dangling; he’s had me dangling for two years now. I get the paycheck and I guess one day I’ll get the pension, but I’m permanently inactive.” He tried not to sound bitter. It was what it was, as Walter liked to say. “What about you? You figure out what you’re going do now that you’re out?”
McLean told Brennan how tough it was to go back to civilian life. “I’ve been doing some consulting but it’s tough, you know. I don’t really have business contacts. There’s just not a lot out there for me,” he said. “I mean, I can kill a guy eight different ways before he looks at me funny, but that doesn’t do you much good in the business world. I can field strip and reas
semble an M60 in a minute, but I know jack shit about computers. I can survive for days with nothing, but I don’t know how to get a bank to give me a business loan.”
Brennan thought about it. What was he supposed to tell his friend? His own changeover had been problematic, at best. He’d found himself working part-time as a mechanic, and the merciful switch to the Agency had come after it approached him. Maybe Callum needed the same.
“Not that I’d recommend it, given my situation, but you could always…”
“No,” McLean said before he finished the thought. “Once I’m done, I’m done. I’ve found a few freelance security jobs so far; it’s enough. It’s not perfect, but it’s enough. That’s the deal. No more working for the commander-in-chief. I guess if things really go to shit I could always go back and teach. Annapolis is always looking for qualified instructors; I could go bust some midshipman ass for a while. Make me feel better, if nothing else.”
“How is Ellen taking things?”
McLean shrugged. “She’s good, I guess. It’s weird, and I almost don’t want to admit this, but when I was in, all I could think about was getting out, getting home and spending time with her. Now that I’ve got an endless supply of it, I find myself trying to get away, taking any work I can find, anything involving security, the military, training; it’s like I just can’t relate to all the normal stuff she’s talking about. Michael’s troubles with his schoolwork, and her parents visiting, and the mortgage and… it just feels sort of like I’m stuck in someone’s dream and around the next corner, it’ll turn into a nightmare. Or worse, it won’t change at all.”