by Sam Powers
The Russian wagged a finger. “This I know is incorrect; Abubakar the Chechen died in a bus explosion in Peru…”
Brennan shook his head. “A dupe. A double.”
“Polnyi Pizdets…” Miskin muttered. “You are certain?”
“I talked to him not six weeks ago, right before a South Korean agent put a bullet through his head and stole the item in question from his Angolan headquarters.”
A handler came over to the stage and whispered in Miskin’s ear. “We must begin soon, my American friend, but we will talk after the speech, yes? We can discuss how best to go forward from here.”
Brennan kept the bluff going. “Fine, but we need to talk about your friend Dmitri Konyakovich, as well. He may have brokered a deal between Abubakar and the South Korean – I’m not sure who she represents.”
Miskin looked worried. “Konyakovich… he always spells trouble for me. But we’ll talk about it soon. Now, I must talk about economics, unfortunately.” Miskin turned and headed back to the head table.
Brennan began to walk to the back of the room. He noticed the small window in the upper balcony, doubtless where a movie projector was set up. If a sniper needed a great shot, he reasoned, that would be the spot.
But…
He looked around the room. There were only two exits: the main set of double doors and a fire exit to the left of the stage. It meant a difficult egress or evac if things went wrong. The shooter in France had been careful.
Perhaps Fenton-Wright was correct for a change; perhaps Miskin was relatively safe in the confines of the auditorium. Brennan made his way to the back of the room and found a seat on the aisle, and waited.
When the asset arrived in Russia, he knew that at some point in the following days, he might have been hunted by the authorities. And so he took a precaution: he became a local, using Russian papers to enter the country, growing a full beard, and dyeing his hair brown. With glasses added, a false paunch and a slow, wide walking gait, he looked entirely like he might be Evgeny Fyodor Anteropov, as his documents suggested.
On the following morning, he’d left his modest hotel to walk to a coffee shop near the speech, ordering an herbal tea. A man walked by his table and bent slightly at the knees as he passed, putting the long, hard-sided case down before moving on. The delivery was precise, as his associates had suggested would be the case.
Fifteen minutes before Miskin’s speech was scheduled to start, the asset was climbing the ladder back up to the rooftop, the case attached to his back. This time, there were enough people within sight of the building that he had to crawl over to the rifle, or risk questions. He reached the rifle and sighted through the scope. The lectern was still empty, but people were moving about inside.
He checked his watch. It was still light, and sunset wasn’t until six forty-five, another hour away. He rechecked the wind and readjusted his scope in tiny increments. He checked the room again; people had sat down, but the lectern was still…
There. A man he didn’t recognize was speaking. For a moment, the asset wondered if something had gone wrong. He waited, conscious that his breath was heavy. He breathed in through his nose then out through his mouth, slowing his heart rate and calming down. He re-sighted the podium, just as the stranger finished introducing Miskin. The beefy Russian delegate placed a speech or reference sheet of some sort onto the podium, smiled and waved to the audience. The asset could hear the cheers clean through the old building’s brick walls and nearly two hundred yards away, a dull roar. He sighted through the scope again, and Miskin was holding up both hands, trying to get the crowd to calm down so that he could begin.
Brennan had waited nervously for a half hour, watching the people file into the auditorium, as well as keeping an eye on Miskin’s security detail to ensure they were paying attention. At the last, just minutes before the Russian delegate’s speech was slated to begin, he decided to obey his instincts and check out the movie projection room, to be sure it was empty. It was. Brennan went back to his seat to wait for the beginning of the address.
He scanned the room again; now that everyone was sitting down, it was easier to get a good look. It was always possible the shooter would try for something close range – Brennan sure as heck didn’t believe that Hans-Karl Wilhelm’s death had been an accident, which mean a sniper MO wasn’t guaranteed.
He didn’t see anyone out of the ordinary or untoward; mostly, it was college students and instructors. But he had that nervous tension again, that feeling that he was missing something vital.
Miskin was being introduced, the Dean of Political Science praising his political and commercial acumen. He made a polite joke and everyone chuckled, Miskin included. Brennan turned his head to the left slightly and saw the last light of the day cutting through the cracks in the barely open windows, thin beams of light just visible at the edge of the window frame, like a subtle glow.
The windows. He looked at the lectern, then at the windows. He got up and made his way outside quickly; he glanced back at the auditorium then followed the line of sight back across the campus. It would take a hell of a shot, but… there was a two-story building a few hundred yards away. He followed the edge of the rooftop looking for anything that broke the even line of the brick.
Brennan wouldn’t have seen it but for the slight recoil of the rifle as the shooter squeezed the trigger. The barrel kicked upwards slightly. A moment later, people inside the auditorium began to scream.
“No!” Brennan said. He sprinted towards the two-story building. There were people passing by on the campus paths, their heads already craning towards the auditorium because of the muffled cries from that direction. Brennan pointed towards the building across the way. “Shooter on the roof !” he yelled, pointing that way but not slowing down. “On the roof!” Caught in the adrenaline of the moment, the warning was useless: he’d yelled it in English.
He made it to the building, but the front doors were locked. He ran around to the back and saw the ladder immediately. He glanced away from the building, scanning the area for anyone moving. He spotted the sprinting figure a moment later as he entered the parking lot. Brennan gave chase, but the man was several hundred yards ahead already. He got into a parked car and for a moment, Brennan got a slight glance: brown hair, a beard, glasses, heavyset. The car backed out of its spot in a screech of rubber, before gunning forward and out onto the street, taking a hard left and disappearing from Brennan’s field of view behind taller buildings.
Brennan backtracked to the building. It was possible the shooter had left something useful behind, maybe an ejected casing or a bootprint, or …
A police officer ran out from cover on the building’s right side. He had his sidearm drawn and leveled at Brennan. “Get down!” he yelled in Russian. “Get down now!”
MAY 29, 2016, MOSCOW
Brennan was surprised; he’d heard horror stories from other guys in intelligence about Russian jail cells but so far, it was beating the hell out of Angola. It was clean, the cot was bug-free and he was getting two solid meals a day. He sat on the cot, stared at the bars, and waited.
On the downside, they hadn’t shown any inclination after seventy-two hours to afford him his consular rights and a visit from the embassy, or legal counsel. If they were planning on letting him go any time soon, the Moscow Police weren’t dropping hints. But he wondered why they were still holding him at all; if his papers hadn’t held up to scrutiny, surely they’d have come down harder, he told himself.
Eventually, a guard approached his cell door. “You,” he said in Russian. “Up.”
He went through the same routine for three straight days. He would be directed to a soundproof room, and would sit across a plain steel table from a nicely dressed detective named Victor Semenov, and a man whom nobody identified nor questioned, and who reminded Brennan vaguely of David Fenton-Wright.
“Mr. Taylor,” Semenov said. He had a thin neck and bony skull, his hairline almost gone. “I trust you slept well last nigh
t.”
“They left the lights on in my cell, so no,” Brennan said. In fact, he’d slept just fine. He was trained to undergo far worse than a bright room. But if they hadn’t cracked his phony papers, he was a clothing salesman with some sort of penchant for danger, not someone who stayed cool under pressure.
“My apologies,” Semenov said. “I will speak to the warden and ensure it does not happen again tonight.”
“So you’re not letting me out?”
“Unfortunately, that is not up to me.”
“I should be allowed to contact my embassy; I should be allowed to contact a lawyer.”
“It is true, you most definitely should,” Semenov said. “Should this become a formal inquiry instead of mere friendly questioning, we will ensure your representatives are contacted.”
“You can’t hold me indefinitely…”
“Oh, but under Russian law, when someone is suspected of being a terrorist or in league with a terrorist, we most certainly can, Mr. Taylor.” In the other chair, the silent observer betrayed a hint of a smile and crossed his legs. “Now perhaps you can dissuade us of that notion,” Semenov demanded, “by telling us how you knew there was a sniper on the roof of the university science building? We know you did not pull the trigger, as you were adjacent to the building when caught, and had no gloves on. Yet the rifle – American made, I might add – was free of fingerprints or identifying marks of any sort beyond the barrel rifling.”
Brennan squinted at him. “The what?”
“Never mind,” the inquisitor said. “It’s not important. People who were in the square, they said you were yelling in English right before Miskin was shot…”
“No, that’s wrong. Right after.”
“Why were you even there? Surely a speech on geopolitics in Russian could be of little interest to a suit salesman from …” He checked his notes quickly, “…Akron, Ohio.”
“As I told the night shift version of you, I met Mr. Miskin at a political benefit in Washington. My company donates generously to the political parties. I thought he might be able to smooth the way for me here to become an official government supplier, to the military and other functions. Russia is big business these days.”
“What were you yelling outside the auditorium?”
“I saw the sniper on the roof. So I yelled ‘sniper’. I forgot about the language barrier in the excitement of it.
“Why did you go outside in the first place, Mr. Taylor?”
“Well… as you said, the subject matter was very dry. I knew I was going to get five minutes with Mr. Miskin after the session, and we chatted for a few minutes before…”
“Some people in the audience confirmed seeing you talk with him.”
“There you go.”
The questions continued for another hour. At the end, the inquisitor excused himself.
He came back about twenty minutes later. “We’ve contacted the American Embassy on your behalf. They will have someone around to pick you up later today or early tomorrow. While there is nothing to indicate your involvement in this matter goes beyond the cursory, Mr. Taylor, we admit to some suspicion based on your odd behavior. However, as we have no evidence in this matter to link you to Mr. Miskin’s death, we are obliged to release you. My helpful advice would be to head back to Montpellier, from whence you came, or perhaps even America.”
“Was that supposed to substitute for an apology for holding me for three days?”
The detective smiled. Then he walked back out of the examination room, followed closely by his silent, nameless friend.
JUNE 2, 2016, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Myrna sat quietly drinking her coffee at the dining room table and watched Alex type. Her young friend has been working on the story for three hours, occasionally pausing to look something up in her notes or online. The apartment lights were muted, just a lamp near the couch and the short bank of lights over the kitchen breakfast bar.
“I just think it might be a mistake to tip your hand this early,” Myrna said. “At least if you could wait to talk to Joe…”
Malone didn’t look up. “Nope. Miskin’s shooting might have been prevented if I’d have written something a month ago instead of being holed up here…”
“But who knows how much work you’re jeopardizing,” Myrna said. “Joe might…”
“Joe has been gone for two months. This thing is out there, other journalists are working on it. You can be sure of that. And I have a job to do. Look, you know I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. But I have to tell this story now, while most of those involved are still alive.”
“What are you going to say?”
“That an international industrialist is running a star chamber, acting as judge, jury and executioner, and benefiting from it personally, using political contacts from at least a half-dozen nations. That other members of his ACF aided and abetted that behavior in Bosnia, East Timor and Harbin, China. That Khalidi tried to fund insurrections in Africa.”
“He’ll deny everything, of course.”
“Sure.”
“And you’re okay with hanging this stuff on your anonymous federal source? How does your magazine feel about that?”
“They trust me.” Malone got the sense Myrna would keep trying to talk her out of it. “Look, at some point this stuff has to go on the record. I mean, what if the botched Africa mission was what prompted the sniper? It could be a merc or the friend of a merc who was killed there. And in the meantime, whoever doesn’t want this published is trying to kill me. I think we can all pretty much figure out who that might be.”
“They’re going to redouble their efforts to find you, you know,” Myrna said. “I just hope you realize what you’re wading into.”
“I do.”
Myrna smiled and got up to get them each a refill of coffee. “Then publish, and damn the rest,” she said. “The right people are on your side, Alex. But we do worry.”
So did Malone. In fact, she wasn’t likely to tell Myrna, but the entire story was scaring her witless.
JUNE 3, 2016, MONTPELLIER, FRANCE
When she published and the story broke, the reaction was predictable outrage. Khalidi expressed immediate umbrage at any suggestion he was overextending his influence and called it fiction; the EU was outraged that various European diplomats had worked with the Jordanian on allegedly dubious projects; the British government was the only party on the first day with the audacity to demand an explanation from Khalidi about his funding of African insurgents, and of Fung to explain the gang issues in Harbin.
The story even listed Kalispell as a dummy company, a fundraising front for PetroGlobal.
Khalidi scheduled a press conference in Montpellier. The chairman railed against the story, calling it a “malicious work of fiction” that was “designed to destabilize companies that employ thousands. The ongoing attacks appear personally motivated by this reporter,” he said, “who I believe is an Islamiphobe.”
After the speech portion, reporters questioned the sheikh’s son for several minutes, but he was evasive. One asked whether he had any knowledge of Kalispell funneling money to Africa, and Khalidi claimed to not know he owned the company. “I have many holdings, you must understand,” he said. “This makes me vulnerable to the manipulations of the press.”
But what about the allegations of involvement in domestic insurrections, a reporter asked. How did Khalidi justify such behavior?
“The reporter, Ms. Malone, has drawn very tenuous and highly imaginative links between a handful of tragedies and their proximity at the time to business holdings of some of my associates. We feel these accusations are baseless and without merit. However, we will afford Ms. Malone the same courtesy as any other member of the press and we take her concerns seriously, with respect to internal process audits of our holdings.”
Did that mean there might be truth to the allegations, one reporter asked.
“No, I do not think there is any truth to them. However, when vested wi
th significant public responsibility, we must ensure due diligence.”
There were multiple questions about the shooting of Miskin. Would the members of the ACF board all go into protective custody? Would they recommend the group’s dissolution?
“Absolutely not, absolutely not,” Khalidi told the press. “Ladies and gentlemen, let’s not conflate this story into something it is not – strongly sourced, reliable material. The ACF is merely a business lobby group, nothing more. As I’ve said, let’s wait for the independent review, which we will establish in short order.”
“But how should the international community react to such inflammatory allegations?” a reporter near the back asked.
“I would hope with measured reason,” Khalidi said calmly. “There’s a reason all of our members are – or were – diplomats, people entrusted to represent entire nations. And I would urge political leaders to keep this in mind.”
After the press conference, Khalidi returned to his suite at a local hotel. He excused all of his staff save for Faisal. “How are Fung and Funomora reacting to the increased security?” he asked, skipping any preamble and getting to business.
“They are understandably upset, sir.”
“And our EU friends?”
“Also upset. The allegations regarding Africa…”
“Are true. We are both aware that some of my subsidiaries engaged in… less than ethical behavior in their quest to expand. And we are aware that when discovered, my chief executive office had them fired.”
“Of course, sir,” Faisal said, finding the idea that the fastidious, paranoid Khalidi would have allowed it to take place without knowing absolutely absurd. Khalidi had asked for solutions in Africa, Faisal had offered the advice, and his employer’s company had followed that advice. But now, dissonance was kicking in; with each passing day Khalidi judged himself to be less and less responsible.
“What can I do about it now?” Khalidi continued. “Our agent in Washington failed to quell this at the source. Eventually, reporters will find other evidence linking Kalispell to the African issues. And then there is…”