The Rotten State: A John Flynn Thriller

by Stewart, A. J.

He left one such meeting about budgets for something or other and checked one of his phones. His secure line. There were no messages—there never were—but there were no missed calls either. Ager had still not checked in. Not the previous evening, not during the night, not all morning. Interrogations could take a long time, but they had rhythms. Interrogators took breaks, either to let the subject stew or for another interrogator to try his hand, to keep the pressure up. There was plenty of time for Ager to call.

  Unless he couldn’t. Klaasen couldn’t imagine how such a scenario might come to be, but he couldn’t discount it either. That would be head-in-the-sand stuff, and he was a pragmatist, a realist.

  He didn’t know where Ager was. He had no idea where the safe house was. That was operationally sound, plausible deniability. It might have been one of the DSIS’s own off-the-books locations, or it might have been one that Ager had set up himself. That was good protocol. Firewalls within firewalls.

  As he strode along the bright white corridor, he called another number. Another agent. Ager was Klaasen’s man. He trusted Ager with his life, and Ager had come through. But he also cultivated multiple options, just in case.

  “Ja,” said the voice.

  “I need you to do something.”

  “Of course.”

  “How ready is your unit?”

  “Always ready.”

  Klaasen stepped through his office foyer and into his personal office. He didn’t sit. He needed to make sure they were ready. Not operationally ready. He knew who these men were and how they had been trained. They were ready for action. But he needed more. He needed them to be ready to do what he needed them to do, whenever he needed them to do it. He had primed the team leader first, had taken him under his wing, ensured promotion, and then a little cash here and there. Then when his team leader had told him his unit was amenable, he had done the same for them. It was a long, cautious process. He had not served with these men, not like Ager. He needed these men to believe that his word and the needs of Denmark were one and the same, and if an apparent conflict appeared, it was his word that stood. Money usually did it but not always. Not with soldiers. He had chosen carefully, primed cautiously, but now he needed to know.

  “I mean, how ready?”

  “I know what you mean. We are ready.”

  “All right. You’re in play. First I need you to find George Ager. Do you know him?”

  “Of course.”

  “He’s at one of our locations, or maybe one of his. Could you find it?”

  “We have ways. What do you want to do with him?”

  “Nothing. Just find him. Make sure he’s okay, and if he’s not, let me know ASAP.”

  “Should he remain okay?”

  Klaasen paused. Ager had been his man for a long time. He wondered if the feeling was mutual.

  “For now,” he said. “Just report. And have your men ready.”

  “We are ready.”

  * * *

  Flynn kept walking and thinking. A local dispute had gotten a whole lot bigger. The prime minister’s office changed things. He called Gorski as he marched.

  “Is Thorsen with you?”

  “I’ll put you on speaker,” said Gorski.

  “I’m here,” said Thorsen.

  Flynn explained his contact with Margret Zazou.

  “I remember her,” said Gorski. “She was a pain in the backside.”

  Gorski had issues with rules and laws and people who were inflexible around them.

  “But I trusted her,” said Flynn.

  “Me too,” said Thorsen.

  “I didn’t say I didn’t trust her,” said Gorski.

  “So she won’t or can’t tell me who owns this mobile number. Can you find out?”

  Thorsen said, “Probably. Tracing might not be possible. Depends on the tech.”

  “Let’s find out who it is first,” said Flynn. “The other number is the prime minister’s office.”

  “Are you serious?” said Thorsen.

  “Very.”

  “What are you worried about?” asked Gorski. “He’s just a man like everybody else.”

  “A man with an army and a police force and a bureaucracy behind him,” said Flynn. “We should tread carefully.”

  “This is way beyond a land development deal,” said Thorsen.

  “It is. There’s more, but it’s not relevant now. For now, check these two numbers—find out the one and confirm the other.”

  “I’m on it,” said Thorsen.

  “Gorski, what’s the sitrep?”

  “All quiet on the western front. Lund has one guy on the road to the village watching the comings and goings, of which there are very few. I think old Lund might be getting low on manpower.”

  “I do too, but he’s got two more down here that I suspect will be returning to base ASAP. Thorsen, if we need to evac, is there somewhere for everyone in the community to go?”

  “Yes, I suppose. Perhaps not all together, but yes, we can get them away. Do you think we need to worry about that?”

  “Be prepared, that’s what the Boy Scouts say. If Lund’s guys come back, he might make a move. Just be ready.”

  “We’ll be ready,” said Gorski.

  * * *

  The lone guy sitting in the Land Rover about five hundred meters down the road answered his phone on the second ring.

  “What’s happening?” asked Lund.

  “Nothing. No one’s doing anything. The American hasn’t returned.”

  “The American is in Copenhagen still. Now he’s armed. He took a shot at Søndergaard and Dahl.”

  “I don’t have a gun.”

  “Don’t worry about that right now,” said Lund. “Søndergaard and Dahl are on their way back here. I’ve only got one guy with me, so I can’t relieve you, but as soon as they’re back, we’ll tool up.”

  “And then what?”

  “We’ll take care of business here and then go find that son of a bitch in the city.”

  * * *

  Flynn had time to kill before meeting with Margret. He had agreed to meet at a location of his choosing, but he did so knowing that the die was not cast. Not turning up was still a live option. He had to accept that her setting him up was a possibility. If she thought he was breaking the law, leading her on a wild goose chase, then she would not hesitate to throw the book at him. She had almost been forced to forgive any transgressions she might have seen from him and his unit back in the day purely because of their location and her remit. Things didn’t work the same in the deserts of Iraq or the mountains of Afghanistan. But the excuse no longer held true.

  The addition of the prime minister’s office into the equation escalated things plenty and explained why she might have gotten orders from on high to protect someone. But then why tell him about it at all? And why do it on a burner phone? Was it a double bluff to convince him to come in?

  That didn’t fit with all he knew about her. Sticklers for the rules didn’t bend them at will themselves. If she wanted to arrest him, she didn’t need to introduce the prime minister. That didn’t change Flynn’s operational outlook, just where he might be searching. It was unnecessary, a step too far. She wouldn’t have done that. She would have focused on the one thing he was involved in: Olsen. She would have just focused on Olsen.

  Which begged the question, what had happened to Olsen? Flynn cut across a street to a bus stop. There was no one waiting and no bus coming down the road, which suited his purpose. What he wanted was a seat.

  He sat on the bench at the bus stop and closed his eyes. Marching helped him think, but when he wanted to jog his memory, really crawl deep inside his mind palace, he needed to close his eyes and block out the world outside.

  Flynn took a long, slow breath and let his mind drift back to the previous night, to the port and Olsen and the little red car. The car was tiny, quintessentially European. It was dark at the turnaround, yellow lamps burning in the closed gatehouse nearby providing the only light. Flynn saw the
lowered window and the man inside. A head wound. A massive head wound. One that was, he now he realized, consistent with a car accident—too much damage for a close-range 9-millimeter round. But definitely a bullet hole in the temple. As Flynn reconsidered the scene, he recalled something about it had been off, and as he stood in his own mind looking down into the car, he knew what it was. There was no blood. Not at the entry wound, which was in the temple and should have bled profusely, not in the car, not anywhere.

  He knew he was looking at a man who was already dead. The unfortunate man from the mortuary. He wasn’t looking at Olsen at all. They had lured him to a dark and desolate place with an already dead man—someone random, not Olsen. They had shot an already dead man to sell the illusion.

  Why?

  Because committing murder, especially of someone like a journalist, brought heat. Questions would be asked. And they were working on the fly. They had just gotten involved, just learned about Flynn and his interest in whomever they were protecting. Killing a journalist could be done, it could be sold, but it took planning. Risk mitigation, cover-ups. They had no time for that. So they went with plan B. They used a man that no one would miss, a man that was already in a coffin. A man who would, the very next day, be cremated.

  They wanted Flynn to believe they were capable of murder so their interrogation would be easier. He would be frightened, fearful for his own life. It didn’t turn out that way. Flynn had escaped. Now he sat on a bus bench pondering the whereabouts of Nils Olsen. If they hadn’t killed him in the car, then it was unlikely they had killed him at all. So where was he? Where do you hide someone when you’re operating on the fly and outside the law?

  A safe house. But not any old safe house. One you knew to be clean and secure. One you had used before and would use again.

  A cellar under a bar, long closed and almost forgotten.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Flynn took the bus. It arrived at the stop a few minutes after he opened his eyes, and he headed in the right general direction. He took an unconventional route, wandering around the block where the bar was situated. He waited on a corner and watched the street and the alleyway where the side door let out. There was no movement to or from the alley and only light foot traffic on the street. No one paused or looked at the bar. It had been closed for some time, and the frosted and papered windows offered nothing to look at. There were no other stores or cafés around where a watcher could wait.

  He strode down the sidewalk looking straight ahead but assessing the area through his peripheral vision. Seeing nothing, he simply turned down the alleyway as if he took that route every day. It was daylight, but the alley was tight and the buildings tall, so the shadows were long. He saw dumpsters farther down, and a bicycle that had lost both its wheels was chained to a post.

  He pulled the side door open with a creak and slipped inside. Once inside he took one of the H&K USPs from his pack and held it as he carefully walked down the concrete stairs. There was no risk of the stairs groaning under his weight, but he moved along the wall anyway. He found nothing and no one. He paused a beat outside the first door, listening for the sounds of people inside. He heard nothing.

  The first door was like an office door. He got down on his haunches, opened it slowly, and peeked around. He didn’t want to be at head height, and he didn’t stick his head through like the guy had done in the cellar. If the door got slammed shut, his head would not be in the way.

  The anteroom looked exactly as he had left it. There were medical supplies dumped on the table and the tech’s desk, and a few chairs were knocked down, but otherwise the room was neat and tidy.

  Flynn stepped in, his weapon drawn. He left the door open and moved briskly to the second of the cellar doors. There were no locks, just heavy steel latches. Once upon a time, the cellars would have held valuable merchandise, so the loops were in place to hold heavy-duty padlocks. But now what was inside wanted to get out, and there was no doing that through a thick metal door.

  He turned the bolt and pulled hard, sliding it back until it came out of the jamb. He kept the gun in his left hand and pushed the door in with his right. It was heavy and opened slow.

  The room was the mirror image of the one he had been held in. Thick rock walls washed white and a chute going up on the left side of the room, closest to his cellar. Two chutes, one opening up above. There were no windows. Only a naked bulb lit the room harshly.

  Nils Olsen was crumpled in the corner in the fetal position, apparently asleep. Not a restful sleep, of that Flynn was sure. But even in confinement exhaustion took over. He stirred as Flynn watched. Olsen opened his eyes and took a moment to recall where he was, the situation he was in. Then his face changed, from one of repose to something else. Not fear, exactly. Closer to resignation.

  Flynn didn’t enter the room. He didn’t want someone appearing out of nowhere closing the door behind him. He waited for Olsen to rub his eyes and sit up, then he rubbed them again, as if unsure of what he was seeing.

  “You,” he said through a dry mouth.

  “Me. You want to get out of here?”

  For a moment Olsen didn’t move, as if Flynn’s question was a trick. But Flynn jinked his head toward the door. Olsen surveyed his surroundings and decided one option was definitely better than the other.

  He stood slowly, then stepped across the cellar. He reached the door and looked at Flynn, opening his mouth as if to say something but not finding any words. Flynn stood aside to let him pass, and as he did, he glanced at the office door.

  Then he heard it. The creak. The solid, sad groan of an unloved door being asked to do what it was born to do. The outside door to the street had opened and then closed.

  Flynn put his finger to his lips to tell Olsen to stay quiet, then he put his hand on Olsen’s chest and shoved him back into the cellar.

  * * *

  Klaasen’s new team leader knew all the safe houses. He had worked a couple. Most of their business was done outside the city, but sometimes time was short and bad guys tended to gravitate to urban locations. More targets, easier pickings. But the new team leader didn’t go to any of the known locations. He went where he would have gone himself if he were running the op.

  Ager was working outside the lines. That was the whole point of Klaasen’s units. Klaasen was a military man, a decorated veteran. He had contacts and power. If he needed something done that was legit, he could get it done through channels and done stat. But this was something else. The team leader didn’t know the nature of the operation, and he didn’t care. Klaasen didn’t keep a black ops team in his pocket and pay them cold hard cash to do the regular work. And if it wasn’t regular work, if it was outside the lines, and the new team leader was running it, he would stay away from the known locations. He would make sure he had his own safe house, just for him and his team. Even Klaasen wouldn’t know where it was. That’s how he would do it. That’s how Ager would do it.

  He made a call and found which medical technician regularly worked with Ager. Technicians didn’t think like agents. They weren’t always so careful about turning off the little tracking beacons, otherwise known as mobile phones. The new team leader got the name and from the same records got the tech’s phone number. Then he used DSIS software to run a trace on the guy’s phone. That was probably technically legal—it was the government’s phone, and they had a right to know its location. He suspected it would be turned off, and it was.

  The software gave him the last known location before the phone lost its signal the previous night. A little gray dot told him where it had last been. In the city it was generally accurate to within a meter. Sometimes the buildings threw things off but not by much.

  The new team leader drove to a location just outside downtown Copenhagen. Still built up, still urban, but not ground central. He stopped his car on a street that was a secondary road, not a main thoroughfare into the city, not a residential street. Something in between. Big enough to give the impression of being
busy without actually being so.

  A good location for a safe house. Ager would be able to come and go without looking out of place but without many eyeballs around to see him do it. The team leader surveyed the street. The last known location was the corner ahead. Right next to a bar with frosted windows. The place was closed, litter gathered at the base of its front door with no one to sweep it away.

  He got out and walked. The street was big enough to imply foot traffic but not big enough to actually provide it. A bad location for a bar. He looked around, saw no one watching, and turned down the alleyway.

  There was an old bicycle against a lamppost. He found a door that would lead into the rear of the building. He looked around once more and then turned the handle. It was unlocked. He pulled the door open with a creak and stepped into a small dark foyer. There was a door leading into the bar and a set of stairs leading down.

  He moved down with his weapon drawn and thought he heard movement below. There was light at the base of the stairs, so he took it more slowly. When he reached the basement, he saw an office door ajar. The light came from within. He pushed the door open with his foot and swept his handgun across the room. Some abandoned items on the table, chairs knocked over on the floor. Signs of a struggle. There was no movement, but there was sound.

  He saw two cellar doors, heavy metal items. The source of the sound was to the left. Someone was hitting the door from the inside. The door was well constructed and offered little play, so the metal didn’t reverberate. It was like slapping rock walls. Not a bang but a dull thud.

  The team leader moved to the door, then turned and swept the room again behind him. Nothing. He refocused on the door. There was a large steel bolt locking it. He got his weapon ready and turned the bolt so it could slide, and then he braced his feet to pull it with one free hand.

  He felt the sting in his neck. The first second he didn’t know what it could be. The next second he knew what it was and tried to turn and aim his gun. The third second it was too late. He wobbled, and his vision blurred. He felt his eyes go back and darkness envelope him as his body dropped to the floor.