Shadow Agenda: An Action Suspense Thriller

by Sam Powers

  “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.”

  Brennan wanted to offer encouragement, but Callum’s story was nothing new to other returning veterans, guys who’d seen sides of life – and death – that civilians could never imagine. It made a lot of day-to-day living seem rote, scheduled pointlessness. It had been easier for him because he’d always been a contrarian, the team’s alternate voice. After so long taking orders, Brennan had wanted out of the navy. But to Callum, the SEALs had been like family. Brennan knew he’d lost his sister and his father within three years of each other, the former in a road accident and the latter from a long, painful decline due to cancer. And he knew Callum needed support, something to keep his mind off work, to stop him from being morose.

  He didn’t have any answers, at least not right away. Instead, he just said, “Don’t worry, brother, it’ll get better. It does get better.”

  “Yeah,” McLean said. “Eventually, I guess.”

  Brennan got home shortly after lunch, fishless. His first thought was to tell Carolyn how he’d had a huge one jump the hook, making the whole trip seem kind of worth it; then he decided against lying, because she could read him like a book.

  Then he remembered she wouldn’t be home for four more hours, at the earliest.

  It had been four weeks since they’d returned from California, and two since she’d gone back to the office. His only demand was that she wouldn’t talk about the job when she got home at night; given his status as Carolyn’s sounding board for pretty much everything in life, the idea had gone over like a lead blimp. But despite her protestations, so far it was working fairly well. Now he just had to get used to the idea of her bringing home the bacon while he sat on the shelf and grew stale.

  He came in through the back door, went to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water, then flicked on the small kitchen countertop television. CNN was reporting from London, where the chairman of an environmental panel was addressing British security officials regarding the month-old shooting investigation. Brennan watched for a few minutes and turned it off in disgust. He’d never much liked the media, but he had even less time for bureaucrats and politicians.

  The phone rang. He let it sit there for a couple of seconds before picking up, knowing it would just kick over to the answering machine if he didn’t.

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s friendly,” Carolyn said on the other end.

  “Yeah, sorry.” He absent-mindedly scratched the light beard he had coming in. “What’s up?” She never called from work.

  “Have you been watching the news today?”

  “The shooting investigation? Not really. Callum and I were hanging out.”

  “So, fishing but not catching anything, then?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Anyway,” she said, “can you get dinner ready for the kids? I’m going to be held up here again.”

  Again? She’d hardly been home in the week, leaving before six thirty in the morning to beat the traffic rush and working overtime every night. “Is this going to be an ongoing issue?” he asked, even though he knew there wasn’t much he could do about it.

  “It’s David. You know how gung ho he can be. He’s had me working on multiple files, and I’m a bit overwhelmed.” The tone suggested she wanted support, but Brennan wasn’t in a giving mood.

  “Maybe you need to tell him that,” he said, knowing she wouldn’t. “Maybe you need to put your family first and come home for dinner occasionally.” He regretted it instantly, felt like an ass. He knew none of it was her fault, but he resented her, resented that Carolyn was still valued by the agency.

  “I’m trying honey,” she said, “really I am. I know it’s frustrating but we’ve just had a run of crap here that has been never ending. Keep a plate for me, okay?”

  After he got off the phone, Brennan thought about calling Callum, seeing if he had more detail on the Annapolis training positions. He worried about his friend’s reintroduction to everyday life, setting his own schedules, making all of his own decisions. He was lucky he had Ellen, Brennan thought; no one seemed more of a lifer in the SEALs than McLean, and he seemed genuinely perplexed by a normal life. It didn’t surprise Brennan, who’d known Callum when he was young, right after enlisting, still starry-eyed, undisciplined, yet to be molded by the rigors of a tough, scheduled routine and an even tougher job.

  He needed to get out of the house, to get back to work. He checked his watch; it was just after two-thirty in the afternoon, almost time to go pick up the kids. It felt like he’d just dropped them off, like the day’s mundane chores were beginning to turn into a routine. That couldn’t be good, he thought. It wasn’t how he saw his life going after the agency; but then again, there was no ‘after’, as far as Brennan could tell. In a way, he and Callum were facing a similar problem. Brennan just decided he cared a whole lot less than he once had; a whole lot less than his friend still did.

  That night, while Carolyn slept soundly on one side, her hand under the pillow and a serene look on her face, Brennan tossed and turned in his sleep, the return of an occasional nightmare waking him every so often. He replayed the Al Basrah incident unwillingly, the images harshly sharp even after so many years; Corcoran swaggering down the hallway, convinced he was untouchable, then almost stumbling over Bobby; Bobby, on his knees, weeping over the body of a thirteen-year-old boy; Corcoran laughing it off, his friend Paddy smirking.

  He’d had the dream before, but it never got easier to take.

  Dec. 4, 2015, LONDON, ENGLAND

  The parade of images on the projection screen was brutal, stark and clear in the darkened room, each shot a repeated theme of men in balaclavas and military fatigues knocking in front doors, young people being arrested, college students in t-shirts and pajama pants shocked to the core to have their homes invaded, tossed to the ground, arms pulled behind them roughly as they were restrained. The special police units tossed smoke grenades, and flash-bangs, and on several occasions shot and killed fleeing suspects before they’d even been questioned. They hit targets in the cities of London, Barcelona, Paris, Montpellier, Rennes, Bordeaux and Pau, all of it being meticulously filmed for analysis by multiple EU intelligence services.

  Most of the film would never be seen publicly, but Lord Alexander Abbott was obliged to sit through the entirety, hours of video, thousands of pages of reports and briefings. The low light in the room made the whole thing seem that much grimmer.

  As the Prime Minister’s liaison to MI6, he’d been given the unenviable task of drafting the preliminary report outlining Britain’s contribution to the sniper hunt. From a position of public perception, of course, Britain was not involved, merely advising their French colleagues. But there had been quiet consensus among EU partners that such a brazen attack on a politician in a non-leadership position represented a signifi
cant danger, a pervasive risk of further similar attacks, and an ensuing fear that could damage the operations of multiple governments.

  Abbott was old and wise enough to know that wasn’t true, and he watched with increasing skepticism regarding the value of the raids; he leaned on his hand, elbow on the table, cynical bright blue eyes beneath his aquiline profile and dark silver-grey hair and moustache, barely illuminated by the projector. His body language was usually still young and spry – relatively -- even though he was in his early seventies. But as he watched, he folded one leg over the other’s thigh, leaned on his elbow, his mood bordering on morose. The images were ghastly, he thought, the worst excesses of authority.

  He knew no matter how many politicians keeled over or were murdered, governments would just roll on. It was the reality of bureaucracy, the manner by which governments kept operating even after the oft-spectacular, seemingly important political defeats and ideological changes of major elections and minor coups. In reality, Abbott knew, most of his colleagues could fall into a deep, dark hole and most of the public would be none the wiser – except, perhaps, that the cost of government would be cut in half and they’d probably save some money.

  Nevertheless, he’d sworn an oath to fulfill his role in the public service to his utmost, and so he sat, for endless hour on hour, at a large, oval conference table at MI6’s London headquarters, watching the films and listening to an exhausting review of enforcement efforts, narrated by a middle-aged service officer in a drab blue sweater as he droned on in a monotone. The operations had hit back alleys, back rooms, safe houses, private offices, college dormitories. Agents from a half-dozen countries – mostly working at cross-purposes – swept through the ranks of the European and western military/industrial complex looking for ties to the shooter, any inkling or word that someone might have expected it.

  Marie La Pierre’s political enemies were trotted out and publicly vilified, then quietly let go. Eco-terrorists were grilled under hot lights and left-wingers, who had reviled her before the shooting, did so even more after a day or two of interrogation.

  And after three months, more than a thousand interviews, dozens of interrogations and several million pounds in expenses … they had nothing. Not a hint, not a print. There was a suspected forger murdered in Paris a few days before the shooting who was known to have worked with Islamic radical groups, and could have helped out the shooter in some way. But if he had, that piece of business had died with him.

  Lord Abbott had the unenviable task of explaining the lack of progress to a select committee of the House of Commons. He walked the marble hallway of the east wing with purpose in his stride, joined by the director of MI6 – dubbed ‘C’ – along with its director of foreign intelligence, as well as Abbott’s executive assistant. His mind was on the job at hand and he ignored the row of classic portraits, the antique wood benches that no one ever used. He’d already briefed the Prime Minister at 10 Downing and was not looking forward to repeating the exercise two or three more times over the course of the next few days.

  Such was the price of inclusion, he supposed. His role as MI6 liaison and chairman of the intelligence review board was to consider whether the activities of the WTC environmental committee prompted the assassination or whether La Pierre had been targeted by domestic malcontents. Elevated to the upper house twenty years earlier for helping to evacuate British and Commonwealth citizens trapped in war-torn Rwanda, Abbott was respected enough on all political fronts to compel confidence that the investigation was being taken seriously. And even though his peerage was not hereditary, his family was old money, well-connected with anyone who was anyone in parliament or the business community.

  Sir Patrick, as C was known in his social circles, had actually headed up Britain’s contribution to the La Pierre investigation. But Abbott recognized Sir Patrick’s growing infirmity; he was eighty years old, a small, frail man. It left him a figurehead to a series of intelligence community bureaucrats and alpha dogs doing the heavy lifting. He was strictly along for show; the foreign intelligence director, Peter Marsden, was there to make sure that, should someone ask Sir Patrick a question, he would know how to answer it. They couldn’t very well let Sir Patrick figure it out for himself; making a peer look old and feeble in front of the media didn’t serve anyone’s purposes.

  The committee room was filling up, mostly men, mostly in suits, a parade of assistants and other bureaucrats ostensibly there to make life easier for the people making the decisions – though no one actually believed it worked that way.

  Cameras weren’t allowed but press were, although only a handful had bothered to attend, doubtless relying on the British Press Association for coverage, if they could even find a spot for it in the nightly newscasts or on the next day’s front page. These days, Lord Abbott thought, it would be more likely ignored in favor of the latest entertainment star shenanigans. He’d stopped reading everything except the Economist and The Times – as well as his own clippings from a service, of course.

  He took a seat with his colleagues at the witness table. The committee chairman was sympathetic and friendly, an old party Conservative back to the Thatcher days. He came over and shook Abbott’s hand, making several comments the peer didn’t really hear, as his mind was elsewhere.

  The session lasted over an hour and Abbott supposed it was tedious for most, as they had no more evidence three months later to go on than they’d had at the time of La Pierre’s death. They knew nothing of La Pierre’s extracurricular activities, or her membership in the ACF, and Abbott had no inclination to tell them.

  It was, after all, Lord Abbott’s real interest in her affairs. He had managed to manipulate his way into an invitation to join the group, proffered by the founder and chairman himself, the Jordanian industrialist Ahmed Khalidi. He had replaced the now-deceased American panelist, initiated into a group whose sole purpose seemed to be the acquisition and application of global power.

  “And so in conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, every indication to date is that this was an isolated case, pointing to a single fanatic behind the trigger of a high-powered weapon, intent on causing misery and destruction. I should note that, from a personal perspective, Madame La Pierre’s domestic politics raised concerns with many of her peers in government. Having said that, we cannot deny the dedication she brought to her pursuit of environmental criminals and protection of the planet. It is our hope that uncovering her assailant will put to rest any fears of a vendetta or issue with the environmental committee’s work, which has received near universal praise from national leaders, and once again demonstrate, via prosecution and public censure, that civilized societies will not stand for this aggression. To that end, Sir Patrick assures me that the intelligence community continues to pursue the assassin with zeal. With that, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to end my formal presentation and make myself available for questions.”

  An hour later, Lord Abbott was ensconced in the back of his limousine, enjoying the drive home to Kingston-on-Thames, where his modest home and garden belied the image most have of the peerage and wretched excess – even if the location put it far beyond the financial reach of the average Londoner.

  Along the route, he passed the small red mailbox, attached to a private home’s black wrought-iron fence. He habitually glanced its way, even though he rarely stopped in front of it. He’d used it as a drop just once in six years. In fact, until The ACF had approached him, he thought his days of spying for the Americans were over.

  They’d recruited him in the early seventies; he was a principled former Cambridge man, angered over a decade of espionage embarrassments at the hands of the communists. His family fortune dwindling in the era of increased Soviet influence, he accepted their generous contributions towards his anti-communist league; angered at the twice-elected Labor governments of Harold Wilson, he readily agreed when his American handler suggested ratcheting up their collaboration, accepting a post first with the civil service, then with MI6. For twe
nty years, he’d fed their allies every state secret he could get his hands on. Even after the Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher, took over, he continued to spy for America, aware that he was too deeply immersed to ever get out.

  But if catching a communist spy was a triumph, catching one working for one’s allies, he presumed, was nothing short of humiliating. In a sense, he hoped it might eventually make his position untenable to the yanks; he hoped they’d simply cut him loose.

  The driver clicked a remote control to open the gates and turned the car up the short driveway. The house was whitewashed, with old, dark wooden joins and an A-frame roof. Half of the side wall was obscured by the vines that had grown over the years. In front of the house were flower beds filled with the fading remains of what had been colorful annuals, the weather no longer co-operating.

  The maid, Julia, opened the door when he arrived and took his legal briefcase, then his coat and hat. “Lady Abbott is out shopping, sir,” she said as she hung his coat up in the closet at the foot of the stairs. “She’ll be back in a few hours.”

  “Thank you, dear,” Abbott said. Julia had been with them for more than a decade. “Pour me a Gin with Angostura, would you? I’ll take it on the patio.”

  Several months before La Pierre’s death, he had been brought back into the fold; the Americans understood his nervousness. They’d been trying to infiltrate Khalidi’s group for several years, however, and the chance of losing his intelligence was unacceptable, they said. So cutting his losses and stepping aside was out of the question.

  He retrieved the paper from the telephone table in the main hallway. It was his habit to decompress after work by trying to finish the crossword in The Times, and on occasion, he actually managed to get it done with reasonable haste. Abbott walked to the far end of the corridor, where a glass door opened into the back garden. An old brick patio lay beyond, home to a wrought-iron table and chairs with a sun umbrella, though it was tied down for the winter. It was cool in the backyard but dry, and he settled in just as Julia arrived with his drink.