The Joe Brennan Spy Thrillers

by Sam Powers

  “Bantu,” Francisco whispered. “It’s the local tribal tongue. Fewer of the residents in Cabinda speak Portuguese; in fact, for most their second language is French.”

  The pair chatted for a moment and the guard at the gate nodded, then took a few steps away from the car before unhooking the walkie-talkie from his belt and speaking rapid-fire. He nodded a couple of times then repeated the motion to his companion nearby, who lifted the barrier.

  A minute later, the red-dirt trail emptied into a large clearing. Two long, corrugated tin bunkhouses were on its right side, perhaps a hundred yards from the banks of the lagoon. Ahead was a large two-story house built out of what looked to Brennan like the remains of shipping containers. Two Jeeps were parked in front, along with another Land Rover and a Range Rover; to the left, a massive garage or metal shop had also been thrown together out of tin. Next to it, a towering winch crane stood waiting to load or unload cargo.

  They pulled up and parked next to the Range Rover. Within a minute, a short white guy with close-cropped hair exited the house and headed over to them. “Francisco?” the man asked as the foursome got out of the Land Rover. “You’re Benny Goncalves’ friend?”

  Francisco extended a hand, and the men kissed on both cheeks as they shook. “Anders! Your reputation precedes you.” The meet-and-greet was being watched over by a dozen or more armed guards and there was movement around the compound. “It looks almost like you have your own army up here.”

  Kovacic beamed a smile. “We are quite proud of the place, it’s true. But it’s not an army; just enough men to stay cautious. Besides, labor is cheap around these parts. My man Antonio tells me you want to buy some hardware?”

  Francisco was earning his extra ten thousand, agreeing to use a purchase as cover while Brennan performed recon. “That’s right; along with the rifles we need a few more specialized items.”

  Kovacic slung an arm around the man’s shoulder and began walking him towards the house. “Then remote or not, you are most definitely in the right place, my friend. Come, let’s go talk in the house. I have AC and cold beer.”

  Francisco looked at Brennan. “You,” he said in French, “stay with the vehicle.”

  “But boss,” Brennan answered in French. “He has AC…”

  “Just do your job,” Francisco said. “If you get bored, walk the compound a bit.” He looked over at Andraz. “You mind if he looks around?”

  The arms dealer shrugged. “Out here? Not much to see, but you are welcome.” They strolled up towards the house together then went inside.

  They’d worked out the little act before getting there; Brennan had a pocket-sized Geiger counter, along with suspicions about what Kovacic had done with Khalidi’s missing millions. Given his background before Africa as a Chechen dissident and militant, there was every chance he was either the buyer or the seller of the nuke. The questions were why he was in the middle of the Cabindan jungle, and what he’d done with the weapon.

  While his guide kept the arms dealer busy, Brennan strolled by each building in turn, slipping the counter out of his pocket whenever out of direct view, to take readings. But the entire place was hot, it seemed, way too many readings from way too many sources for it to be a single device. He wondered if there was something wrong with the Geiger counter. If anything, the readings got stronger the closer he got to the main house. Under a series of suspicious glares, he strolled around the perimeter until he was almost behind it, making sure to stay in sight of Kovacic’s nervous men.

  Behind the house, the two sides of the perimeter fence converged at a cave mouth, at the very edge of the tree line. It was sizeable, more than just a natural cave, as if an opening had been blasted out. He kneeled for a moment and ran some topsoil through his fingers, then tied his shoelace as a pretense for the guards, before taking a small sample of the soil and pocketing it.

  The Geiger counter was getting into high exposure zones. Whatever was in the cave was putting off major readings; Brennan looked at the reading and began to back away nervously.

  When he was back to the main yard, he headed for the car. It was another twenty minutes before Francisco emerged from the meeting. He waved backwards towards Kovacic, who was standing in the doorway to the container house and waved back. Francisco, Brennan and their two guards got back into the Land Rover. The driver turned it around and headed back out through the main gate.

  “We’re going to talk more tomorrow,” Francisco asked Brennan. “Did you figure out what you needed to know?”

  “Not exactly. There’s an old cave of some sort behind the property. The readings out of it were high. Most of the people in that camp are getting significant doses of radiation.”

  Francisco’s eyebrows rose. “I wonder if Kovacic is aware of it, even. He did say the place was built near an aborted mining operation, so maybe…”

  “Maybe they weren’t mining gold,” Brennan said. “You know anything about the local geology? I’m going to do a test reading when we get back to the camp. Either my Geiger counter was way off, or that camp is sitting on some kind of radioactive ore.”

  The Geiger counter had been an afterthought on Brennan’s part, and he’d been lucky Francisco’s connections had come through; he’d expected to fly up to Cabinda, question Kovacic and then have a new set of leads to follow. It didn’t occur to him that the bomb might be at the compound until just before leaving Luanda – after all, it had been years; whatever Kovacic’s connection, it should have come and gone.

  And the man still looked familiar; it was eating at Brennan, trying to figure out where he’d seen him before.

  While Francisco’s men got busy making a fire and cooking supper, Brennan tried to use the satellite phone, first to check in with Walter, from whom he got no answer, and second to try and get a mobile web connection, which he eventually managed. Readings suggested the soil contained Uranium, in significant concentrations. Brennan cursed himself silently for not paying more attention during his primer training.

  He walked out of the abandoned old house. Francisco was drinking a beer on the front porch while the two guards cooked the chicken on an open pit out front. He tilted the bottle towards Brennan then nodded at the cooler, but Brennan declined.

  “You figure out what you need to know?” Francisco asked.

  “Maybe.” Brennan checked his watch; it was seven-thirty, and evening was falling. It wasn’t like Walter to be away from the phone when he knew someone might be checking in.

  It didn’t make sense. Why there? Why would an arms dealer force his customers to go out of their way so that he could set up on radioactive soil?

  “How long has he been out here?” Brennan asked.

  “Not sure. I’d say a year at least.”

  That meant there were four years unaccounted for between Kovacic disappearing from Khalidi’s Nigeria operation to him showing up at the camp as “Anders Kallstrom.”

  “This was a hell of a long way to go for ‘maybe’, my friend,” said Francisco. “I know you are paying me well, but so far what you’ve got amounts to background information, the type you could…”

  “That’s it,” Brennan said, interrupting him. “That’s the reason: it’s a ‘forest for the trees’ gambit. There’s so much background radiation …”

  “Eh?” Francisco muttered. “You are losing me, my friend.”

  “His camp: it’s been in the same location the entire time?”

  Francisco yelled to one of the guards who answered in rapid-fire pigeon French. “He says the camp has grown quite a lot and moved closer to the access road. It was further in from the lagoon originally.”

  “And Kovacic? Does anyone know where he came from before this?”

  Francisco asked the driver. “He said he was operating out of a warehouse in Porte Noire.” The port city in the Congo – the former Zaire – was a few hours north of the lagoon.

  That fit, Brennan thought. Kovacic wasn’t hiding the nuke in Cabinda; he was looking for it.

>   “Francisco, you up for a little recon mission tonight?”

  “Hey, man, I just brought you out here. I do not get involved in other people’s fights. It’s bad for business.”

  “I don’t need you to fight; just to drop me off near his base and wait.”

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  The call came early in the morning, just after seven o’clock, which was why Myrna Verbish knew it was something important. Few people called her anyway, which Myrna preferred. Those who did so knew her well, and knew she didn’t get up that early any more.

  Alex was already up and Myrna saw her tapping away at a computer keyboard, out of the corner of her eye. The call was short and to the point. “Yes?” she answered.

  “Am I speaking with a Ms. Myrna Verbish?”

  “You are.”

  “My name is Det. John Brink, Ms. Verbish, with Metro D.C. Police. Walter Lang had you listed as an emergency contact on his insurance card.”

  “That’s correct.” Myrna felt her stomach turn.

  “I’m sorry to have to inform you of this ma’am, but Mr. Lang was found dead this morning in his apartment. It appears he was shot during a robbery attempt.”

  Myrna didn’t reply. She was stunned. They’d been friends for so long, and so often coming close to more. They loved each other, she knew. And she hadn’t really realized how much that meant to her until twenty seconds earlier, when she found out she’d never see Walter again.

  “What happened?” she finally managed.

  “It looks as though they jimmied the back window open to his living room. There was a pair of muddy boot prints right under it, although they were too smudged to be of much help. Maybe it’ll be a solid lead. Ms. Verbish, we have an excellent service available to people who are feeling the way you do right now, someone you can speak with…”

  Myrna didn’t need a counsellor. She knew Walter hadn’t been robbed, and the meticulous nature of the crime scene suggested professionals. It was agency business that had taken her best friend, the same kind of business that had prompted her to take early retirement, her nerves near shattered. Now, she just felt numb.

  “Ma’am?”

  She’d zoned out of the moment. “No, that’s fine, detective. I’ll need to contact his family and friends…”

  “He has next of kin?” The detective sounded surprised.

  “We worked together for the federal government,” she said. “He has an ex-wife and a stepson. They were still close even after they split up.” Contacting Audrey would be awkward for Myrna; she hadn’t learned until near the end of Walter’s marriage that their friendship had contributed to his ex-wife’s ill ease.

  But it had to be done.

  “We can do that for you if you’d like, Ms. Verbish, so that you can have some time…”

  “Thank you, detective, that would be nice.” She knew she should probably make the call herself, make sure the information was sensitively and correctly conveyed; but Myrna felt disconnected, shattered in the pain of the moment, unable to take on much of anything.

  After she’d hung up the phone, she sat down on the sofa, distant still. Eventually, she turned to Malone, who could see abject misery in the wrinkle of Myrna’s brow and her pursed lips. “What? What is it?”

  “It’s Walter.”

  Malone knew immediately that he was dead. “How?” she said.

  “The kind of burglars who leave convenient-but-useless evidence behind,” Myrna said.

  “You think the ACF…”

  “I do,” Myrna said. “If the Chinese intel comes back supporting the notion that the ACF funded multiple international incidents, we’re both in over our heads, Alex,” she explained. “That’s why Walter’s dead, and it may be why someone is going after the ACF. And whoever is behind this has major pull, with governments, with operatives, maybe even within the agency. These people are fighting to survive their own bad behavior, even as someone else tries to take them out the old-fashioned way.”

  “I need to write this,” Malone said. “The world has to know what’s going on; they need to know about Khalidi’s African insurrection, and Fung using the task force to take out gangsters in Harbin. I don’t doubt if we keep looking into La Pierre and Lord Abbott, we’ll find they sanctioned similar misbehavior.”

  Myrna had to keep her grounded, she decided. “Alex, we’ll get the story, and it’ll set the record. But we don’t have it yet, not all of it. We still need a whole lot of answers; and whoever did this to Walter? They wouldn’t think twice about killing you, hon. They may be the same people trying already.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  “We keep digging,” Myrna said. “And we hope Joe is making some kind of progress. Walter’s death has to mean something.”

  Carolyn was having a fine day. A darn fine day, indeed, she decided. First, the director had made an appearance, had mentioned some of her analysis and had given her credit. That was a perfecto trifecta, she’d decided over her second coffee.

  Then she’d realized her contract-mandated raise was kicking in that week, a little upside, to keep her mind off of Joe still being gone and the kids missing him terribly; and, to top it all off, her friend had bought her lunch again, the third time in a month. He was gay and non-threatening, and he was good company when she needed to vent and bitch.

  Her instant messaging flashed a message from David Fenton-Wright. “Come see me, please, when you have a second.”

  They’d just met, an hour earlier. She got a nervous sensation, a tightening in her stomach. Maybe it was news about Joe. Maybe it was bad. She shook the idea off, refusing to think negatively. Maybe David had considered her request to transfer out of intelligence and into science and tech. She was convinced she could advance more quickly there, where those ahead of her were younger, less entrenched, more inclined to move into the private sector for a better deal. Her father had been an Air Force pilot, and had great respect for the science and tech division. She liked to think he would’ve been proud of her for making it to a leadership position on that side of the yard.

  She took the elevator to his floor, her hands clasped in front of her nervously. At his office, his secretary told her to go right in. As she approached Fenton-Wright’s door, she saw Jonah out of the corner of her eye, peeking around the edge of his office door from behind his desk, doubtless curious.

  Carolyn knocked twice then entered.

  David Fenton-Wright was behind his desk. “Ah, Carolyn, come in and have a seat if you could, I’ll just be a minute.”

  She’d been around long enough to expect a short wait. Everyone in upper management did it; she wasn’t sure if it was a ploy to unnerve or unsettle someone or if it was subconscious, a chance to exercise a little of the power that was so rarely required during the day-to-day.

  After he’d finished making his point, he turned away from his computer and leaned on the desk. “Walter Lang died this morning,” he said. His delivery was flat, emotionless. He stared at her for an uncomfortably long time, gauging her reaction. Carolyn’s mouth had dropped open slightly and she looked shocked.

  “How…?”

  “Metro Police say a pair of thugs broke into his apartment and shot him when he caught them robbing the place.”

  “God, no… Joe’s going to be crushed.”

  “Can you contact him?”

  “No, he’s off the grid. Oh God, David, this is terrible…”

  “Yes,” Fenton-Wright said. “It’s going to be harder for Joe if he finds out far after the fact. I wonder if he’s left a contact with anyone else. Maybe that reporter friend of his, Alex Malone?”

  She looked genuinely oblivious, Fenton-Wright thought. Damn. Faisal had been clear about the reporter, about dealing with her.

  “I don’t know him,” Carolyn said.

  Still, Fenton-Wright decided, it couldn’t hurt to unsettle her a bit, get her worrying about his friends. “Her. Very attractive News Now writer; does great pieces on international policy. I think the
y met in Europe, or something. That’s why I was thinking she might have a contact.”

  “Oh.” An attractive female newspaper reporter he’d met in Europe. “No. No, I don’t know her.”

  She looked a little shocked to Fenton-Wright. Perfect, he thought. “Hmmm… Anyway, we’re planning a formal agency service for Walter, likely this Saturday. Can you attend?”

  “Yes,” she said, her mind overwhelmed by the shock of the moment, of Walter’s death, of Joe’s female friend. “Yes, of course. I can get my friend Ellen to look after the kids.”

  “Thank you for coming in then, Carolyn. I do appreciate your time.” He rose and extended a hand, her cue to exit.

  She walked back to the elevators feeling numb; not because of Walter’s death, which had shocked her; and not because of Alex Malone. She was shocked because Carolyn was nobody’s fool: she knew right away that David was trying to drive a wedge between her and her husband; that Joe would never cheat on her, let alone risk giving information to a newspaper reporter. And that meant David Fenton-Wright was up to something devious.

  That, in turn, meant Joe was in trouble.

  27./

  MARCH 27, 2016 MASSABI LAGOON, CABINDA

  Francisco put the Land Rover into neutral and it rolled the last kilometer. He stopped before the last bend, unable to switch off the day running lights but wanting to avoid attention in the still of the evening. It was eleven o’clock, and once the vehicle’s engine was quiet, the jungle was silent save for the camp sounds, and the surrounding hiss, chirrup, crack and cry of the jungle insects.

  “This is my stop,” Brennan said, his face and hands darkened with boot black, smeared in thick lines. “This might get hellish loud when it goes down, but hang tight and we’ll be back in no time.”