by Sam Powers
“That’s still impossible. There’s no way they could possibly have even ID’d me by then…”
“Which will work in your favor. Maybe you should let them take you now in one piece, instead of risking a confrontation. There’s no way you lose this at a trial.”
“They won’t let this get to a trial. Think about it: whoever set this up is connected to people who can’t be named publicly, or forced to give affidavits, or testify. I’d never make it that far.”
She understood the implication. “So what are you going to do?”
Brennan had been thinking about the order of the two days prior. He’d have been gone, on his way to Copenhagen, if he hadn’t been told expressly to stay. “DFW. It has to be. He set me up. He’s the only one at the agency outside of Walter who has taken any leadership in this whole thing. I was below board, off the grid, heading out of the country. It had to be him.”
“That means he’ll have crews coming hard, professional assets, maybe even the rest of the team you faced today. You’ve got minutes, at best. Head to the location, I’ll have the cash there for you in thirty.”
He disconnected. The less time they spent talking, the better. To anyone senior at the agency, Myrna was considered off the books, long retired and uninvolved. She’d been careful when she left, letting real-life identifiers lapse, moving, changing her name and doing it properly, keeping her money in cash in a home safe. The last thing Brennan wanted was to compromise her.
It took him ten minutes to find an older-model car he could hotwire without “engine arrest” disabling the vehicle. Another fifteen minutes found him at the first wire office, careful to survey the quiet street before entering, not worrying about the security cameras inside, which wouldn’t typically be networked, catching his face. Myrna had sent three payments of $9,999, one to each office. The number was probably over each company’s own “suspicious transaction” threshold, but without the automatic trigger level being reached, it wouldn’t report them until the next business day at the earliest.
After getting the final delivery, he’d bought a newspaper from a kiosk and checked the classifieds to figure out where the cheapest rentals in town appeared to be, then driven that area looking for the crudest, most obviously home-made “for rent” sign he could find.
The townhouse appeared to have been sweating since the 1950s, with mold spotting the upper corners of the ceiling. But it was only a hundred euros per week. It was disgusting, but there was a small convenience store at the end of the block and the section of the city was utterly anonymous. He’d ditched the car several miles away and taken a cab back to the corner store, then walked from there.
In the ninety minutes it had taken, Myrna had tapped her contacts and found someone willing to provide a driver’s license and a gun. “I’m sending them over,” she said. “A warning: these guys were low down on the list of suppliers. That means there are a few who said no, and if they figure you for the intended, they might try flagging it, getting in good with the agency or state. Or even taking you out themselves. And the guys coming over are straight-up dirty, so be on your toes.”
“Over and out,” he said.
They disconnected, and Brennan began his wait for the suppliers.
The three men stared at the gun as it lay on top of the driver’s license and government benefit card. The older man looked at the gun, then Brennan. He reached into the bag and picked up the .45.
Then he handed it to Brennan. “A Glock 21, like you asked,” he said in French. “Careful: there’s one in the chamber.”
So much for no honor among thieves, Brennan thought. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ve had a long day and an absence of too much drama or bullshit right now is much appreciated.”
The senior of the two began counting the money. “It’s probably not a surprise when I tell you your picture is all over the television right now,” the older man said.
“Not really.”
“You should change your look.”
“If I did and needed to travel, could you get me a passport?”
“The price will go up,” he said. “A driver’s license and social card is one thing. But if you’re looking to travel, that’s going to be a rich buy. Passports don’t come cheap.”
“Okay,” Brennan said. “You’re not worried about whether I did what they say?”
“Not really. Business is business.”
The small chrome canister crashed through the front window and landed at the younger man’s feet. He picked it up even as Brennan and the older man instinctively looked away and closed their eyes. The flash-bang grenade went off in the younger man’s hands and face and he went down just as the battering ram knocked down the front door in a hail of splinters.
Brennan grabbed the bag with one hand and the older crook with the other. “My partner…!” the man yelled, but Brennan ignored him, heading for the back room, where the window sat just high enough in the wall to discourage kids from climbing out, but was still accessible. He’d left it open in case, and he jumped up and over the frame, dropping onto the dumpster below, its lid closed. Even as the older crook clanged loudly down beside him, police tactical officers were leaning out the back window. An officer had been stationed behind the building as well.
“Down!” the cop yelled. “Down on the ground, now!” He had an Ingram machine pistol, Brennan noted as he sprung outwards, kicking off the dumpster lid and flipping over the officer’s head, then sweeping his leg backwards, taking the officer’s legs out from under him even as the Ingram sprayed fire into the air. As the policeman’s back hit the ground and the older crook jumped down to join him, Brennan hit the cop with a short, sharp jab to the center of his chin, where striking a small group of nerves can quickly knock a man unconscious if done with precision.
“Do you have a car?” Brennan asked.
“A block up and to the left. A blue-and-grey Citroen.”
It was perfect, anonymous, Brennan thought. “Go! Quickly!” They sprinted to the old Citroen DS. “You have somewhere we can hole up?” Brennan asked as they flung the doors open and climbed inside.
“My cousin Gerard has a flat in Beziers,” he said. “It’s just down the coast…”
“I know it. Let’s go…”
“Wait a second,” the older crook said. “They just nabbed my partner and I already helped you out. I get the whole honor among thieves thing, but…”
“I’m not a thief,” Brennan said. “And those aren’t regular cops chasing me. They’ve seen your face, which makes you a liability. You can stay in Montpellier, if you wish, but they will hunt you down and kill you. And I’m sorry to tell you, but there’s a good chance your partner is dead already.”
The veteran crook shrugged. “Okay.” He extended a hand, and Brennan shook it. “I am Victor. Let’s go.”
JUNE 14, 2016, WASHINGTON, D.C.
The President sat, uncharacteristically, behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval office, the two chairs across from it both substantially lower than his to ensure that the representatives of the NSA and the CIA understood their place.
A few feet away, new NSC advisor Bill Freeman and director of intelligence Nicholas Wilkie stood waiting to be called on, if necessary. It was Freeman’s first such meeting since taking over the post from Sen. Younger, who had personally recommended him.
Fitzpatrick and Fenton-Wright both looked cool and collected, which the President expected. They were trained to behave with dispassionate disconnection. He was pretty good at it himself. Most of the time.
But now, the commander-in-chief was close to losing his temper. “We agreed to bring your asset in, David, and instead he goes ballistic at a French aquarium and shoots an old man. Am I getting this right? Am I right on this? Because I recall you saying this guy wanted back in from the cold. It’s not too cold out there right now, David. In fact, it’s pretty goddamned hot.”
Fenton-Wright kept his cool. He didn’t want to antagonize the President, but he also didn’
t really have to worry about him, a lame duck with a minority in the house. Whether he had a future with the agency didn’t really matter, either. He’d long since decided that the only person he needed to keep happy was the man paying for his eventual ascension to the ACF board.
“Mr. President, as you know we immediately identified Agent Brennan to the French authorities; while the agency certainly could have done a better job of predicting how unhinged Agent Brennan had become after the Colombian affair, we had no indication that anything like this was possible. In fact, we relied on the opinion of his regular handler, the late Walter Lang…”
Mark Fitzpatrick interjected. “If I may, Mr. President… As you know, David and I don’t share the most cordial working relationship. But it’s clear to us at the NSA, having reviewed the video provided to the agency by its European sources, that this was an unpredictable situation.”
The president leaned back in his chair and pressed the tips of his fingers together as he thought about their options. “Covering ass is all well and good, Gentlemen, but what I need to know now is where we stand, and how we proceed.”
Fitzpatrick said, “We’re in better shape than might appear the case. Brennan was below board, so officially he was in Europe on his own time. We’ll be reiterating that position to our colleagues in the EU.”
“And I’ve got a team helping the police over there to track him down,” Fenton-Wright added. “Rest assured, Mr. President: this will be handled properly from here on in.”
Malone watched Myrna prepare her equipment, slotting the lens into place on the front of the camera as she sat in the passenger seat of Malone’s car.
“I don’t like this,” Malone said. “I really don’t.”
“Okay,” Myrna said, “but we’ve been over the reality of the situation. Joe is on the run and won’t be in touch at all until he’s made a few more moves. And your editor is right: if your source ranks highly, he’s not going to walk into court and back up what he’s telling you. You need an insurance policy.”
“Myrna, you’ve been nothing but good to me for the last two months. But revealing my source to you goes against every instinct…”
“Sweetie, you’re in the deep stuff up to your neck,” Myrna said. “This isn’t a normal game played by normal rules. And I hesitate to point this out, but if I wasn’t effectively off the grid, you’d be dead already. Walter knew that, which is why he trusted me to look after you.”
“I know.” She did. But it wasn’t making Malone feel any more comfortable. “Okay, let’s do this.”
The decision to record and photograph the source had been made the night before; the situation in France, where Joe was still on the run, had only strengthened Myrna’s argument: they needed an official connection, someone who couldn’t deny everything down the road. It wasn’t that the elderly ex-spy wanted leverage and she felt genuine distress at the idea of outing a senior source who was doing yeoman’s work just by talking to the press. She didn’t want to burn a whistleblower.
But they needed backup, proof. And that meant Malone wearing a mic and Myrna shooting using a low-light lens, the camera propped on the car dash for stability.
The door to the parking garage stairwell opened and her source stepped out. Malone got out of the car and closed the door gently behind her then walked over to meet him, making sure they were close enough to the overhead lights for his face to be occasionally illuminated, out of the shade for long enough that Myrna could get a shot.
“You haven’t written anything since Miskin,” the source said. “Why?”
“I need proof, hard evidence,” Malone said. “My paper is under a lot of pressure to back up what you and others have been telling me.”
“You had Kalispell. But you didn’t mention the package.”
She was momentarily confused. “What package?”
“Ask yourself why Khalidi’s fixer disappeared with all of that money.”
“Because he’s greedy? It’s money. What other reason…?”
“He had a purpose, a cause. He needed to fund a major purchase, a bomb smuggled out of South Africa at the end of apartheid.”
Her mouth dropped open slightly. “A bomb? As in…”
“Nuclear, yes.”
“Holy shit,” Malone said.
“A whole lot of something, Ms. Malone, but very little holy.”
“So this thing is out there somewhere, and Khalidi funded its purchase?”
“The question is what happened to the device and where it is now,” the source said. “There was buzz in intelligence circles two months ago that it had reappeared on the black market, but things have gone silent ever since.”
“So it could be out there somewhere, with someone who actually might use it?”
“It’s possible, yes.”
“Do you have any proof of this whatsoever? Because you know my magazine won’t print something that inflammatory without any named sources to support it. There’s no way.”
“Follow the money,” he said. “Someone brokered the sale, a name you’ve already run into.”
“Dmitri Konyshenko.”
“If you can get anything out of him or on his company, perhaps you can figure out who purchased the weapon and where it was headed.”
“So that’s all you can give me? A name I already have?” Malone was beginning to wonder whether her source was willing to take the risks she needed, to give her something solid.
“You have to do some of the digging yourself,” he suggested. “I can’t gift wrap this for you. You know my position, how sensitive things are.”
“But I need something, anything I can take back to my paper to tell them this is all real, and not just some insane conspiracy theory dreamed up because of the sniper shootings.”
The source paused for a moment, as if considering the request.
“There’s a firm in Las Vegas called DynaTech; ostensibly it makes the interior parts for slot machines and video lottery terminals, as well as the voting machines for some state elections. In reality it’s a subsidiary of an offshore company called Dynatech Global, based in the Cayman Islands.
“A tax dodge? That’s not much…”
“Not just a tax dodge; a source of funding for Konyshenko’s projects over here. Not all of his money flows out of Russia.”
“So I need a source at DynaTech, is what you’re saying…”
“I’m not telling you how to do the job, Ms. Malone. But I would agree that that’s a good place to start.”
He turned on his heel and headed for the door.
“HE WHAT?!?” For the second time in recent weeks, Malone was incensed.
They’d gone back to Myrna’s to look up information on Konyshenko’s Vegas connection. Once Malone had gone through what she’d been told, Myrna realized she needed the whole story.
“I said Joe already knew about the nuke. That’s what he was looking for in Africa.” Myrna knew Alex would be upset but it couldn’t be avoided. She’d known the discussion would happen, eventually. “It was a need-to-know situation, Alex. He was worried…”
“I realize that Myrna, but goddamn…” It wasn’t a trust issue; Malone understood why Joe was playing things close to the vest. But that didn’t make it any less irritating.
“If I’d known how good your source was earlier…”
“But now you know who he is, you’re taking me more seriously?” She had trouble hiding her annoyance. “What else don’t I know?”
Myrna filled Alex in on Borz Abubakar and the theft of the bomb by the South Koreans. “Joe’s feeling is that they were probably working freelance, and plan to resell the device yet again.”
Alex was putting the pieces together. “But if Abubakar was on the bus that blew up, how could…”
“A double.”
Alex sat and thought it through. “My God… you realize …”
“That Abubakar had nearly two dozen innocent people murdered to cover his tracks. Yes.”
“And
that there’s a nuclear weapon out there somewhere as a consequence of Khalidi’s African adventure,” Alex said. “That’s why he wants me dead. That’s why Joe’s been burned.”
“Khalidi has connections at the highest levels of national security, and while I’m sure he wants the bomb recovered, he will try to ensure it’s done with reputations protected. If this came out on top of what you’ve already reported…”
“Myrna,” Alex said, looking a little distant, “I think we’re in a whole lot of trouble.”
33. /
JUNE 19, 2016, MONTPELLIER, FRANCE
They drove up from the town of Bezier to the small city as midnight neared, the darkness adding a sense of anonymity. They’d changed cars at Victor’s cousin’s place, and he’d taken the wheel as they followed the coastal highway, the Mediterranean to their right barely visible in the evening’s dull glint, lights from villas and hotels dotting the shoreline ahead.
Behind the wheel, the Frenchman stayed silent for the first thirty minutes, giving Brennan time to consider their situation. He wondered why Victor was being so accommodating, whether there might be a bad surprise waiting for them at the other end of the trip.
But he didn’t get that sense. Instead, a terse camaraderie had grown between them over the two days. Eventually, Brennan said, “So do you mind if I ask why you’re helping me? You could have just stayed in Bezier, or gone south to Spain until the heat blew over.”
Victor glanced at him briefly then reaffixed his eyes on the road ahead. “I don’t like being treated as if I do not count,” he said.
“Eh?”
“Back at the apartment, when the police came through the door… you were right, they were shooting to kill. They didn’t care who I was, or who my friend Jacques was, they just wanted you dead. We were just… non-existent. People who act like that? I never liked them too much. And what can I say? You saved my ass. Victor Moutiere honors his obligations.”
Brennan understood that, but he needed to be sure his new friend realized the stakes. “The guy we’re going to see… if he catches us, he won’t be any less likely to kill you than those cops were. There are influential people after me, people who can reach out.”