The Joe Brennan Spy Thrillers

by Sam Powers

  So instead, Malone stuck to the plan and drove the rental car once more over to her townhouse, getting there just before eight in the morning, a half hour or so after the paper normally arrived.

  And there were two.

  She stared at them from behind the wheel, her rental parked across the street. She checked the street behind her in the side mirror, then the street ahead. It was deserted. Alex undid her belt and opened the door, getting out cautiously. She crossed her arms nervously and walked over to the stone steps.

  She grabbed both papers and sat down on the step for a moment, so that she could flick through the pages. The notations were all there, and she took down the time. The place, she assumed had not changed.

  Alex rolled up the papers and crossed the street again to her rental. She had a few hours before she needed to be there and there was other work to be done.

  A minute later, she pulled away from the curb and headed out, not paying attention to the white compact Toyota that pulled out from further down the street a few scant moments after her, keeping a safe distance behind her car.

  NEW YORK, NEW YORK

  Eddie Shaw was not a happy pilot.

  Brennan had burned Ed’s Korean contact; then he’d shown up at Ed’s Greenwich Village loft looking for a home base and asking the flyer to call the same burned agent for a follow-up.

  When Eddie asked about the heat he would take for calling Professor Lee, Brennan had shrugged.

  “I can’t be the one to do it,” Brennan said. “He already hates me. Besides, he won’t have the information yet anyway. Give him another day or two and he’ll probably have cooled off.”

  Then Brennan had spent the rest of the day at Eddie’s dining room table, poring over maps, trying to figure out where, tactically, a nuclear warhead would be positioned to do the most damage. He’d decided on Manhattan, and was now using overhead online satellite photos to try and pin down a block or building that seemed an ideal location.

  Eddie, eager to get the entire ordeal over with, had called Lee. After two minutes of screaming and vows to never speak with him again, Lee had told him what they needed to know.

  The pilot ended the call and put his phone back in his pocket, then walked the short distance over to his apartment dining room from the kitchen and got Brennan’s attention away from his laptop.

  “Joe: that was our friend in Seattle. And I use the term friend loosely now, as I’m pretty sure he’s never going to speak to either of us again.”

  “Ed…” Brennan hated upsetting his old friend, but he still had no idea what the Korean connection was, and that made him nervous.

  “Look, just forget it, okay? I know how dedicated you are; I’m not happy. In fact, I guess I’m pretty pissed at you. But no one was hurt; Lee’s upset but it’s not like I’m short on customers. So just let it go.”

  “Fine.”

  They were silent for a moment, before Brennan said, “So… what did he...”

  “He said they believe the woman you dealt with in Angola is a North Korean intelligence agent named Park Jae Soo. He said they have a file on her as long as your arm, that she’s quite the piece of work – and that he hopes she shoots you somewhere painful.”

  “Good to see I made such a positive impression.”

  “Don’t you always?” Ed said, with a look that wasn’t entirely supportive. He walked across the living room and turned on the television set.

  “Thanks, Ed.”

  “My pleasure. So what are you going to screw up next?”

  “The docks. There’s a ship coming in tonight that may contain a package I’ve been looking for.”

  Ed was watching a news channel. “You catch any of this this morning?”

  “What?”

  “Addison March, the Republican candidate. He’s doing a big mea culpa speech of some sort.”

  Brennan liked March. He didn’t like his immigration policies as Brennan had never had anything against Mexicans or Mexican Americans; but March was a supporter of smaller government, better support for the military, things Brennan believed in. “What did he do, screw some intern?”

  “Nope. Get this: he took a ten thousand dollar donation from an Islamic fundamentalist or something.”

  “Sloppy.”

  “But probably not fatal,” Ed said. “People know these kinds of mistakes are made, particularly his base of supporters. They’re not going to flee their moral tent just because there’s a small leak in the roof.”

  Brennan realized how little he knew about his old friend, just then, discussing the banality of politics. Like most professional contacts – even friends – there was a distance when they weren’t working. “You vote, Ed?”

  “I spoil my ballot.”

  “Eh?”

  “I take part. I register my opinion by spoiling my ballot.”

  “Why?”

  The pilot walked over to the small kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee. He motioned with the pot towards Brennan, but the agent shook it off. “It’s like this,” Ed said. “I’m fifty-six years old, and in my lifetime, I haven’t trusted a politician. Not one. Not completely. Not in the way you’d want to trust someone who leads and directs your life.”

  “That simple?”

  “And complicated. I’ve done a little reading about political ideologies and beliefs in general…”

  “We’ve all got ‘em,” Brennan said.

  “Yeah, and that’s interesting in and of itself. We’ve all got beliefs, whether it’s politics or faith or whatever, that we consider sacrosanct. We hold these beliefs because they help us feel secure in a fatalistic world, with only two things guaranteed: death and taxes. Most of us do so not just because we’re brainwashed by our parents or something, but because these beliefs work for us. They’re practical.” He walked back into the living room. “But the political system? It doesn’t work. Democracy is the best, most free example we’ve come up with. But the type practiced in our country now, and in other countries, isn’t getting the job done. You look at the numbers, eighty percent of the decisions favor the people who buy off politicians, and that’s on both sides of the aisle. It’s just not working. The values of both parties are being betrayed, every day.”

  Brennan nodded. He had to admit, he felt the same way most of the time.

  Ed wasn’t done. “People keep saying ‘we want change.’ Two presidents, at least, have been elected promising it. And yet it never comes because of the way the human brain works, because we never account for the fact that sometimes, our beliefs are just wrong. On both sides of the aisle. We run a system of polarized opposites, a continual détente between people who hate each other. When we begin to fight for a system that takes individual beliefs and ideologies out of the equation, which recognizes the frail nature of human certainty, and represents everyone fairly? Then I’ll stop spoiling my ballot, and go back to believing in Democracy.” He turned back to the T.V., where March was finishing up his press conference. Ed slurped from his beer can. “Shit, working together was good enough for Lincoln.”

  Brennan wasn’t sure how to answer. It was about the most personal Ed had ever been with him. He felt the same way, to a degree, but not to the extent of not taking part. But with the prospect of a night ahead searching for a missing nuke and a trail of bodies behind him prompted, in large part, by a political committee’s misdeeds, he found himself wondering for the first time in many years just what he was fighting for.

  LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

  The overhead neon tube lights had been extinguished through most of the floor, but in Jonah’s office, a small lamp illuminated his desk top and the series of small headshot photographs of his colleagues, which he’d arranged in a hierarchal tree, beginning with the director alone at the top.

  He refused to believe David was acting alone. He’d been Jonah’s mentor for four years, and if he’d turned or betrayed the agency, it could only be because he was being coerced. But the volume of information that had leaked out of the age
ncy about the task force and the missing South African device suggested someone was definitely passing secrets. He wasn’t ruling David out completely, because Jonah knew you could never truly trust anyone in intelligence work. But if he was right, and David was being manipulated, that meant someone else was the leak, someone still on the inside.

  He looked down the pyramid again; the director was a possible, if only because he had complete insulation, when required, from any scrutiny. Underneath him were David Fenton-Wright and the clandestine service’s director, Adam Tyler. Beneath them were their four principal assistants, including Carolyn and Jonah. Beneath them was another row of four, the regional section chiefs, including the late Walter Lang. The pyramid contained another eighteen senior officials and a handful of assistants.

  To its right on the table he’d laid out what he knew of the staff structure at the NSA, beginning with the colonel and then directly below him, Mark Fitzpatrick. A handful of the spots in the smaller pyramid were filled by Post-in notes with question marks on them.

  He’d been working on it as a puzzle ever since being called in by the director. Jonah wasn’t just looking after his own interests; he knew David had a genuine love for his country, that it was his dream to run the agency eventually. He couldn’t believe he’d have gambled it away, or that it was all a lie.

  What about Carolyn? He picked up her picture; she was an assistant, but she had access to all of the information that was leaked; her husband was looking less like a disgrace every day, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t tipping the media, or that she wasn’t tipping him. She was certainly quiet enough to be ruthless; she’d been promoted multiple times in the decade prior, but still had among the lowest profiles in the office. Was that by design, to give her the sort of unnoticed access someone would need to betray their own?

  His cell phone buzzed. Jonah was single and spent most of his spare time reading or doing research, so he wasn’t expecting it. The number was unfamiliar.

  “Jonah Tarrant.”

  “Jonah? It’s me.”

  “David?!? Jesus Christ, David… Where are you? Why haven’t you come in?”

  “I’ve been set up. Look, I know what they must be telling you…”

  “You got that right.”

  “But you know me, Jonah; you know I wouldn’t shoot an old hand like Myrna in cold blood.”

  David had always been a pragmatist, Jonah thought, but never as ruthless as that. “What the hell is going on, then?”

  “It’s complicated. Look, I have a meeting with a source in about an hour. Can you meet me there?”

  Jonah nodded to no one in particular then switched to a note app on his phone. “Where am I headed?”

  “It’s a parking garage, at a fitness center downtown. I’ll give you the address.”

  43./

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Malone felt uneasy, which would have been natural in the circumstance, except that she felt it more than usual, a creeping tension that had her checking the shadows in the parking garage, looking behind her occasionally as she made her way to the stairwell in the back corner, a palpable fear. She looked down from the top, between the railings, the stairs descending in a cement semi-circle. Then she made her way down to the third level, her flats echoing off the concrete steps.

  The meeting area was near the back corner, among the square concrete pillars and the shadows. Her source was waiting for her, hands in the pockets of his brown wool overcoat.

  “You didn’t answer my earlier contacts,” he said. “I left papers…”

  “They must have been taken up by the paperboy when I was out of town. I’m sorry. I thought about calling you…”

  “No, that would have been a mistake. I’d have assumed you were burned at that point, that you’d already given me up.”

  “Everyone in the city is trying to track you down, you realize that? No one out there is making any assumptions about who my source is but they all want a piece of you. Anyway…” She removed the memory stick from her purse and handed it to him. “Here. This has everything I’ve told you so far about David Fenton-Wright’s involvement in Ahmed Khalidi’s business.”

  The source’s eyebrows shot up. “Hard evidence?”

  “A recording, a confirmation.”

  “Astounding.”

  “You’d know better than I,” Malone said. “Tell me something...”

  “Go on.”

  “Tell me why you don’t just lay it all out for me: who started this with the shootings, who stole the nuke, how Khalidi connects the two?” It had been nagging at her for weeks.

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that. Seriously: what the hell is going on? The ship in Seattle was another dead-end but that’s no more than we expected by now…”

  “You do recognize how sensitive my sourcing is, right? That some of the stuff I’m giving you could only have come through a handful of very senior people, and that as a consequence, it could be tracked back to me?”

  “I know, I get that…” Alex was beginning to feel exasperated. “It’s just… I feel like the clock is running down on us, counting down too quickly for us to catch up.”

  “Don’t give up,” he said. “You’ve come too far to back out now. And you know the potential consequences.”

  She didn’t need to picture a mushroom cloud over New York. The notion was ever-present. “I’m not giving up. But we’re running short on leads.”

  “Where’s Brennan?”

  She hesitated. He’d never been that direct about her associate before. “In New York, trying to track down the device.”

  “Good. As long as he keeps his priorities straight, we still have a shot at this thing.”

  They turned quickly, surprised by the sound of squeaking hinges. Thirty yards away, the door to the north-side stairwell swung open.

  BROOKLYN, NEW YORK

  Through high-powered binoculars, Brennan watched the dozen men working. He was perched on the guardrail by an upper roadway, overlooking and leading down to a long, wide customs-and-excise freight yard, the shipping containers row on row, the area brightly lit by tall floodlights.

  It was a huge open yard surrounded by twelve-foot mesh fences topped with razor wire; no one else was working in the late evening, and without his binoculars, his surveillance targets looked like toy soldiers.

  He raised the glasses again and focused in. The crew wore black. They’d been removing crated items from a container and loading them into the open back of a transport trailer. The effort suggested they had to be heavy components.

  Brennan had gotten to the docks right around the time the ship made port, waited for hours and identified who was in charge, then followed the process of customs taking the containers and moving them to the supposedly secure yard for inspection before their eventual release. But someone at the yard had been paid off, the gate security defeated.

  He watched through the binoculars as a pair of men took the first of two long wooden crates and slowly picked it up, bending at the knees. Their care was evident as they maneuvered it towards the back of the truck. He panned forward, to just ahead of the truck where three men were talking, illuminated by the headlights. Identifying the leader and going after him would cut to the chase, keep his men from getting trigger-happy. These looked like military, serious players. Taking them out one at a time wasn’t a realistic option.

  He knew he had a short ops window. The second container had just been opened and it had only taken them fifteen minutes to empty the first – save, he assumed, from whatever they’d left behind for customs. At the other end of the yard, a fenced gate slowly slid back. A dark-colored sedan pulled in, then made its way across the short open parking area, and down along the central row, towards the truck. It pulled to a halt, its red brake lights glowing. The two front doors open and Brennan watched the passenger get out, a man in a suit. He turned, and Brennan saw his face.

  He nearly dropped the binoculars.

  It couldn’
t be, he thought. Could it?

  He raised the binoculars again, using the autofocus button to keep the image sharp.

  Terrence Corcoran.

  It had been fourteen years, but he knew the cold eyes, the square jaw line, the puffed-out chest. The older ex-SEAL’s hair had turned white, but was still in a neat brush cut, as if he was still in the service. And he was still running the show.

  He was talking to a younger man, also in a suit, but with a Mac-Ten machine pistol slung over his shoulder. At the end of the conversation, the younger man moved to salute but Corcoran stopped him, looking around self-consciously for a moment.

  Both ex-military? It made a perverted sort of sense, Brennan thought. The best way to handle something like the Cabinda extraction or this op was to use mercs, guys who’d been in a unit, knew how to work together without thought to outside distractions.

  Terrence Corcoran. His mind went back to Iraq, to Bobby; the emotions came flooding in, and Brennan felt his anger build. He took deep breaths, watching the men talk, allowing his pulse to slow. Whatever his involvement was, their past dealings made it a sure bet it wasn’t good.

  Brennan began to make his way down to the yard, hugging the shadows, trying to keep his mind in the present.

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  David Fenton-Wright’s pistol was already out and extended as he came through the parking garage door; it was pointed directly at Malone.

  Her source had reacted quickly, withdrawing his own gun from the inside of his raincoat pocket, levelling it right back at the man.

  They stood there in the wide circle of light cast by the harsh neon tube overhead, the two men frozen in place.