The Joe Brennan Spy Thrillers

by Sam Powers

  Drabek had counselled the families of criminals before. He understood the sense of shame, denial and confusion she was going through, and that she needed to know it wasn’t her fault. ‘Don’t make the mistake of questioning everything in your relationship,’ he said. She looked like she was going to cry and he felt awkward, unsure of how to comfort her. He patted her hand. ‘Something obviously went wrong with Benjamin, but that doesn’t invalidate what you had, or your feelings, or that it was something good. That’s just hindsight messing with you.’

  He started the car and backed out of the motel parking lot.

  Across the road at the International, Ben Levitt hid behind the white lace drapes and watched as the sedan backed up and then pulled out and left. He’d scouted well and his diligence had paid off.

  It looked like the same woman he’d seen at the condo, the woman he’d shot at. There was something achingly familiar about her, an almost primal sensation of belonging, as if she was family, or maybe someone he’d once loved. He tried to push it down, but it had surfaced on three occasions now and he was concerned it might jeopardize his singular pursuit of the objectives.

  He shook it off and turned back to the room. He’d already packed his case and rented a new vehicle with his second new identity. In an hour, after eating, he would drive north, through Oregon and Washington State. He would cross the border and head toward Vancouver.

  He would fly to Toronto and take a commuter to Baltimore, where Fire was slated to meet him in two days.

  And the man wanted for the murder of Paul Joseph would disappear.

  29/

  DAY 13

  HARBIN, China

  He heard the voice first.

  ‘Wake him up.’ The accent was dapper and English, tinged with a local dialect.

  Brennan braced himself. He knew what usually came next. Sure enough, the stinging slap of a bucket of cold water hit him from up close. It went up his nose, and he spluttered momentarily from the sinus pressure, blowing out excess liquid and mucus.

  He squinted. The room was dark, a warehouse again, but this time poorly lit. There was a set of stairs against one wall that led up to another room, suspended above the rest of the operation.

  A Chinese man in a sharp, narrow-cut brown suit and bowler hat was standing a few feet away, leaning on an onyx, silver-tipped cane while two thugs in string t-shirts and track pants checked Brennan’s wrist and ankle restraints. ‘You sir, are in a lot of trouble,’ he said in perfect English.

  ‘You sir,’ Brennan replied, ‘have lousy taste in hats.’ He looked around. ‘And friends.’

  The man looked incredulous. ‘Come now, Mr. Brennan. While I don’t mean to brag, I’m renowned across Asia for my style. When I go to a club, designers take note.’

  ‘And cops too, I imagine.’

  He smiled. ‘I like you, Mr. Brennan. Anyone who can maintain a sense of humor and the absurd in your situation is either entirely insane or quite courageous. I shall guess the latter, given that Sergei informs us you are an American agent of some sort.’

  ‘He’s a very creative fellow, that Sergei.’

  ‘He was actually quite loyal. We placed him under considerable duress.’

  ‘Let me guess: I’m supposed to be James Bond or something?’

  ‘Or something. Bond was British, after all...’

  ‘You sound like you spent some time there. Oxford? Cambridge, perhaps?’

  ‘London School of Economics, after a few years at Harrow.’

  ‘Ah. So, old money then?’

  ‘Some of the oldest in China.’

  ‘Yikes.’ Brennan kept the tone light and flippant, but that was genuine cause for concern. The oldest Black Societies went back centuries and were massive multi-tentacled organizations. Taking one on at any level was never wise.

  ‘But, like any organization, we have business that must be taken care of,’ the man said. ‘My name is Benson Chu. Like all Black Cranes, I must produce, for the men above me, a certain amount of tribute each month.’

  ‘I’m guessing there’s a point at which this involves me,’ Brennan said.

  ‘Quite...’ The man walked over with the cane over his shoulder, the image almost whimsical, as if he was about to break into a chorus of ‘Singing in the Rain’. When he arrived beside Brennan, he lowered it to the ground and leaned on it once more. ‘What to do, what to do... You know, there’s a group from the State Security Ministry flying to the city to look for you today.’

  ‘Word travels quickly for a big country.’

  ‘These crazy kids and their internet.’ The gangster smiled again. ‘Of course, I’m certain I could negotiate a pretty penny for turning you over to them.’

  ‘Doubtless.’

  ‘So you concede your value, as an American agent?’

  ‘No... I just think I’m pretty.’

  That elicited a grin. The gangster paced with the cane in a small semi-circle around Brennan’s chair. ‘Or, I could sell you to the Russians. You came in through their airport, so I’m sure they could find some espionage charge that would stick for a century or so. They pony up real money for information, the Russians; they might even look the other way while we move product across the border for a while.’

  ‘That’s really fascinating stuff. The world is your oyster.’

  ‘Quite. There’s one problem with both of those scenarios, of course: they don’t account for Vincent Gao and his preoccupation with ending your life.’

  ‘Really? What did I ever do to him?’

  ‘Well.... you did kill five of his men and cripple another back in Heihe; one of those whom you so expertly disembowelled was his second cousin, and his ire is, we shall say, considerable at the present time. Fortunately for you, I outrank him. Barely. And I rather prefer the profit motive to revenge. It’s so much more ‘now’.’

  ‘An ancient black society, but one that changes with the times?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘And when you make a decision like this, do you ever consult the elders of the society? Say... Master Yip Po?’

  ‘Subtle.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  The gangster rested one hand on the cane and put the other in his pocket. ‘Now why would a Gwai Lo from... let me guess... upper New York State? Yes, I think that’s about right... Why would a Gwai Lo from Buffalo want to talk to the Revered Master Yip? It could be for training, I suppose; from what I’m told about the fight in Heihe you can certainly handle yourself...’

  ‘Thank you again.’

  ‘...or it could be because he used to work for State Security in some capacity he has never discussed, and has technically been a wanted man for many years.’

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘He does not wish to speak with you, unfortunately.’

  ‘You checked already? So efficient.’

  ‘You were unconscious for nearly a day. After the fight in Heihe...’

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘Harbin. After the fight in Heihe they gave you something to keep you calm for a little while, and you had a sleep. So any contact, any handler or associate you’d made arrangements with at the border? That’s done, I’m afraid. There is no one coming to help you. And Master Yip has a standing ‘no contact’ order for almost everyone here.’

  The words had barely left his mouth when a red light by the main door began to blink. A man leaned out of the upper floor office. ‘Sir, we have a visitor. The alarm on the rear fence has been tripped.’

  The man rested his hands on the cane again. ‘Perhaps I spoke too soon.’

  The warehouse property was dark and surrounded by a chain-link fence. There was so little exterior lighting that even in a relatively well-lit business park, it was hard to tell how many men were patrolling its asphalt grounds. A shadow moving off near the far fence, another near the rear-side door; a few more out front. There was a large parking area, and then lanes running behind the main building, presumably leading to a loading dock of some sort.

/>   Daisy Lee counted six men so far; the number of cars alone suggested there were a few more inside. Her contact, an old listening station agent who’d retired to Harbin but had helped train her a decade earlier, had heard that the Black Cranes were holding an American. Given Brennan’s habit of finding the people he sought, locating him might also mean locating Master Yip Po.

  If there was a way to accomplish her goal without also saving him in the process, she sulked, it would be preferable given the trouble he’d caused her. But Lee knew she might have no support left at State Security, at least until she figured out who could be trusted; that made the Americans potentially valuable allies, assuming the end goal was uncovering Project Legacy. The idea of it consumed her, given the attempts on her life in both Macau and Hong Kong. Whatever it represented was a kind of evil, the type of adversary she’d hoped her career would focus on; she wasn’t just going to walk away.

  She scaled the ten-foot fence with ladder-speed; at the top, she threw her leather jacket over the barbed wire to cross unimpeded, then dropped down to the ground below.

  Across the yard, a red bulb by the door of a second small building lit up and began to flash. That usually wasn’t a good sign. She’d studied the fence and hadn’t seen any sign of alarms but knew the greeting was probably for her. That meant it would be followed by guards, a lot of them. She sprinted into the shadows behind the main building. Any moment she knew a guard could round the next corner and...

  There. She darted at him and before he’d fully turned the corner was on him, her elbow slamming into his throat, crushing his windpipe. The man collapsed and his rifle clattered to the pavement. She heard voices raised, men running. She moved to the corner of the building and peeked around.

  Bullets pinged off the wall, chips of plaster striking her as she ducked back. Two at least on the one side. She had to assume the same on the other side of the building, which meant at least four gunmen closing on her. She looked around for another exit. The building’s rear windows had bars over them. She jumped up to grab them and pulled herself cautiously to chest height. Her pistol was unclipped in a holster strapped to the outside of her thigh and the bars caught the butt. It tumbled to the cement below, clattering when it landed. She clambered onto the top of the bar cage.

  She looked down at the gun but there was no point trying to get down there to retrieve it before the others arrived.

  Above her was another window and another set of bars, but they were ten feet up. The only way to reach them was to try something dangerous...

  She took the half-step back that the bars afforded, then leaped up on a diagonal, using the wall like a step to push off and up. It had to be timed perfectly or she’d push off too hard, miss the bars and fall twenty feet to the asphalt. Her hand reached out as she pushed off the wall, her fingers barely finding the bottom of the upper bars. She held on tight, flinging her other arm up, finding another hand hold and pulling herself up just as the men converged below her. She could hear them talking, confusion reigning. One of them looked up and she heard rapid fire warnings, guns swinging around to train on her just as Lee jumped up to grab the roof ledge. She threw her body over it onto the roof, then quickly found her feet.

  A pair of skylights sat fifteen feet apart in the middle of the roof. She sprinted to the first. There was a sound coming from the roof’s far corner, like someone stepping on tin.

  A ladder. She was going to have company any moment.

  Lee opened the first skylight, just as the armed guard reached the top of its ladder and reached up to open it himself. Her look was probably as surprised as his and for a split second, they stared at one another. Then the guard tried to unshoulder his weapon while holding onto the ladder. She slammed the skylight closed and ran over to the other. She could hear feet climbing the ladder up the side wall. Lee opened the skylight and this time the guard was prepared, his weapon pointed right at her. She threw herself sideways and tucked into a roll as the gun sprayed slugs into the night air.

  Across the roof, a guard tried to climb over the edge from the escape ladder. She bolted over to it and planted a front kick in his chest, the man screaming as he plunged to the ground. Behind her both skylights had opened, and the guards were climbing out. She ran over to the first, pirouetting in a ballerina spin, her right foot in a wide, sweeping kick that knocked the man senseless. The other guard was up and onto the roof but before he could sight her, she jumped through the open skylight, grabbing each side of its ladder so that she could slide down its length to the floor below.

  Before she could assess her surroundings, a blade swooshed through the air in a wide arc; Lee ducked backwards as far as she could, just millimeters under the razor-sharp sword. Instinct told her the strikes would be fast, direct, attempting to knock her off balance, and she kept going over backwards, a reverse cartwheel that took her a few feet from her assailant.

  The room was dark but appeared to be a large office of some kind. The guard charged her, screaming for battle, the sword thrusting out quickly in repeated stabs at her torso, Lee dodging each adroitly then knocking the flat of the blade to one side with a slap, her other hand flying out to catch the swordsman in the mouth, staggering him. Angered, he charged her again, bringing the katana down in an overhead chop. Lee caught the blade flat between both palms, but she could feel his greater strength forcing it down toward her.

  Behind her, another guard entered the room. Lee released her grip and spun out of the way, the blade coming down hard but finding nothing except air. She spun on her heel, a back kick catching her assailant in the spine and sending him tumbling forward, the sword thrusting right into the man who’d just entered the room. Before the shocked swordsman could withdraw it, she closed on him, grabbing the back of his head and his chin in each hand, spinning his neck hard to one side, feeling it snap and the man go limp.

  She ran out of the office; a set of steel stairs led down to a football-field sized warehouse, but four men were at the bottom and climbing them. Going back to the roof was out; so was facing all four on a narrow stairway, even with the high ground. Guns were being drawn; she had to act quickly. Lee threw herself over the side of the rail, catching the edge of the metal walkway and hanging suspended. They began to rush up the stairs as she eked her way over to the bottom of the top step. She used the underside of the open metal steps as monkey bars, climbing quickly down hand-over-hand even as the guards yelled to back up and tried to stab her through the gaps. She dropped to the ground as the first reached her, gun arm extended.

  Instead of seeking cover, she ran directly for him on a slight angle, making it harder to sight her, then at the last second dropped down and slid on the polished concrete, the sliding side kick slamming into the man’s ankles, breaking them. He went down screaming, a gunshot fired off wildly, the bullet going through the corrugated metal roof.

  There was a series of boxes on pallets, some stacked high, others low. They were grouped in the middle of the warehouse and Lee used them for cover, ducking in between the crates so that she was hard to see. At the back of the warehouse, a man was screaming apoplectically in Mandarin. ‘Find him, or explain your transgression!’

  The voice was familiar, but she couldn’t immediately place it. Lee crept through the maze of boxes, looking for an opening that would allow her to see the back of the room and what was going on. The yeller was probably their Red Pole, she surmised, which meant that if she wasn’t caught, someone would pay with a life.

  The pistol came out of nowhere, the guard stepping out from behind a crate and putting the barrel against her temple. ‘Don’t move!’ he ordered. ‘You stay right there.’ The proximity was a mistake; even on a gun with a light trigger pull, she knew she could snatch the barrel and pull it sideways before he could squeeze off a round and she did so with cool precision, the bullet flashing wide and smashing through wooden crates, the volume of the shot in the confined area half-deafening them both. Still holding his gun hand wide, she threw out three quick j
abs, each catching the guard on the chin’s nerve cluster, his legs turning to rubber even as he lost consciousness.

  She retrieved his dropped weapon, a knockoff of an older Colt. The sound alerted her first, a rustling behind her. She pivoted, gun hand raised, but her instinct told her to move instead and she dove to her left as the machine-gun fire ripped through boxes.

  The same voice was screaming now, outraged. ‘No guns! Don’t damage the product, damn you!’

  There had to be at least four other foot soldiers by Lee’s count. She followed the tallest section of crates until she reached the edge of the storage area. The fist came from nowhere, flashing in from her right so quickly that she barely had time to duck backwards and out of the way. But it hadn’t been aimed at her; instead the punch knocked the pistol cleanly from her left hand. Lee rolled forward, through a gap at the edge of the crates and into the open.

  Her attacker was skilled, she recognized immediately. His stance was snake-like, loose and limber, like a Changquan disciple, or a varied stylist. Before she could further assess he took a half step before leaping into the air and flipping head over heels sideways in a ‘chekongfan’, a jumping side kick, his heel striking her shoulder as she tried to bob out of the way. Lee went down hard, landing on her tailbone. She ignored the pain and reacted on instinct, rolling backwards and coming up on her feet even as he stepped into a jumping side kick. Lee dodged sideways and he flew past her; as soon as his feet hit he cement he was turning back to face her.

  His speed and skill were considerable, Lee worried. Behind her, she heard a footstep. A shadow caught the corner of her eye and she ducked down, realizing someone had closed on her six. The blade of the butterfly knife found air and she reached down to grab her attacker’s arm, yanking it hard over her knee, the bone breaking and the guard collapsing in screams. His associate didn’t flinch, ignoring the man’s painful plight and instead stepping in to deliver a hard punch that caught Lee flush in the side of the head, staggering her. Before she could regain her balance, he’d swept her legs out from under her. Then he was on her, trying to pin her to the ground with his knees so that he could choke the life from her.