Shadow Agenda: An Action Suspense Thriller (11 page)

“Yes chairman?”

“Can you advise on the situation in Harbin?”

“The suppression of the south city gangs has, as we predicted, been a massive boon to the narcotics sales of their rivals to the north. Along with our consulting fee, we have agreed to the gangs’ request to pressure the regional assembly for a drug crackdown, in order to justify price increases.”

“Excellent,” Khalidi said. “Our Afghan operation are still producing a steady supply?”

“They are, despite competing with Tillo Bustamante’s operations for the best prices on poppies by the ton,” Russia said. “When we cut them off…”

“The blowback will start a war between the two sides that will decimate the Harbin underworld for years,” China said. He leaned forward into the light, turning towards the chairman. “Once again, chairman, masterfully executed.”

Khalidi ignored the compliment. “Britain, have you had any luck on the tobacco issue?”

“Not as yet,” Britain said, his accent clipped, old school Eton or Harrow. “However, my discussions with the Health Minister and others continue. I think we’ll get there.”

“Good, good,” the chairman said, satisfied. “Germany, how are we on the hydrogen fuel cell funding?”

“I continue to exert pressure on the chancellor, chairman,” Germany said, his voice older, more hesitant. There was always something slightly tired about Herr Doktor, Funomora felt. “There is little opposition, in principle, to anything that will help the automotive sector, and the sector owns most of the research into Hydrogen systems. However, some sectors of the cabinet are leery of further inflaming the nation’s relationship with France and Spain.”

Khalidi nodded. “Fine, but don’t let it get away from you, Germany. Gentlemen, we are on the precipice of our most productive year since the ACF’s formation. Let us not let La Pierre’s death deflect us from that fact. We still have much important work to do.”

After the meeting had broken up and the ACF board members had gone their separate ways, the man designated as “Britain” took an older-model, boxy white Renault taxi to Rue Jacob, just a few blocks south of the River Seine in the city’s sixth district. The area was, like most of Paris, flanked by six- and seven-story walkups in light grey concrete, the ground floors mostly devoted to shops, boutiques, cafes and wine bars. The area was also home to a series of chic hotels and the apartment prices were surprisingly affordable for Paris, as far as Abbott was concerned.

The TGV to Paris only took four hours from London these days, which also made the apartment sensible; it wasn’t that Abbott had tired of hotel rooms after years as a diplomat and bureaucrat. It was the mere fact that, despite the French tolerance for marital infidelity, Abbott had no desire for his relationship with a local woman to become public.

He’d worked within the British intelligence community for decades, so he knew better, knew that Annalise was a weakness a man of his stature could ill afford. And yet, he loved her as much, in her own way, as he did his wife. It was selfish; she was thirty years his junior, just reaching middle-age and still extravagantly beautiful.

At the building’s lobby front desk he gestured a greeting to the doorman before taking the adjacent flight of marble stairs to the third floor. He was breathing heavily and cursing his age by the time he reached the apartment. He began to fumble with the lock but before he could insert his key, the door swung inwards.

“Anthony!” She was wearing a dinner gown, already made up for the evening, her honey blonde hair pushed up, eyes made up, lipstick fresh. “I wasn’t expecting you for another half hour.”

“My meeting ended early,” he said, leaning in to kiss her on the cheek. “A spot of dinner up the street, then back here for dessert, hmmh?”

“That sounds lovely,” she said. “Did you bring me back anything nice from London?”

“As a matter of fact…” he said, producing the skinny jewelry box from his inside jacket pocket.

She chewed her lower lip nervously then pulled the little green bow, undoing its knot so that she could open the box. She lifted the lid. The locket was gold, small, wafer thin. Her eyes widened. “It’s lovely,” she said.

He took it from the box and helped her put it on, attaching the little clasp above the fine hairs of her lower neck. “To remind you of me when I can’t be here,” he said.

Oct. 1, 2015, LAKE ACCOTINK, VIRGINIA

Brennan stared over the water, his line dipping just below the surface but immobile, the lake top almost still. He had hoped to land something he could take home to Carolyn for dinner but it had been a multi-hour exercise in frustration.

Callum McLean looked on, amused.

They’d been casting lines off of the bank on the tributary creek that led into Lake Accotink, south of Annandale; they sat on the mossy ground, under the overhanging tree branches, in an area where the grass had been trampled down by repeat visits. The weather was cool and the water was placid, dark green. They’d brought a whole cornucopia of live and artificial bait: crickets, worms, red jigglers; fuzzy leaders and purple divers; but nothing was biting. The lake had been drained a few years earlier but the trout stock was supposed to be getting healthy again.

Brennan checked his friend for a moment and received a placid smile back. Callum was the epitome of a services man; he still got up at dawn, still rolled his clothes to pack them, then rolled them out under the hotel mattress when he traveled to keep them pressed; and he was fitter now than Brennan had been during active duty.

He’d also warned Brennan the creek was so low these days that not much was biting. But he hadn’t listened, figuring he knew the lay of the land better than his ex-SEAL buddy, who’d only moved to Annandale a year earlier. McLean set his rod against a fallen tree trunk but was watching the line, just in case. He’d cracked a ginger ale and was sitting back in a folding chair, watching Brennan cast and recast.

“You can drop bait as many times as you want,” McLean said. “Ain’t going to make the fish magically appear.” McLean knew he could talk to Joe openly, without worrying about offending him. He had stayed in when Brennan discharged seven years earlier; but now his own time in the services had come to an end. They didn’t talk about it much. Both realized how difficult it would be for the larger man. “Besides, it’s too hot for trout now. We should have gotten here earlier in the day.”

Brennan was unconvinced. “Look at all those reeds and rocks: if that’s not trout country right there…”

“It’s not,” McLean said. “For someone trained to be a survival expert, you sure are one lousy fisherman, you know that? You might find a jackfish down there normally, maybe some rock bass. But not in this stream. You notice how few flies there are buzzing the surface? No organic matter to attract them. They may say they restocked this stretch of water, but it sure hasn’t taken yet.”

“You could have told me two hours ago, before we got here.”

“I tried, remember? But you were busy reminding me of how you were an old grizzled country hand who ‘knew this creek like the back of his hand, doggone it’.”

“Uh huh. You knew that was idiotic though, right?”

“Hey, if I stopped you every time you were about to do something dumb you’d never have learned anything in Iraq. Come to think of it, I did, which is why you’re still here. I guess I just haven’t learned yet, either.”

Brennan reeled in, then cast out again, not even bothering to check the condition of his live bait. Both men fell silent for several minutes, the only sound the slight rippling of the water and the birds in the surrounding trees. “Felt weird, watching them burying Bobby,” Brennan finally said. “After everything that went down at Al Basrah, I’d figured we’d lost him a long time ago. But he almost made it; he almost got it together again.”

McLean nodded but said nothing. He’d already brought up Chief Warrant Officer Terry Corcoran’s aborted mission once that week, and knew how difficult it was for Brennan.

His friend had had confidence in the chief, trust. He’d helped keep him alive, too, through a second tour in the Gulf. Then they’d been assigned to help take back an offshore pipeline control facility, one of two teams of SEALS who stole in under cover of darkness to ‘liberate’ the key facility from Saddam Hussein’s forces.

They’d taken the control room within an hour, as ordered, and rounded up the Iraqis, locking them away in a storage room, unarmed and dressed only in their underwear, waiting for a larger force to arrive and secure the place long-term. But during the short gun battle, the second unit had disappeared into the bowels of the facility. When they didn’t respond to radio hails, Brennan had volunteered to go find them.

What he’d discovered instead was a massive vault, filled with some of the late dictator’s obscenely large collection of stolen art, jewels and gold – and Corcoran leading the second unit as it pillaged the place. He’d struck a deal with his friend, a warrant officer nicknamed Paddy, that they’d divide the spoils without reporting the find.

Brennan had played it by the book, threatening to report them, and things had come to a head quickly, weapons drawn, all pointed at one another. Then Bobby had gone looking for Brennan at McLean’s request; he had almost reached the vault when a figure carrying a weapon had burst out of one of the offices. Bobby opened fire, center mass, without thinking. The child, a son of one of the Iraqi officers who had been widowed during the U.S. bombing campaign, died instantly.

Eventually, they’d diffused the situation in the vault and the find had been reported, though Corcoran had insisted Brennan would have a target on his back for life. The only real casualties had been the little boy and Bobby’s mental health. He was never the same after that, McLean thought.

“He liked you a lot, you know,” McLean said. “He admired you.”

Brennan smiled at that. Bobby had been a great guy once, a long time ago. And Callum was the best friend he’d ever had, a brother, someone he could tell anything. He was surprised they’d been out for two whole hours, and his buddy hadn’t raised his stalled agency career.

As if on cue, McLean used one of his giant hands to set the ginger ale can down. “You know, you could always re-enlist.”

“If I wanted, I still couldn’t,” Brennan said. “One particular guy at the agency has me dangling; he’s had me dangling for two years now. I get the paycheck and I guess one day I’ll get the pension, but I’m permanently inactive.” He tried not to sound bitter. It was what it was, as Walter liked to say. “What about you? You figure out what you’re going do now that you’re out?”

McLean told Brennan how tough it was to go back to civilian life. “I’ve been doing some consulting but it’s tough, you know. I don’t really have business contacts. There’s just not a lot out there for me,” he said. “I mean, I can kill a guy eight different ways before he looks at me funny, but that doesn’t do you much good in the business world. I can field strip and reassemble an M60 in a minute, but I know jack shit about computers. I can survive for days with nothing, but I don’t know how to get a bank to give me a business loan.”

Brennan thought about it. What was he supposed to tell his friend? His own changeover had been problematic, at best. He’d found himself working part-time as a mechanic, and the merciful switch to the Agency had come after it approached him. Maybe Callum needed the same.

“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.