Shadow Agenda: An Action Suspense Thriller (23 page)

FEB. 12, 2016, BONN, GERMANY

Dr. Hans-Karl Wilhelm was accustomed to his life running on a schedule, and little had changed in the months since his colleagues had been shot. He was still at the mercy of the clock, so full was his day with meetings, consultations and even the odd aging patient, left over from when he still regularly practiced medicine. He continually found himself without enough hours to pursue all of his ambitions and passions.

At sixty-three, he knew he should have been slowing down. In fact, his own doctor had just told him that he risked hypertension, which in turn could lead to a heart condition, if he did not start taking his age into account.

And yet… he could not. Even at eight o’clock at night, when he should have been relaxing from the day, his wife Helga would often find him in the garage, working on one of his old cars. On this particular night, she had not even bothered to try and dissuade him, seeing the look of determination in his eye. And so he was slung underneath the 1962 Melkus, an East German sports car with an appearance somewhere between a seventies Lamborghini and a Corvette; it was a model that few in the west had ever seen.

He was concentrating on its struts; the car’s wheels were removed and off to one side of the room and the vehicle’s frame had been lifted with a pneumatic hoist. He lay on a mechanic’s creeper, the wheels old and stiff, which he preferred for the sense of stability.

Wilhelm was trying to take his mind off of the ACF. The German delegate had felt as if he were in over his head for some time now, so grateful initially to be included in the elite group that he’d ignored his conscience, and questions about their role, on many occasions. He had justified its approach to himself many times; at his age, he had seen so many morally repugnant individuals get away with so much, it was not hard to justify working outside existing domestic laws to deal with them. And it was no longer seen as so bad to profit from the outcome, either. He had grown up in Germany after the war, feeling the pain of a nation led astray. He had grown up with his father, a staunch opponent of the Nazis who had been forced to flee his homeland, and his father had taught him the lesson of history: that if one man had acted on impulse and shot Adolf Hitler dead where he stood, early in his reign of tyranny, millions of lives might have been saved.

He recognized the irony, of course, of a non-sanctioned political body acting without the restraint of law; but he judged himself intelligent enough to help make those choices; to risk damage to the perception that political representation itself meant democracy, in exchange for the assurance that real action would be taken against those threatening freedom – and that they would be rewarded for their intervention.

Life, Dr. Wilhelm told himself, was ultimately always about leaders and followers. He had seen the mistakes a nation could make in abrogating their responsibility to occasionally take the lead, and by following blindly instead. He insisted on leading, but reassured himself nightly that it was benevolent leadership.

He turned the wrench against the nut steering bracket, trying to loosen the strut. The thing wouldn’t give; he wondered if the strut and shock assembly had been changed since the car was last on the road, some twenty-five years earlier.

He was reaching up when the car dropped.

It was sudden, instant, the full weight of the vehicle pulled towards him by gravity as the pneumatic lift collapsed. Wilhelm didn’t even have time to throw his arms out in front of him …

It stopped short. Somehow, the collapsing pneumatic lift had halted its descent less than an inch above him, a mere split second from crushing him like an egg. He was breathing fast and hard, terrified momentarily at what had almost happened. He tried to push off the floor with his heels, but his legs were out straight and he had no leverage.

“Frightening, isn’t it, to come so close to death?”

The voice was male. The German was good, but tinged with an accent.

“Who is that?” Wilhelm asked. “Help me, please. I believe I am stuck. I do not have space to move.” He managed to turn his head slightly to one side and could just make out a pair of shoes, brown, casual dress.

“Dr. Wilhelm, you have a choice to make: you may assist me in my inquiries and answer a question or two for me; or, if that is contrary to your wishes, I can remove the iron bar that is presently preventing this pneumatic spring jack from collapsing completely and that car from crushing the life out of you.”

“What… what do you want?” Wilhelm asked in English.

“You came home for Christmas from Paris. What were you doing there?”

“Meetings, just … meetings. Government. Please, my friend, I am … quite frightened.”

“What kind of meetings? Be specific. I’m not sure how long that bar will hold the weight.”

“A group to which I belong, political advocacy. It is nothing, I assure you, just a loose association. We met.”

“I know about the group. Why else would I be here, Herr Doktor? The only reason you are not dead yet is that I see something in you that I do not in your colleagues, signs of humanity.”

“We… do important work.” Wilhelm’s mind was racing as he tried to figure out who the man could be and how much he knew.

“You sit in judgment without view to broader consequence,” the man said. “I do not want to hear rationales, Herr Doktor. I merely want whatever information you have on the whereabouts over the next three months of your fellow committee members; whether they will be in Montpellier, or Paris, or Brussels – or perhaps visiting their home nations.”

“I am not sure…” the doctor began to say. He heard a screeching of metal-on-metal as the bar began to slide out of its spot. “No! Wait… I ... I know some details. Plans are fluid and we are always changing…

“Just give me times, dates, places. Anything you have.”

The doctor began listing off meetings he knew his fellow committee members would attend, where they would be held and, as well as he could remember, rough date ranges. “There is more, in my phone, in my pocket…”

The man crouched and reached down. Wilhelm tried to see his face, but it was cast in the shadow of the car. A hand reached roughly into his pocket to grab the phone, and Wilhelm grabbed it by the wrist, his frail, elderly hand unable to restrain the man, the grasp merely an attempt at a precious moment of human contact. “Please…”

“Thank you,” the voice said as the man rose. “I realize that cannot have been easy for you.”

Wilhelm had a cold, sinking feeling as he mentally connected the dots. “You … you are the one who killed Madame La Pierre and Lord Abbott, yes?”

“Yes.”

“And you have no problem admitting this to me?”

“No,” the asset said. “I don’t.”

He pulled the bar out quickly and the car dropped loudly to the cement floor, Wilhelm trapped between the mechanic’s creeper and the undercarriage, the weight crushing his chest instantly, killing the aging doctor.

The asset had meant what he said: Wilhelm did seem like the only ACF board member with a soul. But it was compromised and valueless, the asset knew, and his death was no great loss.

FEB. 13, 2016, GERMANTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA

Sen. John Younger sat on the uncomfortable antique sofa and watched his grandchildren as they played with their new toys; he’d spent all morning with them at the store, picking out what they wanted. Little Andy in his PJs, his blonde-brown hair in a bowl cut, his attention totally focused on the giant red-plastic fire truck; his younger brother Paul just a toddler still, partly fascinated with the stuffed giraffe, partly absorbing the newness of the world around him.

His cell phone rang. He checked it, intent on letting it go to voice mail before he realized who was calling.

“Go ahead,” he said. He didn’t use Mark Fitzpatrick’s name; he’d never trusted phone lines and he knew what his political opponents were capable of. If they knew he had such a high-ranking NSA source, he’d lose his distinct advantage very quickly. Inside the Beltway, knowledge was power.

“We have an update, Senator. The Bustamante incident was precipitated by our asset, according to my agency source. His guards were aiming at someone else.”

“Unfortunate.” Younger was thinking long-term; eventually, his administration might be the one having to clean up after the fact.

“Have you seen the papers today?” Fitzgerald asked.

“Not yet.”

“Then that’s my other piece of news: the German board member of the ACF is dead.”

“How are his people reacting?”

“Our German friends tell us they know there was definitely someone else present.”

That would make people nervous, Younger thought. “When we meet with the NSC next week, it would be wise to stress that Wilhelm’s death was probably a legitimate accident, unrelated to the others; let POTUS feel a little more comfortable that we’re going to make our European partners look great. As long as he feels Bustamante was probably responsible and that the threat is under wraps as a result, the less involved he’ll be.”

“Will you be on the road next week?”

“Yes. I’ve got this break with the family and a local stump, and then we’ll be doing the southern circuit on the bus.”

“You’ll be giving the happy voters a thrill over the holidays, letting them meet the next President of the United States,” Fitzpatrick said.

Younger smiled at that. Fitzpatrick was proving an essential asset.

FEB. 26, 2016, WASHINGTON, D.C.

“This is blackmail. You realize that, don’t you?”

The man speaking was upset, the tension accentuated to her ears by his African-accented English, even though she couldn’t read his eyes behind the aviator shades. He seemed more frustrated than angry or violent; but he probably felt powerless and, as is the case for most people, it made him feel defensive.

Alex Malone felt for him, a little. The News Now reporter had met him in the near-empty parking lot of a restaurant in White Oak, just north of D.C., at just after seven in the morning, because he was deathly paranoid of being seen with her anywhere close to the Beltway. So they sat in his car, a dark blue sedan, parked facing the road on the dark dirt-and-gravel, maybe forty yards from the single-story white-plaster diner. They were alone in the lot aside from a pair of older model sub-compacts parked to one side of the building, in the staff slots, and Malone’s car, a ten-year-old red Mazda Miata, which was in a space right by the entrance.

They sat in his car, her dressed in business clothes, fit and attractive, and him in a sweatshirt and jeans, trying to look like something other than a cultural attaché for one of Africa’s largest nations.

But she knew what he was really like, so her sympathy only extended so far. She didn’t feel guilty for trying to use him, and she certainly didn’t feel guilty for using leverage to do it. In his time, Freedom Mbilo had been a politician, a war lord and a gangster; his grooming of his reputation through diplomacy had been bought and paid for, like everything important in his life, with someone else’s.

“Mr. Mbilo, let’s cut the shit, okay? You’ve fed me stories in the past because they were politically advantageous to you. All you would be doing by passing this information to me is returning the favor. I scratch your back, you scratch mine.”

He lit a cigarette and Malone fought the urge to crack one of the tinted windows. He blew out a plume of smoke then said, “And yet this arrangement is not so fair that you felt I would go along with it freely.”

“It was a matter of necessity and I apologize. What you do in your spare time is your business,” she said. “And I’m sure that as long as your wife doesn’t hear about it, she won’t mind either.”

“Her father is a very influential man in my country.”

“I know.”

“He would have me killed if he discovered I had … dalliances with others.”

“Perhaps the best thing, then, is to ensure people who know about your personal habits have no reason to tell him. Or your wife, for that matter.”

Malone’s meeting with the mysterious agency operative had convinced her there was much more to the story of the EU sniper than had been made public. More lives were at stake, from the sniper at the least. So she’d gone to the charity event, had too much to drink with Mbilo’s assistant, convinced him to tell her about his boss’s mistresses as he flirted with her. Now she was twisting the knife, less than six hours after heading home in a cab, the tension underwritten by her hangover.

“And if I help you now, you will not attempt this next week on another issue?”

“No.”

Mbilo sounded skeptical. “How may I believe that?”

She was tempted to remind him that he was the guy with the blood-thirsty reputation. But she let it go. “I don’t care if you do or not, frankly. I have a job to do.”

He reached over his shoulder to the backseat, pulling a brown envelope out of a small blue-and-silver sports bag. “This is the report of my intelligence service into activities in West Africa. You realize that this incident happened several years ago, yes?”

“I do,” she said, completely unaware of any such thing.

“Then take it. It is the best I can offer. And get out of my car. I do not expect to hear from you again, Ms. Malone.”

“Agreed.”

“Let us best hope so. I know now what you are capable of,” he said, his voice calm and focused. “I do not think you would like to find out what I am capable of.”

Malone opened the door and climbed out, slamming it behind her. The man backed the car up quickly and pulled out of the lot, the tires kicking up gravel with dusty enthusiasm, leaving her behind.

She crossed the empty lot to the diner, the whoosh of traffic on the adjacent freeway already busy in the early morning. The glass door jingled as she pushed it open. Her new friend was waiting at a booth and the sound caught his attention. She took the booth seat across from him. “If we keep meeting under these circumstances, I’m going to need a name to call you by,” she said as she slid onto the bench.

“Stop fishing for who I am,” the man said. “When I can tell you, I will. But anything you know now that you don’t need could get you or both of us killed.”

“It’s contrary to my nature to stop trying,” she said.

“Suck it up.” he said. “Have you checked the news yet?”

“What? I caught the update on 99.1 but it was all local.”

He picked up a folded newspaper lying on the bench next to him and tossed it onto the table in front of her. “Number three, Hans-Karl Wilhelm. He was crushed to death yesterday by a car at his home workshop. German authorities are ruling it accidental, a failure of the pneumatics used to lift it above the ground.”

“I take it that’s not what really happened,” she said.

“It is what really happened; but anyone who believes it was an accident hasn’t really been paying attention.”

“They’ll expect me to file something for the website,” she said. “We have to get through this stuff quickly.” She opened Mbilo’s manila envelope and handed a thatch of papers to him. “Here: you go through this half, I’ll do the rest.”

The documents were marked classified and were in English. They were accompanied by a series of photographs. Some of them were of soldiers in battle fatigue, others of bodies – men and women, children, some killed recently, others in advanced decay. They were horrifying; flies swarmed the bodies, limbs and parts of torsos had been hacked off, piled flesh growing fetid in the jungle heat. A series of notes identified them as villagers from the Nigerian interior; it said they’d been killed in an insurrection by extremists intent on controlling valuable oil and natural gas deposits throughout the region.

“My God,” Malone said. “There must dozens dead in these pictures.”

The documents with the file included notes from investigators; a militia had swept through the village, killing men, women and children indiscriminately. It was one of several that had roamed the area for months, before government forces eventually put them down.

“They traced the money in accounts held by one of the militia leaders to a company called Novextra Energy,” Alex said as she leafed through the pages. “The director of that company in Nigeria four years ago was a Slovenian national by the name of Andraz Kovacic.” A picture of Kovacic was attached to the paperwork, a man with short hair, angular features. She unclipped it and handed it to Brennan.

“I recognize him,” he said. “I don’t know from where or why, but that’s probably not a good sign.”

“Because he works in intelligence?”

“Yeah. Or he’s made someone’s naughty list. Either way, that makes him the kind of guy you don’t want to see coming your way.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because I’m the kind of guy you don’t want coming your way.”

“Uh huh. What am I supposed to call you, anyway?”

“Over to you. Call me Joe, I guess.”

“That’s not your real name, is it?”

“Tough to put one by a reporter.”

“Uh huh. Don’t lay it on too thick, ‘Joe’.”

They realized they were smiling at each other. Brennan averted his glance, guilty at flirting with someone other than his wife. He went back to the file; they’d had a moment, a connection; and that was all it was going to be. He and Carolyn had troubles, there was no doubting that. But he loved her, and he loved his kids.

He shook it off and scanned each page in quick succession. “Here,” he said. “There’s a European company based out of the Isle of Man listed as Novextra’s parent, a Kalispell Resources. The Isle of Man is notorious for having no corporate tax, making it an offshore haven for various financial instruments.”

“Yeah, I saw a piece on 60 Minutes about it a few years ago. What does that mean?” Alex said. She kept leafing through the pages. There were more investigative notes, some photocopied emails, and a copy of a business card. “Raymond Slocombe, Director of Finance, Kalispell Properties. A parent company?”

Brennan nodded. “A parent company with an address in Baltimore. Look, you should get home. I need to check this out.”

Malone’s eyebrows shot up faster than the price of water in a heatwave. “You’re kidding, right? I’m not going anywhere except wherever you’re going. I still have nothing tying Ahmed Khalidi or any of the other ACF board members to Kalispell.”

“I can’t be responsible for your safety. And I have no idea what we’re walking into. Logistically…”

“Logistically, you can kiss my ever-widening ass if you think I’m giving up a second of this story. If I was a guy, would you presume to make a safety decision for me?”

“If you were a civilian, yes. It’s not because you’re a woman, it’s because you’re a member of the general public, unskilled in self-defense and survival and, I hate to tell you, likely to just slow me down.”

“Tough. I found a source who gave us a hard tie, potentially, to the ACF and atrocities; it doesn’t explain why someone’s killing off its board members. But it’s a hell of a story, and you know it.”

Brennan gathered up the paperwork. “Then we should get going. Just remember, if things get violent, don’t put me in a position where I have to choose between protecting civilians and saving you; because you’re there by choice. So you’re going to lose that contest every time.”

Malone nodded in short, rapid takes, surprised by the gravitas in his voice. She had no doubt he was serious.

They left her car at the townhouse, parked in the rear lot, and took Brennan’s rented Lincoln for the ride to Baltimore. He was silent for most of the trip, keeping things impersonal, his mouth a grim line and his eyes on the road.

Malone studied him. He had an almost muscular tension, a sense that he might uncoil at any moment, as if nothing going through his mind could be allowed to be off mission or off topic for even a moment. Did he even realize how surreal their lives were at that moment? Or was it just another day at the office for him? There had to be more to his mission than just the snipers, she thought. He’d never explained sufficiently why America would be so involved in a case that didn’t involve its diplomats or jurisdiction.

How far out on a limb would he go for her? She didn’t doubt for a second that her intelligence source would abandon her if he needed to. Would ‘Joe’ do the same? Malone wasn’t inclined to consider the risks she took, or how they might affect her life and career. But leaning so heavily on others wasn’t her usual M.O; she knew she should have felt a greater sense of unease, of self-preservation. Maybe spending so much time with the agent was providing a false sense of security, she thought.