Shadow Agenda: An Action Suspense Thriller (46 page)

Wilkie leaned on both elbows on the desk, looking reflective for a moment. “No. But things don’t look good for him. Officially, of course, the agency is looking out for its employee and will support David in any way we can. Unfortunately, he did not show up for work yesterday, or today, and D.C. metro police are rather concerned we might be shielding one of our own. That had best not be the case; make sure that message is conveyed to the right people, as well.”

“What’s our next step?” Carolyn asked.

“We need to find the reporter who leaked the evidence to the NSA, which of course leaked it to us. Multiple parties seem to want her head. We need to know what she’s working on, what the ramifications might be to the agency’s reputation, its ability to move forward proactively.”

“And then what?”

“We decide once we know what’s going on,” he said. “If the story she’s working on has security implications, we get involved. If it’s merely an attempt to damage our reputation… well, there are other approaches that can be taken. Pressure can be brought to bear.”

Fenton-Wright had known something was wrong the moment he’d returned home, after dealing with the Verbish woman. He’d taken care of some minor housekeeping and stopped into the office for a while, then driven home to Spring Valley, a neighborhood in the west of the metro area.

When he arrived, a police officer was knocking on his front door, and he quickly pulled the car into a side street then turned around so that he could park it at an angle that let him view his home. A few moments passed and a second officer walked out from behind the house, shaking his head about something. While the two cops talked, a black sedan pulled up to the curb and parked. He recognized the men who got out, both NSA investigators, colleagues of Mark Fitzpatrick.

He was blown. Somehow, they knew about Faisal, or perhaps about Walter and Myrna.

Fenton-Wright considered his options. He needed a scapegoat, a rationale for taking Khalidi’s money; he needed a way to pin the whole thing on Joe Brennan. He needed an out.

But for once, he was unprepared.

His phone buzzed. The few outside contacts he still had from his younger days had been tapped; hopefully one of them had found something. He opened the email; a former field freelancer in Canada had sent him a note that Brennan was wanted in connection with the shooting of Konyshenko, the Russian arms dealer, in Vancouver.

What the hell was he doing in Vancouver? He followed the thread of the thought back, considering Brennan’s objectives up until that point. He must have pegged Konyshenko as being connected to the missing nuke, Fenton-Wright thought.

It was a puzzle, and he didn’t have all of the pieces, DFW decided. But he knew who did: the reporter, Alex Malone, had been one step ahead of the agency throughout; her sources were impeccable and he was beginning to believe she might even be in contact with Brennan.

He knew where she lived, had a recent address. Eventually, she’d return home, perhaps sooner rather than later. With few other options, Fenton-Wright began to plan a stakeout.

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

Brennan met Malone at a restaurant near the harbor, where she was busy using her tablet to try and find a source on the New York docks, someone who could keep an eye out until they could get out there.

“So?” she asked as he approached the table. She’d been sipping coffee, waiting to find out if the Liberty Lady was laden with danger. “Anything?”

He shook his head. “Plenty of guards, so there might have been some interesting product in those shipping containers. But nothing radioactive.”

“I heard the sirens. Things got messy?”

“A little bit, yeah. I get the sense, though, that it was only as difficult as it needed to be.”

“Huh?” What was he getting at?

“A half-dozen guys, poorly trained but heavily armed. Enough to make it seem like someone cared…”

“But not enough to actually protect something of real value?” she offered.

“Exactly.”

“So this was for show?”

“Yeah, a way to delay us … but not really.” He looked puzzled.

“What?”

“Well… it’s like Cabinda. When I was being held by Han; if she wasn’t working for the right team, she could have just shot me. Why leave me there? Why give me a chance to get back into the game? Then there’s tonight. If they’re expecting us to inspect the ship, why send a handful of boys to do a man’s job?”

Alex considered the point; he made a lot of sense, but she had no idea what was behind the decisions. “You think we’re being set up somehow, led to a conclusion?”

“It’s possible, yeah. I mean, we were getting nowhere; the second I got close enough to Konyakovich to get some solid intel on what’s really going on, he was iced by a sniper, probably the same shooter as in Europe.”

Malone had been thinking about Brennan’s African run-in with the scientist. “The question, to me, is why South Koreans are after a nuke in the first place,” she said. “Maybe if we answer that, we’ll have a better idea of what’s going on.”

The waitress came over and refilled their coffee cups. Brennan poured some cream into his decaf and waited until the woman had left. “You have any Korean sources?” he asked, “someone solid on their domestic and international policy, or in intelligence?”

“One guy,” she said. “Possibly. He’s a professor at George Washington. We… went out a couple of times. It was uncomfortable. He was very needy and clingy for a first and second date.”

She had a look of distaste on her face and Brennan stifled a chuckle. “You want to give loverboy a call, or just pass me his number?”

Her head slumped at the thought. “I’ll do it. But if you can think of anyone else who might…”

“Eddie.”

“Eh?”

“My pilot friend. He’s got contacts in every agency, everywhere. He must know someone over there; or maybe someone from over there who’s over here.”

“Okay, we try that,” she said. “Otherwise, I have to call Ken Cheong and ask for a favor; and I’d rather be roasted in bulgogi sauce.”

June 27, 2016, HARBIN, HEILONGJIANG PROVINCE, CHINA

The dining room was elegant, a long room dominated by an eighteen-seat formal table, and accentuated by the lush, dark wood of the sideboard that ran along one wall. On each wall, gilded gold frames housed masterworks of art from more than a century earlier, imposing Dutch figures perhaps as disconnected from modern-day China as was possible.

It was near silent, save for the odd clink of cutlery and the faint strains of classical string music from the adjacent study. Fung sat at one end of the table, his wife Wen at the other, some twenty-five feet away. In the middle, and off to one side, was a waiter, keeping watch over a silver serving cart that had conveyed their roast partridge and vegetables from the kitchen next door.

He sliced a Brussel sprout into two then chewed on one half slowly, trying to keep his attention on his plate, trying not to stare at his wife. He was angry with her, and she already knew that was the case; Fung had always considered himself a master of self-control; he dabbed at his mouth absently with a white linen napkin and tried to keep his mind empty, to avoid saying something with long-term consequences. He sliced another Brussel sprout into perfect halves and ate each in turn.

At the other end of the table, Wen picked slowly at the partridge, pulling away the crispy skin and cutting off tiny portions of white meat. She ate each in labored fashion, subconsciously looking up as she did so, tense and nervous at how he would react to her public embarrassment. She had dressed up for dinner in a traditional silk dress, her dark hair pushed up, her white powder makeup more accentuated. She wished to appear perfect and elegant, to give him an image close to the one he’d fallen in love with many years before.

He watched her through occasional glances as he leaned forward over his plate, sullen at her obvious attempt to curry favor; like so many husbands of party wives before him, he was tired of her overstepping her bounds.

The plates and cutlery clinked, the waiter nearby stoic as a statue, a veteran of the household staff, his survival instinct honed enough to know that no matter what was said between them, he heard nothing, he repeated nothing, and he knew nothing. When Fung finished his glass of wine, the waiter was at his side with the bottle as soon as his worthy leader’s head began to turn to make the request.

Fung chewed on a bite of the game bird, his irritation growing, one arm leaning against the edge of the table, dinner knife in hand. She looked up and saw him watch her, and Wen forced a small, shy smile.

But his expression went cold, instantly, his gaze narrowed, his mouth contemptuous. “What are you smiling at?” he demanded. “What reason do you have to smile? Tell me that.”

“I…”

“You what? You thought that while I was away, you would step into my shoes? Become Madame Fung, the Empress of Harbin? Rule over the party and the gangs alike?” He stabbed angrily at the partridge. Then he caught himself and took a deep, cleansing breath, letting the stress out. He went back to his dinner, but his mind was on the matter at hand now. How much damage had she done? Would there be an official investigation? Most certainly. But would it be serious this time, a message from the central committee that his time as the region’s de facto overseer was done – and perhaps his life with it?

Corruption scandals had become all the rage. The slow shift in China to a blend of capitalism and authoritarianism had finally seemed to reach a peak point, where the excesses of one-party control were no longer any more tolerated than those of capitalism. There was a technocracy developing, a state that functioned to maintain growth, development. The committee members were increasingly leery of the old guard, increasingly willing to purge their ranks, the sheer irony of
“progressives” cleaning house apparently no factor in their decision making.

Yet, despite that, she had used his extended time in Europe to flaunt his power, to demand levels of tribute from the shady operators, to exact revenge on old enemies. She had worked with Liu Bin, the wife of his business associate, to build a local powerbase through the traditional means: attacking his business enemies as “subversive and anti-state” in newspaper columns and articles, soliciting public support of those positions from his most groveling associates.

She watched him as he ate and did not reply, concerned any comment at that point might set him off again. In truth, she had simply tried to run his business for him while he was gone; perhaps she had been overzealous in a few areas; but she knew her husband, and that his own history in the city and province was hardly one of political moderation. So she remained quiet, afraid that the wrong facial expression or tone of voice might push him farther than he had gone before, to dangerous extents.

From the study, the stereo switched to Handel’s Symphony Number One in G Major, the strings entirely too optimistic and up-tempo for the mood of the dinner. Fung briefly thought about going next door and smashing it, before once again bringing his anger under control. Perhaps if he were to beat her severely…

No. He had tried that in the past, and it had merely made her more devious. Instead, he knew, he was going to have to fix this personally, grovel before the highest-ranking committee members who would acquiesce to meet with him. He would have to bring in her powerful father and once again lose face before him, look like less of a man in front of the individual he least liked.

And he would do it, because he loved her.

He hated her, too. But ultimately, Wen was as much a part of Fung’s life as his own hands, central to his existence, even when he was away from her, and cursing her name. She had borne his children and stood by him in the early days, when his own family had all-but disowned him.

At the other end of the table, she watched him more attentively now, able to read his facial expressions as he worked through what he wanted to say to her. She could see his inner conflict, his anger, but also his desire to work something out, to find a solution to the very real public image problem she created.

He looked up at her again, and this time he just looked slightly sad, like a man whose job is a necessary evil, the soul taken out of him just slightly. She smiled again, because she knew what it meant, that he was going to fix everything, protect her.

“Sometimes,” he said quietly, “sometimes you drive me to the point of madness.”

The music switched to Symphony Number Two in F Major, the optimistic, bouncy fourth part, more nuanced and not as bombastic as Handel’s more famous “Messiah”, but just as enthusiastic. She wasn’t quite sure what to say and she watched him eat a few more bites of food before she answered. “I know,” she said, smiling. “I will try harder. I promise.”

He nodded gently as the strings swelled and slowed, reach the final crescendo, before fading out.

The bullet pierced the window of the dining room that sat between two of the gold-frame portraits, piercing Fung’s cheekbone in a single clean hole before passing through his neck, severing his brain from his spinal column. His head thudded to the table, his last thought that perhaps they could work everything out after all.

The asset felt ill at ease; he’d had to insist on shooting Fung, his paymasters demanding he leave it until later and instead take a role in their larger objective of preventing the ACF from ever meeting again. But that wasn’t why he was there, to be some anonymous cog in a larger machine. They knew that when he took the job. They knew it was personal.

He took the rifle off of the tripod and began to disassemble it, checking the chamber first then removing the clip, then the barrel and suppressor, followed by the collapsible stock. The evening moonlight shone brightly through the stained glass in the upper part of the old synagogue’s attic window. It was one of the oldest buildings in the city, a remnant of the days when Harbin was once home to an extensive Jewish population. It offered a direct line-of-sight across five hundred meters of space between the synagogue and Fung’s palatial home. By the time police experts on scene had figuring out angles of deflection, he’d be at the airport, on his way back to America.