Shadow Agenda: An Action Suspense Thriller (48 page)

She took out Konyakovich’s key. “I know this is asking a lot, as this might not even come from America,” she said. “But if…”

He held up a hand. “Miss, this is the most common publicly shared key in the country, just about. It’s an American Lockers key.”

“You’re sure.”

“Sure as cheeseburgers ain’t kosher.”

“How would I find the locker?”

His eyes widened. “Okay, good I may be, but a mind reader I’m not. But you see this small number here? That’s so that a replacement can be made if it’s lost. It’s made for them by the Master company. This your key, miss?”

“Sent to me by a friend,” she lied. “He died shortly after.”

“That’s very unfortunate.”

“So…”

“So I can check their online database of key codes and contact the company; they’ll know for sure.”

“How long…?”

He shrugged. “Meh… they take time sometimes to call you back, but generally, they’re good about things. Tomorrow… maybe Thursday?”

“Is there any way we could find out today?”

He smiled warmly at her, a gleam in his eye like a kindly grandfather. “You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to try real hard to get them to find out for me today, and I’ll call you back before I close. If not, tomorrow. How’s that?”

“Mr. Yagel,” she said. “You’re a mensch.”

He waved a hand at her, embarrassed. “Ah, go on with you young people.”

Brennan had warned her against visiting her neighborhood; but he was unaware of her source’s communications code. She’d expected a pile of newspapers to be waiting for her; instead, either the delivery boy or another interested party was playing cleanup, and the stoop was surprisingly bare.

She walked back to her rented car. Brennan had also advised against her using her own vehicle until matters were resolved. She got in behind the wheel then sat there for a minute pondering how to handle it. She knew who the source was, where to reach him? Should she call? What if multiple messages had been swept up, or even intercepted?

She used the pay-as-you-go phone she’d picked up in Seattle to call in to work. Ken answered the assignment desk phone immediately.

“News Now.”

“Kenny?”

“This is… Alex? Where are you, for chrissake!? We’ve been trying to get hold of you for two days.”

“Long story short I’m back in town,” she said. “Long story long, I had to go to Vegas and the Pacific Northwest for some research.”

“Christ… we’re not getting the bill for that, are we? I didn’t approve any off-budget travel…”

“Relax, Scrooge,” she said, just a little annoyed that money was his primary concern. Annoyed but not surprised. “I’ll take the tax write-off, okay?”

“Yeah, well, all hell is breaking loose down here. We got a hell of a leak on Saturday morning and we’ve been working on it for two straight.”

“Okay.” She’d been around long enough to no longer get excited every time an overenthusiastic assignment editor said he had a ‘hell of a story’.

“We got a photocopy of an endorsed check written to the Addison March campaign, worth ten thousand dollars. It’s from a holding company out of Chicago called ‘Gayda Goodwill Industries’, which purportedly raises money for medical relief charities in the Middle East.”

“Let me guess…”

“Our sources at State say Gayda’s on a terrorism watch list after receiving and dispersing funds to and from Islamic militants.”

The implication was enormous; a presidential candidate, prospectively taking charity money from groups that funded terrorism. “This could ruin him,” she said.

“I know,” he said, sounding more excited than he should. “But it’s your baby; so get in here, damn it.”

Malone arrived at work twenty minutes later; her workspace was in its typical post-Hurricane-like state. Teddy Marsh, a photographer, was walking by as she cleared a spot for her purse. “Your desk is like a national disaster,” he said. “I should take shots of it now, in case it collapses and kills a bystander.” He mocked clicking a few snaps.

“You’re not funny,” Malone said.

Ken came over. “So what first?”

“Over to you, boss. I can hit Khalidi up for react or save that until the end, when I’ve got more ammo.”

“What about your main source? You run any of this by him yet?”

“Or her,” she added quickly.

“Or her,” he said, sighing. Like most editors, Ken hated unnamed sources.

“No. The source is… out of contact right now,” she said, sounding slightly unconvinced, like her own take was optimistic.

“Can you reach out?”

That wasn’t the agreement, she knew. But there was also no way to be certain she hadn’t missed his messages.

Besides, she thought, she’d been considering it anyway.

“I can try,” Alex said.

June 29, 2016, MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE

Things had been going too well of late, Christopher Enright knew. His boss’s campaign to lead the Republicans back into the White House had hit stumble after stumble and more roadblocks than a military base; and yet Addison March had ridden the power of his charisma past the headlines and negativity, the slur campaigns and innuendos, right into a seven-point deficit at the polls. With months still left to hit the road and press the flesh, it was achievable, they were all convinced.

And then the call had come in.

He’d heard Alex Malone’s question and been paralyzed, unable to immediately answer, shocked by the content and unsure of how to act.

Instead, he stalled for a moment. “Excuse me? Sorry, that was a long question; if you could repeat it?”

“Certainly, Mr. Enright. I said ‘News Now has obtained a copy of a donation receipt to Senator March’s campaign from a company associated by the State department with financing terrorism. Can you comment on why the campaign accepted the donation of ten thousand dollars from Gayda Goodwill Industries, of Chicago?”

He froze again. What the Hell? Enright fell back into habit, taking a deep breath, clearing his mind of the tension of the moment, looking for the best quick answer to delay her, give him time to do research, alert the team. Tell the senator.

“As you know, Ms. Malone, we typically scrutinize every dollar coming into the campaign for moral ambiguity or such things, but as you’re also aware, many a campaign in the past has had one slipped by them. I sure hope that’s not the case here, but if it is, we’ll certainly do the right thing and ensure the donation is returned.”

Alex knew a brush-off when she heard it. She had to press the connection. “Are you aware, sir, that Gayda Goodwill in turn received a donation last year from the Latrobe Corporation, the same firm owned by Ahmed Khalidi and previously identified as having been represented by the senator’s law firm? Is that a coincidence, Mr. Enright?”

Had he been able to see himself in a mirror, Enright would have been glad it was a phone conversation; his mouth had dropped open, agape and surprised, his brow furrowed. For the first time in his relatively young career, Enright felt genuine panic.

“What exactly are you implying, Ms. Malone? And please be aware that the senator will protect himself from any libelous insinuation…”

“Did the senator accept a backdoor payoff from Ahmed Khalidi, Mr. Enright? People will jump to that conclusion.”

He was defeated, and he knew it. But he had one last card to play, which was to put her off for a fuller comment. “I’m going to have to call you back in a few hours, Ms. Malone,” he said. “Perhaps I’ll have the senator for you.”

“Mr. Enright…”

“Thank you, Ms. Malone, good day.” He ended the call then pondered whether it was enough to slow her down, enough time to get a story in place, set the narrative, make sure the public saw it for the slur campaign it obviously was.

He hit the green button on his phone then scrolled to the senator’s number. “Sir? We have a problem.”

FULLERTON, CALIFORNIA

The crowd was greener than usual, college kids out to prove that the youth of America still knew what it meant to champion the little guy, Sen. John Younger figured. He needed some good news, after a week of taking shots from pro-gay rights groups for refusing to disavow a long-time friend and associate; it was a touchy subject and he hated it.

He’d spoken for twenty minutes on immigration, decrying Addison March’s call for a massively increased border presence. Many of the students in the crowd were Mexican or Mexican-American, and it had gone over predictably well. But he couldn’t help shake the feeling that he hadn’t inspired them, particularly; they’d cheered in the appropriate doses at the appropriate junctures; but a lot of the applause was polite, deferential in the way you’d expect from a family member who has to be there.

The media scrum after the event was a snoozer, as a consequence, local yokel outlets that would get more play on the wires and national TV from his visit than they would at pretty much any other time during the next four years.

After he was done and was being led off stage, his assistant road manager took him to one side in the VIP area, roped off from the rest of the park with colorful little flags and string, a white tent in the back corner providing shade and refreshments.

“Sir, we’ve got a request from the West Coast Bureau of News Now Magazine for an exclusive sit down.”

“So? Let Stacy in communications handle it…”

“Sir, they want to do it right here and now. The writer says it’s urgent.”

It had to be something major. Where the hell was Stacy? He wondered if she was off charming the local print reporters again. She was a great PR flack, that kid, the best he’d had since the eighties and his time in state politics. But right at that second he needed her to screen for him.

Ah, hell… “Okay, but five minutes.”

The handler smiled and gave him thumbs up. In short order, a middle-aged guy with jowls and a narrow-hipped thinness to him entered the tent, tape recorder in his left hand. He extended the right to shake. “Paul Berehowsky, News Now.”

“Good to meet you, Paul,” the senator said as genuinely as possible. “Did you drive up? I didn’t see you on the bus…”

“I’m actually just the go-between, I guess,” Berehowsky said, sounding unimpressed. “I’m passing you over to Alex Malone in Washington.” He handed the senator his phone.

“Senator? I wasn’t sure you’d agree to a quick phoner and I need to talk to you rather desperately,” Malone said. “We have a developing story…” She filled him in on the details of the case. “And so it falls to you, sir, to comment on the new links between the March campaign and extremist organizations.”

It was the kind of question that could excite any candidate; but with March gaining ground and the election just a few months away, it was exactly the news Younger needed to hear. “Well, Ms. Malone, I do have to say that it is shocking and deeply disturbing. I’m nearly speechless – and I’m a politician, so consider the source.”

Good touch, he thought to himself. People will like that.

“Should your opponent resign, Senator Younger?” Malone asked pointedly.

Younger thought about that; a good political answer was about understanding the public mindset – that of the undecided, anyway. The neutral spectators, the ones unbound to an ideology, they could be dangerous. Being too aggressive made them suspicious. “Let’s be clear here, Alex,” he said, deliberately dropping her first name smoothly, familiarity breeding empathy. “Plenty of people in the past have been guilty of this same mistake, of accepting a donation without being careful about the source. That doesn’t make Addison March a terrorist sympathizer. The man has served his country well, in the senate if not the military, and he deserves the benefit of the doubt.”

“That’s a surprising position,” she said.

Younger smiled. She’d taken the bait and it was time to set the hook. “The man is an elected U.S. senator. He’s not advising militants, he’s just busy getting too little done, like the rest of us. But let’s be clear: this is an egregious mistake, and I think the American people will do their usual exceptional job of reminding a candidate who makes such a mistake that they are smarter than that, that they recognize how dangerous and damaging to this great nation it could be to elect such a man president.”

“So… take it into consideration at the polls?” Malone asked.

“Democracy has helped this country settle its accounts for nearly three hundred years, Alex,” he said. “Back when the founding fathers were building this great enterprise, there were plenty of men they could have chosen to lead them; they chose George Washington, not Benedict Arnold.”

The metaphor was muddled and ridiculous, she knew, because Arnold was never one of the choices. But no one would care; it was the kind of quote that resonated with the voter, particularly when the voter was angry.

June 30, 2016, WASHINGTON, D.C.

For most of her first day back in the capitol, Malone had debated whether to call her intelligence source. But ultimately, she knew, she needed him; if she disobeyed his instructions and contacted him directly, he might stop talking to her; or worse, in deference to his rank, he might disavow having done so to begin with. The photos Myrna had taken of their earlier meeting was still somewhere in her apartment. She wondered whether her effects had been cleaned out yet, sent to family out of state.

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 started 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 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.”