Shadow Agenda: An Action Suspense Thriller (49 page)

Brennan realized how little he knew about his old friend, just then, discussing the banality of politics. Like most professional contacts – even friends – there was a distance when they weren’t working. “You vote, Ed?”

“I spoil my ballot.”

“Eh?”

“I take part. I register my opinion by spoiling my ballot.”

“Why?”

The pilot walked over to the small kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee. He motioned with the pot towards Brennan, but the agent shook it off. “It’s like this,” Ed said. “I’m fifty-six years old, and in my lifetime, I haven’t trusted a politician. Not one. Not completely. Not in the way you’d want to trust someone who leads and directs your life.”

“That simple?”

“And complicated. I’ve done a little reading about political ideologies and beliefs in general…”

“We’ve all got ‘em,” Brennan said.

“Yeah, and that’s interesting in and of itself. We’ve all got beliefs, whether it’s politics or faith or whatever, that we consider sacrosanct. We hold these beliefs because they help us feel secure in a fatalistic world, with only two things guaranteed: death and taxes. Most of us do so not just because we’re brainwashed by our parents or something, but because these beliefs work for us. They’re practical.” He walked back into the living room. “But the political system? It doesn’t work. Democracy is the best, most free example we’ve come up with. But the type practiced in our country now, and in other countries, isn’t getting the job done. You look at the numbers, eighty percent of the decisions favor the people who buy off politicians, and that’s on both sides of the aisle. It’s just not working. The values of both parties are being betrayed, every day.”

Brennan nodded. He had to admit, he felt the same way most of the time.

Ed wasn’t done. “People keep saying ‘we want change.’ Two presidents, at least, have been elected promising it. And yet it never comes because of the way the human brain works, because we never account for the fact that sometimes, our beliefs are just wrong. On both sides of the aisle. We run a system of polarized opposites, a continual détente between people who hate each other. When we begin to fight for a system that takes individual beliefs and ideologies out of the equation, which recognizes the frail nature of human certainty, and represents everyone fairly? Then I’ll stop spoiling my ballot, and go back to believing in Democracy.” He turned back to the T.V., where March was finishing up his press conference. Ed slurped from his beer can. “Shit, working together was good enough for Lincoln.”

Brennan wasn’t sure how to answer. It was about the most personal Ed had ever been with him. He felt the same way, to a degree, but not to the extent of not taking part. But with the prospect of a night ahead searching for a missing nuke and a trail of bodies behind him prompted, in large part, by a political committee’s misdeeds, he found himself wondering for the first time in many years just what he was fighting for.

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA

The overhead neon tube lights had been extinguished through most of the floor, but in Jonah’s office, a small lamp illuminated his desk top and the series of small headshot photographs of his colleagues, which he’d arranged in a hierarchal tree, beginning with the director alone at the top.

He refused to believe David was acting alone. He’d been Jonah’s mentor for four years, and if he’d turned or betrayed the agency, it could only be because he was being coerced. But the volume of information that had leaked out of the agency about the task force and the missing South African device suggested someone was definitely passing secrets. He wasn’t ruling David out completely, because Jonah knew you could never truly trust anyone in intelligence work. But if he was right, and David was being manipulated, that meant someone else was the leak, someone still on the inside.

He looked down the pyramid again; the director was a possible, if only because he had complete insulation, when required, from any scrutiny. Underneath him were David Fenton-Wright and the clandestine service’s director, Adam Tyler. Beneath them were their four principal assistants, including Carolyn and Jonah. Beneath them was another row of four, the regional section chiefs, including the late Walter Lang. The pyramid contained another eighteen senior officials and a handful of assistants.

To its right on the table he’d laid out what he knew of the staff structure at the NSA, beginning with the colonel and then directly below him, Mark Fitzpatrick. A handful of the spots in the smaller pyramid were filled by Post-in notes with question marks on them.

He’d been working on it as a puzzle ever since being called in by the director. Jonah wasn’t just looking after his own interests; he knew David had a genuine love for his country, that it was his dream to run the agency eventually. He couldn’t believe he’d have gambled it away, or that it was all a lie.

What about Carolyn? He picked up her picture; she was an assistant, but she had access to all of the information that was leaked; her husband was looking less like a disgrace every day, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t tipping the media, or that she wasn’t tipping him. She was certainly quiet enough to be ruthless; she’d been promoted multiple times in the decade prior, but still had among the lowest profiles in the office. Was that by design, to give her the sort of unnoticed access someone would need to betray their own?

His cell phone buzzed. Jonah was single and spent most of his spare time reading or doing research, so he wasn’t expecting it. The number was unfamiliar.

“Jonah Tarrant.”

“Jonah? It’s me.”

“David?!? Jesus Christ, David… Where are you? Why haven’t you come in?”

“I’ve been set up. Look, I know what they must be telling you…”

“You got that right.”

“But you know me, Jonah; you know I wouldn’t shoot an old hand like Myrna in cold blood.”

David had always been a pragmatist, Jonah thought, but never as ruthless as that. “What the hell is going on, then?”

“It’s complicated. Look, I have a meeting with a source in about an hour. Can you meet me there?”

Jonah nodded to no one in particular then switched to a note app on his phone. “Where am I headed?”

“It’s a parking garage, at a fitness center downtown. I’ll give you the address.”

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Malone felt uneasy, which would have been natural in the circumstance, except that she felt it more than usual, a creeping tension that had her checking the shadows in the parking garage, looking behind her occasionally as she made her way to the stairwell in the back corner, a palpable fear. She looked down from the top, between the railings, the stairs descending in a cement semi-circle. Then she made her way down to the third level, her flats echoing off the concrete steps.

The meeting area was near the back corner, among the square concrete pillars and the shadows. Her source was waiting for her, hands in the pockets of his brown wool overcoat.

“You didn’t answer my earlier contacts,” he said. “I left papers…”

“They must have been taken up by the paperboy when I was out of town. I’m sorry. I thought about calling you…”

“No, that would have been a mistake. I’d have assumed you were burned at that point, that you’d already given me up.”

“Everyone in the city is trying to track you down, you realize that? No one out there is making any assumptions about who my source is but they all want a piece of you. Anyway…” She removed the memory stick from her purse and handed it to him. “Here. This has everything I’ve told you so far about David Fenton-Wright’s involvement in Ahmed Khalid’s business.”

The source’s eyebrows shot up. “Hard evidence?”

“A recording, a confirmation.”

“Astounding.”

“You’d know better than I,” Malone said. “Tell me something...”

“Go on.”

“Tell me why you don’t just lay it all out for me: who started this with the shootings, who stole the nuke, how Khalidi connects the two?” It had been nagging at her for weeks.

“Just like that?”

“Just like that. Seriously: what the hell is going on? The ship in Seattle was another dead-end but that’s no more than we expected by now…”

“You do recognize how sensitive my sourcing is, right? That some of the stuff I’m giving you could only have come through a handful of very senior people, and that as a consequence, it could be tracked back to me?”

“I know, I get that…” Alex was beginning to feel exasperated. “It’s just… I feel like the clock is running down on us, counting down too quickly for us to catch up.”

“Don’t give up,” he said. “You’ve come too far to back out now. And you know the potential consequences.”

She didn’t need to picture a mushroom cloud over New York. The notion was ever-present. “I’m not giving up. But we’re running short on leads.”

“Where’s Brennan?”

She hesitated. He’d never been that direct about her associate before. “In New York, trying to track down the device.”

“Good. As long as he keeps his priorities straight, we still have a shot at this thing.”

They turned quickly, surprised by the sound of squeaking hinges. Thirty yards away, the door to the north-side stairwell swung open.

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK

Through high-powered binoculars, Brennan watched the dozen men working. He was perched on the guardrail by an upper roadway, overlooking and leading down to a long, wide customs-and-excise freight yard, the shipping containers row on row, the area brightly lit by tall floodlights.

It was a huge open yard surrounded by twelve-foot mesh fences topped with razor wire; no one else was working in the late evening, and without his binoculars, his surveillance targets looked like toy soldiers.

He raised the glasses again and focused in. The crew wore black. They’d been removing crated items from a container and loading them into the open back of a transport trailer. The effort suggested they had to be heavy components.

Brennan had gotten to the docks right around the time the ship made port, waited for hours and identified who was in charge, then followed the process of customs taking the containers and moving them to the supposedly secure yard for inspection before their eventual release. But someone at the yard had been paid off, the gate security defeated.

He watched through the binoculars as a pair of men took the first of two long wooden crates and slowly picked it up, bending at the knees. Their care was evident as they maneuvered it towards the back of the truck. He panned forward, to just ahead of the truck where three men were talking, illuminated by the headlights. Identifying the leader and going after him would cut to the chase, keep his men from getting trigger-happy. These looked like military, serious players. Taking them out one at a time wasn’t a realistic option.

He knew he had a short ops window. The second container had just been opened and it had only taken them fifteen minutes to empty the first – save, he assumed, from whatever they’d left behind for customs. At the other end of the yard, a fenced gate slowly slid back. A dark-colored sedan pulled in, then made its way across the short open parking area, and down along the central row, towards the truck. It pulled to a halt, its red brake lights glowing. The two front doors open and Brennan watched the passenger get out, a man in a suit. He turned, and Brennan saw his face.

He nearly dropped the binoculars.

It couldn’t be
, he thought.
Could it?

He raised the binoculars again, using the autofocus button to keep the image sharp.

Terrence Corcoran.

It had been fourteen years, but he knew the cold eyes, the square jaw line, the puffed-out chest. The older ex-SEAL’s hair had turned white, but was still in a neat brush cut, as if he was still in the service. And he was still running the show.

He was talking to a younger man, also in a suit, but with a Mac-Ten machine pistol slung over his shoulder. At the end of the conversation, the younger man moved to salute but Corcoran stopped him, looking around self-consciously for a moment.

Both ex-military? It made a perverted sort of sense, Brennan thought. The best way to handle something like the Cabinda extraction or this op was to use mercs, guys who’d been in a unit, knew how to work together without thought to outside distractions.

Terrence Corcoran. His mind went back to Iraq, to Bobby; the emotions came flooding in, and Brennan felt his anger build. He took deep breaths, watching the men talk, allowing his pulse to slow. Whatever his involvement was, their past dealings made it a sure bet it wasn’t good.

Brennan began to make his way down to the yard, hugging the shadows, trying to keep his mind in the present.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

David Fenton-Wright’s pistol was already out and extended as he came through the parking garage door; it was pointed directly at Malone.

Her source had reacted quickly, withdrawing his own gun from the inside of his raincoat pocket, levelling it right back at the man.

They stood there in the wide circle of light cast by the harsh neon tube overhead, the two men frozen in place.

“Put it down, David,” Mark Fitzpatrick said.

“You!” Fenton-Wright said. “Fitzpatrick! You fucking traitor! You’re News Now’s source. I should have seen it…”

“You can get off the high horse, David,” Fitzpatrick said. “Everyone knows the dirty business you’ve been up to.”

Malone was frozen in place, not wanting to even breathe too hard, worried she might prompt Fenton-Wright to shoot her, or that Fitzpatrick might do it for her, by threatening the agency man with a pistol.

“Don’t you know what you’ve done?” Fenton-Wright told the NSA man. “You’ve undermined years of work, compromised everything I’ve built. And for what? Are you sleeping with this dumb bitch, is that it?” He gambled, swinging the pistol quickly over so it was pointed at Fitzpatrick, the two men in a standoff. Fenton-Wright needed the girl alive; he needed to know where Brennan was.

“Be smart, David,” Fitzpatrick said. “Give up now, let me take you in, get your side on the record. This doesn’t have to go down like this…”

“Shut the fuck up!” Fenton-Wright said. He was trying to control his anger; Fitzpatrick had been a thorn in his side for years, and here he was, the likely architect of all of the deputy director’s problems. He nodded towards Malone. “You, empty your purse out onto the floor. Do it!”

Malone was still numb, not sure what to do; she’d seen Myrna die, seen the evidence of what Fenton-Wright was capable of; but she fought through her fright, crouching slightly at the knees, unclasping the purse and emptying it onto the cold cement.

Fenton-Wright nodded at the small red light emanating from the jumble of contents. “See? She’s recording you, you idiot!”

Fitzpatrick shrugged. “So? She’s a reporter. You don’t think I expected that? You see, that’s the thing about doing what you really believe in, David. You don’t have to second-guess yourself.”

“I ought to just shoot you and take my chances…”

“Good thinking, genius,” Fitzpatrick said. “You’re a wanted man, David. I shoot you, I’m a hero. You shoot me, you’re just some nut job rogue intelligence officer who took another victim.”

Fenton-Wright had already thought it through, already knew the truth of what the NSA man was saying. But he still had one more card to play.

Behind them, the southside door swung open.

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK

There were many business lessons to be taken from military life, Terrence Corcoran had long before decided, many ways in which the corporate world could adapt and adopt the control an NCO or CO had over a unit, mold it to their particular ends.

He liked the idea. He hated the navy, and had done so even while serving; but for a man as wretchedly crooked to the core as the former chief warrant officer, it had been a smorgasbord of opportunity, to kill and to loot. And he knew when he got out that a lot of his former “comrades” in arms were down on their luck, eager for almost any work he gave them, and any pay that actually made its way down to them.

Mercs offered a convenient show of strength whenever required, broad shoulders for lifting, and not too many questions. So he sat in the rear passenger seat of the sedan, smoking a cigarette and watching them move crated merchandise from a shipping container into a truck.

His driver had offered to get them each a coffee from the old café across from the main entrance, and he was waiting for him to return, nonchalant, aware that they’d be done in a half-hour and that his payday wasn’t far off.

The side door across from him opened and he looked over perfunctorily, expecting the driver and his beverage. Instead, he found himself starting down the barrel of Brennan’s suppressed pistol. “Good evening, Chief,” he said. “Or is it just Terry to your friends now?”

Corcoran’s eyes narrowed and it took a perceptible second before he made the connection. “Well now who do we have here? It’s young Mr. Brennan. SWO First Class when you discharged, wasn’t it?”

“I’m sure you’d know.”

Corcoran stared at the barrel. “You’re not going to shoot me, Joe.”

“Oh please, please, give me a reason to shoot you, Terry. You so deserve it.”

“Huh. Yeah, I heard about Bobby. Tough break.”

“I should shoot you for his sake alone.”

The older man had to grin at that. He always liked Joe. He had a set. “You here sightseeing, or is there a particular reason for threatening me at gunpoint?”

“These crates haven’t been inspected by customs yet.”

“So what, you’re a customs agent now or something?”

“As far as you’re concerned, Terry,” Brennan said, “I’m the guy with the gun who hates you.”

“Okay.”

“So what’s in the container?”

“Car parts.”

“Bullshit. And keep in mind that if I have to go through some of your guys to get a look, I’m going to shoot you first. Several times.”

“Components. Some computers. Seriously…”

Brennan cocked the pistol. “Goodbye, Terry…”

“Okay! Okay! Just… don’t, okay? There’s a casing assembly, looks like it’s for a bomb of some sort.”

“And…”

“Timer, some switches… look, I’m just doing a job.”

Brennan snorted at that. “You never did a day of the real work in your life. How you managed to bribe or blackmail your way into the SEALs is beyond me.”

“Lots of things were.”

Brennan gritted his teeth and held his temper. He didn’t have time for things to get personal. “Where are you taking this stuff?”

Corcoran shook his head. “We weren’t given a final destination, just a handover spot. We drive there; we turn everything over to a new crew.”

“You’re lying.”

“Why would I bother? Like you said, I’m just a hired hand on this, and you’re the guy with the gun.”

“So when…”

“In two hours. We’re supposed to take this stuff just out of the city, up north of Yonkers to a truck stop called the Double J.”