FALLOUT ZONE (Joe Brennan Trilogy Book 3) Read online

  A day earlier, she’d talked about the call before it had even happened, while having lunch with Ellen. She’d been expecting it since the announcement that Joe was burned.

  “Whatever you do, don’t let him threaten your job without protecting yourself,” Ellen had said. “Bureaucrats always think they can push people around as long as they do it within the rules, because they’re the gatekeepers. The only way to show them they’re wrong is to stand up for yourself. Make sure you have a union rep there…”

  “Association,” Carolyn had replied, somewhat distant and distracted at the time. “We have a staff association. Same thing, basically.”

  “Either way, make sure you have a rep there if they start talking about job stuff. If you protect your job, at least you can transfer to…”

  “It doesn’t really work like that,” Carolyn had tried to explain.

  Nothing at the agency worked quite the way it did at a normal workplace. There were entire areas of the building that weren’t even allowed under legislation to talk to one another, where cell phones and caller ID were banned.

  And covert was in a league of its own. So much of what it did was off the books that its senior officials were left with great leeway, a flexibility to assign solutions that wouldn’t even be legal in the real world, let alone leave staff properly protected.

  As a senior support staffer, she was supposed to be separate from all of that – which, realistically, was as likely as suggesting someone in the communications department be apolitical and unconcerned with public relations spin. In real terms, she had the same exact problem with David as many in the agency under him did: he could do basically anything to her and get away with it, if the grounds seemed sufficient.

  What would Joe expect of the meeting? She contemplated it, tried to look at it strategically. They wanted to track her husband down and he was operating off the books. So they were looking for a potential information pipeline, a hardline between their target and someone they could control. They would probably ask her to contact Joe, and when she said she couldn’t, that it was up to him, they would leave her with a message designed to bring him in…

  No. That was too easy and Joe would just ignore it. They would set him up; they’d be unsure of her loyalty and Joe’s willingness to take her information on face value. So they’d make it something he couldn’t resist, something they could dangle that she’d be sure to mention to him, something designed to catch her attention.

  Thirty minutes later, she was seated across from David’s desk as he reminded her of her duties to the agency and her country, the capitol laid out behind him through the large picture window. “So if at any time Joe contacts you, Carolyn, you are required as a function of your employment – whether on leave or not – to let us know about it and his whereabouts. Am I clear?”

  “Yes, David,” she said.

  “Good.” He leaned forward on his elbows casually. “Look, I know how difficult this must be for you and I want you to know that I understand what you’re going through,” he said. “While you have an obvious personal conflict in this matter, the agency has wonderful counselling services available if you’re feeling the stress.”

  That was unexpected, she thought. Usually, David showed about as much concern for people’s feelings as a stone. “Thanks, I might do that,” she said.

  “Well, all right then,” he said, standing. It was her cue to leave. Carolyn was surprised. The meeting had gone surprisingly smoothly, with no attempt at leverage or bullying. She felt a little better about things.

  She walked to the door. “Thank you for this, David,” she said.

  “Fine, fine,” he said as she opened the door. “It’s all a bit uncomfortable, this one, isn’t it?”

  “Very much so,” she said.

  He looked genuinely perturbed. “I know I can be a hard-case, Carolyn, but I’m not inhuman. I do see how difficult this must be for you, and I’m sorry you have to go through it.”

  She smiled. “Thank you. That actually means a lot.”

  “It’ll probably all just blow over, get resolved eventually,” he said. “These things turn out to be misunderstandings, difficulties in getting past the noise to the signal of what’s going on overseas.”

  “That’s been my impression in the past, yes,” she said.

  “Joe was just trying to do his job, I’m sure, and things perhaps got out of hand.”

  Perhaps? “That’s a very charitable position,” she said.

  “Not really,” David said, only vaguely paying attention to her still as she stood by the door, his focus shifting to paperwork. “He’d been looking for something for us, something hot and below board.” He looked up at her again. “All this could probably have been avoided if he knew we’d already found it, but he didn’t get back into contact with us when he left Moscow. If he had, as he was supposed to, he’d already know that.”

  “I didn’t realize that,” she said.

  “Still…. If you hear from him, let us know? Thank you Carolyn.” He lowered his head to the paperwork and she took her cue.

  On the way to the elevator, she considered what David had said. Carolyn wasn’t an agent, but she wasn’t stupid, either. He’d gone from being DFW, noted pitbull, to David, caring boss and sympathizer, the moment she’d stepped through the door. It was a brilliant performance, Oscar worthy. She still didn’t believe it for a second. And he’d waited until she was almost gone to mention, just casually, that Joe had been wasting his time, that they’d found an item he was looking for.

  He’d dangled it, she decided, just as she’d expected. Now she knew exactly what she had to do: Carolyn had to get a message to Joe, to warn him; to tell him to stay the hell away from D.C.

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Malone felt like a spy in her own backyard, although she wasn’t really sure what she was looking for.

  It was a daily pilgrimage, one nearly two months old; she would round the block that was home to her townhouse, cruising just a little more slowly than normal in Myrna’s square little Toyota sedan as she tried to spot someone out of place in the neighborhood, someone who might be there to look out for her, or for the little red convertible she would normally drive.

  Then she’d pass the townhouse’s steps and look for a double newspaper drop, hoping each time that her source would decide to offer up more useful information.

  Instead, she’d find only a single Washington Post and the same sense of disappointment.

  The rest of her days at Myrna’s weren’t that much more successful; the older former agency staffer introduced Malone to a string of new online databases and sources, but information on DynaTech – beyond the typical public filings – was difficult to come by. It wasn’t that it was trying to hide its operations, it was just a great front: a firm with multiple international customers that designed the software for video poker machines. Whatever it was up to that was illicit and that the source thought she’d find, it wasn’t evident from the paperwork or news clippings.

  So she cruised through her old neighborhood one more time, the mid-afternoon weather warm and pleasant but her mind on the story and whether it was unravelling.

  She glanced at her doorstep almost perfunctorily, not expecting anything.

  There were two newspapers.

  She stepped on the brake, idling there for a moment; then she remembered Myrna’s advice and slowly crept forward, scanning the street. It was nearly devoid of cars, and those she could see were empty. There could have been someone in the surrounding buildings staking the place out, she knew, but that just meant that she would have to act quickly. Malone stepped on the gas before taking the next right turn, going around the block, circling back to the front of the building so that she could park right in front. She threw the car into park and left the engine idling, climbing quickly from the car and running to the steps, grabbing the paper and sprint back, jumping back into the driver’s seat, hitting the gas. The tires squealed with overenthusiasm but a few secon
ds later, she was off the block, heading downtown, occasional glances in the mirror spotting no one.

  She met the source at the usual parking garage early the following morning, before most people were even at work. She had begun to wonder about his motivation, what he hoped to gain from keeping her in the loop. But Malone debated with herself whether to raise the issue, whether it might spook him when the source had already become a more infrequent presence.

  He was there when she arrived, standing in the shadows by the door. “You’re late.”

  “It’s early. I don’t even have my face on by now, normally.”

  “There have been developments,” he said. “Khalidi is in hiding; but the package your friend is looking for is on route somewhere or perhaps already there.”

  “Tell me about Peru and the bus explosion in 2009,” she said.

  That caught him off guard, it seemed. He paused for a moment. “There are competing theories from multiple intelligence agencies. The official version is that a Chechen militant blew it up. Have you made any headway with the Las Vegas angle?”

  “Are you kidding? DynaTech is a big, busy firm. I’ve only been looking for a couple of weeks and so far it’s just the usual stuff. Would you be surprised to know the Chechen survived?”

  He smiled. “Not really. There had to be a reason the device made it back to the open market. Again, what about DynaTech? What have you tried?”

  “A wide gamut of business contacts, people in Nevada who know everybody, tech sector types, official paper, EDGAR filings. The usual.”

  The source sighed with mild exasperation. “I chose to talk to you because I’ve read your stuff and thought you could handle this. Have you even established Konyakovich’s ties to DynaTech’s parent?”

  She was irritated by that. “Hey: you’re not giving me much. I’ve stuck my neck out using your information up until now, caused a major international scandal and have contract killers trying to make me their next payday. A little support would be appreciated,” Alex said. “At least give me an idea of what I’m looking for.”

  He considered that for a few seconds. “When a ship enters the country, it has to clear Customs and Immigration. It also has to register its home port and how long it intends to be docked.”

  “Its manifest and itinerary,” Alex offered.

  “Exactly. That includes all materials being shipped, for whom, and to where…”

  “Are you trying to tell me that Konyakovich is smuggling the bomb into the U.S.? Is that it?”

  He turned to leave. “Investigate DynaTech,” he said. “And maybe you’ll find what you’re looking for.”

  PARIS, FRANCE

  The drive from Marseille to Paris covers more than seven hundred kilometers on a good day if a driver can take one of the broad, smooth toll road highways that run between ever major center and most minor ones, as well. But Brennan was left without that option; every booth would have his photo, every one of them expected to flag police and, unless threatened, perhaps even deny him passage through the toll.

  Instead, he’d guided the borrowed Peugeot along every secondary road and highway he could follow, adding nearly three hours to the normally eight hour trip. The pale blue sedan – a 1960s relic with a roof characteristically sloped from front to back -- rolled by hundreds of miles of meadows, hills, vineyards, riverside towns, tiny villages and vast chateaux estates, the car’s chrome hubcaps and whitewall tires whirring their way north.

  The traffic around and in Paris was grotesque, seemingly millions of drivers constantly jockeying for position, gridlock on every other block, speeds in crowded areas that would make a NASCAR driver blanch. Tired as he was, Brennan had to be doubly alert, and more than once found himself wondering why anyone lived there and drove, given its far-reaching transit system.

  The train station was in the tenth district and traffic on the narrow roads through the city was slow; Brennan turned on the radio and scanned for a news channel. It took less than ten minutes before an update of the hunt for the Montpellier killer, and the update had changed from earlier in the day. Now the news had a description of Victor’s cousin’s car. Brennan took the next right and negotiated a one-way street until he was in a quieter neighborhood. He pulled the car over, grabbed his gym bag and closed the door behind him, tossing the keys onto the driver’s seat. If he was lucky, someone would steal it before the police found it, and compound his pursuers’ problems.

  He got out and followed the sidewalk, past boutiques and restaurants, a sushi place, a travel agent, looking for a street sign to orient himself.

  Rue Antin. He followed the street until he reached the broader Avenue de L’Opera, then headed northeast, keeping his head down, bag over his shoulder, just another local heading home after work. Gare du Nord was a few miles away, a brisk thirty-minute walk. All he had to do was make it unseen or, thanks to his dyed hair and moustache, unrecognized. The streets along the way were quiet, narrow, all flanked by six and seven-story concrete walkups; a truck was unloading fruit at a corner grocer; a line of motorcycles occupied the corner of the block as he headed up Rue Saint-Augustine. At its end, it merged with Rue Filles de Saint-Thomas, heading towards the Palais Brongniart, with its towering forty-foot roman pillars and wide open square.

  The sidewalks were busy and Brennan blended with the tourists, young couples and students. He turned up Rue Vivienne, past the maroon awning and busy patio of Brasserie Le Vaudeville, with its view of the square in front of the palace steps.

  A pair of policemen patrolled the square and one of them appeared to eye him momentarily from across the street. Brennan turned his head to look at the row of motorcycles, no doubt convenient transport for the stock brokers who worked at the exchange inside the former palace. He waited nervously for the policeman to use his radio, call backup, alert someone. He kept his gaze averted for about ten paces before looking ahead but stealing a glance in the periphery.

  Brennan sped up slightly, trying to clear the area before…

  The policemen were moving in his direction. One keyed a microphone on his lapel and said something, then waited, then gave an affirmative back. He leaned in slightly, peering at Brennan from thirty yards away.

  Brennan sped up some more so that he was walking quickly, pushing his way through the crowd on the edge of the square. The policemen behind him were frustrated by the sudden glut of pedestrians and also began to cut a path through them, moving them aside. Frustrated, one pulled his whistle and blew it hard. A path began to clear for them and Brennan heard them yelling for him to stop.

  He started to run, finding his top speed quickly, pulling away from them. A block ahead on the sidewalk, a group of pedestrians stopped suddenly at a side street to allow a car past, a police cruiser barring his path. Without slowing down, Brennan changed course and headed into the nearest adjacent building; a front desk clerk yelled at him as he ran past, ignoring the elevators, searching for a back exit but finding only a glass door into the first-floor offices of a local business. Behind him, the front doors to the building swung open and police began to file in. He opened the glass door and walked in cautiously. It looked like an accountant or legal firm, with a waiting area, a pair of secretaries and a receptionist to the right of the main door. Brennan ignored her and walked the length of the office towards a red exit sign; behind him, the receptionist was yelling at him in French that it was a private business, that he needed an appointment.

  He pushed open the emergency exit. Beyond it lay a long sterile corridor, with another door at the other end and a stairwell to his left. If he was lucky, Brennan thought, the door led right out…

  It swung open from the outside, police officers having cordoned off the building. Two officers, both with batons drawn. The first swung high, trying to strike him in the head from the left, Brennan’s left arm batting the assailant’s away even as his right blocked the second officer’s strike, then followed through, his elbow cracking hard into the policeman’s jaw. The first officer had
recovered from the change of momentum and charged in, but Brennan spun quickly on his left heel, his right foot coming around in a blurring spin kick that knocked the officer unconscious.

  Brennan sprinted up the adjacent stairs. At the second floor he checked the stairwell door, but it was locked. He didn’t bother with the third or fourth, as both were too high off street level to be of any value. Instead, he continued up to the roof, taking the steps two at a time, looking for a potential route to the adjacent building. He could hear boots on the stairs, a sergeant yelling “vite, vite!”, “quickly, quickly!”

  At the top landing, he pushed open the roof door and ran out, the brighter light of day catching him slightly, his eyes narrowing against it. The roof was flat and wide; he crossed it quickly on foot to the edge, Paris laid out ahead of him. The gap across to the next building was too wide, perhaps fifteen feet. Even with a run it was impossible.

  The door slammed open, tactical officers pouring out on the roof. “Arret!” One yelled. “Stop or we shoot! Get down on the ground!” They began to cross the roof slowly, in formation, towards him. Brennan looked at the gap then looked back at the approaching officers. One recognized what he was thinking.

  “Don’t do it, mister!” he said in French. “You won’t make it. Come quietly and at least you can argue your case…”

  They were just twenty feet away and Brennan was out of time, out of options. He knew he couldn’t make the crossing. He glanced down for a moment and considered another option.

  “Don’t!,” the officer yelled again. “Don’t jump...”

  Brennan dropped off the side of the roof. The officers ran over to the edge in time to see him grasp the edge of the balcony, four floors down, hanging there from one arm, the street another three stories below. Brennan tried to reach up to the fire escape with his other hand, to pull himself up. But he didn’t have the strength in just one arm; the officers watched as his fingers slowly slipped off the wrought iron and he plunged.