The Oshkosh Connection

by Andrew Watts

  The Oshkosh Connection

  A Max Fend Thriller

  Andrew Watts

  Point Whiskey Publishing

  Copyright © 2018 by Point Whiskey Publishing.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Don’t miss the next book.

  About the Author

  Also by Andrew Watts

  If you can walk away from a landing, it's a good landing. If you use the airplane the next day, it's an outstanding landing.

  Chuck Yeager

  Chapter 1

  Hugo the assassin arrived at Baltimore-Washington International Airport on the 4:35 p.m. flight from London. He grabbed his Samsonite carry-on bag from the overhead compartment and walked confidently through the airport.

  The stop at immigration was quick. He had nothing to declare. On a personal visit. Staying about a week. Thank you. You have a nice day as well.

  Hugo left out the part about being paid to kill people while he was here.

  The muggy July air hit him like a wall as he stepped outside to fetch a cab. The drive to Dupont Circle took just over thirty minutes. Hugo had rented a flat online the night before. Just a five-minute walk from James Hoban’s Irish Restaurant, where he ate a BBQ burger with bacon and grilled onions at an outdoor table, sweating while watching the streets and waiting for his assignment. He licked BBQ sauce off his fingers. He had to admit, Americans knew how to cook good burgers.

  The courier arrived by bicycle. A know-nothing. Just a shaggy-looking man wearing spandex, eyeliner, and a nose ring who delivered envelopes for a living. Sometimes there were special instructions. This was one of those times. The courier placed a manila envelope on the table with the bright red scarf, then departed without saying a word. A block down the street, a man watching from behind a half-closed set of blinds texted confirmation that Hugo had received the envelope. Within seconds, that confirmation message was relayed to the second-highest-ranking intelligence officer stationed in the Pakistani embassy.

  Inside the envelope was a hand-written note. A coded meeting location. Hugo took the strip of paper with the writing on it, ripped it up, and dunked it into his ice water. It dissolved instantly. The assassin left the rest of his meal uneaten and hailed a second cab.

  “The Smithsonian.”

  “Which one?” asked the cab driver.

  “The Castle.”

  The driver nodded, and the car began moving. Hugo caught the driver’s curious glance at him through the rearview mirror.

  “Where are you from?”

  Hugo didn’t answer, and the cab driver didn’t ask a second time, not wanting to affect his tip. The car dropped him off a few minutes later and Hugo paid in cash. He then made his way along a brick walkway that wound between several Smithsonian museums. The Smithsonian Institution Building—“castle” was probably too generous—stood to his right. The red sandstone, faux-Norman architecture, and four-story towers seemed out of place in this city. But it made a good meeting spot.

  A wide-open courtyard before him. Pedestrian tourists strolled and sat along a peaceful garden filled with lavender and goldfish ponds. The smell of honeysuckle hung in the air.

  The assassin’s eyes darted from person to person, scanning each face, each set of belongings, each person’s wardrobe. Checking for inconsistencies—red flags that might give away someone in the American government. It was a crowded summer night, and most of the people he saw were tourists, walking to and from some festival being held on the National Mall one hundred meters away.

  A Pakistani man sat on a bench fifty feet ahead of the assassin.

  The assassin’s client.

  Abdul Syed wiped sweaty palms on the front of his khaki pants. He had taken all the proper precautions. His team of ISI countersurveillance experts had been watching the assassin since he had departed the airport. Still, now was when things got tricky.

  If Hugo had a tail, the Pakistani operatives performing countersurveillance would let Syed know, and the meet would be aborted, along with tonight’s mission. But this close to the rendezvous, even an aborted mission presented the risk of his man being detained and questioned.

  Syed had participated in many operations like this before, but never on US soil. The Pakistani intelligence officer’s blood pressure was abnormally high, triggered by the persistent worry that one of the FBI’s counterintelligence teams might be watching.

  While Syed’s official posting at the Pakistani embassy was that of an agricultural counselor, the Americans knew better, and they regularly followed him. Syed had spent every night for the last few weeks in the same fashion. Riding the Metro around D.C., visiting different museums and restaurants, meeting acquaintances in locations far from one another. Innocuous locations using hard-to-follow routes. It took considerable time and effort, but Syed was sure that he had lost his surveillance each and every night for the past week.

  Every one of those surveillance detection routes had been in preparation for this meeting. The assassin could have no connection to Pakistani intelligence. The Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, had been accused by Western governments of holding double standards in the fight against terrorism. Syed must not give them any more reasons to support that belief. Even more important, he must not allow them to discover his current operational plans.

  Despite what both nations proclaimed, the United States was not a friend of Pakistan. And it was up to the ISI and its officers, brave men like Syed, to ensure that American imperialism would falter. American minds were brainwashed with propaganda. In Pakistan, everyone knew that Al Qaeda was not responsible for the attacks of September 11, 2001. Several ISI and Pakistani military officers had known of Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts, less than a mile from the prestigious Kakul Military Academy in Abbottabad. Syed himself had known. He had been infuriated on that day when US Special Forces soldiers had illegally flown their stealth helicopters into his country, killing innocents and taking bin Laden. The CIA had not shared that operation with the ISI ahead of time, because they had known what Syed had known.

  The US and Pakistan were enemies, playing at a dangerous game. The ISI and American intelligence agencies put on the charade of friendship, as the politicians demanded. But each agency did its best to sabotage the operations of the other. The Americans would love nothing more than to catch him tonight, planning the assassination of American citizens on American soil.

  A man sat down next to him on the park bench.

  Syed did not make eye contact with the man. Instead he continued to scan the courtyard for American agents who might be posing as casual observers as he remove
d an envelope from his pocket and placed it between them on the bench. An encrypted thumb drive was inside. One that, unless the correct procedure was used, would delete its contents upon insertion into a device.

  The man took the envelope, stuffed it into his pocket, and walked away without saying a word.

  Syed couldn’t help but cast a sideways glance in his direction as he departed. He snorted air out his nose, shaking his head. The assassin was quite unremarkable. It was hard to believe that he was responsible for so many deaths…and would soon be responsible for so many more.

  Chapter 2

  Blue Ridge Mountains

  4000 Feet Above Ground Level

  “We’re going to crash.”

  The plane’s nose was angled down, the green Appalachian Mountains now filling most of the cockpit windscreen.

  Max Fend said, “You’re overstating the problem, Renee. You really need to learn to relax. It’s so peaceful up here. Away from the world, away from all of your troubles. Nothing but blue sky…well, as long as you look up. Maybe not straight ahead. Those are mountains.”

  Renee’s voice was an octave higher than normal. “I’m not kidding, Max. Please, just…” She gripped the yoke of Max’s Cirrus SR-22 tight enough that her knuckles went white, and she was unable to finish her thought.

  Max grinned, scanning the various digital readouts on the instrument panel. “Hmm. Actually, you are losing quite a bit of altitude, now that you mention it.”

  “Max, please. Take the aircraft. This is not funny.”

  He looked over at Renee, who was sweating through her tank top. They sat side by side in the small single-engine aircraft. Renee sat in the left seat, holding the side-mounted yoke with her left hand and the throttle with her right. Ray-Ban aviator-style sunglasses—a gift from Max—hid what was likely the look of genuine fear in her eyes.

  Max’s voice remained steady, and only slightly condescending, as he spoke through his headset. “Look, this is how you learn. Finding your way out of a sticky situation on your own will make you a better pilot—”

  “Take the aircraft right now.”

  He folded his arms across his chest. “No.” He was a teacher, and she his pupil. Sometimes the teacher needed to be stern.

  “Fine.”

  Max began second-guessing his teaching approach as Renee pulled back much too hard on the yoke and the nose pitched way up, filling the windscreen with a hazy white sky and bright yellow sun. Compounding the rather excessive control input was the unfortunate fact that she had forgotten to add power.

  “Well, this is going to be interesting,” Max said as the nose continued to pitch up. Max watched their airspeed bleed off precipitously. And, like a heavy truck trying to get up a hill without adding any gas, their climb slowed, the airspeed continued to decelerate, and the sinking feeling in Max’s stomach grew as he knew it would only be a moment until…

  A high-pitched warning tone sounded.

  “What is that?” asked Renee. Her voice panicked. “Max. I’m not joking…”

  The nose of the aircraft plunged downward like the lead car of a roller coaster as it dropped past the peak of a towering hill.

  Renee screamed profanity all the way down.

  Max grinned as the aircraft dove, his stomach left somewhere five hundred feet above. “You are using your French-Canadian churchy curses again. I must tell you, I really love it when you do that.”

  The aircraft’s dive caused their airspeed to rocket back up. Max laughed to himself. Renee still had too much back stick. The increase in speed would cause the aircraft to nose back up, and the roller coaster would soon begin again. Yes, they were getting lower—closer to the Appalachian Mountains—but Max was paying close attention to their altitude and would make sure they didn’t really get into trouble. This was fun. He was glad that Renee had finally agreed to take lessons.

  Max said, “There’s nothing you can say that will make me take the aircraft. It’s important that you understand aerodynamic principles if you ever want to—”

  She looked at him over the top of her sunglasses, her dark eyes menacing. “Take the controls right now or I will never sleep with you again.”

  Max immediately placed his grip on his yoke and throttle. He cleared his throat. “My aircraft.”

  Renee let out a long steady breath, collapsing backward into her seat and letting go of the stick. She closed her eyes for a moment, her chest heaving. Then she opened her eyes, turned, and punched Max in the shoulder. “Don’t do that again.”

  Max added more power and climbed back up to altitude. He watched as the altimeter ticked up, saying, “I think you’re really getting the hang of it. You showed a lot of grit today.”

  Renee glared at him.

  “Okay, enough fun for now. We’ll have to head back if we’re going to make the surprise I have in store.”

  “Which is what, exactly?”

  “It’s not a surprise if I tell you.”

  Max banked the aircraft into a wide right arc. Beneath them, a shimmering Shenandoah River wound through the Blue Ridge Mountains like a snake. Renee was looking out the window, admiring the view. Hopefully the scenery would improve her mood by the time they returned.

  Max made his approach from the west into Leesburg Executive Airport. Another single-engine aircraft, a Cessna 172, was in the downwind ahead of him. He made all of his traffic calls over the radio, completed the landing checklist, and then maneuvered the plane onto final.

  “You sure you don’t want to take the landing?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Landings are the best.”

  “Not right now, thank you.”

  Max waxed poetic. “Landings always give me a kick of endorphins. The sound of the wheels touching the pavement. The blur of runway zooming past. The satisfying sense of accomplishment that once again, I have not killed us.”

  “Can you please not joke like that until we’re on the ground?”

  A moment later, Max had parked the Cirrus on the flight line and shut down the engine. Together they allowed their cockpit doors to slide open, letting in the summer breeze.

  “You have anywhere you want to eat tonight?” Max asked.

  She shook her head at him as she took a swig from her water bottle—ice cubes clunking against its plastic walls. “What am I going to do with you?”

  Max’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He took it out and read the message.

  WOLF TRAP IN ONE HOUR

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s our surprise for the evening. I’ve just gotten us concert tickets. The outdoor amphitheater at Wolf Trap.”

  Renee’s expression finally warmed. “Now that sounds lovely.”

  Max didn’t bother to tell her that it was his CIA handler who had decided on the venue. And he would be working.

  The summer concert series at Wolf Trap was one of the cultural gems of Northern Virginia. Thousands of men and women were sprawled out on blankets on the well-trimmed lawn that surrounded the amphitheater. The grass banked downward toward the concert stage area, which was covered by an architecturally stunning wooden structure. The amphitheater—known as the Filene Center, after the woman who had donated the land now operated by the National Park Authority—was constructed of Douglas fir and southern yellow pine. It could seat seven thousand under the covered section, but on a clear night like this, Max and Renee enjoyed sitting on the lawn.

  “They’re good,” Renee said of the string quartet on stage. Her fingers tickled the hairs on his forearm. She lay on her side, facing him, and leaned over to kiss his cheek. “Thanks for taking me out tonight. I forgive you for almost letting us crash today.”

  “In reality, we were in very little danger…”

  He turned towards her and smooched her on the lips, then turned back towards the stage. Max rested on his back, partially propped up on his elbows.

  Renee had a glow in her eye. The glimmer of unrestrained and optimistic love. While the pair had dated once befo
re, when they were both in college, it had been so many years ago that their current reboot felt new and fresh.

  The Max and Renee relationship “take two” had been going on for about a year. Since a well-publicized near-death incident on the shores of northeast Florida. Max, an ex-DIA operative, had been accused of hacking into his father’s company, Fend Aerospace. Charles Fend’s multibillion-dollar firm did a lot of work for the defense department, and the hacking incident had quickly turned into a national manhunt. Renee had helped Max to solve the puzzle and avert disaster. Well, with minor help from the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team. But other than that, Max’s only assistance had been from the lovely French-Canadian hacker lying next to him.

  Renee wore a low-cut tank top that showed off her sculpted shoulders, and a pair of skimpy shorts that revealed a pair of magnificent runner’s legs. A small but elegant flower tattoo ran up her right thigh. She had been a college athlete, and while she was getting close to age forty, she kept in excellent shape by competing in road races and mini-triathlons.

  On stage, the young quartet finished playing “Clair de Lune.” A scatter of polite applause rose up from the crowd, silenced a moment later by the beginning of the next song.

  Max checked the time on his Breitling wristwatch. The watch had been a gift from his father. A way of saying thanks for undergoing such an ordeal last summer. Max’s father felt responsible for placing his son in harm’s way, since it was his company that had been targeted. Hence the watch. Max thought it was enormous, but it was starting to grow on him.