DEADMAN SWITCH (Joe Brennan Trilogy Book 2)

by Sam Powers

  “I have no money,” she said. Years of being a reporter had steadied her nerves, and she found herself unshaken and self-controlled, even though she was frightened. “Take my purse and please leave me alone.” He was probably a junkie looking for a quick fix, she reasoned. That was usually the reason for a break-in.

  “I don’t want your money and I’m not going to hurt you,” the voice reiterated. It was strong, authoritative. It was strangely calm, as if he really meant what he was saying, and she began to turn around. But he stopped her by placing a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t turn around. It’s better for you if you don’t know who I am.” There seemed an implied threat in the comment, and she stopped the motion.

  “What do you want?” she said. “How did you …”

  “You left the latch on your rear living room window undone. My apologies, but we can’t have this conversation anywhere public.”

  Was he a source? “What do you mean?”

  “Your name is Alexandra Malone, you’re a writer for News Now Magazine, and you’re working on a story about the sniper shootings. Correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “Earlier this evening, you attempted to interview Boris Miskin at his home in Georgetown. Why?”

  “Like you said, I’m working on a story.” If he was going to try the cloak-and-dagger routine, she was going to be obtuse as well.

  “About the ACF?”

  “Possibly. Why do you want to know?” There was no way Alex was giving this guy anything without some quid pro quo.

  “I’m also working on something,” the man said. “I think we might be looking for some of the same answers. But I’d have an easier time knowing if that’s the case if you filled me in on what you know.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” she said. “I don’t reveal my source information before I publish, and I don’t talk to strange guys who break into my apartment.”

  “What you’re investigating, these people… they won’t put up with someone nosing around. You need to know that they’re deadly serious.”

  “Did they send you to threaten me?” Alex said. “Because I don’t scare easily.”

  Brennan liked her. Most people would have been terrified if they’d found him lurking in their apartment, but she was cool as a cucumber. “Nobody sent me. I just want to know what you asked Miskin, and why.”

  “But you won’t give me anything back in return.”

  “I have nothing to offer,” the voice said.

  “We could start with who you are and go from there,” she suggested. “You trust me with a face-to-face, I’ll tell you what I asked Boris Miskin.” Whoever he was, Alex figured, he was intimately involved. That meant he had information she needed.

  Brennan thought about it. The wise thing to do would have been to listen to David, to go back to Europe and bunker in until needed. But he’d already blown that idea off. Ballantine and Han’s new information had been too incendiary. “Fine,” he said.

  She turned around and her eyes narrowed immediately. “I know you from somewhere,” she said. “We’ve met before. Years of writing down exact spellings have rendered me pretty damn unable to remember names, but I don’t forget a face.”

  “I’ve fulfilled my portion of the deal,” he said. “Tell me what you asked Miskin.”

  Who is he? “I have an intelligence source who claims Khalidi’s ACF, is rogue; it’s funding paramilitary types to clean up problems that get in the way of its commercial ambitions. He also said the chairman, Ahmed Khalidi, is mixed up in something bigger, and that he and Miskin don’t like each other. I was trying, without any luck, to get Miskin to complain about the investigation.”

  “Let me guess: he laughed off the whole thing.”

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  “I was in the kitchen when you dropped by his house. You didn’t stay long enough to get into anything with depth.”

  “And what did Mr. Miskin tell you… sorry, what did you say your name was?”

  “I didn’t,” Brennan added. “He gave me the brushoff as well. But I pointed out to him that whoever came for the other committee members could go after him, too. So maybe he’ll think on it, at least.”

  “So what is this all about? Why the shootings, what does Khalidi have to do with it and why the level of American involvement? It’s like every source I have in D.C. expects us to solve this for the EU. Why are we even over there?”

  “Who said we were over there?” Brennan wasn’t going to share Fawkes with a reporter, especially one fishing for confirmations on a potential ongoing crisis. “As for the rest, I don’t know yet, but I suggest we stay in touch.”

  Whoever he is, she thought, he’s got nerve. “Why would I trust you? You won’t even tell me who you are.”

  “Because I broke into your apartment and didn’t hurt you. If I wanted harm to come to you, it already would have.” His face was deadpan; he was completely serious, and for just a moment, Malone felt a jolt of nerves. “And… because I work in intelligence.” He mentioned the last factor with obvious reluctance. “And that’s all you need to…”

  “Walter Lang,” she said, pointing at him. “That’s where I know you from: you were talking to Walter Lang in a bar more than a year ago.”

  “And if you know Walter…”

  “I know he’s a good man. I know he’s been honest with me at least twice since then. He hasn’t given me confidential or classified information, however. And he said you were an architect.”

  “He’s a good friend.”

  He could see the gears turning in her head. “You’re working undercover, which means you probably work for the agency and with Walter. The last time I saw you it was the last day of the Colombia hearings. He said something about you; what was it? He said… he said you were in town for a conference.”

  Brennan quickly wondered what he’d gotten himself into.

  She wasn’t done. “A lot of people wanted to know who went into Colombia and extracted him, and there you were, obviously a covert operative of some sort, talking to him in a bar.”

  “Some people already know the truth about that story,” he said, watching her eyes widen at the prospect of a scoop. “And they’re on a need-to-know basis.”

  “So what do I call you? How do I know if it’s you calling me?”

  “Your magazine. When I call, I’ll start with the first line of the last article in the latest edition…”

  “Like a code?”

  “…and you respond with the last line from the same article.”

  “You can trust me with your identity,” she said.

  “I know you think that,” he said, “and I know you mean it. But I also know it’s not true. Whatever we’re mixed up in… you have to realize, Ms. Malone, these people play awful rough. You understand that, right? Nothing inside your head is safe.”

  “Sure, but…”

  “No buts. This is how we work it, or we don’t talk at all.”

  “Okay,” she said. “So what now?”

  He couldn’t gamble telling her about the nuke. If she wrote something prematurely, the ensuing panic could be catastrophic, or spook someone into arming the device. He didn’t even know yet why it was in play, or if it was just a myth. “What did your source tell you about Ahmed Khalidi?”

  “Very little. He just said I should check out his involvement in some trouble in Africa a few years back. I’ve been working on another source to get more detail.”

  “Africa?” He tried to keep his voice level, so that he didn’t sound too enthusiastic, but she picked up on it anyway.

  “Yes… why? Have you heard something that would link it back…”

  “No,” he lied. “But see what you can find out about it and maybe we can stitch it into the narrative as things make more sense.”

  She headed towards the kitchen. “Would you like something to drink, Mr…”

  “I told you, my name is unimportant,” he said.

  “I know, but if it give m
e an indication of why you need ...”

  She’d turned back as she tried to talk him into it; but once again, Brennan had vanished.

  4./

  Miskin acted quickly once the reporter had left. He knew there was always the potential that one of his peers might have him under surveillance. If there was a suggestion – even an inkling – that he was speaking with the media, he wouldn’t survive the week.

  He’d gone back to the refrigerator, taken out the Pepsi-vodka mixed and poured himself another drink. Then he headed upstairs to his study. He started his computer and opened the video conference connection. It took a few moments before his connection was accepted by each of the members.

  “Russia,” the chairman said. “As you are doubtless aware, it is early in the morning here….”

  “I’m sorry, really, but this could not wait.” Miskin and Khalidi disliked each other. But the Russian knew they’d present a united front if the ACF’s work were at stake. “I had a pair of visitors today.”

  He told the members about Brennan and the reporter. “The unnamed man was definitely a pro, perhaps American intelligence. It would be worth checking with our own sources…

  “Done,” said Khalidi. “And the reporter?”

  “An Alexandra Malone. She writes for the weekly magazine News Now, as well as for its website. She has a reputation for tenacity that few share and has been a thorn in the side of numerous politicians in her own country over the last decade.”

  The Chinese delegate, Fung, broke in. “Russia, why did you not just eliminate the problem?”

  “I live here,” Miskin hissed. “I’m not in the habit of getting my hands dirty…”

  “Evidently not,” China said. “But this is untenable. We cannot track down whether Tilo Bustamante was the source of the sniper threat definitively if we must worry about scrutiny from the press.”

  “Agreed,” said the Japanese delegate, Funomora. “Can we do this cleanly? Is there something we can float in front of the reporter that she’d prefer, a distraction?”

  “I do not think so,” Miskin said. “She is very persistent. She tried to get me at the Embassy, and when that didn’t work she called contacts until someone was willing to give up the neighborhood in which I live. Then she literally called every neighbor for a five block radius until someone gave up my address. That’s tenacious.”

  “This should fall to Japan,” the Chinese delegate said. “The mere fact that such problems exist suggests he’s not equal to his role as our head of security.”

  Funomora stood up for himself. “Circumstances in Brussels were beyond my control. Our man got too close and initiated combat as a means of extracting himself. But he is anxious to make up for his failure. I have him here with me right now. He can eliminate the reporter. Isn’t that right, Mr. Yamaguchi?”

  He moved the monitor screen so that the camera was pointed at the man standing next to him. He was young, dressed in dark clothing, with sunglasses on. He nodded resolutely, a bandage still covering his missing left earlobe.

  5./

  FEB. 12, 2016, BONN, GERMANY

  Dr. Hans-Karl Wilhelm was accustomed to his life running on a schedule, and little had changed in the months since his colleagues had been shot. He was still at the mercy of the clock, so full was his day with meetings, consultations and even the odd aging patient, left over from when he still regularly practiced medicine. He continually found himself without enough hours to pursue all of his ambitions and passions.

  At sixty-three, he knew he should have been slowing down. In fact, his own doctor had just told him that he risked hypertension, which in turn could lead to a heart condition, if he did not start taking his age into account.

  And yet… he could not. Even at eight o’clock at night, when he should have been relaxing from the day, his wife Helga would often find him in the garage, working on one of his old cars. On this particular night, she had not even bothered to try and dissuade him, seeing the look of determination in his eye. And so he was slung underneath the 1962 Melkus, an East German sports car with an appearance somewhere between a seventies Lambourghini and a Corvette; it was a model that few in the west had ever seen.

  He was concentrating on its struts; the car’s wheels were removed and off to one side of the room and the vehicle’s frame had been lifted with a pneumatic hoist. He lay on a mechanic’s creeper, the wheels old and stiff, which he preferred for the sense of stability.

  Wilhelm was trying to take his mind off of the ACF. The German delegate had felt as if he were in over his head for some time now, so grateful initially to be included in the elite group that he’d ignored his conscience, and questions about their role, on many occasions. He had justified its approach to himself many times; at his age, he had seen so many morally repugnant individuals get away with so much, it was not hard to justify working outside existing domestic laws to deal with them. And it was no longer seen as so bad to profit from the outcome, either. He had grown up in Germany after the war, feeling the pain of a nation led astray. He had grown up with his father, a staunch opponent of the Nazis who had been forced to flee his homeland, and his father had taught him the lesson of history: that if one man had acted on impulse and shot Adolf Hitler dead where he stood, early in his reign of tyranny, millions of lives might have been saved.

  He recognized the irony, of course, of a non-sanctioned political body acting without the restraint of law; but he judged himself intelligent enough to help make those choices; to risk damage to the perception that political representation itself meant democracy, in exchange for the assurance that real action would be taken against those threatening freedom – and that they would be rewarded for their intervention.

  Life, Dr. Wilhelm told himself, was ultimately always about leaders and followers. He had seen the mistakes a nation could make in abrogating their responsibility to occasionally take the lead, and by following blindly instead. He insisted on leading, but reassured himself nightly that it was benevolent leadership.

  He turned the wrench against the nut steering bracket, trying to loosen the strut. The thing wouldn’t give; he wondered if the strut and shock assembly had been changed since the car was last on the road, some twenty-five years earlier.

  He was reaching up when the car dropped.

  It was sudden, instant, the full weight of the vehicle pulled towards him by gravity as the pneumatic lift collapsed. Wilhelm didn’t even have time to throw his arms out in front of him …

  It stopped short. Somehow, the collapsing pneumatic lift had halted its descent less than an inch above him, a mere split second from crushing him like an egg. He was breathing fast and hard, terrified momentarily at what had almost happened. He tried to push off the floor with his heels, but his legs were out straight and he had no leverage.

  “Frightening, isn’t it, to come so close to death?”

  The voice was male. The German was good, but tinged with an accent.

  “Who is that?” Wilhelm asked. “Help me, please. I believe I am stuck. I do not have space to move.” He managed to turn his head slightly to one side and could just make out a pair of shoes, brown, casual dress.

  “Dr. Wilhelm, you have a choice to make: you may assist me in my inquiries and answer a question or two for me; or, if that is contrary to your wishes, I can remove the iron bar that is presently preventing this pneumatic spring jack from collapsing completely and that car from crushing the life out of you.”

  “What… what do you want?” Wilhelm asked in English.

  “You came home for Christmas from Paris. What were you doing there?”

  “Meetings, just … meetings. Government. Please, my friend, I am … quite frightened.”

  “What kind of meetings? Be specific. I’m not sure how long that bar will hold the weight.”

  “A group to which I belong, political advocacy. It is nothing, I assure you, just a loose association. We met.”

  “I know about the group. Why else would I be here, Herr Doktor
? The only reason you are not dead yet is that I see something in you that I do not in your colleagues, signs of humanity.”

  “We… do important work.” Wilhelm’s mind was racing as he tried to figure out who the man could be and how much he knew.

  “You sit in judgment without view to broader consequence,” the man said. “I do not want to hear rationales, Herr Doktor. I merely want whatever information you have on the whereabouts over the next three months of your fellow committee members; whether they will be in Montpellier, or Paris, or Brussels – or perhaps visiting their home nations.”

  “I am not sure…” the doctor began to say. He heard a screeching of metal-on-metal as the bar began to slide out of its spot. “No! Wait… I ... I know some details. Plans are fluid and we are always changing…

  “Just give me times, dates, places. Anything you have.”

  The doctor began listing off meetings he knew his fellow committee members would attend, where they would be held and, as well as he could remember, rough date ranges. “There is more, in my phone, in my pocket…”

  The man crouched and reached down. Wilhelm tried to see his face, but it was cast in the shadow of the car. A hand reached roughly into his pocket to grab the phone, and Wilhelm grabbed it by the wrist, his frail, elderly hand unable to restrain the man, the grasp merely an attempt at a precious moment of human contact. “Please…”

  “Thank you,” the voice said as the man rose. “I realize that cannot have been easy for you.”

  Wilhelm had a cold, sinking feeling as he mentally connected the dots. “You … you are the one who killed Madame La Pierre and Lord Abbott, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you have no problem admitting this to me?”

  “No,” the asset said. “I don’t.”

  He pulled the bar out quickly and the car dropped loudly to the cement floor, Wilhelm trapped between the mechanic’s creeper and the undercarriage, the weight crushing his chest instantly, killing the aging doctor.

  The asset had meant what he said: Wilhelm did seem like the only ACF board member with a soul. But it was compromised and valueless, the asset knew, and his death was no great loss.