by Sam Powers
After the ribbon cutting had concluded, hands were shaken and backs slapped; Younger took questions from the press informally. Most were about his immigration policy or, as Addison March had been reminding everyone, lack thereof. The incessant focus on one aspect of his platform didn’t upset Younger; he’d been around too long to expect context and depth from the daily media.
“Senator,” a reporter near the front asked, “you mentioned during the event this morning that you still… and I quote… ‘weren’t comfortable’ with Senator March’s business ties. He claimed during a speech this morning that it’s a drive-by slur campaign without foundation. Can you comment on that?”
Why would March have brought that issue up? Younger was surprised. They’d scored serious points over March’s old legal firm and there didn’t seem to be any percentage in him raising it again. What was he up to?
“While it’s hardly worthy of rebuttal, I suspect Mr. March is eager to do anything he can to appear more in touch with the American people, given his numbers. My advice to him is to spend more time working with American companies and less time kowtowing to his friends in the Middle East. I think it’s mind-boggling that my Republican opponent can simply push to the side the two decades his party has spent trying to destabilize that region – which just happens to have a lot of oil – for its own ends. Now, he’s the great conciliator, doing business with militant Islamists and sharing lawyers with Ahmed Khalidi.”
It was a gross exaggeration, but no one in the press corps was going to call him on it. The sound bites were too good, the reporters too cynical to think any of the campaign messages did much in the way of shifting the population from entrenched ideology and beliefs.
“Senator, Mr. Khalidi has appealed to the international community for calm with respect to the ongoing attacks on his business associates,” a reporter said. “Given the revelations of the past week, shouldn’t America be examining his businesses here?”
It was the first intelligent question he’d been asked in about ten days, Younger thought. “I would say, sir, that the revelations in News Now at the end of March about his involvement in African atrocities, or at the very least in funding them, indicate Mr. Khalidi still has a lot of explaining to do to win back the support of the international community.”
When the press conference had wrapped, he went back to his limousine with his handlers. His phone rang as soon as he’d sat down in the backseat. “Talk to me,” he said.
“Senator, it’s Mark Fitzpatrick. I just caught your press conference live on the news networks.”
“Mark,” Younger said. “Good to hear from you, as always. I assume you’re calling about the handful of questions at the end?”
“I am indeed, sir. I’m already working up a background on the reporter who asked them, to see if he has a personal axe to grind.”
“You heard about March’s speech?”
“I think he’s taking a strange approach,” Fitzpatrick said. “But maybe the strategy is just working extremely well. He seems obsessed with proving he’s not an Islamist sympathizer.”
Younger smiled at that. “Give a true believer a shot to the core of their belief, and they’ll move Heaven and Earth to prove it’s sacrosanct and unvarnished. It’s because they really believe it,” Younger said. “He’s so vehement in his belief that immigration is tarnishing this nation that he can’t see the reality, that it contributes much more than it costs. But that will work to our advantage, Mark.”
“The Latino vote is going to hate this guy.”
“Happy days, Mark,” Younger said. “Happy days.”
MONTEPELLIER, FRANCE
Brennan worked quickly. Inside the safe were bills, denominations large and small, each neatly bound in a bundle; there was also a file folder and a memory stick, and Brennan withdrew both.
The lights in the room went on, the door flying open. The two security guards were both beefy, bodybuilder types, dressed sharply in a grey suit and a black one, respectively, both Japanese, their pistols extended in the expectation of immediate trouble. Brennan rolled sideways before quickly diving forward to within a few feet of them, both men unable to track the movement rapidly enough to get a shot off; they were leery, as Brennan had expected, of actually opening fire inside the apartment, and that moment of hesitation was all he needed.
He locked up the wrist and forearm of the guard to his right and swung him around so that he was between Brennan and the other guard, then slammed his elbow into the middle man’s temple, the force stunning the guard and unbalancing his colleague, who stumbled sideways and dropped his gun as he attempted to use the wall for support. Brennan drove a sideways elbow into the side of the first guard’s head one more time, dropping him to the ground, dazed; he kept the rotating motion going, his spinning back kick catching the second guard flush, just as he reached down to pick up his gun.
Both men were down, but the noise had been considerable. There was little to no reason, that he knew of, for Funomora to not simply call the local police, and Brennan had to act quickly. He took the suppressed Glock out of his waistband holster and moved to the door, checking the outside hallway quickly then exiting the study.
He’d taken a half-step forward when the figure emerged at the other end of the corridor, from a doorway to the right; he was a young man, lithe and smaller, dressed in black. He took a quarter-turn to his right then quickly flung both arms forward. Brennan’s training kicked in before he’d even realized the throwing stars were arcing through the air towards him; he bent over backwards, arching his spine like a curved letter ‘c’ and dropping into a reverse crab position, the ground’s impact slamming into his hands, his weight shifting back towards his shoulders so that he could push forward with all his force and kick back into an upright position as the throwing stars sank into the wooden door behind him.
And then the younger man was on him, the first blow a snapping kick that knocked his gun away, behind him; the man’s style was karate, but one of the outliers, more closely related to Kung Fu than Shotokan, a hybrid of thrusts and punches from Shorin Ryu and Fujian White Crane style, his feet wide apart in Three Battles Stance, weight on his rear arch, one hand poised to strike in a coiled punch, the other extended to defend; he drove forward, a rapid series of strikes, punches flashing through the air between them; Brennan backed up at pace, frantically blocking the blows, years of training countering the motions based on an imprinted pattern, both men moving too quickly to be considering each action. The young karateka threw himself forward, a head-over-heels sideways flip, a pirouetted cartwheel in mid-air, his heel striking Brennan hard across the jaw, sending him reeling.
He sprang to his feet, shaking off the blow, wiping the blood away from the corner of his mouth. He’d misread the style, which was Five Ancestors Kung Fu, a blend of White Crane’s karate-like strikes and the athletic mimicry of a monkey’s leaps and kicks, the motions more fluid, controlled. The young man charged him down, a leaping sidekick intending to finish the job; Brennan ducked at the last possible second and his attacker flew overhead, rolling into a standing position and twisting as he stood so that he was facing Brennan again.
But he’d miscalculated. The first shot to Brennan’s jaw had put him down, but right next to his Glock. And as the young martial artist turned around, he came face to face with the suppressor. The young man’s eyes were wide as he realized Brennan had the drop on him, and his mouth dropped open in that inevitable moment of terror, when a man realizes he is about to die.
“NO!”
The voice came from behind Brennan, at the far end of the hallway. He kept his eye on the youth and backed up a step, then snapped a quick look over his shoulder, before returning his attention to his target. It was Funomora, dressed in a bath robe.
“Please,” he said in French. “I’ll give you whatever you want. Please don’t shoot my son.”
Five minutes later, Brennan had secured all four men in the study using plastic restraint ties. He’d gag
ged the two security guards and the youth, and sat Funomora up in his desk chair.
“May I take it that you are Joseph Brennan, the rogue American agent?”
“You find that funny?” Brennan asked. “Your boy Fenton-Wright did an amazing job with that video at the mall.”
“He has significant resources behind him,” Funomora said. “And might I ask how you knew…”
“It could only have been him,” Brennan said. “And besides, it’s in his character.”
“Yes,” Funomora said with a wry smile. “On that we would agree.”
“What was his reward?”
Funomora shrugged. “You would have to ask the chairman about that.”
Brennan took the memory stick out of his pocket. “Or crack this little number?”
The Japanese delegate couldn’t hide his shock. “If you take that, my life may be forfeit.”
“Are you asking me for compassion?”
“You spared my son. So, yes, that is what I am asking for. That memory stick contains a great many secrets that would be of no real intelligence value to the U.S., but help prevent certain associates in my home country from acting against me.”
Brennan looked at the stick. “I’m going to guess Yakuza? You have dirt on them. But if they know what it is, they might be able to neutralize any attempts you make to use it against them.”
“Or they may just act pre-emptively.”
“What else?”
“Mr. Brennan? I’m sorry, but I don’t…”
“What else is on the memory stick? There was only one, and I refuse to believe a man as careful as you hasn’t kept something on each of your fellow ACF board members, ruthless as they seem to be. There’s nothing useful in the paper file and nothing else in the safe except for cash, so it must be on this.”
“There is nothing of the sort, I can assure you; you have been misinformed, badly, with respect…”
Brennan pointed the pistol at Funomora’s son. “He’s worth a lot to you, right? I notice you didn’t show the same deference for the man you sent after me in Washington.”
“Not you, Mr. Brennan. The reporter. Her information… it seems to be coming from the highest levels. In truth, the remaining board members, we do not even trust each other. I have suspected for some time that the sniper assassinations may be the chairman’s attempt to clean up his tracks.”
“For the African incidents?”
“Yes.”
“For the loose nuke?”
“Yes.”
Brennan studied the man’s face for any hint that he was lying; but there was nothing, just fear, anxiety at the present situation. Occasionally his eyes flitted towards his son.
“What else is on the memory stick?”
“Will you return it if I tell you?”
“No. In fact I’m going to find out anyway once you give me its password. I’m just trying to speed up the process”
“I cannot do that.”
Brennan turned around and looked at the son. He pointed the suppressed Glock at the young man’s thigh and pulled the trigger twice, shooting him from close range. The kid screamed in agony and blood began pouring from the wounds.
“That was probably his femoral artery, and I think the second one nicked the bone. He’s got about thirty minutes before he bleeds out and dies, maybe twenty if you’re unlucky and don’t get a tourniquet on that.”
Funomora looked terrified, his eyes bulging as his son writhed in pain.
“There’s a really good hospital all of five minutes from here,” Brennan said “But you’re not getting out of here until you give me the password to the memory stick.”
“No! I mean… yes, I’ll give you the password. Please, just don’t let my son die. He is my world.”
“ The password…”
“… is ‘koketsu ni irazunba koji wo ezu’”
“Thank you.” Brennan withdrew the digital recorder from his other pocket. “This was a little insurance as well, and it saved me from having to take notes while you talked about my boss. What does it mean, anyway?”
Funomora looked deflated and defeated. “It is an old expression, a Japanese version of ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained; it means ‘if you do not enter the Tiger’s cave, you will not catch its cub’.”
Brennan moved around to the side of the desk and cut one of Funomora’s hands loose, then took the desk phone off the cradle and handed it to him. He looked at the son, bleeding on the couch, then at his father. “Relish the irony.”
He left the office quickly while Funomora dialed emergency. He took the building’s stairs down three flights quickly, tapping the headset on route and informing Victor that they were leaving.
Outside, Victor pulled the car up to the front steps of the building. Brennan exited a moment later, taking the stairs two at a time and hurrying over to the passenger side. Once he’d climbed in, Victor pulled away at a normal, almost casual speed.
“You get what you need?” he asked the American.
“A confession, some data. Will this get me out of hot water? Maybe. Here…” Brennan took a couple of packets of cash out of his bag. “From Funomora’s personal collection. I figured I could act as your proxy, seeing as you’ve been helpful.”
Victor looked at the cash. There had to be twenty thousand or thirty thousand euros in the bundles. “Now this right here? This is proof of why it’s good to be an honorable man, and a very good thief.”
“Don’t spend it all in one place,” Brennan said.
They set off for Bezier once more, Victor smiling most of the way. Brennan didn’t tell him what he’d come to suspect, that there was still a rogue nuke on the loose, that the people he’d thought behind it seemed oblivious to its location.
And the lives of millions of people were on the line.
EPILOGUE
Across the street from Funomora’s building, the asset watched events unfold through his binoculars. The figure was dressed in black when he entered through the side window, certainly not a welcome visitor. He had a friend below, in the alley, waiting with a getaway car.
Maybe someone was about to do his job for him.
He sat patiently, his rifle leaning against the edge of the wall. After about twenty minutes, the man in the alley pulled the car around out front. A few moments later, the first man exited quickly, and in the ten feet between the front door and the passenger side of the car, the asset couldn’t get a good look at him.
But he knew it wasn’t Funomora, which was the important point. He sighted through the side window again, into the study, the thin slice of room visible through the green-and-black night vision scope. It was the only unguarded angle to take a shot at the Japanese politician, and for the briefest moment, he saw a blur of dark robe cross in front of him. The man had moved too quickly for a clean shot or look. Another minute passed and there was more movement in the room; he caught a glimpse of one of the bodyguards who’d been in there earlier in the day. He guessed they were in the limo whenever it pulled out of the building’s underground garage, its occupants protected by bulletproof glass and Kevlar body armor.
He heard sirens. An ambulance pulled up in front of the building, brakes squealing from dust and pressure as it came to a halt. A pair of paramedics opened the back doors and pulled out a gurney. As they did, the front doors of the building were flung open quickly. Funomora came out with a younger man who was hobbled, something tied around his leg, trouser torn off and bloody. The younger man had his arm over Funomora’s shoulder and was using him as a crutch. The two paramedics rushed over to help. Taking the weight of the injured man on each shoulder and helping him onto the stretcher, then lifting it together in practiced unison into the back of the ambulance.
It was interesting drama, the asset thought, but he had a quick decision to make. The paramedics were no real threat. Wait until they’re inside the vehicle and its moving; the target will do what concerned people always do, which is pause there for a second while it drives awa
y.
And Funomora did.
The bullet was a perfect shot to the apricot, exiting from the back of his neck in a fine spray of bloody mist and fleshy material. Funomora was dead before the ambulance’s taillights had disappeared from sight.
Just two more to go, the asset thought, and I can go home.
TO BE CONCLUDED….in Part III of the Brennan and Malone trilogy, “FALLOUT ZONE,” available now!
Thank you for reading “Deadman Switch”. If you enjoyed it, please help me out by leaving a review!
