The Rotten State: A John Flynn Thriller

by Stewart, A. J.

  Klaasen walked to the middle of the empty park and stood in darkness. No one appeared. And then the sound came—the whomp-whomp of rotors—and the chopper came in low and then boom, lit Klaasen in a spotlight. The chopper dropped down fast and landed twenty meters from Klaasen. He stepped forward toward the cockpit. As he did, men in tactical gear appeared from the tree line around the fields, running with the unnatural gait of soldiers carrying rifles across their chests.

  Klaasen opened the cockpit door and held up four fingers to the pilot. He waited until four men were loaded and sitting in the rear of the chopper, then he pulled up and all the passengers were pushed into their seats. He cut the spotlight, gained altitude, and banked hard across the city toward the west.

  * * *

  Margret Zazou watched the chopper take to the skies from the edge of the park. She had followed Klaasen from Christiansborg Palace. Once they tracked Fontaine to the palace and he had then disappeared, Margret played a hunch: that Klaasen would go after Fontaine. She knew where he would come out of the palace, and she knew the license plate of his official vehicle.

  His driver was a menace to society. He drove too fast, flying through red lights. She had thought they had lost him when her own driver saw the car parked outside the Niels Bohr Institute. Margret followed on foot and saw a single figure standing in the middle of the park. She had expected to see Fontaine appear from the tree line. She had not expected to see a helicopter drop from the night sky and collect Klaasen from a soccer field, along with four heavily armed soldiers.

  She was on the phone before the chopper was off the ground, and she was still on it when the chopper banked west and its nav lights were lost to her.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Lund sank another scotch. It was expensive and designed for sipping, so the large gulp burned his throat. It was an appropriate feeling. His two men from Copenhagen, Søndergaard and Dahl, were eating in the kitchen. The last of his personal security was waiting by the front door. The guy who had been watching the commune had returned on foot, tired and complaining. Lund had offered him a retirement plan involving a bullet if he preferred to not work. The guy grabbed some water in the kitchen and sat watching the other two eat.

  The big man was thinking. He was down to four men. He had more at his disposal. He had guys from building sites and guys from transport depots and guys from a lumberyard. They would all happily get involved for a few extra bucks. But he couldn’t tap the bench without alerting his enemies that he was down to the B team. Plus none of those guys were top shelf, not when it came to the job that needed doing.

  He was resigned to taking care of matters in-house. It was dark. The targets were at home, and they would be for hours. He was wary of the American—it would be vanity not to be—but he figured the element of surprise evened the terms. His guys could slip in quietly, take out the two interlopers and the husband and wife in their sleep, and then get back before dawn.

  Lund pulled his little crew together and told them his plan. All four of them would go. He didn’t like to leave himself open and unprotected, but his wife was away, so he could lock himself in his office for updates, with his bottle of scotch in one hand and an old Ruger in the other. Despite feeling that everything was self-explanatory, he asked if his men had questions. The guy who had been watching the commune put up his hand like they were in school.

  “How do we get there?”

  Lund snarled. “You want to walk?”

  “No, Mr. Lund. But my Land Rover is out of commission, and we haven’t tracked down the keys to the other one.”

  The other options were Lund’s personal ride or his last security guy’s car. Neither seemed keen to offer their personal vehicle for the job.

  “We have a car,” said Dahl.

  “Then why are you standing here?” asked Lund. He led the men outside, across his driveway, and over to the detached three-car garage. He hit a button to roll up a door, then went inside to a wall of tools. He pulled aside the wall, exposing a cabinet. Lund unlocked the cabinet and handed each man an H&K MP5 submachine gun and a spare clip. Then he locked the cabinet and pulled the wall of tools back into place. “Now go finish these guys off.”

  The men marched toward the roller door. As they went, they heard Lund finish his thought.

  “And if you don’t finish them off, use those things on each other, because you won’t want to come back here.”

  The men strode out onto the driveway and then stopped at Dahl’s vehicle. Four big guys with submachine guns stood in the night, looking at the tiny blue Corsa. No words were said, but there was a lot of headshaking.

  * * *

  Gorski had taken the phone from Lund’s guy whose body he had disposed of, so he made the call. He figured hearing from the dead might freak Lund out a little.

  “What do you want?” Lund asked.

  “You got any guys left?” asked Gorski.

  “Enough.”

  “I know you’re one corrupt maggot, but you need to know when you’ve lost.”

  “You think I’ve lost?”

  “I know you have. It’s just a matter of how badly. Whether you agree to the terms of withdrawal or we have to wipe you from the face of the earth.”

  “Withdrawal?”

  “You come on over to the cohousing community. We outline the terms, and you leave and never come back.”

  “And if I decline?”

  “Wiped from the face of the earth. It’s the only other option, my friend.”

  “I’m not going anywhere at this hour. You get yourself a good night’s sleep and call me back in the morning, and I’ll decide whether I want to come and discuss your terms.”

  “You mean give you time to raise an army?”

  “If you’re so confident I’ve lost, then that’s not going to happen, is it? I’m an old man; I don’t do business at midnight. Call back in the morning.”

  Lund hung up, and Gorski looked at Flynn.

  “He says call back in the morning.”

  “In the morning?” said Flynn. “What does that mean?”

  “It means his guys are already on their way. He actually told me to get a good night’s sleep.”

  “So two opposing forces coming in,” said Flynn. “But not cooperating.”

  “Like Kashmir.”

  “Exactly.”

  “What happened in Kashmir?” asked Begitte.

  “We had to find a guy,” said Gorski. “It was a hot region. India and Pakistan don’t get along. Never have, never will. But they were so busy sniping at each other we were able to wander in almost unchallenged and find our man.”

  “You think we’ll be unchallenged here?” she asked.

  “The important word was almost,” said Flynn. “There’s a chance with two groups that one comes in behind the other and the first one gets caught in the crossfire. There’s also the chance they figure out they are both after us and help each other.”

  “That sounds bad,” said Begitte.

  “Not optimal,” said Flynn. “But they have two depleted forces and a lack of obvious leadership.”

  “Isn’t this Klaasen their leader?”

  “On one side, yes,” said Flynn. “But his primary unit is out of the picture. Same goes for what I assume to be the leader of the second unit. So does he have field experience with this second unit? And have they fully bought in to the program?”

  “What program?” asked Begitte.

  “Klaasen’s program. If his guys are just in it for the money, then they can be divided. But if they believe in Klaasen’s agenda, they might fight harder.”

  “What agenda?” she asked.

  “Madsen,” said Flynn, turning his gaze to Thorsen.

  Thorsen looked up from his computer when he realized he was being watched. “Okay, so Madsen junior is a daddy’s boy. He works in the family game, currently running the satellite TV business. He’s being groomed to take over.”

  Thorsen looked at his screen. “He’s marrie
d, two kids, twelve and ten. The society pages hint that there is a history of infidelity on his part, but nothing has blown up publicly. The sense I get is that Daddy has worked his magic to hush things up. Word is that his wife is as sharp as a butcher’s blade, might even be a better choice to take over the business, but that won’t happen because Madsen senior is a good old-fashioned misogynist. Junior and the family live in a penthouse apartment in a building his daddy owns in Copenhagen. Senior has an apartment there too but apparently spends more time in Monaco these days. Some kind of tax dodge.”

  Flynn said, “So we know that Mads went to university with Berg, and we know together they assaulted Luna and Freja. We know Madsen senior’s media has been a big supporter of Berg’s career and, it is reasonable to assume, an architect of his platforms.”

  “There’s something else,” said Thorsen. “There’s a conspiracy theory doing the rounds on some boards that Klaasen the hero committed war crimes.”

  “Like what?”

  “Used locals as target practice. Drove them out into the desert and took out his anger issues. There was talk of reporters looking into it, but everyone who got close to a story seemed to either get promoted or get dead.”

  “Madsen?”

  Thorsen shrugged. “These are not legit news sites, just conspiracy theories. But the prevailing wisdom is that yes, Oscar Madsen pulled strings to hide Klaasen’s dark side and had stories planted proving his valor.”

  “So Klaasen owes a debt.”

  Thorsen looked up at Flynn and nodded. They both glanced at Gorski. The three of them knew such a debt. Their commander had pulled strings and had disappeared documents to ensure they escaped scrutiny when they were forced out of the Legion. It was the kind of debt not easily forgotten. Perhaps not ever.

  “Okay, people. We’ve got two sets of bogies headed our way,” said Flynn. “Let’s get ready. Gorski, you take the sky. Thorsen, take the point. I’ll come in front and center. Draw Klaasen in.”

  “What about me?” said Begitte. “I’m not going to sit here with my knitting.”

  “I would expect not,” said Flynn. “I need something special from you.”

  Chapter Fifty

  Thorsen broke open a weapons cache from a locked trunk he kept in a recess in his attic. He pulled out weapons and radios with earpieces for each of them. Gorski took a long rifle and a nightscope and headed out. Thorsen took an old Valmet RK-62—a Finnish variant on the Soviet AK-47—kissed his wife, and ran out after Gorski.

  “I don’t want to stand in a field watching you all get shot. I’m a woman, not a child.”

  “I’ve seen both women and children do some of the bravest things a human could ever do, so I don’t discount anyone,” said Flynn. “But we work with our strengths. Gorski is the best sniper I know. Peder is an expert at urban warfare. They are both best used out front. I need you to cover our six.”

  “Six?”

  “Our behinds.”

  “They’ll come up the main road, won’t they?”

  “Lund’s men might, but they might not. If they’re planning on an ambush, they might come in from behind. We need to know if they do.”

  “And the other men?”

  “Full frontal is my guess, but I want to know if I’m wrong.”

  “You didn’t take any guns,” she said.

  Flynn pulled a couple of H&K USPs from his pack. “I have all I need. Have you fired a gun before?”

  “A rifle. Not a pistol. I’ve never seen one.”

  “It’s easy to do, hard to live down. See this lever? You flick it with your thumb. Here it’s on safe—flick it like this and it’s ready to fire. Keep it on safe, and hope you don’t need to use it. If you do, aim for the largest target.” Flynn thumped his chest. “That’s here. Got it?”

  He made the weapon safe again and handed it to her butt-first. “And don’t point it at anything you don’t want to kill.”

  Flynn turned off the lights and led her out the back door. They climbed the fence between the garden and the barley field beyond. It was dark, a glimmer of moon but no light from the buildings. He pointed in the direction of the rise behind them that led through the barley to a tree and a track.

  “There’s a track up there,” he whispered.

  “Yes.”

  “I think that’s how Klaasen’s first unit came in.”

  “What unit?”

  “The unit that burned down your parents’ house.”

  “So they’ll come this way again?”

  “No. This is a new team, and that first unit had time to scope out and plan. These guys are arriving sight unseen. They’ll come from the front.”

  “So remind me why I’m out here?”

  “Lund’s men. They know this place. Watch for a Land Rover. Keep low. If it goes bad, go across the field and get out of here.”

  “Will it go bad?”

  “Not today.”

  He made to move away, and she grabbed his arm.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “Don’t thank me yet.”

  “I mean for finding out about Luna.”

  “I’m sorry it wasn’t better news.”

  “Me too, but knowing is better than not knowing.”

  She held her hand on his arm for a moment longer. “Is Peder going to be safe?”

  “He knows what he’s doing. And he’s inside while they’re outside. They’ve got the tough job.”

  “He’d do anything for you, you know that?” she said.

  “I do.”

  “If you called, he would come.”

  “I know. That’s why I don’t call.”

  “If you called, I would let him go.”

  Flynn looked at her pretty but serious face in the darkness. “Noted,” he said.

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “I’m the bait.”

  She dropped her hand, and he jogged back through the field to the Thorsens’ house. He didn’t go in, instead moving around the side and out through the front yard. He jogged across the lawn and around to the front of the communal building. There were no dinners being prepared, no shared dishes or craft meetings, no kids using computers or adults smoking in the garden.

  Flynn stopped at the top of the steps at the front door of the communal building and did a radio check. He glanced toward the roof of the building where Gorski would be hiding.

  “Gorski?”

  “In place. No movement.”

  Flynn looked toward the first house on his right, nearest the parking lot.

  “Thorsen?”

  “Roger, mon adjudant,” Thorsen said. “Forward position quiet.”

  “Begitte?”

  “Nothing happening here, John.”

  “Okay, eyes open. It’s dark out here, and stealth is their friend.”

  * * *

  They waited twenty minutes. There was no stealth—the opposition came from the front but not along the road. They heard the chopper before they saw it. Then, as the noise grew to a crescendo, a spotlight burst to life as a large circle on the parking lot. The chopper and the light below it moved around the community in a counterclockwise direction, following the houses right around the horseshoe, and then across the top of the communal building.

  Gorski pulled his rifle to his chest and pushed in behind a chimney stack as the spotlight swept across the roof and toward the lawn. For a moment the beam hovered, like something from an alien spaceship, above Flynn standing out front. Then it broke away and headed back out toward the parking lot. The light got bigger as the chopper dropped closer to the gravel and was then swallowed as the aircraft landed.

  “One from the cockpit,” said Gorski, looking through his nightscope. “One, two, three, four from the body. Two breaking right, two breaking left.”

  “Roger that,” said Flynn.

  The chopper didn’t wait. It pulled up hard into the night, the spotlight now doused, and banked away.

  “The guy from the cockpit is walking a st
raight line toward you, Flynn. A hundred meters out.”

  “Do you see a scar on his face?”

  “The resolution’s not that good.”

  “Roger that.”

  “Um, John,” whispered Begitte, “a car just stopped on the hill in the barley field.”

  “Land Rover?”

  “No,” she said. “Something much smaller.”

  “Gorski?” asked Flynn.

  “We have one, two, three, four bogies coming in through the barley. Fanning out from the hill. They’re moving in the general direction of the rear of the community.”

  “Keep down, Begitte,” said Flynn. “They’re headed your way.”

  “Okay,” she whispered.

  “Do we still have two sets from the front?”

  “Roger. Two sets of two, each will be coming along the front of the houses.”

  “Let’s move them together,” said Flynn. “Thorsen, can you flash a beacon at the hill?”

  “Roger.”

  Flynn couldn’t see Thorsen’s position in the first house from where he was, but he figured that from the top floor of that building, Thorsen could flash a light at the men on the hill and hopefully over the heads of the men moving toward the first houses below.

  “Signal sent,” said Thorsen.

  “Again,” said Gorski.

  “Done.”

  “You got them,” said Gorski. “The four on the hill are moving toward the front lawn. The farthest will come in between the first and second houses on the left. The closest will come in between the Jensens’ and the burned house.”

  “Roger,” said Flynn.

  “Now the middle guy from team one is on the front lawn, fifty meters from you, Flynn.”

  “Roger that.”

  “And I can see the scar now. It’s your guy.”

  “Roger.”

  Flynn watched the front lawn from the steps. He felt the weight of the H&K USP in his pocket.