The Joe Brennan Spy Thrillers

by Sam Powers

  Walter Lang sat alone facing them at the table to the right; the table to the left was empty. The gallery, too. The hearing was official, but the contents were publicly sealed for what the agency cryptically deemed “reasons of national security.” Lang just wanted them to get on with it; the decrepit specimen ahead of him, the senior Republican senator from Alabama, had taken an hour already and had yet to ask a question Walter felt he could answer openly, without compromising someone’s role.

  The senator moistened his lips briefly with the tip of his tongue and tapped his pen again. He leaned towards the microphone as if about to say something… then leaned back again and reconsidered the question. Lang watched him with a sense of loathing. Men like the senator were always interfering, always getting in the way of the agency’s ability to protect national interests; and it was always a matter of self-interest, or political expediency. No one on the select committee on foreign intelligence gathering was sitting there because of their constituents’ demands for more agency oversight, of that he was sure.

  After a few more moments and some clearing of throats from his colleagues, the senator leaned in to the microphone once more.

  “Mr. Lang, I feel we’ve been talking for a while now, with this the third day of this hearing. And yet I have yet to hear, sir, any sense of contrition on your part for your role in this incident, an international embarrassment in which your agency used in excess of …” he checked his notes, “…. one-hundred-and-seventy thousand dollars’ worth of money and equipment paid for by the U.S. taxpayer. Or, for that matter…”

  “Senator Morris,” Lang said, interrupting him, “I’ve indicated already that my superiors are best suited to decide the nature of any penalty I may face with respect to internal agency discipline. I’ve acknowledged the incident.”

  “Or, for that matter,” the senator continued, as if Lang hadn’t even spoken, “any explanation of how you managed to marshal the resources that went into your extraction in Colombia. According to your version of events, we are expected to believe that a single agent extracted you without a scratch from a compound full of highly-armed drug cartel members, with no outside support, and of his own initiative. And somehow, your expenses in being there in the first place showed up as a line item in your budget, albeit one without any explanation or context. Can you not see, sir, how my colleagues and I might be somewhat skeptical that such a miraculous mission – two men against several dozen armed criminals – could have taken place?”

  Lang knew what they wanted: a confession that the mission had been a black op, official but off the books. After twenty years with the agency, the chance of him giving that up was non-existent, particularly to a political blowhard like Morris. But Morris was a Republican and with the President in his second term, there would be a shit storm if the Colombia op was made public, one that might make the Democrats more vulnerable in the next election. An admission that it was official would give the senators grounds to move to open hearings, which was doubtless Morris’ other angle, and provide fodder for months of bad press. Lang didn’t really care about the politics; but in bureaucracy, he knew, you didn’t publicly bite whichever hand was currently feeding you.

  A few chairs down, the committee chairman leaned in. “Senator Morris, while I understand your zeal with respect to this line of questioning, Mr. Lang has indicated the same version of events on at least four occasions now. Perhaps we can move on to a line of questions that is more likely to be lucrative.”

  Lang saw the intervention through the filter of two cynical decades in the business. The chairman, Addison March, was also Republican and from the south, and even more ambitious than his rapidly aging peer. Doubtless, March had angles to pursue to hold the government to task.

  “Hmmph,” the senator from Alabama replied. “The chair may wish to remind Mr. Lang that even though this is a closed session, he is testifying under oath.”

  “No,” March said, “no, I don’t think that’s necessary right now, senator. If you’re finished with your questions perhaps we can move…”

  “No, I still have several,” the elderly politician said. “Mr. Lang has yet to indicate who this agent was, which agency employed him or how the individual might have been disciplined beyond his initial suspension.”

  That, Walter thought, is because it’s classified, you vulture. “As I’ve indicated before, Senator, revealing that information could put other members of the security establishment at risk.”

  “And yet you claim the agent is inactive. How can people be at risk if the individual in question is not on active duty?”

  “I’m sorry Senator,” Lang said, leaning close to the microphone and not remotely sorry, “but that information is classified for reasons of national security.”

  March interjected. “If I might suggest, senator, it seems clear Mr. Lang will not disclose the agent’s identity and I’m sure he feels he has good reason. Perhaps he could share with the committee the identity of the agency responsible for the mission?”

  It was a clever, political question, Lang thought. If he claimed it was a classified matter, it would be tantamount to an admission that the operation had been covert. If he said that no agency was responsible, he’d be lying under oath. But he’d been around for far too long to walk into an obvious trap.

  “As I indicated to the senator previously, I was not sanctioned in any manner when I attempted to infiltrate the Villanueva Cartel,” he said.

  The balding-and-bony March smiled thinly, his undersized teeth barely showing, the sneer a mixture of contempt for the answer and appreciation for its political correctness. “Yes, I believe you have mentioned that several times. My colleague seems to find it amazing that you got out alive. I, on the other hand, find it somewhat unbelievable that a man of your pedigree in the intelligence community would go out into the field for something as banal as intel on a drug trafficker in the first place, let alone do so without sanction.”

  Maybe the fact that March was trying to force the line of questioning away from his doddering associate was a sign that they were running out of inane requests, Lang thought. “If it will make the chairman feel better, I’ll apologize for the fact that he finds drug trafficking banal,” he said.

  A murmur went around the committee table, which March ignored. “Perhaps,” the chairman said, “we’ll go back to Senator Morris, then, and see if he has any more questions in his lengthy, lengthy list.” He smiled at Lang again, only this time with his mouth open a little, like an alligator trying to lull a bird into a false sense of security. “I’m sure he does.”

  It took another two hours before the senators finally decided they’d had enough for the day and went into recess – although not before ordering Lang back for another session the following week. He left the chambers then closed the double doors behind him, letting out a lungful of stress and leaning against the now-closed entry. In the eighteen months that had passed since his rescue, he’d gained back the weight and been taken off the agency caution list, able technically to be field assigned again. He knew it wouldn’t happen; when you blow a black bag job, you either wind up dead or grounded, tied to a desk as a controller or adviser, or if you were lucky enough, section chief in some backwater town.

  But technically, his job was back to its old self.

  It was exceedingly rare for David Fenton-Wright to be nervous. His career had been one of caution, pragmatic political association and careful assessment of his exposure to criticism. But the Director of National Intelligence had never summoned Fenton-Wright through his secretary before; it had always been a personal call, convivial and supportive. This time it was different, an appointment set up a week earlier. It felt like a court date.

  There was only one approach, of course, which was to hang Joe Brennan out to dry once more. No matter what the director thought from the hearing scuttlebutt, the official version wasn’t going to change.

  It was technically true, although a quick look at Brennan’s psych profile
in the days leading up to the fateful rescue mission had convinced him that the best way to get the agent to take on the task himself – and the fallout either way – was to tell him he was barred from involvement. Brennan’s profile suggested he’d always stood up to authority, even when it wasn’t the most astute move.

  Fenton-Wright wished they were meeting at Langley, where he felt in control. The director, Nicholas Wilkie, spent most of his time on Capitol Hill these days, keeping the president and the National Security Council happy. It was a purely political job, Fenton-Wright felt, a liaison role between Langley and the political talking heads. It wasn’t that he didn’t admire Wilkie, who’d made it to the most important position in the intelligence community despite not having a background in the field. That spoke to his political prowess and his ability to manipulate consensus in his own direction, Fenton-Wright knew, all valuable tools. But Wilkie was aging, becoming less and less involved in the hard decisions, deferring more and more to Fenton-Wright and his opposite number at the NSA, Mark Fitzpatrick.

  Wilkie was leaning back in his desk chair when Fenton-Wright knocked. He was in his early seventies and had avoided both agencies’ mandatory retirement ages by presidential veto. But he still had a full head of white hair and a quick mind.

  The director had a sheath of printouts in one hand that he was studying, reading glasses halfway. “Ah David! Good to see you. Come in, come in.” He swung out of his office chair and walked over to shake Fenton-Wright’s hand. “I’ve just been reviewing a transcript of Walter Lang’s first-day committee testimony. He did a fine job.”

  Fenton-Wright suppressed his urge to scoff. “Well, the jury’s out of course, until we go through the other three days’ of transcripts, but I would tend to agree,” he said instead. “Of course, had he been more careful in Colombia, we wouldn’t have been in this mess to begin with. Now I have a top field agent suspended and Lang on a desk; so we’re effectively down two, with nothing to show from his efforts.” He was careful not to call it an operation; it was going to remain unofficial.

  “Now, David, be nice,” Wilkie said. “Walter volunteered to go into a difficult situation. Let’s not be too harsh with him, all right?”

  “Of course,” Fenton-Wright said. “Joe Brennan, however, is another matter. He was directly ordered to stay out of this.”

  “He got our man back,” Wilkie noted. “He may not be reliable, but he is effective. We have that at least.”

  The director had always been an optimist; it was part of his nature, part of the reason he could build bridges between parties, find consensus. Fenton-Wright considered him weak for it but knew eventually he’d get his chance. Wilkie couldn’t hang on forever.

  “Yes, well, that doesn’t change the fact that he undermined the authority of everyone in a senior position within the agency,” Fenton-Wright said. “I don’t want him back any time soon.”

  “If we let him go…”

  “We’ll have an association grievance to deal with; and he’s popular with some. There’s always a chance that cutting him loose could jeopardize the situation’s deniability. But if we just leave him on indefinite leave and he collects his paycheck, there is that much more pressure on him to honor his national security obligation.”

  Wilkie thought about it. There were worse fates, he supposed, than being on permanent vacation. And Brennan had a reputation for being honorable. “If we must, it should suffice. What about the other matter I forwarded -- the European file?”

  Fenton-Wright nodded as if familiar. In truth, he’d barely glanced at the details. A U.S. agent under deep cover on an ally’s turf codenamed Fawkes had made a rare information drop; it was the first time he’d even been heard from in sixteen years. But despite the agent’s profile and track record, the details seemed out-of-the-blue at best, Wilkie had said, allegations that a respected business group based in France had a hand in an African insurgency a few years earlier. Given Fawkes’ importance long ago, when the Cold War was at its peak, it had to be treated seriously, even if the few who knew of him doubted he was still reliable.

  “It’s under review,” he replied tactfully. “Our man is attempting to gain access to more information via those same connections. If there’s any more to it, he’ll attempt to offer himself up as a valuable political commodity, see how the business cabal reacts. His understanding is that it just lost a member.”

  Wilkie frowned. “Are you sure that’s the best approach, David? We’re talking about someone who has been in deep sleep; the embarrassment if he was exposed, both to him and to our British colleagues…”

  “I realize that, director,” Fenton-Wright said. “But we have little choice. And we have the added benefit of his social stature; were he caught, he could always claim he was acting on behalf of Queen and country, independent of their security services.”

  “Aren’t we risking the possibility that he’s working with MI6, trying to embarrass us, compromise us and put us in a position where we owe them a rather larger favor? He’s been ingrained into high society there for decades. He hasn’t been a regular contributor since the Seventies. It seems exceptionally strange that he’d come out of the woodwork now; he must be nearly eighty.”

  Fenton-Wright smiled ruefully. “Seventy-seven. With respect, director, it won’t be that long for either of us…”

  “Yes,” Wilkie said, “but I don’t expect either of us will still be here. Keep a lid on him, David. Make sure this doesn’t blow up in our faces.”

  Brennan had agreed to meet Walter at a small bar off Eighteenth Street, a brew pub run by Czech immigrants who made Lang’s favorite draft. Brennan hated driving into D.C., leaving Carolyn and the kids alone in Annandale for the afternoon just so that Walter could tell him what he already knew or suspected: that he wasn’t going back to work any time soon.

  The pub was near-empty, the lunch crowd having already left. The U-shaped wooden bar was next to the entrance as Brennan walked in. There were a couple of regulars still hanging around; a weathered looking man in a flat cap was chewing a toothpick; a younger guy with dark mutton chops sat talking to the barkeep; the sturdy-looking employee had short blond hair and his sleeves rolled up. He was cleaning pint glasses.

  Brennan automatically assessed the room for threats, eyes flitting between the tables and the booths along the back and side walls; he scanned each person in turn quickly, looking for facial hints, small ticks or changes that indicated they were paying too much attention, or any at all. He noted the second exit at the back. He liked the place: quiet, unassuming, private.

  Lang was waiting in the back corner booth, one of three along the rear wall; he was rubbing his hands together slowly under the bare wooden table, hunched forward a little and looking nervous, as ever.

  Flat cap’s eyes followed Brennan has he crossed the room, cutting between a few four-person tables. Brennan slid into the booth opposite his friend, vaguely annoyed that he had taken the seat with his back to a corner and the best view of the room.

  Lang shook his hand. “Thanks for driving in. I know Carolyn’s on vacation right now so I appreciate…”

  “Skip the playbook sentiment, Walter, it’s me,” Brennan said. “I don’t need the caring boss speech.”

  “I know. It’s just…”

  “Get over it. None of this is your fault. Sending you down there was foolhardy to begin with.” He didn’t tell Walter what he really thought: that leaving a senior agent to die for the sole reason of covering up a bad decision was a betrayal in itself, one that he pinned squarely on Walter’s boss, deputy director David Fenton-Wright. “So how did it go?”

  “It’s still going. They want me back in for another go on Monday; I think the chairman sees me as fodder for his next campaign slogan. And that ass Morris asked me the same question in a different form at least nine times over the four hours.”

  “What are they hoping to get out of this?”

  “Ammunition. The GOP dominates the committee. When word got out …
”

  “You mean when someone leaked it to the press.”

  “Sure. Anyway, when word got out the Dems went into such a frenzy of denial in the first three days that they might as well have been hanging a sign over the President in neon saying ‘he ordered it’. So they’re going to spend probably a whole week testing the limits of human boredom in closed session, trying to get me to admit it.”

  “Have you…” Brennan was hesitant.

  “What? Named anyone? Of course not.” Even in the relative anonymity of a near-empty pub he was cautious.

  “Who’s the committee chair?”

  “Junior senator out of Tennessee named Addison March. Have you followed what’s going on these days?”

  “Not so much.”

  “He’s the new GOP golden boy. Young, ambitious, on point. Well… young compared to the rest of those skeletons, anyway. He’s charming in public and a piranha in the House. I think he scares the liberal elite to death. Hey... when’s Carolyn coming back, anyway?”

  Brennan said, “That’s up to her. We’ve got plenty of help with the kids; not that we really need it right now. I’m home all day.” He couldn’t hide the bitterness.

  They were dancing around the issue of his suspension, neither man wanting to get to the moment, like a convict who knows he has no chance at his parole hearing. It was difficult for both; Lang’s guilt at Brennan paying the price for Colombia was considerable. But he was a good soldier. Even though Lang’s move to management gave him the authority to bring Brennan back in, the chain of command meant that he needed Fenton-Wright’s permission to do so.

  “So,” Brennan said.

  “Yeah. Look…”

  “It’s a ‘no’, right?”

  “Yeah. I’m sorry buddy,” Lang said. “Shot down again. Pretty strongly this time, too.”

  Neither wanted to consider the other possibility: that at the highest level he’d been blacklisted, burned. The agency had an inglorious history of paying former operatives not to work. Their pay never went up beyond prescribed increases, it never went down, and they were never called in again.