by Sam Powers
“Sure, sure,” Francisco said, relighting the stub of his cigar. “But I still get the extra five thousand, right?”
In the end, it wasn’t such a bad deal, Brennan thought as he climbed out of the Land Rover. The handful of small extras Francisco had coughed up was probably worth half the money.
He used the road for the first three-quarters of a kilometer, staying close enough to the edge of the overgrowth that he could duck into it if a vehicle came, but avoiding excessive noise caused by tramping over a kilometer of foliage. Once he was within site of the gates, he moved a few steps into the jungle, out of sight. He had to push forward slowly, moving brush, branches and vines aside, mindful of running into local wildlife. A snake bite would end his evening really quickly, Brennan knew.
His initial foray was a simple recon mission; he’d trace the perimeter of the compound from just inside the tree line looking for entry points, weaknesses and guard movement patterns. His mind flitted back to Colombia, more than three years earlier; he pushed the thought away. During his pass around, he’d set a charge for a distraction; he planned to enter the camp and find Kovacic, blow the charge when needed to divert attention or if cornered, and take the Chechen strongman with him. Francisco had insisted he had a safe route out through the Congo to the North and Porte Noire, if they absolutely needed it.
The jungle was almost impenetrably thick, foliage crashing into itself, branches twisted and knotted together; he got about twenty yards before pushing into a spider web so large it could have swallowed a wild pig. It was tacky like glue and strong as fishing line, ripping leaves away as he stumbled into it; Brennan had to back track a few paces to clean off – including some of the family of basically harmless Tarantulas living in the web. He reached into his kit bag and took out the half-sized machete. It was small for convenient storage but razor-sharp, with a short row of teeth halfway up the blade to rip through branches.
But it was making a lot of noise. Within a hundred yards of the camp, he stopped cutting and went back to methodically pulling the jungle aside, moving a foot every minute. The camp guards and workers had a radio on, playing a typically West African guitar and drum dance song, the ancestral roots of samba, blues and reggae all obviously there. Brennan took out his night-vision goggles and moved to the edge of the tree-line. There was a gate tower, but it appeared empty. The main gate was out of the question anyway, with two guards outside and another directly in. The perimeter of the property was surrounded by good old-fashioned barbed wire, up to about seven feet. It wouldn’t prove much challenge. In the center of the yard, near where they’d parked, was a small hut with a front flap. It could have been a machine gun nest … or a bar. But Brennan didn’t play odds; he just assessed where potential fire might come from, looked for the best cover to get in and out unseen and unharmed. Extractions weren’t about kicking ass or being a superhuman athlete, or being able to hit guys on the run from fifty yards – which doesn’t really happen in real life, except by happy accident and massive gunfire. They were about finding and maintaining good cover, avoiding being seen and, if detected, giving the enemy as little to hit as possible until out and away. Given the usually overwhelming numerical advantage to the home team, it just made sense.
The compound was poorly lit, mostly only effective against animal predators, to keep them from bumping into the barbed wire in the dark. The corners were shrouded in shadows, making easy entry points. It was a question of figuring out the angles, judging the guards and their lines of sight as they patrolled, and breaking down access. He looked at the barbed wire fence, then at the container house. The back of the top floor had a section cut away at one end, to make a balcony. It was perhaps twenty yards to cover past the fence, in potential sight of the guards. The question was whether the edge of the balcony was too high to reach. If it was anything over about ten feet, he’d have no chance of grabbing the rail above and pulling himself up.
He stooped and ran to the fence line, then crouched down on one knee to cut through the wire. Brennan entered in the shadows, nearly invisible. The back fence ran right to the cave mouth, while the container home was thirty yards ahead. He waited until the guards were turned and sprinted for the back of the house, flattening against it then checking around the corner to ensure no guards had seen him and were closing. Then he jumped for the edge of the balcony, pulling himself up onto the second level.
A screen door led inside; it was quiet and the lights were out.
The upper level had been opened up, the walls between three connected crates removed and reconfigured, to make three big rooms with a corridor just in front of them, off the balcony. Brennan checked the first and second rooms, but both were shared accommodations, with a pair of single beds, all four sound asleep.
The third room was unlocked, and Brennan swung the door in cautiously. It was more lush, well-furnished with a queen-sized bed. Kovacic was asleep in the bed in one corner. Joe crept over, leaning down to place the silenced Russian pistol against the back of the sleeping figure’s head. “Andraz, wake up,” he said gently.
“I’m already awake, my inquisitive friend.” The voice came from behind him. Someone cocked a pistol.
Brennan raised his hands and stood up. Whoever was in the bed wasn’t his target.
“Hands behind your head, please,” Kovacic said. “You are in for a long night; this I can guarantee.”
MARCH 28, 2016
“Wake up.”
Cold water shocked Brennan back to consciousness, and he shook his head quickly to get the water out of his eyes, blinking through the haze.
They’d bound him and cuffed his hands, attached him to a chair. The room was dimly lit, maybe one of the barracks offices. Kovacic was standing ten feet ahead of him, weight on his left hip, one arm crossing his body, tucked under his other as he raised the cigarette to his lips. The interrogator standing next to him was such a cliché that Brennan started to chuckle: bald, hyper muscular, a big scar across his face, wearing a black vest and holding a pair of electrified sponge paddles.
“What’s so funny, my friend?” Kovacic asked. “We have been doing this for over an hour. I would think you would have run out of reasons to laugh by now.”
“Your guy here,” Brennan managed, nodding towards the torturer, his breath heavy from fatigue and pain. “He needs to branch out, try other roles.”
The interrogator didn’t like that answer. He reached in quickly with both paddles and pressed them to Brennan’s ribs, the current stunning his nervous system, a shocking pain that jolted through every bone in his body. The dose ended, and Brennan slumped in the chair again.
“Now that was not very wise, was it?” Kovacic asked.
“There’s something I don’t understand,” Brennan said.
Kovacic looked puzzled. “Now you want to talk all of a sudden?”
“Maybe you weren’t asking the right questions. But I’ve got one.”
“Okay.”
“Why no plastic surgery? You obviously had work done on the dupe who was blown up in Peru. You are Borz Abubakar, aren’t you?”
His look darkened. “I suppose that answers the question of how much you know. I must assume a great deal.”
“You blew up a bus full of innocent people…”
“A diversion; a ploy; a way for me to disappear for a while.”
“Why the double, the misdirection?” Brennan asked. “And where was the weapon you’d purchased with the money stolen from Khalidi?”
“That was arranged by my compatriots in Europe and Chechnya, who had contacts for reasons of ideology with the Shining Path movement in Peru. The double was being sent on a circuitous route, designed to waste the time of pursuers. There was a meeting of heads of state in a Peruvian border town at the same time, a viable target. And there were…certain parties other than Khalidi who were unhappy with us.”
“Certain parties?”
He shrugged and smiled. “Let’s just say that not everyone involved in the deal w
as fairly compensated. It was unfortunate, but unavoidable. The double had been exposed to enriched uranium while staying in a “safe house” and was going to die before anyone uncovered his actual identity. Keep in mind that we compensated his family very well,” Abubakar said. “By the time he was discovered, even if he hadn’t died yet, the very fact that he was contaminated would convince Khalidi’s many intelligence associates that he was really me.”
“It worked on some people; the intelligence community thinks you’re dead.”
“That, in turn, would allow me the time to arrange passage of the device from West Africa to Russia.”
“Your comrades expected you to set the device off in Moscow, or St. Petersburg…”
He shook his head. “Sochi, on the Black Sea. A matter of geographical convenience. But when the bus blew up, Khalidi was unconvinced; he sent teams out to scour the globe looking for me, had them at every major airport hub. I was stuck in Pointe Noire, unable to travel safely. I had access to money and contacts, but I wasn’t willing to go under the knife for plastic surgery in a small African city with poor medical facilities at best. In the meantime, the Shining Path movement took the blame for the passengers’ deaths.”
“Your fellow socialist freedom fighters must have really loved you for that.”
Abubakar took a deep breath. “I was ostracized by the same people who had plotted with me to buy the device and use it against Russia, branded an embarrassing failure.”
Brennan considered the cave mouth at the back of the camp. “You set up some side business while you bided your time. But you knew there was a chance that the device might be discovered.”
He nodded. “It had been brought up by the original thieves from South Africa, through Namibia and Angola; they took a smuggler’s vessel from Soyo, at the mouth of the Congo, to Cabinda, and then from land up to Pointe Noire. But they had limited resources and no contacts who would buy the thing. Within two months, the men responsible were both killed in separate criminal incidents; so it sat in storage for more than a decade with surplus farm equipment, in a corrugated tin warehouse.”
Brennan was beginning to get his strength back and he used the delay to work on his bound hands, trying to pry them loose. “You had been arranging weapons purchases for Khalidi’s Nigerian insurrections and heard about the bomb.”
“It had been uncovered in Pointe Noire by someone who knew what it was and what it could be worth, a Russian arms dealer with wide-ranging contacts. So I had a price, I had access to Khalidi’s money.”
“And in Chechnya, you had a cause.”
“True.”
“But now you were stuck in Pointe Noire and no one back home wanted your help. So you hid it in one of the caves by the lagoon to disguise the signature of the fissionable material, but then lost track of which one?”
He shook his head. “Nothing that foolish, I assure you. The cave suffered a collapse. They are artificial, entrances to a deeper pit designed in rudimentary fashion to prevent outside exposure to non-miners; they were designed in the nineteen thirties by a French pharmaceutical firm with a concession from the Belgians. The firm thought it had a use for Uranium in certain cancer treatments. The caves are not deep, but once our cave was cut off, it meant finding the easiest point to break through the dirt and rock from the next cave over.”
“The one behind that tin shack you call a house.”
“Quite accurate.”
“Why try to get to it now? Why come back for it at all?”
He shrugged. “Money. First, the camp was an ideal spot to sell weapons to the new Cabindan resistance, fighting the Angolans. They have a steady flow of Euros coming in from certain supporters, and most of that now flows through me. We were not initially aware of the background radiation; it has grown as the tunnels have been opened up. Besides, I spend much of my time in Pointe Noire to avoid this place. Second, I concluded that since my brothers in arms betrayed me, and the world thought me dead, I should sell the device and reap a reward for the exile I’ve endured; but it took some time to find a buyer.
“And you let the locals you’ve hired think this place is safe, I suppose. So this is just…”
Abubakar cut him off. “No, we’re not going to play that game, American. You wanted to know about the bus victims and I’ve made it clear that that was an unfortunate incident. We need to get back to the point of this: you telling us who you work for and what they know. I think I know the latter, but I am no longer sure of the former.”
Brennan smiled. “My name is Tom Smith. I’m a geologist. I’m just here to collect samples…”
“Oh, bravo,” Abubakar said, clapping slowly. “I suppose this all came to the surface because you were investigating Khalidi? Due to the recent murders of his business confederates? Why would that be an American concern? You are American, are you not, Mr. Smith?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Abubakar sighed. “Don’t make this more difficult than it needs to be. Hit him again, Mr. Nkube.”
The interrogator stepped in and held the sponges to Brennan’s side; he convulsed violently as the electric current ran through him. The big African pulled the sponges away and Brennan slumped again, barely conscious.
“People think it’s the voltage that’s important,” Abubakar said. “But as Mr. Nkube would explain, it’s actually the amperage, the resistance in the electrical current, which determines the damage. Who do you work for, Mr. Smith?”
“Get… stuffed.”
The interrogator didn’t need to be told; he stepped in and hammered Brennan with an extended shock, the agent’s torso shaking even after the sponges were removed, his muscles contorted from lactic acidosis, spit flying from his mouth.
“Enough, Mr. Nkube, enough!” Abubakar said in French. “Don’t kill the man! I need information from him.”
Abubakar leaned in. “How did you know we’d extracted the device? That I had a buyer?”
Brennan shook his head. “I didn’t, just that it was on the move. You want truth, there’s some. You were supposed to be a Slovenian arms dealer working for Kalispell ...”
“If that’s true, my timing is impeccably bad, as usual,” Abubakar said.
“English is impeccably good….” Brennan said.
“Thank you. I’ve had years to learn.”
“… for a murderous scumbag.”
The Chechen’s face was red, flustered. “And what of my loss?!?” he yelled, slapping himself on the chest. “My country. My family. My name! I’ve lost everything! Once I get out of here, even my face.”
“You were going to use the device on Russians civilians.”
“Spare me your sanctimony!” Abubakar said. “You’re an American. Your people have killed millions in wars, insurrections and revolutions around the globe, either directly like Iraq and Vietnam, or indirectly by funding dictators and murderers. You have no moral high ground, Mr. ‘Smith’. I suppose your stubbornness with respect to revealing your employer means that it is government, an agency. If you were just a hired hand you would not care enough to dig in and endure this. Maybe the CIA, yes? I don’t think it would be Khalidi. Does anyone else know where I am, other than Francisco?”
“You answer a question for me first.”
The Chechen eyed him suspiciously. “American, you piss me off, you presume so much.”
“Who’d you sell the weapon to? You wouldn’t be this frantic to move it right now if you hadn’t found a buyer.”
Abubakar turned his head, exasperated. “You know, this was not how I wanted to spend today,” he told Brennan. “Hit him again, Mr. Nkube.
The big torturer leaned in again, smiling.
28./
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Myrna leaned forward over the steering wheel and scanned the parking garage again. “Are you sure he’ll be here? It’s been nearly an hour, hon,” she told Malone.
They’d parked at the far end of the second level, on Malone’s suggestion
, so that Myrna could be nearby and Malone wouldn’t be potentially spotted on the street while walking in. It was unlikely her source’s newspaper code had been broken, but after Walter’s death, Alex wasn’t taking any chances.
Instead, they waited for him to arrive. “Just remember: stay out of sight while we meet,” Alex said. “I don’t want him seeing you, and I have to respect his anonymity, so I don’t want you seeing him. We’re cool with that, right?”
Myrna gave her a sour look. “Sweetie, I was playing this game long before you were born. I think I know how to…”
“Down!” Alex snapped, as a figure appeared out of the stairwell that led up to the mall above. “I’ll be back soon.”
She got out of the car and closed the door, slinging her purse over her shoulder in the same motion. She walked towards the man, and they met midway across the darkened parking level, their shadows cast long by the emergency lights overhead.
“I expected to hear from you before now,” the source said. “You haven’t written an article in a while, either.”
“You must have known it would be difficult to confirm the information you gave me,” Alex said. “But we’re getting there. Don’t worry.”
“If you need evidence, perhaps you should go back to Miskin. My sources suggest he’s nervous; he suspects one of his fellow ACF board members, perhaps even the chairman, may be behind the shootings.”
“Why? What…”
“Don’t be naïve; there are any numbers of reasons. A power grab; to cover up bad decisions from the past; perhaps what you need to do is ask Miskin.”
“When you say ‘mistakes from the past’, you’re talking about Khalidi and Kalispell Properties; am I correct?”
“That’s one interpretation. But he’s not the only ACF board member who has overreached, Ms. Malone. You should know that much by now.”
“You mean the Chinese delegate…”
“I mean all of them. Like I said, don’t be naïve.”
