by Sam Powers
“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.
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 away.
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 disappeared from sight.
Just two more to go, the asset thought, and I can go home.
34./
JUNE 24, 2016, MARSEILLE, FRANCE
The port warehouse was thirty thousand square feet of emptiness, a corrugated tin giant with a dirt floor under a wood-beamed a-frame roof that towered forty feet overhead.
Joe Brennan and Victor Moutiere parked the dirt-caked Citroen outside the entrance; the building’s fourteen-feet-high sliding doors were open to the elements, and an unseasonably cool drizzle of rain gently flecked its way inside; the warehouse sat at the far end of a row of similar buildings, each with an exit on one side to the loading area and another on the opposite side to the docks.
They glanced around carefully as they got out, wary of unwelcome company. The car doors thunked closed behind them; the area was quiet save for the odd cry of a seagull. It was cool in the early morning, the sun barely up.
Their steps crunched in the dirt as the two men walked over to the entrance. The site was private, as requested, and there were no other vehicles around at six in the morning; the air smelled strongly of fish and seawater.
“This is it,” Victor said. The Frenchman had bags under his eyes and a gathering layer of stubble. “As I said, keep your
head down and let me do the talking. They’re not the types of men who follow the news, so you should be okay; and their work is first-rate.”
Brennan hated taking the risk; but he had no option when it came to getting a new passport. His treacherous boss at the agency, David Fenton-Wright, had set him up for murder and now, instead of tracking a rogue nuke or figuring out who was killing diplomats, he was on the run. He needed paper to keep moving. Victor had assured him the new document could be obtained, but it was going to eat most of his remaining ten thousand. Then he planned to make his way to London by train before driving to the coast and taking the ferry to Ireland.
With some deft work by Myrna, a pilot would meet him with a Gulfstream, a jet just big enough to get them across the Atlantic without refueling. Where she planned to obtain a pilot, let alone a jet, Brennan did not know. He glanced over at Victor as the Frenchman peeked inside the building then waved for Brennan to join him.
“Looks okay,” Victor said. “They’ll come in from the other side, probably drive right in.”
“So tactically, we’re overwhelmed in this place if they bring heavy firepower.”
Victor seemed pensive. “I suppose. I’ve known their boss a long time now, a man named Guy. He’ll give you a fair shake as long as he thinks it’s his best move.”
“What if he thinks numerical superiority gives him the right to take what we’ve got?” Brennan asked.
Victor shrugged. “He’s a crook, not a school teacher. The thought will probably cross his mind.”
“And if it does?”
“First, we see what he does with it. Then, if things go bad, we kill him.”
So, an old-fashioned sort of solution, Brennan thought wryly. “Maybe we can avoid all that,” he suggested.
“Perhaps,” Victor said.
Brennan had expected a flash ride, maybe an SUV like the gangsters back home. Instead, a brown Peugeot sedan pulled into the other side of the warehouse and parked. If they were planning a double-cross, he thought, they would have driven in further, given themselves a quicker escape.
A non-descript man in a white linen suit and blue shirt got out, flanked by three guards dressed casually. Their boss was middle-aged, with collar-length brown hair, slightly Gallic features. He had a briefcase in his left hand.
“That’s your contact?” Brennan said under his breath.
“I know he doesn’t look like much, but he’s ruthless,” Victor said. “Just be cool.”
The four men strode over to meet them, the guards checking the perimeter but the suitcase holder seemingly disinterested in the surroundings.
“My friend,” Victor said, extending a hand, which the man shook. “This is another friend of mine, Bernie. He’s the guy …”
“I saw his headshots when we had the paper made,” the gangster said. “He’s the guy who needs the passports. So how much is he kicking back to you?”
“Just doing a favor for an old friend.”
“Uh huh, for sure,” Guy the Gangster said. “And I’m Charles Aznavour. This guy….” He looked at Brennan again, then opened his suitcase to take out an envelope, “…he looks familiar to me, Victor. That’s never a good thing in our line of work, when you can’t remember why you know someone.” The gangster had that hint of concern on his face, a slight suspicion.
“But if we didn’t deal with people who have a little trouble here and there, they wouldn’t need your paper… or anything else you sell, my friend,” Victor said.
Guy seemed to ponder the notion for a moment. “That’s true. You have the money?”
“Ten thousand,” Brennan said, handing his own smaller envelope over.
The man leaned in to hand Brennan the larger manila envelope… then stopped halfway, then leaned back. “That’s an interesting accent. Your French is perfect, but you’re not from here…”
“The paper?” Brennan said, smiling, his hand still out. His nerves were on end, alert for just such a pause.
The gangster had taken on a curious look, his eyes darting as he searched his short-term memory for something playing at his subconscious. “I think… I think I know exactly who you are now. You’re the American the police in Montpellier are looking for…”
All six men stood silently, within reaching distance of one another, the moment’s tension ratcheted up.
Brennan was worth a lot of money to whoever caught him.
Each looked at the other. When the bodyguard closest to Guy glanced at his boss, the smaller man nodded just slightly, almost imperceptibly. Victor saw the move, saw all three guards going for the pistols in their waist holsters at the same time. Before anyone else could react, he drew and raised the nine millimeter, took a half-step forward and rammed the barrel into Guy’s mouth, while grabbing the gangster by the back of the head with his other hand.
“Nobody draws,” he said. “Guns down on the ground. Now!”
Guy nodded his agreement, unable to talk. “Dngghf!” he demanded.
Brennan said, “Are you sure…”
“Yeah,” Victor said. “I’ve played poker against this guy for fifteen years and he has a big tell. I didn’t have a choice.” He nodded back towards the men. “Now kick the guns across the room.”
All three obliged. “What do we do with him?” Brennan said.
“We don’t do anything with him,” Victor said. “You’re going to take that Peugeot over there and leave, because you have a trip to take. I’m going to take Guy here for a little drive and talk in my car while his men wait here.”
Brennan wasn’t sure what to say. In six months of almost having his head handed to him, Victor was one of the few honorable men he’d met – despite the fact that, by all social convention, he was supposed to be the worst. “You didn’t have to do this,” he finally said.
“It was the right thing,” Victor said. “Chances are if you don’t grab me in that apartment, I wind up dead. Besides, you’ve been paying me a lot of money. This gives me a chance to earn it.”
Brennan smiled. “I thought you were primarily a thief…”
“And it’s hard work, believe me,” Victor said. “Now go!”
“I owe you an enormous debt. I won’t forget that,” Brennan said.
“Yeah, yeah. Go get misty somewhere else. Leave the men to deal with things. Guy might want to kill me for a while, but you already paid him; he has no real reason to complain. And he understands that sometimes, business is business.”
“Is that what this is?”
Victor smiled, a rarity. “Good luck, my friend,” he said.
AMMAN, JORDAN
Ahmed Khalidi felt awkward in his own skin, fidgety. He sat on the sofa in his white linen kadura robe and keffiyeh head scarf, bored, leaning back into one corner in repose with an ice-cold glass of ginger ale in his right hand as he watched the flat-screen television on the wall.
The room, a small lounge at his father’s palace, was near empty. The barest rays of light made their way through the wide, tilted window shutters. Adjacent to the sofa was a modernist armchair in steel and white leather, in which Faisal was perched, rubbing his hands nervously.
The television was on a news network, the reporters discussing Funomora’s death, the EU’s decision to sanction Khalidi’s companies, and the isolation of the Association’s remaining two members in their homeland. Facing numerous political challenges at home and a domestic scandal involving his wife, Fung was probably happy to return to Harbin, avoid Khalidi. He still had opportunities to save political face.
The Jordanian’s own future was less assured. It wasn’t that Khalidi had lost all of his power; he was still an influential figure in certain circles, particularly in Arab nations. But the newspaper revelations of his involvement in funding insurrections combined with the assassinations had enshrouded him in a cloud of public suspicion. And so his eighty-four-year-old father had called him home, suggesting he needed time away from the limelight, in a secure and private environment.
It felt abso
lutely appalling. Insulting, even. Confined.
An anchor discussed the next story. “Does the Middle East have too much influence in American politics? The surprising answers when we come back,” he teased.
The image flashing on the screen as the network went to commercial was a split screen of Khalidi and Addison March, the Republican candidate.
He rolled his eyes. “I fully expect an expose by the end of the day on how I sell white women into slavery and eat their babies. How is it possible, Faisal, for me to extract myself from this situation?
Faisal had always found Khalidi to be arrogant, vain. He wanted to point out the inevitable downfall of all such men. Instead, he sighed inwardly and did his job, which was the healthy thing to do. “Lie low. Stay away from public attention for a while. Let the people who want to cluck and make noise do so, and then come back with purpose and the drive to succeed.”
“It will be that easy, eh?” Khalidi said with a wry smile.
“You have alternatives that will take less time, but they are all risky and prone to making the situation even worse than it already is.”
But sitting back meant handing over control to others, and Khalidi hated that. He had controlled his own destiny since childhood, the eleventh of thirteen sons and yet the most successful financially, the most prominent. No one told Ahmed Khalidi where to go, what to do, how to behave. No one except his father.
Khalidi respected and admired the sheik. But there were days when he wished the old man would make his way to paradise with a little more urgency.
“So you are saying I must sit here and wait for my future to be determined by others. Unacceptable,” he said. “Have you ever known me to behave thusly?”
Faisal, who had a master’s degree in economics from Cambridge, was intuitive enough to know that most of Khalidi’s decisions were grounded as much in ego as logic, as much in personal gain as adhering to any larger social ethos. Unlike the Sheikh’s son, Faisal had been handed very little in life, and had worked his way off of the streets of Alexandria to get to university, and to win a scholarship for his advanced degree. He was paid exceptionally well for his advice, but never once perceived Khalidi to be actually listening.
