by Sam Powers
Had he handled things correctly with Carolyn and Jonah? Both were respected in the department. Both were level-headed, calm. They lacked DFW’s outward passion, but either might have been a better choice at one point that his protégé.
Wilkie picked up the phone. Carolyn couldn’t become any more involved in the case than she already was, due to her obvious conflict of interest regarding her wayward husband. But Jonah? Jonah was eager to please and sharp. Perhaps he could find Fenton-Wright, get to him before he was arrested, get a feel for what had gone so terribly wrong.
June 28, 2016, SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
It was a shame Eddie couldn’t have arranged something formal, Brennan thought. Just getting a name out of him had taken serious negotiations, given that the South Korean contact in question was deep undercover.
In fact, the statement “are you out of your freakin’ mind?!?” had been repeated during the conversation more than once.
But ultimately, Eddie had given him the name, on the promise there would be no indication of how Brennan got the information. If he was planning on outing a spy, Eddie wanted nothing to do with it. That sort of thing was bad for business.
Now the problem was how to approach Lee Kyu Sun without spooking the man. They were both seated on opposite sides of the university cafeteria, which was mostly empty, although the clatter of kitchen utensils made it seem otherwise. Brennan stared across the banks of long tables and watched his target eat alone, occasionally flicking through the pages of a folded-over magazine.
Ostensibly, Lee was a visiting professor of political science from the University of Seoul. His real job was handling western-based covert operatives for his nation’s security service. Given that most of its work involved industrial espionage, and very little of it was actually in the field, he was not a busy handler, Brennan had decided.
He’d met a few of the more studious intelligence types of the years; they didn’t usually like to get their hands dirty.
Brennan scoped out the cafeteria again. The place was practically empty, just an elderly lady in a pale blue cardigan eating by herself, a couple of stoners in a wall booth. He pondered confronting him at his table, to make fleeing a poorer option; the last thing Lee probably wanted was an issue with his cover job.
Instead, he waited until the professor had finished his meal then began to follow him across campus and out onto the streets of the city. If Lee was a long-time agent, he hadn’t spent much actual time in the field, Brennan decided: he hadn’t shoulder checked once, and he was walking too far from the adjacent store windows along the street to use them as angles of reflection, to check his six. On a hunch, Brennan checked the other side of the street; some handlers had watchers around to make their jobs easier, convenient muscle if the need arose. But he spotted no one.
Ahead, Lee turned a corner and took the narrow cross street, which was closed to road traffic. Brennan stayed with him, far back enough to not be noticed. He turned the corner… and ducked, just as the spinning round kick connected with the spot where his head had just been.
Lee was in a tae-kwon do opening stance, relaxed, weight back. “Why are you following me? If you’re after money, you picked the wrong guy,” he said, his accent somewhere between foreign and American.
Lee took a half-step forward before throwing out a front kick, which Brennan blocked easily.
“I’m not here to fight you,” Brennan said, raising both hands. “I just need your help.”
“Leave me alone, or I’ll call the cops,” the professor said. “I mean it.”
Brennan smirked at him. “No, Mr. Lee, you won’t. We both know that’s the case.”
Lee’s face froze for a moment in a look of surprise; he’d realized it wasn’t about school or a simple mugging. He turned on his heel, and ran north up the street.
For an academic, he was in good shape, Brennan thought. He wasn’t going to outrun the former SEAL, however, and thirty seconds later, Brennan was closing on him. Lee turned into an alley and Brennan followed.
It was a dead end. The Korean looked around for an egress point amidst the trash and garbage dumpsters. Seeing nothing, he squared off with Brennan again in a fighting stance. “I warned you,” Lee said. He sprinted at the American, dropping at the last second and sliding along the slick concrete so that he could plant a low punch into Brennan’s groin, finish things early. Instead, Brennan blocked the blow, took a half-step backwards and, before Lee could rise and right himself, stepped on the man’s chest, pinning him down.
For a fighter, he made a heck of a university professor. He struggled, grabbing Brennan’s foot and attempting to pry himself free, like a beetle stuck under a rock.
“Just relax,” Brennan said. “I just need to talk to you, for Chrissake!”
He tentatively removed his foot. Lee used both hands to push up off the ground and leaped to his feet. “You won’t manage that again,” he said, going back into a fighting stance.
This is getting tiresome, Brennan thought. He feinted a blow to the man’s head and when Lee’s right arm came up to block it, Brennan dug low, hammering the man four times with rapid, flat-palmed punches to the solar plexus. It knocked him down and knocked the wind out of him, without doing any real harm.
Brennan helped the wheezing agent off the floor. “Now, are we going to keep doing this, or are you going to talk to me?”
A few minutes later they were sitting across from one another in a nearby coffee shop. Brennan had bought them each a tea.
“Explain,” Lee said when he sat down again.
“I’m aware of your employer, Mr. Lee,” Brennan said. “And I have no interest in breaking your cover. At least, not now, anyway.”
“I’m listening.”
“My name is Joe Brennan. I work for the agency, an asset.”
“Okay.”
“My sources indicate that you’re a handler for South Korean National Intelligence.”
Lee crossed his arms. “That’s creative.”
“Not really. My sources know you fairly well, I’m sorry to say.”
“State your piece,” Lee said, without confirming anything.
“I need a piece of intel, intel you might already have.”
“Again, assuming I had any idea what you’re talking about…”
“I’m trying to find out why another professor from your school in South Korea, a Dr. Han Chae-Young, might be wrapped up in a smuggling operation of sorts. She’s a nuclear physicist…”
“Seconded to the Universite Libre de Bruxelles,” Lee said, finishing the thought.
“Exactly.”
“She’s dead,” Lee said. “Her partially skeletal remains washed up along the shore near the start of the demilitarized zone in Korea, just under three weeks ago. They figured she’d been dead for at least six months, though the decay made it hard to be certain.”
That couldn’t be, Brennan thought. The timing was all wrong. “That’s impossible. I spoke with her in Angola less than two months ago.”
“You spoke with an imposter,” Lee said. “It is the SKI’s belief that Dr. Han was replaced, likely by a North Korean agent, in an effort to pass nuclear technology to her home country.”
That made more sense, Brennan thought; but it still didn’t answer the question of why she’d left him alive. “I need to find the imposter; it’s possible she has … vital information.”
“Good luck then,” Lee said. “Don’t you think we’d have acted by now if we knew her location?”
“Do you have a picture of the real Dr. Han?”
The professor took out his phone. After flipping through several other pictures, he held it up for Brennan to see. She looked similar to the woman he’d talked with in Brussels, but was definitely a different person. “You’re right,” he said. “That’s not her.”
Lee was staring at him as Brennan eyed the photograph. “You realize what you’ve done, don’t you, Mr. Brennan?”
“Enlighten me.”
“You
’ve burned me. I can’t go back to my superiors now and claim our operations here are uncompromised.”
“Hey, I told you: my lips are sealed.”
“Yes, well, that’s very noble and everything, Mr. Brennan. But we both know the moment you need my help again they will become unsealed. Besides, someone else must have known to tell you, which means too many people know, which means I have to leave. Go home.” He didn’t look happy at the prospect.
Business was business, Brennan thought. He had no sympathy for the man. “You’re lucky I don’t tip the agency right now. In fact, if I hadn’t promised my sources, your entire network would be down by tomorrow.”
“Believe me, Mr. Brennan,” he said. “You have already done enough.”
“As I said, this is between us. You make your own choices. But I can tell you the sources who tipped me are solid; they’ll tell me things they wouldn’t tell their own mothers, let alone the agency or another operative.”
“I would like to believe that, Mr. Brennan,” Lee said as he rose to leave. “I really would. But the damage is done.”
“This isn’t a business that is high on sympathy, Mr. Lee,” Brennan said. “I’d suggest that the next time you’re offered a foreign posting, you tell your paymasters how much you love Seoul.”
41./
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Dulles Airport was typically cram-packed with travelers, and Ellen McLean stood near the front of the crowd outside Callum’s arrival gate, waiting to wave to him and let him know they’d come to pick him up.
Carolyn had come along, grateful for some support while Joe was away and with the kids staying at her parents’ house for the rest of the weekend. But she’d started to think about what it would be like to greet him; would he even let her know somehow if he was safe, if he was out of danger?
That didn’t seem likely, so a call to come out to the airport and play happy family seemed equally remote. When push came to shove, Joe was Joe: stubborn and independent, even with his loved ones.
At least Callum might still be home for him to hang around with if he did return, she reasoned. Callum’s new sales job took him away just about every week, too. But he’d always fly home at the end of the trip. Carolyn had no idea where Joe even was.
“There he is!” Ellen said, waving to her husband as he stepped through the double sliding doors and jumping excitedly in place. “Hey!”
Her gesture could’ve been seen from the runway, and Callum smiled at the greeting before heading in their direction. When he reached them he leaned down and hugged Carolyn quickly; then he turned to Ellen, his face warm with the glorious familiarity of affection. They put their hands around each other’s waists and just held each other or what seemed a full minute.
Carolyn felt creeping jealousy, but pushed it down, happy for her friend. Ellen hadn’t talked about anything else all week.’
Callum looked around quickly. “No Joe?”
“He’s still off the grid,” Carolyn said.
“Ouch,” Callum said. “I’m sorry. I know you were expecting him back before now.”
“It is what it is,” she said. “You know the job.”
He nodded. “No movement from the agency on letting him resign?”
Carolyn knew she wasn’t allowed to get into the details. “Not exactly, no. It’s complicated.”
“Shocker,” Callum said. “Complications involving the government.”
“How was the new job?” Ellen asked, trying to get things back on a positive keel. “Sell any equipment?”
“We did well,” he said. “New England is a good market for us. California’s looking up, too.”
Carolyn knew Callum’s new job involved heavy travel. The rest of the details were hazy, which was fine; most people only bore their friends when they talk about their jobs, she’d long decided.
“How long are you back for?” she asked instead. “If you’re taking Michael fishing, I’m sure Josh wouldn’t mind tagging long.”
“If we lived closer, they’d be inseparable,” Ellen added. “You can handle that, right hon?”
“I’ve got five days until I have to go out again; if the weather holds, I’m sure we can drum something up. And if Joe gets back before then…”
Carolyn smiled bravely. She didn’t know what to expect any more.
SEATTLE AIRPORT, WASHINGTON
Brennan dialed the number again, but got the same result, the call kicking over to the answering machine after three rings, Carolyn’s voice telling people they weren’t home just then, and to leave a message.
“Yeah… Hi babe, hi everyone!” he said trying to sound optimistic. “Just calling to let you know I’m okay and I’m trying to get home real soon. Jessie, Josh, you be good for your mom and I’ll bring you each back something nice. Okay then… I love you.”
He ended the call and threw the cellphone into the nearby trash can as the thousands of travelers streamed obliviously by them.
“What’s with the phone?” Malone asked.
“It’s hot. I had to improvise when I got out of Vancouver. It’s unlikely they connected a missing phone taken from a Canadian with my whereabouts, but you never know. The agency, certainly, might assume I’d resort to theft. So it’s like a homing signal, potentially.”
She looked up at the departures board. “My flight leaves in twenty. I should get to my gate.”
“Okay. You’re sure this is the guy?”
“As best as I can tell from online sources; he’s the definitive expert on keys and locks going back forty years.”
“Had to be in D.C.,” Brennan said ruefully. “You watch your back, Alex. You got that phone number I gave you?”
“Yeah.”
“You know the drill: before you leave D.C. to meet up with me, you call that number, you tell whoever answers that “Brennan says it’s New York.” They’ll get the context.”
“Won’t that put them all over your back? Who says they’ll even believe it’s a real threat?”
“The agency can’t take the chance that I’m right. At the very least, they’ll have a few small teams checking every viable target in the city.”
“We could always switch places. I’ll go search the New York docks for the nuke, you go talk to the egghead. I may not look like much in terms of ass-kicking, but I play a mean first-person shooter when my nephew comes over.”
Brennan began to smile, thinking about how pretty Alex was when she was trying to be funny. Then he caught himself. He missed Carolyn too much to start thinking that way.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
The President smiled for the cameras, a broad, genuine grin flashing pearly whites as he shook hands with the Italian prime minister, followed by a backslap from the Italian that made even the cynical media types in the audience laugh.
While everyone else in the press room was still chuckling about the PM’s joke and demonstration of affection, the President was thinking through the rest of his day, doing the math, ensuring he was still on schedule.
Ten minutes later, his aides were escorting him to the private security briefing, the half-dozen faces all familiar. “Gentlemen,” he said as he entered, irritated by how long it had taken to get out of the press conference, but not showing it, doing up the second button of his dark navy suit coat even as he walked to the head of the long table. “My apologies. As you’re all aware we signed a major agreement with our Italian partners today to work together on new approaches to counteracting germ warfare and protecting the public.”
There was a light round of applause from around the table, an acknowledgement that even though his term was soon done, the President was still making his mark. With his potential successor, John Younger, still holding a ten-point lead over GOP challenger Addison March, his legacy was looking up.
With one exception. “So you’ll forgive me,” he said, his tone changing, “if I’m not a little concerned we might be taking a step backwards. I understand this is about the sniper situation.”
“Yes, Mr. President,” the defense secretary said, his grey hair immaculately coiffed and his red bow tie knotted perfectly, but his fidgeting fingers giving away his nerves. “It’s not exactly a question of deliberately stepping back, insomuch as…”
On the other side of the table, Nicholas Wilkie recognized the potential damage to his own reputation and the agency if he let someone else own the discussion, particularly the rationales for taking further action. He interrupted. “Mr. President, as the director responsible for this fiasco up to this point, I must take full responsibility,” he said. “While obviously we will have a full branch review to go over the various breakdowns in performance, I will reiterate that the current administration seems to have inherited a rather large and dirty problem from my predecessor.”
“And which ‘large and dirty’ problem would that be, Nicholas?” the President said pointedly. “The rogue agent who French police believe murdered an elderly tourist? The deputy director who’s been shipping information overseas and killing ex-spies?’
Wilkie froze for a moment. How had the President found out so much, so quickly? He maintained his stoic expression, but it was difficult, the muscles around his mouth tightening, brow fighting to prevent his eyebrows from raising.
The agency had always had leaks. Every large group does; in fact, the tighter it was perceived to clamp down on leaks, the worse they often were, Wilkie knew. But this one could cost him dearly.
Just play it cool, old man, he told himself. He leaned forward slightly on the table, trying to show confidence with his body language. “That’s a colorful way of putting it, Mr. President,” he said, smiling at everyone in the room, waiting as they smiled back, everyone having a slight chuckle as if it just wasn’t that big a deal. “But essentially yes, that’s exactly the situation I find myself having to clean up.”
