The Joe Brennan Spy Thrillers

by Sam Powers

  “Hello? Carolyn? Jessie? Josh?”

  But the house was silent. He checked his beaten old Seiko wristwatch; but it was one-thirty on a Wednesday, with school not back in for a week.

  They’d probably gone with friends for brunch, Brennan figured. Something like that.

  He’d tried to call her from Moscow, then again from the airport, but got her voice mail. For obvious safety reasons, he never carried the kids’ cell numbers and contacts.

  He put his case down by the door, vowing to unpack it properly this time. Then he crossed the carpeted upper tier of the step-down living room to the kitchen. If they’d been home recently the coffee pot would either still be on or warm, because his wife’s caffeine addiction was predictable.

  But it was cold, the remaining half-cup looking black and stale.

  His phone rang.

  “Brennan.”

  “Joe.” It was Jonah Tarrant. “I didn’t want you to get home and worry about Carolyn not being there.”

  “Explain.”

  “The NSA wanted her down here in New York on Legacy.”

  Carolyn wasn’t an operative or handler. There was only one reason to put her in the firing line.

  “Goddamn it, Jonah... where are my kids?”

  “Look, just relax, okay? They’re with your wife’s friend Ellen McLean. The NSA wants a full debrief on China. They figured we might have a difficult time convincing you to come down without also being operational...”

  “So they’re blackmailing me into it by manipulating my wife, is that it? And you’re letting them get away with it?”

  “Joe... look, you know how complicated these political issues can be. But I’m on your side, my friend; you can count on that.”

  He wasn’t quite sure how to respond at first. It felt as sincere as a Christmas card from the tax man. “You’re a real piece of work sometimes.”

  “We do what we have to do. That’s always been how the game is played.”

  “My kids aren’t pieces in a game...”

  “I’ll expect you down here later today.”

  And then the odds-on choice for America’s next CIA director hung up.

  BALTIMORE, Maryland

  Det. Ed Kinnear got back from the fire inspector’s office at just past four in the afternoon, meeting Underheath at the Southeast District station. The old red-brick-and concrete building was a piece of stark Seventies architecture, like someone had stuck law enforcement inside a school gym. Inside the glass double front doors, past the front desk – where a duty sergeant looked bored taking complaints and waiting on street folk – the old, beaten-up hardwood floors led into the rear detectives’ bullpen. It was just a handful of desks, a dais, a chalk board. A couple of pin boards on the wall, a television in one corner.

  Det. Dante Green was updating a handful of uniformed patrolmen on the suspect description, as Underheath looked on, hands on his hips as they patiently got instructions.

  They were still working on the assumption that Gessler was somewhere in the area. Kinnear had his doubts.

  Underheath saw him and nodded his way.

  Kinnear returned the gesture. ‘Any word from our L.A. friends yet? They should be in town by now.’

  ‘They’re caught up waiting for the girl’s bag at the airport, I guess.’ Underheath didn’t sound impressed by the potential connection.

  ‘You get any sense of what they have to offer?’

  The young detective didn’t like to admit it, but… ‘No, not really. The old guy, Drabek; he was real curt…’

  That made Kinnear chuckle. By the time a Homicide dick reached their vintage, a little gruffness wasn’t uncommon. ‘I made a few calls to a couple of guys from the MC who work out in La-La land now… Drabek’s the real deal. Solid rep, big-time closer in homicide for years. I guess he had a death in the family and had to slow down some, so they stuck him in missing persons.’

  ‘The girl, she thinks Gessler might be her missing boyfriend, right?’

  ‘Benjamin Levitt, a plastic surgeon and amateur website building enthusiast. And another lucid babbler of Asian languages.’

  Underheath fairly radiated skepticism. ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘I never kid about work, you know that. Unless there’s free beer involved, and even then only to fool the likes of you into leaving it for me. Anyway, I guess he doesn’t match the description, and it sounds like he killed some guy around the same time Gessler was stumbling around Detroit like an ass. So now we’ve got two of them.

  ‘So why’re you so hot on this? I mean, two guys who speak Asian languages…’

  ‘Both wanted for seemingly unmotivated homicides, both out of the blue, both out of character? And in the same week? No, no, young grasshopper. Coincidence this, I think not.’

  Underheath frowned. ‘Was that an attempt at Yoda, or the old teacher from Kung Fu?’

  ‘Eh… little of both, I guess. Anyway, I don’t believe in coincidences. I had them send over the mugshot of the guy they’re looking for, this Levitt guy, yesterday when Drabek first called.’

  The Baltimore detective finished with his charges and they quickly left the bullpen, heading for the station’s rear exit. Then Green walked over and joined them. ‘I sent your mug over to my friend at Thurgood Marshall; she spent most of last night going through security cameras from the last five days at all gates where flights were deplaning from the west coast.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Green admitted.

  ‘Ah hell,’ Underheath muttered.

  ‘But…then she kept going, and despite having barely slept, spent most of this morning checking flights from Canada, just in case he slipped the border. And…’

  ‘Let me guess: Vancouver?’ Kinnear suggested.

  ‘Most astute, my Detroit brethren. He got in four days ago.’

  ‘How are your hotels about sharing info…?’ Underheath suggested.

  ‘Ptth… you have got to be fooling. Not a chance. They play the privacy card real tight without warrants, so we won’t be fishing through their camera footage. But we’re circulating the photo to front desk staff, gas stations in the areas near hotels and motels. Maybe we get a hit.’

  One of the duty officers from the front desk poked her head into the room. ‘Detectives Green and Kinnear et al: we have some guests here for you.’

  ‘Send them on in, thank you,’ Green answered.

  Drabek was about the leathery old soul Kinnear had expected, his shirt collar too big for a neck shrinking with age, his tie loose at the knot. The girl looked like she’d walked out of a rock concert crowd or something, her arms tattooed heavily, a nose ring hanging from her septum, bangles in each ear.

  Drabek reached in to shake hands first. ‘So…’ he said. ‘I guess our suspects have something in common. This is Zoey Roberson; like Mrs. Gessler, as you described it, Ed. Her guy took a shot at her, too. Unlike in the case of Mrs. Gessler, our suspect missed.’

  Kinnear nodded approvingly. ‘Well that beats the hell out of the alternative.’

  ‘I hate to disappoint you before we even start talking…’ Zoey suggested, ‘… but I’m as baffled as everyone else as to what’s going on.’

  Kinnear kept nodding but the smile had faded somewhat. ‘Good to know,’ he said. ‘Let’s get started by you going over everything you can tell us about your boyfriend. Okay?’

  38/

  NEW YORK, NY

  DAY 16

  The limousine that picked Brennan up at JFK airport didn’t bother sending the driver inside to meet him. Instead, Jonah timed their arrival perfectly, somehow, the stretch vehicle pulling to the curb just as he stepped out of the arrivals lounge.

  The back door swung open. ‘Agent Brennan.’

  Brennan had only met Adrianne Hayes a handful of times. He didn’t like her. She reminded him of the clandestine service’s former deputy director, the late David Fenton-Wright. ‘Ma’am.’

  He climbed into the spacious back-facing jump seats
. Jonah Tarrant was sitting beside her.

  ‘Nice of you to finally join us, Joe,’ Jonah said. ‘We got your encrypted send from Irkutsk.’

  ‘You’re a real bastard, Jonah. You know that, right? How dare you involve Carolyn…’

  Jonah shrugged. ‘Not my call, my friend. She’s NSA now.’ But they both knew it was a lie, and his decision to sell it as sincere made Brennan that much angrier.

  ‘Right. After this is done…’

  ‘I know Joe, we’re going to have to talk. Look… we caught a major break yesterday. We got a call from Baltimore PD on three homicides in three different cities. The prime suspect in two of them is a Paul Gessler of Detroit. We believe based on his background that he is the child from Dorian Fan’s brainwashing project. Donny, I believe was his birth name.’

  ‘The sociopath.’

  ‘Apparently so, though from your intel we have to assume that if the other two ideal candidates were similarly indoctrinated, they’re every bit as dangerous. And it appears the other name we have — a plastic surgeon named Benjamin Levitt—has already proven that out. He killed a man to steal his identity, right after being activated a week ago. His significant other, unlike Gessler’s, survived to tell us about it.’

  ‘Can I talk to her?’

  He ignored the question as if unasked. ‘There’s the third shooter to consider when you’re on route. The girl in your story, Amelia. They’d identified three as ready, according to your source in the village. Our tactical assessment is that all three were probably trained in a variety of commando and black ops techniques but that each likely had a specific operational identity and objective, as well. Gessler is the muscle, trained in explosives, quick with a pistol, utterly remorseless and unlikely to break, bend or snap at the wrong time. Given how easily Levitt took over Paul Joseph’s life, he’ll be handling the technical stuff. He’s probably well-versed in computers, security, and finding ways for them to breach defenses. That leaves a third person.’

  ‘The trigger man or a distraction?’ Hayes suggested.

  ‘Possible,’ Jonah agreed. ‘It’s all purposeful behavior, useful regardless of what might have changed with the passage of time. We need to keep in mind this idea was hatched forty-plus years ago.’

  ‘An insider,’ Brennan said. ‘She’ll be an insider. If you had decades to wait, potentially, and you needed to infiltrate a country’s security infrastructure, would you do it all from the outside? Or would you bring someone up through the system itself…’

  ‘A mole,’ Hayes said. ‘With us?’

  ‘It sure as hell wouldn’t be the first time,’ Jonah said. ‘We all know any agency is only as good as its individuals, and we employ a lot of people.’

  ‘Well… we can narrow it down by gender, to start, if the other two are Donny and Christopher; we’re looking for a woman,’ Brennan pointed out.

  ‘Probably,’ Jonah said.

  ‘Maybe,’ Hayes proposed. ‘As you reported, the old man’s memory was incomplete, weak, unsupported by much more than some old film reels he looked at occasionally. We have to be alert to the possibility that there were numerous other kids trained there -- maybe another male assassin, for example.’

  ‘So we’re looking for an orphan. Has someone run down background on everyone cleared —’ Brennan began to suggest.

  But Jonah cut him off. ‘Gessler’s background had been carefully concealed so that he appeared for years to have been the Gesslers’ birth son. This was probably agreed to by the adoptive parents as a condition of buying the child on the black market. With his father’s temper and history of spousal abuse, there would have been no way they’ve have been granted a baby through official channels, even back in the Seventies. Not without someone screwing up, anyway. It happens, but not in this case. So, we can’t even go by that.’

  The reality hit home. ‘Then… it could be anyone,’ Brennan reasoned. ‘How many people have official security passes along the route?’

  Hayes looked at her boss anxiously, which Brennan took to be a bad sign.

  ‘Forty-three, including the Chinese,’ Jonah said.

  The agent’s head sunk. ‘So this is a turkey shoot, potentially.’

  ‘If the target is the Chinese Premier? Yes, that’s about the sum of it,’ Hayes said. ‘We have the utmost confidence that the President will be well-protected by his detail, but the Premier insists on riding in an open-top convertible, an Americanism he has always admired, and he apparently believes the idea of a plot from within his government to be absurd. Given how many potential rivals he’s purged, I’m not sure if he’s right, or if an attack is just about inevitable. Either could be true.’

  ‘Open-top… that’s madness.’ Brennan said. ‘Jonah, we can’t possibly be allowing…’

  ‘This is way above our pay grade,’ the deputy director said. ‘The Chinese are looking for trade concessions at these talks, in exchange for their help in convincing the North Koreans to disarm. At least, that’s the message from David Chan, their security chairman. But he’s the only real progressive capitalist on this panel. So getting firm commitments on that front hinges to some degree on keeping him happy. And he can’t risk alienating the Premier…’

  ‘Utter. Insanity.’

  ‘I know, Joe, I know. But, as I said, the NSA, police and FBI will have nearly three dozen agents in the crowd, all along the route.’

  ‘And where do you want me?’

  Tarrant and Hayes looked at each other quickly.

  ‘Joe, the Chinese are aware you were in their country. They don’t want you there; neither does the NSA. They want to debrief you and the girl, Zoey Roberson. And then they want you on ice until this is done. That’s it.’

  ‘You’re kidding me. You dragged me here, away from my family, and now you’re pulling me off this?’

  ‘You know full well you’d have preferred to stay in D.C. anyway,’ Hayes suggested. ‘Be thankful you don’t have to spend an hour on your feet, jogging behind limousines.’

  Tarrant was more conciliatory. ‘I’m sorry, Joe. I know you’d either want to go home or see it through. But we’ll get it done as soon as we can. We’ve got a room for you at the Hyatt, alongside the girl and her detective friend from Los Angeles…’

  ‘Uh huh. I risked my ass to figure out what Legacy was for you. I’ve been halfway across China and back. And now…’

  ‘Now it’s time to put your feet up for a few days. Enjoy the legendary Big Apple hospitality.’

  ‘Sure, Jonah. I’ll just relax and wait for my debrief, then. Because that’s what I’ve been known to do in situations like this: nothing. Just relax.’ He crossed his arms, looking defiant and irritated as the limousine made its way downtown.

  SEOUL

  The barbecue house was packed with patrons, its front open to the street, the rows of bamboo and wicker tables, filled by four or five people, perhaps a hundred in total. The restaurant’s signs were all in Korean, and there were only a couple of western faces in the place, Lee noticed.

  A smell from the kitchen of ginger and onions reminded her she hadn’t eaten lunch yet. It had taken three days to get word to her old training school partner Jin Hu that she was in the South Korean capitol, as Hu lived and thrived on the city’s black market underground; and this where her old friend had insisted on eating.

  At least she made herself obvious when she finally arrived, crossing the restaurant to join Lee at a back table. A smuggler and information broker, Hu was still a tomboy into her early thirties, her hair spiked and dyed green, a shoulder bag slung across her back like a rucksack, a string tank top over shorts.

  Halfway to the table, between the sitting patrons, Hu stopped and pulled out her phone. She resumed walking, tapping a text even as she negotiated her way around the furniture and customers as if they weren’t even there. Then she ended the message and glided into the seat across from Lee.

  ‘Daisy, baby, what’s happening!’ She offered Daisy a fist to bump. The agent did so, feeli
ng a little silly in the process. ‘Long time no see, stranger! You miss me?

  ‘Of course!’

  Hu took out a packet of Benson & Hedges 100s and lit one, blowing smoke up into the steamy rib shop air. ‘I was beginning to think you forgot about me.’

  ‘How’s the capitalist high life treating you? By how hard you are to find, you must be doing well for yourself…’

  Hu shrugged. ‘I do okay. I spend a lot, to be honest. You see the new small-form factor case from In-Win?! I have to have it, you know? I don’t even have a PC build going right now, but… I never was good with money the way you are. Spend a lot, make a lot. It all works out.’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘So what’s the dealio, Daisy Duke? Why’s a big shot poker player-slash-secret agent slumming with yours truly? I mean, I know I’m pretty to look at and all, but Skype is a thing now...’

  ‘I need some intel. Of the ‘dubiously sourced’ kind, thus the weird circumstances.’

  ‘Hmmm, really? Are you sure the kill order out on you had nothing to do with it? Because I hear someone high up in the ministry wants your head on a plate.’

  Damn. Lee had hoped word hadn’t gotten around yet. ‘For the time being, sure. But you know how these things tend to go. One day you’re sipping champagne...’

  ‘And the next day you can’t get a cup of water.’ Hu grinned. ‘I never realize quite how much I miss your company until I see you again for the first time in a while.’

  ‘And I you!’ Lee squealed with enthusiasm. She meant not a word of it; Hu had been the college friend with mental issues, a good soul buried under years of emotional problems. Their last year of college had been a rollercoaster of helping her avoid jail, expulsion and social pariah status.

  Still... the part about her having a good heart underneath it all was true, Lee had always believed. ‘But... as you guessed I’m not just here to be social.’