The Joe Brennan Spy Thrillers

by Sam Powers

  ‘Central committee?’

  ‘Army.’

  They were quiet again. Across the road and a block away, the light flicked on in the surgeon’s apartment.

  ‘Four minutes,’ Lee said.

  ‘He has a backup generator, I imagine,’ Choi noted. ‘Probably diesel. The Russian have a direct pipeline, embargo be damned. The more affluent locals have manual diesel generators. They don’t switch over automatically, but they’re push-button, easy things to operate.’

  ‘He doesn’t have a maid or houseboy or something?’

  Choi bristled a little. ‘As you know, I only changed rooms yesterday at your re quest. I haven’t had a chance to figure that out yet.’

  ‘How long have they been building?’

  ‘Going on three months. We have no notice of how long it’s going to take.’

  That was good, Lee thought. It meant the blackouts wouldn’t end any time soon. ‘What does he do about companionship?’

  ‘He’s seen around town with a couple of ‘friends’, whom everyone assumes are his lovers. They’re not officially sanctioned, of course. But it wouldn’t be enough for any sort of leverage anyhow; they give him more room to move than that.’

  Then the prostitute routine was out. ‘That building: what’s on the first and second floors?’

  ‘Residences on the second and third, a nursery school on the ground floor. It’s usually closed by four in the afternoon.’

  ‘He’ll have some sort of bodyguard, I take it…’

  Choi nodded. ‘I never see him but I believe there’s someone else there, most of the time.’

  ‘Does he live in the apartment?’

  ‘I can’t say for certain. He almost never leaves the building, so he’s either in the same unit or next door. But I don’t suppose they’ll be expecting any problems, not really. Duk’s been here for a long time, I understand. When are you going to…?’

  ‘Tonight,’ Lee said. ‘The clock is running down.’

  40/

  MANHATTAN, New York

  The agent had been over her statement six times. Zoey felt her anxiety rising again, the tension throughout her body, her muscles tightening as they sat across from each other in the tiny hotel suite living room.

  ‘Ms. Roberson, you mentioned that he’d never used a firearm before, to your knowledge. Did he speak with anyone unfamiliar in the weeks just prior…’

  Drabek interrupted from his spot next to her on the sofa. ‘Is this really going anywhere?’ he asked the NSA man.

  The agent leaned forward and shuffled his papers nervously. ‘Mr. Drabek…’

  ‘Detective, please. I worked damn hard for that shield.’

  ‘Detective Drabek,’ the agent said, over-enunciating his title, ‘as you are well aware, there are always small details that get left out or missed…’

  ‘Yeah, but I haven’t missed anything, and I haven’t left anything out,’ Zoey insisted. ‘Look, I don’t see why we can’t just go down there…’

  ‘You know that’s not possible, Ms. Roberson,’ the agent said. ‘A civilian with a tangible link to our suspect could prompt even more unpredictable behavior, or simply put your life at considerable risk…’

  ‘That’s my decision,’ she said. ‘It’s my life.’

  On the sofa nearby, Brennan was flicking through local channels. The noon news had a piece on the parade, just two days away, the excitement ratcheted up in the city’s large Chinese expatriate community. ‘You can argue all you want, he won’t listen,’ Brennan suggested. ‘He’s programmed to stick to his objectives.’

  The interviewer looked his way. “At the National Security Agency, we take our responsibilities entirely seriously.’

  Brennan paid him no attention, continuing to channel surf, but muttering in a mock voice, ‘At the national security agency, meh meh meh meh meh meh…’

  ‘Excuse me?’ the Agent said loudly.

  ‘Don’t mind me,’ Brennan said. ‘Go back to your deeply important work.’

  The agent shot him an irritated glance, then turned back to Zoey. ‘Forget whether he spoke with anyone, then. Did he exhibit any skills that surprised you, anything out of the ordinary…’

  Brennan piped up again. ‘He means like computer skills, or languages, or an uncanny sense of perception to when someone has had enough…

  The NSA man was getting sick of the quips. He already bore a heavy grudge against his colleagues at the CIA; Adrianne Hayes had been his mentor, and they’d poached her. ‘Agent Brennan, I understand your suite is down the hall. Perhaps you’d like to wait there until we’re ready for your statement.’

  ‘Huh. So… next month sometime, then?’ Brennan suggested. And in spite of everything, it made Zoey smile a little.

  SONBONG, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

  Duk Su Ree knew that he had many blessings to count. He sat in his favorite armchair, looking out toward the Sea of Japan, his book on his lap, a nice glass of wine on the stand beside him. He’d gone in for a while to have some dinner, a decent piece of fish cooked by the restaurant in the nearby hotel. Then he’d gone over appointments for the next month, gratified that his calendar was fairly empty.

  Duk was his father’s son, most happy when counting his earnings. He was a great believer in taking what he wanted from life, and had managed to do so while maintaining strategic alliances with China and North Korea. True, there were multiple intelligence agencies who wanted to end his life; after all, he’d given new faces to a score of notorious terrorists alone in the decade prior. But they weren’t going to risk an international incident. On the rare occasion that he pined for a place more sophisticated, he could always slip across the border to China and take a weekend excursion flight to Hong Kong or Sydney.

  But he’d reached age sixty, and that meant it was time to start considering getting out of North Korea. He’d socked away money for decades in Swiss and Bahamian accounts. Either country would also make a fine new haven, he’d decided.

  He just needed to lay low for a few more months; put his feet up, read a few books. It didn’t need to be complicated and, given that he could potentially release data on their many false identities as payback, he didn’t expect the DPRK to chase him there.

  Or his father’s enemies, for that matter. He knew little of the old man’s work, but had followed in his footsteps, leaving a trail of blackmailed clients and dangerously satisfied customers across five continents. He knew his father had worked for the state security service, and that his files – though mostly coded gibberish – were valuable enough to keep them from coming for him, for fear he would release them.

  He had two boyfriends, both young and enamored of his power. Soon, he would have a proxy purchase his new home, and leave the world of international treachery and deceit behind him for retirement.

  Life could hardly be better, he decided.

  The lights flickered twice, then cut out, ceiling fans slowing, air conditioning dying. Duk sighed. That was another reason to leave; the standard of living in the DPRK had never been high class, but the side distractions were becoming deplorable. He got up, wandered over to the sideboard and found his flashlight. He followed its beam across the living room and into the kitchen, then through it to the small store room where his generator was hooked up.

  He flicked the power on, then held down the start button. It would only take a couple of minutes to build up enough charge for everything to return to normal.

  Duk wandered back to the balcony. Now, to get back to my book…

  The chair turned suddenly. The woman sitting in it was small and wiry. She wore black, form fitting clothing. ‘Beautiful evening, isn’t it Dr. Duk?’

  He frowned. ‘How did you get in here? The front door…’

  ‘Was carelessly left open by a departing tenant. Apparently they feel the city is fairly safe for that kind of thing.’

  ‘And my front door…?’

  ‘The alarm went down when the power went out. You need
to build in a failsafe.’

  ‘Hmm. I shall have to speak to the manager. Who are you, and what are you doing in my flat?’

  She rose. ‘My name is Daisy Lee, Dr. Duk, and I believe your father used to work for my employers.’

  Shit, it’s the Chinese Secret Service. His eyes scanned the room, settling for a moment on the desk near the door.

  ‘Don’t bother,’ Lee said. She held up his pistol by the trigger guard. ‘It hasn’t been serviced in a long time – or cleaned. I was probably doing you a favor by keeping it from backfiring on you.’

  ‘Are you going to kill me?’

  ‘Possibly. That depends on a few things.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘You must have expected we’d come for you at some point, doctor. I need your father’s files. I need anything and everything he had on a project called ‘Legacy’.’

  Duk couldn’t contain a small smile. He knew his father had worked on Madame Mao’s masterpiece, her grand project. But that was all that he knew. Even an exhaustive reading of his notes had revealed little, beyond the identities of some of those involved. ‘You are going to be sorely disappointed if you expect me to help,’ he said. ‘And surely the secret service is aware that they have… responsibilities to high-ranking party members, some of whom have used my services to cover their own tracks.’

  He judged that she was like most party members: terrified of offending anyone above her. Throwing around his weight a little might put her off. Instead, her smile disappeared, and her face took on a blank, emotionless countenance. ‘Understand me, doctor, and make no mistake: if you don’t produce what I need, any leverage you have will be of little use, after I remove your hands and your eyes.’

  For the first time in longer than he could remember, a chill ran up the aging surgeon’s spine. ‘I… will attempt to provide what you want,’ he said.

  ‘Your files…?’

  He nodded to the left. ‘In my study. Everything is on paper still. I don’t trust digital records.’

  ‘Wise,’ she said. ‘Lead on.’

  He turned and took her down the main hallway, toward the front door. Just before it, he opened a door to his left and entered. Lee stayed close, to ensure he didn’t try to grab a weapon of some sort.

  Instead, he went directly to the filing cabinet by the back window. Lee surveyed the room; it was cluttered with stacks of papers, files, old magazines. The bookshelves were stuffed with titles, mostly in Chinese and Korean. Duk unlocked the top drawer and reached in. ‘He only kept the most important details about the project…’ he said as he turned back toward her.

  Lee glanced back toward him, cursing her carelessness in the split second it took the leads from the taser to reach her, the electrodes pricking her skin, the current staggering her with a moment of intense muscular cramping as her limbs locked up and she toppled over.

  She tried to move, but the effect was too intense, lactic acid seizing her joints like an unoiled machine. She tried to speak, to say something, but the bottom of the man’s shoe came crashing down, slamming into her face, her head caroming off the floor, darkness and unconsciousness settling in.

  MANHATTAN, New York

  ‘Tell me what the hell I’m doing here, Ed.’

  They sat at a small table in a diner, the place mostly empty. For the first time in a week, he’d asked Zoey to give him some space to breathe. His job was probably gone, or hanging by a thread at best. They’d been shut out by the feds. And the girl continued to have no closure.

  So like any good cop, he called another cop to talk about it.

  ‘You’re trying to do the right thing,’ Kinnear offered. It was late in the evening, and the Baltimore cop needed sleep. But it hadn’t taken him long to realize he liked Drabek, foolish nobility notwithstanding. ‘But none of this is on you, Norm. You’re just doing the right thing by her.’

  ‘Thank you for not adding ‘because of your daughter’. That gets a little old.’

  ‘You said she’d passed…?’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, Nicole. She overdosed four years ago.’

  ‘I’m sorry to here that.’

  ‘We… my ex-wife and I … we tried to get her into rehab a few times. I was gone a lot when she was a kid. I wasn’t there when it mattered, I guess…’

  ‘So, with this girl…’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, something like that. She’s a good kid, Ed. She was on the street for years before she met this guy, and she thought she’d found someone who was finally there for her, and then the son-of-a-bitch takes a pot shot at her.’

  ‘She seems convinced he’s redeemable in some way.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s it,’ Drabek suggested. ‘I think maybe she knows quite the opposite. But it’s not closure unless you see the person, unless you have a resolution.’

  ‘Then you’re staying here until this is done?’

  ‘The feds are putting us up in a suite until after the parade. They want us under a watchful eye, I guess, in case we say something publicly or Zoey tries to act out or something.’

  ‘Maybe that’s a good thing?’

  ‘What? How’d you figure?’

  ‘I mean… she’s a wildcard, right? And if she’s out at the parade and something actually happens, at least you don’t have to worry about her snapping and taking off after the guy or nothing.’

  That annoyed Drabek, but he held his tongue as best he could. ‘She’s not like that. She’s not flighty and stupid; people look at the tattoos and the piercings and how upset she is by this, and they see what they want to see. But she’s a smart, resourceful, resilient person. She’s gotten this far in a world that crapped on her for thirty years solid.’

  ‘I didn’t mean anything by it,’ Kinnear offered. ‘Just that maybe it’s better she sees this guy taken in on TV, you know?’

  ‘Yeah… sure, I guess.’ But it was true. If there was one thing Drabek admired about Zoey – one trait he wished Nicole had shared – it was her toughness. She probably would go down to the route and try to spot him; she probably would jump in and get involved if anything happened. ‘I’m just going to look out for her until we get back and I can find her some help. You know, lining up a job and a place to live.’

  ‘Does she have family? Maybe after Saturday there’s someone she can stay with…’

  ‘Man… she has nobody. I mean, no one. To have this happen to her…’ Drabek paused for a second, angered but resigned to the reality. ‘To go through years of abuse, rape, forced into prostitution…’

  ‘Jeez…’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Your CO is cool with all of this?’

  Drabek looked up from his coffee cup, surprised. ‘I thought you knew: officially I’m not here. This is vacation time for me.’

  ‘You’re kidding. They’re making you…’

  Drabek shrugged. ‘You do what you’ve got to do to get the job done. Am I right?’

  Ed tipped his coffee cup the other man’s way in a salute. ‘You are indeed, my friend. You are indeed.’

  41/

  SONBONG, North Korea

  DAY 18, just after Midnight

  Lee’s head hurt. Her eyes fluttered open despite the pain, the sharp light from a desk lamp near the far wall not helping.

  ‘Ah, good. You’ve rejoined us,’ Duk said in Mandarin. He had a man beside him the size of a refrigerator box. ‘This is Mr. Kim, and he takes great pleasure in causing pain. I’m not a professional interrogator, by any means. And I just had the most delightful manicure. Instead, when I can’t get an answer from you, Kim is going to break something.’

  ‘Not character, I hope,’ Lee offered. ‘Because if he starts a song-and-dance, I’m leaving.’

  ‘Good! It’s good that you can laugh. It will probably the last time, so you might wish to… savor the sensation.’

  ‘What, exactly, are you expecting me to tell you?’

  ‘Who you really work for, for one. Your colleague, Ms. Choi, was rather surprised to discover you ar
e no longer employed by State Security. She was rather incensed that you tricked her, and was quite happy to share that fact with me. But that means you must be working for yourself, or for someone else. I doubt it’s the former; you’re too young to know anything about Legacy other than the vaguest of related instructions from a handler…’

  Behind him, the gorilla-sized bouncer continued to grin wickedly. ‘Is he mute or something?’ Lee asked. ‘If you tell me he owns a bowler hat that cuts off statue heads… again, I’m out.’

  ‘Don’t mind his stoicism. He’s Scottish. You know how they can be,’ the doctor deadpanned.

  Great. I’m being tortured by Joe Wong. Maybe he’ll do a tight five before he lets the walking outhouse loose. Behind her back, Lee’s fingertips sought out the knots holding her wrists tight, but they were out of reach. The ropes had no give, but at least they’d been stupid enough to tie her hands behind her instead of strapping her down. That meant there was a chance. She just needed to get the gorilla out of the room.

  ‘My throat is like sandpaper,’ she said. ‘Do you mind if I have a glass of water?’

  ‘I do. I do mind,’ he said placidly, as he reached down to pick up a hypodermic and a bottle from his desk. ‘I’m well aware that you and your colleagues are trained to seize any kind of advantage you are given. So I don’t intend to let you go anywhere, not until we’ve chatted.’

  ‘What’s in the syringe?’

  Duk stared triumphantly at his oversized helper. ‘You see! She’s totally professional. The drink request didn’t work but she doesn’t attempt to oversell the lie. She just moves on. If we didn’t plan to kill her and feed her to the sharks in the Sea of Japan, you could learn something from her, Mr. Kim.’

  For the first time since she’d awakened, the bodyguard reacted, grunting slightly.

  ‘He really likes to talk one’s ear off…’ she proposed.

  ‘Oh… he manages to get his point across in other ways. I’ve tried to tell him that breaking a man’s spine by popping one vertebra at a time doesn’t work, because the man’s paralyzed after the first two. But he never listens.’ He stuck the needle into the dispensary bottle’s rubber nipple and drew clear yellow fluid into the syringe. ‘This is just a little something to loosen your tongue. And who knows… perhaps after I’m done with you Mr. Kim will loosen you up a little as well.’