by Sam Powers
A piece clicked into place. ‘Parnell,’ Brennan said. ‘She investigated the case for the D.C. police before going over to the NSA. She helped her stage the suicide as soon as she was officially accepted for employment, which was why they waited until the very end of her training. What are you going to tell Mike? Or Drabek’s people? The version in the papers will be expounded on over the coming weeks…’
He shrugged. ‘Then they’ll figure it out on their own, if they’re worried. I have no beef with the detective, Joe; we just have to be careful, that’s all. I’m not going to ruin his career, if that’s what you’re worried about.’
‘It was.’
Tarrant looked hurt. ‘Really?’
‘I wouldn’t put it beneath you, after how some of this went down. You know David Chan was responsible for all of this, that he’s the real Dorian Fan, don’t you?’
‘Of course. And officially, none of that is true. Officially, the Chinese will not be embarrassed by a rogue terrorist in their ranks into revisiting their own past; officially, he will be caught insider trading and executed for his crimes. Wen Xiu will have to resolve his issues without our help, at the Premier’s personal request, as he is quite tired of the man. And we will receive their help in ‘convincing’ the Kim regime to dismantle their new nuclear reactor at Sonbong. But unofficially? Well… I guess that won’t matter much in the end either.’
Tarrant turned and began to walk down the hall, back toward the elevators. He was younger than Brennan but the agent noticed his shoulders had begun to stoop even as his waist grew, like the weight of the world was beginning to drag him down. ‘Hell of a business, this, Jonah…’ he offered.
But the deputy director wasn’t listening; his phone had begun to buzz. He drew it quickly from his pocket and answered. ‘Jonah Tarrant. Uh huh…’ After a few moments, he turned the corner, and disappeared from view.
Brennan turned back to the window. One of the two agents handling the debrief was standing, his sleeves rolled up, gesticulating wildly like he was angry or irritated by something, or maybe just frustrated. Drabek was shrugging nonchalantly, as if none of it mattered anyway.
‘Hey… Joe!’
He turned. He recognized the young man with the clipboard but couldn’t remember his name, giving him a finger point. ‘It’ll come to me.’
‘Adam! Adam Karas, from logistics. Your kid and my kid play Little League together.’
‘Oh… oh, yeah. Good to see you again.’ He didn’t really want to small talk but Carolyn wanted him to try being more sociable, more polite.
‘Speaking of timing, we were just talking about the New York thing and how it started with that Korean nuke.’
‘Yeah…’
‘So there was a story in the paper this morning… here…’ He fished through the papers attached to his clipboard until he reached the clipping. He handed it to Brennan. ‘Yeah… I guess that Fisherman who almost died, a Mr. Fujiwara or something… he had a grandchild this morning! They got a cute shot of him with the baby by his boat… here…’
The photo was close cropped, the elderly fisherman holding the newborn in his arms, his white beard neat and trimmed for the occasion, the undershirt freshly cleaned.
The baby was tiny, born prematurely to his twenty-year-old granddaughter; but it was happy and smiling, its mouth open in a tiny oval, tiny fat fingers grasping for air and context, its blue eyes looking up at him, full of wonder and love.
For a few moments, Brennan’s world felt right again.
THE END
From Sam:
Hello and thank you for trying Sam Powers Boxset #1. I’m extremely grateful that people enjoy my work and I hope you had a good time reading it!
I rely on word of mouth as an indie author, so if you get a chance to tell a friend to try it or review it on its Amazon page (it takes about two minutes, tops) that would be very helpful.
Sam
