Maden Mike - Tom Clancy Firing Point

Jack waved the photo of Sorry Man. “Can I keep this?”

“Give it to your ‘private investigator’ and let me know what he finds.” Brossa stood, ending the meeting.

Jack stood as well. “And you’ll keep me posted on the burner phone?”

She smiled with the corner of her mouth and shrugged. “ És clar —of course. We are helping each other, right?”

29

Brossa knocked on the tall open door of her supervisor, Gaspar Peña, twenty-five years her senior and a native of Madrid. He was a little round in the middle but it was well hidden by an expensively tailored suit, a gift from his new wife, half his age. Despite his reputation as a ladies’ man, he never treated Brossa with anything but paternal affection.

“Come in, Laia. And close the door behind you.”

He smiled and waved her in with his hand, pointing at the chair across from his desk. “I have good news.”

Peña came around to the front of his desk and sat on the corner as Brossa took a chair. She forced a smile beneath her dark-rimmed eyes.

“What’s the good news, sir?”

Peña held his grin for a moment longer. “The Guardia Civil has a credible lead on Brigada Catalan. They are planning a big meeting tomorrow to discuss future plans, and better still, we know exactly where they are meeting.”

Brossa brightened. “That’s fantastic news.”

“And it gets even better. The Guardia Civil will lead the assault—”

“But, sir, this is my case. I should be leading the raid.”

Peña flicked his hand in a dismissive way. “No, no, no. We’re going to let the door-breakers do their thing.”

Brossa jumped to her feet. “That’s not fair.”

“Laia. You understand politics, don’t you?” He gestured at the walls around them. “It’s no accident we were assigned temporary offices in this building. We were brought down to Barcelona to partner with Guardia Civil to help them deal with this independencia insanity. They provide the muscle, we provide the brains.”

“Is this because you’re trying to protect me?”

“No, not at all. You have the most important job. While those brutes are smashing the furniture, I need a calm, steady hand on the helm supervising the arrests and the crime scene investigation. If we are going to shut down these idiot separatists, we need solid convictions—not bodies on a coroner’s slab. We can’t afford to make any martyrs out of these killers. And we can’t afford to lose any courtroom trials because somebody wasn’t smart enough to collect evidence properly.” Peña’s fatherly smile widened. “Don’t you agree?”

Brossa’s jaw clenched. Spain was one of the last countries in Europe still struggling with women’s equality. On the surface everything was equal, but in reality, many people in the culture still held a paternalistic view of women and their roles in society. It wasn’t just the catalanes who were struggling for independence in Spain these days. But today wasn’t the day to fight back. Solving the case and bringing the criminals to justice was more important.

“Yes, of course. You know best about these things,” Brossa said. “But I’ll be kitted out anyway.”

Peña grinned ear to ear. “Excellent!”

He scrambled back behind his desk and pulled up a name on his computer. “I’ll put you in touch with Captain Asensio, the assault team leader. Call him and he’ll read you in to the details.” He glanced up from the keyboard, a worried expression on his face. “And not a word of this to anybody, yes? We don’t want anything to get out and spoil the party.”

I’m not an idiot . Brossa knew this news would be music to Jack’s ears but her loyalty was to her country, not pushy Americans, no matter how sincere—or handsome—they were. He would just have to wait until after the raid.

“No, sir. Not a word.” She stood. “And thank you for the opportunity to serve.”

“I have complete confidence in you, Laia. We all do. Someday, no doubt, you’ll be sitting behind my desk—perhaps even running the entire agency. But we build the house one brick at a time, yes?”

“Yes. One brick at a time,” she agreed as she headed for the door. And a brick against your thick macho skull, too . She smiled to herself as she closed the door behind her.

Now all she had to do was make last-minute arrangements to take care of her father while she was on the raid.

30

LONDON, ENGLAND

Mari Moon’s eyes watered.

She had marched through the open loft door and hit an invisible wall of pure stench. It was the rancid, unmistakable smell of rotting flesh, stale urine, and fecal material, the latter two in a molding, clumpy puddle on the floor just below the blackening feet. It stopped her in her tracks.

The naked corpse hung by the neck from one of the wooden beams supporting the low ceiling of the wide, open living area. The swollen face of the middle-aged body was pale green and marbled with its protruding eyes and tongue, both forced out by the gases arising from the feverishly working bacteria within. The rest of the corpse was increasingly green, tending toward brownish-black the farther down she looked, the blood pooling and darkest in the lower legs and feet.

Moon began taking short breaths through her mouth, shutting off her nose. She was an internal security investigator, not a cop, and certainly not a coroner.

“Agent Moon?” the man asked, approaching her, his steely blue eyes softening. He knew her only by the title and name she’d given on the phone, neither of which was true. He wore a stylish Brioni sport coat and Crockett & Jones loafers, she noted. Rather posh for a London detective. His poise and posture, along with the silver in his neatly trimmed hair and mustache, suggested confidence and experience. She would take advantage of both.

“Yes. I’m looking for DCI May.”

“That would be me.” He smiled. “Travis May. Pleasure.” They shook hands. He saw the pale color of her face. “My apologies for the unpleasant redolence.”

“We appreciate the sensitivity and speed with which you responded to the incident.”

“When we found his GCHQ credentials, I knew we had to contact you immediately.” His eyes narrowed. “National security and all of that.”

You have no idea, Moon thought. Dr. Stanley Hopkins was one of the most important researchers in one of the world’s most important intelligence agencies, Britain’s equivalent of the NSA. “Can you read me in, briefly?”

DCI May turned toward the corpse, his manicured hands clasped behind his back. “The residents across the hall reported a foul smell early this morning to the building superintendent, assuming it was a sewage line backing up somewhere.”

“I’ll need their names and contact information.”

“Of course.”

“Please continue.”

“As I was saying, they traced the odor to this apartment, opened the door, and you know the rest.”

“How long has Dr. Hopkins been dead, in your estimation?”

“Rigor has subsided, and judging by the lividity and the state of decomposition, we estimate four days, possibly more.”

Moon nodded, thinking. Hopkins had been missing for five days. Alarm bells began ringing seventy-two hours after he failed to appear at two critical departmental meetings. The future of Britain’s cybersecurity rested on his shoulders. Or did.

May continued. “The corpse in the bedroom matches that timeline as well. We’ll have something more definitive for you once we get them back to the lab.”

“Another corpse? Who?”

“Joseph Okwi. A Ugandan national here illegally. Part of a male prostitution ring. He’s been arrested twice in the last three years. The SOCO”—scenes of crime officer—“believes it was a drug overdose.”