Harbinger (The Janus Harbinger Book 1)

by Olan Thorensen

  Mueller smiled. “I believe now it’s a good time to briefly introduce the new people.” He turned to the stunned audience. “You’ll have chances to speak with Simeon later, but for now, please just tell him your name and a few basic facts.” He pointed to Jason, who was the rightmost person.

  Jason cleared his throat. “Uh . . . my name is Jason Cain. I’m twenty-eight years old, not married, and am a mathematician.”

  Mueller sequentially pointed to the others, who were similarly brief. When they finished, he turned back to Simeon. “These are the new people. You’ll have a chance to interact with them in coming days. For now, Zooty and I would like to talk with you while the others watch. Is that agreeable?”

  “Certainly, Howard. Whatever you think best. I look forward to learning more about the new people.”

  For the next half hour, the six stunned newcomers watched and listened as Zooty Wilson and Howard Mueller carried on an elementary conversation with the head on the monitor.

  Zach had to steel himself to pay attention to what was being said and succeeded perhaps half the time. The other half of the time, his mind seemed frozen—a disturbing state for someone who, by training, experience, and predisposition, believed himself to never be distracted.

  When Sinclair called a halt to the session, no one knew what to say. People simply allowed themselves to be ushered out after being told to hold off discussions until the next day.

  CHAPTER 15

  SUSPICIONS

  Harbin, China

  Lieutenant General Youxia Zhang looked out the window toward the distant central district of Harbin, the tenth-largest city in China, population ten million, and headquarters of the Shenyang Military District, of which he was the commander.

  I wonder what Chan has to say this time, he thought wryly. About half the time, Chan has interesting ideas. He’s actually quite brilliant. But the other half of the time, they are ideas right out of his parents’ street cart in Guangzhou. A typical southern China lack of finesse.

  Nevertheless, Chan ran a productive operation as head of the district’s advanced intelligence department. The routine matters could be handled by merely competent officers, but Zhang had established Chan’s division to explore the more exotic possibilities. A faint chime indicated that Chan waited in the outer office. General Zhang pushed a button for his adjutant to send in Chan.

  Zhang swiveled around to face his deputy, Major General Caiwen Song, whose assignments included coordinating the district’s intelligence units. Zhang whispered, “I hope Chan worked on his Mandarin. Last time he was here, as soon as he got excited he slipped half the time into Cantonese, and I could hardly understand a word he said.”

  “Yes,” Song answered, “somehow these Southerners never quite learn to speak properly no matter how hard they try.” Both men stifled laughs as the door opened.

  Senior Colonel Kwan Chan entered the room. He was short and had the look of those who came from the Guangzhou area. They exchanged salutes, and Chan sat opposite the two generals.

  “Thank you, sirs. I appreciate the time to present this report to you.” General Zhang nodded, and a hand gesture indicated Chan was to continue. It was a routine monthly briefing by Chan. They were usually interesting—updates on ongoing projects and suggestions for new intelligence avenues. The presentations typically lasted an hour.

  “Comrade sirs, with your permission, I would like to present first a summary of ongoing work and then cover two new items.” Chan paused, waiting for Zhang to approve—who did so with a nod. Chan then proceeded to overview operations Zhang was familiar with. Zhang usually sat and listened to these reports, with General Song asking questions. At the end of thirty minutes, they had covered what often took the entire hour. Both generals noted to themselves Chan’s more abbreviated report than usual, along with the feeling that Chan was eager to move on.

  “Now for two new items, comrade sirs. The first is an opportunity to develop an unusual agent inside Russia. To be specific as to the location—the far northeastern portion. Although not a major military region, this area remains a hole in our intelligence gathering.

  “We are always on the lookout for new agents to slip into Russia’s regions where we have limited coverage. I believe we have come across a unique individual who may prove valuable in gathering intelligence on Russian operations in the Far East—particularly on the Chukotka Peninsula. As you know, this area is sparsely populated, and a large percentage of the population are natives of various groups, one of which is Yupik Eskimos. Others are a mixture of Russians with a sprinkling of ethnicities from many countries, including China and Korea and even a few Westerners. Of course, those of Chinese ancestry are always highly suspect, which precluded us recruiting any as agents. However, I believe there is an opportunity to insert a genuine Yupik back into this region. The Russians think so little of the Eskimos and have such poor records of their names and even how many there are that it could be an opportunity for us to have a long-term agent in this region.”

  General Song interrupted. “And how exactly do you expect to recruit such a Yupik Eskimo for our purposes?”

  Colonel Chan smiled, having anticipated the question. “As it happens, the recruitment problem has already been solved for us. We have in our custody an authentic Yupik Eskimo who hates the Russians with every ounce of his being and would like nothing more than to do as much harm to them as he possibly can for the rest of his life.”

  General Zhang grunted. “And how did you come upon this Yupik Eskimo?”

  “Actually, he came to us. About a month ago, one of our border stations reported a man crossing over from Russia and speaking in a language that no one understood. One of the guards recognized the man might be from an indigenous race of the far North, possibly Eskimo. Local authorities sent inquiries higher up, and a professor from right here in Harbin, who studied several of the primitive languages of the North, listened to a recording and recognized it as Yupik. Telephone conversations between this professor and the Yupik indicated he might be of some value to us. Therefore, I authorized moving this person here to Harbin where I worked with him for the last three weeks. We are able to communicate using a combination of the man’s limited Russian and with the help of the language professor.

  “His name is Tupilaq—which I understand translates to something like an ‘avenging monster’ in Yupik mythology. Almost certainly, this was not his original name because the professor says they can change names throughout their lives. However, this is the only name he would give. He came from a Yupik village on the Chukotka Peninsula about fifty kilometers from a Russian listening station near Uelen—an easternmost point of Russia. A Russian officer got drunk and attacked Tupilaq’s wife and got his neck broken for it. Naturally, the Russians took a dim view and arrested Tupilaq. They transferred him to the regional administrative center at Magadan on the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk for a trial. As it happened, the administrative governor position was vacant at the time, and the next-level official at Irkutsk ordered Tupilaq transported there.

  “However, Tupilaq escaped, killing two guards in doing so. Then he killed a Russian merchant and his family, stole their vehicle, and later abandoned it seventy kilometers northeast of Magadan. The Russians put out a massive manhunt, figuring Tupilaq would try to get back home two thousand kilometers away. After two weeks, they had no trace of him and gave up the immediate hunt but alerted all authorities between Magadan and Chukotka to be on the lookout for him. Unfortunately for the Russians, Tupilaq was smarter than them.”

  “Not so difficult,” commented Song.

  Chan continued. “The vehicle was a ruse. Going on foot, Tupilaq circled back south and in three months made it to our borders. He walked up to one of our forward outposts and started talking to a guard and, as I have previously described, is now with us here in Harbin.”

  Chan paused. He noted that both General Zhang and General Song listened with interest. Thus far, he had not lost either of them. “Sirs, I belie
ve this presents us with a golden opportunity. He is a genuine Yupik Eskimo who hates the Russians and has shown a willingness to be reinserted back into his home territory to report to us on Russian movements and activities. Even if he is caught, we really have not lost any assets, and there is no provable direct connection back to us, no matter what he says. However, based on our interrogations and analyses, we believe it is highly unlikely he would allow himself to be captured alive.

  “We think he would be accepted back into the Yupik villages and culture. None of them are going to turn him in to the Russians, so he can move freely throughout the entire peninsula.”

  “So, let us suppose everything you say is true,” said Song. “What does HE get out of this? Yes, we can send him back to his people. But there is always a chance the Russians will catch him, and how would he report back to us?”

  “We are still working out the reporting details, but I think we can devise several workable options. As for what he gets out of it . . . yes, he has several demands, but nothing we cannot easily meet.”

  “Well, what is it, cars or money? I doubt an Eskimo would know what to do with either,” said General Zhang, smiling at Song.

  “Remember, sirs, I said how much he hates the Russians. This does not even begin to describe the depth of his passion. I only had to convince him that being an agent for us would do great harm to the entire Russian society. Now, I admit I exaggerated quite a bit exactly how much damage. . . . ” Chan smiled. “But that was the first step. We seemed to have persuaded him that these reports would need to be in great detail and that he will have to learn to handle cameras and communication procedures. I also pointed out that we can get him back to his people, whom otherwise he would never see again.”

  Song interrupted. “But if the Russians are watching for him, how would he survive long enough to be of use?”

  “Russians have trouble administering the Yupiks and other native groups. When you combine that with the fact that the Yupik are at least semi-migratory, that they change names several times during their lives, that they are spread over an immense area with few Russians, then coupled with the usual incompetent Russian bureaucracy, the Russians hardly know how many Yupik there are or where they live. However, Tupilaq agreed to some minor plastic surgery—after being convinced changing his face would not steal his soul. It will take very little adjustment, and no Russian will recognize him from the official descriptions.

  “I told him we would insert him back into Chukotka and that his reports would be a combination of film and oral. We would try to train him in using a burst transmission radio. However, if he is unable to operate it properly, we would consider meetings with a submarine off the coast. Very little active patrolling is done off this part of Siberia, so there is little danger of his being detected. That would give us the option of bringing him back to China with the photographs and film and spending some weeks in careful debriefing before inserting him again into Chukotka.”

  “All right, Senior Colonel,” said Zhang. “All of this sounds plausible, but please put together a more detailed report. General Song will review it and give approval before further operational plans are made.”

  “Thank you, sir. I will send the report to you within the next few days. If approved, I think we could plan on being operational in about six weeks.”

  “Thank you, Senior Colonel. I will look forward to your report. Now, as to the second new item you mentioned . . .”

  “Yes, sirs. This relates to some interesting analyses being done by our Integrative Intelligence Unit of Major Liang.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Zhang with a smile to Song. “Your ‘magic shop.’ I admit I was skeptical about the usefulness of computer simulations and . . . what do you call it again, General Song?”

  “Potentialities.”

  “Ah, yes, ‘potentialities.’”

  Chan continued. “We have new information about an electronic spying facility the U.S. set up a year or more ago in northern Canada. This was noted in a previous report. We have now learned it’s referred to as Site 23.”

  Song’s eyebrows rose slightly, “So, do you have any idea if this supposed site actually exists and where it is located?”

  Zhang interrupted, looking at Song. “Site 23? Refresh me, Caiwen. I’m sure I heard of this, but the details . . . ”

  “Yes, sir. Colonel Chan brought this to our attention about a year ago. There were some hints the Americans had established a new listening post to intercept communications from both us and the Russians. Of course, we all listen in on one another’s electronics, but what raised a flag in the ‘magic shop’ was that the Americans were recruiting analysts for an undisclosed location and with the expectation to be isolated for extended periods of at least months, possibly longer. We only accidentally learned of this through our agents within the Chinese community in the U.S. They interact with many Chinese and Chinese Americans who, while not formally acting in our interests, retain enough of an affinity to the homeland to pass on information.

  “Most of what is gathered is of no particular interest, but one of these persons is a friend of a relative of someone recruited to spend a year working somewhere out of contact with even her family—except for infrequent letters, but nothing electronic. Given this person’s background and expertise, there was a good chance she was being recruited to work on something related to our internal affairs, likely for the CIA, the NSA, or some other acronym-agency of the Americans. The agent on site passed on the information, and it finally came to our attention. It was fed into one of our computer models—the one tracking Chinese living in the U.S. What came out was that at least two other Chinese-Americans with professional language, political, and/or cultural expertise in China are taking extended leaves from their current positions without an explanation of where they are or what they are doing.”

  Zhang nodded. “Yes, it’s coming back to me now. And then the information from our former Russian comrades fit into this, as I recall.”

  “Yes, sir. Through our back-door channels with Russian intelligence, we learned that they had noticed recruitment for Russian and Russian-language experts but within Canada, in this case. They only noticed because of an irate Russian culture specialist in the Department of European Studies at the University of British Columbia. This specialist was vocal in his community about how that university did not even have a full Russian department and only offered a minor degree in Russian. What set him off was that one of the only other Russian professors had just been granted a year’s leave to work for the Canadian government on some unspecified project. When we checked through our Vancouver contacts, we also found that a Chinese professor in the Asian Studies Department of the same university had taken a similar leave. In addition, an anthropology professor at a different university also disappeared. No one knows where he is or what he is doing.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Zhang in a brusque tone, “but where does all this leave us? It might simply be a coincidence that these few Chinese and Russian experts are taking leaves.”

  “True,” interjected Colonel Chan. “However, in one of the Canadian cases, we also found the family was told the person would be out of touch most of the next year. Our analysis of the different cases gave us a 55 percent estimate that all were being recruited for a joint U.S./Canadian intelligence operation focusing on both China and Russia, with a 38 percent chance it involved new eavesdropping technology.”

  “Exactly 38 percent?” asked Zhang dryly. “Why not 38.2 percent? Or 37.12 percent?”

  Chan flushed. “Of course, sir. You are correct. These are only rough estimations of probabilities, but the point is that the probabilities, even if crude, suggested something new was happening. But what made it more interesting was the follow-up information.”

  “Follow-up?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Song before Chan could speak. “I authorized the agent in the original case to try to find more information. They managed to read several letters written to the Chinese profe
ssor’s daughter in the last year, evidently sent originally from wherever this remote Site 23 was located. We are sure the subject had been directed not to reveal the location, and we assume there may have been some censorship of the letters, but a few small pieces of information managed to slip out. For example, the subject initially had trouble sleeping because of too much light. Given the time of year, this could indicate a very northerly location. Since Canada was involved, perhaps somewhere in Canada’s northern territories—which makes sense for a listening post over the pole.”

  Song paused. “Then, about three months ago, several other letters arrived—they seem to come in batches at one- to three-month intervals, as if contact with the outside was physically restricted to these time periods. In one letter, the subject mentions walking and being unable to get coal dust out of a favorite sweater. The subject does not seem to like wherever this place is and commented that only a paleontologist would like it.

  “So . . . the clues to the site are a remote location, close enough to the North Pole for long daylight hours, exposed coal deposits, and someplace where a paleontologist could find fossils. With those clues, it was straightforward to come up with a likely candidate—Ellesmere Island in Canada’s far north. At the time of year the letter was likely written, there would be between twenty and twenty-four hours of sunlight every day. The island is known to have large coal seams, many of which are exposed. The island is also considered an important location for fossils with the discovery several years ago of skeletons of what are believed to be among the first land vertebrates.”

  Zhang assumed a sarcastic expression. “And what percentages do your computers give for this guess?”

  Song smiled and nodded to Chan, who answered, “Sixty-six percent, sir. About as high an estimate as possible.”

  “All right. So, let me summarize to see if I understand what we have. The Americans and Canadians have set up a new listening post on Ellesmere Island. It’s supposed to be secret and may include staffing by experts on both our country and the Russians. So far, I do not believe why this rises to a level that justifies communicating to a higher authority.”