The Elephant Game (The War Planners Book 4)

by Andrew Watts

  She said, “Negative SAM threat, I’d say.”

  “Negative any threat,” Suggs replied.

  The merchants that hadn’t already sunk were burning and listing badly. Only three were visible above the water. The ship-launched missiles had finished the job. There was no way any of the missiles could be launched now.

  39

  Chase looked at Natesh, who was on his laptop computer. “Tetsuo wants me downstairs.”

  Natesh looked up, concern in his eyes. He was right to be afraid. The Chinese were attacking the city. So far, the civilian segments of the city didn’t seem to be targeted on purpose. But errant missiles and wreckage from shot-down aircraft had turned Tokyo into a field of scattered fires. And that wasn’t what he was afraid of…

  “Is he really going to make me go back to them?”

  “Tetsuo?” Chase asked.

  “Yes. Is he going to send me back to Jinshan, after what I’ve told you?”

  Chase didn’t know what to say. Talking to assets wasn’t his strength. He had no experience quelling the misgivings of double agents. He wanted to scream at Natesh, to tell him that he would do whatever they asked, that he deserved it for what he had done. He wanted to tell the Indian-American piece of shit that people were dying around the world right now because of his complicity in Jinshan’s plans.

  “I’m not sure what he’ll say. I’m just here to make sure you stay put, and that you’re safe.”

  Natesh pointed to his laptop. “But I hacked in to their network. Not just the logistics network, but the 3PLA system. Do you know who they are? That’s China’s version of the NSA. If you get the files on this computer to your people, they’ll have a huge advantage. But they’ll know that I took it. I can’t go back. They’ll know that I betrayed them.”

  “You weren’t supposed to do that. We didn’t tell you to do that.”

  “I thought that if the attacks had begun, this was over. Tetsuo gave me…”

  Chase’s phone buzzed in his hand. He looked down and frowned.

  “Tetsuo’s here. He’s having trouble in the lobby. He needs a room key to use the elevator, and they won’t give him one. Where’s yours?”

  Natesh held up his room key. Chase snatched it and said, “I’ll be right back.”

  Natesh nodded.

  Chase walked out the door and took the elevator down. The elevator was one of those glass numbers that let you see everything while it traveled. It moved fast, and Chase could feel it in his stomach. His ears popped, and he forced himself to yawn to clear them.

  The elevator finally reached the ground floor and opened with a ring. He walked along the marble floor and down to the lobby of the hotel. Tetsuo was walking through the revolving door, a frown on his face.

  Tetsuo said, “What the hell are you doing down here? I told you to watch him.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Why’d you…”

  Chase shook his head and took out his phone, holding it up for Tetsuo to see. “You just sent me this text. You told me to come down.”

  Then his expression changed as he realized what had happened. Tetsuo and he both sprinted towards the elevator area.

  Lena Chou hadn’t been back to Japan in years.

  She had been raised to hate the Japanese people. The atrocities that Japan had committed against the Chinese during World War II still served to fuel anti-Japanese sentiment in China even to this day. Especially in Chinese government-sponsored propaganda. The Chinese government loved to remind its citizens that Japan had helped kill fifteen to twenty million people—their grandparents and great-grandparents—during the war. Japan was a nation of villains.

  If there was one thing Lena had learned from her youth in China, and from her understudies with Jinshan, it was that propaganda worked.

  When she had arrived in Tokyo for the first time, as part of her espionage training before she was implanted in to the United States, she’d half-expected to be spat on by angry Japanese citizens. But nothing could have been further from the truth. She walked the clean streets and met many friendly people. They complimented her on her Japanese, and she fell in love with the land. The cooking was excellent, and the countryside was beautiful.

  Things were very different now.

  Lena had walked the streets of Tokyo, sirens blaring all around her. Fires were scattered around the city, towers of smoke billowing up hundreds of feet into the air. Bloodstains and rubble on the sidewalk.

  A part of her was sad at what war had brought to one of her favorite countries. But she shook off the feeling. She pulled her coat tight around her, a gray hood covering her hair and keeping most of her face hidden.

  Lena had performed a mental exercise while on her walk. She had locked up all of her emotions, all of her questions and worry, deep inside her mind. There was no room for doubt or hesitation now. She had to be on now. She had to function at the highest level. Her American competitors would show her no mercy if they found her here.

  Once again, Lena had transformed herself into a machine. An instrument of death, if need be.

  She walked into the Hilton hotel, her eyes darting over the expansive lobby area, taking in every detail. Dozens of empty seats and coffee tables filled the atrium. Shattered glass lay unmoved in some places. A single hotel attendant stood behind one of the desks. He looked like he had been crying.

  Lena asked him, “Are the elevators still working?”

  He nodded. “Yes, but we recommend you take the stairs.”

  She ignored him, walking to the elevator area. She took out her mobile phone. The special one that the Ministry of State Security had provided. She sent a text. Civilian phone networks were down, but she had been assured that this message would go through. She didn’t even know who would receive it. Some local CIA case officer. The Japanese section of the MSS had handled the technical details. Lena was just the operator. If the message went through and they left as instructed, they would live. If not, Lena would soon pay them a visit. Sure enough, the response came.

  COMING DOWN NOW.

  She watched the elevator floor buttons until the circle with “50” lit up. Then 49…48…

  She quickly pressed the up button, and the second elevator door opened. A few seconds later, she was being lifted up in the glass-walled elevator, the coffee tables sinking beneath her view, replaced by an exterior panorama of the city of Tokyo. From this vantage point, the wreckage looked even worse. Although the smoky reddish haze looked beautiful backed by the setting sun.

  Chinese missiles had done a number on this city. But the attack was over for now. Jinshan was claiming that only American and military assets were being targeted. But due to the volume of missiles needed, older ones were required, and their targeting systems were not so accurate. Civilian casualties were unavoidable. Still, the PLA had been ordered to cease fire on all Japanese ground targets for twenty-four hours. A special mission was being conducted, they were told.

  She turned away just as the other glass-encased elevator zoomed down next to her. Lena doubted that anyone would see her since the elevators were moving so fast, but she didn’t want to leave it to chance. A tug in her soul urged her to get a glimpse. To see if it was him…

  The hallway on the fiftieth floor stood empty. Lena arrived outside the hotel door and removed her silenced pistol from her pack. She fired three times into the lock of the door and then opened it.

  Natesh stood wide-eyed inside.

  “Lena.” His concentration pivoted from her face to her gun.

  She was pleased that she hadn’t accidentally shot him in the process. That would have been embarrassing. But there were multiple ways to proceed here. And it was her decision whether he lived or not. She closed the door behind her, flipping the latch to hold it in place.

  “Hello, my dear. Have a seat.” She flicked her weapon towards one of the chairs by the window. He did as he was commanded. Lena pulled back her hoodie. She had to be quick. Her internal clock ticked awa
y.

  “So, how has your progress been?”

  He looked like he was trying to be brave, but his lower lip was quivering, eyes glancing at the gun.

  “Things have been going according to plan.”

  “You gave the Americans false data on the ship locations? As you were instructed?”

  “Yes.” He kept looking at the gun.

  “It’s alright, Natesh, I’m not here to kill you.”

  He looked puzzled at that. “Then why the gun?”

  “To ensure compliance. If I have to use it, I will. But I trust that we can come to a better arrangement.”

  His breathing was fast and heavy. “What do you want?”

  “What did you give them?”

  His eyes darted over to his laptop on the desk. She followed his glance. “You said you wanted me to pass them false information on ship movements. So I did.”

  “Show me. And no tricks. Otherwise—well, you know very well what will happen. And, Natesh?”

  “What?”

  “It doesn’t have to be quick. I’m an excellent shot. I could just take out one of your legs and cripple you, then drag you outside to where my friends are waiting. They’ll bring you into a dark room and go to work on you for weeks. Keeping you alive just to make sure that you feel pain.” She smiled as she said it.

  He stood, looking woozy. “Okay. Okay. I might have given them some data that was beyond what we had discussed. I’m sorry.” He held up his hands. “Just tell me how to make this right.”

  She tilted her head. “There. There. Now that wasn’t so hard, was it? A bit of honesty can go a long way. Now, just show me what you’ve already provided them.”

  “It’s been erased.”

  “Fine, then you’ll write it down from memory. I have people that will need that.”

  Natesh was sitting behind his laptop computer now, typing. “Okay.”

  Natesh had been hedging his bets. Lena had instructed him to come to Japan. She had arranged for the Americans to find out about him, hoping that they would recruit him. It would be a way to provide the Americans with false information. Things had worked well enough at first. But then Natesh had tried to get cute.

  The American offer had sounded pretty good, it seemed. So he had been giving them access and information beyond what he was supposed to provide, without reporting it to the Chinese. Natesh had left a special CIA-made device, designed to look like a wristwatch, in a mail drop across the street. He had also copied a file onto his personal laptop. His intention, now that the attack had begun, was to take as much as he could and provide it to the Americans in exchange for his freedom.

  He told all this to Lena and began showing her how to gain access to his computer, and which software program to use. She made him write everything down. It took five minutes.

  “Were you going to tell the Americans that I sent you here? That you were still betraying them, even now?”

  Natesh looked frightened. He didn’t answer her question. He just looked up at her and shrugged. “So what now?”

  She smiled. “Now you come with me, and we live happily ever after.”

  “Why did you have me show you all that? Write everything down?”

  “In case I need to kill you.” Her eyes were emotionless.

  He started to tear up.

  She sighed. “Look, Natesh, we’ve accomplished what we came for. Now they’re listening to you. They believe you. They’ll make decisions based on information that you give them. Natesh, you are what we called a verified asset. Do you know how hard it is to create one of those? You are a gold mine to them. And now, we will take over the messaging. We’ll begin providing them information that is in our best interests.”

  “But—I already gave them information. I told them about the attacks coming from North Korea. I told them about the locations of the merchants and the Chinese carrier group. They’ve already—”

  “Natesh, timing is everything. You told them about the attacks coming from North Korea just before they occurred. So the Americans couldn’t do anything to stop them. The only purpose that served was to verify that you were providing accurate information.”

  “But the attacks on Guam and Hawaii…”

  “Yes, well—in all truth, we did not expect you to realize the actual positions of those units. We thought you would provide them the intended navigational tracks to the south, as you were instructed, drawing their forces to the Marianas or even to South America. Turns out you are better than our hackers thought—or maybe you got lucky. But the fact that the Americans were able to gain a victory at Hawaii based on your information only serves to solidify their faith in you as a source.

  “We will need to be very careful not to compromise that trust. And you will continue to provide them with a lot of useful information. Just not…too useful. And when the time is right, when we want them to bet all their chips on one big hand, you will feed them something erroneous. Something that will work spectacularly in our favor. You can’t buy that kind of mole, Natesh. You have to grow it.”

  “So, you planned this all along? You planned for me to betray you?”

  “No. Not until you showed signs of—how shall I put it—sensitivity. When you began expressing doubts. When you began showing signs of weakness. That’s when I spoke to Jinshan and thought that this might be a good way to go. We were ready to go either way. I suspected that the American offer might be too tempting. So we kept a close eye on what you were doing. In case you decided to get creative.”

  He frowned. “You’ve been watching me this whole time.”

  She checked her watch and gestured to the door. “We monitor our people. It’s the only way to operate. Constant verification of loyalty. Now come on. We need to leave.”

  “Is that Natesh?” Tetsuo asked.

  “Yeah.”

  Chase saw the glass elevator traveling down towards them. As the passengers came into view, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  “Who’s next to him?”

  There was a hooded figure, back to the elevator’s glass window. Then the figure turned. And Chase saw the eyes of the last person he expected to be here.

  “That’s Lena Chou.”

  She was staring straight at him.

  Lena froze. Her senses were already heightened; she knew that the CIA could have someone here. But as her eyes met those of Chase Manning, her pulse quickened.

  She removed her hood, letting her long black hair flow down over her shoulders. Lena gripped her pistol, grappling with a mix of emotions inside of her. The elevator was fast approaching the bottom floor.

  Lena slapped the second-floor button on the elevator, and their descent slowed to a halt. The door rang as it opened.

  Chase and Tetsuo saw the elevator lights stop at the second floor. They were crouched on opposite sides of the lobby-level elevator area, half-hidden with their weapons aimed at the closed elevator doors.

  Chase signaled to Tetsuo, pointing towards the stairs.

  “We need to go up.”

  He nodded and rose, but then paused when the elevator rang and the round floor indicator illuminated to indicate that it was moving again. The first-floor light went bright yellow, then dark. Then the lobby level went bright yellow.

  Another ding. And the door opened.

  Chase and Tetsuo both moved towards the opening elevator door, their weapons pointed forward.

  Natesh’s corpse lay inside, a scarlet bloodstain on his chest.

  Tetsuo ran over to him, checking his pulse. “He’s dead. Let’s check up on the second floor, where it stopped.” He pressed the emergency hold button on the elevator. Then Tetsuo and Chase raced up the stairs to the second floor.

  They searched for thirty minutes before they called in more CIA help to investigate the room and area surrounding the hotel. But Lena, and Natesh’s laptop, were nowhere to be found.

  Lin Yu watched as another commercial aircraft landed on the runway. It was strange, seeing them fly in one a
fter the other, unload their passengers right on the flight line—no terminal or anything. Then they would get refueled and take off again immediately. Everything was so fast.

  Lin Yu had never been to a big commercial airport, but he had seen them in movies. And he was pretty sure that the occupants of the aircraft weren’t marched off to a tent city in a field, only a few miles from the runway.

  Then again, how many commercial planes were filled with Chinese soldiers, flying across the ocean?

  He was a changed person now. He knew that it was propaganda they had been pouring on him for the last two weeks, during his crash-course boot camp. He knew it, but it didn’t matter.

  Lin Yu had heard and seen enough of what the Americans had done that he believed his instructors. He has been brainwashed to hate Americans—and to detest religion, any religion. The Americans only wanted to kill Chinese. They hated everything that his people stood for. He believed that now. And a part of him was amazed at how quickly the transformation had occurred.

  He sat in his tent, cleaning his weapon, tired and ready to sleep. The kid in the rack next to him asked, “What do you think will happen tomorrow? Will we start the invasion?”

  Lin Yu just laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  He shook his head. “The invasion has already begun. We’re here.”

  “Where?”

  “America.”

  “I thought we were in Siberia. To get ready? Then we fly to America soon after?”

  “That was just some bullshit they put out. They wanted to throw the Americans off in case they found out.”

  “But how did the planes get over the United States without being detected or shot down?”

  “They used electromagnetic pulse weapons. And they had special forces units who destroyed some radars or anti-aircraft missiles. We didn’t go over America much anyway. We were over Canada for the most part, until just before landing.”

  “How do you know all that?”

  “I work in the operations department. This is America. More planes will come in all night long. Tomorrow we will likely push south and begin splitting the country in two. They will bring more of us in each day.”