by Ed Kovacs
He checked his watch, rubbed tired eyes, and wearily stood up.“Considering the video we got from those two contract agents,” he said, “you hold some good evidence. But it's not enough. Your drone op files are the clincher that might make a difference for you. So I hope you can get the files back.”
Crap, he was leaving, ending their tenuous partnership. She fought back freeze-dried panic. Her eyes told it all and she didn't care. She wanted to stay with Hernandez, but before she could say anything, they were startled by the sound of the door handle jiggling and then a key entering the door lock. Someone was about to enter.
###
A panel van backed up to within five feet of a service elevator on Level LG1 and deposited eight hyped-up members of the Consulate General of the United States, Hong Kong and Macau, Special Response Team. Tension hung over them like a low thundercloud as the men crowded into the large elevator and armed themselves with HK 7A1 sub-machine guns and HK 416 assault rifles from two duffel bags. The team included members of Diplomatic Security Service, the U.S. Marines, the DEA, and the CIA, and all wore body armor that identified them as federal agents. Identified them to readers of English, that is.
They came in hot because the command security system was down, CCTV coverage was down, the guard on duty had not made a scheduled communications check and wasn't answering the desk phone or his cell phone, and the alarm on the double doors that led to the service elevators had been tripped. A building security officer on routine patrol had reported a group of men acting suspiciously on the 23rd floor, and two CIA subcontractors known to be using the facility were not answering their secure phones. A consensus quickly emerged that the field station had been breached, and after the Benghazi debacle, the Feds put in place protocols to act decisively in such instances.
When the service elevator doors opened on the 23rd floor, the first thing the SRT shooters saw were two Chinese men holding handguns.
“Drop your weapons!”
The two shocked Chinese men didn't understand English and couldn't fathom why these gwailos were pointing weapons at them. The West didn't run Hong Kong anymore, China did, damn it. The two men standing in the open doorway were Chinese soldiers in civilian clothes on loan tonight to General Ma and the Second Department. The soldiers resented Westerners and weren't about to be pushed around by these white faces stepping out of the elevator car.
“Nǐ shì shuí?!” asked the taller Chinese soldier, angrily. Who are you?! As the man spoke, he gestured with his gun hand. The movement of his gun barrel caused the nervous Americans to open fire.
The popping sounds of automatic weapons erupted from the elevator and the two Chinese men were riddled with dozens of high-capacity rounds, dropping them onto the hallway floor. The consulate SRT team stacked into the small service foyer that, unknown to them, Hernandez and Grant had exited through some minutes earlier. Two marines pulled the dead Chinese from the hallway into the foyer. When one of the marines chanced a look down the hallway, he was shot in the head. A nine-minute gun battle ensued between the SRT team and the remaining ten Chinese PLA soldiers in plainclothes from the Hong Kong Garrison. General Ma's aide Li Shan hadn't been able to conjure up enough intelligence agents on short notice, so she had taken it upon herself to enlist help from the army garrison located only minutes away. Her decision to use soldiers, and not covert operators, resulted in a bloodbath.
CHAPTER 18
19:37
Kate Rice looked absolutely ravishing in a cleavage-revealing LBD—Little Black Dress. But her skin tone turned several different colors during the walk from the Shangri-La's Island Ballroom to an elevator, and then to the condo secretly owned by the CIA two floors below Zhao Yiren's condo. At least it looked like her skin tone changed to Socorro Trujillo, Barry Bergman’s sharp young aide who had been delivering a whispered brief of the debacle at the CIA field station as she escorted Rice.
Trujillo, watching through her cold black eyes, had secretly enjoyed seeing Rice go bright red right off the bat when she told her she was being summoned to an emergency meeting, meaning she had to leave the frenzy of last-minute preparation for the Kids First charity reception in the hands of her assistants. Rice's reddish glow continued as anger mounted from hearing gory details of the situation at Trans-National. Trujillo then thought she turned slightly green at hearing the figures of dead and wounded—three Americans dead, four wounded; seven Chinese dead, three wounded. This was a potential catastrophe of epic proportions.
Finally, as Rice bit a fingernail, she looked a little yellowish or maybe just very pale. Probably something to do with fear. Trujillo knew Rice was something of a legend, so it was difficult to imagine her afraid of anything. But she looked quite shaken. Scared, even. Trujillo looked down her hawk-like nose at the older woman whom she regarded as a dinosaur living off her reputation. She took a measure of delight in having given Rice a briefing which made her so uncomfortable.
They paused at the door to the CIA owned condo. “On another front, I've confirmed that Rena Musaad, a British citizen from London staying at the Marriott works for WikiLeaks. She had a meeting with Nicole Grant in a wine bar at there.”
Rice looked distracted, but nodded. “Okay, thanks.”
“Barry asked me to tell you that your Chinese friends should have already terminated the Musaad woman, and he’s disappointed in how sloppy things have become.”
Rice flashed angry, then spun away from Trujillo, who smirked.
###
Kate Rice entered the condo alone, swallowed, and tightened her stomach muscles as her mind raced. Unless there was another bombshell waiting, she could contain the fallout from the gunfight at One Pacific Place. There would be hell to pay, but the mission of getting Zhao elected to the Chinese presidency could still go forth.
She bit a fingernail, took a deep breath and psyched herself up. She'd held hundreds of meetings with kings, presidents, generals, CEOs, gangsters, prime ministers, tribal elders, dictators, and the filthy rich. Nervousness didn't factor into it, it was all about leverage and timing. She was short on leverage and the timing was problematic, so she'd have to bluff her way through. She crossed through two rooms and then stopped at a closed door. Her demeanor had shifted; she now looked and felt totally in control as she knocked twice, then opened the door.
The chilly conference room was dim thanks to navy blue velvet blackout curtains that blocked out every hint of natural light. A thick, smoky haze, the kind of miasma more common to a crowded opium den, hung in the air. Plush celadon-hued, sound-absorbing carpeting blanketed the floor. An oil painting of the Kowloon docks from when the British ruled the seas in the 1800s hung on a bone-colored wall. Rice noted all of these details in a microsecond as she hid the shock racing through her body from seeing Senior White House Security Adviser Barry Bergman sitting at one end of the long teak table and Vice Premier of the People's Republic of China Zhao Yiren at the other. So Bergman and Zhao have been talking to each other behind my back.
She instinctively knew Bergman wanted to drive a wedge between her and Zhao. Had he succeeded? Director of the PLA's Second Department Major General Ma Ju, and Ministry of State Security Special Projects Director Tang Jie sat smoking on one side of the dark polished table, meaning Rice had one side to herself. Bergman was sending her a message with this seating arrangement—she was on her own, isolated, positioned to take the fall for any failure. This knowledge only strengthened her resolve to succeed and rub Bergman's nose in the stink of it all.
Rice sat down. Although she hated Bergman, she understood that he and Zhao were the senior people at the meeting, so she waited. Protocol called for one of them to speak first. The fireworks would start soon enough.
“Thank you for joining us, Miss Rice,” said Zhao, taking a sip from a coffee cup as he made eye contact. By the look in his eyes, she knew there was something other than coffee in the cup.
“Sorry we had to pull you from your party,” said Bergman.
Rice ignored Berg
man's slight. Since the ice had been broken, she was free to speak. “Do the Hong Kong authorities know what happened at Trans-National?” she asked, directing the question to no one in particular.
“No,” said Director Tang.
“Then I don't see that we have a problem—”
“You don't see a problem!?” said Bergman, cutting her off.
“A problem that we can't handle,” she finished. “The American side will cover up the American deaths and evacuate the wounded from Hong Kong without this leaking out. I assume the Chinese can do likewise.”
“With some difficulty, yes,” said Ma.
Rice locked her eyes onto Ma's. “General Ma, why was an attempt made to execute Grant and Hernandez without informing us?”
“Director Tang is the person overseeing the—”
“Don't try and put this disaster off on me,” interrupted Tang with quiet assertiveness. He held up a digital tape recorder. “I recorded you, General, in your Mercedes, ordering me to kill Hernandez and Grant and to not inform the Americans. And I have a recording of you issuing shoot-on-sight orders—an unfortunate order since your men couldn't tell the difference between Nicole Grant and the Mona Lisa. You also ordered Pacific Place to be locked down, but the men you sent to assist me have been manhandling VIP guests in five-star hotels, and those guests have filed complaints with the police and with their embassies. And it was your bumbling men who entered the CIA field station and got into this gunfight. So please, point your finger at the Second Department, not at the MSS,” said Tang, evenly, maintaining his ever-present neutral expression.
General Ma sat there steaming, but he couldn't deny any of it. “We're not in America anymore, this is China. Informing the CIA and waiting for their approval could have meant failure, since time was so short,” said Ma, glaring at Rice.
“It would seem failure resulted, anyway,” she retorted. “And let me remind you we're in Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region, not mainland China. But even if we were in downtown Beijing, you should have honored the agreement. Then Wheeler and Roberts would have stopped you from sending men into a CIA facility and creating a bloodbath.”
Ma scowled, but said nothing. He looked more rumpled than ever. Zhao looked thoughtful but said nothing.
“Miss Rice, how is it that Hernandez and Grant were able to access that CIA office?” asked Tang.“Their dossiers which you provided don't indicate the kind of skills required to do such a thing.”
“The dossiers given to you were incomplete for national security reasons. Regardless, whether you were hitting a CIA facility or a fried chicken stand, our agreement mandates that before termination occurs, first, we approve of the plan. Second, we witness and document the act.” Her tone was firm, but not impolite. She looked to Zhao; he met her gaze, but said nothing as he tapped his index finger on his chin.
“My desire was to act quickly to put out a small fire before it became big,” replied General Ma.
“Unfortunately, it appears as if gasoline has been poured onto the fire. Has it occurred to you that Hernandez and Grant might be here to kill Vice Premier Zhao?”
By the look on Ma's face, it hadn't occurred to him.
“Do you really think I'm in danger, Miss Rice?” asked Zhao. The deep richness of his voice and the authority it carried seemed to penetrate her skin.
“Without question.” Now she was getting somewhere. She'd worked the facts to her advantage and was now playing upon Zhao's fear. Rice pulled her gaze away from him and lasered it onto Ma. “Perhaps, General, you could spare some of your men to supplement the vice premier's security detail. That would be more productive than having them grope foreign diplomats in hotel lobbies.”
This was not turning out to be a good meeting for General Ma. “It would be even more productive if you Americans had honored your agreements and prevented certain Omega Team members from going to the press! So yes, I acted in haste, to save my old friend,” said Ma, defiantly, as he gestured to Zhao. “And I would do it again.”
“Then how about allowing me to bring in American agents to help locate Grant and Hernandez?”
“Absolutely not!” said Ma. This is a Chinese operation. The fewer Americans involved the better.”
Bergman shifted a little uneasily in his chair. Rice, however, leaned further over the table toward Ma and held his fiery gaze. “I understand your sentiments, General, but I’m looking for positive results.”
Zhao made a point of loudly setting down his coffee mug to get everyone's attention. “What have been the results of the waterboarding?” he asked, lighting a cigarette, then exhaling smoke that curled upward into the serpentine fog that hung over the table like a shroud of concealment. “Hernandez's father-in-law, the retired CIA man Snedeker should have been questioned by now. How did he find out about our operation, and who else in Washington now knows what we've been doing?”
Some of the color drained from Rice's face. She had hoped the Chinese wouldn't make the family connection between Hernandez and Snedeker, since she'd redacted that information from the dossier she'd provided to them.
“Vice Premier Zhao, when I have the results of the interrogation, I'll pass them on immediately.” Rice began to suspect that something had indeed shifted. Zhao was putting her on the spot in front of others, and he'd never before done that. My God, he's in league with Bergman, now.
“Waterboarding?” asked Bergman as he fixed Rice with a penetrating stare.
“I informed you earlier today that Snedeker was about to be interrogated,” said Rice, trying not to sound defensive. “We have to plug any leaks and plug them immediately.” Rice looked at Bergman and knew he must be livid, since the president was vehemently opposed to waterboarding, regardless of any extenuating circumstances. However, since the asses of the president and every member of his ultra-secret inner circle unofficially know as the Committee were all on the line, she doubted Bergman would make an issue of it.
“How can Vice Premier Zhao hope to gain the Chinese presidency when so many Americans can't keep their mouths shut?” asked General Ma.
Time to go more directly on the offensive. She wanted Ma off balance. “Was it Americans who botched the assassination on Tung Choi Street earlier today? Was it Americans who allowed Nicole Grant to meet with a WikiLeaks reporter in a bar at the Marriott, in spite of Chinese assurances that there would be no WikiLeaks presence here in Hong Kong?”
“Gentlemen, and Miss Rice, we shouldn't lose sight of what our goal is,” said Bergman, the cagey politico dripping words like honey. “We want to help the Chinese people by having a moderate reformer in high office. A lot of sacrifices have been made in that regard. And some mistakes, too. But gentlemen, since Miss Rice guarantees that we can still achieve our goal, then let's deal with these recent unfortunate developments quickly, put our differences aside, and move forward.”
Zhao nodded.
Rice made a mental note that Bergman had just claimed she could guarantee success. She now held no doubt that this meeting was about setting up some scapegoats, and Zhao was in on it. She was already on the way out, being replaced by a new handler, so he didn't need her anymore.
“Are Hernandez and Grant still in the complex?” asked Zhao.
“We believe they are,” said Tang, “even though I have no doubt they could have escaped. Meaning they want to be here. So I agree with Miss Rice that we should adjust our manpower to provide you with more protection, sir.”
“I'll arrange for a helicopter to be made available. I strongly urge you to return to Beijing immediately,” said Ma, looking at Zhao.
“If I leave in a rush without attending the charity function, eyebrows would be raised. But just to be safe, have my jet and a helicopter made ready and make up a good excuse to explain a sudden departure.” Zhao took another deep drag, savoring the tobacco smoke as it penetrated his lungs. “As I think about it, why can't we simply evacuate Pacific Place and then conduct a thorough search for the two Americans?”
“The Hong Kong authorities would be in charge of such an operation, and we would need to publicly state a legitimate reason to evacuate that could not be connected to our true mission,” said Tang.
“I would caution against an evacuation,” said General Ma. “This complex is full of dignitaries, diplomats and luminaries. There are literally thousands of wealthy, influential people here, thousands of tourists and local shoppers, and thousands of Hong Kong workers. We'd have a chaotic, public relations disaster. Hong Kong investigators and the press would be everywhere, and,” Ma turned to face Zhao, “your enemies in Beijing would hear of this instantly and start sniffing around. There is also no guarantee that an evacuation would expose Hernandez and Grant.”
Rice watched Zhao carefully; he looked unhappy with Ma's remarks.
“I would urge you General Ma, Director Tang, to revert to the kind of elegant use of your men that you exhibited in the United States,” said Bergman. “Finesse is called for right now. The president continues to support Vice Premier Zhao one hundred percent, but the slaughter in our field office is of tremendous concern to him.” Bergman leaned forward with his elbows on the conference table and riveted General Ma, and then Director Tang with dagger-like stares. As he did so he casually touched the oversized, boxy red secure phone on the table in front of him, as a not- so-subtle reminder of his close connection with the U.S. president. “Actually, he's quite angry with the amount of incompetence that has been on display. Terminate your targets tonight, gentlemen. Otherwise, the president feels that a new direction of leadership is called for.” Bergman looked directly at Zhao. “Do you agree, Vice Premier Zhao?”
Zhao shifted his gaze from Tang, to Ma, to Rice. A chill ran down her arms and she was shocked to hear him say, “Yes, I agree. End this tonight!”
Rice almost shuddered. Ten thousand successes instantly forgotten due to one failure. And it wasn't even her failure. She'd be relegated to collateral damage. There was one way to turn this around and that was by stopping the hemorrhaging. Drastic, decisive steps had to be taken to end the leaks and seal the ship. She wouldn't delegate these actions; she'd do what had to be done. Back on the East Coast she'd order Snedeker killed as soon as he broke, which should be any time now.
