The men pushed Rob through a mesh gate. He was outside the embassy. They closed the gate with a bang behind him.
A dark blue Ford Taurus stood parked nearby. Two men in windcheaters with the letters FBI written on them jumped out as Rob walked away from the embassy. They reached Rob within a few seconds.
He was about to complain about his treatment in the embassy when one of them pulled out handcuffs, which gleamed in the sunlight. To his shock, they grabbed him. His wrists were in the cuffs before he could do anything.
“Dr. Robert McNeil, under The Espionage Act, Title 18 of the US code you are hereby charged with conveying information to a foreign power,” said one of the men.
Two other FBI agents had appeared from somewhere. They had hands near their holsters, as if expecting trouble.
“This is crazy,” shouted Rob. “You saw me being thrown out of the embassy. That was because I didn’t cooperate. What the hell am I being arrested for?”
“You have the right to remain silent, Dr. McNeil. Anything you say may be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney present during questioning, and to have one appointed to represent you,” said the officer who had cuffed him. “Do you understand these rights?”
“Yes, of course,” said Rob.
He was taken toward the Ford Taurus. His head was held down as he was pushed into the back. The door slammed. A thick Perspex block separated the front and the back of the vehicle. As they pulled away, he looked back at the embassy. Through the bars of the gate, he could see Vladimir. He was smiling.
“Bastard,” he whispered.
71
Washington DC, June 6th, 2020
As soon as she arrived, Faith went to the restaurant of the TOTALVACS building. She needed coffee. Wang was already on his way to a secure military hospital in Camden, New Jersey. His interrogation proper would start later that day, confined to short sessions.
The normal procedure would be to wait until he’d partially recovered from his wounds, but time was of the essence. A live investigation of Chinese intelligence operations inside the United States was ongoing. They had to know everything about the Chinese poison the wells operation.
She sipped her coffee while reading her classified emails.
One press release claimed that the phase three trial of Rob’s vaccine had hit the twenty-five thousand volunteer mark with fifty percent having already received a first dose, and of those twenty-five percent in the critical racial minority categories. It was the fastest phase three TOTALVACS had ever undertaken.
Fifty percent of the recipients would be given a saline placebo, the release stated. Each recipient had also received an app to monitor their health on a variety of metrics four times a day. Those without a smartphone had been issued one. It was the most closely monitored trial phase ever in the United States. So, the press release claimed.
But Faith knew that producing and testing a vaccine were only the first stages in the process of getting the public to take it. The vaccine testing process had to be open to scrutiny, and the results had to show that the vaccine was free from all but the most minor side effects.
She looked across the room. One of the PR team for TOTALVACS had come in. He was smiling. The TOTALVACS share price had probably taken a jump. Most of the employees at TOTALVACS had share options. Any jump mattered. A big jump mattered a lot.
She looked up when she heard her name being called. Bishop was coming toward her.
“Good work with Wang Hu,” he said.
“Thank you, sir,” she said. She sat up straighter.
“Did you hear that your friend McNeil has been taken into custody by the FBI?” he asked.
“Yeah, I knew that was coming,” she said. “If he shared anything with the Russians he’ll be in big trouble.”
“He won’t admit it, but they’ll find out,” he said.
Faith nodded, didn’t reply. It would not do any good to show any emotional attachment to McNeil. She had no idea what he was going to admit to.
“What are you doing about Gong Dao?” Bishop asked.
“I’m meeting her for a late lunch.”
“Good call. We need to keep the Chinese Embassy people calm. We don’t want retaliation against our embassy in Beijing. They will be hopping mad about their driver getting his skull blown open.”
“Gong Dao asked to interview me as part of their incident investigation process.” Faith shrugged. “It’s quick, but understandable, so I passed it up the line. Internal affairs agreed with me. We have to show them we have nothing to hide. I had to shoot that man. He was about to kill someone. Better they hear it straight from me than think we’re making it up.”
“You’ll have backup with you?”
“Sure.”
“You’re a brave woman letting them see your face.”
“They have me tagged for it already. They must have tapped into the camera system at the service area. They knew my name too. Best to be straight with them about this one.”
“Wang slipping away through their fingers will piss them off,” said Bishop.
She shrugged. “That’s another story.”
“Be careful when you meet her. She’s supposed to be a piece of work.” Bishop stood. “I’ll make sure you get a commendation for all this,” he said.
“Thank you, sir.”
He turned back to Faith as he was about to leave.
“Do you think the Russians faked McNeil’s wife’s death and brought someone that looked like her into the United States? It all looks like one of their stunts to me.”
“They are bastards.” Faith shook her head.
“They certainly messed with his head,” said Bishop. Then he was gone.
Faith finished her coffee. She headed for the office visiting government officials had been allocated in the TOTALVACS building. There were so many countries vying for access to TOTALVACS products, it was essential that a number of interested government departments had their own room in the building.
When she opened her laptop in the corner office, she saw an urgent email. It was from the lead investigator who had taken over the interrogation of Wang Hu.
She looked around. No one else was in yet. She called the investigator using the encrypted call app.
“You’re not going to believe this,” were his first words.
72
Washington DC, June 6th, 2020
“Where are you taking me?” said Rob. “I demand my rights.”
One of the men in the front turned to him. “I’m told a million people around the world are going to die from this virus, Dr. McNeil. They demand their rights too.”
Rob sat back. They drove through the streets of Washington, then waited outside a gray eight-story office block while two red and black metal access-blockers lowered in front of a ramp down into the building. They turned onto the ramp as soon as they could.
“Welcome to FBI Headquarters,” said the driver. They went down two levels and drove through an underground car park until they reached an elevator where two men in blue uniforms were waiting. Both had navy blue face masks on.
One opened the door for Rob and motioned for him to get out.
Rob stepped out. The man held his handcuffed wrists. The other man snapped cuffs on his ankles and attached a steel chain to his ankle cuff and his wrist cuffs.
“This is all a mistake,” said Rob, loudly. “I need to speak to a lawyer.”
One guard patted him down, took his phone and wallet, and put them in a plastic bag, and sealed it.
Two men led him into an elevator without speaking any more than was necessary to get him to comply. One of them put a key into the elevator panel and pressed for the sixth floor.
The elevator rattled as it went up. The door opened and they were in a reception area with dark wood paneling. No one was working at the reception desk. They pushed him down a corridor to the left and into a room with bars on the windows and metal chairs and a table bolted to the floor
. A Perspex sheet hung between one side of the table and the other. It extended beyond the table so that the room was almost separated into two parts.
They left him there without saying anything. One of them still held the plastic bag with his phone in it.
He looked out through the window bars over office buildings and in the distance saw a glimpse of a gray sea. How had it come to this? He’d given details of his vaccine to everyone, he’d cooperated with TOTALVACS, and all he wanted was to find out if the Russians had been lying. To find out if Jackie was still alive.
This was all wrong.
The door of the room opened. A tall woman with long blonde hair strode in. She was followed by a young man with a crew cut. They were both wearing black face masks. The woman stood by the table, on the other side to where he was.
“Please sit, Dr. McNeil,” she said.
Rob sat.
The woman held an ID card up for him to read her name. Then she and the man held their cards up toward a security camera in the corner of the ceiling. The man passed her a thick brown folder. She opened it and placed it on the table. In it lay an inch-thick stack of printouts. His picture was stapled in a corner of the top sheet.
“How long have you been working for the Russian government?” asked the woman, as she placed a hand on the folder.
“I do not work for the Russian government,” said Rob.
The woman turned over a few pages, looked up at him. “But you gave a lecture recently at a scientific institute in Moscow, is that correct?”
“I was obliged to do that in exchange for the help I’d received from a Russian government official,” he said. He was doing his best to control his frustration. It wasn’t easy.
“So, you were repaying a debt to the Russian government?”
Rob looked straight at her. “There was no payment for what I did, no money involved.”
“Is a private jet flight from Beijing to Moscow a free service these days?”
“I was with two State Department staff. I arranged the flight to help them get out of China too.”
The woman looked down at the page in front of her. “You met with Russian Embassy operatives here in Washington on multiple occasions over the past few days. Please explain what those meetings were about.”
“I was told that my wife, Jackie, was still alive and that if I cooperated with the Russian Embassy that she would be returned to me.”
“And you agreed to cooperate?” asked the woman.
“No, that’s not the way it is! They threw me out because I wouldn’t do what they wanted!”
The woman looked up. “Do not shout, Dr. McNeil. I have perfectly good hearing. We understand you agreed to cooperate with them and that when they asked you to go further, you then objected. Is that a fair assessment?”
Rob put his hands flat on the table. “No, I didn’t . . . I did not cooperate. I would be with her now if I had.” He pressed his fist to his mouth. It felt as if a hole had opened up under him.
“I refused to do what I was asked, yes. And now what I get is this?” He waved around him at the room and at the shackles on his hands and feet.
“What did the Russians want from you?”
He leaned forward. “They wanted me to say I’ve been trying to slow down the production of my vaccine on the prompting of someone who works with the Biden campaign.”
“You did try to slow the production of a vaccine. That is correct, isn’t it?”
He didn’t reply.
The woman and the man looked at each other.
“Thank you, Dr. McNeil. This questioning session has now ended.” She looked up at the camera pod in the corner of the room.
“End interview,” she said.
73
Washington DC, June 6th, 2020
“Are the Wang Hu interview recordings accessible?” asked Faith. She kept her phone to her ear, stood, walked to the window. The street outside was quiet. Because of the advice to work from home and the BLM protests, a lot of people were not coming into the center of DC anymore.
“Yep, video and audio are available to access as you need.”
“Are you finished interviewing for today?”
“After a two-hour break, we’re going to ask him to confirm a few details. We’re putting together a task force with the FBI, Faith. You can request to be included, but your work at TOTALVACS is probably enough for you right now, yes?”
“Probably. I’ll take a look at the video, thanks.”
She logged onto the secure State Department interrogations videos drive using facial ID and a one-time password sent to the State app.
The recording showed Wang in a hospital bed and a female State Department employee introducing herself to him.
“Where’s Faith?” asked Wang, looking up at the camera.
“I’ll be your contact from now on,” said the woman. She gave her name and asked Wang a few basic questions about his identity. Then she gave him a speech about the State Department witness protection program, which would allow him to live in his choice of location with a completely new identity, including a cash amount and rent-free apartment.
She made it sound like winning the lottery.
Wang didn’t reply.
“Does the Chinese government deliberately spread the Coronavirus?” asked the woman.
Wang shook his head. “No, this is not official Chinese government policy. A secret group within China does this,” said Wang.
“What group?” said the woman.
“I need to know I will be protected,” he said. “Our deal has to be agreed properly before I will say more.”
The recording went blank.
They were on the verge of a real breakthrough. She let her breath out, as the magnitude of what she’d seen sank in and a doubt with it. Was it too good to be true? Confirmation from another source would certainly help prove it. She closed her laptop. That was why her upcoming meeting was so crucial. If she could get Gong Dao to come over, they would have enough to go public. She paced the room.
She had three hours to go before her meeting with Gong Dao.
The Jefferson Hotel lay half a mile north of Lafayette Square, far enough away from any demonstrations to be safe, but near enough to still get a whiff of tear gas in the air if things got nasty again. The fact that Gong Dao had agreed to meet her there meant that the Chinese Embassy probably had a set of rooms permanently booked at the hotel, and that Gong Dao was high enough up the totem pole at the embassy that she could do whatever she wanted.
Gong Dao had presumably also been informed of Wang’s probable defection. That meant her agreeing to the meeting had benefits for her too. She’d probably been sent to the meeting in the hope that she’d find out how much Wang had revealed already.
Faith called the officer in charge of overseeing her meet. The man was a long-time State Department, Chinese Embassy liaison staffer. He sounded relaxed as he took the call.
“Any reason we should be concerned for your safety, Ms. Gordon?” he asked.
“No, I expect this will be friendly. Just make sure the library where we are meeting has at least two cameras working and good audio. Good enough to record a pin drop,” said Faith.
“Sure, we’ve got all that set up for you,” said the officer. “Just get there on time and our extraction team will be in a room down the hall if anything gets nasty.”
“It won’t,” said Faith.
She put a call in to the FBI special agent in charge of interrogating McNeil. He didn’t answer. He probably knew the call was from her. Faith sighed, looked around. She’d have loved to moan to someone about the FBI going out on a limb, but she couldn’t do that, no matter how she felt.
A complaint about McNeil had been made to their Washington office and they’d run with it. Who had complained, the evidence provided, and how they knew to pick him up outside the Russian Embassy were all interesting questions. But at least they had informed State, as a friendly gesture, when they’d seen a State Dep
artment flag on his record online, though it hadn’t stopped them picking him up.
The evidence they’d been given must have been hot too, from someone they trusted. The FBI was full of agents looking to make a name for themselves and Rob had gone too far, if what she’d heard in the one call she did manage to have with the agent in charge was true.
Bishop had claimed, “We don’t need him anymore,” when Faith had told him about Rob’s arrest.
“His partners have signed the agreement,” Bishop had continued. “We may even get out of some of the payments if he’s shown to be an agent of a foreign power. It will allow us to hold up payments and force them to sue us for them. Don’t do anything to help him, Faith. He’s getting what he deserves for believing the Ruskies.”
What Faith kept thinking about, as she packed away her laptop and stored it in one of the lockers in TOTALVACS, was what the hell the Russians had been up to, leading McNeil on like that? Was it all really just them trying to get him to mess things up at TOTALVACS?
What was their game? If it was to destroy McNeil’s career, they’d certainly achieved that.
She headed down to the car waiting in the underground car park for her.
74
Washington DC, June 6th, 2020
Vladimir opened the door of the meeting room. A woman was standing at the window, looking out over the front gate to the embassy.
“When will I be free to go?” said the woman, in a British accent, as she turned to Vladimir.
“We have a few extra recordings we need you to make. Then you can go.” Vladimir stood beside her.
“I would not have agreed to do this if I’d known where all this was going,” she said.
“Be patient,” said Vladimir. “Your reward is coming.” He looked at his watch. “Everything will work out. Trust me.”
75
Washington DC, June 6th, 2020
The Conspiracy II Page 19
