“I’m here because they gave me no other choice, Mr. Li. They have accused me of being a spy. I’m not a traitor.”
“Of course not,” said Li. “We know of your bravery for your country. We feel sorry for you. Truly. Come, sit down. Let us talk.”
Li gestured to the other two velvet chairs. The three took their seats in a tight triangle. Li took Ford’s hand and squeezed it, then turned to Chang.
“So tell me,” Li said simply.
“I am an American, Mr. Li. I have been an officer of the Central Intelligence Agency. Before that, I served in the U.S. Army. But I began to see that to my American colleagues, my former colleagues, I will always be Chinese. That is the first thing they see. The color of my skin. I’ve known that for a long time. But I couldn’t admit it to myself until I came back from Mexico and found the FBI waiting.”
“Yes, yes,” said Li, nodding in sympathy. “A sad story. America is a country where race matters. The more people say they are, what, color-blind, the more it is a lie. But I must ask you, Mr. Chang, how can I trust you? It is very nice that my old and valued friend, Miss Ford, Rukou, has brought you here. But how can I be sure that this is not a trick?”
Chang stole a quick glance to the door. Where was Vandel? They were reaching the point of no return. He let himself think, only for an instant, that maybe it was true. They didn’t care about him. He closed his eyes, no more than a long blink, and leaned toward the Chinese intelligence chief.
“I have brought something for you, Minister Li,” said Chang. He reached into his pocket for the envelope. “I told Miss Ford to tell you I would bring something that would convince you I am sincere and would help you fight your enemies in China. I have it, here. I think it will surprise even you.”
Chang removed from the envelope several photographs taken by a CIA surveillance camera in a hotel room in Dubai. They showed John Vandel, head of the clandestine service of the CIA, meeting with General Wu Huning, director of the Second Department of the People’s Liberation Army. Between the two men, on a coffee table in the Dubai hotel room, was a leather-bound notebook.
Chang handed over the photographs to Li Zian. The Chinese man studied the pictures, held them close to his eyes to look for evidence the images had been doctored. For a long moment, he said nothing.
“Baozang,” he said finally, quietly. “This is a treasure.”
“You know who these people are,” said Chang. “But you don’t know why they met. Mr. Vandel traveled secretly to Dubai to give your PLA enemies the mijian, the secret notebook, of Dr. Ma Yubo. He wanted to destroy you, because of Rukou. So he gave your greatest secrets to the person who could hurt you most. Now, you can fight back.”
Li held the photographs in his hand. His fingers trembled ever so slightly, a sign of the rage inside, barely controlled. His rivalry with Wu and the others in the PLA was deep, but he had never imagined they were capable of treason. As Li’s eyes smoldered, Chang glanced once more toward the door.
“I didn’t know you had that,” said Ford.
“I didn’t tell you. I wanted to save it for Minister Li. I hope you trust me now, Mr. Minister.”
Li nodded. His face was grimmer. He was thinking, perhaps, of how he would use his two defectors, and the photographic evidence, when he returned to Beijing. He turned to Chang. He tried to smile, but it didn’t come.
“Trust is something that an intelligence officer does not give on the first meeting. But I accept you. That is a start. And I am prepared to take you with me and Rukou when we return to China. I think it is time to leave, soon. My plane is ready. It is very comfortable, even on a long flight.”
Chang swallowed hard as he nodded. Where was Vandel? He wasn’t coming. In that moment, sensing that he had been abandoned, Chang felt an emotion that was, oddly, something like release. When we are truly alone, we lose our dependence on anyone or anything.
Li took Chang’s hand. His eyes softened. He took Denise Ford’s palm in his other hand.
“Perhaps, Brother Chang, when we all reach China, you will feel that you are at home.” He rose, and they followed him up the red-carpeted stairs toward the door of the little box. Their backs were turned, so they didn’t see what was happening behind them.
The first sign of the assault was a loud noise on stage, as a prop crashed to the floor. The four Chinese security officers all turned toward the sound. In that moment, ten men in Dutch gendarmes’ uniforms sprang from hiding places near the Chinese guards. With the deadly agility that comes from years of SOF training, aided by surprise and distraction, they moved to disarm their targets.
The Chinese guard in the orchestra pit went down first, disabled before he realized what was happening. The officer standing in the far mezzanine was toppled second. He had his gun in his hand and was preparing to shoot, but the SOF officer hidden behind him was quicker, firing a disabling burst from a Taser gun. He was enveloped by two blue-clad giants before he could shout a warning.
Li was emerging from the loge as Vandel’s team took the guards on either side of the entrance. The SOF team was swift and devastating. The Chinese, under orders like the Americans to avoid gunfire if possible, were a moment too late. They were smothered on the floor under blue-uniformed men who subdued them quickly.
Li Zian stumbled back toward the loge door when the attackers pounced on his guards. He wasn’t a fighter; he didn’t try. He shot a quick glance toward Harris Chang, one of bitter disappointment.
Denise Ford, always so composed, looked at Chang with the rage of betrayal in her eyes. She began to scream, but she was quickly muffled. The only sound Li made was a moan of anguish.
John Vandel emerged from behind the bulk of his special operators. On his face was a look of mastery. “Take Minister Li downstairs, backstage,” ordered Vandel. “We’ll talk to him there.”
The Chinese intelligence officer glanced at Vandel and then turned his eyes back toward Harris Chang. He gave him a scornful look, bordering on contempt, and quietly said the words, “Ni zenme neng?” He repeated the phrase in English, in case Chang had not understood: “How could you?”
As Li spoke, two SOF officers took his arms and bundled him down the mezzanine stairs to the orchestra and then up a ramp and through a door that led backstage. The Chinese guards that had accompanied the minister had been tranquilized and were being carried, one by one, by the members of the Dutch-uniformed team toward the waiting vans.
In an alcove backstage, surrounded by a cordon of men in blue uniforms, stood three people: John Vandel, Harris Chang, and Li Zian.
Denise Ford was already outside. Kate Sturm had removed her from the theater, on Vandel’s orders, in gag and handcuffs, and placed her in another of the vans. Sturm had summoned the legal attaché from the consulate to begin a formal extradition process on charges contained in a sealed indictment that had been handed up in the federal district court in Alexandria, Virginia, the previous day.
Li was silent, glowering at the two men facing him. He maintained his dignity rather than pleading or screaming for help. But he was angry, in part at himself for having walked into this trap. The armed men in blue backed away, leaving the three principals alone.
“We don’t have much time,” said Vandel. “I want to make you an offer.”
“I demand to see an officer of the Chinese consulate,” said Li. “I am being detained against my will. This is an illegal action.”
“I think you should listen to my offer, Mr. Minister. I think you’ll see it’s your best option, under the circumstances.”
Li shook his head. “I want to see the consulate,” he repeated.
Vandel ignored his protest and continued with his pitch. He had fixed his intense, dark eyes on the Chinese intelligence officer and leaned his body slightly toward his rigid form. Harris Chang stood back slightly from the other two.
“Here’s the situation, Mr. Li,” continued Vandel. “We are in a position to make you a very attractive offer. Settlement in the United State
s. Full legal protection, security in a house we will purchase for you in a secure location. A handsome stipend of one million dollars, annually, with bonuses for information you may provide, which I hope you will do. You just have to walk out that door with me and sign a statement that you are traveling to the United States voluntarily.”
The alcove was silent for ten seconds, but it seemed much longer. Through the walls, in the theater lobby, came the voices of Dutch regular police, who had arrived to inquire about the commotion in the theater. They were met with soothing reassurances from Willem, the officer from the Royal Marechaussee, that all was well.
“I refuse,” said Li calmly. “I am a Chinese citizen. I demand that you release me so that I can go home.”
Vandel looked him dead in the eye. They were on the edge of a blade.
“My offer expires in thirty seconds,” said Vandel. “You will make a fatal mistake if you refuse. Your enemies know that you’re here meeting with me. The PLA’s Second Department has been informed. Their representatives are on their way. Either you come with me, or I’ll leave you to General Wu.”
Li smiled ruefully and shook his head. As an intelligence officer, he could only admire Vandel’s coup. But still, that tall, angular form didn’t bend.
“You understand everything, Mr. Vandel, except one thing. Which is that I am Chinese. I will never come with you freely.”
“There’s Plan B, Mr. Minister. If you won’t come voluntarily, then we’ll bring you out another way. That’s a less attractive option, long term, I assure you. But it’s your call.”
Li looked at Vandel once more, the shrewdly calculating American who was determined to win this match. Li turned his gaze to Chang. He studied the tan, muscular face of the Chinese-American.
Chang returned his gaze. The calm he usually felt in stressful situations gave way in this moment to something different, a deep uneasiness, the agitation, perhaps, that a decent person feels when he is asked to do something wrong. Chang didn’t speak, or move, but there was the slightest inflection in his eyes as he looked at the minister’s unyielding posture.
The sound from the theater lobby outside was nearer and louder. The police were insistent. Vandel looked at Chang, with the first hint of apprehension, and then back to Li.
“Time’s up. Last chance. What’s your answer?”
“I refuse. This is illegal.”
“Have it your way,” said Vandel. He turned to the ring of SOF officers surrounding them and instructed the leader. “Dirk. Get him out of here. If he resists, subdue him, gently. Do it quick. Not much time.”
The SOF team leader was halfway to Minister Li when Harris Chang stepped forward and pushed Vandel back with a forearm hardened by decades of training.
“Minister Li said no, sir. He refuses to leave. You can’t kidnap him. That’s illegal. The Dutch won’t allow it. They’ll stop you at the airport. Don’t do it, sir.”
Vandel knocked away his deputy’s arm. People in the lobby were pounding on the backstage door, demanding entrance. The roulette ball was slowing on the wheel, about to fall into red or black.
“Stand aside, Harris, goddamn it. Now.”
“No,” said Chang. “I refuse to cooperate, sir. This is illegal.”
“Which side are you on, you fucker?” screamed Vandel. The police were banging hard on the door now. They would be inside in a few more seconds.
“Neither,” said Chang. “Both.”
The backstage door came off its hinges with a rip of splintering wood. The Dutch police entered the room, guns drawn, followed by Willem of the Dutch gendarmerie and two Chinese military officers in uniform from the Chinese consulate.
“Sir?” barked the leader of Vandel’s SOF team, seeking guidance from his boss.
Vandel’s eyes narrowed, as he weighed the odds.
“Stand down,” he said.
The CIA deputy director for operations turned to the commander of the Dutch police unit. He spoke to him in a low voice, confidentially.
“There has been a terrible mistake here,” he said. “It’s a matter of national security. I can explain everything to the AIVD.”
The Dutch police commander said that an officer of the Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service was already on the way.
As the two men were speaking, the uniformed Chinese officers had approached Minister Li Zian and stood on either side of him. An observer might have thought that they were protecting him, but Li’s posture told another story.
40.
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
John Vandel tried to cover his mistakes. The public announcement of Denise Ford’s indictment was played by reporters friendly to the agency as a triumph of counter-espionage that had exposed a Chinese mole in the heart of American intelligence. The leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees were briefed in detail and informed about the CIA’s secret campaign to undermine and topple the Ministry of State Security in Beijing. Rather than ask embarrassing questions, the members of Congress competed to appear on national television to offer inside details of a case on which the CIA and FBI were refusing to comment.
Li Zian reappeared in China. He was home less than a week before he was arrested. A commentary in China Daily said that investigators had discovered that Li’s personal mistakes had led to the exposure of the Chinese penetration agent within American intelligence. A magazine that was known to have close ties to the Commission for Discipline Inspection published a story alleging that Li had maintained secret contacts with the CIA himself and may have acted as their agent. The magazine also alleged that Li had maintained foreign bank accounts and that he was the latest member of the dirty Shanghai bang, or “Shanghai clique,” that had corrupted the Ministry of State Security.
Several days after Li’s arrest, a new minister was named to head the Ministry of State Security. He was a PLA officer who had for many years represented the Second Department on the liaison committee of the Central Military Commission. As the new minister took office, he announced that the Ministry of State Security would henceforth operate more closely with the PLA, under the direction of the Central Military Commission.
A commentator at the South China Morning Post, who was known to have senior contacts in Beijing, wrote that the Ministry of State Security had, in effect, been abolished as an independent intelligence agency. The article quoted Warren Winkle, a former U.S. government official, who was now working as an adviser to the foreign ministry of Singapore.
Late one afternoon, John Vandel called a number in Seattle. He had news for Jason Schmidt, the chief executive of the computer company called Quantum Engineering Dynamics.
“Congratulations, my friend,” said Vandel. “On authority of the Director, you have been awarded the Distinguished Intelligence Medal. The citation reads as follows: ‘For performance of outstanding services or for achievement of a distinctly exceptional nature in a duty or responsibility, the results of which constitute a major contribution to the mission of the Agency.’ ”
“Wow,” said Schmidt, momentarily at a loss for words. “When can I get my medal?”
“You can’t, actually. It’s classified. The medal will be held in a vault here for you. But I will be sending you a certificate that, although it doesn’t mention the medal by name, notes your exceptional service. There’s also a large financial reward, but you have to sign some paperwork to get that.”
“What about my quantum computer? I hope you’re not going to put that in a vault.”
“Oh, no. We’d like to buy every machine you’ve got. Although, technically, I’m told we’re not describing it as a quantum computer, even though it does quantum things.”
“It is. And it is not,” said Schmidt solemnly. “What do you want to use it for?”
“Pattern recognition, mostly,” laughed Vandel. “You proved your point. And for encryption, too. The other side of the coin. Our people think your machine is better at jumbling than un-jumbling. But you’ll figure out other applications
. You just can’t sell them to anyone else. Ever.”
“What happens to all the other quantum researchers? All the different labs and contractors and project teams. Are you buying them out, too?”
“Let’s just say that we have a lot of money to spend on national security. If people are confused about what works and what doesn’t, that’s fine, better, even. They can go down all the rabbit holes. Our Chinese friends may think they know all our secrets about quantum computing, but they don’t understand the biggest one: Which is that we already did it. Sort of.”
“You’ll be lying,” said the CEO. “But I guess that’s your job. For you people, something really can be zero and one at the same time.”
“That’s where we live,” said Vandel. “If people want simple answers, they should call the State Department.”
A week later, a small fleet of trucks lined up outside the wire-fenced QED office on the southern shore of Lake Washington. Half a dozen FBI agents supervised a team of government employees whose uniforms didn’t specify where they worked. This anonymous team packed and loaded every machine in Schmidt’s laboratory, along with the peripheral equipment, monitors, backup systems, and research library. The trucks headed south in a convoy.
Most of Schmidt’s senior researchers transferred to the company’s new location at the campus of Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in northern California. They became government employees; they disappeared from social media; they had jobs and ideas and dreams, but they couldn’t talk about them anymore.
Jason Schmidt refused to sign the documents that the government required as a condition for receiving a generous, multimillion-dollar bonus for the work he had done. He hired an attorney and, at that point, his negotiations with the government became adversarial. After a few more months of sparring, the legal talks collapsed.
Schmidt tried to send several messages to “Mr. Green” at Langley, Virginia, but the emails bounced and the letters were returned. All that Schmidt wanted to say was that he was grateful for the opportunity to have been helpful to his country and was happy now to be free once again to invent and create.
The Quantum Spy Page 33
