Threat Vector

by Tom Clancy

  “Kill me?”

  Ding nodded. “You saw what happened in Georgetown?”

  Wicks’s eyes widened. “Yeah?”

  “Same guys that you’ve been working for, Todd. What happened in Georgetown is just an example of how they go about tying up loose ends. Might want to keep that in mind.”

  “Oh my God.”

  Chavez looked out the window at Wicks’s wife. She was pushing the children on the swings and looking back into the kitchen window, no doubt wondering who the two men were that her husband did not want her to meet. Chavez gave her a nod and then turned around to Todd Wicks. “You don’t deserve her, Wicks. Maybe you want to spend the rest of your life trying to rectify that obvious fact.”

  Chavez and Biery left through the garage door without another word.

  SIXTY

  Gavin Biery and Domingo Chavez arrived at Jack Ryan, Jr.’s apartment just after ten o’clock in the evening. Jack was still under suspension, but Gavin and Ding wanted to fill him in on the day’s events.

  Chavez was surprised when Ryan said he did not want to talk in his house. Jack handed each man a Corona, then led them back downstairs to the parking lot, and then across the street to a golf course. The three of them sat in the dark at a picnic table and sipped beer along a fairway shrouded in mist.

  After Biery told Ryan about the visit to Wicks’s house and the revelation that Chinese intelligence agents had a hand in putting the virus on the Hendley Associates computer network, Jack searched for some explanation. “Is there any way at all that these guys weren’t working for the MSS? Could they have been foot soldiers for Tong that slipped into mainland China to compromise this computer guy?”

  Ding shook his head. “This happened in Shanghai. Center couldn’t bug a hotel room, bring a big crew of cops, uniformed and plain-clothed, and pull this off without the knowledge of the MSS. Hotels in China, especially luxury and business-class hotels, are all ordered by law to do the bidding of the MSS. They are bugged, surveilled, staffed with agents working for state security. It just is not possible this was anything other than an MSS operation.”

  “But the virus is Zha’s RAT. The same one on the Istanbul Drive. The same one on the UAV hack. The only explanation is that Zha and Tong were working for China in Hong Kong when they were under the protection of the Triads.”

  Chavez nodded. “And this also means that the Chinese government knows about Hendley Associates. Just think about what’s on our network that they infiltrated. Names and home addresses of our employees, data that we’ve pulled from CIA and NSA and ODNI chatter. Obvious linkages to anyone with half a brain that we are an off-the-books spy shop.”

  Jack said, “The good news, on the other hand, is what is not on the network.”

  “Explain,” said Chavez.

  “We don’t record our activities. There’s nothing on there that talks about any of the hits we’ve done, the operations we’ve been engaged in. Yes, there is more than enough there to target us or to prove we’re getting access to classified data, but nothing to tie us to any particular operation.”

  Ding gulped his Corona and shivered. “Still, anybody in China picks up a phone and calls The Washington Post, and we’re toast.”

  “Why hasn’t that already happened?” Jack asked.

  “No idea. I don’t get it.”

  Ryan gave up trying to figure that one out. He asked, “Has there been any more talk about sending operatives over to Beijing to meet with Red Hand?”

  Chavez said, “Granger is working on getting us into the country. As soon as we have a way in, me and Driscoll are wheels up.”

  Jack felt incredibly isolated. He wasn’t working, he wasn’t talking to Melanie, and now he did not even want to communicate with his mom and dad, because he felt, at any moment, the Chinese would reveal information about him that could bring down his father’s presidency.

  Gavin Biery had been silent this whole time, but suddenly he stood up from the picnic table and said, “I see it.”

  “You see what?” asked Ding.

  “I can see the big picture now. And it’s not pretty.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Gavin said, “Tong’s organization is a group that works in the interests of its host nation, uses the assets of its host nation to some degree, but it is a sub rosa outfit that is self-directing. I’d also bet they are self-funding, since they can generate so much cash from cybercrime. Moreover, Center’s organization has the incredible technological means that he uses to get intelligence to fulfill his mission.”

  Jack saw it now, too. “Holy shit. They are us! They are almost the same as The Campus. A deniable proxy operation. The Chinese could not let the cyberattacks lead back to them. They set Center up with his own operation, like my dad did with The Campus, to free them up to be more aggressive.”

  Chavez added, “And they have been watching us since Istanbul.”

  “No, Ding,” Jack said, his voice suddenly grave. “Not since Istanbul. Before Istanbul. Way before.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Jack put his head in his hands. “Melanie Kraft is a Center asset.”

  Chavez looked at Biery and saw that he already knew. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “She bugged my phone. That’s how Center knew Dom and I were in Miami investigating the command server.”

  Chavez could not believe it. “She bugged your phone? Are you sure?”

  Jack just nodded and looked off into the mist.

  “That’s why we are sitting out here in the cold?”

  Jack shrugged. “I’ve got to figure she’s planted bugs all over my house. I don’t know, I haven’t swept for them yet.”

  “Have you talked to her? Confronted her?”

  “No.”

  Ding said, “She’s CIA, Ryan. She’s passed a hell of a lot more background checks than you have. I don’t believe she’s working for the fucking Chicoms.”

  Ryan slammed his hand on the table. “Did you hear what I just said? She bugged my phone. And not just some off-the-shelf spy shit. Gavin found Zha’s RAT, or a version of it, on the device, along with a GPS tracker.”

  “But how do you know she wasn’t duped somehow? Tricked into planting it.”

  “Ding, she’s been acting suspiciously for a long time. Ever since I got back from Pakistan in January. There have been signs; I was just too whipped to see them.” He paused. “I was a damn idiot.”

  “’Mano, there are reasons to be suspicious of you. A girl as smart as her has a bullshit meter cranked up to eleven. As for the bug on your phone . . .” Chavez shook his head. “She’s being played. Somebody socially engineered that. I find it hard to believe she is a spy for China.”

  Biery said, “I agree.”

  Jack said, “I don’t know why she did it. I only know that she did it. And I know I am the one who compromised our entire operation letting her do it.”

  Ding said, “Everybody at The Campus has got loved ones on the outside who don’t know what we do. We’re at risk every time we let someone new into our life. The question is, what are you going to do about it?”

  Jack turned his hands up on the table. “I’m open to suggestions.”

  “Good. You’re on suspension, which you can use to your advantage. You’ve got some time. Use it to find out who the hell is pulling her strings.”

  “Okay.”

  “I want you to make a covert entry on her place, and do it carefully. She’s not a spook, she’s an analyst, but don’t take any chances. Be on the lookout for any countermeasures or telltales. See what you can find, but don’t bug her place. If she is working for the other side, she might be running security sweeps and detect it.”

  Jack nodded. “Okay. I’ll slip in tomorrow morning when she goes to wor
k.”

  “Good,” said Chavez. “You might want to follow her for the next couple of evenings. See if she’s doing anything out of the ordinary. Meeting anyone.”

  Gavin added, “Eating Chinese food.”

  It was a joke, but Ding and Jack just responded to it with cold stares.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Not the time.”

  Chavez continued: “Obviously give your laptop to Gavin to have it checked out. We’ll have a team from Science and Technology on the fifth floor come by your place and sweep for bugs. Ditto your car.”

  Gavin said, “I checked his car earlier today—it’s clean.”

  Chavez nodded. “Good.”

  Ding’s phone chirped on his belt, and he grabbed it. “Yeah? Hey, Sam. Okay. I’m in the neighborhood, actually. I’ll be right there.”

  Chavez got up from the table quickly, draining his beer while he stood. “I’m going in to the office. Granger thinks he has a way to get me and Driscoll into China.”

  “Good luck,” Ryan said.

  Ding looked at the younger man, then put his hand on his shoulder. “Good luck to you, kid. Keep an open mind with Miss Kraft. Don’t let your emotions convict her before you figure out what’s going on. That said, even if she is not wittingly working for Center, she is another piece of the puzzle. You have to exploit that, ’mano. If you do this right, we can find out from her more about Center than we already know.”

  “I’ll get it done.”

  Chavez nodded to Biery, then turned and disappeared in the mist.

  —

  Dr. K. K. Tong stood at desk thirty-four, looking over the shoulder of the controller as she typed into Cryptogram. He knew most managers were intimidated by his presence at their desk while they worked, but this woman was extremely competent, and she did not seem to mind.

  He was satisfied with her performance so far.

  He had been making his rounds through the Ghost Ship when she called him on his VOIP headset and asked him to come over. Tong supposed he walked some ten kilometers a day between all the nodes in the building, and on top of this he probably had somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty daily videoconferences.

  When the woman at desk thirty-four finished what she was working on she turned around to face him, began to stand, but he stopped her. “Remain seated,” he said. “You wanted to see me?”

  “Yes, Center.”

  “What is happening at Hendley Associates?”

  “We lost tracking and remote access to Jack Ryan’s phone on Saturday. This afternoon our deep persistent access into the company network ceased. It appears as if they detected the intrusion and took the entire network offline.”

  “The entire network?”

  “Yes. There is no traffic coming from Hendley Associates. Their e-mail server is not accepting messages. It looks as if they simply pulled the plug on everything.”

  “Interesting.”

  “My field asset, Valentin Kovalenko, is very good. I can have him meet again with his agent, Darren Lipton, and force him to apply pressure to his agent, Melanie Kraft, to find out how the intrusion was detected.”

  Tong shook his head. “No. Hendley Associates was a curiosity. We hoped to learn their role in the American intelligence hierarchy. But then they became a problem in Hong Kong. Then came Miami, where they were even more of a nuisance. Our measures against them have been insufficient. I do not have time to devote to unraveling the mystery of Hendley Associates. If they have detected our presence on their network, then they might have more information about us than we know. It is time for larger measures.”

  “Yes, Center. As was always the case, we can covertly report them to the American authorities, or direct one of our proxy assets in the American press to investigate them.”

  Tong shook his head. “They know about us. Revealing them to the world reveals us to the world. No, we can’t do that.”

  “Yes, Center.”

  Tong thought for a moment more and then said, “I will call in Crane.”

  “Yes, Center. Shall I end our relationship with Lipton?”

  “No. He is FBI. He might still be useful. His agent, though . . . the girlfriend of the President’s son?”

  “Melanie Kraft.”

  “Yes. She has proved worthless, and she can compromise our asset Lipton. Send her details to Crane. I will have him remove that compromise.”

  “Yes, Center.”

  SIXTY-ONE

  Domingo Chavez and Sam Driscoll sat in Gerry Hendley’s office with Gerry and Sam Granger. For the first time in the two years Chavez had worked for The Campus, Hendley’s laptop was not open on his desk. Instead he’d zipped it up in a leather bag and put the bag in his closet. It seemed a little paranoid to Ding, but there was a lot of that going around these days.

  It was after eleven p.m., but no one commented on the late hour. The only topic of discussion was the potential to follow Mary Pat Foley’s request for help inside China.

  Granger said, “We’ve found a way to get you into Beijing, and I talked to the Red Hand representative and let him know we might be requesting their help.”

  Driscoll asked, “What’s our access?”

  “The Propaganda Department of the PRC is conducting a major charm offensive with other nations around the world. Trying to rally support for China and pull support away from the United States. They are inviting foreign media outlets to come to Beijing to learn about China from a Chinese perspective, not what Hollywood says about it.”

  Chavez said, “I’ve used media credentials as cover for status on more than one occasion in my career.”

  “Yeah, the Propaganda Department is pledging free movement of the press in China throughout this conflict.”

  Chavez said, “Yeah? I’ve heard other dictatorships say the same shit.”

  Granger conceded the point. “You can figure that every step you take will be with a government minder on your arm and clandestine surveillance will be monitoring your every move.”

  Driscoll said, “That sounds like it might interfere with our plans to work with a group of cutthroat criminals to link up with a group of armed rebels.”

  Chavez chuckled.

  Granger laughed, too, then said, “Red Hand has a plan to get you away from the minders.” He looked down at his notepad. “In Beijing the Ministry of Culture will offer you the opportunity to go on a number of media excursions. One of the excursions will be to the Great Wall. There is a main location where they visit, and a secondary, less traveled location. The name of it is listed here. You are to ask to see that portion of the wall.”

  Driscoll asked, “And then what?”

  “Somehow they will get you away from the minders, at which point they will take you to the rebels.”

  “Tell me what you know about the rebel force.”

  “One of their number is a cop, and he’s been alerting them to police crackdowns, government movements, and the like. They have been doing small-scale harassing actions against the government out in the provinces. They set some government vehicles on fire, blew up a couple of rail lines.

  “So far Chinese state-run media has covered it up. No surprise there. But they are planning on acting next inside of Beijing, where there is a lot of international media and foreigners who can spread the word. That’s their main goal, starting a small fire that will grow and grow like the protests grew.

  “They claim to have a well-trained force of over three hundred rebels, as well as small arms. They want to hit back against the Chicoms.”

  Chavez was incredulous. “They want to take on the Army? Are they insane?”

  Driscoll echoed the sentiment: “Excuse me if I don’t faint from excitement. They sound like lambs to the slaughter.”

  Granger shook his head. “Obviously they are not going
to topple the government with a counterinsurgency. Not with three hundred guys. Hell, not with three hundred thousand guys. But maybe we can use them.”

  “Use them for what?” Ding asked.

  “If a shooting war starts, Mary Pat wants assets in the capital city. These rebels are in place and might be just what we need. It’s hard to get a straight read on how successful they’ve been. The Chinese government makes out like they are a couple of mosquito bites, and the rebels are proclaiming that they are a gnat’s-ass distance from toppling the Communist government.”

  Driscoll groaned. “I think we have to go on the assumption that, on this one issue, the official word from Beijing is closer to the truth.”

  “I agree. But even if the rebels aren’t exactly an organized and elite fighting force, if we get over there with the right equipment and intelligence, we will provide a force multiplication effect.”

  Ding asked, “What are their politics?”

  Granger shrugged. “Confused. They are against the government—on that they all agree. Otherwise they are just a disparate band of students. Plus there are some criminals in the mix, folks on the run from the cops, AWOL soldiers.”

  Chavez asked, “Are our document guys good enough to get us into Beijing?”

  “Yeah. We can get you into the country, but you’ll be going in light.”

  Gerry Hendley added, “Shit, you’ll be going in naked. You will be foreigners in a city that is wary of foreigners.”

  Chavez said, “We’ll need to bring Caruso back for this. He can play Italian, at least in front of the Chinese.”

  Hendley nodded, looked to Granger. Sam did not seem happy about it, but he said, “Do it. But not Ryan. Not there.”

  Chavez said, “Okay. We get Caruso, and I’ll go. What about you, Sam?”

  Driscoll was not sold. “Just trust the killers and thieves of Red Hand to take us to some untested rebel force. Is that the plan, basically?”

  Granger replied, “You don’t have to do this.”