Winter Kill 2 - China Invades Australia

by Gene Skellig

  “Excuse me, Sir! Which way do I go for my connecting flight to Darwin?” he asked.

  “Just follow the signs to the Domestic Flights, and then to your gate, C22. You can’t go wrong, Mate!” said the agent.

  “Thanks!” the black man said with a smile, hefting his green duffle-bag over his shoulder and lugging his suitcase with his other hand.

  Fang picked up on the Canadian Flag sewn onto the black man’s duffle bag, and another stuck on his suitcase. Has to be an American, he thought, probably from the 3rd Marines. Major Fang had taken great care to know the order of battle of all enemy formations within the Asia-Pacific area of operations, his personal Area of Operational Responsibility. He knew that when American servicemen travelled in civilian attire they were under orders to keep their American military identity a secret, to avoid being identified by terrorists and foreign intelligence operatives like Fang. The Canadian flag was a dead give-way, as was the black man’s short-cropped, military haircut and extremely muscular build. The only thing that Fang found unusual was the soldier’s friendliness. That was unusual for a Marine. Maybe he really is a Canadian. Unlikely, but possible, thought Fang.

  He turned back to where he had last seen the tall Chinese. The fellow was gone, leaving Fang to stare into the empty space where he had been moments before. And then it hit him.

  That tall guy must be from that basketball team from the 41st Group Army. Yeah, that’s it! He’s definitely that player from the 123rd Mechanized, in Guigang, Fang realized. How could such a putz be part of such a prestigious unit as the 123rd? They’re a ready-reaction force, crack troops. He must be good at something, I guess.

  Fang recalled the scandal several years before, when a Chinese military basketball team, the Bayi Rockets, had started a brawl with the visiting Georgetown University “Hoyas” from Washington, DC. As Fang passed through customs on autopilot, he thought about the scandal which had taken place during the visit of the American Vice President. He did not even worry whether the Inspector might notice the latex skin-patch covering the ugly scar on his face or ask to see the contents of his suitcase – and discover Fang’s own Laozi statuette.

  After breezing through Customs he retrieved his suitcase and moved through the arrival doors to the public side of the terminal. With the most dangerous phase of his mission now behind him, Major Fang first re-acquired and then kept an eye on the tall Chinese, keeping him under surveillance out of habit. Yes, the bumbler made it through Customs, Despite his incompetence.

  Fang was good at spying on Chinese nationals abroad. Two years of deep cover for the External Intelligence Directorate, penetrating the Australian Falun Gong movement, had made Fang particularly good at monitoring Chinese nationals abroad.

  Maybe if they had been up against an American military team, the brawl could have had some purpose. But to start a fight with students from Georgetown University – and to lose the game as well as the fight – had only brought shame to our nation. Maybe that goofy-looking bean-pole was the one who wound up in a neck brace. Hope he’s better at espionage and recruiting Dragonflies than he is at sports diplomacy, thought Fang as he handed his suitcase to a taxi driver.

  After watching the tall man depart in another taxi, no doubt headed for his assignment, Fang made a mental note of the date and time, along with the make, license, color and company name of the man’s taxi. Fang then turned his attention to the next phase of his operation, already having filed away the arrival terminal observations into his highly organized brain.

  Fang had a particular obsession with the most minute of details, a habit which had saved his skin on more than a few occasions.

  1

  DIPLOMACY

  Three identical GMC Suburbans swooshed through the silent early-morning streets of Canberra. As the motorcade made good time on its way to the airport, two CIA agents had a speed-meeting in one of the vehicles. Time was ticking away quickly and the two men knew they had to make every moment count.

  “Enough about the Secretary of State. Let’s move on to other business,” said Rylan O’Connor, Station Chief of the CIA detachment in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory. They led a small team that fed information into the CIA’s Office of South Asia Analysis, OSA. As the eyes and ears for OSA in the region, they had a wide range of duties and travelled extensively. Typically, one of them would travel on assignment while the other would remain at the US embassy in Canberra. This made keeping each other up-to-date on various files difficult, so any chance for a face-to-face discussion - even a short car ride - was an opportunity to go over the most pressing files.

  They had just finished going over the impact of some directives that had come in, from headquarters, when the Station Chief suggested they go over the regional issues.

  “Good idea. We don’t have much time before your flight. OK. So next is the Canadian Military Attaché in Tokyo,” said Carl, the deputy Station-Chief.

  “I’m still not sure if he presents us with much of an opportunity. What have you learned?”

  “Well, his Military Attaché work has been quite boring, with nothing controversial at all. But then suddenly he was given this crazy new direction from Ottawa, and everything changed.”

  “You’re talking about the currency play? Have the guys in Pine Gap intercepted any more on that?”

  “Nope, but Tokyo Station has, from the Bank of Japan, and sources within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. We have the BOJ’s summary of activities of a few leading industrialists and bankers who have been paraded through the Canadian Embassy. It’s all in the thumb-drive I gave you.”

  “So what’s the short version?” O’Connor asked crisply, calculating that he had only a few minutes left before arriving at the airport to board the US Air Force Boeing 757. The corners of his mouth tightened in his habitual facial expression.

  The Deputy Chief replied in a long, steady burst. His immobile, wide-eyed face betrayed little of the nervous energy that animated him. “They’re throwing their new currency around like drunken sailors. They’ve made a series of deals that seem to have absolutely no due diligence, and no ‘net benefit’ to Canada.”

  “I thought as much. It’s in line with what we got from Treasury. It’s all about getting their new gold-backed currency into play on foreign exchange markets as soon as it’s released.”

  “So what’s our position? Is this against our interests, or not?”

  “Washington still has not decided, but for now we have to leave this one alone. We may need some leverage on the guy. What do we have?”

  “On the MA? Not much. Well, there is that boat project.”

  “Boat? I haven’t read about that.”

  “He’s been personally overseeing some sort of procurement project, with the Yamamoto Corporation. You know, the one that had that deal for access to ports in the Canadian Arctic?”

  “I thought that one was dead, along with the rest of the Japanese economy.”

  “It was. But Tatsuo Yamamoto had this prototype, almost completed. Seems that they are using that as another way to pump twenty million or so into the Yamamoto Corporation.”

  “These are small numbers. What of it? What’s the angle?”

  “Don’t’ know yet, but Tokyo is working on it. There seems to be a personal nexus here.”

  “Why do we think that?”

  “Because on two of the trips, he brought his wife.”

  “Well, it’s not uncommon for a diplomat to take his wife on a side trip. Where to, Osaka, right? She probably did a bunch of shopping. Isn’t she something of a culture vulture?”

  “Yes, she is. But she did nothing. No shopping, and no visits to any other venues. Just the visit to the erection shop.”

  O’Connor let out a tight little laugh, as much as he would permit himself these days. Then he frowned at his subordinate, awaiting a definition of “erection shop”.

  “That’s how it translates from the Japanese. It’s where they finish off a ship, installing the mast an
d other tall items of the superstructure,” replied the Carl.

  “So what’s so important about the ship? Why would a Military Attaché’s wife be so interested in it?”

  “That’s what Tokyo is going to find out for us. All we know so far is that it has some unusual technology incorporated in the design, and that a one-in-thirty model of it has been tested in a wave pool. The thing is designed to survive sea-state five – typhoon-force winds. It seems to have some self-defensive features, but we’ve got almost nothing on it. It’s not a military craft, however. Just some strange, tough little vessel. And we have no hint as to why the Military Attaché is taking such a personal interest in it. But it may be an opening. Other than that, the guy is clean, and we’ve got no leverage on him.

  “So when do they hit the erection shop?”

  “That’s the problem. The security at the Yamamoto Corporation is tighter than at Fort Knox. They simply can’t get in, without killing anybody, anyhow. ”

  “Is that it? Stalled? Or do they have a strategy?”

  “They’ve asked the British for help. Apparently the Brits have some particularly capable asset in Osaka.”

  “Crap. I hate it when we have to ask the Brits for help. It always comes at a cost.”

  “True, but they sure do have some good spies, like that James Bond type we met in Moscow. Classy act, that guy.”

  Just before moving on to the next file, the Station Chief had an insight. The corners of his mouth relaxed, but his eyes narrowed.

  “You know what, Carl?” he asked his deputy.

  “What?” the subordinate said, without looking.

  “With everybody going ape over the economic collapse that’s hit the region, and all this talk about war, maybe having access to a sturdy little ship like that would be of personal interest to me, if I were in his shoes.”

  Carl looked up from his files. “Yeah? What for?”

  “For getting the fuck out of Dodge.”

  The Deputy stared at his boss for just a second. This was getting close to laying it all out open, something seldom done in conversation at the Agency these days. Doing so could be seen as an acknowledgement of implied trust; or of weakness.

  “I guess that would be an option,” he replied to his superior. He trusted his boss; he knew he was a pro. Inwardly he felt relief.

  “But is this guy some sort of End-Of-The-World-As-We-Know-It type of survivalist?”

  “Not at all,” the senior agent continued. “I’ve seen his file. He’s a sharp guy, with a stellar career in their Air Force. And he’s posted in the middle of an economic shit-storm in Japan. Maybe he’s just got his eyes wide open, and knows how difficult it could become to evacuate his wife, and maybe his staff, if things take a sudden turn for the worst in Japan. After all, their posturing with China keeps getting more dangerous. But maybe that’s our line. Talk to Tokyo, but I think we could set him up to be discredited as a survivalist nut, a doomsayer on Japan. If we need to pressure the Canucks on Japan, we could use him as a liability, an embarrassment. Anyhow, there could be something here.”

  The Deputy Chief looked back down at his files. “So what’s next? You’ve got less than 4 minutes!”

  The corners tightened on the Station Chief’s mouth again. “We’ve got that Australian politician in Kuala Lumpur.”

  “Who, the one with the gambling problem?”

  “Yea. We’ve got him eating out of our hands now. His handler says that he’s obsessed with making a big score, but the guy never knows when to quit. He’s into us for over a million dollars already, and we’ve documented lots of nasty sex with the whores we threw at him too.”

  “Great. But he’s kept out of the press? And Canberra knows nothing of it?”

  “Nothing. On both counts. The guy somehow keeps doing his job, and KLMP is not a problem spot for the Aussies. They’ve got their attention focussed on the Indonesian threat, and their problems with terrorism. So the guy’s been left under the radar.”

  “So no change on the plan for him?”

  “Well, we may not need to use him after all.”

  “Why not? Isn’t the vote on their new White Paper coming up? Don’t we need his vote?”

  “That’s the thing. Both sides of the Australian House of Representatives are getting very hawkish. The Prime Minister is not going to have any problems with the new Defense Spending bill, despite the hung parliament. So the controlling votes of the half-dozen Greens is now irrelevant. The bill will sail through.”

  “So we can save this asset for another day. Perhaps when our basing rights comes up again?”

  “That’s what Langley says. Our priority now is overcoming local opposition to our basing issues. We need to lay down another five to ten thousand men in Australia, along with some firepower which the Aussie citizenry will find contentious. So we have to make opposition to our personnel basing in Australia go away. That’s what Sec State was in Australia for, but we still don’t’ know how successful he was.”

  “Well, for now, we have to assume that our risk tolerance is about to be reduced to near zero. We’ll be expected to make sure that the Greens and other Commies here in Australia are shut down. We can’t have any more of those protests, like we did when our last President increased the number of Marines up in Darwin. So how are we doing on the Green List, anyhow?”

  “We’ve made progress on a few at the top, but it’s very difficult to get close to the real ringleaders. They can smell us a mile away, and would turn any approaches into their own media opportunity. That’s too risky for us, as we’ve been keeping a low profile here.”

  “Well, if I read the tea-leaves right, we are about to be given a free hand. Make some contingency plans for what we could do against the Greens and other long-hairs if we are given carte blanche.”

  “How far do you think we will go?”

  “All the way. Money. Sex. Extortion.”

  “What’s new about that? We’re already doing that all over the place in Australia.”

  “Back it up with violence,” said the Station Chief, coldly. He looked out the window at the scenery speeding by.

  “Are you serious? If the rules of engagement change that much, you know that also means people will die,” said the Deputy, concerned about the turn things may be taking.

  “You have no idea. We’ve been frozen out of so many countries in this area, and Australia is absolutely essential now,” O’Connor said, and then seemed to be taken away with his thoughts. He had already briefed Carl on how badly things had gone during his meetings in Jakarta with the BIN – Badan Intelijen Negara – Indonesia’s intelligence agency. Despite gifts of another 24 Bell 412 and 36 UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters, medium range missiles and upgraded radar systems, along with fully outfitting the Indonesian Army Strategic Reserve Command with infantry fighting vehicles and artillery – over three billion dollars in military aid – the United States was losing the ear of the Indonesian political elites. They seemed to have traded their sovereignty for increased business and political ties with mainland China. Despite three years of personally cultivating his contacts within BIN, O’Connor had less than a half-dozen solid contacts that were still in the anti-Chinese faction of the Indonesian intelligence community. What with China building hospitals and airport runways in some of the more remote islands, and their generous infrastructure deals with Indonesian export sector, all but giving Indonesia free oil & gas facilities in exchange for long-term guaranteed supply, Indonesia was embracing China’s growing influence. Despite a long history of proud independence, they were even participating in small but strategically worrisome joint military exercises with the Chinese navy. All of this flashed as a strained look on his face, before he resumed his reply.

  “It’s not official yet, just what I’m hearing from the guys with Sec State. The gloves are coming off, Carl, and we’ll be the first to know. Work up some mischief against the top five Greens, their loved ones, anybody we can use to shut them down completely. Throw in som
e of the left-leaning media for insurance. We may have to throw one or two under the bus, Putin style, so that the rest of the media understand that anti-American sentiment is taboo. Like we did back home back in 2000, silence of the lambs, as it were.”

  The Deputy leaned forward in his seat. “Shit! That’s serious interference in the Australian Secret Intelligence Services back yard. Do we engage ASIS on this, when the time comes?”

  “Only if they ask. And they won’t. Whether they get wind of it or not, the word is going to be plausible deniability. As long as their government is not implicated, they won’t point at us either. So make it as quiet as you can, but don’t worry about ASIS. They’ll be told to turn a blind eye, or we’ll poke them in the eye if it comes to that. Just be ready to execute – pun intended – when I get back from Washington next week. I’ll have the Director’s approval in hand,” the Station Chief said, as the motorcade whooshed through the gate and rolled to a stop adjacent to the waiting business jet.

  “Rylan, what’s behind all of this? And I don’t mean the geopolitics. What’s coming? What’s the event that’ll stir things up?” Carl asked his boss, deep concern evident in his voice. At the last, O’Connor’s emotions were finally to the surface. The impassive mask that had been his face throughout the trip had softened into an expression of worry.

  The Chief leaned forward like a bull steadying itself for an impact. “Things are really heating up in Washington. What with what President Parker is about to do.”

  “What is that? She’s already done so many radical things. From out here, it looks like her administration is desperate. Are things really that bad?”