Winter Kill 2 - China Invades Australia

by Gene Skellig

  What Zhao had been told of his actual mission was that he would deploy to New South Wales, NSW, on a Foreign Student Visa, and spend three months settling into a predictable and low-profile routine as just one of many Chinese students among the 40,000 students of the North Coast Institute of the Technical and Further Education, TAFE, campus at Port Macquarie, NSW. One detail that had been stressed was that he must take special care with a small porcelain LAOZI statuette. It had been handed to him after an inspirational speech about Yinglong, the ‘responding dragon’, that would ascend Phoenix-like from the ashes of a destroyed world and restore China to its rightful place, the ascendant master of the earth.

  Captain Zhao had been told to watch for the Yinglong signal, which had not been explained in detail, other than “you will know it when the time comes. It will relate to that first girlfriend of yours, in your village”.

  Fei Yen, flying swallow, Zhao thought.

  “Her name, in conjunction with the Yinglong, will be your activation code. Until you hear the Yinglong signal, you must not break open the Liwu, ‘gift’.”

  He was told to build a small network of friends, from the local Chinese community, who he could call upon for ‘a great adventure’, and to know as much about his assigned area as possible, but not to be seen as gathering intelligence. Just be ready to switch into high gear, when the time comes.

  Zhao had reached out to accept the ‘gift’ with reverence, as much out of his enthusiastic agreement with Colonel Huang about China’s destiny, as out of his commitment to treat the statuette with great care simply because he had been ordered to do so. It would be the most important item in his suitcase, and his entire mission hinged on his getting it through customs upon arrival in Australia. After that, he was to keep it intact for months, until he was activated, and then that he would break it apart to reveal a sheet of paper hidden inside. If it were discovered by Customs and Immigration, even if they had it translated, it would appear to be nothing more than a poem, written in archaic Chinese, that had been preserved inside the statue as some sort of prosperity trinket. His story was that it was a gift that Yingting brought from China to give a professor or other lucky recipient, in gratitude for their kindness or hospitality.

  Now, after three months of hard work at the Port Macquarie TAFE campus, Zhao had built a reputation as a hard-working student that was surprisingly socially active for a student from China. His professors found him to be infinitely curious about everything Australian, devouring every opportunity to explore, visit, or talk about a wide range of agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial enterprises. Still, the professors noted his social ineptitude, Yingting Zhao being the initiator of many an embarrassing incident. Good on paper, they thought, but in person, as in a job interview or post-graduate screening, he’d never pass muster.

  Still, his intellectual curiosity seemed to be well balanced with his vigorous fitness regime, which was unlike other Asian students. Yingting spent hours upon hours cycling up and down the hilly roads in the many forest parks inland from Port Macquarie. What he did not understand at the time was that those early rides, which he had been ordered to do before he left China, had merely been training for the much larger tour he would ultimately take, along with another agent who had been put in place in Southport, farther up the coast, in Queensland.

  After being activated and breaking open their Laozi statuettes, and wiping lemon juice over the archaic poem to reveal the orders, written in invisible ink, the two “Little Dragons” had immediately understood the importance of their missions and why there had been so much emphasis on physical training back in China; the reason behind all the paranoia about operational security.

  As per their orders, they had sought each other out, using the code-words and duress codes they had been given. The two soldiers had never met before, but recognized the experience, focus and confidence that told them that they were peers. Intensely dedicated to China, the professional spies rolled up their sleeves and got down to work without wasting any time socializing or enjoying the many distractions available to them in Australia.

  Together, they had spent ten days cycling from Newcastle, New South Wales, to Southport, Queensland - but not along Highway One, the coast road, which would have been a mere seven hundred kilometers. Rather than the easy route, they had been ordered to follow a specific route and to stay at specified locations along the way. Their route took them as far inland as Bourke, NSW, and Cunnamulla, QLD stretching their journey to over two thousand kilometers of sun-baked, neck-burning, tongue-drying torture.

  The athletic soldiers loved it, putting in up to two hundred kilometers per day. Fortunately they did not have to carry much in their panniers, other than a few changes of clothes, water, and a range of energy snacks. Unlike touring cyclists who they met on the road, who had saddle-bags loaded with camping gear or had their equipment carried by a support vehicle following them, the Chinese agents operated independent of any support and yet travelled extremely light, knowing that they would find food and lodging every night. To the recreational cyclists they encountered, the two Chinese men seemed a bit odd - one man being extraordinarily tall and thin, like a twig; the other short and muscular, like a tree trunk.

  Their task was to pay a surprise visit, to check on the status of two dozen other Little Dragon agents. Most of these agents were low level agents who had not been given anywhere near the level of operational details as Zhao and his counterpart from Southport. But each had been given a clear tactical objective, from a military installation, piece of critical infrastructure, civil defense or law enforcement agency, or simply an operationally important cross-roads. During their inspection tour they were shown the digital photographs, maps and detailed record of observations of personal movements, timetables and other aspects of the regional Little Dragon’s assignments.

  They were also briefed on the number and status of each of the dozen or so “Dragonflies” that each Little Dragon had been ordered to recruit in their assigned area. Most of these Dragonflies were Chinese expats who happened to be in the community assigned to the Little Dragon, such as legitimate international students or businesspeople who had no idea that China was about to make an audacious move for Australia’s commodities. What they did understand, when carefully felt out by the Little Dragon who had identified them as potential recruits, was that once they had been approached they really only had two choices: enroll in the local network of Dragonflies that the Little Dragon was putting together, or face the consequences.

  Invariably, these Chinese citizens, with loved ones back home in mainland China, knew what that meant. The few who showed even the slightest hesitation to do their part for the cause had been unceremoniously murdered.

  Very few Dragonflies were recruited from the general population of Australian Chinese, however. The exceptions to this rule were a few unhappy young Australian Chinese, found to be susceptible to the intoxicating propaganda, or to drugs, sex, alcohol, or a variety of other ‘perks’ the Little Dragons tempted them with and were recruited. Zhao had met a few of these Australian traitors, and he despised them. He saw what they were doing as a reflection on their character. In his mind, their disloyalty to their birthplace was not erased by their vigorous enthusiasm for the Motherland, the Zuguo. But they could have their uses, he had decided, even if I would not personally trust a single one of them. They’re not really Chinese anymore, after all.

  The final topic discussed with each of the regional Little Dragons in Zhao and his stocky counterpart’s two areas of operational responsibility were the ‘key players’ in the community. In most cases, the Little Dragon had built up detailed files on the most influential civic officials, military personnel in the area, industrial and commercial players, as well as the more influential members of the Australian-Chinese community. A great many of the 500,000 ethnic Chinese citizens of Australia would be deeply conflicted when the time came, so the Little Dragons been ordered to generally avoid approaching Australian-born Chin
ese directly, other than to gather intelligence on them for use during later stages of the coming invasion.

  Captain Zhao was generally pleased. However he did encounter a Little Dragon, in Dubbo, who seemed to have fallen off the rails, expressing concerns about what was about to happen. As per his orders as a regional commander of what was essentially a ‘Fifth Column’, Zhao had taken the man out to a remote area, along with one of the man’s more promising Dragonflies. Once in the secluded area, Zhao pulled out a pistol and pointed it at the Little Dragon.

  “On your knees,” he hissed at his comrade, who obeyed in confusion. Then Zhao pulled a short cord from his pocket and, handing it to the Dragonfly, simply said, “Do it.”

  The Dragonfly immediately understood what that meant. Without a word, the young novice wrapped the cord around the Little Dragon’s throat and began strangling his mentor. Zhao watched with pleasure, smiling as the Little Dragon struggled in his death throes. The Dragonfly, executing his former recruiter, would then take over his mission, the blood on his hands proving his loyalty to the cause.

  After completing the regional inspection together, the two Little Dragon agents parted company and turned their focus to their own tactical missions; in Zhao’s case, at Port Macquarie. He did not know why Port Macquarie was so important, as it really was not much of a port at all. Certainly it could not accommodate a ship with much of a draft. It seemed to Zhao that the town was no more than a pleasant little city of 44,000; a sleepy, retirement-oriented place. There were no military units in the area, no industry, and no port facilities to speak of. There was not even a rail line. But his orders had been clear, and from the Port Macquarie district at large he had generated a list of thirty potential Chinese to work on, out of which he had generated a half-dozen Dragonflies which he trained for the assignment of to the coal terminal in nearby Newcastle. He was satisfied that this ‘Team One’ understood their mission: the requirement being to wait for the mysterious Yinglong signal, and to link up with follow-on forces who would arrive soon after on a Ro-Ro that would pull into the Coal Terminal full of heavy armor. It would be their job – and that of their Australian dockyard workers who Team One was to take prisoner – to offload immediately upon arrival.

  Zhao then turned his attention to training up Team Two, the section of Dragonflies he had selected for his task at the Port Macquarie airport, which was expected to be a much easier task. However, out of his desire to be praised for his good work by the senior officers that he would encounter at the second site, he wanted to be with Team Two when the time came.

  Perhaps his two assignments in Port Macquarie would prove to be more important than they appeared. He hoped, anyhow. Secrecy is the key, thought Captain Yingting Zhao. We have to be ruthless in defense of operational security, until the appointed time…

  The sort of man most feared by Captain Zhao and other Little Dragons was out there, albeit several steps behind the curve.

  His orders came from the Strategy Unit of the New South Wales Police Force’s little known Operations Group, which was responsible for evaluating the national dimension of global trends affecting the diverse range of Australian cultural communities. Many of these, such as the Chinese community, were considered ‘closed communities’, which were notoriously hard to penetrate. But for Leading Senior Constable Nicholas Lenko, the assignment seemed tailor made.

  The product of the marriage between an Australian diplomat and a white woman born and raised in China, Nick had been raised with his mother’s native language and cultural sophistication and his father’s citizenship and name as his birth-right. But it was not until he was sixteen years old that Nick’s parents finally repatriated to the Sydney area, upon his father’s retirement from the Diplomatic and Consular Corps.

  On his father’s advice, he had kept the Chinese aspect of his upbringing a secret, at least from the other recruits and instructors he had encountered at the NSW Police Academy. The information was disclosed on the Enhanced Reliability Screening form, when he had first applied for entry into the ranks of the NSW Police Force, along with the details of his residency and employment over the previous ten years. However he simply had not broadcast this to other police at large. And why should he? There was clearly an anti-Chinese sentiment in Australia and he did not want to be singled out for being half-Chinese.

  To all intents and purposes, he was a typical Caucasian cop, fitting in well with the other highly trained cops in the Operations Division. Administration, on the other hand, knew all about his fully bilingual status – trilingual if you consider that he was equally adept in Mandarin as in Cantonese.

  Nick had long expected that his Chinese skills would eventually open some doors for him, but had wanted to establish himself as a police officer so that he would never be accused of playing the race card. As a result, when he was first approached by Chief Superintendent Waroway for a special assignment that required his unique characteristics, he had agreed. When told that he would be required to keep his linguistic abilities secret, even from other NSW police officers, he had become even more enthusiastic. It was a perfect fit.

  Nick saw the short-term assignment as a chance to make his move towards the Operations Group Strategy Unit’s Asian cell without broadcasting that this was his ultimate goal. As it was, while the OGSU had conceived of the operation it had been tightly controlled by the somewhat paranoid Chief Superintendent in charge, who trusted few with operational information, and trusted Information Systems – computers and electronics – even less.

  As a result of Chief Superintendent Waroway’s paranoia and Leading Senior Constable Lenko’s own secrets, essentially nobody knew the true nature of his assignment – not even the section within the People’s Liberation Army, Jinan Region, who were assigned to monitoring the operations of the New South Wales Police Force to the minutest of details. In other areas, it would be accurate to say that the PLA personnel monitoring foreign police forces had a better grasp on specialist police units operations than the units themselves often did.

  The assignment itself was rather pedestrian. He was set up as a ‘mature student’ at Macquarie University, Sydney. Not to be confused with Port Macquarie, the small port city about 300 km farther north of Sydney along the NSW coastline, Macquarie University was one of Sydney’s three most important universities.

  Lenko’s task was to attend a full-time course-load as if pursuing a degree in network administration, all the while watching for visiting Chinese students who seemed to be particularly socially active or were doing a lot of things that were not strictly related to their studies. The assumption behind his task was that the spies amongst the visiting Chinese students would be found to be talking to more people than the stereotypical studies-focused workaholics that genuine students tended to be.

  As a cover, the Chinese spies might be interested in photography, have large networks of friends, travel more than the others and have more money to spend on their activities. Other cues to look for were English language skills that were above average from the get-go, competencies like leisure sports or driving a vehicle - things which could hint at someone being a highly trained operative.

  After four months, Leading Senior Constable Lenko was updating the master list of names that he had identified as warranting special attention. As part of his protocol, the routine was to send the names and student ID numbers ‘through the wash’ in the university’s computer system, activating certain data-mining ‘bots’ through the Associate Dean level of access which Waroway had obtained for the operation. This allowed Nick’s computer to retrieve information on each subject, such as grades, attendance records, use of cafeteria debit cards, the timings of the subject’s entry and exit to the university’s swipe-card access-control doors at the sports complex, libraries, laboratories and dormitories along with other information. It presented a virtual picture of the life of a visiting student, which usually fell within a predictable bandwidth of modest social activity, frugality and generally successful a
cademic performance. But as he scanned the rows and columns to see that the data-mining was keeping up to date, Lenko recognized a pattern.

  Several of the students he was tracking had had their grades and attendance drop off sharply in recent days. Intrigued, he looked more carefully at each subject’s profile, picking up other cues. After cross-checking with the data set from the previous month, and then going two months back, Lenko used another police application to access the credit card data from one of the erratic subjects, and found that the student had used a credit card to rent a car. Upon further investigation, a few mouse clicks really, he found an open-ended hotel reservation at a ski resort in the hills.

  Skiing, in April? But the ski season has not even started yet! he thought to himself. This is strange. There is no way the guy could attend his university classes in Sydney from all the way up in Kosciuszko Mountain. Lenko checked the student’s academic timetable, rolling the calendar forward into mid-May: He’s got five major exams to prepare for. What is this, some kind of study retreat then?

  The next day’s lectures provided Nick an opportunity to observe the subject, or suspect, more likely – only suspected of what? Nick thought, as he took a seat a few rows below and to the left of the man, in the lecture hall. It was not his normal seat, but he often made a point of sitting in different rows so that he could listen vicariously to Chinese conversations. Leading Senior Constable Lenko assumed that he would not be noticed.

  He did not hear much, but by the hushed tones that the subject’s circle of friends were speaking in, Nick knew that he was on to something. He surreptitiously snapped a picture of the group of students with his cell phone and did not look in their general direction until the end of the class.