The Ghost War

by Alex Berenson

  “Do you mind if we take a look?” Wells said. “In the basement?”

  “I guess not. It’s locked, though. And I can’t find the key. I don’t know if he took it or what.”

  “I can take care of that.” Wells reached into his jacket for his pistol.

  JANICE FOLLOWED THEM DOWNSTAIRS, CHATTERING. She’d turned from self-pitying to wheedling, actively seeking their approval, an alcohol-fueled mood swing. Exley was not surprised to see that she was devoting her attention to Wells. For his part, Wells was hardly listening as he looked around the basement. The place was littered with bottles of bourbon and empty cigarette packs and stank like the morning after a week-long party. Wells popped open the DVD player and extracted a disk titled Girl-n-Girl 3: The Experiment.

  Janice wiggled her eyebrows at Wells when she saw the disk. “He never tried that with me.”

  Exley wanted to slap this drunk woman and tell her to stop embarrassing herself. Instead, she smiled. “Before he left, did Keith say where the two of you might end up?”

  Janice plumped down on the couch and put a finger in her mouth like a misbehaving four-year-old. “Not that I recall. No.”

  “Anything about Asia? China?”

  “He didn’t like the Chinese much. Called them slant-eyes and Chinky-dinks and said they couldn’t be trusted.”

  “Did he ever bring anyone over to the house? I mean, anyone unusual, somebody he didn’t identify?”

  Janice reached for an open bottle of wine on the table. She poured the contents into a dirty glass and took a long swallow. “No. We don’t have too many friends, not since we moved here, not since our son died.”

  “Your son—”

  But then Wells called out from the bathroom. “Jenny. You need to see this.”

  Janice followed, and they crowded into the bathroom, staring at the black safe.

  “Any idea of the combination?” Wells said to Janice.

  “I didn’t even know it was there,” Janice said. “I swear.”

  “We can call Tyson, get someone over here to get it open,” Wells said. “Not that it matters, because it’s gonna be empty.”

  Janice pursed her lips, a look Exley recognized. She’d be crying again soon. All this was too much for her.

  “Come on, let’s go in the other room.” Exley led Janice back to the couch. “Did Keith keep money around? Did it seem like you were spending more than his salary?”

  “He never said much about our finances. Gave me a couple thousand a month for expenses. If I ever wanted a dress or something, he was generous. We had an old-fashioned marriage, I guess you’d say. He made the money, I kept the house.”

  “Did you ever see any mail from banks you didn’t recognize? Anything from outside the United States?”

  “Once or twice. A few years ago. Then it stopped. I think he had a post office box. He was so secretive.” Janice tipped the wine bottle to her mouth. “I just attributed it to his having a girlfriend. He liked strippers. I pretended I didn’t know, but of course I did.”

  “Men are pigs.” Exley patted her hand. A mistake. Janice flinched.

  “What would you know about it? You lied to me yesterday. You’re not even married.” She began to cry, her tears cutting through the mascara she’d just applied, sending black streaks down her cheeks. She grabbed a dirty paper towel and dabbed at her face.

  “I was. Married.” Exley didn’t know why she felt the need to defend herself.

  “Divorced, huh? Just like I’m gonna be.” Janice stood. “God. Look at this place. Look at my life.” She stumbled toward the stairs. “You do what you have to do. You’re going to anyway. But leave me alone.”

  As Janice pulled herself up the stairs, Exley put her head in her hands. They had to get moving, get the word out to the FBI and Homeland Security, add Robinson’s Acura to police watch lists, check his name against passenger manifests, review airport security cameras to see if they could match his face with whatever name he was using these days, maybe even get the media involved. But it wouldn’t matter. With an eighteen-hour head start and a few thousand bucks, Keith Robinson could be anywhere. He could have driven to Atlanta and then flown to Panama City, New York, and then Istanbul, Chicago, and then Bangkok. They’d find him eventually, but eventually would be too late.

  She felt Wells’s hand on her shoulder. “What’s wrong, Jenny?”

  “It’s my fault. I flushed him.”

  Wells pulled her up. “That’s crap and you know it. He was all set to run. You’re the reason we might find him. Let’s get Janice to give us something in writing—”

  “She doesn’t want to talk anymore.”

  “A couple sentences, so no one can say later we didn’t have permission to be here. And then let’s start making calls.”

  SEVEN HOURS LATER, Exley, Shafer, Tyson, and Wells sat in the library of Tyson’s house in Falls Church, a windowless square room that Tyson had assured them was as secure as any at Langley. Books about spying, fiction and non-, filled the shelves, from classics like The Secret Agent and The Thirty-NineSteps to Tom Clancy’s massive hardcovers. Wells and Exley shared a love seat, and Exley allowed her hand to rest compan ionably on Wells’s leg. Two silky Persian cats slept in the corner. Tyson just needed a cigar and a glass of whiskey to complete the picture of the gentleman at ease, Wells thought. But the calm in the room was deceptive.

  A few miles east, in Langley, an FBI/CIA task force was tearing up Keith Robinson’s office, trying to figure out exactly what he’d stolen over the years, what databases he’d accessed, what files he’d copied, what operations and spies he’d destroyed. Of course, if Robinson showed up the next morning, the agents in his office would have some explaining to do. But everyone agreed the chances of that happening were approximately zero.

  “Guess we found our mole,” Tyson said. “Or rather, he found us.” He didn’t smile. “This is as bad as it gets. He had almost total access to our East Asian ops. Everyone in China is blown. North Korea too, and maybe even Japan and India. The only place that’s really insulated is the GWOT”—the global War on Terror, the U.S. fight against al Qaeda. “China’s peripheral to that, so people might have wondered if he asked too many questions.”

  “Anyway, I don’t think that his friends in Beijing care much about Osama bin Laden,” Shafer said.

  “We don’t know what they care about,” Tyson said. We’ve got no sources left. Aside from our friend Wen Shubai, whose advice has been less than perfect. Anyway what happened yesterday“—the collision between the Decatur and the fishing trawler—”has changed things so much that I’m not sure anyone on the other side of the river“—in the White House—”cares anymore what Wen thinks. Confrontation hasn’t worked so far.“

  “So what now?” Wells said.

  Tyson tapped on his desk, disturbing the cats. They blinked sleepily, rearranged themselves, and then lay back down. “What do the Chinese want? Why did they sign that deal with Iran? Why provoke us? It’s never made sense from the beginning. That’s what we have to know.”

  Wells slumped in a love seat. He was sick of Tyson’s grandstanding. “And how do you propose that we four get the answer, George? Last I checked, our collective experience in China added up to a big fat zero.”

  “And now I need to come clean with you. I believe, I hope, we have one live source left in the People’s Republic.”

  In the silence that followed, Wells glanced at Exley and Shafer. They looked as surprised as he felt.

  “A couple years after Tiananmen, a PLA colonel reached out to us. He was an evangelical Christian, a silent convert. They’re some of our best sources. He gave us good stuff during the nineties. But he went dark when Robinson approached the Chinese. Completely dark. At the time, we couldn’t understand why. Now it seems obvious. He was keeping his head down so Robinson couldn’t out him.”

  “Any idea why he didn’t just tell us about Robinson?”

  “Maybe he didn’t know enough about Robinson’s iden
tity to give him up. Or maybe it was the other way. Maybe so few people knew about Robinson that our guy figured he’d compromise himself if he gave Robinson up. Anyway, one day he missed a meeting. After that, we never saw him again. Didn’t respond to any of our signals.”

  “But he wasn’t arrested,” Exley said.

  “No. He’s still around. In fact, he’s senior enough that he gets into the papers over there every so often. His name’s Cao Se.”

  “Still. He could be doubled. Robinson could have given him up along the way.”

  “We ran him out of Australia rather than China. Not for any great reason. Just that he initially found us at a military conference in Sydney. Then later he wouldn’t do business with any other office.”

  “You really think he’s protected himself?” Shafer said.

  “It’s possible. By luck or design.” Tyson huffed and settled back down in his chair. “I think if they’d doubled him he would have reached out a few years back. He would have been another thread in the web they spun for us. Instead he just disappeared.”

  “So he’s been gone ten years?”

  “Until last week. A visa applicant in Beijing dropped off a letter with the right codes. Amazing but true, the consular officers recognized it and passed it to our head of station. Cao wants a meeting. He says that he would, quote, ‘prefer an officer who has never worked in East Asia.’ Hard to argue with that.”

  SHAFER JUMPED TO HIS FEET. “I know where you’re going with this, George. And I want to say for the record it stinks.”

  “Where’s he going?” Wells said.

  “He wants you to go over there, make contact with this general.”

  Tyson nodded.

  “Why don’t you send somebody two years out of school, somebody who’s not in their files?” Wells said.

  “At this point we have no idea who’s in their files,” Tyson said. “Like Ellis said, the Chinese don’t care about bin Laden. What you did in Times Square was a sideshow as far as they’re concerned. And Cao needs to know we care enough to send somebody important. Like it or not, you’re in that category.”

  “Let me add another reason,” Shafer said. “Vinny Duto can’t stand you and wouldn’t mind you spending the rest of your life in a Chinese jail. This is his big chance to get rid of you. If it works, great. If not, bye-bye.” Shafer looked to Tyson. “Et tu, Georgie? Still embarrassed you were on the wrong side last year? Or just looking for new and exciting ways to kiss Vinny’s ass?”

  “That’s nonsense, Ellis. This is up to John. If he doesn’t want to go, there’ll be no hard feelings—”

  “I’m not finished, George.” Shafer turned toward Wells. “He knows you’re too hardheaded to turn this down, even though we can’t save you if this is a trap. You know that, John. They may not even lock you up. Considering the way things are right now, they may just shoot you.”

  Tyson pushed himself to his feet. “Ellis, the PLA has no reason to set up such an elaborate sting at this moment. They’re more worried whether we’re going to bomb Shanghai. I think this approach is genuine, and I want John to go because he gives us the best chance of reaching Cao. No other reason.”

  “Yeah, he’s a great choice, considering he doesn’t evenspeak Chinese.” Shafer stepped toward the desk and leaned over Tyson. He looked like a terrier about to launch himself at a bulldog. “What exactly do you think Cao’s going to tell us? You think he’s gonna give us their launch codes so we can nuke Shanghai and not worry about them retaliating? What we ought to do is pull the Navy back to Hawaii and let things settle down.”

  “Maybe. And maybe then the PLA will think they have carte blanche to invade Taiwan. The point is we don’t know what they want, what they’re thinking. Now somebody on their side, somebody who knows, wants to tell us.”

  “Let him defect, then, if he’s so damn important.”

  “He’s making the rules, Ellis, not us. And what he wants is a meeting, his terms, his turf. If John doesn’t want to go, that’s fine. I’ll find someone else.”

  “One last question, George. Did you and Duto discuss this little plan?”

  “Why wouldn’t we?”

  “I rest my case.”

  “I’d like to say something,” Wells said.

  Exley folded her hands together in an unconscious prayer.

  “I’ll go.”

  Exley and Shafer spoke simultaneously.

  Shafer: “Don’t do this—”

  Exley: “No, John—”

  “I’ll go.”

  PART 4

  28

  EVERY MORNING MORE PROTESTERS SHOWED UP in Tiananmen Square: peasants stooped by age and work, university students, factory hands, even office workers. They came on bicycles and buses that dropped them by the McDonald’s at the south end of the square. They carried bags of fruit and dumplings so they could stay all day. Each evening they emptied out, as thousands of police officers watched. And all day, under the hazy sky, they sang and chanted and waved banners:

  “The will of the people is strong!”

  “One people, one China!”

  “Hegemonists apologize! No more American war crimes!”

  “U.S. out of China Sea! China will never forget the twenty-two murdered martyrs!”

  A few of the sloganeers even showed sly humor:

  “1.5 billion Chinese can’t be wrong.”

  “The American century is over! The Chinese mil lennium begins today!”

  The first morning after the Decatur sank the fishing trawler, 50,000 people came to Tiananmen. Two days later, the Beijing police estimated the crowd at 150,000. Similar crowds filled People’s Park in Shanghai, Yuexiu Park in Guangzhou, and the central squares in the rest of China’s metropolises.

  On the fifth day, with the Beijing police estimating the crowd in Tiananmen at a quarter-million, Li Ping took a helicopter over the square and looked down on the people, his people. They weren’t yet close to filling the square—Tiananmen could hold a million or more—but even so Li’s heart swelled at the sight.

  What a change from 1989, the last time Tiananmen had been so full, Li thought. Then the people had been angry at their leaders. Not this time. The peasants were glad to have an officially sanctioned outlet for their fury at being left behind. The middle class wanted to show the world that China could no longer be cowed. The sinking of the trawler had brought them together. Li had brought them together. This outpouring was the living emblem of his will. Soon he would replace Zhang as the unofficial leader of the Standing Committee. Two of the liberals on the committee had already reached out to him, hinting they would support him if he promised not to push them off the committee when he took charge.

  Then, at the next Party Congress, he’d take over from Xu as the party’s general secretary. It was time for the old man to retire. Li would be the head of the army and the party, the most powerful leader since Mao. He would remake China, making sure ordinary people shared in its prosperity, while building up the armed forces. No longer would the United States be the world’s only superpower. This was China’s destiny, and his own. Around him the great city rose in every direction, Beijing’s apartment buildings and office towers stretching through the haze, traffic thick on the ring roads and boulevards, and Li thought: Mine. All this. Mine.

  But first he needed to press his advantage. The people filling the square beneath him were crucial to his next step toward power. Zhang, that weakling, wouldn’t like his new proposal. But Li believed that old man Xu saw the situation the same way that he did, though the general secretary was too canny to promise his support explicitly. Li waved to the crowds below—not that they could recognize him—and checked his watch. 11:18. Good. A lucky time. He tapped his pilot on the shoulder and they swung back to the landing pad inside Zhongnanhai.

  THE MEETING BEGAN TWO HOURS LATER, in the banquet hall in Huairentang, the Palace Steeped in Compassion. The foreign minister spoke first, discussing the international reaction to the sinking. The world had sided
with China. The United Nations had voted to condemn the United States for its “unprovoked aggression against a civilian boat.” Even America’s closest allies, like Britain and Poland, agreed that the United States had overstepped its bounds and provoked the confrontation.

  “We must remember, if a Chinese warship rammed an American boat near New York, the American anger would be unsurpassed,” the French prime minister said. The United States had refused to apologize for the collision, arguing that it had happened in international waters and the Decatur had warned the trawlers away. In the days since the accident, the Decatur had pulled back two hundred miles off the coast, but other American warships had taken its place.

  “The world has seen the violence of the Americans,” the foreign minister said. “Our position is secure. Of course, if we act rashly, we may lose support.”

  “Thank you, Foreign Minister,” Xu said. “Now, Minister Li.”

  “The People’s Liberation Army is prepared to carry out the will of the Standing Committee, General Secretary. Whatever we decide.”

  “And what is your view of the correct action?”

  “We must punish the hegemonist aggression.”

  “But what about the risks?” This from Zhang. Li looked around the room, as if the interruption were hardly worth answering.

  “Do you know why the Mongols burst through our walls eight hundred years ago, Comrade Zhang?”

  “I’m not a general, Comrade Li. I imagine their troops were strong, like the Americans.”

  “Wrong. They defeated us because we let them. And then we blamed them for being stronger than we were. The people want us to show our strength. They remember what the Americans did in Yugoslavia.” In 1999, American jets had bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, killing three Chinese. The United States had always insisted the bombing was accidental, but many Chinese didn’t accept that explanation. “The people are tired of excuses from the hegemonists. They want us to act.”