The Ghost War

by Alex Berenson

  “Nice of him.” Wells laughed. A mistake. The agony in his ribs surged and he bit his tongue to keep from filling the jeep with vomit. He closed his eyes and tried to be still. Cao squeezed his shoulder until the pain faded.

  “So ... General ...” Wells fought to stay focused, keep the fog away. “How do we stop him? Can you tell the Standing Committee?”

  “Say what to committee? That Li wants power? That I spy for America?”

  Wells saw Cao’s point. “Then why did you bring me here if you didn’t have anything?”

  Cao was silent. Then: “I don’t know. I thought—”

  Wells fought down his anger. He couldn’t spare the energy. He rested a hand against his wounded ribs and tried to think things through. “The committee wants to stop Li. Some of them, anyway.”

  “Yes. Minister Zhang hate him. But he afraid.”

  “I understand.” Cao might have stars on his collar, but he wasn’t meant to lead, Wells saw already. He was a born subordinate. Smart and tough. But unimaginative. “We need proof he’s planned this all along. Something they can see. What did he hide from the committee?”

  “Never told them about Wen.”

  Wells felt a flash of hope, but it faded. The agency would need time to prove Wen’s defection was fake, and time was just what they didn’t have. “What else?”

  The jeep was silent. Wells waited, meanwhile wondering if Cao had an escape route planned or if they’d be reduced to making a desperate break for the embassy.

  “What else. Li had one other operation. Top secret. Started last year. I set up the money.”

  “The funding.”

  “Yes. Funding. Said United States would be angry if it knew. Was in Afghanistan.”

  Just like that, Wells knew. “You were helping the Taliban.”

  “He never told me, but I think so. But no Chinese soldiers.”

  “No. Russian special forces.” Wells wondered if Pierre Kowalski had known all along where his money had come from.

  “The account was in Banco Delta Asia,” Wells said. “In Macao. Yes?”

  Cao didn’t hide his surprise. “How you know this?”

  “Did he tell you what this was for, Cao?”

  “For Iran. All he said.”

  Of course. Wells saw the logic of the scheme. The Iranians had worried that China might walk away from the nukes-for-oil deal. By supporting the Taliban, Li had convinced Iran he was serious about standing up to America.

  “Cao, those records prove Li has been planning war against America since last year. And he never told the Standing Committee. If you get them, we can stop him.”

  If we live long enough to get them out of China, Wells didn’t say. If my guess is right, and they prove the money went to Kowalski. If the White House can get them back to Beijing, and to Zhang. And if Zhang can use them to get control of the committee back from Li.

  But first they had to get the records, and get out.

  “No war?” Cao said.

  “No war.” Maybe.

  “Then I get them.”

  Cao reversed the jeep onto the road, looking sidelong at Wells as he did. “What your name? Real name.”

  Crazy but true. Cao had saved his life, killed three of his own countrymen to do so, and didn’t even know his name. Wells wiped his hand against his mouth and came away with a pungent coating of dried blood and vomit. “John Wells.”

  “Time Square Wells?”

  “Time Square Wells.” Wells wondered if Cao was ready to move to Florida, live in a witness protection program. No matter what happened next, this would be his last day in China. “But if we get out, you can call me Tiananmen Square Wells. When we go to Disney World.”

  “Disney World? Don’t understand.” The jeep hit a bump and Wells moaned a little.

  “Me neither, Cao.”

  FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER CAO HONKED his way across four lanes of traffic and swung into an alley cluttered with wooden crates. A cloud of flies hovered around a pile of rotten vegetables. Normally the trash would hardly have bothered Wells, but the beating had left him weak and queasy. His green T-shirt was black with his blood. His heart was randomly speeding and slowing—thump, pause, thump,pause, thump-thump-thump-thump. He figured he was coming down off the adrenaline rush that had carried him through the immediate aftermath of the beating. Or maybe they’d done more damage to him than he first thought.

  Cao stopped behind a low concrete building with a heavy steel door. The words “Dumping Home” were painted, in black and in English, on a splintered wooden sign. Dumping Home? Wells wondered if he was delirious, but when he looked again, the sign hadn’t changed.

  Cao pointed at the building. “Friends inside. Christians.”

  Wells wondered if he should mention his own confused beliefs. Probably not the time.

  Cao honked. The back door creaked open and a man in a dirty chef’s apron jogged over. He and Cao spoke briefly before he nodded and ran back inside. Cao tapped his watch. Four P.M.

  “One hour. If I not back, you go with them. To Yantai—”

  “Yantai?” Wells was struck again by how little he knew about this country.

  “Port. Five hundred kilometers from here. Shandong Province.”

  Now Wells understood, or thought he did. Shandong Province—the name literally meant “east of the mountains”—extended into the Yellow Sea toward the Korean peninsula. They were going to make a run for South Korea.

  “They take you to boat.”

  “To Korea?”

  “Yes. Korea.” Cao’s lips twisted in what could have been a smile. “Make sure not North Korea.” Cao reached into his bag and handed Wells a little revolver, a .22 snub.

  Wells checked the cylinder. It was loaded all right. It was too small and inaccurate to be useful at more than thirty feet. Still, better than nothing.

  Two men emerged from the Dumping Home and trotted to the jeep.

  “Rest,” Cao said.

  “Good luck, Cao. Vaya con Dios.” Wells extended a hand and Cao shook it awkwardly. Cao reached across Wells and opened his door. The men helped lift him out, staggering under his weight. Wells could hardly feel the ground under his feet, as if his legs were encased in ski boots that ran from ankle to hip. The men guided him to the door, as Cao put the jeep in reverse and rolled out of the alley.

  INSIDE, WELLS FOUND HIMSELF in a busy kitchen. Two women and two teenage boys were making dumplings, their hands flickering over the balls of dough, shaping and smoothing each one before moving to the next. Wells understood now. The Dumping Home was a dumpling restaurant.

  The men started to let Wells go, but as they did his legs buckled. One of the women squawked and the men grabbed him and guided him to a storeroom off the kitchen. They sat him down and left. Wells tried to rest, but if he closed his eyes for too long the dizziness took him. He focused on the room around him, looking from shelf to shelf, examining the baskets of vegetables and spices, the glass jars of green tea.

  A couple of minutes later, he wasn’t sure how long, the women came in, carrying a pot of bubbling water, a soup bowl, and a big shopping bag. Wells watched mutely as they extracted the tools for minor surgery from the bag: two quart-sized brown plastic bottles, a water bottle, scissors, a knife, a tube of something that looked like antibacterial cream, a roll of surgical tape, and a half-dozen clean white cloths. One of the women, tall and thin, her hair streaked with gray, put a soft hand on his shoulder.

  Meanwhile, the other woman, the shorter and stockier of the two, lifted the bowl of soup to Wells’s mouth. He sipped, a few drops at a time. Chicken stock, with a few mushy carrots. Liquid kindness. His stomach clenched, but he held it down. He drank as much as he could, maybe a half-cup, and then shook his head. She nodded and set the bowl aside. Now the gray-haired woman was cutting off his shirt, careful not to touch the flayed skin underneath. When she was done, she gasped, one quick breath. Wells looked down and wished he hadn’t. His chest and abs were skinned raw, and blood was oozi
ng from the wounds. No wonder he couldn’t close his eyes without getting the spins. He had to make sure he stayed hydrated. If he wasn’t careful, the blood loss would put him into shock.

  The gray-haired woman dipped a cloth into the pot of boiling water. Then she unscrewed the plastic bottles and poured their contents over the cloth. She held the cloth to his face, giving him a whiff of rubbing alcohol and hydrogen peroxide. Wells understood. She wanted him to know what she was about to do. He nodded. She pressed the cloth to his chest.

  After the beating he’d endured, the burn of alcohol and peroxide was barely a pinprick. Wells nodded. The woman seemed to understand. She pulled away the cloth and poured the rubbing alcohol directly onto his chest. She wiped him down with a fresh cloth, then rubbed the antibacterial ointment across his chest. She said something to the other woman. They leaned him forward and slowly they wrapped a long white bandage around his torso, compressing it tightly. Apparently the gray-haired woman had decided Wells had a high pain tolerance.

  When they were done, his chest and abs were bound in white. Despite the pressure of the cloth against his broken ribs, Wells felt stronger than he had just a few minutes before. He reached for the soup and slowly sipped it until the bowl was empty.

  “Good as new,” he said.

  FOR THE FIRST TIME since the beatings started, Wells could think clearly enough to see his next move. He reached into his pockets. There it was. His new phone, bought five days before and registered to Jim Wilson of Palo Alto. Still in his pants. He’d debated carrying it today before deciding that there was no reason an American businessman wouldn’t have a phone with him. Now he was glad he had. Extremely.

  He removed the slim Motorola from his pocket, turned it on, saw he had full service. Thank God for technology. Wells wondered whether the Chinese had put a bug in the phone, before deciding they probably hadn’t. They’d had no reason to imagine that he would escape.

  Anyway, he had to reach Exley now, before the Chinese cut off all communication to the United States. He’d be as quick as he could. Wells called her cell phone, not the 415 number but her real one, the one she always carried. Three rings. And then—

  “Hello. Hello?” Washington was twelve hours behind, Wells remembered. She must have been asleep, or wishing she were.

  “Jennifer.”

  “Yes. John.” She’d blown his cover, but he didn’t much care. In his name, he heard all her questions: Where are you? Are you okay?

  “Remember where Ted Beck went down, Jenny?” In the Yellow Sea, southwest of Incheon.

  “Sure.”

  “I need a pickup. In that vicinity. Or west. As far west as possible.” Even if the Chinese were monitoring this call, Wells didn’t think they would understand what he meant.

  “When?”

  Five hundred kilometers to Yantai, then a boat ride. “Eight to twenty-four hours. Any longer, I’m in trouble.”

  “Can you help us find you?” Exley was wondering if he had a transponder or any other equipment to aid the search.

  “No. But Red Team”—the standard American military description of the enemy—“will be looking. Hard.”

  “Figured.”

  “One more thing. Whatever they’re planning, make them wait. No counterattacks. I know why it happened, all of it. And we can stop it.”

  “I’ll tell them.”

  “I love you, Jenny.”

  “Love you too, John.” Exley sighed. Even from 6,000 miles away, Wells knew her tone, sad and pride ful at once. “Try not to die.”

  Wells hung up and turned off the phone. Now it was up to Exley to find a way to make the White House and the Pentagon back off for a day or two, long enough for him and Cao to get out.

  The clock on the wall of the storeroom said 4:45. Cao didn’t have long. The guards at the interrogation center would soon defy his orders and break into the room where Wells had been held. Then he and Cao would be the most wanted men in China. Before that happened, he and Cao had better be on their way to Yantai. Though Wells still didn’t know how Cao planned to get them there.

  Wells flexed his legs and tried to stand. Nope. He sat down heavily and the jolt set his ribs on fire. His gray-haired nurse shook a finger at him and clucked in Chinese. Wells could guess her meaning: Rest. Then the two women left him, turning off the lights and shutting the door. In the warm darkness the tang of potatoes and onions surrounded him.

  He closed his eyes. His head drooped. But before he slept, he made sure the .22 was curled in his hand, its hammer cocked. If Li’s men came through the door, he planned to take as many of them with him as he could.

  34

  TWELVE TIME ZONES BEHIND WELLS, Exley pulled on sweatpants and a mostly clean blouse and walked downstairs to Thirteenth Street, where her security guards waited in their black Lincolns under the dark predawn sky. The doors of the front Lincoln opened as she approached, and the guards stepped out.

  “Ms. Exley.”

  “I need a ride.”

  The Lincolns screamed off, a two-car convoy with sirens and flashing lights. Fifteen minutes later she was knocking on Shafer’s door. She hoped he had some ideas. On the ride over, the reality of the odds that they faced had hit her. Wells had no transponder, no way to reach them. He hadn’t even told her what kind of ship he’d be on, much less its name. The Yellow Sea was practically Chinese territory, especially under these circumstances. How would they possibly find him and get him out?

  SHAFER OPENED THE DOOR, BLEARY-EYED. He motioned her inside, down to his basement, into the laundry room. “Ellis—”

  “Wait. I get the house swept every other month but just in case.” He flicked on the washer and dryer.

  “Now,” Shafer said.

  “John called.”

  “Where from?”

  “Beijing.” She explained what Wells had told her.

  When she was done, Shafer shook his head. “No hint of what he’s got?”

  “No. Just that he could stop it. We have to talk to Duto.”

  “And tell him we need to pull out the stops to save John Wells. This’ll be fun.” He motioned her upstairs. “Go home, get dressed. I’ll see you in two hours at Langley.”

  “Two hours.”

  “Nothing we can do before then. He won’t get off the coast for several hours. Besides, no one’s going to take us seriously dressed like this.” He was wearing Redskins pajamas, a fact she’d chosen to ignore until now.

  “Point taken.”

  EXLEY AND SHAFER SAT in a windowless, soundproofed conference room at Langley, across from Tyson and Vinny Duto. The stress of being director seemed to be getting to Duto. He was fatter than she remembered, and his hair—always his pride—had receded, offering hints of scalp. But his eyes were as hard as ever.

  He listened silently as Exley told him and Tyson what Wells had said. No one spoke when she finished, and for a few seconds the only sound in the room was the drumming of Duto’s fingers against the wooden table.

  “So you understand: In the last hour, our satellites have picked up a major mobilization of Chinese forces. Regular army and paramilitary. Increasing by the minute. The White House knows.” Duto opened a black-bordered folder. “They’re putting roadblocks on the highways and main secondary roads in and out of Beijing. Military units at the entrances to every civilian airport. The Friendship Bridge, between China and North Korea, has been shut.”

  “Sounds like they haven’t found him yet.”

  “Unfortunately, we haven’t found him either,” Tyson said. “And unless you and he are connected telepathically, I’m not sure how we’re going to. Since he has no transponder and didn’t see fit to give us coordinates. Perhaps he should have asked for an airlift out of Tiananmen. It might have been easier.”

  Exley’s ears burned. Wells might be dead and Tyson was cracking jokes! Her face must have shown her anger, because Tyson quickly backed off. “I am only saying that the attack on the Decatur proves the Chinese are acting recklessly, Ms. Exley. I
f we move our ships deep into the Yellow Sea, they may think that we’re intentionally provoking them.”

  “They’ve got ten thousand miles of coast. They can’t watch it all,” Shafer said. “He gets twelve miles offshore, he’s not in territorial waters anymore. And there’s still heavy traffic in the Yellow Sea. I checked.” He held up a two-page printout filled with ship names and registry numbers. “All due at Incheon today.”

  “Let me point out something you may not wish to hear,” Tyson said. “Mr. Wells told you we should wait, not do anything stupid.”

  “Right, he said he had something—”

  Tyson knocked her down. “But he didn’t say what.”

  “It was an unsecured line.”

  “At the same time, he wants us to take an incredibly aggressive action. Bit of a contradiction there, wouldn’t you say?”

  “He wants us to save his life,” Exley said.

  “Or perhaps the call was a setup arranged by the Chinese.”

  “It was him. I know his voice.”

  “What if he’s been turned and they’re using him to get at us? To move our ships into a vulnerable position.”

  “He wouldn’t. He’d die first.”

  “People do strange things when they’re in pain.”

  This couldn’t be happening, Exley thought. They weren’t seriously arguing about whether to let Wells die out there. “Then why are they mobilizing their army and all the rest?”

  “Part of the setup.”

  “You don’t really think that,” she said. “Save me the mirrors within mirrors nonsense.” Her voice rose, and she reminded herself to stay in control, not to give them any excuse to marginalize her. “This was your idea, George. If not for you he wouldn’t be in this mess.”

  “Jennifer,” Duto said. “I don’t think we can risk putting our assets that far forward. Let Wells get to Incheon. At least into Korean territorial waters.”

  Shafer laughed, a thin angry laugh.

  “Something to say, Ellis?”

  Shafer waited until they were all looking at him. Normally, he was a jumble of tics and wasted motion. Not now. Exley had never seen him so still.