by Andrew Watts
“I don’t care about the courts, I care about what State and the president will say—do they already know about this? What are you going to say when they go on the news and say that the CIA just grabbed a US citizen on American soil because of China? Not Iran, who everyone knows just killed innocent Americans, but China?”
Chase glared at the man. “I would say that the Chinese are holding eighteen of our own citizens as part of an espionage operation. And that this State Department employee is a known spy, who may have contributed to one of the most heinous terrorist attacks ever to have been committed on US soil. And that we should go after the source of the attacks—the root cause—not just whoever pulled the trigger.”
“Watch your tone, young man. I’ll remind you that I am the national security advisor. I outrank you by just a little bit.”
Chase caught sight of the director placing his palm upward, signaling to Chase to tone it down. The director looked at Susan. “What do you hope to get from this guy—the Chinese operative that works in the US State Department? If he really did this…”
Susan said, “Our ultimate objective is to get hard evidence on China’s connection to these attacks, and to find out why our human intel reports out of China aren’t matching up with David Manning’s information.”
The NSA looked at his watch and stood. “I’m sorry, folks. But I haven’t seen enough to sign off on that. And I know the president will feel the same way. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a meeting in the Oval Office in about forty minutes, and I can’t be late.”
The group stood, and the NSA left the room. Director Buckingham walked him out, saying something that Chase couldn’t hear.
When the door was closed, the director sat back down, this time on the couch across from Chase and Susan. He looked at each of them.
“What do you guys think?”
Susan said, “Sir, from my understanding, we have a matter of days before the US begins its shock and awe campaign on Iran. At that point, there’ll be no turning back. If this is China’s doing, they’ll have achieved their goal. Maybe they already have, since we have such a high concentration of military forces redeployed to the Middle East.”
Director Buckingham said, “You don’t have to sell me anymore, Susan.”
He looked at all three of them, a deadly serious expression on his face. “This Chinese spy in the US State Department—take him. Soon. Find out what he knows. And use our best interrogation team. The contractor.”
Susan said, “But what about the—”
“I’ll handle the national security advisor.”
The next night, Chase and Susan arrived at Joint Base Andrews as part of a convoy of two CIA-owned SUVs and an ambulance. The area had been cleared of nonessential personnel. They used the same security procedures for moving the president during times of national emergency. No one wanted a wayward set of eyes to witness who they had on the stretcher.
The vehicles drove right up to the Gulfstream G-V, and people began moving. The ambulance doors opened, and three men transferred the man on the gurney, and his IV, up the stairs of the aircraft and into the specially designed back compartment of the cabin.
A group of five other government personnel sat in the forward part of the aircraft cabin. They were the customers. The note-takers. The ones who would have the interrogator adjust his line of questioning in the same manner that a marketing executive would ask the interviewer to change their questions with a focus group.
Only now the subject was a Chinese spy.
“Manning, right?” One of the five counterespionage agents shook Chase’s hand.
“That’s right.”
“Thanks for joining us. I read about Dubai. Sounds like you were right in the middle of the action.”
“I guess so.” Chase nodded to the back of the plane. “You helped with the grab and bag?”
“Yeah. We picked him up about twelve hours ago. The IV’s in, so he’s getting in the right state of mind now. The Doctor’s giving him a little bit of time to let the drugs do their work, and then we’ll get started. The Doctor is something else. Interesting ideas, that’s for sure. We had to conduct a simultaneous operation in Chengdu.”
“What for?”
“Ah, you’ll see, I’m sure.”
“The Doctor,” as he was known, was a retired warrant officer, who had effectively written the book on modern interrogation techniques. He was fifty years old and now performed his work as a contractor. The CIA and other US military and intelligence units flew him around the world whenever they had information that absolutely needed to be extracted. He was widely considered to be the single best interrogator in the Western world.
Chase had heard of the man when he was in Iraq. Whispers about this magician who was ten times better and faster than all the other interrogators. But he’d never seen him in real life. Until now.
One of the agents shut the door of the aircraft. “Alright, time to get started.”
On the monitors, Chase could see that the Chinese operative was stripped down to his underwear and tied to a gurney. The gurney was tilted at an angle so that the Chinese man’s head was about six inches lower to the ground than his feet.
“Are you cold?” the Doctor asked. He spoke in English, although he knew several languages. A CIA translator sat in the cabin of the plane, in case he was needed.
“Yes,” the Chinese man replied in English.
The plane’s engines began warming up. Chase looked at the men next to him.
“Are we taking off?” Chase asked. He spoke softly, even though he knew that the Chinese prisoner couldn’t hear him behind the closed compartment in the back of the aircraft.
“Yeah,” said the CIA man who had picked him up. “It’s part of the theatrics—and since we’ll be in international airspace when the interrogation is conducted, it allows us to get past some legal issues. Don’t worry, though, we’ll be landing back at Andrews.”
Chase and the others put on headphones so they could hear the interrogation better.
The Chinese handler said, “What is that noise?”
“We’re on a plane, my friend,” the Doctor said. “We’re headed to Cuba. Guantanamo Bay.”
A twitch on the Chinese man’s face. If he was a Chinese intelligence agent, he no doubt had training in counterinterrogation techniques. The Doctor would be earning his money today.
The Doctor said, “Let’s start with what I already know. I know your name. All of them. I know where you’re from. I know what you ate for breakfast this morning. I know whom you are sleeping with. And I know that you work for Cheng Jinshan, and the Chinese Ministry of State Security.”
The Chinese man didn’t move.
The aircraft began to shake as it rolled down the runway, the jet engines pushing it into the air, climbing upward.
“Your life is over. Everything that you ever knew is now gone. All the training they gave you to prepare you for this moment—just throw it away. You see, that counterinterrogation training presumes that somehow, someday, you will be freed. That the United States will let you out, or trade you back to China. But that will not happen. Because we will make it look like you are dead. It is a certainty that you will stay in Guantanamo Bay Prison for the rest of your life, however long or short that may be. But no one outside a small group of Americans will ever know that you are still alive. The only thing you can do now is to affect the quality of your life in that prison.”
The Chinese man stared back, slightly shivering. He didn’t say anything.
“Are you willing to discuss Cheng Jinshan, and matters that relate to him?”
The man said nothing.
“Alright. I want you to see something. Think about a life in prison, with no outside contact. Think about that while you watch and listen to this.”
The Doctor placed headphones on the Chinese man’s ears and pressed a button on a device. A video appeared.
The man’s face contorted. After a few seconds, he began cryi
ng. Slowly at first, but as the video played, the crying turned into uncontrollable sobs.
On one of the monitors, a cute little girl, probably about age three or four, stood cuddled next to her mom’s leg. She was speaking to the camera, smiling and laughing.
Chase said, “What is that?”
“Recordings from his family. The guy has a wife and daughter in Chengdu. We had our agents in China reach out to them at the exact same time that we bagged this guy. Our agents posed as a holiday greeting card company. They got the daughter to answer a few questions about her father. Our agents told them that they were sending him a loving message. The one from the daughter is especially touching.”
On the other monitor, Chase saw the Doctor as he removed the Chinese man’s headphones. He stayed quiet for a few moments. The occasional sniffle from the Chinese man was the only sound from the interrogation room.
“Would you like me to play it again?” asked the Doctor.
The man shook his head no. The altitude of the aircraft leveled off.
“We know that you aren’t the one that ordered the Beltway attacks.”
Silence.
“And I promise you that you won’t be blamed. But you were part of it. You passed on information to the Iranians. We know that, too.”
No response.
“You will need to go to prison for the rest of your life. Here. Please watch the video again. I want to make sure that you understand what this will mean for you.”
The video of his wife and daughter appeared again. They answered more questions, laughing and smiling. The video lasted a full minute.
When it ended, no one spoke for a few moments. Then the Chinese man said, “What do you propose?”
“I will not ever lie to you,” the Doctor said. “I want you to know that. As a testament to that relationship of honesty, I will tell you something that you will not be happy with now. You will need to go to prison for the rest of your life. That will not change. But your punishment could be much worse. And there are many different types of prisons. You see, I can also promise you that if you help us get information that we need, you’ll be able to get more videos and recordings of your daughter and wife. That surely would be a more desirable alternative than any other circumstances, would it not? It is better to have something to look forward to. Better than decades of looking at a wall, in between interrogations.”
The man tried to control himself, but he kept crying.
“But this is a one-time offer. You only get one chance at this. Again, this is the honest truth. I will always be honest with you. I know from experience that honesty between me and my subjects is the only way to get a mutually beneficial exchange.”
The Chinese man did not reply.
“Are you uncomfortable? Can I make you more comfortable?”
The man was upside down and mostly naked. On the high-definition video, Chase could see goose bumps on his arms. But he said nothing.
The Doctor said, “I will now be honest with you about the consequences of not accepting this arrangement. We are airborne now. It will be several hours until we reach our destination. Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. When we get there, our relationship will end. I will be forced to hand you over to another interrogator. He is not kind like I am. He believes in pain. He will hurt you. For the rest of your life, he will hurt you. And once you are his prisoner, I will have no control over what happens to you. He doesn’t make offers like I do. He only threatens and punishes.”
The man sniffed.
“Let’s watch the video again.”
The video played again. The man cried some more. Chase realized that the Doctor was using a form of emotional waterboarding. It was like he was dunking his mind into and out of the only thing that could really get to the man—his wife and child. The interrogator was using the video and audio to immerse him in that environment. Over and over and over. It was breaking him down. Forcing him to consider a life of misery, without the only thing that truly made him happy.
When the video was over, the Doctor said, “Let’s start with something simple. I will ask you a question. If you tell me the answer, which I already know, then I will let you put your clothes back on. Another truthful answer, and I’ll let you sit up while we finish our discussion like civilized men. Will that work?”
He nodded. “Alright. Alright. Please.”
It took them a full five minutes to get the Chinese man upright and clothed. He looked groggy. Probably from whatever was getting pumped into his bloodstream. They conversed for over an hour. About little things at first. A lot of questions about the Chinese man’s family.
Chase marveled about the ease with which they talked. If this man was really a Chinese spy, he would know what to do and what to expect when being questioned. But the Doctor had found the single weak point in his defenses and exploited it masterfully. His emotional reaction to his daughter cut through everything else.
When the Doctor finally got to the questions about Jinshan and China’s part in the Beltway attacks, he became very cooperative. The CIA men furiously typed notes and sent information in real time to the SILVERSMITH team at Langley.
When the interview was done, the Doctor made a hand gesture as if he was ready for the check at a restaurant. That was the signal to take the aircraft back to Joint Base Andrews.
The CIA team had been hopeful that they would find evidence of a connection between the Chinese and the Iranian attacks. Even so, none of them could believe what they had just heard.
Within two hours of landing, Chase and Susan were once again in the office of the director of the CIA.
The director said, “Let’s hear it, folks. What did you find?”
Susan gave him the important points, providing details when asked. After speaking for about ten minutes, she finished with, “Sir, to summarize, it appears that Cheng Jinshan has been micromanaging this all himself. We believe that he has someone in the People’s Liberation Army Navy—probably the South Sea Fleet Commander—working with him. That’s the only way he could have pulled this off. Jinshan has his own intelligence network—a team of spies that he has been grooming and working with for decades. Many of them, including Lena Chou, have apparently infiltrated US government agencies and institutions.”
“Do you have more names?”
“A few, sir, yes. The counterespionage teams at the CIA and FBI are both on it.”
“Good.”
“Sir, on the issue of providing evidence to American and Chinese leadership—a lot of this won’t be provable. It won’t be the smoking gun that we need to prove it to the Chinese president.”
“Why not?” the director asked.
“If the Chinese don’t accept that Lena Chou was a spy, we wouldn’t expect this guy to be any better leverage. Jinshan likely operated his network of spies in such a way that almost no one in the Chinese government had access to their names.”
The director stood up and paced around his office. “I see. What next? Folks, we need something clean cut.”
Susan replied, “We’re working on that, sir. Our best lead is that the Chinese spy seemed to think that there might be some Chinese military movement in Latin America—he called it pre-positioning. The interrogations are continuing. And we’re following up on all the leads that we’ve developed so far. We have started to look into this Vice Admiral Song—he’s the South Sea Fleet Commander of the PLA Navy. So far it looks like he’s the senior military conspirator aiding Jinshan. This guy was stationed in the same locations as Cheng Jinshan on several occasions of the past few decades. Our contacts in Guangzhou are telling us that they have been seen together several times this year. This lead shows promise.”
The intercom on the table came on with the secretary’s voice saying, “Director, General Schwartz is here to see you.”
“Send him in, please.”
The Army three-star general marched in. He had close-cropped grey hair and wore his Army service uniform.
Chase glanced over the uniform.
One thing he appreciated about the military was that you could learn a lot about someone just by looking at their chest candy. The RANGER tab, the Master Parachutist Badge with two Combat Jump Devices, the United States Special Operations Command Badge, a Silver Star, a Bronze Star with four oak leaf clusters, Afghanistan Campaign Medal and Iraq Campaign Medal—both with multiple campaign stars. This man was the real deal.
“Good evening, team.”
“Thank you, Susan,” the director said, “that will be all.”
Chase and Susan both got up to leave.
The director said, “Chase, please stay seated.”
Susan and Chase looked at each other, and then Chase sat back down. Susan departed the room.
When it was just the three of them, the director said, “The general needs to provide you with a new set of orders.”
“Yes, sir.”
The general looked at Chase. “Let me ask you a question, son. Do you know why we named this Operation SILVERSMITH?”
“I must confess that I don’t, sir.”
“There was a famous silversmith in our nation’s history. That man rode through the night on horseback, warning of an impending invasion by soldiers cloaked in red.”
“Paul Revere.”
“The one and only. You see the symbolism there, don’t you? Don’t ever say that a West Point grad can’t be a poet.”
Chase smiled politely.
“You’re our Paul Revere, son. The analogy isn’t perfect. We don’t yet know if we’re about to be attacked by the largest standing army in history. Paul Revere was warning of an impending attack. Your role will be to warn certain elements of the American military and set them into motion.”
The director chimed in, “Chase, we’re going to need you to act as a messenger for a select group of military and intelligence assets. Ones that we need to get moving now, in case we need them later.”
The general lowered his voice. “Your actions will allow Operation SILVERSMITH to fulfill its two main objectives. One, to confirm the threat we are facing. And two, to move some of our chess pieces on the board in a way that will counter that threat.”
