Griffith was surprised, then concerned, that the initial reports cited zero communication from the downed Chinook; not even an automated Mayday. That kind of result came from running into a mountainside at high speed, which was not the case according to the first troops on the scene. There were no initial traces of an explosion—no obviously blown-out metal, no blast pattern on the surrounding terrain. The evidence pointed to an instant, catastrophic electrical failure, something that had never happened to this particular helicopter. But there was something that had affected it nearly three years earlier, Griffith found in her research.
In 2006, billionaire industrialist Richard Hawke founded a company called CelesTellia that would provide wireless Internet bandwidth using a new broadband technology. Within a few months, the American military discovered that CelesTellia’s new technology was interfering with the GPS systems and electronics in some of its aircraft, including Chinooks. Pilots flying fighter jets identified the problem first. They would suddenly find their instruments going haywire, their planes unresponsive: total systems failure. In each case momentum brought the aircraft out of range quickly enough for the systems to recover before the jets threatened to nosedive.
However, CelesTellia had announced plans to make its wireless Internet bandwidth available around the world—remote locations as well as cities. This meant that navigable space, by air, water, or land, would be effectively booby-trapped by the broadband technology. The military objected, publicly and loudly.
Richard Hawke promised to shut down CelesTellia and abandon the broadband technology. The media furor continued for a few weeks, then faded out.
Four months later Hawke founded a company called Squarebeam that used the same broadband technology. However, the company was now offering a new line of separate products: electronic components that would shield electrical systems from the broadband technology. Supposedly a fighter jet with these electronic components installed would not experience electrical failure when flying through the range of a Squarebeam unit.
The military organized an investigation of Squarebeam but it was shut down within hours— reportedly because Hawke had strong ties with the White House.
Griffith could find no further reference to the matter internally. Externally, however, she found a series of investigative reports from fringe journalists—and one mainstream report from an infamous journalist. There was a transcript of an episode of the TV talk show Truth Tellers from 2009. On that particular show were Jose Colon, a scientist from Caltech; Rebecca Walsh, the press officer of Squarebeam; and host Jack Hatfield. Griffith scanned the document to a section that had the gunpowder smell of a smoking gun:
Hatfield: Dr. Colon, you’ve analyzed the original CelesTellia system and the new Squarebeam system.
Colon: Yes, sir.
Hatfield: What differences did you find?
Colon: There are none.
Walsh: That’s simply not true—
Hatfield: I didn’t ask about the separate components your company is selling, which shield electrical systems from Squarebeam. Those components are a patch. They don’t fix the actual broadband technology itself.
Walsh: They aren’t a patch, they are integrated components—
Colon: Which have to be installed separately in all vulnerable electrical systems. That’s not my definition of “integrated.”
Hatfield: And that’s a lot of fighter jets, battleships, tanks, and a whole army of other vehicles, which will need those components. Is Richard Hawke going to sign all those contracts by hand?
Walsh: The components are only a precaution for those who want it. The technology is safe.
Colon: It is not. Military aircraft passing through your firm’s transmissions have had near-catastrophic electrical failures—
Walsh: Absolutely untrue.
Hatfield: These integrated components sound like the protection rackets run by the Mob. If you don’t buy my add-on, the source hardware will kill you.
Colon: Exactly.
Walsh: Mr. Hatfield, it is irresponsible and insulting for you to compare our firm with the Mafia.
Hatfield: I’m sorry. You’re right. The Mafia doesn’t have connections with the President of the United States.
Walsh: Another unfounded allegation—
Hatfield: Ms. Walsh, I have here stock certificates issued to the President when he was still a community organizer. He held over a thousand shares of stock in CelesTellia.
Walsh: Which he sold when he ran for public office, even though that was not required by law.
Hatfield: Yes, and Richard Hawke donated barrels of money to his political campaign for the Senate and then for the White House. And Hawke is still donating. My sources say a quarter million to the President last year and a quarter million to Congress.
Walsh: Mr. Hawke is a private citizen making legal contributions.
Hatfield: Mr. Hawke is making a lot of wheels very greasy. Those of you watching at home or listening on the radio: Truth Tellers will continue to investigate the dangers posed by the Squarebeam technology and its spinoffs—
Walsh: There are no dangers—
Hatfield:—and will tell you what we discover in a future follow-up segment.
There was no future segment. After inciting international fury over comments about Muslims, Jack Hatfield was off the airwaves. Griffith had read about that in a journalism blog.
She reread the Truth Tellers transcript. There was no question that Hatfield wasn’t being impartial, but considering what was at risk and the weight of the corporation he was fighting, Griffith couldn’t begrudge him his approach. In the end, the last public word on Squarebeam technology was still an open-ended one.
She turned to a quick search of the records on Richard Hawke. Hawke, already a communications mogul, had founded CelesTellia mostly on his own dime but with some funds from a small group of investors. He acquired the broadband technology when he merged with a small phone service company. CelesTellia’s version of that technology was created and tested. Then CelesTellia ran into trouble with the military and Hawke shut it down. He reopened it as Squarebeam and—reportedly— used his relationship with the President to protect the new company and secure military contracts.
“When Hawke had Squarebeam ready to go, he got his old friend the President to drop the Top Secret curtain,” Griffith muttered. “Behind the curtain he sold the military his technology, and then he sold them patches to protect them from that technology.” She grimaced. “Hatfield was right. It’s exactly like the Mob.”
~ * ~
San Francisco, California
As Jack walked away from Spumante’s, he thought about how much he loved San Francisco. The geography, the wind that blended the air of sea and land into something special, the bloodshot-setting sun, the streets, the sounds, the population, the melting pot that drove Bruno into a fury—they were an integral part of who Jack Hatfield was. The Sea Wrighter, the small apartment he kept on Union Street where he hid out and repaired watches and clocks as a kind of therapy, his close friends, even the anger he felt whenever he saw the GNT cable news network offices where he used to tape his talk show—they were all here. Their quirks, pricks, familiarity, challenges, disappointments, and comforts were part of the emotional gauntlet that kept Jack Hatfield alert and engaged. He didn’t know who he would be, what he would be, how he would function without all of that. That’s what is known as “home.”
He looked at his watch. It was nearly two o’clock. He was on Clay Street now, the site of the first cable-pulled streetcars. Pedestrian traffic was normal, an equal mix of shuffling locals and stop-and-start tourists. Yu Market was located in the middle of the street with other storefronts and Asian restaurants around it. The buildings were mostly two and three stories tall with signs in Chinese and English. Jack saw a customer enter the grocery; the police were long gone and there appeared to be nothing out of the ordinary.
Jack felt a flash of nostalgia.
He had first come to the grocery when he still had his talk show. Jack was old enough to remember the turf wars that had always been at a low simmer down here. They led to the founding of the SFPD’s Asian Gang Task Force, which stopped most of the street violence. However, that did not end the lawless activities of the youth gangs. They went back underground and continued recruiting from high schools and pool halls, rewarding members with cash, women, drugs, and a sense of empowerment. Unlike the majority of the Asians, the gangs were scrupulously devoted to the idea of non-assimilation. Their idea of community did not extend beyond the boundaries of the gang. Chinese who did not support them were against them.
The struggle for control of the drug trade, gambling, the sale of knock-off designer goods, cockfights, and fight clubs kept the gangs bickering among one another, unable to expand. Jack had once described it on air as “a local version of Iran and Iraq under Saddam, when they were so busy warring with one another they couldn’t do much damage to anyone else.”
The one area that did not apply was human trafficking. For years the Long Zai gang had transported young Chinese, Malaysian, and Thai women in cargo containers to Vancouver. Then they drove the women by van down to San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego, ostensibly to work in restaurants. All the girls were forced into prostitution. Maggie Yu heard one of the gang members talking about his “ladies” at the martial arts school, where some gang members went for martial arts training. Maggie told her father, who was sickened by the thought that girls—some no older than his fourteen-year-old daughter—were being forced to sell their bodies. Johnny got in touch with Jack, who arranged for him to wear a wire while he watched his daughter train. Johnny picked up conversations that helped police break the Long Zai traffickers. Johnny continued to help Jack as an unidentified source in follow-up segments, and he was one of the few people who called Jack in support when he was fired from Truth Tellers.
The doorbell jangled on its steel ribbon as Jack walked into Yu Market. Johnny was behind the counter. He came around to greet Jack, his leathery face unfolding in a big smile that made him look twenty years younger.
“My friend,” Johnny said, embracing the much taller man.
Jack noticed Maggie as she helped an elderly customer get something from a top shelf. When she was finished, the young woman hurried over. She gave Jack a warm, lingering hug as well.
“It’s so good to see you again,” she said.
“And you,” Jack told her. “I hear you got to practice your mantra today: a martial artist must be gentle in life—”
“—and ferocious in combat,” Maggie replied. “You didn’t forget.”
“When it comes to mottos and morals, my brain is like Velcro.”
She broke the embrace and smiled up at him. “I remember when you arranged a studio tour for my college class, you and some of your friends were trading verses from the Bible,” she said. “Do you still do that?”
“As often as possible,” Jack told her. “Wisdom doesn’t go out of style, even if it’s in increasingly short supply.” He stepped back and looked at her. “So. Are you sure you’re all right?”
She nodded once. But there was uncertainty in her eyes, in the way she fingered a silver charm bracelet on her left wrist. Her business with the intruder had come to a hard stop. That didn’t mean it was over.
“Is it all right to talk here?” Jack asked.
“Yes, yes,” Johnny said. He indicated the customers in the aisles. “We know all of these people.”
“Tell me what happened,” Jack said to Maggie.
Maggie told him. Her voice was calm as she described the man, their exchange, and his flight from the store when he saw Johnny and the mourners. Occasionally she pointed to show him where events had taken place. Johnny put his arm around his daughter as she talked.
When she finished Jack asked, “Your father said you noticed something unusual?”
“It was out of character with everything else,” she said. “At first I thought he had come to try and extort money.”
“A protection racket,” Jack said.
“That’s right. But when I told him I wouldn’t get my father, that all I could do was sell him something—meaning groceries—he smiled. It was not an amused smile but something private, as though he knew something that I did not.”
Jack considered this. “You’re sure he wasn’t a cop checking to see if you were selling drugs?”
“The police looked at the surveillance video,” Johnny told him. “They said he wasn’t one of their own.”
“Maybe he was a dealer,” Jack said. “He might’ve wanted you to sell for him.”
“He looked too wholesome for that kind of trade,” Maggie replied. “He didn’t have the jewelry, he wasn’t looking over his shoulder, he didn’t have that dusty smell of a room with no windows.”
Maggie was referring to the labs where drugs were sorted, cooked, or packed. Jack knew exactly what she meant. Men and women naked so they couldn’t steal drugs, powder from the talc used to cut cocaine or heroin clinging to their skin, dryness from dehumidifiers that kept moisture out of the packets of blow or smack or pot.
“He didn’t look like he was from around here and he didn’t sound like it, either,” Maggie said. “His English was very formal and it had no hint of mainland gutturals. This was a schooled, educated man.”
“A spy, recruiting?” Jack suggested. “That’s how they do it. Guys come from the consulate, go out among transplants, look for people loyal to the homeland who might find a couple grand a week helpful. Maybe he hoped you would sell information.”
“He didn’t try and talk to me, get to know me—”
“It was your father he wanted,” Jack reminded her. “They don’t go after second generation, young people who have already assimilated.”
Father and daughter fell silent. They obviously hadn’t considered that.
“Did you see any of the others? Did anyone see them?” Jack asked.
“No,” Maggie said. “I was ducked down and people in the street were looking at the speeding SUV. They couldn’t describe the others.”
Jack wasn’t sure that recruitment was the answer. A “missionary,” as consulate recruiters called themselves in the intelligence game, would not have tried to grab Maggie. He also wouldn’t have had an SUV parked right in front of their store. He would have come downtown unobtrusively, made his rounds, talked to other merchants, come back some other time to talk to Johnny. Missionaries don’t like to call attention to themselves.
Jack was out of ideas. “What do you think he wanted?” he asked Maggie. “You’ve obviously given this some thought.”
“Until you said that about the spies, my belief was that he wanted to buy the store,” Maggie said.
Jack looked at Johnny. “Is it for sale?”
“No.”
“Do you know if he ever talked to other shopkeepers?”
“The police canvassed the block,” Johnny said. “Apparently they came to see us.”
“How many merchants own their properties instead of renting?”
“I own and so does the takeout next door and the cell phone shop on the other side,” Johnny said. “I know the owners. The man didn’t talk to them.”
Jack looked around. His eyes went from the worn, green-tile floor to the embossed, rustic copper panels of the vintage ceiling. “What do you have that someone would want?”
“Everything,” Johnny said.
“You lost me.”
“When Chinese seek something, they never want just that one thing,” he said. “It is like acupuncture. You put a needle in one spot, but it is really a larger wellness you are after.”
“Someone wouldn’t just want to buy your business?”
“Why?” Johnny asked. “It is a lot of work for little reward. But if, for example, you wanted to tear down the block and build an office tower, what better way to start?”
“But why build
an office tower here?” Jack asked. “There must be something else.”
The street was full of shops that were probably no better or worse an investment. A real estate deal didn’t explain why Johnny had been targeted first, and the behavior of the intruder didn’t fit with the typically smooth and stealthy tactics of developers and their lawyers. But no other explanation jumped out. If someone were just looking to launder money, the check-cashing business was better for that. Distributing drugs? There was the pharmacy, or the Asian movie rental store that catered to young people.
A Time for War Page 5
