Wall of Night

by Grant Blackwood

  Redmond spoke for ten minutes, outlining the plan from start to finish.

  Cathermeier asked, “Who do you plan to put on the ground?”

  Redmond told him. “It would be a small team. Four to six men.”

  “Insertion method?”

  “Submarine.”

  There were a few seconds of silence as Cathermeier considered the plan. Finally he said, “Good plan, wrong scenario.”

  “That’s a political issue,” Bousikaris said. “Let us worry about that.”

  “You’re talking about putting armed men onto the soil of another country,” said Cathermeier. “Doing that under any circumstances is dicey, but doing it with shaky intel is—”

  “General, what we need to know from you is, can you put it together? Is it feasible?”

  “I need to run it by my J-3—”

  “No. We’re keeping the loop tight on the operation. What’s your answer, General?”

  “It’s feasible, but I have to tell you, I have serious misgivings about this.”

  Mason said, “As do I.”

  “Goddamnit!” Martin roared. “What—”

  Bousikaris stepped forward, placed a restraining hand on Martin’s shoulder, and said, “Gentlemen, you’re cautiousness is appreciated, but the time for debate is over. Your commander-in-chief has given an order. If you can’t carry it out, say so now.”

  The gauntlet was down, Mason realized. Whatever was happening here, it was serious enough that Martin was willing to end careers to get it done. Cathermeier would obey because he was duty bound to do so. As for himself, if he refused to go along, he’d be out, and while that in itself didn’t bother Mason, he wanted to know what Martin was up to. To do that, he had to stay.

  “Mr. President, I’ve voiced my objections. That said, you give the order, I’ll do my part.”

  Martin nodded, then looked to Cathermeier. “General?”

  Cathermeier shrugged. “I’ll start the ball rolling.”

  Holystone

  Tanner found Oaken in his office. Lined with floor-to-ceiling bookcases, filing cabinets, a map wall, and three computer workstations, this was Oaken’s second home, a fact to which his wife, Beverly, would readily attest.

  Oblivious to Tanner’s entrance, Oaken reclined in his chair doodling on a yellow legal pad.

  “Let me guess,” Tanner said, leaning on the doorjamb, “You’re planning an expedition to K2.”

  Oaken looked up. “Huh?”

  “Everest?”

  “Very funny.”

  Of the thousands of interests that occupied Oaken’s mind, outdoor adventure was not one of them. The closest he’d come to the wilderness in the past six months was watching Wild Kingdom reruns. “That Marlon Perkins guy has the right idea,” he’d told Tanner. “Letting that Jim guy do all the work. He doesn’t even wear shoes, did you know that? Talk about unsanitary …” From there the discussion had deteriorated into his musings about tetanus boosters and parasitic infections.

  For all Oaken’s quirks and for their dissimilarities, Tanner considered himself lucky to not only have Walt on his side, but to also count him as a friend.

  “Algebra,” Oaken replied. “Polynomials, sequences … It helps me clear my head.”

  “Algebra helps you clear your head.”

  “It’s concrete. The answer’s either right or wrong. It’s … refreshing. So, what’s up?”

  “I’m wondering if you’re up to a little research project.”

  Oaken’s eyes twinkled. “Have you ever known me not to be? What’s the topic?”

  “Double agents.”

  Since hearing about Soong’s contact, Tanner had been looking at Ledger with fresh eyes. Of the dozens of things that might have caused its failure, he kept returning to the same theory: Someone in his network had been either a double or an informant.

  He’d spent much of his time in Beijing running counter-surveillance—following Soong before and after meetings, watching dead drops, staking out meeting places, setting up wave-off locations—Anything and everything that might force the hands of Guoanbu watchers. Nothing ever came of it.

  That led him to two conclusions: One, Soong had in fact been under surveillance and he’d missed it; or two, someone was feeding the opposition, making surveillance unnecessary. Tanner realized there’d been only one agent in his network who could have given the Guoanbu that kind of information. Known only by his code name, Genoa had been what’s called a “block cutout.”

  Unlike a “chain cutout”—a go-between who knows only the agent who recruited him—a block cutout knows not only the names of all the agents, but their meeting spots and dead drops as well. Moreover, Genoa had been a colleague of Soong’s. In his excitement, had Soong told Genoa the time and place of his final meeting with Tanner?

  It would explain much. How else was the Guoanbu able to roll up the entire network so efficiently? How else could they have covered the meeting place and escape routes so well?

  Design meant planning, Briggs knew, and planning meant foreknowledge.

  “What happened to Genoa?” Oaken asked after Tanner finished explaining his theory.

  “He disappeared like the others. Problem is, that’s an easy ruse. Plus, by that time, my picture was plastered all over the city; I was on the run.”

  “Is it possible you missed something in your countersurveillance?”

  “It’s possible, I knew it was going to be a weak spot. Beijing was—still is—crawling with PSB and PAP officers. All it would have taken was one slipup on an agent’s part and the whole thing would have unraveled.”

  Oaken nodded. “I think your theory is solid. Didn’t the CIA already check it out, though?”

  “Not until a year after it happened. It might be worth another look.”

  “True … What’s all this about, Briggs? Curiosity or something more?”

  “If I’m right about Genoa, and he’s still alive, and he’s still active—”

  “That’s a lot of ‘ifs.’”

  “If all those things are true, maybe we can use him.”

  Oaken smiled. “Assuming Mason is going to send you back in.”

  “Right.” Send me or not, I’m going back. “What do you say? Want to give it try?”

  Oaken chuckled. “Find one man amid a billion Chinese, who may or may not have been a double agent, who we only know by a code name? Damn right I want to give it try.”

  8

  Quantico, Virginia

  Latham and Randall were met in the computer lab by one of the department’s experts, a young African American named James Washington. “You guys got here in a hurry,” he said.

  “We’re hoping you’ve got something good for us,” Latham said.

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  James gestured to a pair of stools before a Formica counter on which sat Baker’s computer, a top-of-the-line Hewlett Packard tower attached to a twenty-one-inch Sony monitor.

  “This case, it’s the Baker thing?” James asked. “The murdered guy from Commerce?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, either he’s a real computer geek, or he had some help. This system’s got some gnarly security programs attached.”

  Latham chuckled. “By ‘gnarly,’ I assume you mean ‘superior’?”

  “Right. Anyway, his system’s got all kinds of blocks on it—routines designed to keep the information from being backed up or routed to an exterior drive. Hell, if you even try to print the stuff without a password, the hard drive erases itself.”

  “This isn’t stuff you can buy on the open market?” asked Randal.

  “Like at Best Buy? No way. I’ll know more once I tear it apart, but none of it looks familiar to me. I think I found a way through it, but there’re no guarantees. If I’m wrong, the hard drive goes poof. Since it’s your case, I wanted you to make the call.”

  “Gimme odds,” Latham said.

  “Fifty-f
ifty.”

  “Do it.”

  The process was simple, James told them. The one contingency the security program could not guard against was regular system maintenance. Using a “slightly recoded” CD version of the computer’s native antivirus software—in this case, Norton—James initiated a scan of the hard drive. Recognizing this as a routine event, the security program didn’t interfere. However, instead of scanning files, proclaiming them clean, then passing them back to the drive, James’s version of Norton copied each scanned file and transferred it to the CD before returning it to the hard drive. Since the security program cared only whether files were sent to an output device, it did not intervene.

  There was an electronic bong. James removed the CD and rebooted the system. “Now we see if we raised any alarms,” he said.

  The desktop reappeared on the screen. James used the mouse to check the drive’s directory. He smiled. “We’re okay. Not even a hiccup.”

  “Good job, James,” said Latham. “Let’s take a look at the CD.”

  ​Most of the data was useless—games, letters, recipes—but when they got to Baker’s money-management program, they struck pay dirt. “Holy cow,” said Randall. “Charlie, the balance in this checking account is almost three hundred grand. The account’s routing number looks odd, though.”

  “Offshore probably,” Latham said. “Let’s see who he was paying.”

  Randall clicked the mouse a few times to filter the account by payee. There were dozens of transactions, but one stood out. “WalPol Expeditions,” Randall murmured. “Here’s a check for eighty thousand … another for a hundred twenty.”

  “How far back does it go?” asked Latham.

  “Almost two years.”

  Bingo, Charlie thought. Whoever or whatever WalPol was, the late Larry Baker had paid them almost 250,000 dollars in the last eighteen months.

  Beijing

  Roger Brown had been expecting the order from Langley to arrange a face-to-face with Chang-Moh Bian. In the week it took them to make the decision, he’d made a decision of his own.

  Brown believed in leading from the front, and he wasn’t about to ask one of his people to do something he wasn’t willing to do himself. Not to say he wasn’t apprehensive. Playing controller to an agent who is in turn playing intermediary for an already famous defector was a daunting task at best.

  Bian’s “ballpoint message” had designated a marker drop that Brown could use to establish contact, which he did the following Sunday by strolling around the Forbidden City’s 250 acres while performing a string of identifiers: his coat held a certain way, a newspaper folded and left on a bench, tying his shoe near a fountain. He passed several uniformed and plainclothes PSB and PAP officers, but none paid him any attention.

  After two hours of this pageantry, Brown returned to the bench beside the Golden Water Stream and sat down. Two minutes later he saw Bian enter the courtyard.

  The man’s a wreck, Brown thought. Bian’s hands were visibly shaking. Trying to cover the movement with a camera, he stopped and looked behind him every few seconds. This is bad. Best case, Bian was simply scared; worst case, he was bait. The sooner Brown could distance himself from Bian the better. He was about to give the wave-off signal when Bian turned, walked directly to the bench, and sat down. “You came.”

  Ah, shit. “You don’t look well.”

  “I feel awful. My stomach—”

  “Nerves.”

  “I suppose.”

  “You’ve got to relax. If you’re being watched, they’ve already got us. If you’re not being watched, then your jumpiness is going to get you caught. Me, too, for that matter.” Brown forced some humor into his voice: “I’ll tell ya, if I get thrown in prison, I’ll have hell to pay with my wife.”

  “I’m sorry. I just … I’m …”

  “I know. Just breathe. Enjoy the sun.”

  After a few seconds, Bian’s posture eased. “Your people are interested in helping the general?”

  “We are.”

  “What about his conditions? He was adamant about the man he mentioned.”

  “We’re working on it. First off, though, I have to ask you some questions.”

  Brown spent fifteen minutes questioning Bian about himself: school, family, work, hobbies, and finally, his motivation for helping Soong. All the answers would later be dissected by the Intelligence Directorate, then compared to what they already knew about the man. If any inconsistencies appeared, the DO would have the option to either abort the operation, or order it forward with the knowledge that Bian may be damaged goods.

  “Where is Soong right now?” Brown asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “He’s in a laogi somewhere to the north, but I don’t know its location.”

  “Then how are you in contact with him?”

  “I’m sorry, the general was very specific. I can only give those details to the man he asked for … this Tanner person.”

  Alarms went off in Brown’s head. “That’s unacceptable.”

  “I know.” Bian hesitated, started to speak, then stopped. “I …”

  “What?”

  “He’ll be angry I gave you this information.”

  “Why? What information?”

  “He desperately wants to get his family out of China with him.”

  “We assumed that,” Brown said. “I don’t understand—”

  “That’s why he wants Tanner to come here. Soong trusts him.”

  “So?”

  “So, I may know a simpler way. You may be able to get him out without setting foot in China.”

  San Clemente Island, California

  If not for the added conditions, tonight’s exercise would have been a simple one, something Master Chief Robert Jurens and his team of three SEALs had done dozens of times. In this case, the “added conditions” involved a guided missile frigate lobbing three-inch shells onto the beach they were trying to reconnoiter.

  Known to fellow operators as “Sconi” because of his proud Wisconsin upbringing (one of the only black dairy farming families in the state, he was fond of telling people), Jurens was a rail-thin black man with a goatee and an easy smile. Jurens had been on the teams for fourteen years, having gone from a lowly seaman during BUD/s training to one of the youngest master chiefs in the navy. Since navy SpecWar ran on the merit system, he was frequently put in command of platoons, often over the heads of commissioned officers. No one complained. Jurens knew his business and he knew how to lead.

  Tonight’s swim-in had been taxing, largely because the currents surrounding San Clemente Island were ferocious. In wartime they would have come here to map the shoals for obstacles, dangerous gradients, bed consistency—anything that might impede an amphibious force.

  Through the murky water Jurens could hear the muffled whoosh-crump of the three-inch shells pounding the beach ahead of them. Very close, he thought. He could feel the impacts rumbling through the sand beneath him. Hope the fire-control boys are on their game tonight.

  He reached out and gave the buddy-line a double tug, signaling the team to advance. His belly scraped the sand. As each wave crashed over his head and then receded he caught glimpses of sloped beach and—

  Crump! A geyser of sand and flame erupted on the beach, then another.

  Suddenly he saw a flicker of blue light in the corner of his eye. He rolled onto his back and poked his mask out of the water. High above, a flare arced into the sky, followed a moment later by a yellow. It was the “abort exercise” signal.

  The other team members had also seen it, and one by one they waded ashore. Before anyone could ask questions, they heard the thump of helicopter rotors. A few seconds later a pair of strobe lights materialized out of the darkness. The helicopter—a Seahawk from the frigate, Jurens guessed—stopped in a hover over the beach, then landed in a storm of sand. The cabin door opened. The crewman inside pointed to Jure
ns and waved him over.

  Jurens jogged over. “What’s up?” he shouted.

  “Orders for you, Master Chief!”

  “Now? We’re kinda in the middle of something, if you hadn’t noticed.”

  “I’m just the messenger. They said now, so here we are.”

  Jurens took the message and trotted away as the Seahawk lifted off behind him and disappeared into the night. He opened the message and started reading.

  “Bad news, Skip?” asked Smitty.

  “I guess that depends on how you feel about Alaska,” Sconi replied.

  Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

  Three thousand miles to the east, a man to whom Sconi Bob Jurens would soon owe his life was also receiving a message. Commander Archie Kinsock, skipper of the USS Columbia, was standing in the sub’s Control Room when the radio-shack operator called on the intercom.

  “Traffic for you, Skipper. Eyes only.”

  “On my way.”

  As Columbia was in port, only a skeleton crew remained aboard to perform housekeeping functions. Most of the crew was either on liberty or in one of Pearl’s BEQs, or Base Enlisted Quarters, whose rooms, though far from luxurious, certainly seemed so to submariners.

  Kinsock walked forward, punched the cipher keypad on Radio’s door, and pushed through. “It’s on the printer, Skipper,” said the RM3.

  “Thanks, Finn.” Kinsock tore off the sheet and read.

  “Bad news, sir?”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re frowning.”

  “First thing they taught us in CO school, Finn. Go grab yourself a cup of coffee, will ya?”

  “Yes, sir.” Finn left.

  Kinsock reached above his head, switched the intercom to the IMC, or the boat-wide public address, and keyed the handset. “XO to Radio.”

  Jim McGregor, the boat’s executive officer, appeared a minute later. “What’s up, Skipper?”

  “How many have we got ashore, Jim?”

  “Eighty-two. Four on leave.”