by Fritz Galt
Jake slowed down as he passed and looked at the man’s face.
Just as Jake suspected, he was a Westerner. And Jake could guess who he was.
He pulled up to the man and leaned over Stacy’s seat. “Know Bill Brewster?” he asked.
The man had a strong face that softened into a grin. “Good friend of mine.”
“Need a ride?”
The guy looked at Stacy. “Looks like she needs a hospital.”
Jake nodded.
“My car’s up here,” the man said. “Follow me and we’ll get her treated.”
The man swung into a quick looking jog, that for Jake would have been an all-out sprint. His white Taurus was parked around the corner under a tree.
Jake waited for him to pull into traffic, then followed his every turn until they reached the hospital.
It wasn’t nice looking at the people who faced each other across metal trays with needles and thread and small tweezers. Some lay gasping under machines that nobody was attending. Several dripping wet patients were pushed in on gurneys to wait for trauma care.
Stacy didn’t get the best of treatment, either.
But they were all luckier than the lost souls that would be fished out of the lake over the ensuing days.
Chapter 41
Two days later, Jake was still reeling from the quick conclusion to the case. He sat in the upper deck of an Airbus 380 and stared through the dawn at the modern face of Guangzhou’s international airport. Thunder emanated from a gray sky.
Hokey Chinese flute and piano music cycled through the same four songs.
His shoulders hit the headrest, as the seat was made for smaller people.
Stacy sat beside him looking through a China Daily.
They were heading back to the United States, thanks to the helpful folks at the American consulate.
The demolition guy had a heart of gold, and had personally ushered Jake and Stacy through every step of the process.
The consulate obtained a proper Chinese visa for Jake, no questions asked. They printed a new passport for Stacy, bandaged forehead and all, and gave her back the name: Stacy Stefansson.
They treated her with tenderness, and him with distance and respect.
It was the demo guy who saw them off at the airport.
While the consulate staff ensured that Oscar Walsh’s exhumed remains were delivered into the cargo hold, Jake and Stacy had been given the VIP treatment. It began just inside the terminal doors. A red carpet was laid out there, as well as at the check-in, later in the security line, at the VIP Club, and finally they had stood on the red carpet at the gate.
It had felt like they were walking on rose petals.
A tall young lady pulled Stacy’s carry-on bag onto the airplane and had a word with the cabin crew.
That garnered them two bottles of water and a copy of the China Daily before other passengers got their copies.
The woman sitting next to Stacy took it all in without objection. In communist China, apparently it was okay to be elite.
The front-page stories were about health tourism, canceling anniversary events over the Diaoyu Islands, and the government’s rapid reaction to repairing the dam in Guangzhou that had been damaged by a minor tremor, no fatalities reported.
There was no welcoming word from the cockpit. The cabin doors were closed, and they pushed back from the gate.
There was a low rumble of small, distant wheels. The huge aircraft seemed reluctant to leave the ground. Then slowly, the wheels separated from the runway. It felt like a tractor was pulling them into the air.
At last, Jake felt free to talk to Stacy. But it was she who turned to him first.
“Why did you have to kill Simon?”
“Why did you give him the password?”
“Okay. Truce,” she said. “Let’s get a few things straight. I’m glad you destroyed Eric Li’s facility. Thank you. You really came through there and helped us all out. Frankly, I didn’t know what would happen. But I had both you and Simon in the room to ensure that Li got caught. And then you carried me out of danger. And I want to thank you for that. All in all, this was a successful trip.”
Jake had to admit that everything she said was true. “We made a good team,” he said.
“So what I want to know is this.” She adjusted her hair to cover her bandaged forehead. “How did you know that Simon Wu was in league with Eric Li?”
Jake relented. He’d go first. “I knew not only because Simon’s fingerprints were on all the murder weapons, but because he had switched his thumbprints in the DOJ database with those of Oscar Walsh.”
“How did he switch the prints?”
“Remember, he had a degree in computer engineering. A forensic team went back and checked when the fingerprint files were updated. Apparently he accessed the database and tried to switch all the fingerprints, but only the thumbprint files updated.”
“You could have stopped him earlier,” she said. “Why did you wait?”
“I could only verify his tampering with the fingerprints the afternoon of the flood. Only after you gave him the password and he unlocked the internet, did I know his true intent. I had to stop him.”
“He was a deputy marshal,” she said. “I trusted him.”
“You weren’t the only one. While you were recovering in Guangzhou, I did some more background checking. It turns out that Simon Wu had contacts in the Triad from his early years living in San Francisco. The gang called on him to look up a former snitch. He checked the Witness Protection Program files and found Han Chu. But as a computer guy, Wu also recognized the value of Chu’s company. He must have reported back to Li that Chu had unique access to the internet. I don’t know if Li or Wu suggested you come to China for the final hacking job, or who decided to rub out all the Chinese hackers involved in the encryption coding in the States. But it was Simon who murdered everyone.”
“And Oscar Walsh?” she asked. “Why did he come to China?”
“As you now know, Walsh was head of WITSEC. Once he learned that one of his deputies had gone off the reservation, he came to China to find him.”
“What was he going to do to Simon?”
Jake rubbed the sore spot on the back of his head. “Nothing good.”
“How did you end up on this case?”
“The FBI director is a smart man. He got warnings from Commerce about attempts to breach Level One security at the A root server and learned that you were witness to a murder and put two and two together. He just needed me to find out who was attacking the server.”
“That’s why you interviewed me.”
“Right. Afterword, I started checking around DC, including the NSA. Apparently they got riled and called the FBI director and told him that you were working for the NSA. So the director called to take me off the case. I refused, and he kicked me out of the Bureau.”
“But you stayed on the case.”
“I didn’t think the Bureau was investigating thoroughly or quickly enough. When I wouldn’t stop my investigation, they put out a warrant for my arrest. I made the Most Wanted List.”
“They were going to arrest you?” She turned toward him, a shocked look on her face.
“It was the whole internet I was worried about,” he said.
“Oh, Jake.”
He wasn’t asking for her pity and he didn’t want it.
“How did Wu get on the Most Wanted list?” she asked.
“Well,” Jake said, “the U.S. Marshals Service has their own Fifteen Most Wanted. Once Oscar Walsh learned that Wu was knocking people off, he had Wu put on their wanted list. But it was too late. Wu and I were on our way out of the country. Then Walsh flew to China to get Wu and, I suppose, provide protection for you.”
Stacy sat back and closed her eyes. A federal marshal had died trying to protect her.
Now Jake had some questions. “How did you ever come to suspect Quantum was trying to hack into the A root server? Did you go to the NSA, or did they come
to you?”
“Quantum billed itself as a key provider of anti-virus and anti-hacking software specifically to counter the Chinese threat,” she said. “That made them both interesting and suspicious at the same time. So I guess that’s why the NSA recruited me to keep a watchful eye on them."
“What did the NSA require you to do?”
“I reported regularly on contract negotiations with Quantum. I reported on the people I met, including names, business card information, and physical descriptions.”
“So you knew Han Chu?”
She nodded. “Very well. It made me sick that Simon had to kill him.”
“What did you learn about the encryption software?”
“I combed through the code looking for back doors they could use. There were several.”
“Did you report it?”
“I reported it to the NSA, but I modified the code and let it go through to the server.”
“So you wanted to see how far these hackers would go?”
“Not so much that. I was biding my time until I could learn who was behind the hacking. China kept activating more hackers around the U.S. But it was a mystery who was behind the initiative.”
“So you never figured out the Triad connection?”
“Not even close. That was your department.”
Jake still didn’t see her game plan. “How did you end up in China?”
“Eventually it became clear that the hackers wanted me to input the password, and they wanted me there in person so that I didn’t change it.”
“So you obtained a visa.”
“I resisted. I knew that was going too far. They could have done anything with me in China.”
“So the NSA didn’t approve the trip.”
“Are you kidding? They had imposed the travel restriction on me in the first place. I was their U.S. gal. Somebody in China had to handle the rest.”
“But you did go to China.”
Her eyes were misting over. “In the end, I had to.”
“Why?” Jake prodded gently.
“My parents,” she said. “I was getting anonymous phone calls telling me to go to China, and when I refused, they said they’d kill my parents.”
Jake thought back to the lovely couple in West Virginia. “Is that why you went back to Bluefield?”
She nodded. “I wanted to make sure they were safe.”
“…before you hopped on a flight to China.”
She turned away and her voice became choked with emotion. “The first call I made from Beijing was to Bluefield. Just to check on them.”
“And…?”
“They answered the phone and called me ‘Slinky,’ and I knew they were okay.”
Jake sat back to admire her. Until that moment, she had been as cool as ice.
“You did all that? What special training did the NSA give you?”
“None,” she said simply. “I just applied for a job at Verisign and this is what I got.”
She had been a true professional all the way, whether as a programmer or a spy. But there had been so much deception. Everything he had known about her and everything she had told him was a lie.
She would always be a stranger to him.
She looked cold and tucked her elbows under her armrests.
He reached down and took her hand.
It was cold, but she didn’t resist.
He drew the back of her hand to his lips and closed his eyes. It felt like the night she had kissed him in the parking lot. It gave him the same wonderful feeling.
The cabin was quiet except for the gentle hum of the engines.
When he opened his eyes, the cabin lights were dimmed and Stacy had turned to face him.
He was swallowed up by those amazing eyes.
“Do you think I wanted to hurt you?” she said.
He shook his head.
She was a good person with only the best motives. His mother would love her. She was highly skilled and a dedicated worker. She just had the wrong job.
“You were only being professional,” he said. “And patriotic.”
“But it hurt you. Didn’t it.”
“It took its toll.”
“You understand that I couldn’t give anything away.”
“I know. We were working at cross purposes. You needed me in China, but you couldn’t tell me why. And I thought you were the key to a case that I just couldn’t solve.”
She took his hand in hers. Her touch was warming up ever so slightly.
“When did you begin to suspect me?”
“Always, and never. You were good,” he said. “I can’t shake the feeling that both of us were manipulated the whole way.”
She smiled softly. Tears glittered in her eyes.
“So you don’t think badly of me?”
He leaned over the armrest and planted a kiss on her lips. She didn’t respond at first, as if unprepared.
He pulled back and looked at her. Her eyes were shining.
She leaned forward and took his face in her hands. Her touch was gentle. She pressed her lips firmly against his.
As in the past, she had taken control. And as before, he went with it.
She ended with a small laugh. She lowered her head with a grin.
“What is it, Slinky?” he said.
She looked at him squarely with a wry smile. “We were good. Weren’t we?”
He caught her use of the past tense. He was about to object when he saw her staring out the window.
The coastline of China was slipping away behind them.
Chapter 42
Back at the field office in Arlington the next day, Jake was met by applause.
Maria was beaming with admiration behind the reception desk. But Bob Snow was the first to shake his hand. “You’re a hero, rookie.”
“Thanks, but I’m not sure I’ve got Hoffkeit’s support.”
“Are you kidding? You’re in line for my job, or better. Hoffkeit called me to explain the situation. He has already put the paperwork through. You’re back onboard.”
Jake took a moment to consider his change in fortune. “That’s nice,” he finally said. “But why did Hoffkeit reject me in the first place?”
“Reject you? He picked you.”
“Then he ordered me to drop the case. You remember that.”
“Well, according to Hoffkeit, after you visited the NSA up in Maryland, they got rattled that you might expose their little arrangement with Stacy. So they called Hoffkeit to complain. You must have created quite an impression if you ruffled feathers at the NSA and put them on the defensive.”
Jake knew that already. “That explains why Hoffkeit ordered me off the case. But why kick me out of the Bureau?”
“It appears that your little visit to the CIA raised a lot of concern at Langley. Some were afraid that you’d jeopardize U.S.-Chinese relations over this matter. From a foreign relations point of view, they wanted to distance the federal government from your actions. They needed you fired.”
“So Hoffkeit didn’t can me because I was a failure.”
“The opposite, man. You were fired because you were entirely too effective.”
That gave Jake a small measure of comfort. And cause for concern for the government as a whole.
“Okay,” he said at last. “I guess I’ll take my old job back. But first I need a real leave of absence.”
“Take all the time you want. You deserve it.”
When Jake finally made it home, his apartment door was open.
There had been an intruder, and he still heard activity inside.
He drew his pistol and pressed his back against the wall, the barrel by his ear.
It sounded like someone rummaging through his papers. He had all his tax filings and financial papers in there.
“FBI. Don’t move,” he shouted, and swung into the entry, his gun sweeping the room.
He saw someone in blue jeans in the kitchen. His cat wandered out to greet him. She was licking he
r lips.
Jake put the gun away quickly.
Who was that in the kitchen?
“Oh, hi Jake,” the voice called with its soft, familiar drawl.
It was Amber.
“You’ve been away for a while,” she said. “So I thought I’d stock your fridge.”
He approached her and couldn’t resist a smile. Her jet-black hair was supposed to be up in a bun, but the frizzy ends shot out in all directions.
“Let’s eat out tonight,” he said. “I’d like to hit Five Guys for a burger and fries.”
“Sure. This can keep. But you’ll want to eat the cantaloupe.”
“We can have it for breakfast.”
He slipped an arm around her.
“Jake!”
They kissed for a minute or two.
“You’ve been away too long,” she said.
He had to agree.
It had only been a week, but it felt like a lifetime.
About the Author
Fritz Galt is an American novelist with over twenty years of experience in the diplomatic community. He has lived abroad in Cuba, Switzerland, Yugoslavia, Taiwan, India, China and Belgium. He lives with his family in Asia. His bestsellers include Double Cross, The Trap and The Maltese Cross. For an in-depth look at Galt’s work, visit sigma-books.com.
