by Bradley West
Meanwhile, there was only one snippet of information out of China. Last Sunday night, a man in an unfamiliar uniform took Joanie Nolan away for questioning. This came straight from one of her relatives. And the next day, a regular policeman came to the house to collect her belongings. Perhaps she was in police custody and Nolan wasn’t defecting, or maybe this was just more disinformation. There was no news on Mei Ling Nolan. Constantine knew mother and daughter were together, but the million-dollar question was whether it was in prison or a defector’s villa. They needed eyes on the MSS in Guangdong, but the word back from Hong Kong station was that the CIA had no assets in place. The NSA was also coming up blank with their South China communications taps.
Melissa Shook interrupted his thoughts from her position in the doorway. “Do you have a minute on MH370?”
“Yeah, sure. Come on in.”
“The passenger list just turned up the first interesting leads since that group of employees from the semiconductor company. Listen to this: USAF retired Major Vince Griggs and USAF retired Colonel Peter Mullen flew in business class under false passports. Griggs is sixty-eight and Mullen is seventy-two. Both ex-USAF in the early 1970s posted to the Mekong Delta when Robin Teller was in the vicinity. What do you think?”
“Oh, God!” Constantine surprised himself with his blasphemy. No substantive leads on any of the Nolans, and now this? MH370 was more complicated than he had comprehended. The need for clarity grew by the hour.
Constantine said, “I know how much you dislike Nolan. I think very little of the man, but right now he’s the only one who has been telling a consistent story. Let’s get Compliance and Internal Affairs down here. I’ll find out where Shoenstein is. I’m launching an investigation that presumes Robin Teller and ex-US Air Force personnel organized the hijacking. I need to write an Eyes-Only brief for Director of National Intelligence Morris that excludes Perkins, Burns and all the other Agency higher-ups. While I don’t think anyone active in the Agency is involved—other than perhaps Lloyd Matthews—we can’t rule that out.”
“You realize Perkins crucifies whistleblowers?” she said.
“Yes, but we swore an oath to serve God and Country, too.”
Melissa stopped herself from rolling her eyes. “I’ll see if I can find Lucy Kellogg of IA. Give me five or ten minutes.”
“Hurry. I feel that this one is slipping away,” he said. Bob Nolan just might end up saving his Agency career, or ending it with immediate effect.
* * * * *
Nolan sat behind smoked glass windows in the minibus parked less than two meters from the G-Wis showroom window on Galle Road, Colombo’s commercial thoroughfare adjacent to the sea. Kaili mounted the steps and walked inside, stopping to admire the color printers on display. An Asian dressed in a short-sleeved white shirt, dark tie and wire-rimmed glasses came up and stood next to her. Nolan didn’t see an exchange, but within seconds Kaili was back in the vehicle. The sky was cobalt blue, nary a cumulus puffball visible. Outdoors it must have been ninety-eight degrees Fahrenheit. Passing the fortress walls ringing the US embassy complex, Nolan wondered how many Agency staff were in there right now trying to figure out where he was.
Kaili said, “I have it. Do you want it?”
“Yes, please.” He held his hand out and she pressed a yellow thumb drive into his palm, letting her hand linger just a bit. Seeing if I’m still interested, he thought. What a manipulator. He guffawed at that last thought.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“Ask me in twenty-four hours,” he replied. The answer is likely to be yes if I’m still alive and not being waterboarded.
Balendra had the driver park outside the main entrance to the Colombo Racquets Club and asked them to wait. Five minutes later, he came back with two keys for adjacent rooms 109 and 110, and confirmed that he would occupy number 106 across the hall. The hacker turned go-between gave each of them a blue ball cap with “CAL Partners” embroidered on it. Nolan put on his mirrored shades as they walked in the front door, up the steps and straight into their rooms. Rooms 109 and 110 had an interlinked balcony, and an elevated view of the grounds. Nolan took 109, nearest the main staircase.
He opened the balcony door to survey his realm. Straight below was the drinks patio. Down one of three short flights of steps, the large lap pool was about forty yards away across the lawn. Past the seaside border of the pool was a low whitewashed concrete retaining wall. Hidden behind the wall were two sets of train tracks before the beach and the rough ocean beyond. Whitecaps whipped by the blustery onshore breeze lapped against the steep, pebbly beach. Pathmarajah’s man would have a full field of fire from the balcony, but he’d need to stand on a table or be exceptionally tall if he was going to cover the tracks from this vantage point. Nolan returned to the room, latched the balcony door and pulled the blackout curtains shut.
Nolan’s fifteen by twenty-foot room was spacious yet spartan: twin beds, desk, small TV, bathroom, two armchairs and a tiny table between them. Balendra placed a pair of Army field glasses on the table.
Nolan asked Balendra to return after dinner to walk the grounds in anonymity. In the interim, could he please indulge him by running a few errands? First, he required two identical thrillers purchased by different people at separate times. Second, Nolan gave the large rugby player a list of items to buy from a local surgical supply center. He reminded Balendra of the importance of not being followed. Third, he instructed Balendra to end his sojourn with a wander around the Cinnamon Grand Hotel lobby, as if he were casing it for a robbery. Linger and act obvious, Nolan advised, but then lose anyone who might try to track him back to the Racquets Club.
Finally, Nolan asked, “Are you absolutely certain you have the latest train timetable?
Balendra balked at this last question. “I was at the station yesterday and picked up the latest schedule. It’s identical to what I already gave you. The man behind the counter said it hadn’t changed since 2010. It’ll be good for one more day.” With reluctance, Nolan acquiesced.
Nolan gave Balendra another three thousand dollars and asked him to bring back an identical Lenovo. The one he had now was probably the most contaminated computer in the history of espionage. Buying a second hardwired-with-spyware Lenovo made no sense, save for Nolan’s need to be able to switch machines without Kaili’s knowing. Balendra left shaking his head, happy Nolan had paid him in advance for the entire job.
After reminding Kaili that they were now one hundred percent incommunicado with third parties, Nolan violated his own rule and called Pathmarajah. Army sniper and Captain Aja Fernando might well be the best shot in all of western Sri Lanka as well as an imposingly tall man, but he couldn’t help out if he didn’t know which room to go to. “Expect Fernando after 2 a.m.,” was Pathmarajah’s encrypted message.
Nolan ate lunch alone in his room with the blinds drawn. He removed the microSD card from the tongue of his belt and inserted it behind the hollow red coral stone in a cufflink. A dummy memory card went back into his belt slit. The contents of Patrick Long’s wallet identified him as the facilities manager at the US embassy, Colombo. A photo of the dead man with a beaming wife and two little girls aged maybe six and four occupied a place of pride. The only reason Nolan wasn’t currently in custody was that they were waiting for Watermen. Maybe Kaili further complicated matters as they tried to figure out the connection. Ironically, his reason for coming to Sri Lanka—liberating his godson—would end in his own incarceration.
He checked his two remaining confidential email accounts. There was another packet of doublespeak from Perkins, this time indicating that a presidential pardon was on the table provided that Watermen ended up in custody. No need to mull that one over. “No thanks, Billy,” he replied aloud as he deleted the email.
Watermen had sent him a one-liner from the Moscow Airport confirming that he was landing at 21:15, and asking him to reconfirm via return email the time and venue of the Friday meeting.
Nolan asked W
atermen to pass along to Chumakov a change in plans. First, they were now meeting at 10 a.m. in the lobby of the Cinnamon Grand Hotel. Second, Nolan typed two bank account numbers, along with dates and amounts, to assure Chumakov that, should the handover on Friday not proceed according to plan, this information would be forwarded to his bosses and the global press. Thanks to Sergei—who had traced the funds linking Chumakov with the Iranians for the server subleasing arrangement—Nolan finally had leverage.
Nolan proposed a revised deal whereby he would hand over an unencrypted thumb drive. Nolan and Watermen would wait thirty minutes while Chumakov’s people examined the contents, then they’d walk out. Any complications, and word of Chumakov’s betrayal of the FSB and the FSB’s leasing of its servers to cyber terrorists would be front-page news.
There was a knock on the door. Balendra was back with yet another new laptop, a handful of books, plus some clothes for Kaili, Watermen and him. Nolan called next door. He hid the uncontaminated PC and left the compromised Lenovo conspicuously on. He hadn’t bothered to look at China’s version of the NSA files; he would use their concoction come what may. Nevertheless, it would look odd to Kaili if he didn’t at least peruse the contents. He plugged the thumb drive into the original Lenovo, wincing at the thought of additional insidious programs climbing onboard.
There was a tap on the window. He parted the blinds and unlocked the door to let in the comely Ms. Yu. He gave Kaili two books and noted that he particularly recommended the new international bestseller Ocean of Deceit. In fact, he had a copy himself. She understood and tucked it under Lonely Planet Sri Lanka.
CHAPTER FORTY
LAST RITES
THURSDAY MARCH 13, SHAN STATE AND RANGOON, BURMA; COLOMBO
Teller was reminded of Rumsfeld’s pre-Iraqi Freedom quip that you go to war with the army you have, not the one you might want or wish to have. Instead of his own crack troops, he was left with a half-dozen misfits and an unconscious doctor curled on the seat in the back of the Land Rover.
Mullen winced watching how roughly the soldiers handled their injured charge. Teller was indifferent. Four troops armed with AK-47s piled into the last two rows, while Major Bourey sat up front with the driver
Major Bourey’s men sported camouflage fatigues of a design new to Mullen. Teller noted with satisfaction that Bourey had a loaded RPG-7 grenade launcher and two spare RPGs. They placed these into the back seat of the trusty Crown, RPG launcher poking out of the open rear window on Mullen’s side. Mullen still had the Sig Sauer from the hijacking, while Teller produced an M-4, a half-dozen magazines and a handful of fragmentation grenades. He was ready to move.
Teller’s coughing diminished. “Do you know what this place is?” he asked.
“A giant drug lab and storage depot, from the look of things,” said Mullen.
“That’s what they do here, but it’s actually a work camp. Did you wonder why the prisoners are all North Koreans? Well, I’ll tell ya. It’s because the North Koreans gave them to the Burma government. A gift. A thank you for being my friend present.” He coughed to punctuate the point. “How about that?”
“I thought Kim Jong-whatever kept all his prisoners at home.”
“I did too, but apparently this group was sufficiently useless that they gave them away rather than continue to feed them. I rented them from General Hkwang, Bourey’s boss”—at mention of his name, Bourey turned in the front seat and gave them a small wave—“and used them to build the airstrip. A lot cheaper than locals, and some of them are fucking smart: college professors, engineers and even a few doctors. Their English isn’t great, but most were happy to get out of the pill factories and heroin labs and into the fresh air. At least until half of them contracted malaria.” Teller’s gurgling laugh grated.
The old Ranger continued, “This was a great goddamned deal until a couple of months back when the general decided his slave laborers needed to return to base. The raw opium had piled up in sacks almost to the ceiling in the main warehouse, but the heroin was nearly gone, compliments of my personal export campaign. Hell, I think Bourey was down to his last quarter million meth pills at one point. General Hkwang reclaimed the worker bees in late January, but the strip was more or less built by then, so it wasn’t a big crapping deal.”
Mullen grunted that he was listening, but the thought of slave labor appalled him.
“You asked me last night why I chartered a C-130 to dump a load of rocks into the Indian Ocean. That was a precision mission. The plane had to be in the air over the target at the right moment.”
“Why was that, Rob?”
“So anyone listening for submarine traffic in the Southern Indian Ocean heard the rocks hit the water at the time MH370 should have run out of fuel and crashed.”
“Who listens for subs down there?”
“The Aussies do, out of Perth, but our subs laid the listening array and we share the intel. One night last year, Matthews said China was planning to install a listening post in Sri Lanka, and this year would begin laying their own acoustical buoys in the Indian Ocean. The Russians tried to get ears through India, but the Indians threw them out about twenty years ago. Anyway, we needed the friendlies to hear the big splash to give the cover story more credence.”
“What cover story?”
“It will come out in the next few days that MH370 suffered catastrophic cockpit decompression that left the crew incapacitated as the plane flew on autopilot into the middle of nowhere. When the ghost flight ran out of fuel, it crashed. That INMARSAT satellite ping tracking is a bullshit story developed to support this tale. Our Brit friends at MI6 appreciate that the US Navy doesn’t want to go public with its data collection capabilities and put an X over where the plane crashed. At some stage, the US will probably sink a dummy plane deep where it can’t be recovered. No hurry on that front, of course.”
“You thought of everything,” Mullen said, wondering why Teller was suddenly so forthcoming.
“Most everything. On the radar front, Thailand and Malaysia military radars aren’t always turned on when they should be. Sometimes the operators aren’t very attentive. Other times, they’re told what they’ve seen by the US Navy, which has a much more powerful tracking capability out of Singapore. I’m not sure if the team switched off the radar, delayed the release of the data, or modified it.
“For what it’s worth, no one on duty in Malaysia or Thailand who was paying attention saw your plane head north toward Burma, what with that juke you and Griggs pulled over Penang. The last thing anyone could have seen before you went off scope made it look like the plane was headed to Antarctica.”
“Well I’ll be damned,” Mullen said, but not at all in response to Teller’s last revelation.
* * * * *
“Jesus Christ, Abrahams! Where are your Marines?” Hecker shouted over the clamorous rain.
“Sir, they were involved in a multi-vehicle road accident approximately two miles short of the international airport. I can have them at the airport in twenty-five minutes on foot.”
“We can’t have armed US Marines jogging toward the Rangoon airport. Have them return to the embassy. I’ve conferred with our team leader and they’re still combat-ready. We have little time left in which to take off in time to reach our objective ahead of the enemy. That window is closing. I’m sorry, Clay.”
“No, sir. The Corps is sorry for failing you.” He hung up.
Matthews put his hand on Abrahams’s shoulder. “You did the right thing. The DEA has to fight its own battles. We can’t afford to have the USMC tied up in this interagency fracas. It wouldn’t be fair to your Marines or you. How many years do you have in the Corps, Captain?”
“Twenty-nine, sir.”
“There you go. Don’t jeopardize your thirty by doing something off the books. If those Deltas are as good as they claim, we’ll be OK.”
“I hope so, sir. I hope to God you’re right,” Abrahams answered.
* * * * *
Hecker was
in a tizzy, having gone from feast to famine, but Gerard and Michaels assured him they would be fine supported by just the two policemen, Lazum and Sai. Lazum was an ex-military man with some English, while Sai was a raw recruit who spoke a more fluent, if mangled, English.
Gerard looked at him hard. “So it’s settled. This will be a straightforward ambush. We’re down to four men, so we can’t worry about taking prisoners.”
“Yes, of course. You probably shouldn’t go at all. But seeing as how you’re still willing—”
“We’ll kill them all and let God sort them out,” Michaels said.
* * * * *
While Nolan had been eating lunch, the China embassy had thoughtfully dropped off a cell phone to room 110. Nolan was furious. Didn’t Kaili realize that Western intelligence followed every China agent? And given that he was a sought-after man last seen leaving Singapore in her company, didn’t it occur to her that this was foolhardy? Kaili had heard enough of Nolan’s assertions that the CIA was head and shoulders above any other intelligence organization. She wouldn’t be drawn into a discussion of tradecraft other than to say that, until Monday this week, she’d been the MSS deputy head of Counter Intelligence and therefore knew how to evade tails. That confession had given him food for thought while she dialed Guangzhou on a scrambled line.
She said, “Vishnu, please leave us.” Balendra retired across the hall as they waited on Joanie and Mei Ling. She handed the phone to Nolan.
