False Flag

by Jack Slater

  Mitchell paused to take on board his President’s instruction. Nash wondered if the man would push back. After all, killing a prisoner—no matter how vile an individual—without a trial was far from legal. But in the president’s view, it was justice of an old-fashioned kind, and the only kind that Kim deserved.

  And Mitchell agreed. His tone was laced with quiet approval. “Understood, Mr. President. I’ll make the arrangements when my men are finished with him.”

  “Thank you Mike,” Nash said. “That will be all.” He put down the phone.

  President Nash leaned back in his chair and contemplated what he had just ordered—a cold-blooded execution. It went against everything he had once believed in. But six months in the job had taught him that while sometimes, as with Ambassador Lam, diplomacy was necessary, there were other times when might was the only thing that sufficed.

  This was one of those times.

  And if he ordered men and women like Jason Trapp and Eliza Ikeda into harm’s way, then the least he could do was share the hard decisions that had to be taken to keep the country safe. Nash settled back and decided that on this occasion, he wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.

  Epilogue

  36 hours later

  USS America

  Sea of Japan

  Jason Trapp stood on the deck of the USS America, hands resting gently on his hips, and gazed out into the horizon. He wore borrowed combat pants with a desert camouflage print, tan boots, and an olive T-shirt with US MARINES stenciled in black over his breast.

  Trapp was a product of the Green Machine. He wasn’t a Marine. Never had been, never would be. But the fine men of Charlie Company had pulled his bacon out of the fire and helped pull the world’s only two superpowers back from the brink of war. So he figured it wouldn’t do any harm to play dress-up.

  But only this once.

  The Sea of Japan was still, and a red glow hugged the horizon, heralding fine weather in store the next day. But though Trapp’s eyes were fixed on to the middle distance, he wasn’t admiring the view. He was searching for something.

  Someone.

  The smell of aviation gas carried on a light breeze, tickling Trapp’s nostrils. He barely noticed it as his eyes flickered, his mind working overtime to determine whether the smudged speck on the horizon was what he was looking for. He never blinked as the aircraft hove into view.

  The Chinook flew low over the surface of the ocean, flanked on either side by a pair of Viper attack helicopters. The Bell AH-1Z choppers looked like gnats, but they packed a hell of a punch. Trapp was glad of it. The cargo in the belly of the hulking great Chinook transport helicopter was special.

  After what Eliza Ikeda had been through, that protection was the least her country could offer. If Trapp was any judge, it would take her a long time to recover. Not just from her physical wounds, but the mental scars, too. She’d survived the kind of horrors that few could contemplate, let alone live through.

  Ikeda was as hard as any operative he’d ever worked with. But only time would tell if she’d come out of the cauldron of hell stronger for her experience. There would be no shame in throwing in the towel after what she’d been through. Trapp sure as hell wouldn’t blame her.

  A small group of Marines and sailors had gathered on the flight deck, near Trapp, matching his silent vigil. One of them, a young man with tousled ginger hair, turned to him. “You need any help, sir?”

  Trapp shook his head absently. “I’m good.”

  “Thanks. For what you did out there.”

  Trapp turned and noticed for the first time that the eyes of the assembled group were on him, rather than the middle distance. He didn’t know how long that had been the case, but it made him uncomfortable. He was using to blending into the shadows, not becoming the center of attention. He cleared his throat, somewhat self-consciously. “Forget about it.”

  The kid who had spoken up, a Marine who didn’t look much older than twenty, fixed him with the kind of serious gaze that only the young can pull off without embarrassment. “I mean it, sir. We all do.”

  The Marine, a lance corporal, took a half step back and peeled up a crisp salute. He held Trapp’s gaze with a fierce intensity that took the CIA operative aback. That emotion was doubled when, in turn, like a flock of gulls bursting into flight, the small gaggle of military personnel behind the Marine joined suit.

  Trapp didn’t know how to respond. He had a decade on most of them, almost two on some. But each shared an expression of powerful honesty—an admiration that left him feeling as uncomfortable as it did proud. An unaccustomed choking sensation made its presence known in his throat, rendering speech almost impossible.

  But he had to say something. “Thank you, Corporal. I mean it.”

  Thankfully, the spell was broken by the Chinook’s heavy blades tearing the air asunder. Trapp’s gaze snapped instantly back to the ocean, where he saw the two Vipers hanging back and the huge transport chopper coming in to land.

  Half a dozen navy corpsmen appeared on deck, wearing high-visibility neon vests that warned of their presence like a fire engine klaxon. They hung back in a tight group, waiting to pounce the second the Chinook had touched down.

  The second the enormous helicopter’s wheels hit the deck, its ramp began to lower. Trapp knew that he should let the corpsmen do their job, but he couldn’t help himself. His legs propelled him without any conscious thought, and he found himself waiting at the foot of the ramp, hanging back as the corpsmen jogged up it, their boots tramping against the heavy metal.

  As the rotors were still turning, the Chinook began to disgorge its cargo. A single individual, Eliza Ikeda, wrapped in a device that looked like it had arrived straight off the set of the science-fiction film. It was a hazmat gurney, a fully self-contained unit with its own air supply, designed to transport individuals exposed to biological or chemical contaminants.

  Ikeda certainly qualified. Though the modified Marburg virus, now beginning to be referred to as MAR-G, or Marburg Genetic, was not targeting her cells, she was still a carrier. She would be in isolation until the doctors completely cleared her of infection. That might take weeks. Ikeda, the distance-swimming, triathlon-competing health nut would almost certainly be driven half-mad by her confinement.

  But the alternative was far worse. Trapp knew she would understand, as much as she might rail against the decision. The risk of transmission was simply too great. That was why she was out here, on the America, in the middle of the ocean, on a vessel that was already steaming away from the Asia-Pacific, the other three American hostages already safely aboard, and receiving treatment in the decks below.

  It was a firewall made of water.

  As the gurney made its way to the bottom of the ramp, carried by four Marines, it stopped in front of Trapp. He was in the way, but no one was about to steal him of his moment. He grinned, placing his hand on the plastic shell of Ikeda’s gurney. “How you doin’?”

  The hardy operative’s pupils were dilated when they met his, evidence of a mild sedation that was about as far as the navy corpsmen had managed to get in their efforts to give her medical attention, given the hazmat restrictions. She would be treated on board. The best doctors in the navy were already on their way. Trapp had made sure of it.

  “Joey,” Ikeda said, her voice barely over a whisper, but a smile crossing her dazed face. Her slate gray eyes flashed up at him, hungry with recognition. “You made it.”

  Trapp’s forehead wrinkled with confusion. “Huh?”

  “It’s from Friends, dummy.”

  The weathered CIA operative cracked a grin, a real one this time, a look of unadulterated relief crossing his tanned face, handsome even with his nose still swollen from the impact it had taken a couple of days prior. He didn’t know why he cared for this woman so deeply. In truth, he scarcely knew her: just a swim in the bathtub sea off the coast of Hong Kong, then a mission blown to all hell.

  But Trapp had invested so much in getting her back, he fe
lt bound to her. Like he knew her on a deeper level than seemed possible, given the brief time they’d shared. Like soldiers in a foxhole, the pair of them had lived through a trauma, and come out whole on the other side.

  “Never watched it,” he admitted.

  Ikeda pouted, her hand haltingly, jerkily rising to meet his. She was weighed down by exhaustion, but fought through it. “That’ll cost you.”

  “How much?”

  “Ten points.”

  “How do I pay?”

  She grinned, but even as she did so, her eyes began to close, lids drooping heavily. “You’ll have to wait to find out…”

  Like a child, Ikeda fell asleep mid-conversation, her arm dropping gently to her side. One of the navy corpsmen cleared his throat half-heartedly, clearly not wanting to interrupt, but knowing it was his duty. “Um, sir—the doc’s waiting…”

  Trapp glanced up and saw four Marines doing anything and everything possible to avoid meeting his eye, a pale pink decorating their tanned cheeks, and a pair of navy corpsmen chewing their cheeks as they fought competing desires: on the one hand, to avoid offending a man they considered a true blue American hero, on the other their duty to their patient.

  And as it should, the latter won out.

  “You got it,” he muttered, patting Ikeda’s gurney one last time. For luck. “Take care of her, now.”

  “We will, sir.”

  Trapp watched as the procession went on without him. He felt at a loss as the flight deck scurried into action around him, preparing to land the two Vipers. Everyone had a duty, a role to play.

  Everyone except him.

  For once, he was useless. And for now, at least, Trapp realized he didn’t mind it that way. He could use the rest. It had been a long time since he’d had any. Maybe once this was all over, the debriefs done, the medals handed out, Eliza Ikeda given a clean bill of health, they could go somewhere quiet and forget that any of this had ever happened.

  Trapp grinned ruefully. Maybe he was getting ahead of himself.

  But he hoped not.

  Author’s Note

  Thanks for making it to the end of my second Jason Trapp novel! If you’ve got this far, then I guess I must be doing something right…

  The good news, for Trapp fans, is that I’m aiming to have the third book in the series out sometime toward the end of October. I’m a long way through it already, as getting fresh words down makes a nice change from the tedious mire of editing! The books really are getting easier to write; it’s almost like I’ve found my groove with the characters, and ultimately how could anyone not enjoy coming up with the plot—that’s the best bit…

  (Until I write myself into a hole!)

  I think the further I explore Jason’s character, the more complicated his life gets! At the beginning of Deep State, he was hurting, but he had a simple mission: make things right with his former partner’s brother, Joshua Price, and then inflict revenge on the man that Trapp thought was responsible for his best friend’s death. Obviously things didn’t work out that way—and in that characteristic way he seems to, Trapp stumbled into a pretty cataclysmic plot to bring down the democratic system of government of the United States of America.

  By the end of the book, he discovers that the world wasn’t quite the way he thought it was. His changes, but he gets revenge on the man ultimately responsible for Ryan’s death—the vice president, Robert Jenkins.

  This bleeds into the beginning of False Flag, a little bit: Jason is on a mission to tie up the last loose ends left at the end of Deep State. But throughout the start of the book, he’s wondering whether he even wants to live this life anymore. He’s given his country some of the best years of his life—perhaps it’s time to retire. Let someone else take up the fight. And besides, previously it was always him and his partner against the world. Now, it’s not so easy. Without someone he trusts by his side, Trapp begins to question who he’s fighting for.

  I guess that’s where Eliza Ikeda steps in. She had a tough time of it in this book, but I’m looking forward to seeing her flourish as I continue the series.

  So—how real are the scenarios I talk about in False Flag?

  As far as the North Korean angle goes, I’ve actually stolen more from real life than you might believe. Unit 61 doesn’t exist—at least, as far as I know, and to my knowledge, there aren’t any evil recruiters going around labor camps in the mountains north of Pyongyang, and making children execute their own parents…

  But much of what I described as occurring in that camp does, in fact, happen in real life. North Korea’s labor camps are probably the closest facsimile of a Nazi concentration camp we have in the modern world. In the West, our awareness of these horrific places is somewhat limited—we can see them from above, with satellites (thankfully not blown up!), and we have accounts from former prisoners who have managed to escape, or who were released and then defected into South Korea or China.

  Prisoners live in 500 ft.² huts, with thirty or forty individuals crammed into that tiny space. The barracks are not heated in winter, during which temperatures go below -4°F (-20°C) outside. As a result, most prisoners get frostbite, along with a variety of other diseases for which they do not receive treatment. When they finally succumb to their illnesses, they are buried naked, the very clothes from their back stripped by their desperate comrades. They are fed two hundred grams of corn gruel three times daily. No meat, no vegetables, nothing of any substance, and on these meager rations they are expected to work sixteen hour shifts every day.

  Many drop dead from sheer exhaustion.

  It is believed that 40% of all political prisoners in these camps die from malnutrition. One defector estimated in the late 1990s that 20% of prisoners in his camp, Daesuk-ri, died in any given year from starvation.

  In 1987, there was a riot in Camp 12 that was brutally suppressed, leaving over five thousand dead. In North Korea, if you commit a crime against the government, or are even seen as “undesirable”, it’s not just you who is sent to the camps. It’s two entire generations of your family. Just imagine that. I hope I managed to convey some of the horror of these terrible places, without descending into gratuitous descriptions of violence. It’s a difficult balance to strike, and I try and stay on the right side of that line. As always, I’m happy for you to get in touch and tell me if you think I managed to strike it correctly.

  As far as the broader plot, much of this is taken from real life. That holds true from even very small points, such as Trapp not wanting to contact Langley using a non-secure computer connection. It is in fact believed to be the case that from 2010 onward, over a period of two years, the Chinese Ministry of State Security killed or imprisoned more than a dozen CIA sources and assets within China, hamstringing US intelligence gathering in the region to this day. A New York Times report described the intelligence breach as “one of the worst in decades”, and also described how “according to three officials, one [source] was shot in front of his colleagues in the courtyard of the government building—a message to others who might have been working for the CIA.”

  Brutal.

  For a long time, the Agency had no idea how the Chinese managed to roll up their network of spies within China. It is now believed that the MSS managed to penetrate the covert dead drop system the CIA used to communicate with its assets, just as I wrote in False Flag.

  As far as the military balance between China and America goes, it’s definitely fair to say that China remains a long way behind the US—but the gap is closing, and closing fast. In 2018, the Chinese defense budget was around $250 billion, compared with US spending of $639 billion.

  Now, there are a couple of issues that make a straight-up comparison between the two numbers difficult to make. First of all, a dollar spent in China goes a lot further than that same dollar would in the US. Labor is cheaper, land is cheaper, and there’s a massive industrial base. So the Chinese defense budget, while significantly smaller, is probably much closer to parity then you woul
d imagine just from looking at the numbers.

  The Chinese Communist Party derives much of its legitimacy from something known as the “century of humiliation”. Few Americans know this, but starting in the nineteenth century, America and other Western powers began to significantly exploit China. In 1900, a secret Chinese organization marvelously known as the Society of the Righteous and Harmonious Fists, lead an uprising against the Western and Japanese influence efforts. It was known as the Boxer rebellion—and was eventually put down by a force of international troops, including American soldiers. Chinese forts were sacked, and the rebels were executed.

  (Forgive the history lesson!)

  The Chinese, understandably, don’t remember this time too fondly. It’s linked in their minds with the later Japanese invasion which was extremely sadistic and brutal, and in popular memory it’s kind of a nadir, from which modern China’s meteoric rise is even more astonishing.

  All this is a long-winded way of explaining China’s current military doctrine. It’s built around denying America (and everyone else) freedom of access to the seas around China, and thus protect their homeland from any further such humiliation. They have focused huge amounts of money on “asymmetric” weapons, including anti-satellite weaponry very similar to the types I described in the novel, as well as a huge investment in missile tech.

  Both of those work hand-in-hand with each other. The American military advantage is that we can put an aircraft carrier—basically a chunk of sovereign US territory—a couple of hundred miles off the coast of any country in the world, and bomb them back into the Stone Age. Combine that with the massive US edge in satellite surveillance and guidance, there’s nowhere for an enemy to hide, and a GPS-guided bomb or cruise missile can be dropped directly on their position.

  But what the Chinese have done is build up a missile force that is more than capable of “area denial”. If it came to conflict, I think the U.S. Navy would be extremely wary of actually deploying any ships anywhere close to China, because it only takes one missile to get through to send a hull to the bottom of the ocean, and the Chinese have thousands.