by Fritz Galt
“I hope not.”
“I know what you mean,” the man said with a soppy smile. “Enjoy your stay.”
Yu doubted he would. He gathered up his passport and trudged across the red line onto American soil. But would Liang get caught? Yu wished he had the mind control tools to make the agent detain Liang or send him home.
Officially, Liang Jiaxi had changed his name to Leng Jiahao. But would that throw off the Americans? The agent flipped through Liang’s passport, located the mug shot and checked it against Liang’s face. It matched.
“Place your right index finger here,” the man said, and indicated a dark glass on the counter.
Liang complied and the instrument performed a biometric scan. The computer compared it against the information stored in its database.
“Now your left index finger.”
Liang placed his left index finger on the glass.
A moment later, a green light illuminated beside the scanner.
The agent flipped back to the visa pages and found the business visa, good for three months. Check.
By that point, the computer had completed its database search of known suspects, a list compiled by various scary U.S. government agencies. Yu could enumerate the offenses that Liang had perpetrated in the United States and against American citizens, including multiple counts of destruction of property and homicide. But the computer apparently had no outstanding warrants for his arrest.
At last the agent looked up from his computer screen with a broad smile. “Welcome to the United States, Mr. Leng.” He handed the phony passport back.
Fully vetted, Liang saluted with two fingers. Then he picked his travel bag up, passed under a surveillance camera, and joined Yu on the other side of the red line.
He pointed to the Baggage Claim sign and they began to walk. “We must pick up our luggage and take it through customs.” Liang’s voice was as calm as a cloud passing through trees.
“And then what?” Yu had gotten no sleep on the fourteen-hour flight and just wanted a place to lie down.
“Then we catch a plane to Denver.”
“John Denver?” Yu had taken May as a young girl to watch the American folk singer perform at the Great Wall Sheraton in Beijing in the 1980s and had been pleasantly touched by the music.
Just then they heard the bark of a dog. A security agent led a beagle past the baggage carousels. The dog stopped and sniffed at Liang’s carryon. Did LSD have an odor?
Apparently not. The dog wagged its tail and moved on.
A display monitor showed that their luggage was available on the farthest carousel. The two wove through the crowd with practiced ease. Liang even spun an airport security guard around with a well-placed shoulder jab.
Yu’s well-traveled hard shell suitcase had already tumbled onto the floor. He leaned over to pick it up.
A bony black hand reached down and grabbed the handle before he could. His eyes traveled up the starched shirtsleeve to a man with a dark, unfamiliar face.
“Dr. Yu?” the man inquired.
Yu straightened up and studied the man who was setting his bag upright. It was a young guy, perhaps African from his accent.
“Do I know you?”
A broad smile appeared on the man’s face, and he deftly handed over his business card. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Dr. Mamadou Yapo from the Religious Anthropology Department of l’Université de Paris.”
Yu recognized the name, but would never have known the face. Dr. Yapo had published in numerous journals, and his reports of spirit practices in the Ivory Coast had been a revelation.
“What a happy coincidence.” Yu fingered the card. “What are you doing here?”
“Your wonderful discoveries in Sanxingdui have led me to look into the totem practices of Pacific Island cultures. The parallels with my findings in Côte d’Ivoire are intriguing, to say the least.”
“Well, good luck to you, young man. Where are you headed?”
“I think I’ll begin with the huna teachings of Hawaii. And where are you going?”
“Denver.”
The young man’s shiny forehead wrinkled with surprise. “It appears that the different spheres of religion are colliding today.”
“How is that?”
The young man produced a rolled-up newspaper from his jacket pocket. Yu recognized the colorful front page of USA Today. The long finger pointed to a picture of the same silver-haired politician Yu had seen in the other newspaper. This time the politician had lost his anger and was beaming broadly.
“The religious figure who’s running for president will appear in Denver today,” Dr. Yapo explained.
“I wonder if he got his hat back.”
Dr. Yapo blinked, then dismissed the comment. “Terry Smith is the voice of religion in America today.”
Yu shrugged off the coincidence. “American religion is so far removed from what we are studying. They have even made it into a political movement.”
“Ah, the American superiority demon raises its ugly head again?” Dr. Yapo suggested.
Yu was about to respond with his theories of the Chinese origins of spirit communication when he remembered that he was preaching to the choir.
Liang pulled up rolling two suitcases, with a dog not far behind. “Grab your old suitcase and let’s go,” he said in Chinese.
Yu took a moment to reach out and offer Dr. Yapo his hand. “Good luck in Hawaii.”
“Until we meet again.”
Yu pocketed the business card. Then the two anthropologists parted company in the throng.
May should have felt comfortable in the airport. Beijing’s recent airport expansions had created wide terminals with ample seating and flat-panel television screens. Jade sat beside her playing with her BlackBerry, seemingly without a care in the world.
But May couldn’t keep from chewing her fingernails, a nasty, life-long habit. She normally approached an airport with a clearly defined mission. Her goal was clear enough, to find her father and eliminate Liang, but she had yet to determine a strategy, much less an itinerary. They were headed for San Francisco. Then where?
She studied the baggage carts beneath the Boeing Triple-7 parked just outside the window. She had piloted many airplanes in her life and would prefer not to be a passenger.
“How will we ever find my father? America is such a big place.”
Jade had that question covered. She thumbed several keys on her device. “Here is the number of Brad’s father. He can alert American border control. Maybe they can track your father down when he enters the country.”
May closed her eyes in gratitude. How stupid of her. She had only learned recently that Brad’s long-lost father was in the Central Intelligence Agency. What a logical place to start.
She would have to give Brad’s dad a call before boarding the flight. She pulled her phone from her bag and consulted Jade’s BlackBerry for the phone number. She dialed “00” for international calls, “1” for America’s country code, then the ten-digit phone number.
“Sullivan,” came a deep voice. Despite the pseudonym, she recognized him as Brad West’s biological father.
“This is May.” She studied her gnawed fingernails, but her voice was steely. “I have bad news. Liang is alive.”
She heard no reaction.
She was preparing to repeat herself when Sullivan blurted out, “Where is he?”
“On his way to America. And he has my father.”
“Good Lord.”
The cargo door was swinging shut.
“Where are they headed?”
May scanned the nearby Departures screen. “There are United flights to San Francisco and Chicago. There is a China Air flight to Los Angeles. Northwest is flying to Seattle via Tokyo.”
“Okay. That’s a start,” Sullivan said. “What are your plans?”
“Jade and I are coming to America to find my father, of course. Our flight will land in San Francisco in fourteen hours.” She watched the fuel tr
uck pull away.
“Can I reach you at this phone number?” Sullivan asked.
May squeezed her sleek cell phone even tighter. “Yes. But I must turn her off once we board the aircraft.”
“I understand. I can reach you once you arrive in San Francisco. I’ll need all the assets I can get. Where is Brad?”
May detected a note of paternal concern in his voice. “He is safe, somewhere in north-central China.” She didn’t want to divulge his exact whereabouts in case Liang’s men were monitoring her call.
A computerized female voice purred over the PA system, “United Flight 888 from Beijing to San Francisco is now boarding at Gate 23.”
“That is my flight,” May said. “I have to go.”
She could already hear Sullivan issuing orders in the background. She had to turn off the phone. She did so, stood up, and carefully tucked it away in her flight bag.
Jade’s beautiful, almond-shaped eyes were staring up at her. “What did he say about Brad?”
“He only wanted to know where Brad was and if he was safe.”
Then Jade turned her face away and picked her bags up.
“He is safe,” May said. “Isn’t he?”
Sullivan was hunkered down in his office, one of hundreds along the brightly lit corridor at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia. But his phone was lit up like a switchboard with scores of people waiting for his instructions.
He enjoyed working in the trenches, where all the action took place. He had chosen to remain in his lowly position as a control officer in the Operations Directorate rather than claw his way up the career ladder. Too many burnt-out cases, too much political pressure, and too few successes from the front office over the course of his career had convinced him that real progress took place at ground level.
He stared at all the lights blinking on his phone. An enemy invasion was underway. He could sense it.
It was time to go to battle. He gathered his notepad and pen and headed for the room where war was fought on a detached but real-time basis. He passed the closed doors of similar desk jockeys for whom he had the utmost respect. They persevered despite a lousy atmosphere created by a skeptical public, numerous judgment failures at the highest levels, and blundering ineptitude by the FBI to root out moles.
He would have to mothball the several operations he had underway. It was a shame, but maybe he would come back to them with more perspective. He tended to use a mixture of official cover operatives, unofficial cover operatives, and agents hired to act on his behalf. A case officer had to be creative, and the most unusual choice of agent by far had been his son. Had he gone too far? Had he been buried so long in his job that he had lost touch with reality? How could one wittingly use his biological son, estranged though they were through divorce, to put his life on the line for one of his operations?
Sure Brad West had reacted with all the confidence and natural ability Sullivan had possessed as a young man. Furthermore, Brad had abnormally high intuitive and deductive powers along with that one unique ingredient, defiance of authority. Maybe that was why his son had been so effective.
Whereas Sullivan had been pounded down like a nail his whole life and had taken it sitting down, Brad had his mother’s pride. If there was one thing he could count on, Brad might knock his head against the status quo over and over again, but he would prevail.
Sullivan leaned forward and aimed straight down the hall. There was no way he would use his son again. Especially with Liang involved. Why was he even thinking about Brad? He had long since ruled out the idea for any operation, life-threatening or not. No human being should ever be subjected to such drug manipulation, reckless behavior by his government, and heartache.
Sure Brad had endured it all and succeeded brilliantly. He had accomplished his mission of saving the regime in China. Any operative would die a happy man with an operation like that under his belt. But that was the past, and nothing would ever equal that threat. The world owed Brad a debt of gratitude and a peaceful existence for the rest of his life.
In his entire career, Sullivan had removed only one arrow from his quiver, and that was Brad.
He stopped in front of a door that marked a highly secure site. He placed the palm of his right hand against a scanner and waited. Several seconds later, the door clicked open. He pushed it and entered the Operations Center.
It was a round room with banks of television monitors and computer screens facing inward from the curved wall. Technicians manned the consoles that displayed live feeds from embassies, consulates and border patrol posts, and compared the images with those of known suspects. A cluster of NSA-linked computers in the center of the room allowed officers to key in the names of any individual and find the latest electronic trail that they had left behind, whether a phone call, bank transaction, ticket purchase, visa request or entry into the United States.
Considering that Liang was reviled in China, he would most likely be reincarnated from his plane crash in Thailand under an assumed name, which wouldn’t be easy to spot. But May’s father might not be traveling under a false identity. He found an empty chair and keyed in the name of May’s father, Dr. Yu Zhaoguo.
The computer worked on the name for several seconds and then began to list recent points of contact. Ticket and airport-related entries popped up at the top.
Bingo. Dr. Yu had already landed in San Francisco that morning.
Sullivan rubbed his hands together. If Yu and Liang were traveling on the same flight, maybe he could get an image of Liang entering the country at the same time.
He swiveled around in his chair and called to a technician who was intently monitoring a video console. “Retrieve images from Immigration at San Francisco International Airport starting at…” he checked the time that the immigrations agent had entered Yu’s passport number. “6:30 a.m. Pacific Standard Time.”
“Will do.”
Sullivan turned back to the enormous source of information at his disposal. Using plain English, he keyed in a request for international flights originating in Beijing, found the flight that arrived in San Francisco before 6:00, and pulled up the passenger manifest.
There was no Liang listed. However, seated beside Yu was a man surnamed Leng.
Liang could be using Leng as an alias. He had to check that morning’s immigration records to verify that he had the right man.
With a few clicks of the trackball button, he shifted the computer’s attention to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement records for that morning. While he was waiting for the computer to pull up the ICE screen, the technician reported, “I’ve got San Francisco.”
“Good. I want you to find an old Chinese man entering with a muscular Chinese man. I need to see bodies as well as faces.”
The image blurred as the technician fast-forwarded from person to person recorded at the immigrations area.
Meanwhile, the ICE search page popped up on Sullivan’s screen. His fingers trembled with anticipation as he keyed in the port of entry as SFO, for San Francisco International Airport, and entered the time frame of 5:30 to 6:30 a.m. A list of foreign names began to scroll down the screen. Planes had piled in by the dozens. He searched for Yu’s record and found it. He marked it and then searched for the surname Leng.
A moment later, Leng’s name appeared. Mr. Leng Jiahao had passed through border control a mere three minutes after Yu and through the same immigration booth.
Sullivan clicked on the full ICE record for Leng and waited.
“Here’s an old man,” the technician shouted.
Sullivan stood up and peered down his long nose. Sure enough, it was May Hua’s father. Dr. Yu was ambling reluctantly toward the camera with an impassive look on his face.
“That’s him. Now I need a sharp image of everyone who entered after him in the next two-to-four-minute timeframe. The television monitor blurred to the next person entering the country.
Sullivan glanced down at his screen. A complete record of Mr. Leng Jiahao appear
ed, along with his visa application form, the results of his in-person interview at the embassy, and biometric data that included fingerprints of both index fingers and a link to his pictures. Sullivan needed to see the pictures. After all, he had come face-to-face with Liang over the wrong end of a water torture device in China and could reliably identify the man.
He clicked the button to reveal all of Mr. Leng’s face shots, those taken at the time he applied for the visa and at the time he presented his passport to the immigrations agent at the airport. While those photos were resolving into focus, Sullivan turned his attention to Leng’s date of birth, 1982. It was within the right age range for Liang.
The photo from the embassy and the photo from the immigration booth at SFO appeared side by side. It was the same young man with the same smile and broad features. Sullivan frowned. They were the same man, but he couldn’t swear that they were Liang.
Just then, the technician called out. “Here are your choices.”
“Does anyone look like this?” Sullivan indicated the faces on his monitor. The technician came over to look.
“You bet. I’ve got him entering the country.” He switched back to a segment that he had bracketed, and played it back for Sullivan. A muscular young man was strolling toward the surveillance camera, his face averted from view.
Sullivan couldn’t be certain. It was frustrating. After seeing Liang in his nightmares for months, how could he not identify him?
He returned to his computer screen where the two faces of Mr. Leng smiled at him. He’d have to compare them with pictures of Liang that were already on file.
Sullivan pressed a few keys and waited for the CIA databank of known international criminals to open up in a different window. Seconds later, the CIA’s internal search page appeared. He typed in Liang Jiaxi’s full name, and the case record flashed on screen. He noted with satisfaction that his own name was listed as case officer, but then he had to check himself. A note at the bottom of the record indicated, “Individual Deceased. Case Closed.”
Biometric scans and visa head shots had not yet been implemented at the time that Liang had most recently appeared on their radar screens. There were no fingerprints or ICE photos to compare.
