Razing Beijing: A Thriller (40 page)

The third option combined elements of the second with
modifications conceived by Thackeray and engineers on his staff. Steve
Reedy—whose opinion Stuart heeded only because Perry still seemed to respect
it—remained notably unenthusiastic about this option.

Stuart said, “In order to execute option three, Steve and I
agree that we could set up two teams comprised of members from each of the
delegate countries.” There was no point feigning
esprit de corps
over
his next point; Reedy had argued staunchly against it. “I want Thackeray to
head Red Team. We’ll let Keilig, the Swiss rep, choose who to head up Team
Blue.”

Stuart tried to ignore Joanne’s attempt at appearing
stunned. Perry displayed deep creases of concern on his forehead as he flipped
back and forth through the pages of Stuart’s pitch.

“This means you want me to negotiate a two-month extension?”
asked Joanne.

“No,” Stuart replied, correcting her, “it’ll take two
months to complete option three, the red-team blue-team competitive run-off. We’re
planning on another four months to incorporate the results, assuming we produce
any. If I were you, I’d start my negotiation requesting an additional seven
month extension.”

Lewis was apparently devastated.

“Both phases together will add at least eight million
dollars to the base program. There’s no reason for doing one without the other
so we didn’t break the costs out separately.”

“Eight million dollars seems a lot to spend to have two
teams working against one another,” Lewis observed. Her eyes met Stuart’s.

Perry seemed to share her sentiment. “I don’t know...”

“Of course you don’t
know
, Ralph. This is a science
project.”

“I know
that
.”

“Then you also know there’s no guarantee. I figure eight
million dollars is better than the alternative of flushing everything we’ve
already spent down the toilet.”

“Steve?” Perry fixed his gaze on Reedy’s slouched form at
the far end of the table. “What do you think?”

“Well,” Reedy shifted upright in his chair. He gave a
deferential little wave of his hand toward Stuart. “I can support option three.
I only think it’s wrong to completely abandon our current approach.” Shrugging
his shoulders, Reedy added: “I understand the constraints.”

Perry cleared his throat. “Option three it is.”

“Seven months!” Joanne Lewis erupted, as if now the burden
to perform rested solely on her.

“Begin right away.”

“You expect me to deliver another
seven
months?” Lewis
asked. “They’ll be more inclined to shut us down!”

Perry stood up from his chair to signal an end to the
meeting. Red faced, he managed to maintain his reserve while wagging a finger
at Lewis. “I don’t pay you to complain. Get busy. Man the phone. Let me know
what strings can be pulled, who the obstacles are. Call me tomorrow the instant
you leave the meeting with Hobbs.” Perry paused to glance at the other three
people in the room. “Stop bringing me excuses. Stu, I’m looking to you to pull
this off.”

CIA DIRECTOR LEWIS BURNS
summoned
McBurney to his seventh floor suite. “What do you want me to tell Herman?” Burns
asked.

McBurney longed for the day when a request from the White
House could be interpreted to mean simply what it said. The president’s national
security advisor had called the director and ordered up a review of the
national intelligence estimate on the Chinese petroleum industry—instead of
McBurney’s missile defense briefing, which was nearly complete. As always with Herman,
McBurney found it difficult to know whether or not the NSA had altered the
agenda because of circumstances truly beyond his control. It was more likely
that the administration, aware of the Agency’s precarious handle on China and
still enraged over missteps in resolving the satellite espionage story, was
simply warming up to drag him back and forth through the proverbial muck. The
best thing to do was the only thing that he could, simply to grin and bear it. He’d
dug himself out of credibility holes in the past. He could do it again.

“Well,” McBurney let out a deep breath. “Let’s tell Herman
to cram it up his ass.”

Director Burns leaned back in his chair, eyes never leaving
McBurney, cigar between his teeth. He tongued the cigar to the corner of his
mouth. “If you complain long enough, and loud enough, the White House might
stop asking you for briefings altogether. Is that what you want?”

McBurney said nothing.

“I suppose there’s no point in going to the Oval Office hat
in hand for a slaughter”—Burns took another draw from his cigar—“which you can
count on if we give them anything less than we agree to.”

“What have we—”

“I haven’t agreed to anything yet. SecEnergy will be there
to handle the OPEC situation. SecDef, and I think SecState will be there. Herman,
of course. All you’ve really got to do is pull together the existing estimate. I
thought you might want to add some of that update from Rotger’s latest embassy
pouch—only the stuff that NRO or any other source can corroborate, okay? What
do you think?”

“I’ll need Ross to help me.”

“Done.”

“OPEC...should we also prepare to cover Task Force status?”
McBurney asked. “With the pipeline attack, and the oil embargo, we’re beginning
to think that the subject of oil and Islamic-sponsored terrorism should be
handled together.” Usually Special Agent Kosmalski conducted high-level
briefings on behalf of the JCTF. McBurney was reminded of his last, rather
heated exchange with his FBI colleague; he wondered if Director Burns was aware
that the FBI was conducting an internal investigation.

“JCTF and oil...sounds like a bag of worms. Fitz is the right
guy to finesse something like that, only I’m sure bringing Fitz would only
encourage a protracted debate about the Middle East. You’ll just have to handle
any of that, but don’t prepare anything Task Force-specific.
Herman was pretty clear about wanting to focus on China.” Burns
removed his cigar from his mouth. “There’s something you should know. Herman
digs in his heels whenever I suggest replacing you on the Task Force with
somebody else.”

When it came to Herman, McBurney’s instinct was to suspect
an ulterior motive. “Even after the failed defection?”

Burns laughed. “I love the look on his face whenever it
comes up how they used military fighters to force commercial flights back to
the ground.”

“Has he indicated why?”

“Actually, he claims to appreciate your Tel Aviv Station
experience during a bleak period for our side and...what? Oh. Guess I forgot
about all that.”

McBurney realized his mouth was hanging open. He recalled
as if yesterday the former journalist’s notorious vitriol, baldly partisan,
directed at McBurney’s CIA after their 1982 Beirut embassy massacre. In his
former role as a Washington political affairs correspondent, Tom Herman had led
the barrage of unfounded allegations against McBurney and others in an attempt
to repudiate the CIA’s assertion that had certain of their warnings been
heeded, the massacre of more than 60 embassy personnel might have been avoided.
He would forever see Herman as catapulting himself to journalistic prominence
on the backs of hard-working and honest patriots. For a young and earnest
operations officer, the false dialectic presented as fact to the American
public had been a life-altering experience. Herman’s back-handed sarcasm had
struck its intended nerve.

“Perhaps that’s a bit disingenuous of Herman,” Burns
observed upon reflection. “But he has acknowledged what other folks in town
think, that you do a good job combining street-smarts with high-level
analysis—uh, don’t look for a raise anytime soon.” Burns grinned. “So any way,
you might consider cutting Herman a little slack. And don’t blame him for the
agenda change—blame the OPEC negotiations. Word is they’ve completely
collapsed. I hear the Venezuelan oil minister will announce another big reduction
from oil tanker shipments to U.S. refineries.”

MCBURNEY’S SECRETARY
stood in the doorway waiting for the division chief to look up from his desk. He
was just standing there, without saying a word, for fear of being accused of
disturbing his boss.

“What is it, Philip?” McBurney boomed, temporarily sating
his sadistic streak.

“FBI Agent Edward Hildebrandt’s on the line.”

McBurney calmly placed his pen down on the desk. The final
draft of his presidential brief was due for printing in less than two hours. If
he was late with his draft, there would be no running out to the local copy
shop.

“If you like, Sam, I can ask him—”

Hldebrandt...?
“I’ll take it.” He picked up the
phone. “Ed.”

“Sam! Your man Friday told me how busy you were.”

“I really only have a few minutes.”

“We’ve had another incident in the Emily Chang affair,”
Hildebrandt said right to the point. “Do you recall the last time we spoke?”

“Remind me.”

“You returned from Mojave and suggested I get the company,
uh, Thanatech, to list names of employees with access to the flight test and/or
who had since resigned the company.”

“I remember.”

Hildebrandt muffled the mouthpiece of his phone and sneezed.
“
Shit!
Excuse me. The list yielded a grand total of twenty-three names. Mostly
dead ends, and of course this guy Stuart.

“So I went back and asked Thanatech to expand the list to
include dismissals for cause, medical leave, extended vacation and retirement
and any reason for departure they could possibly come up with. Sort of peculiar
the way it worked out.”

“How so?”

“It was Thanatech’s human resources office that pulled the
information together. Turns out the plum that fell to the ground was the name
of one Paul Devinn—the assistant
director
of human resources. A short
time ago Devinn put in for a leave of absence to go off on a fishing retreat. But
his overturned boat was recovered after a storm up in Canada. He’s missing and
presumed dead.”

“Foul play?”

“A boating accident. I spoke to the Royal Mounties who
investigated Devinn’s premises, let’s see...Lake Manitoba, that’s it, actually
a cabin on a smaller lake near Lake Manitoba. Big storm went through last week,
a lakeside resident found the boat washed up the next morning. Evidence
suggests alcohol was a contributing factor. No body recovered yet—I guess the
lake’s cold as hell, slows the decomposition process, or maybe an animal got to
it. They seem to be convinced the disappearance is legitimate.”

McBurney massaged the bridge of his nose. “I gather you
don’t?”

“I’m undecided. We went ahead and ran a cursory check on
the guy. Sent an investigator out around town here. I’ll admit to being eager
for a lead to break this case, but lo and behold, what we found appears to me a
little too, uh, neat. Devinn took a two-month leave and left everything
perfectly in order: paid two months advance on his rent, two months on his
utilities, put a two month hold on his mail and his club membership, turned in
his lease car—and
that’s
what seems odd. A visit to the lease company
showed he canceled the lease with five months left on the contract. Why do that
if he was coming back in two months? We’re talking about a Maserati—that cost
more to cancel than if he’d just paid the two months. We’re ginning up a
complete background check. Devinn does smell a bit. Ever heard of the United
Socialist Front?”

The organization’s name rang a bell. “That group of
Wisconsin academics?”

“Very good! That was quite some years ago that the Bureau
caught ’em spying for eastern bloc countries. Marxists, right out there with
the Flat Earth Society. Our man Devinn was a member while attending law school.
We discovered his name among membership records seized when the arrests were
made, and in fact, one of these convicted professors penned a letter of
recommendation that Devinn be admitted to attend school there. We’re still
investigating it, but I guess he eventually renounced the group over some sort
of falling out. Otherwise, he has no rap sheet, some money, a couple of
investments, which the state will appropriate because the guy left no will and
seems not to have any heirs.”

“How old was he?”

“He was forty, which with the lack of heirs might explain
not having a will. If so far none of that interests you, this should: State
Department records indicate Devinn’s made twenty-six trips to Asia in the past
eighteen years. China, Manila, Kuala Lumpur, others. Among these one extended
three-year trip to Taiwan, during which he seems to have fallen off the globe.”

“Try to find for which provinces China approved his visas,”
said McBurney. The modern FBI had only limited jurisdiction to conduct
investigations overseas, much as the CIA had no authority to make arrests,
though there were legal attaché and State Department officials to whom
Hildebrandt could turn. “I suppose you’d like some help finding out what he did
while he was there?”

“If that’s an offer, I’ll take it.”

McBurney cleared his throat. “Anything new with the Chang
woman?”

“Two things. First, she’s taken a job where Stuart now
works.”

“Which might explain their telephone calls.”

“Second, Miss Chang is considered a dissident by the
Chinese government.”

McBurney grabbed a pen to jot down Hildebrandt’s points. “Dissident—why?”

“Because the government shelled out for her tuition bill, including
two engineering doctorates from Stanford, and so it must’ve been a big one. Then
she renounced her citizenship and refused to go home. They exiled her and
pronounced her a dissident.”