Sea of Lies: An Espionage Thriller (48 page)

“Now there’s one, and only one, reason why you still have a job. The MSS sniper team deployed to Sri Lanka was to target Watermen.” Turning to the MSS head, he said, “Ding, re-task them. The death of Nolan becomes their number one objective, followed by Watermen and concluding with Yu. This is of the highest priority. When will the team be in place?”

Ding spoke, sounding only a little less rattled than Yi. “The team is in the air and lands this afternoon in Colombo. The two assassins will travel to a safe house for weapon supply and briefings. We could deploy them as early as this evening if we had locations for each target.”

Yi jumped in, eager to redeem himself. “Watermen will arrive in the next hour in Abu Dhabi and then on to Colombo. His flight lands 21:15 Colombo time. We could terminate him at the airport.”

President Gao shook his head in dismay. “If we kill Watermen at the airport, Nolan will go to ground.”

“Comrade President, we can change Yu’s directive to include terminating Nolan. Let her take care of this,” Yi said, almost pleading.

Ding said, “I don’t recommend this course of action, Mr. President. First, as you said earlier, we don’t know where Yu’s loyalties lie. If she believes that failing to execute her orders might help Liu regain his influence, she might deliberately botch the assignment. Second, our associates in Singapore report that Yu and Nolan likely had intercourse yesterday evening before flying out. Nolan and Yu shared the honeymoon suite in a beach resort hotel last night after arriving in Sri Lanka. We don’t believe Nolan and Yu met before Wednesday, so this behavior is perplexing. We think Yu prostituted herself in order to gain Nolan’s confidence, but we cannot be sure. Perhaps she is a double agent and has been working for the Americans all along.”

“So what do you suggest?”

“Use Yu to find out where the exchange for Watermen is to take place on Friday. Position our team there. When all three targets are in the same location, execute the plan. With any luck, the SVR or CIA will receive the blame.” Ding looked expectantly at the president.

Yi couldn’t stand being outmaneuvered by an inferior. “Comrade Ding, are you forgetting that Nolan represents the best chance of identifying the people who came off MH370? As long as we have Nolan’s family, he’s worth more to us alive than dead.”

Gao looked at Yi with resignation. “Comrade, you need to reread
The Art of War.
Every battle is won or lost before it’s fought
.
We’ve no choice but to assume that Zhao and the Iranian are alive and will break under questioning. Short of having the location of their prison and dispatching a missile, there’s nothing we can do. Instead, we need to accelerate implementation of the alternatives.

“Yi, after this meeting, go to the Iran embassy. Tell the ambassador that he will receive a single repaired nuclear trigger today as a sign of our good faith. In addition, he can keep the PLA programming team in Beirut to help with the immediate implementation of
Menander
. Once Operation Menander goes live and the NRO satellites are blinded, we will deliver the second trigger. We will pass across the corrected schematics for the trigger once he shows evidence of the liquidation of the Unit #61398 programmers post-
Menander
.”

“Liquidation?” Ding’s surprise showed on his face.

Gao’s gaze bored into them. “Once Operation Menander goes live we’ll initiate the invasion of the Diaoyus and bait the trap for
Polar Bear
. When we use an anti-ship missile to destroy an American nuclear carrier, they will be looking for someone to blame. On the face of things, China will be the culprit, as we’ll have fired the fatal missile. On another level, provided there’s no proof of our involvement in
Menander
and all the evidence points to Iran, we will weather the storm. The only way to be certain there’s no leakage is to kill everyone who had a direct hand in the DDOS. Ensure the Iranians leave no one alive in Beirut with knowledge of China’s role, and dispatch one of our own teams to follow-up just to be doubly certain.”

Fixing Ding with a stare, the president said, “Ensure that Yu has orders not to leave Nolan’s side. She’s to accompany him everywhere, even to another country if need be. That should ensure that our sniper team has at least two ready targets.” Gao rose, the meeting over. “Don’t fail me, Comrades.”

“We won’t, sir,” they said in unison. Yi and Ding stood frozen as the president retreated into his office. An aide on the other side shut the door soundlessly behind him. Ding left without saying a word. Yi trailed Ding into the corridor, both men deep in their own thoughts.

*  *  *  *  *

Gonzalez was in a foul mood. “I hurry back from Penang, spend half the night in a Bangkok jail, and now there’s no room on the plane that’s taking the Delta team to hit Teller?”

Hecker saw Latino temper sparking in those dark eyes. “With Ryder down, you’re acting head of security for South and Southeast Asia. I need you here at Hogwarts. Other than a couple of guards on the gate, we’re defenseless. There aren’t even enough Marines to fend off an assault on Dubern Park, much less a safe house hidden across town. Neither of us can afford to be in the fight, particularly if it doesn’t go well.”

“Come on, boss! You’re sounding like Matthews!”

“Calm down and let me explain what you need to do this afternoon. You will take a photo of a crate. A very special photo. Do you know what type of phone Ryder carries?”

“Yeah, he loves his crappy old Blackberry.”

“Can you get another one just like it?”

“I was using the same model until I bought a new phone at Christmas. It’s in my desk at the office.”

“You’re going to need it. Let me explain what to do. Be sure to let Ryder know what’s up, too. This could keep Nolan’s head out of a noose.”

With an enormous clap of thunder, the skies opened.

*  *  *  *  *

The expressway from the airport to Colombo twelve miles distant cut the drive time from seventy-five to twenty-five minutes for a $2.25 toll. Balendra’s driver executed the surveillance-evasion plan to perfection, accelerating to 100mph on the nearly empty freeway to leave pursuers behind, and taking the first exit at Ja-Ela where they switched cars under cover, then spent seventy minutes laboring on surface roads. Nolan and Kaili watched the procession of pedestrians and vehicles whirl in a kaleidoscope of directions and speeds, and yet somehow manage to avoid collisions. They reached the Colombo Racquets Club in one piece, always a minor miracle.

Colombo needed that same fresh coat of paint that Rangoon was missing, plus a new layer of asphalt. Even so, five years after the end of a long and bloody civil war, there were signs of prosperity: new cars, construction and the ever-present billboards advertising rival mobile phone operators and consumer electronics. At seven degrees north of the equator, Sri Lanka weather was familiar to those living in Southeast Asia: hot, humid and wet, with only a little variation over the course of the year.

Once known as Ceylon, the Pearl of the Indian Ocean, many in the 1960s tipped Sri Lanka to achieve the economic success Singapore eventually attained. Instead, progress was slowed by a combination of socialist governments, corruption and ethnic tension between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Muslims and Tamils. In 1983 the pot boiled over and the country fell into a civil war that raged for twenty-six years, punctuated by a failed peacekeeping intervention by India, the 1991 assassination of India’s ex-prime minister Rajiv Gandhi by the Tamil Tigers, and a lapsed truce in the early 2000s. The victors suffered through two-plus decades of suicide bombings and casualties inflicted by a fanatical foe. Tamil civilians suffered doubly, having been targeted by both the national government as well as the Tigers, who stole and brainwashed their children. The aftermath of the Tigers’s 2009 defeat saw government soldiers occupying the traditional Tamil territories in the north and east. Five years later, displaced persons were still in camps, their homes and farms confiscated.

The Sri Lanka government defied the international diplomatic community by refusing to create an inquiry into human rights violations during the war and paid a steep price for their defiance in foregone aid and diminished investment by the West. China stepped in to fill much of the funding gap and now counted Sri Lanka as its greatest ally in South Asia, leaving India and the US nervous and strategically vulnerable.

Nolan had always liked Sri Lankans. They were affable, smart and eager to learn. When they weren’t killing one another, they were the nicest people he’d ever met. However, whoever had coined the expression “island time” to describe a torpid pace of business must have visited Ceylon. Much of the time it was more sensible to measure progress with a calendar rather than a watch.

Kaili looked like a Chinese Jackie Onassis with her oversized designer shades and Gucci scarf. Nolan floated a question that had been nagging at him since the previous night. “What did you mean when you said Mark Watermen had betrayed me?”

“Well, he’s the one who told the FSB that you had a copy of his NSA files, isn’t he?”

“Assuming that’s true, how did you know that?”

“Oh, Bob. The MSS has people in Russia, too.”

Nolan remained silent. He was reminded of that old joke from training. Question:
How can you tell when a spy is lying?
Answer:
Her lips move.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

COLLATERAL DAMAGE

THURSDAY MARCH 13, MOSCOW, SINGAPORE, COLOMBO, RANGOON

FSB minders shepherded Watermen through check-in, skipped security and spent perhaps a minute in the immigration director’s office before his passports—real and fake—received the requisite exit stamps. Watermen believed in traveling light, but this was ridiculous. His eligible ensemble fit into a carry-on bag suitable for a bowling ball. He brought no laptops, as he had cut the hard drives into bite-sized wedges just before leaving his apartment.

Watermen’s guide dogs navigated him to a familiar, if despised, face in the first-class lounge. Looking up, Chumakov said with more menace than he felt, “Sit. We have forty minutes before boarding.” Watermen sat. A flunky brought out coffee and a tray of pastries. Watermen nibbled on a croissant while waiting for the latest mind-fuck.

“I’m guessing you didn’t bring a laptop as I requested. Never mind.” Reaching into his oversized accountant’s bag, Chumakov fished out a MacBook Air and handed it across. “It’s on loan, so please don’t chop it up before we land in Abu Dhabi. The flight takes four hours. You will list the names and brief descriptions of the most important NSA files you stole. In Abu Dhabi I will hand the file to a comrade for assessment. Tomorrow I will match it against what Godpa Bob supplies. Any material differences, or if any files you mention are missing, then our deal is off. If you don’t list important files that Nolan supplies, our deal is off. If you try to run in Abu Dhabi or Sri Lanka, our deal is off. If you attack anyone, starting with me, I will use a straight razor and cut your balls off. If you do
anything
to annoy me, I might visit your mother when I’m next in Maryland. Are we clear?”

“Perfectly.” Although Watermen wasn’t a violent person, he fantasized about strangling that thick neck.

Chumakov sat back and sipped his cold coffee, eyeing Watermen as he played with the Mac. He had come at him hard so Watermen wouldn’t smell a rat.

*  *  *  *  *

Constantine’s stomach was so tense that he’d left his lunch untouched after viewing the gruesome photo of the dead agent’s slit throat. What in heaven’s name was going on? Doyle’s people had concluded that it was a textbook Spec Ops execution: gloved hand over the mouth, big blade and plenty of force to cut past the windpipe. A gurgle was the loudest noise Long could have uttered. Constantine agreed that Nolan didn’t have the strength or training for this. So who else was lurking in the weeds? And why weren’t Nolan and his newest girlfriend in custody already? That the hands-off had come from the very top wasn’t any comfort.

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.”