Sea of Lies: An Espionage Thriller (62 page)

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

SUSPENDED ANIMATION

FRIDAY MARCH 14, BEIRUT; COLOMBO; TOKYO; ADMIRALTY GULF, WESTERN AUSTRALIA; SINGAPORE

An out-of-breath Arshad “Mormoroth” Mazdaki entered his boss’s Beirut basement office. He’d sprinted over from the hackers’ room, where the Chinese and Iranian programmers were monitoring the DDOS attack. “Colonel Gilani, I’ve just learned from Abouzeid that the Russians reneged on their agreement to supply two hundred servers. The DDOS will fail!”

“Relax, relax, my boy. NRO satellites are offline as we speak. Everything is progressing as per plan.” Colonel Gilani had just sent a self-laudatory message to Iran’s High Council of Cyberspace. He would have waved a victory cigar if smoking hadn’t been banned.

“True enough the satellites are down, but only temporarily. The DDOS hasn’t done enough damage to keep them offline for more than another three hours. The Russian servers would have been sufficient to shut down the NGA for far longer, several days at a minimum. China’s malware makes it impossible for NGA to download and process satellite imagery. Given that the DDOS and the China worm struck simultaneously, we expected the NGA to conclude erroneously that the DDOS was the root cause of the imaging blackout.”

“So everything
is
proceeding as per plan,” Gilani said.

“Only for the time being. You see, Colonel, the Chinese hackers programmed their malware to self-erase once the DDOS crashed the NGA’s overall information-processing infrastructure, or within a few hours of the attack, whichever came first. This was to keep the Americans from ever connecting China with the DDOS. Since the NGA servers will now come back online later today, the image processing functions will return to normal, too.”

Gilani was damned if he’d understood half that techno-babble, but at least one thing was clear. Those no-good Chinese infidels were ruining their plan. “Tell—tell the PLA programmers they have to leave the worms in place,” Gilani sputtered.

“It’s too late for that. Those were planted long ago in ways we don’t understand. Unit #61398 team leader Kuo just told me the NGA could be reading satellite feeds by as early as 11:30 Beirut time, only three hours from now.”

“Are the Chinese in the position to help us any more with the attack?”

“No, they’ve done all they can. For several hours, they rerouted configurations to minimize the impact of the missing Russian servers and ensure that the DDOS utilized every conduit and portal. Several of their exploits were breathtaking, but that’s over now.”

“Listen carefully, Mormoroth. Do not speak of this to anyone. Cut the power to the China team’s workstations. Take guards with you and confiscate their cell phones. Put them in a guarded conference room and tell Hezbollah to shoot anyone who leaves.”

“But why, Colonel? How is this—?”

“Don’t ask any more questions. It is the wish of our Supreme Leader the Grand Ayatollah, and that is all you need to understand.”

“Yes, sir.” Mormoroth left, albeit at a much slower pace than he had arrived.

Gilani sighed and picked up the phone. This would be an awkward call.

*  *  *  *  *

“Madam Ambassador?” The head of the Ministry of State Security, Colombo, was not on good terms with Ambassador Li Xiulan. Madam Li was the brightest person in the embassy and suffered no fools, earning her the nickname “Devil Dragon” in the process.

“Yes, what is it?”

“Yu Kaili texted just now; her aircraft was taking off. She’s still with Nolan and he’s alive. Her orders are to remain with him until she can confirm his death.”

“Weren’t your people monitoring the airport? How could they take off unobserved?”

“We don’t know. The speed with which they’re in the air suggests Ratmalana Airport, ten miles south of here. It is not an international commercial airport, so we don’t have anyone there.”

“Where is our sniper team?”

“Ah,
ahem
, it seems they are both dead. They were unresponsive to radio calls, so we contacted our man at the Grand Hyatt. He went up to the seventh floor on top of the podium and found three Caucasians, either Americans or British, leaving the scene. Our men were both dead from gunshot wounds. He retrieved their radios unobserved, so there’s no link to the embassy.”

“The Americans killed our team?”

“I can’t say for certain. The police are on-site, so our man cannot get close enough to the bodies to take photos. Once we’ve had a chance to view the corpses in the morgue, we’ll have a better idea—”

“Enough! Where was their backup security? Why am I working with an imbecile? Get out of my office. Get out of my sight!” As the MSS head of station left the room, Ambassador Li hit the talk button on her squawk box. “Get me Defence  Minister Gihan on the phone. Make certain he knows it is a matter of national security for both our countries.”

*  *  *  *  *

The hand-encrypted message received from Gretchen Doyle took one of the junior staffers fifteen minutes to transcribe using a one-time pad. Damned if Burns was going to mess with those infernal decoders,
Eyes-Only
designation notwithstanding. With Watermen dead and the missing NSA files apparently in custody, there was finally a reason for optimism. If he were a betting man, Burns would wager Nolan and his MSS fuck-buddy were holed up in China’s embassy.

The direct line rang. It was Doyle. Burns said, “I just read your message. Good news. But what’s so urgent that you’re calling me on an insecure line?”

“A USAF air ambulance crew at the Colombo city airport saw a Gulfstream 550 take off less than a half hour ago. Nolan flew out on a chartered jet with the China agent. Destination was unknown, but yesterday the pilot filed a flight plan for Dili, East Timor. Does that make sense?”

“Not in the least, but I’ll be damned if they’re flying to East Timor. Let me take care of this right away.” He hung up. “Jeanie! Get me Rear Admiral Cochran in Singapore. And find the name and number of Harcourt Aviation’s CEO. I’ll need to speak to him after Jon Boy.”

*  *  *  *  *

“Mr. Minister, thank you for taking my call,” Madam Li said with all the charm she could muster.

Gihan Abeysuriya, the Sri Lanka President’s iron-willed brother, wasn’t long on affectation either. “Not at all, Madam Ambassador. I was planning on calling you within the hour. As you see, there’s—”

“Yes, yes, I heard about the shootings. We have identified the person responsible for the killings. He’s a CIA officer and he has taken a senior China intelligence officer hostage. He departed in a private jet roughly twenty minutes ago from Ratmalana Airport. Order the Air Force to compel the plane to return to Sri Lanka.”

“Madam, it sounds as if this aircraft is already well into international airspace.”

“Scramble your Chengdu F-7 interceptors. If it doesn’t turn around, shoot down the plane.”

“I’m afraid it’s not that simple, Madam Ambassador.”

“Oh, but it is. China gifted those fighters to your country. We need you to—”

“Giving us obsolete aircraft and then selling us overpriced training, armaments and spare parts is scarcely free. Before I contact the president to see what his views are, I want you to provide an explanation.”

“What do you need?”

“I’d like you to tell me why there were two China snipers in the Grand Hyatt building site shooting civilians on a train. We have eight dead and seventeen wounded at or near the Colombo Racquets Club. That excludes your two agents.”

“I have no knowledge of anyone from the embassy who would or could do such a thing. We have accounted for all our staff —”

“Don’t play word games. I didn’t say they were from your embassy. I said they were from China. There was a QBU-88 sniper rifle and a PLA spotting scope next to their bodies. I received a complaint from US Ambassador Stiles that PLA snipers murdered Mark Watermen. The US was in the process of taking the NSA fugitive into custody when he was shot in the head by the pair on the top of the podium block.”

“This is preposterous! You are wasting time. Now you need to either send up those fighters or else—”

“Or else what? China will no longer want to use Sri Lanka as a forward naval base? China won’t be sending submarines here later this year for resupply? China doesn’t want to base an Indian Ocean submarine listening post in my country? You forget yourself, Madam.” The minister hung up and dialed his brother, Milanka. The Chinese always wanted something for nothing.

*  *  *  *  *

The helicopter flight from the Mitchell Plateau to the Eco-Camp on the Admiralty Gulf took twelve minutes and rolled back the calendar thousands of years. The scrub glowed green thanks to the wet season’s torrential rains, the ditches now rivulets and the gullies raging streams. Sheets of fresh water poured off the tablelands into the bays, fingers and estuaries ringing this otherworldly land of orange rock. Nothing had changed in the last forty thousand years, except that now there were a few huts and barrels of fuel where before there had been only crabs, quolls and crocs. Johnson and Coulter had never seen anything like it.

Their pilot Andy gave a running tourist commentary. “In a couple of weeks, the rains will stop and there won’t be another drop till November. Those floodplains right now have heaps of insects, minnows, frogs and snakes. Right behind them are the barramundi, mangrove jacks, sharks, and of course, Mr. Saltie. There’re some lizards up here that go about sixteen feet. Wilbur’s pet will get your attention. That’ll be Elvis, and he goes almost fifteen.”

As they came in low over the beach, Johnson saw large outlines cruising along the shoreline. “Those are big sharks! What species are they?” he asked into the headset’s hands-free mike.

“If they’re light-colored, probably lemons. Requiem sharks, so man-eaters, and can get to almost three meters. They rarely bother people unless you’re bleeding or splashing about in the shallows.”

“Where are the crocs?” Johnson asked.

“Hell, who knows?” answered Andy. “Sometimes farther out to sea and submerged, but most of the time up some creek or another waiting for dark and feeding time. Big ambush predators. If you’re taking a slash in a billabong, don’t stand on the same rock twice. They’ll spot an animal at the waterline one day and the following they’ll be lying in wait submerged next to that very same rock. If a buff or roo comes down to drink out of his old footprints, it’s croc fodder.”

The helicopter landed in front of a half-dozen corrugated tin sheds ranging in size from ten-by-ten to twenty-by-twelve feet. Two armed sentries stood outside one of the huts. Johnson noted that the generator was just outside the interrogation shed, so running the power toys wouldn’t be a problem.

Coulter’s attention was focused on a gray crew-cut sixty-something-year-old fireplug. Nimble despite his age and bulk, he reflexively but needlessly ducked under the slowing rotor to unlatch the door. “Frank Coulter! It’s been a long time. How do you like the back of beyond?”

“Wilbur, it’s been twenty years and you haven’t changed a bit,” Coulter said with genuine affection. Wilbur Wollam was a retired intelligence officer in the ASIS. He’d first met Coulter during the plot to overthrow the Gough Whitlam government back in 1975.

Walking out one of the huts with an air conditioning unit hanging off a window was a nattily dressed middle-aged Asian. Johnson noted he wasn’t under guard. He acted as if he was on holiday, so Johnson doubted he was part of the interrogation team. Tough questioning took the starch out of you. After a few days, you wondered who was in captivity. Johnson long ago realized that he was different, viewing the extraction of information from enemies as his life’s calling. Fifteen years in a job where most burned out after only a few, yet he still looked forward to doing business with the next ugly character.

The stumpy man jolted Johnson out of his reverie by thrusting out his hand and giving his knuckles a vicelike squeeze. “Wilbur Wollam at your service. I understand you could get a confession out of Ayers Rock if you had enough electricity.”

Johnson gave Wollam a wan smile. “If you tell me where I’m sleeping, I’ll drop my things. I’d also like to get a progress report from your team so we can map out the next forty-eight hours.”

“Yes, of course. Right over here. You’ll be rooming with Jack Wong. He’s from China. He’s not involved in the interrogation, so best omit him from your briefings.” Johnson introduced himself and shook hands. In a light accent, his new roommate said, “You can call me Wong,” before he returned to their tin shed and shut the door against the afternoon sun.

*  *  *  *  *

Huddled around a speakerphone deep beneath the Singapore embassy were Lucy Kellogg, compliance, and Maury Shoenstein, legal. They’d spent last fifteen minutes laying out their findings to their respective bosses in Tokyo. Lucy summed up, “There’s incontrovertible proof that, at a minimum, Matthews and Burns were aware of Robin Teller’s presence in Rangoon and did nothing. That alone is grounds for termination for cause, and perhaps prosecution.

“In addition, there’s strong circumstantial evidence that those two helped shield Teller from detection since 2012 when Matthews arrived. Burns’s suspension of Matthews less than ninety minutes ago—precipitating this call in the first place—doesn’t absolve Burns from guilt. Far from it.”

Shoenstein weighed in. “Nolan’s allegations regarding MH370 were sufficiently credible that Constantine sought approval from NID Morris to have us investigate Burns for obstruction of the investigation. Burns’s suspension of Matthews is just blame-shifting. We have enough right now to remove Burns, pending the outcome of an investigation, one in which he’ll have the full right of rebuttal. At the moment, he’s issued an order to Rear Admiral Cochran to launch F-18’s to intercept a US-registered private jet that’s carrying Nolan. The orders are unambiguous. If the plane doesn’t land in Singapore, the F-18s are to shoot it down. Not only has Burns exceeded his authority by ordering a Navy officer to interdict a civilian aircraft without a court order or presidential sign-off, but it also smacks of trying to silence Nolan, irrespective of the legality or consequences.