Sea of Lies: An Espionage Thriller (65 page)

“Sounds awful,” Kaili said.

“I agree. Seems like we will land right in the middle of the spider’s web,” Nolan said.

Nishimoto said, “I know this is self-serving, but our alibi is that Jenkins and I were forced to pilot this aircraft under threat. If we land anywhere with an extradition treaty with the US—and East Timor is one of the few out here that doesn’t have one—Bob is headed to jail, followed closely by Jenkins and me.”

“So you’re saying our options are East Timor or Truscott Field?” Nolan asked.

“No, Papua New Guinea also has no extradition treaty. We might be able to scrape into Port Moresby on vapors.”

“Let’s settle this one way or the other. Set us down at Truscott Field. Put out a mayday to the Western Australia police, the federal police and anyone else you can think of. Tell them al Qaeda’s at Truscott, anything to get their attention. Even if the black hats are running the MH370 cover-up, we might still get out of this alive.” He turned to Kaili for her views.

“Yes, let’s do that. And I’ll call the China embassy in Canberra. I need diplomatic immunity.”

*  *  *  *  *

Linda told a bitter tale. Paradise Alley was closed down. The girls—each of them properly registered and all with clean health records—had been deported nonetheless. Linda herself had been jailed for a night until a senior police officer friend had arranged her release. She was there collecting her personal belongings. It was pure chance that anyone had answered Mei Ling’s knock.

“By the way, your father left something with me for safekeeping. It’s a backpack with a bicycle helmet, gloves and things like that. Do you want it?”

“Sure. I rode his bike here, so I may as well wear the helmet home.”

Linda returned with the bag. Mei Ling took a look: a few clothes, a helmet, gloves and a water bottle. It was no surprise the police hadn’t taken it into custody when they’d ransacked the place. Linda hadn’t told them the backpack belonged to Dad, and a cursory glance showed nothing of value.

*  *  *  *  *

Goddamn, it was late. Bert’s butt was numb and he wasn’t even driving. True to his Ironman reputation, McGirty had relieved him four hours out of Appleton and hadn’t relinquished the wheel since. They’d only stopped for gas and a bag of Mexican food from a cantina in southern Oregon. It was 3:30 in the morning, and they were now on the outskirts of Redding.

Bert said, “You said back in Oregon you knew how to get fake IDs?”

“I can make anything you want, except maybe a passport. There’s a dark web, sort of an underground internet. I sell fake IDs through a hidden website I run called NuYu.”

“Whoa. You’re a history major at U-Dub and you sell fake IDs on the dark web?”

“I make hella money off that, ten large some months. I paid cash for that Silverado we left in the woods. My dad retired from Microsoft before he was thirty. My sister and I have been coding since third grade. You knew that. If we can get decent headshot photos, I’ll set us up with new identities complete with Social Security numbers, drivers’ licenses, school transcripts, credit ratings: the works. We can do it online, but I can’t do the production side from a motel room. We’ll have to outsource that and have other forgers send the docs via FedEx.”

“How come I never knew you weren’t cruising porn for hours at a time?”

“How come I never knew your dad was a spy?”

“Fair enough. So tomorrow let’s do the extreme makeovers and order the new IDs. I brought ten thousand in cash from the cabin, so we’re not short on dough.”

“I grabbed about five large from our room before I left to pick you up, so I’m in good shape. You stay in the car again, since your shirt’s torn to shit and has dried blood all over it. I’ll pay for a room and be back in five. Hang loose.”

“Yeah, I think I’ll eat that last half a burrito, though it’ll be soggy as hell.”

“You are such a pussy, Nolan.”

“Yeah, well, tell that to those two morons at the park.”

*  *  *  *  *

President Gao paced up and down in the small office off the war room at PLA headquarters in Beijing. Chief of Staff General Yao Chanming walked in without knocking, knowing the president was expecting him. “The US ambassador wasn’t lying. A battle group of nine warships led by the
George Washington
was headed north from Okinawa to their home port of Yokosuka. They’ve turned around and are three hundred miles from the Diaoyus. Another eight hours and they'll be within optimal range of our ASBMs, though with the newly extended ranges in theory we can strike the ships starting in two hours. The US satellites will not be blind for eight hours, so our likelihood of a killing strike will be less than ideal. So if we want to ensure we'll be able to launch over the longest period, we need to load the missiles now and have them ready to launch on your orders, sir.”

“Go ahead. Get the missiles ready to fire on my command.”

“Yes, sir.”

“General, when our missiles sink the
George Washington
, it will end one hundred seventy-two years of humiliation at the hands of Western imperialists. A century from now, schoolchildren will know your name.”

“Yes, Mr. President. Thank you, Mr. President.” It was time to set the injustices right, starting with the Treaty of Nanking that ended the First Opium War in 1842. I’ll probably have a statue in the Forbidden City, Yao thought as he walked back into the war room. Fancy that.

*  *  *  *  *

Nolan recalled Julius Caesar’s reply in 49 BC when the Roman Senate commanded that he halt his army and return to Rome alone to talk about career next steps. “The die is cast. I have crossed the Rubicon.” Had Nolan sealed their fate by persisting in landing on the Mitchell Plateau rather than in safe Singapore? What was the point of curiosity—even if you were right—if you died and your insights died along with you?

On that somber note, for the two hours he’d been writing out his suppositions longhand, hoping one of the pilots might survive to pass them along . . . to whom, exactly? Who cared what Bob Nolan thought about MH370?
Hecker
. Sam Hecker and Travis Ryder were the only two who gave a damn. Certainly not Millie, wherever she was. Burns was probably a black hat. Constantine was weird and increasingly hostile. Melissa Shook? Hated him and anything he stood for. Frank Coulter? Coulter was the key to unraveling the plot, one way or another.

The CIA was convinced he had a copy of Watermen’s NSA files, which he did indeed collect in Hawaii last May. Nolan calmed his hyperactive brain, momentarily set aside the pain, and gathered his thoughts.

Mark’s dead. By the time he reached Moscow, he no longer had a copy and was now in no position to tell anyone he’d left a thumb drive encased in plastic wrap for me to find hidden in a bottle of beer in the fridge of his Oahu home.

At Kaili’s behest, in Sri Lanka I destroyed the two copies I had of the NSA files.

The version taped to the cricket ball was either destroyed by the grenade or was left on the beach. Even if it was found, it was a China fabrication. There’s no connection to me.

So there’s nothing that ties me to the Watermen NSA files except . . . except what I told Millie . . . but I can explain that away . . .
and, and, DAMN!

Nolan put his forehead into his upturned righ palm as he knitted his eyebrows.
There’s the copy I taped inside my bike water bottle and left with Linda Leong. That uncorrupted original was going to be my parting gift to Watermen and a retirement hedge for me. Mark or I could have sold files piecemeal over the next ten years. That microSD card is now damning evidence. I have to make certain it’s destroyed, too. But how?

Of course, Mei Ling! She’s back in Singapore. I can count on Mei Ling
.

“Kaili, I’m too sore to move. Could you borrow the captain’s satphone? I need to make some calls.”

*  *  *  *  *

Gregory leaned into Weill’s office at NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland. “As of 06:17 Eastern Daylight Savings Time, we are
baaack
.” Despite the jocular tone, both men looked like extras in a vampire movie. The haunted eyes and disheveled clothes spoke of the last six hours of frenzied work supporting the NGA as they took servers offline, debugged them and rebooted the machines while monitoring for re-infestation or a fresh attack. Ensuring the NSA downloads of the NGA feeds were secure and reliable was almost as stressful as fighting off the damned DDOS.

Intriguingly, Director of National Intelligence Morris had ordered NGA head honcho David DeVore to have their systems continue to play dead for the time being. Passively monitor what had changed while they were off the air. Superficially, the DDOS had Iran’s fingerprints all over it, but there was no way the Iranians could have let themselves in through the back doors and side entrances. Russia was Weill’s suspicion, while Gregory’s money was on China. In the conference room, DeVore brought the house down when he blandly stated that Homeland Security’s routine software upgrades were to blame.

For now, the NGA was playing possum, comparing the pre- and post-DDOS data feeds, but not shifting substantial volumes of data to customers such as the NSA, or otherwise signaling that they had their eyes back. The one area where they risked making a few ripples was over the Senkakus and along the China coast. The initial reads were contradictory and disturbing, with the latest satellite intel at odds with what the NSA’s
Acapulco
data captures had been telling them overnight. If one believed the exports from
Acapulco
, the tapped PLA coastal network, China’s defense readiness level was one notch above the bottom, and that was only after Ambassador Sturgis had read them the riot act a few hours ago. The NRO’s infrared passes coupled with the first processed images from the last six hours in arrears revealed a maelstrom of activity, with both offensive and defensive military systems approaching a war footing.

Morris, DeVore, Perkins and NSA head Madeline Rance were huddled down the hall on a call to the joints chiefs and the president. As Gregory observed, it was much better to be dishing out the mushroom treatment than be on the receiving end. “Come on, you bastards. Make a move. Anything at all. We will crush you,” he said to Weill, and they clacked wilted paper coffee cups in a fraternal toast to the pending destruction of . . . of . . . well, whoever was responsible.

*  *  *  *  *

Hecker stepped away from the briefing table with his boss to privately take the call. He was nervously awaiting news from Gonzalez, but hadn’t been able to reach him since receiving the lone email at Narita Airport. Instead, it was another familiar voice. “Bob? How the hell are you? Where are you?”

“I’m on a jet headed to Western Australia, Sam. Mark Watermen’s dead, shot by a sniper in Colombo earlier today. I was wounded by a grenade, the same one that killed an FSB senior officer named Chumakov. It was a bloodbath on the beach, and many people died. We were lucky to escape.”

“I’m speechless. I’m glad you’re alive. Isn’t the best thing for you to surrender? We confirmed that the hijacker in custody is Colonel Peter Mullen. He tried to commit suicide, but we have him stashed in an infirmary out in the boondocks guarded by Zaw’s men. Gonzalez recorded Mullen’s confession. I hope it’s being transcribed as we speak. I also have the readings on the radioactivity released when the
SS Bandana
dumped that hot container. Plus we have the photograph of the MHS logo on the crate. So the evidence is mounting up. And, as the cherry on top, the CIA just suspended Matthews, Constantine and Burns. David Leung, chief of station Hong Kong, is now acting head of Asia.”

“Tell me more about the ocean radioactivity. How much has it spread? Will we be able to recover the container?”

“I don’t know. You may not be aware, but the NRO’s birds were blinded earlier today after a gigantic DDOS attack. It’s the largest cyberattack in history by a factor of five, according to CNN. I’m in Tokyo right now meeting Mary Steinlager. The one question I have has to do with those missing NSA files. Did you have anything to do with what Watermen stole? Do you have a copy of the files?”

“Sam, you’re telling me the NRO’s eyes and ears are down right now? So this call isn’t being monitored?”

“Well, I have no idea what the satellites are doing, but as long as the DDOS is in force, there’s no way for the NGA analysts to retrieve or interpret satellite data. You need to focus on straightening out your situation, though. You can trust the DEA. We’re on your side. But we have to know the full story, too.”

“I had nothing to do with Mark Watermen’s theft of those NSA files. I don’t have a copy of those files. I was in Sri Lanka to trade a fabricated bundle of public-sector NSA files for his freedom. It was a double-cross two times over with the Russians aiming to keep Watermen, capture me and hand us both over to the CIA. China’s involved as well, but I don’t know why. All I know for sure is that the CIA is trying to shut down the MH370 investigation by using the missing NSA files to discredit me. You have my word on that.”

Nolan made his life-or-death pitch. “If you really want to help, alert the Australia federal police and your anti-narcotics counterparts—everyone in law enforcement outside the ASIS and ASIO, as they’re too close to the CIA—and send them in force to Truscott Field on the Mitchell Plateau in Western Australia. We’ll be landing in less than two hours. I know they can’t be there by then, but even tomorrow morning might be soon enough. Otherwise, I’m dead by lunchtime.”

“What’s so important about this particular airfield? I’ve never heard of it.”

“There’s a CIA interrogation site at or near Truscott Field. They’re questioning one or two people they offloaded from MH370 before the plane disappeared. Once we know the identities of the prisoners and their captors, we’ll have the answers to all our MH370 questions.”

“Alright. I’ll see that help gets there.”

“Thanks. That’s the best news I’ve heard in a long time. I have to go now, the battery is low.” Nolan hung up. Maybe, just maybe, there was a way back to the light. Now for the tough call. He dialed Singapore.