White Jade (The PROJECT) (15 page)

Ronnie picked at a surfboarder on his shirt.
"You need surprise
,
"
he said.

"That's a given."
Carter
tugged on his ear. "Let's assume a coup
was
in progress. Go back to our original question; what could the
Triads
do here to support Yang over there?"

Jordan
loosened his tie a little more. "What does Yang need to pull it off besides surprise?"

"Well, he needs time,"
Carter
said. "Once he sets things in motion, the clock starts ticking and he
wins
or he goes down. He needs time to consolidate control and get his hands on all the strings."

The Director tapped her pen. "What would upset his time schedules?"

"Communications breakdowns. A problem with the military units. Interference from nations outside
China
could do it.
World reaction is a big factor. What would we do
, for example
?"

Zeke unbuttoned his collar
, a major breach of FBI dress code.
Carter
imagined
J. Edgar turning over in his grave.

Harker's pen was going full speed on the desk. She realized what she was doing and set it aside.

"
China
is a known factor, with a stable government. A right wing coup would be dangerous. We wouldn't want that to happen."

"You think there's the political will to intervene, Director?" 
Jordan
settled
into
his chair.

"
If the President
thought national security was at stake
. But t
he risk
of war
would be
huge."

"How
could
you keep us from getting involved?" said
Jordan
.

"
If we wanted to?
You couldn't. Unless…"
Carter
stopped.

"Unless what?"

"Unless we were occupied with something else. Something that had our attention while Yang took over."

"It would have to be a damn big attention getter
,
" Ronnie
said
. "It would have to be something national, something that drew a lot of resources."

"What about a terrorist attack?"

Everyone looked at Selena.

"Well," she said, "don't look at me like that. Isn't that what you do here? Go after terrorists?"

"Yes." Harker watched her.

"An attack would keep everyone busy. Yang could use the
Triads
to make trouble while he grabs power."

Ronnie raised an eyebrow. "
That's
really
devious
.
Remind me not to play poker with you.
But we'd find out it was him. We'd have to do something."

"What? Send in troops? Nuke
China
?"

The room was silent as each of them thought about that.

"
How many in the
Triads
?
"
Harker
picked up her pen again
.

Jordan said,
"
Several thousand in the Bay Area, if you count the youth gangs. They
'
re usually sent as enforcers.
Thousands
more spread out over the country, particularly
Houston
, L.A.
and
New York
.
W
e
'
re not certain.
"

Stephanie
said
,
"
We need more data.
"

"
How do we get that?
"
asked
Jordan
.

The Director tapped her pen.
"
For openers, there
'
s the book. Why does Yang want it? Selena, I need you to get it translated. I assume computer time will help?
"

"
It will. I
'
ve identified points
in common
between what I can read and what I can
'
t. I want to run a matrix comparison. It should give us an idea.
"

"
Good. Stephanie
,
program it in for
her. W
hile
Selena is
working on the translation
you
can run probability scenarios. I want to see what the computers say about what we
'
ve been discussing.
"

"
Yes, Director.
"

Harker said, "All we've got is speculation and Deng's story. We have pieces of intelligence but we don't have any proof.
We may be wrong."

"You don't think that," Jordan said.

"It doesn't matter what I think. I can't go to the President and tell him someone's trying to take over China without hard facts."

Jordan
looked at his watch. "Director, I can let my boss know what we've been talking about, but no one's going to do much based on speculation."

"I'll brief you as we develop this."

"I guess that will have to do."

When Jordan was gone
Selena said, "I'd like to go back to my rooms at the Mayflower.
No offense, but that
apartment of yours is depressing. I
t's
confining, hard to think in. I need room to pace around
."

"That's not a good idea. There's no security
at the hotel
.
"

Carter
said
,
"
S
he
c
ould
stay at my place.
I've got a spare bedroom. I
t would be a lot more comfortable than downstairs. There
'
s an empty unit next door to mine
.
Ronnie can set up in there
and keep an eye on things
.
"

Harker gave
him
a curious look.
"
You think it
'
s safer than here?
"

"
No, but it's safe enough.
T
here
'
s
a
security
desk,
cameras.
They have to think
Selena and I are
dead
in that mine.
"

"
Selena, are you comfortable with that?
"

"
I guess so." She gave Nick a thoughtful look. "
T
here
'
s no reason those people would know we
'
re still alive.
"

"All right. Just make sure you take every precaution."

Harker
stood.
"
Let
'
s get going.
"

Chapter Twenty-
Two

Selena, Nick and Stephanie went down
to the computer
room
.
Wide doors
of thick glass separated the room from the hallway
.
Stephanie
punched in numbers on a keypad and
stood close
to a facial recognition scanner mounted on the wall
. A
line of
green light tracked back and forth across her face. The glass doors slid open with a quiet hiss.

The room was frigid with arctic air conditioning.
Half a dozen
towering
Cray super computers
finished in an irritating red lined
both sides of a polished aisle stretching the length of the room.

Stephanie walked past them and stopped
at
a large, semi-circular console
in front of another Cray.
This
one
was gray-black
.
Mounted on
a tall
cooling unit, i
t loomed over them like something
out of a sci-fi movie, a huge, dark block transported from an alien dimension. Hundreds of blinking LEDs signaled it was active.

"
This is Freddie.
"
Stephanie took a seat at the console.
"
He
'
s a Cray XMT,
tweaked and
maxed out. Freddie uses a multithreaded platform with global shared memory and parallel processing. There are over eight thousand CPU
'
s in these cabinets. We can run a million simultaneous threads right here.
"

"
How much memory?
"
Selena asked.

"
Sixty-four terabytes.  It
'
s perfect for your book. We
'
re linked to NSA and the rest of the National Security Network. Freddie will access every database, match patterns and look for anomalies. There
'
s a database for every known language
, ancient and modern
. We can develop probability scenarios relevant to the content of the book and any other factors we choose to put in. When I
'
m not programming Selena
'
s information, I
'
ll be running those.
"

Stephanie looked at the computer as if it were a lover.

"
We have as much time on him as we need. We
'
ll input the book. You create the matrix for me, I
'
ll program it in. Then we let it run.
"

Selena took a notebook from her handbag.

"
I
'
ve already started.
"

They sat down and got to work.
Carter
thought about the
discussion
upstairs. Everything came back to Yang and Wu, and through them, to the White Jade Society.

White jade, immortality and Chinese
Triads
. It was like something out of a 50s comic book, but it wasn
'
t funny.

***

On the other side of the country,
Colonel Wu
'
s scrambled phone signaled a caller. Very few people had that number. He hoped it wasn
'
t the General on the line.

"
Wu.
"

"
This is Juggler,
"
a voice said in English.

Wu sat up in his chair. Juggler was the code name of one of his best informants, stationed in
Washington
.

"
Yes, Juggler.
"

"
The Connor woman is here in
Washington
. She is traveling with a man who works in one of the counter-terrorist units. Apparently there was an armed confrontation with your men? In any event, they arrived last night.
"

"
You are certain it is
the right
woman?
"

"
Certain. There is concern here. Speculation is high as to reasons for events, but there is no firm analysis yet. You have been identified as involved and your meetings with certain individuals in
San Francisco
have been noted.
"

Wu
smiled. Confirmation the FBI had trailed him, but he already knew that. It was part of the plan.
His negotiations with the
Triads
were complete and i
t was almost time to return to
China
. But not yet. There was still a chance to get the book. The day had just gotten better.

"
The woman is staying with the agent, a man named
Carter
. It is a non-secure building.
"
Juggler gave him the address.

"
Good, Juggler. There will be a deposit in the usual way. Inform me of any new developments.
"

"
Yes.
"
The call ended.

With an address and a name Wu had a man
'
s life in his hands. Whoever
Carter
was, his secrets would soon be Wu
'
s.
He knew Carter had been in California, from the insurance slip Choy had recovered.

Carter
was probably the man who had
stopped
the attempt to kidnap the niece. He
'
d killed two agents in
California
and stopped Choy. The direct approach had failed. It was time for something more subtle.
Wu knew the perfect person for what he had in mind. He picked up his phone and dialed a number in
Washington
to make the arrangements.

Now he could contact the General and give him a positive update. Things were looking up.