White Jade (The PROJECT) (18 page)

Chapter Twenty-
S
even

There was no sign of Cathy Chen. Selena, Ronnie, Stephanie and
Nick
were in the Director
'
s office with
Jordan
. Harker told him about the theft of Selena
'
s computer
. She
tossed out
the
conclusion there was
a mole in the Bureau.

"
I don
'
t believe it.
"

"
Do you have a better explanation?
Someone passed the information to Wu. Your people and ours are the only ones who knew Nick and Selena survived.
General Hood at NSA is in the loop
now
. It's not him and i
t's not one of us. It's got to be someone in the Bureau.
"

"
Am I a suspect, then?
"
Jordan
was getting angry.

"
No.
"

"
I don
'
t like what you
'
re saying.
"

"
I don
'
t like saying it. If I
'
m right, we have to find out who the informant is. If I
'
m wrong
,
I
'
ll owe you an apology. What I want to know now is if I can count on you to help us sort this out.
"

Jordan
took a deep breath.
"
All right, Director. But I think you
'
re wrong.
"

"
Then help us prove it.
"

"
I
'
m not sure where to start.
"

"
C
ommunications,
"
Carter
said.
"
Our mole had to contact Wu.
R
un a trace on the phone numbers of people in your unit, cross reference Wu
'
s numbers from our intercepts, see if there
'
s a connection. NSA does this all the time.
"

"
I wouldn
'
t call Wu or his contact from my own phone if I were the mole.
"

"
People get over-confident. They make mistakes. It
'
s worth a try.
"

Jordan
nodded.
"
Okay.
"

"
Financial records.
"
It was Ronnie.
"
We run checks on everyone in the Asian Criminal Enterprise Unit and see if someone
'
s getting richer than they
'
re supposed to be.
"

"
I can get authority for that,
"
said
Jordan
.
"
All right, I
'
ll do it. But I want to keep this internal. If one of ours is bad, then we have to be the ones to take him down. Agreed?
"

Harker nodded.
"
Agreed.
"

Carter
felt sorry for him. Who needs to hear someone you
'
re working with might be a traitor?

"
Is there anything else, Director? I
'
m due back at headquarters.
"

"
No. I know this isn
'
t easy.
"

"
No, it
'
s not. I think you
'
re wrong, but you
'
re right about one thing, we have to know one way or the other.
"
Jordan
got up,
annoyed
.

Stephanie escorted him out. When she returned, the Director went on with the meeting.

"
We will no longer involve the FBI in what we
'
re doing, until we know who tipped off Wu. I didn
'
t want
Jordan
to hear the next part of our discussion. Stephanie, what do the scenarios indicate?
"

"
As we thought. High probability of a conspiracy to take over control of
China
. The computer factored in the defector interviews, all the rest of the intelligence we
'
ve been getting from China in the last few months, the FBI
'
s concern about the
Triads
, Wu
'
s actions, everything.

"Selena was curious about a reference to burning rocks.
The
computer
confirms
it
refers to
high grade
uranium ore, over ninety-
seven
percent probability. The process
described in the book is
the same as what we use today to produce yellowcake. That gets refined into uranium oxides
. You
put
that
through centrifuges to get the enriched uranium you need for bombs. You can get yellowcake from low grade ore but it
'
s tedious. High quality ore yields a lot more for the same effort.
"

"
That would explain the passage in the text about changing from silver to yellow or gold,
"
Selena
said
.

The Director set her pen to the side.
"
What about the immortality elixir? What does the computer say about that?
"

Stephanie adjusted the gold bracelets on her wrist.
"
The computer doesn
'
t have the bias we do about the existence of an elixir of immortality
. It
projects the
elixir
may be discovered.
"

"
What
'
s the probability of success?
"

"
For finding the complete formula and the place where it was manufactured, eighty-six per cent. The same for finding the location of the uranium. Regarding the coup, that
'
s more hopeful. At best, there
'
s about a f
ifty-
fifty
chance Yang can pull it off.
"

"
What happens if he doesn
'
t find the elixir?
"

"
Still
fifty-
fifty
. They
'
re not related.
"

Carter
said,
"
Does the computer back up our ideas about the
Triads
?
"

Stephanie nodded.
"
Provide a
distraction
while Yang brings up the tanks. I was careful not to program in our conclusions. The computer was analyzing the same intel we have and its conclusions are similar. The scenario indicates high probability for West Coast targets in the Bay Area, but we could be looking at attacks on a national level.
The emphasis is on disruption of basic infrastructure, including the
Golden Gate
and Bay bridges, the transportation system, water supply and
especially
power sources.
"

"
What do you think will happen, if we
'
re right?
"
Carter
tugged at
his
ear. 

Harker picked up her pen.
"
It could lead to war.
"

"
Let me see if I
'
ve got this right,
Steph,
"
said Ronnie.
"
If there was a big terrorist attack here there
'
d be plenty of speculation and talk, right? World attention?
"

"
Yes.
"

"
And that would keep the Chinese government and everyone else preoccupied?
"

"
Yes.
"

"
So while the world is looking the other way, Yang makes his move and takes over.
"

Stephanie nodded agreement.
"
That
'
s about it.
"

Harker
tapped her upper lip with her pen
.
"
The big question is when? It must be soon, or why move on Connor and grab his accounts? Nick, if you were doing this, when would you do it?
"

"
I
'
d pick a time when our guard was down, when people were thinking about something else. Like a holiday.
"

"
The Fourth of July.
"
It was Selena.
"
That
'
s five days from now. It
'
s the only holiday coming up anytime soon. Big crowds for fireworks, traffic jams, lots of confusion. If they
'
re going to try something soon, I
'
d bet on that.
"

"
That makes sense.
"
Tap, tap, tap on her desk.
"
I
'
m going to have to
give a heads up to
Homeland Security.
I can't go to the President yet.
"

"
But how much can we tell them,
"
Nick
said.
"
Whatever we give them is bound to leak. Yang will find out we
'
re on to him.
"

"
I only have to tell them enough to get them to raise the security watch. I can do that without giving away the store. The main thing is to get them on it. This is going to get complicated.
"

Elizabeth
dreaded the nightmare
of
Washington
bureaucracy. If the various agencies started putting in their two cents they
'
d argue about what to do and how to do it and who would be in charge and form a joint task force. It would be next year before anything happened. There wasn
'
t time for that.

She
made up her mind.
"
It
'
s
Homeland Security's job
to be on the lookout for an attack. We can
alert
them, but that
'
s all we can do and all we have to do. We
'
ve got mobility the others don
'
t and we need to take action. I want something to back up our analysis.
"

"
How do we get that?
"
Carter
reached under
his
jacket and adjusted
his
holster.
He felt a headache start. He knew what was coming.

"
Right from the start everything has centered on the book. Yang wanted
what's
in it and now he has that. He has the same directions and information we do. His best chance at finding out anything more is to look for the place where the
e
mperor
was taken. That
'
s in
Tibet
. We need to get there before he does, document anything we find and block Yang from getting it.
"

"
That area is pretty remote,
"
Carter
said.
"
We c
ould
get in with minimal risk of detection, but how long will it take to find this place? We don
'
t even know for sure it exists.
"

"
We
'
ll run satellite images
and
cross reference with the map in the book. If we can get a good
idea where
, we
'
ll go in.
"