Decency (38 page)

“Chet, it makes much more sense. I’ll tell the people in Beijing to step on it. We want to know one, what the material is and, two, anything they can get on what the Chinese are doing to find it and Fitzgerald. Thanks.”

She disconnected, took a long breath and hit the intercom.

“Far East.”

“Brandon, come on up. We’re going to call General Zhou.”

“Be right there.”

The head of CIA Far East Operations took off in a dead run to the Director’s Office. He had never seen any Director call the best in-country asset directly in twenty seven years of service.

Arriving in the Director’s office forty seconds later, Mandy motioned to follow her, and they trotted to the main communications SCIF. From there, they could reach via satellite anywhere in the world where there was a CIA controlled terminal without going through the local telecommunications facilities.

Once inside, with the light above the door indicating the room was again secure, Mandy turned to Brandon.

“We’re running out of time. We can’t wait for this to ladder down the normal route. Chet McKenna at NSA thinks the Chinese concern over materials in the FBI case is real. I agree. We’ve got to talk to Zhou directly to find out what’s going on.”

“Mandy, I have to ask, you do know we could lose him if we do this?”

“I don’t think you know this, Brandon. I recruited him.”

He turned to the console operator. “Open a direct line, your reference, niner, two, six, niner.”

The operator punched in the number, lifted one of the handsets and handed it to Brandon who handed it Mandy. They all waited, not knowing if Zhou would be able to answer. Mandy heard the ring continuing for a full minute. Finally, a very casual male voice answered in Mandarin.

“General Zhou.”

In clean, unaccented Mandarin, the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency purred like a hormonal teenager.

“My sweet lover, I need you.”

Momentarily, the memory of their arranged signal evaded the General. Remembering it immediately triggered alarms of the risks being forced upon him. He hesitated but responded in a tone suggesting unlimited passion.

“My need for you towers over me.”

“Shall we meet in the garden?”

“I will fly. But moments, my darling.”

The line went dead, Mandy returned the phone to the operator, and turned to Brandon.

“Get your people to him right now. We need to know what the materials are, where they are, and if they’re sending people after them, when and where they arrive.”

Brandon grabbed a handset, reached over the operator, and punched the reference for the Beijing station.

“Beijing.”

“This is Granger for Yost, immediate.”

“Yost.”

“Bart, Zhou is waiting at the flagpole in front of his apartment building. Send a female or a male with apologies. Here’s what we need. What are the Green Lilly materials? Where are they? If they’re sending people, when and where do they arrive? Get it yesterday.”

“Call you back.”

Brandon replaced the handset. Neither he nor Mandy liked what they just did and waiting to see what good came from it was already excruciating.

Mandy knew from her own experience in Yost’s job, the process would take at least eight minutes and might not ever come to fruition. At least they would get a call back from Yost to let them know the status. Eight minutes ticked by. Then nine. No ring. Instead, the console operator knew which incoming was for Granger from the lights on the panel. The request for him played in the operator’s earphones. He connected it to a handset, picked it up and handed it to Granger, who cradled it on his shoulder and jotted notes.

“Brandon, it’s bad…

Granger punched the speakerphone button and Yost’s voice was heard from the small speaker on the console.

“They reverse engineered some of NSA’s own listening devices, miniaturized and all, using supercomputers we sold them. They aren’t sure where they are. The FBI agent told them he put one at the Nebraska farm, whatever that means. Their people are coming from their resources in Long Beach. At least two of them. They left Long Beach just after Zhou’s talk with Jiang. Exact destination unknown.”

Mandy turned and left as Brandon quickly read his notes to check them. There was a tape but it could be cumbersome to retrieve and play.

“Thanks, Bart.”

Brandon left and caught up with Mandy just as she got to her office. She mashed the secure speakerphone buttons for a conference call with the Attorney General and the NSA Director.

“Chet McKenna…”

“John Corrigan.”

“John, Chet, Mandy. Chet, you were right…”

She relayed the report from Yost.

“John, Mandy. Listen very carefully. We have still bigger problems. The devices are ‘MIMID’s, for Mobile Implantable Micro Intercept Devices. They are the size of the works in a Rolex watch. NSA produced them combining data compression and miniaturization technologies from the nuclear weapons program to eliminate bulk from connectors and packaging. They are basically as capable as a high end computer server and a television station combined. They can be put anywhere and pick up fifty thousand channels and beam it to a ship, plane or a car, or with line of sight to a satellite. Right now we are looking at total compromise of all U.S. communications world wide. All of our forces anywhere in the world must assume they are communicating with the Chinese everything they send.”

When he stopped, the other two were silent for a long, long moment.

“Holy cow…”

“Let’s get the President.”

“Also, our employee, Samantha Pierce, grew up on a Nebraska farm. I can’t imagine the farm means anything else.”

“He might have been trying to plant evidence of guilt on her.”

“John, Mandy, we can’t assume Fitzgerald wasn’t or isn’t using the devices himself.”

“I’m alerting FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team now, as we speak, to be ready to move…”

“And I’m trying the President.”

“White House.”

“This is the AG for the President.”

“One moment.”

“Craig Horton.”

“Craig, John. Chet and Mandy are on. The President asked us to call now.”

“Hold on.”

“How is it going, John?”

“No progress on the arrest. We still don’t know where Fitzgerald is. Chet put Mandy onto something though. Her sources in China confirmed it just now. The Chinese reverse engineered some of NSA’s own miniaturized MIMIDs listening devices - which Chet just explained to us - using supercomputers we sold them. Fitzgerald has some. The Chinese don’t know where they are. Fitzgerald told them he put one at the Nebraska farm, probably where the Pierce woman grew up. The Chinese are sending at least two people from their resources in Long Beach to get the MIMIDs. They left there about three hours ago. Exactly where they are headed the source didn’t know. But if we don’t find these devices, all of them, we have to assume all of our communications, world-wide, are compromised.”

“Our side’s losing, John, big time. Mandy, can I tell the Chinese to back off without burning the source?”

“No, sir.”

“Do we have to keep the source?”

“Unquestionably.”

“John, are you tracking the Chinese out of Long Beach?”

“We normally do. I’ll check now, sir…”

“Chet, Mandy, darn good work. Keep at it. Unless you catch something, you can drop out of the loop for now.”

“Right, sir, thank you.”

“NSA’s out.”

“John, high-tail it over here. We need to get ahead of the curve. Craig Horton will be in charge in the Situation Room.”

The President disconnected. The Attorney General knew the President just brought in a new quarterback.

General McKenna punched the secure intercom button for Security.

“Yes, sir.”

“Cindy. Worse news. Apparently, Fitzgerald had some MIMIDs the Chinese reverse engineered from our own.”

“God, no.”

“As of right now, assume every piece of equipment, every comm line, every frequency, in this entire facility is compromised until proven otherwise. It’s your job to do the proving. Be careful, the stuff will look like our own. Take as many people as you need. Test and re-test everything, starting with my conference room and office. Work your way through the highest priority elements first.”

“We’ll have to shut down functions as we go.”

“Shut down whatever you need to shut down. We are dirty. Clean us up.”

“It’ll help if you tell everybody to light candles and not curse the darkness, sir.”

“I’ll do it. Let’s get started. It’ll take a while.”

“I’d say at least a month.”

“I know.”

A street in Annapolis near the West River, normally quiet, no longer was. Every occupant of all of the houses on both sides of the street that Fitzgerald’s former residence faced were evacuated.

Having given their names, addresses, and phone numbers, and the names of all of the other occupants of the houses they live in to the police, and repeatedly stated, “No I don’t recall when I last saw Mr. Fitzgerald,” they were all standing behind the yellow police tape at both ends of the block watching several hundred police and FBI agents going over every possible feature outside of his house and, presumably, doing the same inside.

If they could listen from that far away, they would have heard the on scene agent in charge speaking on his cell phone to Francis Johnson, the Director of the FBI.

“…no obvious indications where he went and he could be using his FBI credentials. Those are not here…”

“Yes, sir…photography…cataloguing and gathering the contents of the house…we’ll be here another eight hours at least.”

26

Theresa’s frantic return to the witness room completely baffled Kelly.

“Theresa, ‘him’ who?”

Duncan put his arms around his now crying wife, their child between them.

“What, honey? What is it?”

Between sobs, she could barely make sensible sounds. “H-him…he’s… the one…I’m sor-hory…the man…”