Insider X

Insider X

Dave Buschi

All rights reserved.  No part of this book may be used or reproduced without written permission from the author.

Although based on some real events, this book is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places, businesses, incidents and events are the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales, is either coincidental or is used in a completely fictional way.

Copyright © 2014 by Dave Buschi

Cover design by Carl Graves

ISBN: #978-0-9839150-2-7

For K, C, and P.  You are my world.

Emoticons

(^_^)
Happy

(@_@)
Confused

(?_?)
Curious

(<_<)
Shifty

(Q_Q)
Sad

(x_x)
Dead

1

Somewhere in Virginia

Present Day

THE COMPLEX WAS not something a passing motorist would look at twice.  There were plenty of old, tired office parks in the area and these buildings appeared to be no different than any of those.  The four squat buildings had been built in the 70s, using prefab construction techniques popular at the time.  Monolithic and mostly made of panelized concrete, the buildings had tall narrow windows that resembled those arrow slits seen on castles.

Inside one of the buildings was Lawrence Simpson.  He had been in camp for five days.  It seemed a longer period of time than that, but that was because he hadn’t slept for over 36 hours.  When he was in camp he routinely pulled ridiculous hours.  Well, ridiculous for some people, but for him this was normal.

He took another sip from his Styrofoam coffee cup.  He’d munched and nibbled it into a papery thin mess.  He moved his mouse to open his latest email.  It was the third he’d received in the last few hours.  Like the other two emails, the sender had utilized the same anonymous remailer protocol.  It essentially made emails untraceable and turned them into ciphertext.  After running it through Serpent XI, a proprietary encryption algorithm, Lawrence was able to convert the ciphertext back into plaintext.  The message was in English, but at first glance the usage seemed to indicate that English was not the writer’s primary language.

Please forgive to be incontinent for interior decoration.

Wash after relief.

The store be sterilized inside, please be contented.

Lawrence skimmed the lines.  Within the nonsense was an actual message.  Sophisticated algorithms notwithstanding, the sender was not one to trust that the encryption software would be sufficient.  Because as Lawrence well knew, software was worthless half the time, particularly when the manufacturers of said software were constantly dealing with security breaches of their own.  Code was coopted, coders were bought, companies were infiltrated every hour of every day.  The fact was: there was no degree of security protocol that ever gave license to speak freely.  Adaptive measures were necessary.

Lawrence added up the words.  They were going old school here: 8…3…8…  The technique Lip and he used was not fancy, but it was effective.  Any sentence with under 5 words was a “dit”, anything 5 words and over was a “dah”.  Dits and dahs.  Also commonly called dots and dashes, or shorts and longs.  Samuel F.B. Morse developed the system back in 1836.

Some things never go out of style.

Lawrence deciphered the message.  That done, he deleted the email and ran a scrub program to remove all trace of the email from his computer.  An outsider might think such precautions overkill.  But there was no such thing as being too cautious.  Even here the walls had eyes and ears.  Especially here.  Lawrence looked over his shoulder warily and then hunched over his keyboard and went back to work.

2

Jinniu District, Chengdu, China

HALFWAY AROUND THE world, where it was midday rather than night, Marks and Lip were sitting at a table.  Marks was used to this.  Lip and his toys.  Man could entertain himself for hours with a toothbrush if it was hooked up to the grid.

“You done?”

Marks’s partner, Lip, kept thumb typing.  “Almost… give me a sec… what was that last sign we saw?”

Marks drained the last of his tepid tea with one gulp.  “‘Fucking Goods’.  The other was ‘Racist Park’.”

“No, not those.  What was the one before those two?”

“Hand basin for child only do not beat.”

Lip nodded.  “That’ll work.”  He typed some more.

Marks was just getting the view from the cheap seats here.  Lip and Lawrence had some thing going with their little pen pal correspondence.  Three hours ago it was favorite pick-up lines.  Two hours ago it was famous quotes.  And now, for some reason, Lip was sending Lawrence funny signs.  Around here you could find them everywhere.  The botched English translations took political incorrectness to a whole other level.  Like the handicap sign Marks had seen earlier that said ‘Deformed Person’ beneath the Chinese characters and universal sign for handicap.

“Why don’t you just send him pictures of the signs?” Marks said.

“Can’t… won’t work,” Lip said, as he finished typing.  “There.  Done.”

“Lawrence happy?”

“Should be,” Lip said, putting away his phone.  “I let him know we’re on schedule.”

“Has he buttoned up his end?”

“Course.”  Lip patted his pants under the table, as if checking for something.  He looked back at Marks.  “Ready?”

“Been.”

Lip pushed out his bamboo chair and got up.  There were still some uneaten skewers in his hot pot.

“Figure it out?” Marks said.

“What?”

“Dog or cat?”

“The way it tasted,” Lip said, “I’m thinking rat.  But you never know around here.  Might have actually been chicken.”

They navigated past some other customers sitting at tables.  Down the street were two men pretending to be interested in the contents of a merchant’s storefront.

“What about Ciggies and Camel Joe?” Marks said.

“Let ‘em follow,” Lip said.  He spied a parked taxi, walked over and spoke to the driver.  That action quickly got Ciggies and Camel Joe into conniptions.  One of them hastily ran off, just as Marks and Lip got in the backseat of the taxi.

Seconds later, Marks and Lip headed to Happy Valley Chengdu tailed by their smoking friends who were driving a smog-belting Jetta.

(^_^)

HAPPY VALLEY.  THAT was the tip.  Marks knew to be flexible with these sorts of things.  The information might be legit or it might not.  It was a slippery business he and Lip were in, relying on others culling actionable intel out of the soup.  With all the snippets, false trails and planted misinformation out there it wasn’t always easy knowing what or whom to trust.  Sometimes the intended messages got lost in translation—not unlike those botched English signs where what was meant wasn’t what came out.

Back home, Big Ears had pulled plenty this time.  It was all done with algorithmic searching: sorting, parceling, dicing and delivering.  Someone who called themselves iNsideR;x was sharing secrets they shouldn’t.  They were doing it anonymously, posting certain packets on a file-sharing site.  They’d been getting away with it for quite a while.  Nothing wrong with that, particularly since those secrets were being discretely funneled to more than one master.  iNsideR;x, whether they knew it or not, was working for them.

Like most things it was a good arrangement, until it wasn’t.  And that’s why Marks and Lip were here.  Sometimes even good things must come to an end.

Their taxi dropped them off in front of Happy Valley.  The place wasn’t in any valley.  And as for happy, what you got was a good dose of the gray gloom that blanketed the city.

Happy Valley was one developer’s overreaching attempt at doing the iconic amusement park thing.  Think Disney World and a small town carny operation and imagine now they had a kid.  That poor bastard was Happy Valley.  There were some thrills and chills, couple screamers and some water chutes.  Best one, which wasn’t saying much, was one that looked like a big ocean liner with two big smokestacks, called ‘Shoot-the-chutes’.  According to Lawrence’s tip that might be legit or might not, iNsideR;x was making an appearance in about an hour.  That gave Marks and Lip some time to kill.

As for the tip, it was as useful as these things went.  They had no face.  No description.  Only a time and place.  A place that just so happened to have 15,000 people; all of which could be candidates over the next hour.

15,000.

Chump change as far as amusement parks went, but that was actually big numbers here, even when you took away the fact the park could have held a hundred times that number.  The low attendance figure might have had something to do with the cost.  Lip did the honors and ponied up the big money, which was 240 RB for each ticket, which equaled about $39 American (or about what your average Chengdu resident made in a month).  Tickets in hand, they went in line to get inside.

Two things were going to happen next.  Either their tail would follow or they wouldn’t.  That would tell them one useful piece of info they needed to know.  Aside from the price hurdle that was involved, both those guys were wearing jackets.  And it was definitely too muggy for jackets.  Even if they had 240 RB to spare, they’d have a tough time getting past the security check, potential pat downs, and metal detectors.

Not so for Marks and Lip.  They walked right in. 

Less than a minute later their tail did too.

“Guess they had the special pass,” Lip said.

“Looks like it,” Marks said.

“Well, that settles it,” Lip said. 

Yep.

Their tail was PLA.

PLA.  PEOPLE’S LIBERATION Army.  That name killed Marks.  Look up the definition of
Liberation
and you’d find something along the lines of: ‘the act of setting free, as from oppression, confinement, or foreign control’.  This coming from China’s version of Big Brother who beat, imprisoned and made people disappear on an hourly basis.

Lots of irony in this town, present joint included.  First impression of Happy Valley was that it was perfect for the kiddies.  But Marks could have counted on one hand how many children he saw.  Mostly the park was full of expats, upwardly mobile twenty30somethings, and then your usual smattering of ugly dudes in the over fifty bracket with the pretty wives that were young enough to be their daughters.

Ciggies and Camel Joe were hanging back, trailing from a distance, cigs dangling from their mouths.  Some fun stats: 300 million smokers in this country.  Two trillion cigarettes consumed a year.  Three in four Chinese men had the habit.

As if sucking in this toxic air wasn’t enough.  By the end of the day Marks felt like a pallet of bricks had been pressed against his chest from being out in this mess. 
Waiguoren,
like Marks and Lip, were constantly surprised of the air quality in cities over here.  It was somethin’ else.  The bad egg smell, the stickiness of the air, how it constantly looked like it was going to piss rain on you, but never did. 

To be fair, there were sunny days in China.  It just took freak acts of nature to make that happen.  For one or two days after a typhoon hit, the skies were scrubbed clean enough where the sun could peek through.  It was those days the PLA propaganda machine went to work, documenting everything with their cameras.  All of which would soon be posted on the Internet as prima facie evidence that everything was fine in China. 
What pollution?  See.  Everything clean like baby’s bottom here.

“What ride do you want to do first?” Lip said.

“Funny,” Marks said.

They went into the gloom.  Personally Marks wasn’t surprised that Lip and he were being tailed.  It was a common occurrence.  Even with the millions of visitors Chengdu got a month, the PLA managed to show their love to certain folks that fit a certain profile.

No reason at this point to be concerned.  Their cover was solid.  Lawrence and Johnny Two-cakes had made sure of that.

Their business visa was good for six months and would withstand close scrutiny.  Being “newbies” to the area, according to their manufactured background, made doing the tourist traps part of the act.  Lip loved getting into character, maybe as much as he loved to wear awful.  Currently he was going with a bright teal job.  He’d picked it up yesterday at a store stall down at Jinli.

On his tee was a big red heart flanked by the words ‘I’ and ‘Bao’.  Lip, curator of all things you didn’t need to know, was happy to explain who Bao was.  Bao was the star in Kung Fu Panda.  Kung Fu Panda 2 was China’s biggest box office draw of all time.  Did three trillion RB in ticket sales.  Enough to guarantee there’d be Kung Fu Panda sequels from now till friggin’ forever.  Just what the world needed.  Only good thing about that equation was at least the US was hawking something over here other than Marlboro 10 packs.  Course, half the movie theatres here ran bootleg versions of Hollywood’s movies, but that was missing the point.  A good story was a good story, and DreamWorks, Paramount and all the other movie outfits tended to forget minor infractions like stealing their product, just so long as Wall Street didn’t pick up on those little details.

“Glad we came early,” Lip said.

“Why?”

Lip tapped his phone.  “Found her.”

“Already?”

“Yep,” Lip said.  “Pink.  Ten o’clock.”

(^_^)

PINK MINISKIRT, PINK pumps, and a white frilly blouse bedecked with sequins and lace wasn’t exactly how Na usually rolled.  But the outfit served its use.  It made her practically unrecognizable, and that was the entire point.

Na could have passed for several of the girls at this venue.  The privileged few: the fashion conscious, the daddy girls, the kept mistresses, the aspiring elite that populated places like this.  Happy Valley was a status spot in Chengdu, several tiers beneath certain upscale shopping areas like the
Galleria
, but still a place where people occasionally went to be seen.  What ‘it girls’ might do during the day when they were bored, and not doing something absolutely fabulous like trying on Valentino dresses or picking up the latest Salvatore Ferragamo bag at
Renhe Spring,
one of the other malls that catered to the uber-rich.

Na was channeling her very own inner Paris Hilton (dated analogy, but so much better than comparing herself to any of those bimbos on TV now).  The miniskirt and four-inch-high pumps showed off her slender gams. 
Gams,
as in
gamba
, which was Italian for leg.

She was so worldly, educated by the best.  Not at expensive prep schools.  And no high-end education abroad.  Nope.  She’d gone to Internet U.  Nothing but the best for Na.

She walked past
Dragon in Clouds,
an inverted rollercoaster that elicited its fair share of high-pitched squeals.  She was tempted to get on it.  A person rode it by strapping themselves into a shoulder harness.  There was no place to sit, as a person hung with their legs dangling.  Skirts were to be avoided with that particular ride, as she knew from experience.  The ride turned a person upside down, and any persons on the ground were afforded a very revealing up leg view, even if it was only a blur.

Maybe next time she’d do the ride.  She almost laughed at the thought. 
As if.

Na could act it.  And she could talk it.  But walking it was a different story. 

She reminded herself this wasn’t a game.  She took a seat at her usual spot and stopped gabbing on the phone with her pretend friend.  It was a bench well clear of Dragon in Clouds, and the other rides.  The bench was tucked under some palm trees and in-between some planters full of tropical vegetation.  It was about as secluded a spot as could be had at this venue without looking like a person intentionally trying to hide.

She opened her purse.  Girly and pink, of course.  A knockoff of a Gucci, which was rather well done.  Only if a person looked inside the purse and saw the stitching would they realize it wasn’t quite up to snuff.  That went for the rest of her designer getup.  In fact, the only thing real on her was her Apple iPhone.  Its rubber ‘pink bling’ skin, also a knockoff of a popular brand, was selected just for this occasion.  She gave a careful look around as she pretended to talk into it again.

She verified that no one was nearby.  About thirty yards away were a few couples walking, and two American-looking types.  Her eyes for a brief moment settled on the Americans.  They were in the process of walking down towards some rides.  One was big and tall; the kind of man who might be described as brawny.

Brawny. 
That word had such a bourgeois, take me in the woods, air to it.  Too old for her, but still worth looking at.  Short clipped hair that was graying at the temples.  A face more rugged than handsome, but definitely not outside her minimum standards.