Insider X (10 page)

16

Undisclosed location / Chengdu

“WHAT IS THE facility?” Marks said.

“Facility 67096,” Mei said, correcting him.

“The number matters?” Marks said.

“They have many facilities,” Mei said.  “But only one 67096.  That particular facility is very interesting.”

“And why is that?” Lip said.

“Many reasons,” Mei said.  “But first—do we have deal?”

“We help you get the girl in pink,” Lip said.

“Na is her name,” Mei said.  “But you probably know her by ‘Insider X’.”  She looked for a reaction from them, but only got three poker faces.  “You guys are good.  So Johnny Two-cakes, don’t tell me you don’t know about Facility 67096?”

Johnny Two-cakes began to reassemble the EMex.  He looked a little more aggravated than usual, Marks noticed.

Mei laughed.  “Are you pouting?”

“No, of course not,” Johnny Two-cakes said.

“Yeah, he is,” Lip said.  “He doesn’t like not knowing more than everyone else in the room.  Marks is used to it, though.”

“Easy,” Marks said.

Lip smirked.  “Alright Mei, I’ll speak for Marks and myself… you have a deal.  We’ll help you get the girl.  But first you have to hold your tongue and say ‘I was born on a pirate ship’ three times really fast.”

Mei frowned.  “Why I do this?”

“Don’t ask,” Marks said.  “Just do it.”

Mei gave them both a wary look.  “
Okay
… then we have deal?”

“Yes,” Lip said; his face very serious.

Mei held her tongue.  “I wath born on a pile of shit—I wath born on a pile of shit—I wath born on a pile of shit.”  She released her tongue.  “Don’t understand.  What purpose me doing this?”

“No reason,” Lip said.

Johnny Two-cakes sighed.

“FACILITY 67096 is located here.”  Mei pointed to an aerial image she’d pulled up on her laptop.

“All of that?” Marks said.  It was a good image they were looking at.  This wasn’t Google Earth view, that was for sure.  The resolution was crisp.  Marks could almost make out the individual bricks on the buildings.

“Yes, all of this,” Mei said.  “Everything within these walls.”

“It’s a walled city?” Marks said.

“Of sorts,” Mei said.  “Walled city.  Military base.  Whatever you want to call it.”  She pointed to the buildings.  “These were all built to unusual specifications for buildings in Chengdu.  There are foil sheets of copper embedded in the walls, and the windows are one-way glass with fine copper mesh.”

Marks knew what that meant.  Same stuff was used at Fort Meade.

“So they’ve wrapped this joint with electromagnetic shielding,” Lip said.

“Yes,” Mei said.

“Which means intrusion gear won’t work,” Marks said.  “Nixes cell phones too.”

“Correct,” Mei said.  “The ten-meter-high wall that runs the perimeter has copper, as well.  And there are jammers on site.  No signals can get in or get out.  Surveillance cameras are mounted along the wall at regular intervals and on most of the light poles.  There are motion detectors.  And on this side of the wall is an electrified fence.  Plus razor wire.  The only designated entry points are here, here… and here.”

“Not very sporting of them,” Lip said.  “Guess they don’t like visitors.”  He adjusted his BCs.  He’d ditched the colored contacts he’d been wearing all day and was wearing his chunky horn-rimmed glasses.

‘BCs’ was a nickname Marks used.  Carryover from his Force Recon days.  BCs—also known as ‘BCGs’; standard issue in the United States Marine Corps for those that were visually impaired.  Lip’s glasses were a dead ringer for the BCGs you got at boot camp.  Things were so butt ugly they served as an effective means of birth control.  Hence the nickname: “Birth Control Glasses”.

“Why do you still wear those?” Marks said.  “I thought Lasik fixed you up?”

“It did,” Lip said.  “These don’t have vision correction.”

“And you’re wearing them because…?” Marks said.

“I look good with them on,” Lip said.  “They frame my face.  What do you think, Mei?  Glasses on?”  Lip waited a moment, and then removed them.  “Or off?”

“I think you look very handsome with them on,” Mei said.  “Reminds me of Johnny Depp, just less hair.”

“See,” Lip said, looking at Marks.  “Johnny Depp.”

“And you believe her?” Marks said.

“You’re just jealous,” Lip said.  “Alright, Mei, keep going.”

“China Telecom, which ran all the fiber-optic cables for this facility, billed this project, how do you say it?  Off the books?” Mei said.

China Telecom.  Now that was a blast from the past.  That company had their sticky hands in everything.

Marks looked at Johnny Two-cakes.  “And the reason they would have done that?  Run it off the books?”

“Secrecy,” Johnny Two-cakes said.  “Like us, Mei’s team seems to have picked up on the same pattern.  Confirms it’s a military facility.  The numbers always give things away.  The accountants at China Telecom still wanted to track the project, so they used simultaneous debit/credits to whitewash the expenditures.  Standard M.O.  All the projects they do for the PLA are handled in that fashion.  The PLA doesn’t get billed; China Telecom just absorbs the costs.  Cost of doing business here.  If the military asks you to do something, you just do it, no questions asked.  That aerial we’re looking at is the home for ‘Big Blue’.  One of the PLA’s cyber warfare divisions.”

Mei clapped her hands.  “Ah, Johnny Two-cakes, you do know this place!”

Johnny Two-cakes nodded.  “We’ve known about it for a while.”

“Then you tell us,” Mei said.  “What does Big Blue do?”

“You don’t know?” Johnny Two-cakes said.

“I do know.  But I want you to tell me,” Mei said.

“She doesn’t know,” Lip said.

“I do so know!” Mei said, getting indignant.

“Yeah,” Marks said.  “You’re both right.  She doesn’t have a clue what they do.”

Mei looked at Marks.  “Why do you think that?”

“That tell of yours,” Marks said, not being serious.

“What tell?  I don’t have a tell,” Mei said.

“Yep, I saw it, she did it again,” Lip said.

“I don’t have a tell!”  Mei stamped her foot down.

“You look kinda cute when you get mad,” Marks said.

“Stop it!” Mei yelled.  She took a breath and got her composure back.  “What tell?”

“I’ll tell you,” Lip said.  “But you have to hold your tongue and say ‘I have to go ship a brick’.”

“And then you’ll tell me?”

“Ifyou’reanidiotsaywhat,” Lip said.

“What?!” Mei said.  “What did you say?”

“Nothing,” Lip said.  “Say it and I’ll tell you your tell.”

Mei held her tongue and said, “I hav to go shit a ‘rick.”

“Sorry,” Lip said.  “You didn’t say it.”

“I did so!” Mei said.

“No I changed it,” Lip said.  “You were supposed to say ‘it’.”

“What?!” Mei said.

“She’s still doing it,” Marks said.

Johnny Two-cakes sighed.

This was too much fun to end, but Marks knew they needed to nix this Barney Purple Dinosaur routine.  Lip and Mei could go on for hours.  “Okay you rugrats,” Marks said.  “Deep six this grab-ass, let’s get back to Facility 69.”

“What did he just say?” Mei said.

“Gyrene Marine stuff,” Lip said,  “He’s just showing off with that secret language he and his buddies used in the Corps.  Tell her my favorite one.”

“Bag nasty?” Marks said.

“No, the other one,” Lip said.

“Horse-cock sandwich?” Marks said.

“Yeah, that one,” Lip said.

“What is that?” Mei said.  “Horse-cock sandwich?”

“It’s a sandwich where you can’t tell what type of meat is in it—you know, mystery meat,” Marks said.

“Oh.  Like you get from most street vendors,” Mei said.  “And you call it horse-cock sandwich?  I forget—what is cock again?  Is that same thing as Johnson?”

“Big Johnson,” Lip said.  “Yes, if you’re talking about me—use ‘Big Johnson’.  But if you’re talking about Marks, you might want to say ‘itty bitty Johnson’.”

Johnny Two-cakes left the room.

“Where are you going?” Lip said.

“Anywhere but here,” Johnny Two-cakes said.

“No, come back, we stop,” Mei said.

“NO MORE JOKES,” Mei said.  “We don’t want Johnny Two-cakes leaving us again.  Deal?”

“Deal,” Lip said.

“And Johnny Two-cakes leaving us is a bad thing?” Marks said.  “Why?”

Mei and Lip gave him a look.

Marks shrugged.  “Fine.”

Mei and Lip were still looking at him.

“What?  I got something in my nose?” Marks said.

“You have to say it,” Mei said.  “And we don’t mean ‘it’.”

“Fine,” Marks said.  “Deal.”

“So this,” Mei said, getting back to what was on her laptop screen.  “This is a top secret initiative for the PLA.  They call it their ‘secret weapon’.”

“Couldn’t they think of a cooler nickname than that?” Lip said.

“Like what?” Mei said.

“I don’t know, like something better than that.”

“That is dumb nickname,” Mei said.  “’Something better than that’, you call that a nickname?”

Sometimes, Marks realized, he couldn’t tell when Mei was yanking their chain or not.  Half the time, the joke was on them.  She might act the goat, but Marks wasn’t fooled.  Mei was sharper than saw grass.  Most of that back-and-forth she and Lip just had was for his and Johnny Two-cakes’s benefit.  Not that Marks was complaining.  Seeing Johnny Two-cakes get his BVDs all in a wad was more fun than frozen poop on a stick.

“I thought you guys didn’t want him leaving again?” Marks said.

“Right,” Mei said.  “Sorry.  As I was saying, they—the PLA—call this facility their secret weapon.  I’ve also heard it called ‘Operation Catfish’.”

“Now that I like,” Lip said.  “That’s a good nickname.”

“Oh goody,” Mei said.  “Then I’ll use it.”

“Did you just make that up?” Marks said.

“Yes I did,” Mei said.  “But Lip likes it.  So we’ll keep it.”

“It’s actually quite appropriate,” Johnny Two-cakes said.

Mei smiled.  “I’m glad you like it too.”

“So this Operation Catfish,” Lip said.  “What exactly is it?”

“One of our biggest threats,” Johnny Two-cakes said.  “And that’s not an exaggeration.  It’s also—to use one of your colloquialisms—been ‘putting the hurt’ on Mei’s team for quite a while.  That is, if I can speak for her.”

Mei nodded.  She’d lost her smile.  “Yes, what they’ve been doing has compromised many of our operations.  We are just now realizing this.”

“This Big Blue outfit?” Marks said.  “What is it they’re doing?  Hacking into everything?”

“Not this particular division,” Johnny Two-cakes said.  “It’s much more insidious than that.”

“Quite ingenious, in fact,” Mei said.  “You guys are being catfished.”

“Correction,” Johnny Two-cakes said.  “The whole world is being catfished.  It’s not just us.  The Japanese, Koreans, Australians, British, Germans, French; I could rattle off another ten countries being targeted by Big Blue.  It’s all the majors.  Top fifteen GDP list.”

“Catfished?  You’re using that term like what happened to that Notre Dame kid?” Marks said.  “Where he had that fake online girlfriend and didn’t know she wasn’t real?”

“Yes,” Johnny Two-cakes said.  “But this is much more than just a little fakery.  Everything we thought we knew, we now realize is a lie.”

“How’s that?” Marks said.

“I’ll need to show you,” Johnny Two-cakes said.  He looked at Mei’s laptop.  “Do you mind?”

“No, all you,” Mei said.  She got up and gave Johnny Two-cakes her seat.

Johnny Two-cakes sat down and adjusted the laptop screen.  “Is this set up where I can use it?”

Mei nodded.  “It’s safe.  Have fun.  They can’t see what we’re doing.”

“I can access restricted sites with this?  Avoid the Great Firewall?”

Mei laughed.  “Of course, don’t be silly.  That’s Swiss Cheese to me.” 

Johnny Two-cakes looked at Marks and Lip.  “You guys might want to take a seat.  This will take me a while to show you.”

Johnny Two-cakes pulled up the Internet browser and plugged in an address.  It took him to a site where he then plugged in a dummy name and a CAPTCHA pulled up.  He entered the letters that were being shown in the distorted image.  Marks was familiar with what Johnny Two-cakes was doing, having observed Lip on occasion and heard the man do a running play-by-play.