by Matt Miksa
“No interviews? No pics?” Olen feigned outrage. “There must be some misunderstanding, man. That’s precisely what I came here to do. I work for a news organization. I don’t know what you guys expected, but I have no intention of filing a bunch of Party propaganda.”
“Mr. Stone, you have no business—”
“My business is the truth, and as long as I’m working this story, that’s exactly what I intend to write.” Olen played the part well—principled reporter, still not a spy.
“You are here at the invitation of the Chinese government. Please understand, your access may be revoked failing your cooperation. We cannot control what you write after you return to the United States, but while you are here, the rules are explicit.”
Olen huffed.
“Time is short. We must leave.” Maverick stood abruptly. The soldier reentered, clutching a black velvet sack.
“Oh, sh—” Olen started to say before the black hood muffled his words and the room went dark. Someone yanked his arms back, and he felt cold metal cuffs pinch his wrists.
Olen struggled against the restraints—more playacting. He knew the B-movie hostage act was part of the game. Next they’d toss him into the back seat of a sedan and pump up the car radio (so Olen couldn’t listen for identifying sounds, like train whistles and construction noise). All unnecessary theatrics, but the power play probably gave Maverick a stiffy.
Quite frankly, Olen welcomed the hood and the handcuffs; they meant it was finally time to get moving. “You fellas aren’t gonna gimme my shit back, are you?” he said.
CHAPTER
9
Washington, DC, USA
“SO, IN A nutshell, you’re saying we don’t know?” President James Barlow asked, his tone more surprised than peeved. The man didn’t get peeved. Barlow topped off his Scotch and filled a second glass halfway. He plopped a fistful of ice cubes into the amber liquid.
“You know that’s why they give you those little tong things, Jim,” Allyson Cameron said. “I hope you at least washed your hands.”
“Whatever’s in this will kill anything,” Barlow said, handing the drink to Director Cameron, ice rattling against the glass. “Including us, Cam. Just more slowly.”
Allyson returned what might have passed for a smile in better lighting. “We know it’s bad. Could be five hundred, maybe as many as a thousand infected. The Chinese were more open about the outbreak at first, but once it began to snowball, they clamped down.”
“The customary Chinese deep freeze.” Barlow sat opposite Director Cameron on one of the matching blue- and gold-striped sofas that flanked the presidential seal on the Oval Office rug. “What’s Beijing doing about it?”
“Everything’s locked down in the big cities. Travel is tricky but not impossible. Communication is hit-or-miss. China Mobile’s network keeps crashing, but the Internet is still up—at least the sites the government hasn’t blocked. CIA’s collectors can’t find most of their sources in all the madness. The best intel is coming in from Singapore and Japan, actually, so it’s tough to verify the exact scope of the epidemic. We’re not completely blind, but—”
“We’ve got pretty thick cataracts.”
Allyson nodded.
“Has it spread outside China?” Barlow asked.
“A guy—pretty young too—checked into a Toronto ER last Tuesday with chills, diarrhea, headache. The whole mess,” Allyson reported. “He told the doctors he’d just returned from Malaysia on business. Scared the holy hell out of everyone. Police cleared out the entire hospital. Sealed off his room. Luckily, the guy bounced back. It wasn’t Blood River virus.” Allyson hadn’t touched her Scotch. She just swirled the glass.
“At least the Chinese shut down their airports,” Barlow said.
“Well, the commercial flights, at least. The cargo jets still come and go. COSCO’s mostly operational at the seaports too. Beijing’s not willing to risk precious trade dollars over this. If the disease gets out of China, it’ll probably be in the gut of some ship hand unloading Nikes in Long Beach.”
The president rose and moved behind his stately oak desk—the same formidable workstation once used by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He gripped the back of his chair, his fingertips turning pink as they pressed into the leather. “Was this virus a bioweapon?”
Barlow’s blunt question hung in the air. The matter was Director Cameron’s area of responsibility. The president looked to her for answers, yet she had few to offer. Allyson took her first sip of the Scotch.
“There are some nasty bugs out there,” she said. “The more rocks we turn over, the more creepy things we’ll find crawling in the mud.”
“So, you think Blood River virus is natural? The result of deforestation? Encroachment on the habitat of an undiscovered species?”
“The fact is, we don’t have a clue where it came from,” Allyson admitted. “I’ve been working with Geneva to get a WHO team past Beijing’s government sentinels for days. Anyone they send just gets ‘detained for further processing.’”
Barlow removed a prescription pill bottle from a drawer and popped a yellow capsule into his mouth.
“They’re getting worse, aren’t they?” Allyson asked.
Barlow took a swig of Scotch to wash down the meds. “It’s just a headache, Cam.”
Allyson knew not to press. The president had enough on his mind.
“What do we know about the Taiwanese man, the index case?” Barlow asked.
“Chang was a spy with the Taiwanese NSB. An ISI source ID’d the guy from one of Chang’s past diplomatic stations in Africa.”
“An ISI source? You trust the Pakistanis?” Barlow snorted.
“No one trusts the Pakistanis,” Allyson replied. “That’s why we corroborated the intel with the Five Eyes. Turns out the Canadians bumped into him in Burkina Faso about four months ago. Overall, there’s not much history to go on.”
“Maybe he picked this thing up in West Africa,” Barlow said.
“Unlikely. Chang flew to China from Charles de Gaulle, so we would have seen some cases in Paris by now. He either brought the bug with him to Tibet in a hermetically sealed biohazard transport container, which would have been extraordinarily difficult to conceal, or something bit him in the rain forest of Eastern Tibet. My money is on the latter.”
The president loosened his tie, unbuttoned his collar, and took a seat behind his desk. Leaning back, he folded his hands behind his head and looked up at the ceiling. “You’re probably right, but let’s game this out anyway. Assuming Taiwan is behind the outbreak, what’s the motive?”
“Well, for starters, Taiwan’s current leader, President Tang, is obsessed with independence from China—something Beijing has vowed to prevent at any cost. Violently, if necessary. Tang’s landslide election last May suggests the Taiwanese people are willing to call the mainland’s bluff. So, to get the ball rolling, Tang releases a debilitating virus deep within the PRC’s most politically unstable region: Tibet. Overnight, he creates a perfect storm for his enemy—a public health crisis and a political crisis—and it only takes two weeks and one foot soldier. Hypothetically speaking.”
“Taiwan draws Beijing’s attention and resources into the hinterland. Away from the coast,” Barlow added. “Is Tang planning an offensive strike on the mainland, perhaps? Maybe take out some of those missiles pointing at him from across the strait?”
“No, he wouldn’t have to go that far. Tang doesn’t need to degrade China’s military capability to neutralize the threat. He only needs to make it too politically hazardous for China to invade his island. If the mainland were falling apart, Beijing would be completely preoccupied with restoring internal stability. Zhongnanhai wouldn’t risk adding Taiwan to their problems.”
“There’s still a major flaw in Tang’s plan. Two, actually,” Barlow said.
Allyson agreed. She’d already grappled with the obvious contradictions of a Taiwanese bioattack scenario, but she allowed the president to enumerate the tac
tical defects. She knew he enjoyed the mental gymnastics of intelligence work. It probably conjured nostalgic memories of his days at the helm of the CIA.
“A virus is too damn unpredictable,” Barlow said. “You can’t just point and shoot. With so much cross-strait commerce and tourism, there’s no way Tang could ensure the epidemic wouldn’t spread to Taipei. His people could suffer immeasurable casualties. Independence from the PRC would be the least of his worries. No one is that masochistic.”
Allyson blinked. Power-hungry men did monstrous things to satiate their appetites. She’d even seen Barlow cross the line once or twice. Besides, an underdog like Taiwan, facing a military powerhouse like the PRC, would see vast advantages to biological warfare. Why fight with a few hundred thousand men when you could strike the enemy with an army of a billion microbes?
Regardless, the president had a point. A lot of warm bodies hopped back and forth across the narrow body of water separating the two foes, and that greatly increased Taiwan’s risk of spillover. The sheer unpredictability was a major problem with the Taiwan theory.
“And the second flaw?” Allyson prompted.
“That’s easy. It didn’t work!” the president replied, throwing up his hands. “Within twenty-four hours, every intel agency on the planet confirmed Chang as NSB—a Taiwanese spy! President Tang’s plan only works if he maintains plausible deniability, but Taipei made no serious attempt to obscure their man’s identity. The NSB connection hasn’t gone public yet, but surely it will. The Chinese will rally around the government and demand retaliation. Beijing will pulverize Taipei. That’s the opposite effect Tang would want.”
“Taiwan says Chang isn’t one of theirs,” Allyson pointed out, playing the devil’s advocate.
“Which tells us nothing. That’s the standard bullshit response whenever a spy is caught, no matter the circumstances.”
“So, Tang’s innocent because a professional intelligence service would never be so sloppy?” Allyson could think of a few bungled CIA ops. Bay of Pigs, Mogadishu, Benghazi. Some of her own ops would probably make that list too, but she’d never admit it publicly.
“Not exactly. It’s just that they’d use someone new—someone with no footprint—who couldn’t be linked to Taiwanese intelligence. Besides, what Chang did, it was a suicide mission. Why sacrifice a trained operative with a growing résumé of foreign postings if you don’t have to? I wouldn’t.”
The two veteran spooks sat in silence. Allyson finished her Scotch. They were having the wrong conversation, and they both knew it. Frankly, it didn’t matter if Taipei was responsible for the outbreak or not. Beijing blamed President Tang and was preparing to hit back. What really mattered was how President Barlow would respond if the PRC invaded one of America’s allies.
The president spoke first. “What are my options, Cam?”
“Don’t you think that’s a question for Sullivan?” Allyson asked. Nathan Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser, was notoriously hawkish on matters concerning the People’s Republic of China. He’d challenged Barlow in a fierce primary battle for the Democratic nomination and lambasted the would-be president for “letting China cheat its way to the top.” When Barlow tapped Sullivan for a prestigious cabinet post, it shocked the Beltway, but Allyson wasn’t surprised. She knew the president shared some of Sullivan’s ideological realism, and the two men had history predating their political rivalry. Barlow would probably even claim they were friends if pressed.
“I’ve already met with Nate. I want to know what you think,” Barlow said.
The director paused for a beat, collected her thoughts, and chose her words carefully. “It’s difficult to ignore an act of Congress.”
“The Taiwan Relations Act doesn’t tie our hands completely. What about strategic ambiguity?”
“There’s nothing ambiguous about our relationship with Taiwan,” Allyson answered. “We’ve been arming them since seventy-nine. Sure, the TRA doesn’t legally commit us to defending Taipei, but four decades of foreign policy precedent sends a pretty strong message.”
“I could argue we’ve softened our support of Taiwan in favor of the mainland. We’ve formally recognized the People’s Republic and embraced their ‘One China’ credo. Carter tore up the Mutual Defense Treaty we made with the Taiwanese. Taipei has no guarantee from us.”
Allyson scoffed. “In 1996, it had two guarantees.”
“What?”
Allyson counted on her fingers for emphasis. “USS Nimitz and USS Independence. First, Beijing got fussy and fired test missiles into the Taiwan Strait, conducted amphibious assault exercises, ramped up troops in Fujian. So, Clinton sent not one but two carrier battle groups right up their asshole. The One China idea works for us because the alternative is messy. We’ll support the status quo as long as it maintains peace in the Asia-Pacific. If Taipei declares independence, Beijing invades. That’s pretty easy to predict, and we don’t want that to happen. Then there’s Russia. Which side would Moscow support? Hell, even Pyongyang could get in the game—take advantage of the chaos and breach the thirty-eighth parallel. Then the whole region implodes.”
“That’s all a little sensational, don’t you think?”
Allyson smirked. “Probably not half as dramatic as what you got from Nate.”
“That’s actually true,” Barlow said, smiling. “Nate described China as a clean-cut honors student with a pocketful of Rohypnol. You can’t turn your back for a second.”
“How urbane,” Allyson said. She could only imagine Sullivan’s advice. The man was probably warming up the nukes already. Modern diplomacy demanded finesse and subtlety, not the reckless bluster of the 1980s.
“I’ve met President Li,” Barlow said. “He wants stability in the region as much as we do. However imprecise, the current arrangement has worked well for everyone for a long time.”
Barlow fidgeted with a ballpoint pen. Allyson recognized the old habit. It meant the president wasn’t telling her everything. Then again, full disclosure was her responsibility, not his.
“The fact is,” Allyson said, “Beijing knows if they lay a finger on that little island, we’ll get involved. Period. It’s the only reason they didn’t invade decades ago, and it’s the reason President Li won’t invade now. Even as payback for this outbreak.”
Barlow set down his pen, which rolled toward the edge of the desk before catching on a row of tangled paper clips. He leaned on his forearms, shoulders hunched. Allyson knew the president was in pain. The migraines had started shortly after Inauguration Day. Barlow hid the condition well, but a handful of his closest advisers knew when it got bad. The president became temperamental, made snap judgments. Mostly still good judgments, thankfully. For now.
The time for sporty intellectual sparring had concluded, and the weight of the office returned. “Who’s your guy in China?” Barlow asked, his voice grimmer.
“Officer Marc Chen was my guy in China, but he’s been missing for over a week,” Allyson answered.
“Dead?”
“Probably.”
Barlow frowned.
“I’m sending in Olen Grave,” Allyson said. “He’ll have unprecedented access to the epidemiological investigation.”
“Media cover?”
“AP stringer.” Allyson waved a hand dismissively. “Li wanted transparency.”
“There’s more to that,” Barlow said.
“Most certainly. But we’ll play along, as long as we’re getting decent intel.”
“You’re taking a big risk, Cam. It’s probably too dangerous,” Barlow warned.
“You want me to pull Grave out?”
“Of course not,” Barlow replied. “Grave worked for you at Langley, right? Counterproliferation?”
“He specializes in biochemical. Got a real knack for arms dealing,” Allyson explained.
“This op is different. These aren’t half-wit desert dwellers. He’s got to stay under the radar.”
“Relax, Jim. Grave’s a
natural. He’s going to keep a low profile.” Allyson paused. “There is a minor complication.”
The president rubbed his eyes.
“The intel about Chang Yingjie. It came in less than three hours ago.” Allyson set her empty glass on the table. “Grave doesn’t know that patient zero was a Taiwanese spy. There’s no way to tell him until he initiates contact. Our guy could be walking into a firestorm.”
CHAPTER
10
Lhasa, Tibetan Autonomous Region, People’s Republic of China
SUNLIGHT BEAMED THROUGH the aircraft’s oval windows. It nearly blinded Olen, but at least, with the velvet hood removed, he could finally get a clear sense of his surroundings. His neck ached from the stop-and-go car ride that had whipped him around for the last hour, and it felt good to inhale something other than his own hot breath. Moments ago, his captors had frog-marched him across a hard-packed surface—a tarmac, he’d guessed—and then up a steep staircase that clanged with each step. The wind smelled like jet fuel.
Olen studied the plane’s cabin. His buddy Maverick wasn’t around, just a pouty-faced soldier who removed Olen’s handcuffs and motioned him toward the rear of the plane. It was definitely a military aircraft, but a swanky one, like a five-star hotel room with wings.
In the back, a young woman sat behind a shiny wooden desk with deep spirals carved into its legs. Olen doubted it was her plane. Her furrowed brow and steely concentration definitely said worker bee. Plus, she wore the sensible, rubber-soled shoes of an ER nurse—someone who spent the day on her feet. The woman alternated between scribbling in a notepad and feverishly typing into her laptop, a jet-black ponytail swishing behind her. Her sleeveless tank top showed off the lean musculature of her arms.
“I’m Kipton Stone with the—” Olen started to say to the busy bee.
The woman popped an index finger to silence Olen’s introduction while her other hand clacked away at the laptop.