The Slip

by Tom C Willoughby

30

  AFTER A QUICK LUNCH, LI returned to his office and pulled up Elizabeth’s tag. He saw she had left her hotel around 10:15 that morning and seemed to wander around the nearby streets for a while. Then nothing, her trail went cold around 10:40. Li’s gut tightened ever so slightly and he clicked on the live tracking feed which also indicated nothing. It was just after 1:00 pm and there were enough cameras in Beijing that the possibility that she had not been picked up over the last couple hours was statistically nil. This left the options of Elizabeth having stayed indoors for this time period, or the likelihood that Elizabeth had done something to disguise her appearance.

  Li yelled down the hall to the security group to which he had previously given the task of researching Elizabeths background, to bring him what they had found.

  The report included six potential identities based on the facial recognition matches. Until he had a definitive reason to eliminate any of the identities, they would research them all. There was a pair of siblings but none that eliminated any of the identities as false positives. There was a lot of information on each identity, organized in chronological order. His men had done good work in a short time. Of course, he would never tell them that. Elizabeth did not have any siblings, lived in Portland, Oregon, and worked at a local insurance office. All the expected detail was there beyond the highlights, as well as for all of the identities. But he was repeatedly drawn to one.

  The identity demanding his attention started in an orphanage in Laredo, Texas. There was a little map showing Laredo on the border of Mexico and Texas, noting it as a sanctuary city. No birth parents were indicated. She moved through a number of foster families in the area. Some of the reports indicated sexual and physical abuse. She was adopted at 14 by a couple from El Paso, Texas, where she remained until attending Columbia University in New York. The report noted that Columbia was constantly ranked in the top 10 universities in the U.S. She majored in political science and then joined a private political consulting firm in Washington DC, where she was presently employed. The texture of the details, the feel of the events, all called to Li’s instincts, which he trusted, but not at the expense of covering all leads. He yelled at his men to continue their research, but in his mind he was sure that the woman’s real identity was this Julia Cacerek.

  31

  SAM HAD ENTERED THE MARK, whom he now understood to be Peng Lee, as silently as he knew how. He didn’t poke around, to minimize the chance of Peng feeling anything of Sam’s presence. Once back at the ZG entrance, Peng showed his ID and was allowed entry through the main gate, and then into what looked like the main gate security office. Somebody started yelling at Peng once he entered the office. Using his minimal language training Sam understood the yelling to be basic directions to double check the rest of the day’s gate schedule with the main building. If Sam was not being so cautious, even a fractionally deeper infiltration of Peng’s mind would have allowed him access to his full language skills, among other things. For now he was hanging back to get the lay of the land.

  Peng sat down at a desk and ran his finger over a list of what Sam assumed was a log of the names of people anticipated to visit ZG today. There were a number of lines crossed out starting at the top of the page, which presumably were those individuals who had already entered today. Sam couldn’t read any of the names, and this was critical information, so he moved a little deeper into Peng’s mind. He went deep enough until he could start to understand the writing on the docket. Unfortunately, there were not any titles, just names, none of which he recognized. He wished there had been more prep work on whom he should be targeting, but of course everything was on such a fast track they had not had time to really do any prep work. Without targeted intel, Sam opted for expediency and decided he would manage to get Peng in touch with the driver of the next impressive looking limo. He wanted to at least get farther into the building, which meant he was probably going to have to take control and thus make his presence known to Peng.

  Sam watched as Peng called the main office and double-checked the visitor log, which did not need any modifications. With his immediate task complete, it did not seem that Peng was going to leave the office, so Sam moved forward and took control of Peng’s body. Sam immediately knew the essence of Peng. This was something he had started experiencing since learning to fully integrate. He sensed that Peng was a good person at heart, tried to do what he was supposed to, had a 6-year-old daughter at home and a loving wife. He probably wouldn’t ever get used to this feeling of duality when he fully integrated with someone. Becoming the essence of the occupied, instantly knowing and understanding them as if he were, and always had been them, while at the same time retaining an amount of himself that stayed with him no matter what person he was infiltrating.

  Peng became frantic. Sam could push Peng’s voice farther back until it was mostly muted, but he felt sorry for him, especially since he was a good person, and instead tried to soothe him.

  “Shhh shhh everything’s okay.” Sam said.

  “What the hell is that. Am I losing my mind?” Peng said.

  “You’re not losing your mind. You’re fine. Please calm down. I will only be with you for a little while and then you will be right back to normal. Good as new.”

  “What do you mean? How is this possible? Are you a person?”

  “Hmmm, good question. I’m going to say ‘yes’. I’m going to have to keep control for a little bit and then I’ll be gone. Please relax and trust me. I can’t talk any more.”

  Sam wasn’t sure if he had made things worse or better by talking to Peng, but he had tried. He needed to get on with the mission, so he pushed Peng back until his voice was just a murmur.

  When he opened the door, the same person who had directed Peng to check the log piped up.

  “Where are you going?” he said.

  “I need some fresh air, my lunch is hurting my stomach a little,” Sam replied for Peng.

  “If you are sick, you need to go home.”

  “I think I will be fine, just need a little fresh air.”

  The superior yelled at him to take the log outside to the gatekeepers, and to hurry up. “He’s a pleasant fellow,” Sam said to Peng as he walked outside after going back to grab the log.

  One of the gatekeepers waved Peng over impatiently when he saw the log book in his hands. Once in front of him, the gatekeeper snatched the log, and Sam made contact with the gatekeeper’s hand to transfer over. The gatekeeper was Chun Lee, and Sam was taken aback by the darkness pervading Chun’s mind. Chun retracted his hand and shook it as if shaking off cooties from touching Peng while shooing him away.

  Peng cowered backward and looked around in shock. Whatever had invaded his mind had now released him and he imagined everyone was staring at him. His stomach lurched, and Peng’s legs wobbled as he rushed to the bathroom feeling like he might be sick.

  A black limo pulled up to the gate, and Chun looked at the log and headed over to the driver’s side window, which was already rolling down as the car came to a stop. Chun asked for the passenger’s and driver’s identification papers. With the papers in hand, he peered into the back seat and compared the faces of the passenger and driver to the pictures on the paperwork. After confirming the name on the log matched, he handed the papers back. Sam quickly took control and made contact with the driver’s hand, simultaneously transferring. Chun looked briefly confused and then yelled to another officer to open the gate as he stepped back.

  The gates swung open revealing a large lake of murky green water. There was a small island in the center with an ancient looking pagoda on it. Sam couldn’t see a road to get to the island but maybe it was on the other side. In the distance he could see hazy silhouettes of short structures with the recognizable Chinese sweeping roofs turned upwards at the corners. Jin Lu steered the car left, following the road along the inner side of the barrier wall on his left, with the unwelcoming waters on the right. Circumnavigating a third of the lake’s circumference, the land widen
ed and small structures appeared in various stages of restoration. Looking out the right window, the land continued to wrap around the lake, and in the area between this lake and a second one visible just north, were a number of more substantial looking buildings. Jin kept driving north along the exterior wall into a more dense group of buildings, busy with activity. They pulled into a drop-off zone at one of these buildings and came to a stop. Sam needed to transfer to the passenger, but Jin was not making any move to get out of the car. Instead, the backseat passenger opened his own door. Apparently Jin did not open the door for the passenger as a traditional chauffeur might. Sam had no choice but to take control.

  Looking around the front seat he grabbed a pen and hopped out of the car, walking quickly around the back as the passenger was closing his door.

  “Excuse me, sir?” Sam said.

  “Yes, what is it?” the passenger said, looking sidelong at Jin.

  “I believe you forgot your pen, sir,” Sam said extending Jin’s hand holding the pen towards him.

  “That is not my pen,” the man said continuing on his way.

  He wasn’t going to take the pen so Sam acted quickly with the first idea that came to him.

  “Sir! There’s a bee on your neck, sir!” Sam said and practically jumped on the man, pretending to brush a bee off his collar. Touching his neck, he made the slip.

  Through his new eyes, Sam watched as Jin returned to control of his body in the off balance position Sam had left him in, almost falling over. Wei Lau was throwing some strong, but not too mean language at the driver. Jin took the reprimand, head bent, and shuffled back toward the car. Wei bore down on him with a hard stare before continuing on toward the building entrance.

  The building itself was old and spartan. Sam could tell it had been renovated, but it was still devoid of anything welcoming. Simple lights hung from the ceiling, older style toggle switches were on the walls. Small, ancient looking wall fans droned as they pivoted. Recently added wall switches were wired using surface mounted plastic cord covers, not recessed into the walls. Not a lot of soft surfaces or furniture. Luxury was obviously not the goal of the remodel.

  Wei walked up the stairs to an office on the second floor.

  Sam integrated a little more to start getting access to Wei’s memories and working knowledge. Awareness then came to Sam immediately. Apparently Wei was one of the agricultural ministers. While not the ideal host for his goals, he would have to see how he could best make use of this opportunity. Not wasting time, Sam moved forward and took control, pushing Wei far back, not taking the time to interact this time. Looking at Wei’s watch it was a little after 2:00, and Wei had scheduled his driver to pick him up at 4:30. Sam had a couple of hours unless he wanted to disrupt the schedule, which he didn't. Not yet.

  He needed to find senior leadership closer to a technologically related agency, ideally associated with large scale computing and experimental capabilities. Sam could see Wei had an assistant and pushed the button on his phone, opening a connection to her desk.

  “Shu, bring me a copy of today's and tomorrow’s visitors schedule,” Sam said with hopefully the same amount of force he could sense Wei typically used.

  “You don't have any visitors scheduled, sir,” a soft spoken woman replied.

  “Not for me. For ZG,” Sam said.

  The line was silent after that, which hopefully meant Shu was making it happen, and not alerting someone to what might be an unusual request.

  Sam was deeply and fully integrated with Wei and started scouring his mind for the layout of the buildings and departments within ZG. The 4:30 departure time worked with Sam and Julia’s schedule, although a certain outdoor noodle shop where he would transfer back was going to be added to the itinerary. Until then, Sam would do his best to learn what he could from Mr. Lau.

  DAY 19

  32

  JULIA AND SAM HAD SUCCESSFULLY reintegrated the previous evening at the noodle shop, where they had made their first contact with Peng. Julia had pretended to peruse the wares at a magazine stand outside the shop. Sam had walked Wei near her, had him reach for a newspaper and grazed Julia’s arm. It was all he needed to slip. Julia had quickly turned her back on the bewildered agricultural minister and walked away casually.

  Julia and Sam were at the same magazine stand again this morning, where they hoped to intercept Peng Lee a second time, this time on his walk to work from the train.

  They had holed up back at the hotel after reintegrating the night before, to strategize for today's efforts. Sam had been able to get a basic understanding of the layout within the ZG complex and more importantly, the times and names of some potential visitors of interest for today. While Sam had been in ZG, Julia had been in communication with the agency. They had identified a number of people and Chinese agencies most likely to get them closer to their target, including the President, General Zhui, leader of the Central Theatre Command, and anyone in the Peoples Liberation Army Strategic Support Force (PLASSF) which was the cyber and space command force. Additionally, they had indicated it would not be unusual for a top level university to be involved with cutting edge programs in China.

  Today’s ZG visitors list of names didn’t match any of the Agency names, but Sam now knew where some of their offices were in the compound. Sam was going to integrate with Peng again this morning, and try to make his way to one of these offices.

  33

  A SECURITY ALERT BUZZED ON Commander Kung’s phone before his regular alarm went off. Li jumped upright, grabbed his phone and saw that it was a proximity alarm between a person of interest and one of the ZG’s security personnel. Once a person was tagged to be of interest, Li was automatically notified when they came within 100m of any of the ZG security forces. His phone identified the person of interest as Elizabeth Parker, and the security individual as Peng Lee. The location was about half a mile from ZG, in a residential section which did not have any tourist attractions of note. Could be a coincidence, but Li didn’t believe in coincidences he couldn't prove.

  Li accelerated his morning ritual and rushed out the door in 10 minutes.

  34

  THANKFULLY, PENG DID NOT CALL in sick from work. Julia picked him up as he rounded the corner 20 feet from her. Sam had described a rough experience for Peng and the integration the day before. Perhaps he was more scared of not showing up for work than he was of the integration experience.

  Keeping her head down, she walked toward him and managed to graze the knuckles of his left hand with hers. The contact went unregistered on the sidewalk jammed with jostling morning commuters.

  The Slip was away again and Julia continued in the opposite direction.

  35

  LI ENTERED HIS OFFICE A little earlier than usual. He quickly brought his computer to life and clicked over to Elizabeth's whereabouts. She had been off the radar since late morning the day before, but she reappeared early this morning. She had travelled fairly directly from her hotel to a location half a mile from ZG, where she had become stationary and eventually set off the 100m proximity alarm to Peng Lee. Not only was he within the radius but their paths seemed to cross each other's based on the extrapolated walking paths between camera hits. Li looked for a camera that might have picked them up when they were next to each other, but there was not one in that specific area.

  A shot of adrenaline hit Li with the feeling there was something afoot, and he was going to figure it out. He quickly accessed Peng’s information page. All of Li’s security personnel were tracked locationally via their government issued phones and also recorded audibly via their security radios. This information was continually logged and could be accessed on demand. There were certain built-in functions that could be used to parse this data quickly. One of these functions was the identification of locations that the software statistically found unusual as compared to the person’s typical locational data. Pulling this up, Li could see there were not any unusual locational anomalies identified by the algorithm for Peng�
�s movements.

  The next function Li checked was a similar data crunch, but based on audio data. This algorithm flagged use of certain keywords and unusual voices that were statistically unique. Li was excited to see the system had flagged some audio anomalies. He clicked on the most recent flag. It was a discussion Peng had with his wife just last night. The flagged words had to do with Peng indicating he felt “strange” and “not himself”. Who cares if he was feeling sick! The next flag was around lunch time yesterday. Playing the audio, Li heard a foreign female voice which made more sense to be flagged. The recording was a voice saying “Excuse me, I’m so sorry,” and sounded like someone had bumped into him. These were the only two items the system had identified. It wasn’t a lot on its own, but in conjunction with the crossing of paths and Elizabeth’s very unique background, it was more than enough for Li to bring Peng in to talk.

  36

  WHEN PENG ENTERED THE OFFICE at ZG, he was met by a very smug look from his boss, which he soon found out was because he had the distinct pleasure of telling Peng that Commander Kung wanted to see him immediately in the main building.

  Sam could tell Peng was intensely scared by this request, and Sam was interested to see what this was all about. He hung back in Peng’s mind, waiting.

  One of Li’s men came into his office to let him know Peng had arrived and was waiting in the interrogation room. Let him wait for a while so his mind runs and he gets more nervous, Li thought, dismissing the messenger. He still had more data to review, anyway.

  Having already reviewed the automated flags the software identified, Li pulled up Peng’s locational data starting on the day Elizabeth appeared in Beijing. Peng’s travel path seemed innocuous, moving between the train station and the office, to and from work, and then to and from a couple of nearby restaurants for lunch. Next Li pulled up all the camera footage along those routes and scanned the same period. This was tedious work but Li enjoyed it, reveling in the pursuit and the challenge. He would find anything and everything and use it to break Peng and discover what was going on.