by Tim Tigner
Ignaty didn’t show it, but Max knew he was nervous. When you sent your money to China, you were never quite sure what would come back. If Wang’s delivery of the first Sunset devices failed to meet specifications, it was going to get ugly. There would be a shit storm, a cyclone of fury and frustration spinning out of the Kremlin. Max would be stuck in the center of it.
He hated the rules of engagement on this assignment. Only half a dozen people on the planet knew of Korovin’s plan, and Ignaty had made it abundantly clear that Max was to keep it that way. No Russian involvement! Everything local must go through Wang. This extreme secrecy requirement crippled his ability to operate. He felt like a surgeon forced to wear mittens.
Besides Max, Zoya, Korovin, and Ignaty, two electrical engineers were the only people with advance knowledge of Sunset. One engineer had done the design work, and the other had written the code. Max had met neither, but they’d spoken on the phone and Ignaty had shown him their prototype before he flew to Seattle. He was not impressed. The circuit board was the size of a shoe box, replete with a rat’s nest of wires and a bedazzling array of soldered components. To Max, it looked more like a high school science project than the pinnacle of global warfare.
Ignaty had assured him that benchtop designs always looked that way.
They’d sent the Sunset prototype off to Shenzhen, where Chinese engineers had optimized the design for small-batch production and miniaturized it to the size of a smart phone. They’d sent back a full set of schematics along with detailed assembly instructions.
All in Mandarin.
All accomplished without their knowledge of where or how the circuit board they’d replicated would be used.
Max had asked how that was possible. One of the Russian engineers explained it. “Imagine a hundred translators working on one chapter of a book. Each may know a line or two, but none will know the scene. And since they don’t know what this circuit board plugs into, they’ll have no clue about the bigger story.”
Now the man who was using those schematics and instructions to build fifty Sunset units was knocking at Max’s Seattle hotel room door. He, too, would never know the whole story. He might piece it together after the fifty planes crashed — but he’d be running for his life by then.
Wang shook off his umbrella in the hallway before bringing the stench of cigarette smoke into Max’s room. “It must be sunny somewhere.”
Max took Wang’s habitual greeting as his mechanism for coping with Seattle’s gloomy climate. He stepped aside and the Chinese spy entered, water still dripping off his big black umbrella. In his left hand he carried a plastic bag holding two white cartons of Chinese food.
Wang set the bag on the kitchenette counter, hung his umbrella on the doorknob, and said, “Dig in.”
Max extracted both containers. One was hot and heavy, the other cold and light. He opened the hot one. Singapore noodles.
“That’s mine,” Wang said, breaking open a pair of chopsticks.
Max took a second to study his partner in light of what Ignaty had just told him. He wondered if Wang’s chopped English, and in fact his whole rumpled appearance, might be camouflage used to slip under the radar, like TV’s Detective Colombo. Impossible to tell.
Wang stuffed a pile of yellow noodles and shrimp in his mouth, then gestured toward the cold carton with his empty chopsticks.
Max unclasped the lid to find something far more savory than Singapore Noodles: a Sunset device.
Chapter 20
Green Lights
Seattle, Washington
MAX STRUGGLED to control his amazement as he pulled the circuit board from the carton. The sight bore no resemblance to the bulky tangle of colorful wires and crude components he’d seen in Moscow. Rather it reminded him of what he saw whenever he opened up a computer — a completely undecipherable green board replete with metallic lines and tiny black and silver bug-like attachments.
“The pilot unit,” Wang said, his mouth half full of curry noodles. “You know what that means.”
Max did know. Wang was all about the money. “You’ll get the second installment once I’ve verified it.”
If only Wang knew. Ignaty had arranged for the money trail to lead straight to China — not just the country, but the government. Through a string of intermediaries, Ignaty had paid a compromised Chinese official ten million dollars to transfer three million from a government account to the account of a shell corporation in Shenzhen. The official immediately refunded the government’s money from his ill-gotten proceeds, and then resigned. He was probably living it up in Thailand under a false name. Meanwhile, the government-funded Shenzhen shell corporation was paying all the Sunset expenses.
“One hundred thousand,” Wang said, clearly happy with the number’s sound. He was getting $2 million for about $20 thousand worth of work. The premium was paying for speed, installation, and absolute secrecy. Wang had received $100,000 up front, would get another $100,000 for today’s delivery of a pilot unit, and then he’d receive $300,000 more once all fifty were delivered. The $1.5 million balloon payment was due once his team had successfully installed them. “Soon okay? The team is anxious.”
Max had no idea how much of the two million Wang was sharing with his team, but if it was more than ten percent he’d be surprised. “I’ll verify functionality tonight, and will wire the money tomorrow, if I’m happy.”
“You will be happy,” Wang said, before spontaneously breaking into song. “Don’t worry, do do do do do do, be happy.”
“Bobby McFerrin big in Beijing?”
“Bobby McFerrin big everywhere thirty years ago. No so much anymore. Want some noodle?”
“No thanks. It’s lasagna night downstairs. My favorite.” Max was living in an extended-stay hotel, the kind that served a buffet breakfast and dinner and cleaned your room once a week. Eighty bucks a night, all-inclusive, for stays of a month or more. As a security precaution, he slept in a neighboring room Wang didn’t know about. Both were discretely located in a little dog-leg alcove at the end of the second-floor hall.
“Come on,” Wang prompted, shoveling a hefty pile of noodles into the now-empty second container with the back half of his chopsticks. “It’s good.” He proffered a second set of chopsticks to Max. “You try the show yet?”
Max accepted the food. Was this really his life? Takeout and soap opera talk with a lonely Chinese spy. “General Hospital?”
“Yes. It’s very addictive. Is that a teapot?”
“You never told me how you got hooked?” Max tried to sound as though he cared while rising to brew tea.
“Usually I only busy before and after normal working hours. During the day, I watch TV. Improve my English. Shall I tell you about it? Or would you rather tell me what that little contraption actually do?” He gestured toward the pilot unit.
While they ate their noodles, Wang summarized the spaghetti bowl of relationships connecting the Quartermaines and the Spencers in the longest-running soap opera in American history. Max smiled and nodded, chewed and swallowed, and tried not to think about the impossible task ahead.
Once the noodles were eaten and the tea was drunk and the fortunes were told, Wang disappeared back into the rainy night. Max waited three minutes before crossing the hall to the room where he actually slept and worked.
He chained and bolted the door, drew the curtains, and turned on CNN to create cover noise. Satisfied that he would not be detected or disturbed, he set to work installing Wang’s delivery into a Boeing autopilot system Ignaty had borrowed from an imprisoned oligarch’s aircraft.
Three hours and two cups of coffee later, relief washed over Max. Four green lights winked backed at him from the diagnostic display.
His project had literally been greenlighted. The road ahead remained long and treacherous, but he’d passed the first major milestone. He had verified that when a Chinese-made Sunset unit was installed in an American aircraft, Russia would gain remote control of its autopilot system.
> Chapter 21
Wrong Song
Seattle, Washington
THEY MET AT A KARAOKE BAR. Wang’s suggestion, of course. Max had learned by then to spare himself the argument and just to go along with his little friend.
As a newcomer to the karaoke scene, he’d expected to find the kind of place where the brave or the drunk sang on a barroom stage. He’d expected to huddle over a tiny table in the back, sipping sake and whispering with Wang while watching participants mimic moves from music videos. What he found instead was a place that rented out rooms by the hour, mini-studios with wraparound couches and private karaoke systems.
“Reservation for Li,” he told an attendant dressed like a Catholic schoolgirl. Wang, who benefitted from the natural cover of the second most popular Chinese surname, used Li on these occasions. Li — Max had checked — was the most popular Chinese surname.
“All the way back on the left,” the girl said, still chewing gum. “Hello Kitty.”
Max was puzzled by the odd closing remark until he opened the door and saw Wang sitting beneath the yellow nose and pink bow of a cartoon cat. The room was wallpapered in pink and white stripes, and the white Naugahyde couch sported pink, bow-shaped accent pillows. “Quite the place you picked.”
“It must be sunny somewhere,” Wang replied, gesturing toward the coat rack where his big black umbrella hung. He started up the music with the instrumental version of Katy Perry’s Firework while Max removed his raincoat.
Max took a seat before a shot glass as Wang poured the baijiu. Embracing the inevitable, he raised his glass. “Gan Bei!”
Wang responded in kind.
Max downed the warm ‘Chinese vodka’ in one swallow, clanked his glass back onto the table, and asked, “What’s the forecast?”
“Five days, my friend. All fifty will be ready in just five days.”
Max could see Ignaty smiling all the way from Moscow. “That’s fantastic.”
“I aim to please. But you don’t look so happy.”
Max refilled their glasses from the ceramic bottle. He was about to cross a bridge, break a protocol, and expose himself. But his only alternative was turning to Ignaty for help, and that tactic wasn’t likely to end well. “How long have you been assigned to Seattle?”
“Nine years last month.”
“So you’ve had extensive dealings with all the big players.”
“By this point I know them better than my wife.”
“You’re married?” Max couldn’t keep the surprise from his voice. Not once had his partner-in-crime hinted at the existence of a Mrs. Wang. Not in anything he said. Not in the way he behaved. He didn’t act anything like a man who had a woman caring for his needs or correcting his rudimentary ways.
“With children. Two girls.”
“They here?”
“No. They are back in Beijing.”
That explained a lot. Max was curious to know more, but knew he’d be wise to pick Wang’s brain before there was too much alcohol sloshing around it. He raised his glass. “To your family.”
They drank.
After a polite pause, during which the play list moved on to the unfortunate choice of U2’s With or Without You, Max asked. “Do you have anyone at Vulcan Fisher?”
Wang’s lips morphed into a knowing smile. “Forget about them.”
“Why do you say that?”
“The software companies, the electronics companies, the medical device companies, those are one thing. The defense contractors, those are fish from a different river.
“So you don’t have a man there?”
“Not for lack of trying. Their operations security is through the roof. Well beyond Department Of Defense requirements. Everyone needs a security clearance. That means U.S. citizenship and a thorough background investigation. Even the best legends rarely survive those.”
Max had read everything he could find on Vulcan Fisher’s operations security via job boards and chat rooms and SEC filings and contract award disclosures. None of it had been encouraging, but he had yet to set foot inside. Talk was cheap, and everyone boasted. On the ground, attentive eyes could discover the discrepancies between theory and practice. The loopholes humans created because they were impatient, or lazy, or wanted to screw or smoke or drink. But spotting those took luck and time, and he was hoping for a shortcut — courtesy of Wang’s nine years of experience.
“What do you know about their security systems and procedures?”
“It’s all tip-top. That’s what you Brits say, right? Tip-top.”
“We do indeed.”
Wang chortled for a reason unapparent to Max. “It starts at the front gate. Employee parking stickers and picture ID cards are checked by a gate guard using a setup similar to a military installation. No coincidence there. Once inside, you’ll find electronic locks on all the doors. Their key cards are coded by department, so nobody can wander into areas that don’t concern them.”
Max had expected as much. “What about biometrics?”
“They have palm scanners on the doors in R&D.”
That was okay. He didn’t need R&D. “Anything else?”
“Yessiree. GPS chips in the key cards automatically track everyone throughout the compound. Plus they now have gait monitors strategically placed to help combat impersonations.”
Max decided it would be senseless to allow pride to hold him back now. He was already in the Hello Kitty room. “How do the gait monitors work?”
Wang pushed away his glass and leaned back on the couch. “They funnel inbound traffic single file through a ten-foot corridor that uses backscatter scans to measure the position and movement of anatomic landmarks, like femur length and hip sway. Computers then compare those data points against the employee database to verify a match.”
Suddenly Wang didn’t sound so much like a Chinese peasant. More like Detective Colombo making a bust. “So what happens if Bob sprains his ankle and starts walking with a limp?”
Wang shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s a new system. Their own system. But I think it learns, adding to its database with each new measurement. Apparently it’s smart enough to account for deviations. It has to be, given the range of female footwear.”
“Great.”
“You want my advice?”
“Sure.”
“Pass. Whatever the project, save yourself a whole lot of heartache and pass. It’s impossible.”
“I can’t pass. We can’t pass.”
Wang blinked as his mouth cracked. “Wait a minute. You’re talking about your current project? Our project? Are you telling me that I’m not getting my $1.5 million until we do the install at Vulcan Fisher?”
Technically speaking, there was another option. They could do the install at Boeing. But it was a defense contractor as well, and to disclose that information would be to give Wang the other half of the puzzle.
At the moment, Wang had no idea what the devices he was building actually did. They were circuit boards. Remote control overrides. Theoretically they could go in any electronic system. VF made a wide variety of those, much of it sexier than autopilot systems. Drones and satellites would come to mind first. But Max couldn’t afford to give Wang a clue. Despite appearances, Wang was an accomplished intelligence agent — and Max was framing his employer.
With a bright red face and a pointing index finger, Wang lashed out. “You told me you had a plan for the install. I asked you if you had access, and you said No problem. No problem. Those were your exact words.”
Max met his eye, trying to assert a calming presence. “I was sure I would — by the time you were ready.”
“Ma la ge bi!” Wang screamed, slamming his fists on the table.
Max took a sip of baijiu.
Without further word, Wang rose and stomped out the door.
Chapter 22
The Awakening
ACHILLES OPENED his eyes to the sight of an unfamiliar face. His head hurt, his ears rung, and he had that groggy feeling y
ou get when woken in the middle of a dream.
“Can you hear me?”
The woman’s loaded question helped to part the fog. People didn’t utter those words without a reason, and the ache in the back of his head supplied one. “Where am I?”
Tears dropped onto his cheeks. The woman leaned down and kissed his forehead, bumping his chin with something. When she sat back up, Achilles saw a round medallion hanging from her slender neck, an intricate pattern wrought from silver surrounding a dime-sized opal that gleamed like it was on fire. His eyes didn’t linger on it, however. The woman who had just kissed him was beautiful. And obviously relieved. Had she hit him with her car? Was he waking from a coma?
He repeated his question, but the ringing in his ears muted her hesitant reply.
Achilles turned his eyes to his surroundings. He wasn’t in a hospital room. There were no tubes connected to his veins, and there was no monitoring equipment to be seen. Oddly enough, he wasn’t in a room at all, or even a bed. He was lying beneath dawn’s blue sky on a plump orange cushion. The type of cushion you find poolside on loungers at upscale resorts. Surely there was a story behind the location, perhaps one involving a large quantity of liquor, although drinking wasn’t his thing.
In a flash he understood.
The inevitable had happened.
He’d finally fallen.
Falling for free solo climbers was like prostate cancer for the rest of the male race. If you hung in there long enough, it was bound to happen. “I fell, right?”
He studied the woman as she composed her reply. She looked simultaneously stunning and stressed, like a Ferrari that had been taken off-road. She showed all the signs of attentive upkeep, with everything polished, plucked, and trimmed, and yet her hair had been left to air dry and her face was devoid of makeup. Apparently he wasn’t the only one who’d had a rough night. “No, mon chou, you didn’t fall. But you hit your head doing something equally reckless. How do you feel?” As the ringing faded away, he noted that her voice was soft and sweet and slightly accented. French if he wasn’t mistaken.