Man of Honor

by Chris Malburg

  “Damn,” Jack said. “A soldier. Wouldn’t you know it?”

  Crypto supported his chin on two fists, “If China is behind this—and their attacks were successful—they would gain control over all avenues of transport, money flow, and the flow of energy resources. They would control the US.”

  * * *

  Chapter 24

  At first, Helen ignored the vibrating cell phone in her pocket. She tried to keep up with Crypto’s China assessment. “So this Chairman of the Central Military Commission must have some kind of connections all throughout China,” she said. There it was again, that renewed, insistent vibration. She dug the phone out of her pocket.

  “Sure does,” Crypto said. “The Chairman grew up in a privileged enclave. He’s on a first-name basis with all the top politicians and military. He probably could conjure up enough support to form a coalition strong enough to take over the Politbureau.”

  Finally, Helen glanced at the persistent text message. She read it once. Then again. Helen Kaito had been blindsided before. Sometimes in public. She always landed on her feet. What the hell, she thought, staring at her cell phone’s screen. “Smitty, is there a secure telephone line where I can make a quick call?”

  “Sure. Just use the phone on my desk. The red button designates the encrypted line.”

  Helen didn’t race over to Smitty’s desk. She still stared at the text message and listened as the others continued talking, ignoring her. Who really sent this request for a callback? More threats? Or was it something else? Her fingers didn’t tremble as she pressed the numbers into the encrypted keypad. And she wasn’t scared. But what if he really is who he says? It rang just once. Not enough time to take a good deep breath. She spoke softly into the phone.

  “What’s so special about this particular guy?” Jack asked.

  They argued back and forth for a few more minutes about possible perpetrators of state sponsored terrorism. Some certainly were sophisticated enough to mount the attacks that hit the US. Most were not.

  Jack felt Helen’s gaze burrow into him. He saw she had just put down Smitty’s secure phone. Those smoldering deep brown eyes penetrated like hot pokers. “What, hon? Who were you talking to?”

  The others stopped arguing. All eyes were on Helen. “What do you gentlemen know about Unit 61398?”

  “My God,” Crypto exclaimed. “China.” He filled them in on Unit 61398’s mission and the group of PLA computer hackers all housed in a single building with one enemy in their gun sights and a single united goal. He sputtered and struggled to contain himself. “Why call you?” he finally croaked.

  She told them about the odd text message.

  “And just like that,” Jack snapped his fingers, “you placed a call and got connected to Unit 61398? Who’d you talk to, hon?”

  “I’m not sure.” Helen stared alternately at Smitty’s encrypted phone, then at the new text message on her cell phone. Helen Kaito was a hopeful and optimistic individual by nature—one of those people who first looked for the good. She felt her fear disappearing. Wondered if this could be the break they were all hoping for. “He said he runs Unit 61398—”

  “Colonel Li Yong!” cried Crypto. “Every analyst, agent, and all of the management at the FBI, CIA, NSA, NRO, and even Homeland would have wanted to be in on that conversation.”

  Helen stood her ground. “Well, for some reason he chose me. He texted me some computer code and told me to run it then call him back at a different number in ten minutes.”

  “May I see the code?” Crypto asked and held his hand out for Helen’s cell phone. He studied the phone’s screen then picked up his tablet computer. The others were silent while Crypto worked. He carefully transferred the code from her cell phone to his pad. Then his work picked up speed as his tablet computer did its job. After just two more minutes he lifted his gaze from the screen.

  “Does this prove who he is?” Helen asked.

  “Oh, it certainly does, Ma’am. He sent you the mother of all proofs—a recording of the remote flight commands when Unit 61398 took control of the InterTrans airliner and shut off the flight deck’s pressurization system.”

  “Is it authentic and without question?” Gallagher demanded.

  “Looks like it. Here, have a look.” Crypto handed Gallagher the tablet.

  Gallagher examined the commands for thirty seconds then looked up at the others. “That’s a murder confession.”

  “So whoever this is, is bragging about what he did?” Smitty asked.

  Helen shook her head. “He didn’t sound like anyone bragging. He sounded depressed.”

  “Why contact you?” Jack asked. “How’d he get your unlisted cell number for the text message?”

  Crypto had suddenly lost his sense of humor, “If he’s connected with Unit 61398, getting cell numbers is the easiest thing they do. Those boys are total bad asses in the world of cybercrime.”

  “He said he saw my picture on the cover of this week’s Forbes,” Helen responded. “Read the article, thought I could help him. He also mentioned Jack and the President too. He said I am probably the only person who can help him do the last honorable thing that’s left for him.”

  “Ten minutes now,” Smitty said. “Let’s call him back.” Smitty punched the buttons on his telephone console. “Secure line is up. Helen, just punch in your number. Whenever you’re ready.”

  The others leaned over the table toward the speakerphone. It connected on the first ring.

  “Ms. Kaito?” came the voice on the other end.

  “Yes?” Helen said. “I am at a secure location. We can talk.”

  “You are at the FBI’s Washington Field Office. Who do you have with you?”

  Helen hesitated. How much should I tell him? No reason to be coy.

  “I have the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, two agents from Central Intelligence, a cryptographer from Homeland, the NTSB’s chief aircraft accident investigator, and…” she looked at Jack who was staring at her, “someone who is temporarily working for the President.”

  Soon as the call connected, Crypto went back to work on his tablet. He muttered as he verified the programming code, “This guy knows way more than anyone on the outside possibly could.” Then he stopped muttering. His fingers came off of the tablet computer. “I have authenticated the command stream you sent Helen earlier. There is one last question I need answered to prove your identity.”

  “Some obscure factoid from my dossier you keep to prove beyond a doubt it is me?”

  Jack pressed the speakerphone’s mute button, “What makes him think he’s important enough for a dossier?”

  Crypto said, “I have CIA’s dossier right here on my pad. If this guy really is Li Yong, he’s more than important enough. We’ve been studying this guy for the last four years.” Crypto unmuted the speakerphone, “If you will indulge me, what is Li Yong’s favorite dish?”

  “While airplanes fall from the sky and subways crash into one another, you want to know what I like to eat? Seriously? Very well, then. Let me think. Well, I could go for a bowl of shuan yang rou about now. I missed it so when I was studying in America. Mongolian Hot Pot, to you westerners. Thin slices of lamb in bubbling broth, with vegetables and bean thread noodles. Then we dip them into a sesame paste sauce with chive-flower and some other seasonings. Very traditional. You’d like it. Is that what you wanted to know?”

  Helen saw Crypto nod. She took over, “Colonel Yong, it is quite an experience to meet you over the telephone. What can I do for you?”

  “First, both ends of this call are secure, Ms. Kaito.”

  “Call me Helen, please.”

  “I’m alone, Helen. My downstairs friend sweeps my apartment for bugs every day.” Silence filled the line.

  “You called me,” Helen said. “Take your time. This is the most important call either of us has ever participated in. Choose your words carefully. So will I.”

  Jack leaned over Helen’s phone, “Thi
s is—”

  “Jackson Schilling,” interrupted Li Yong. “I read Forbes. And I saw the news clips of your heroic actions last year at the Vatican. You shot Cardinal David Caneman in the Cysteine Chapel when he pulled a gun on the Pope. You are as much a part of my plan as is Helen and your godfather.”

  “Okay. Good to know we’re on the same page. Listen, we may not have a lot of time until the next attack comes. Get on with it.”

  Helen touched her husband’s shoulder and took over. “Don’t mind Jack, he’s just wound a little tight since the three air crashes and now the subways. We all are. You understand, don’t you?”

  The line was silent while both sides considered their next moves. Then, “Helen not all of us buy the party line. Especially the younger and better-educated officers. We need stable trade with the rest of the world, not the dead bodies of our trading partners. I tried to talk sense into the Chairman.”

  “So you do know something about these attacks,” said Helen.

  “Know something? I am the one who designed, engineered, and implemented each one.”

  “You’re calling us to make threats?” Jack asked.

  “The blood of thousands, maybe many more is already on my hands. I have no honor. I am asking for your help. I have figured out a way to stop the rest of the attacks.”

  Crypto muted the speakerphone and warned them all that Li Yong’s IQ is way up in the genius range. Careful of this guy—he’s the smartest one in the room—maybe any room. “If someone can figure a way out, he’s the one.”

  “Okay, Li Yong,” Helen said, “we’re listening.”

  “Sounds like this Colonel Yong feels he’s in a box,” Jack said. “He wants out. We can help him.”

  “Woa there,” Smitty broke in. “This Li Yong just confessed that he engineered four terrorist attacks on the US. Now we’re looking to help the guy? Rather than talk to him, I say we just send in one of CIA’s direct action teams to cut his throat.”

  “Let’s just step back a second and be smart about this,” Jack interrupted. “I get that you don’t trust Li Yong. But put yourself in his shoes. It’s his bosses who are the aggressors. He’s just the tip of the sword, doing what he’s told or else. Kinda like what we used to do, pal. Remember? The programmers who work there at Unit 61398 answer to him. They do what he says. So ask yourself, does he really have a choice? Right now, the answer is no. Failure or sabotage of their plan means execution. Maybe of the men working at Unit 61398 and their families too. How far down the chain does the State Committee go to discourage traitors?”

  Jack stopped for a moment. He got up out of his chair and walked around the office to blow off some energy. “So our entry into this game gives him an option. Maybe just what he’s been looking for. Seems like we’re his only option. See where I’m going?”

  Crypto spoke up, “We accept his offer. Make him into one of ours—”

  “He’ll never be one of ours,” Smitty spat. “That dumb ass almost killed several hundred—no, over a thousand Americans if you count the Hawaii jumbo jet crashes.”

  Jack now stood behind Smitty. He placed both hands on his shoulders and rubbed. “Steady there shipmate. Eyes on the prize—stopping the next wave of attacks. Put yourself in his shoes. He never signed up to become the world’s worst mass murderer. Maybe that’s not who he is. Could be just part of the box he’s in. No way out. Except, now there’s a small light coming through one corner of that box. An opportunity. Maybe. So he tinkers with his attack plans. I was on the Reagan watching what we all thought was incredible luck and a skillful use of the few resources we had. Now I’m thinking it was really Li Yong at work. The incredible job done on the Reagan that day was the tiny ray of light seeping into his dark box.”

  “What about the Hawaii jumbo jet crashes?” Smitty asked. “Over 600 people gone in less than a minute.”

  Gallagher explained NTSB’s examination of the cockpit voice recorder. They concluded the horrific crash was an error by an impatient pilot who never received takeoff clearance. Nothing Li Yong could have done to stop it. Except, he did kick off the string of events creating the opportunity for the fatal crash to occur.

  Jack closed his eyes, pressed a thumb and forefinger into the bridge of his nose, and tilted his head up. “Li Yong can’t control the human factor—”

  “Helen, look,” Smitty whispered and pointed at Jack. “He’s doing that ESP thing again. Getting into the target’s head—”

  Jack slowly turned toward them and opened one eye.

  “Sorry, sweetie,” Helen said. “We’ll wait.”

  Jack closed his eye again and took a deep, cleansing breath, then slowly let it out. “Li Yong has been too smart up to now. His devices worked. No mass casualties until Hawaii. He’s sick over contributing to the deaths of 666 human beings. We step in with a way out of this dark and deadly box. He’ll listen. Maybe there’s a way out for both of us.”

  * * *

  Chapter 25

  Li Yong heard the familiar sound of snow crunching and squeaking underfoot. The fragrance of pine filled his lungs. He exhaled cloudy billows into the icy air. He’d hiked this area on Beijing’s remote northern edge many times. It was more a rough forest than a manicured park. Yet, today it was strange, foreign. He hadn’t felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck like this since his first meeting with the Chairman of the Central Military Commission. The fear the man inspired arched up his spine and made his shoulders hunch as if protecting against a blow from above. The fear was for his parents far more than for himself. His parents were old. Infirm. A risk of even minor injury was a death sentence for them. He forced one boot in front of the other. Acid bile rose up from his gut into his throat.

  He followed the strangers as they streamed in small groups and families from the parking lot toward the trailhead. All were laughing and joking, looking forward to a winter’s walk in the deep forest. They left footprints in the frosty ground on this Sunday morning. Li Yong kept up, walking among them, unnoticed by anyone.

  The pedometer said he was exactly two kilometers into the forest. Which tree is it? Shadows loomed the deeper into the forest he walked. The air reeked of risk and forbidden secrets. Skin prickled. Keep watching…keep watching. There. Right there. Just another pine tree? Hardly. This one had a faded white chalk stripe a meter off the forest floor—just as the American Helen’s encrypted text message promised. A fresh surge of fear knotted Li Yong’s stomach. Move. Yet, his boots stayed rooted to the ground. Move. He took his next step deeper into treason.

  Li Yong toed away pine straw from the backside of the tree trunk. Silence descended upon him. There. A cell phone lay in a shallow hole in the ground. It would be the instrument of his treachery. He swept away the remaining pine straw and took it.

  The cell phone looked like every other—black case, clear screen. Maybe a little heavier than most. But unlike any other cell phone in the entire country. May as well have CIA printed all over it.

  He quickly pocketed the phone then covered over the hole again. Li Yong hiked deeper into the forest. How would he explain such a forbidden device to State Security? But who really is the People’s enemy here? My money’s on the Chairman of the Central Military Commission. Demanding mass casualties. For no good reason. My God.

  “Just a little after 10:00 a.m. tomorrow in Beijing,” Jack said. He bit into the still warm meatball sandwich from Giardo’s Italian market down the block from the FBI’s Washington field office. It was a little after 9:00 p.m. local time. Jack picked up the other half sandwich and held it out to Smitty. “It’ll be a long night. Better eat something, pal.”

  “Think Li Yong will do it?” Smitty asked taking the deliciously fragrant, warm sandwich and unwrapping it. The office smelled of Giardo’s tomato sauce, melted cheese, meatballs, and freshly baked bread.

  “His conscience has got the better of him,” Helen said.

  “If he’s our guy,” Smitty spoke around his first bite. “Might not be. Could be a hoax
or something else.”

  “Then we try again,” Jack said. “And we keep trying until the China lead peters out.”

  “Homeland Security knows its stuff,” said Crypto. He pulled up a chair and folded himself into it, then poked a hand into the bag of still hot sandwiches. “I asked two friends—both among Homeland’s best decoding analysts. They give it better than a 70 percent chance Unit 61398 is the source of these computer hacks and the cause of these crashes. Don’t worry. They’ll keep my inquiry to themselves. The bosses would have a fit if these analysts went off investigating this on their own without the proper work order requisition, budget allocation, and supervisory oversight.”

  Jack put down his sandwich and wiped his hands on a napkin. “If that’s so, then Li Yong just might be our guy. He’d have to know what his own shop is doing. Wouldn’t he?”

  The shrill, unmistakable buzz of the encrypted phone line demanded attention. No one sitting around the conference table moved. Jack arched his eyebrows, as much as saying, “Told you so.”

  Helen punched the speaker device set in the middle of the table. “Hello, Li Yong.”

  “We will avoid using names, if you please.”

  “That’s fine. But you must know the phone we gave you is encrypted and runs straight up into a satellite. It does not use any land-based equipment. How do you—”

  Li Yong interrupted, “I know better. Right now someone in the Ministry For State Security is figuring out what these squeals and pops coming over the airwaves are.”

  “Fine. We want to help you right the terrible wrong your government is creating. You can help—”

  “I designed the hacks. Every damn one of them. I also arranged it to minimize loss of life. Then that idiot pilot in Hawaii—”

  “Okay,” Helen said, quickly interrupting before his guilt blew him apart. “There’s nothing we can do about what’s already happened. But we can do something to stop the attacks that haven’t yet launched.”