by Alex Lukeman
"What's up?"
"Have you checked the Internet this morning?"
"No, I just got here."
"There's a new video showing up everywhere, an interview with an anonymous source who claims to be a high-level defector from Russia. His face is obscured and his voice electronically masked in the video. It's impossible to identify him. The video was released by the same journalist who wrote about Chairman Yun's role in the assassination of the Chinese ambassador."
"What does this defector say?"
"That the assassination was planned in coordination with Washington."
"What? That's crazy."
"Not according to the man in the video. He says Moscow and the White House have made a secret agreement to ally against the PRC and that the file implicating Yun in the assassination is a false flag, cooked up to distract the Chinese from the real threat."
"And the threat is?"
"That Moscow and the White House are getting ready to go to war with China. According to the report, the assassination was the opening move. The journalist claims to have a copy of our war plans for China and says he's going to publish them."
"How the hell would a reporter get those?"
"I don't know, but he shows the first page in the video. It looks authentic."
"I wonder if the asshole who put this together gave any thought to how it would affect our relations with China, or national security? What's the matter with these people? We don't have an alliance with Russia against China, we both know that."
"I don't think truth matters much to the press, unless it supports the editor's point of view or improves the bottom line."
"That's a cynical statement."
"It's a cynical business," Harker said.
"China isn't going to like this."
"That may rank as the understatement of the year. See if you can find out what's going on."
"Something stinks about this," Nick said, "starting with the assassination. Why a suicide bomber? That's not the North Korean style."
"It was the style during the Korean War," Harker said. "They sent wave after wave of people carrying pitchforks and wearing not much more than quilted jackets against machine guns, knowing they'd be cut down."
"That was the Chinese, not the Koreans. They didn't have much of a choice with Mao running the show. This doesn't add up, Director. It's too neat. A North Korean agent throws himself on the ambassador's car, blows it up and himself with it. Then a computer turns up in his apartment with files on it identifying Yun as ordering the hit. Now we've got an anonymous Russian defector claiming it wasn't Yun after all, that the ambassador was killed as part of a larger plot by the U.S. and Russia against China."
"Go on."
"Put yourself in Chinese shoes. If I'm running the People's Republic, what am I supposed to think? Do I believe the story? Can I afford not to believe it? On a paranoia scale of one to ten, I'd say Beijing just hit twelve."
"It's true they're quick to think the worst," Harker said.
"According to what we've found out, the man who killed Li was a mid-level officer. Why would he have sensitive material about Yun on his computer? Right there, something's off. He wouldn't have access to that kind of information and I can't think of a single reason why it would be on his personal computer if he did."
"I've been wondering about that myself," Harker said.
"Now we have this video by a supposed defector, an anonymous source who comes out of the woodwork claiming there's a conspiracy against China. Why would he do that? Why now?"
"In the video, he states that he's doing it to prevent a war."
"I can't think of anything more likely to start one, if Beijing chooses to believe it."
In the background behind Harker, Nick heard the hospital speaker asking for someone to report.
"I want to question this guy," Nick said. "Someone put him up to this and provided him with at least part of our war planning about China. Whoever did it is guilty of treason. I'm thinking of Stephanie's AI computer. Freddie mentioned the possibility of a third party manipulating events."
"Freddie. I'd forgotten about him. Is Steph there yet?"
"Not yet."
"Go over this with her and have Freddie take a look at it. Let's see what he comes up with."
"If it is a third-party, what does he hope to gain?"
"Maybe he wants to start a war," Elizabeth said.
"That's insane. Why start a war that will end up going nuclear? Money? Ideology? Money isn't much good if there's nothing left to spend it on. Neither is ideology, if there's nobody left to control or convince."
"Track down the reporter. Talk to him. See if you can find out what's going on."
"Nice to have you back in charge, Director."
"You're still running things, Nick. I'm not out of here yet."
CHAPTER 23
The man who'd released the video was an independent investigative reporter named Michael Cotter who worked for anyone that would take his articles. The first report about Yun ordering the hit on the Chinese ambassador had brought him a lot of attention. With the video on Russia and Washington allying against China, he'd hit the big time. The interview had gone viral on social media and created a storm of controversy.
There were millions of people in the social media universe who had never been taught the critical skills of logical thinking required to understand what was false and what was not. Just because something was posted on Twitter or Facebook or showed up on the evening news didn't make it true. Now millions of people thought Moscow and Washington had formed a conspiracy against the Chinese. Some of those people were in China. It meant trouble.
There was no alliance between the U.S. and Russia against China, but the damage was done. Nick knew the interview was a lie, but the Chinese didn't. He wondered how they'd respond. He wasn't looking forward to finding out.
Someone was stirring up public opinion and poking sticks at the most dangerous players on the world stage. The animal that symbolized North Korea was a mythical, winged horse. It paled in significance compared to the dragon, bear, and eagle of the three great nuclear powers. If a war started between all of them, no one would survive.
Nick turned into the parking lot of the building at the address Stephanie had given him for the reporter.
"How's your stomach?" Nick asked.
That morning, Selena had been retching over the toilet.
"It's fine now. I think it must've been that restaurant we went to."
"I almost had the same thing you did," Nick said. "I thought that chicken you ate was a little off-color."
They pulled up in front of the reporter's building. The parking lot was cracked and potholed. Nick turned off the ignition.
"Not exactly high-end," Selena said.
Cotter lived in a forgettable three-story block of older apartments painted yellow. Small balconies with black iron railings jutted out from each unit, littered with bicycles, barbecues and plastic chairs. Rust streaks ran down the side of the building from the roof. A large, faded banner advertised two months free rent with move-in and a one-year lease.
Nick looked at the banner. "Doesn't look as though our journalist is living the high life."
"Stephanie did some research on him. He's got two ex-wives and big child support payments."
"Let's see if he's home."
They climbed an outside flight of concrete steps to Cotter's third floor unit. 3C was in the back of the building. The door to the unit was ajar.
"Would you leave your door unlocked around here?" Nick asked.
"No way. You might as well post a sign saying 'steal my stuff.'"
They drew their pistols and moved to opposite sides of the door. Nick reached out with the flat of his hand and gave the door a shove. It swung open. An unpleasant odor came from inside. Nick had smelled it often enough in the past.
The smell of death.
He risked a quick look around the doorframe. The front door opened onto a living room l
it by daylight filtering through dirty windows. A hall went from the living room toward a kitchen/eating area in the back of the apartment. Nick could see an open doorway down the hall.
Selena gave him a questioning look. He nodded and stepped into the apartment, holding his Sig ready in both hands. Selena followed, steps behind.
The living room had a faded rug and an uncomfortable looking brown couch placed in front of a new large screen TV. The expensive TV felt out of place in an apartment like this. A cheap desk stood under the window. The drawers had been pulled out and the contents dumped on the floor. A disconnected power cord hinted at a missing computer.
The door off the hall led to a bedroom and bath. The bedroom had been searched, the dresser drawers emptied, the mattress cut open and tossed aside. The bathroom cabinet had been gone through.
They found Cotter in the kitchen, crumpled in a heap on the floor. He had a neat hole in his forehead. The hole wasn't so neat in back, where the bullet had exited. A large piece of his skull had been blown away. Most of his brain oozed from the wound. The rest was spattered over the refrigerator and the kitchen wall. Cotter wore a cheap suit and a shirt that had once been white. He wasn't wearing a tie.
Nick holstered his gun and bent down over the body. He touched Cotter's neck.
"Still warm. He probably never knew what hit him."
"Makes it hard to ask him anything," Selena said.
"I expect that was the point of killing him."
"This has to be related to the video."
"Someone didn't want him talking about where he got his information," Nick said.
Selena brushed her hand across her forehead. "This is getting complicated, isn't it?"
"It always does."
Nick stood, walked back down the hall and closed the open front door.
"If anything was here that could tell us something about that video, it's probably gone. We need to look anyway. You take the bedroom and bath, I'll start here."
While Selena began in the bedroom, Nick started going through the kitchen drawers and cabinets. All he found were dishes and cutlery. He opened the refrigerator, careful not to step in Cotter's blood. The freezer held a package of frozen burgers, three unopened boxes of frozen macaroni and cheese and a piece of pizza in a plastic bag. The main compartment held a few eggs, a stick of butter, and a carton of half-and-half going sour. Whatever else Cotter had been, he hadn't been a gourmet.
Selena came back into the room.
"Any luck?"
"Nothing," she said. "Just underwear and socks on the floor and a few things in the closet. He was taking Valium." She held up a prescription bottle. "Did you check the body?"
"I was just about to do that."
Nick checked Cotter's pockets, looking for a phone or a wallet. He rolled the body over.
"Well, well," Nick said. "Our investigative reporter was on the job."
He pulled out a small tape recorder that had been taped in the small of Cotter's back. He put it in his jacket pocket.
"He was wired," Selena said.
"Let's hope he was interviewing his killer. Let's get out of here."
"Suits me. My stomach is still a little uneasy. Looking at our friend here isn't helping."
They closed the door to the dead man's apartment and started down the steps to Nick's car.
He'd thought about getting something fancy, a Mercedes or maybe a BMW. In the end he'd opted for what felt familiar and settled on a Chevy Suburban. He'd taken it to the same specialist who'd modified Ronnie's Hummer. The big SUV boasted six hundred turbocharged horses and bulletproof glass, with steel plating around the engine compartment, inside the doors and around the gas tank. The truck was heavy and not especially agile, but it could move like hell when he opened it up.
It was painted black. Lamont called it the Bat Tank.
A bullet burned past Nick's head as he opened the driver side door. He registered the sound of the shot at the same time it smashed into the windshield on the passenger side. Instinct and training kicked in. He dropped to the ground and rolled under the car as a second round followed the first.
Selena was on the other side of the car, about to get in. She ducked down near the hood and spotted three men by a gray sedan across the parking lot. They fired at her. The rounds went over her head and struck a dumpster. She raised up and let off three quick shots, then crouched again behind the plated engine compartment.
Nick rolled out from underneath the car and came up beside her.
"Three of them," she said. "By a gray BMW." She pointed. "Pistols."
"At least…"
Whatever Nick was going to say was interrupted by a machine pistol opening up. Bullets peppered the suburban, making star-shaped patterns on the windows and punching into the bodywork on the other side of the car.
"At least what?"
"I was going to say, at least they don't have a machine gun."
They heard doors slam, then tires screeching. The gray sedan roared by them on the other side. The car fishtailed out of the parking lot and into the street.
Nick ran to the driver side and pulled open the door. It was stitched with bullet holes. Selena climbed in on the right as Nick started the engine. He pulled the wheel hard left and stepped on the gas, bouncing over the parking lot curb and onto the road. Ahead, the BMW accelerated away.
Star-shaped spots pockmarked the windshield where rounds had struck, but he could see well enough ahead to follow the shooters. They were in a part of the city that was a mix of industrial and residential. Traffic was light. They passed an outlet advertising tile and granite countertops. Nick put his foot down and the turbos cut in. The big Suburban began gaining on the car fleeing in front of them. They passed over a humped railroad crossing and left the ground, coming down hard.
Ahead, one of the shooters leaned out of a window and began firing. More stars appeared on the windshield.
Maybe an Uzi, Nick thought. They keep that up, I won't be able to see where I'm going.
Selena rolled down her window, reached out and fired four rounds. The man with the machine pistol jerked and slumped over the side of his door. His weapon flew out of his hand.
"Good shooting," Nick said.
They were coming up fast on a T-shaped intersection with a stop sign. Across the intersection stood a large ceramics factory that manufactured pots and containers. Hundreds of ceramic pots of varying sizes were stacked up in the yard in front of the building. Glazed pots of every color, plain clay pots, big and small pots, a pot for every fancy.
The sound of the turbos was a muted howl as they sped toward the intersection. Nick glanced at the speedometer. They were going over ninety and running out of road. A stream of traffic flowed by across the T ahead. Nick took his foot off the accelerator and hit the brakes hard. The car vibrated and juddered as the ABS kicked in.
Nick saw the BMW's brake lights go on, but the driver had left it too late. The car went through the stop sign and clipped the back of a pickup truck. Pieces of metal flew into the air. The BMW spun out of control, flipped, and rolled into the mesh fence separating the ceramics factory from the road. It flattened the fence, bounced into the air and landed in the pottery display.
The pots exploded into thousands of fragments, a chaotic, colorful shower that fountained high into the air. The BMW came to rest on its roof. Then it caught fire.
Nick drove across the intersection and brought the Suburban to a stop. Cars slowed to gawk at the burning wreckage..
"Maybe they're still alive," Selena said. "We should…"
The BMW exploded in bright, orange flame before she could finish her sentence.
"We should what?"
"Never mind," she said.
CHAPTER 24
Back at Project HQ, Nick gave Cotter's recorder to Stephanie. But when she played the recording, it was blank. Nick called Elizabeth and briefed her on what had happened. Selena and Stephanie listened to the conversation.
"We have to assume th
e men in that car were the ones who killed Cotter and searched his apartment," Nick said. "But why were they still at Cotter's building? If I'd just murdered someone, I wouldn't hang around."
"They could have been waiting for someone," Elizabeth said.
"How would they know someone would show up?"
My analysis indicates an eighty-nine point four percent possibility that they were waiting for you, Nick.
"Freddie. I didn't know you were listening."
I am always listening, unless I have been instructed not to.
"Okay, I'll bite. Why do you think they were waiting for us?"
I do not understand your reference to mastication.
"Freddie," Stephanie said, "I'll explain it later. Why do you think those people were waiting for Nick and Selena?"
Analysis of the video purporting to show a defecting Russian agent claiming that Washington and Moscow have formed an alliance against China reveals a unique technical signature consistent with the technology found in the camera used in the drone destroyed by Nick. Logically, whoever is responsible for sending the drone to spy on Project Headquarters is also responsible for the video.
According to that video, the assassination of the Chinese ambassador by a North Korean agent is a false flag designed to distract the Chinese from the supposed conspiracy between Washington and Moscow. The Project team was present at the assassination. Therefore, it is logical to assume that we would be involved in investigating that event. It is also logical to assume we would interview Cotter and try to determine where he had gotten his information.
Stephanie heard Freddie say "we"' and realized that the computer's artificial intelligence had evolved to the point of identification with humans, at least with the members of the Project team. It was unexpected.
"Are you saying the same person who sent men to kill Cotter told them to wait for us to show up and ambush us?" Nick asked.
That is the logical conclusion.
Harker's voice came over the speaker phone. "Freddie, this is Elizabeth. I have a question."
Good morning, Director Harker. How are you feeling today?
"I'm fine, Freddie, thank you. Let me see if I understand what you're saying. You think that the same person who sent the drone also manufactured the false video."