The Ghost War

by Alex Berenson

  “Thank me?”

  “Somebody needed to say it. Thank you for not treating me like I’m something special. Or some wounded animal. Even if I am.”

  BASEBALL PRACTICE HAD ENDED HOURS earlier, but fluorescent lights still shined over the field at Cardozo High School, just up Thirteenth from Exley’s apartment. In fact the lights never went dark, possibly because of Washington’s legendary municipal incompetence, possibly to make the stands by the field less inviting for midnight trysts. Now Exley, Shafer, and Tyson sat in the stands, waiting for Wells. They’d driven around Washington for fifteen minutes, confirming that no one was following them, before Wells dropped them off and promised to find parking.

  Wells trotted up, holding a plastic bag and handing out paper bags.

  “Beer?” Tyson peered into the bag distastefully.

  “For our cover,” Wells said. “Picked them up at that package store on U Street.”

  “For our cover?” Exley couldn’t help but laugh. Wells’s mood had certainly improved, with the promise of a mission and his dressing-down from Tyson, she thought. Even if he hadn’t said a word she would have known. He was watching the world in a way that he hadn’t in months.

  Wells popped open his beer and took a swig. Tyson looked at him. “What kind of Muslim are you, anyway, John?”

  “Don’t spend much time at the mosque these days,” Wells said.

  “I might feel the same if my co-religionists spent their days thinking of new and exciting ways to kill me.” Tyson poked the can out of the bag. “Budweiser?”

  “Budweiser, George. Put hair on your chest.”

  “Is she going to drink one too, then?” Tyson looked at Exley. “I’ve never had a Budweiser in my life. It’s Yankee beer.”

  “Budweiser’s from St. Louis,” Exley said.

  “All beer is Yankee beer,” Tyson said. “Real Southerners drink whiskey.”

  “George, why can I picture you overseeing a plantation, whip in hand?”

  “That’s your overactive imagination. Now, this is turning into a real fun evening, but I’d like to tell you why we’re here.” Over the next half-hour, Tyson filled them in on the Phantom’s mission, and its failure.

  “And we had no hint of trouble before our guy, the Drafter, asked for the extraction?” Exley said when Tyson was finished.

  “No. We saw him eight months ago in Pakistan, offered to get him out then. He refused. They’d just promoted him. Which is another reason I think it was from our side. Kim Jong Il doesn’t have enough good scientists to turn on them for no reason.”

  “And counterintelligence investigations always leave a trail,” Shafer said. “No matter how hard you try, you can’t watch the suspect without him knowing.”

  “He sees someone’s been poking in his office,” Tyson said. “Or we dangle something and he wonders why all of a sudden he’s got new access. Moles have this spooky sense of when we’re watching.”

  “Tell me about it,” Wells said, remembering the years he’d spent in the mountains. Every day he had wondered if al Qaeda and the Taliban would recognize him as an American agent.

  “So I suspect Sung would have known if they were after him,” Tyson said. “Instead he was as snug as a termite in a lumberyard until the day he told us to get him.”

  “Could you repeat that last bit?” Wells said. “In English?”

  “Ignore the Dixie twang and you have the facts,” Shafer said. “Odds are the North Koreans were tipped from the outside.”

  “Maybe they caught him holding something classified,” Exley said.

  “He was too careful for that,” Tyson said. “His stuff all came shortwave or face-to-face.”

  “How important was he, this guy?” Wells said.

  “Our most important human source.”

  “In North Korea?”

  Tyson sighed. “Anywhere. He told us where they hid their nukes.”

  “Then maybe it wasn’t the North Koreans.” Wells raised the Budweiser to his lips, filling his mouth with the cool tart liquid.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Maybe they got tipped by some other hostile service, somebody who wanted to hurt us bad and knew this would do it.”

  “Makes perfect sense,” Shafer said. “Somebody gets this, banks it, takes it out now, gives it to the North Koreans when it can really mess us up.”

  “I understand, Ellis,” Tyson said irritably. Tyson raised the beer to his mouth, took a tiny sip.

  “Not bad, is it, Mr. Tyson?” Wells said.

  “I wish I could say yes. Please give it a good home.” Tyson handed the bag to Wells.

  “So why are you telling us this?” Exley said.

  “For the moment I’m taking the usual steps,” Tyson said. “My staff is examining who had access to the Drafter’s identity or the information he provided. Looking for unusual travel patterns for the officers in the North Korean unit.”

  “You’re going to have a lot of people to look at,” Shafer said.

  “And it’s no secret that our record in these investigations has been less than stellar.”

  “Counterintel doesn’t get the cream of the crop,” Wells said. “Present company excepted.”

  “I can’t disagree. It’s far more exciting to be chief of station in Tokyo than stuck in Langley poring over bank records. And anyone with half a brain knows that questioning the loyalty of one’s fellow employees won’t win friends when it comes time for the promotion boards to meet. But you—”

  “Have no friends anyway,” Exley said.

  “I was going to say that you have shown the ability to work outside the agency’s institutional confines.”

  “In other words, no friends,” Wells said.

  “I was hoping you might run your own informal inquiry. You’ll have access to everything that the official investigation turns up. If you need subpoenas or extra eyes, I’ll get them for you. In return I ask only that you let me know what you find.”

  “Like who got our boat blown to bits twelve hours ago. More black stars.” Every time a CIA employee died on a mission, the agency added a black star to the north wall of the lobby at its original headquarters building. There were now more than eighty stars.

  “Exactly, Mr. Wells.”

  “You never told us—who was on that boat?”

  “Lead agent was named Ted Beck.”

  Wells pounded a fist into his open palm. “Dammit.”

  “You knew him?” Tyson said.

  “He was one of the good guys.” Beck had been one of Wells’s instructors at the Farm—officially called Camp Peary, the CIA’s training center for new recruits—back in the mid-1990s. Beck wasn’t much past thirty, but even then he was bald as a cue ball, tough and strong. He and Wells had shared a love for Pierce’s Pitt Bar-B-Que, a restaurant off Highway 64 where a full rack of ribs cost just $9.95.

  Suddenly Wells was irritated at himself for the self-pity he’d indulged in over the last months. He’d sacrificed some, for sure. But Ted Beck—and lots of others—had sacrificed far more.

  “You’re the only one who will know what we’re doing?” Exley said.

  “Yes. I can give you something in writing. If you feel you need that protection.”

  “Not necessary,” Shafer said.

  “I’m in,” Exley said.

  “Mr. Wells?”

  “I’d love to. Especially now that I know who got hit. But I’ve got my own business to take care of. In Afghanistan.”

  “Well.” The stands creaked as Tyson stood up. “Good luck with that.”

  PART 2

  7

  TEHRAN, IRAN

  THE TARMAC AT MEHRABAD AIRPORT, outside Tehran, was a living graveyard of aviation. Baggage carts and tanker trucks jostled for space with planes that had long ago become extinct at more modern airports: 727s, DC-10s, even Russian Tu-154s cast off by Aeroflot. At the end of the terminal sat a four-engine 707, the original Boeing passenger jet, introduced in 1958 and a favorite of aviation
buffs. In America, the plane would have been a museum piece. Here it was transportation.

  In the midst of this muddle, three Iranian Army jeeps and two Mercedes limousines sped along, horns honking, headlights flashing. The convoy was led by a black Toyota Land Cruiser with tinted windows, a distinctive rising siren, and a single red light on its roof, like a 1960s police cruiser.

  The light and siren identified the Toyota as belonging to Vevak, Iran’s fearsome secret police force. As the Toyota approached, baggage handlers jumped back and the Tata tanker trucks made way, their drivers ducking their heads. Avoiding Vevak’s attention was critical to a long and healthy life in Iran.

  The Land Cruiser pulled up beside an Airbus A340 painted in the distinctive white-and-gold of Air China, the state-owned Chinese national airline. Four Chinese men stepped out of the first limo and positioned themselves around the second. Only then did the doors of the second Mercedes open. Five men emerged, two bodyguards in suits and three older men wearing the uniforms of the People’s Liberation Army.

  The last man to step out was taller than the rest, broad-shouldered, deep into middle age, with short black hair and shining golden sideboards on his green uniform. He was General Li Ping, chief of the People’s Liberation Army and one of the nine members of China’s Politburo Standing Committee, the group that ruled the world’s most populous nation.

  Li and his bodyguards strode up the jetway as the Land Cruiser and limousines rolled away. A few minutes later, the Airbus accelerated down the runway, its engines purring, and lifted into the cloudless night.

  From the outside, this Airbus looked like the usual Air China A340 widebody that flew the 5,000-mile route from Beijing to Tehran three times a week, down to the stylized red phoenix painted on its tail. But inside, this jet was very different. In place of the usual complement of three hundred seats, it held twenty lie-flat recliners. Near the front of the plane were two staterooms, with king-sized beds, bathrooms, and showers. The jet also came equipped with its own full-time crew from the Chinese air force, as well as three armed guards who lived in a suite at the back and never left the plane unattended.

  For despite its markings, this Airbus was far from an ordinary commercial jet. Only the nine men on the Standing Committee had the right to use it. Naturally, China had official state aircraft as well, painted with the country’s five-starred red-and-yellow flag. But the A340 offered advantages for those times when Politburo members wanted to keep their travel plans secret. American spy satellites watched over all the major airports in Iran. But they weren’t looking for an Air China widebody. The jet gave General Li a way to travel invisibly to his meetings in Tehran, meetings he’d been having more and more often.

  IN SOME WAYS, China and Iran had every reason to get close. Both nations had long and proud histories. Both had suffered during the twentieth century from invasions and internal strife. Both were now powerful once again, though for different reasons. China’s strength was built on two decades of spectacular economic growth. Iran’s gains were based on oil and the failure of American policy in the Middle East. The Islamic Republic now dominated the Persian Gulf and had the ability to choke off half the world’s oil.

  Any serious threat of war between Iran and the United States would take the price of crude to $100 a barrel. An actual American attack on Iran would move oil closer to $200 and put the world into recession. If Iran retaliated by destroying the giant fields to its west in Saudi Arabia, the world would have to ration oil for the first time since the original wells had been drilled in Pennsylvania 140 years before.

  And despite what environmentalists liked to pretend, the modern world could hardly exist without oil. Airplanes would be grounded. Electricity and fertilizer would double or triple in price. Middle-class Americans and Europeans would be squeezed, and the lives of the poor everywhere would grow more desperate. So Iran was not just another third-world country that got the world’s attention only for plane crashes and earthquakes. When its leaders spoke, London and Washington had to listen. But America didn’t enjoy being at Iran’s mercy, a fact that the leaders of the Islamic Republic knew only too well. To make sure that the United States never tried “regime change” in Iran as it had in Iraq, they wanted a nuclear arsenal.

  Li understood the Iranian desire for nukes. It was no coincidence that the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council—China, America, Russia, Britain, and France—were the five countries with the largest nuclear stockpiles. Because of their unique destructive power, nukes guaranteed national security like no other weapon. No country that openly possessed a nuclear stockpile had ever been invaded. With nuclear weapons to give it cover, Iran could push its neighbors around even more aggressively.

  For that reason, Washington and Jerusalem had vowed to stop Tehran from getting even one bomb. In response, Iran had turned to China for support.

  And China? China had reasons to help Iran. Li had reasons too, his own reasons, ones that not even his fellow ministers on the Politburo Standing Committee could imagine.

  THUS LI HAD MADE the trip to Tehran three times in the last year, each time in secret on this Airbus 340, for talks with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president.

  The trips hadn’t been easy. China and Iran might need each other, but they didn’t necessarily trust each other. Li found the atmosphere in Tehran as suffocating as the long black robes the women wore, and the national obsession with Islam as bewildering as the calls to prayer that rang through the presidential palace.

  Before Li’s first visit to Iran, his staff had prepared a thick book for him about Islam. He had skimmed a few pages and then tossed the binder aside. Prophets, angels, devils, an all-knowing God . . . Islam was just like Judaism and Christianity. Li didn’t believe in any of them. Like many Chinese, he wasn’t very religious, though every so often he burned fake money to honor his father and mother, both long dead. He wanted to make his mark in this world, not wait for another life. Meanwhile he had a question for his hosts, one he didn’t plan to ask: If the Iranians had such faith in Allah, why were they so desperate for nuclear bombs?

  The A340 reached 38,000 feet and leveled off. Li touched a button on his leather recliner. Sun Wei, the Airbus’s steward, appeared in seconds. “General.”

  “Please ask the pilots if we can expect a smooth flight.” Chinese men his age rarely exercised—at most they contented themselves with tai chi—but Li took his workout regimen very seriously. He always brought an elliptical trainer with him on the Airbus.

  Wei disappeared. A minute later he was back, holding a gym bag packed with Li’s exercise clothes. “The winds are with us, General. A smooth flight.”

  In the main stateroom, Li changed in silence and alone. Some other members of the Standing Committee had valets to help them dress. Li hadn’t fallen so far into bourgeois decadence, not yet anyway. Though he had to admit that he’d grown used to great luxury. He had chauffeurs, guards, housekeepers. Still, he always tried to remember that he served the people, not the other way around. Unlike other leaders, he hadn’t used his position to make a fortune from bribes or corrupt business deals. He had no hidden bank accounts, no villas in Hong Kong.

  For the next hour Li forgot himself on the trainer. When he was finished, he stretched and showered and returned to his chair. A glass of freshly squeezed orange juice awaited him. Sun Wei knew the favorite drinks of everyone lucky enough to be a regular passenger on this plane.

  Li sipped his juice and tried to relax. As always, he was glad to be free of Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, a scrawny man with hard black eyes. At their first meeting, a year earlier, Ahmadinejad had begun by haranguing Li about the United States and Israel, the eternal enemies of Muslims everywhere. The words spilled from Ahmadinejad’s mouth so quickly that Li’s translator could hardly keep up. Though the Iranians kept the presidential palace frigid, sweat rolled down Ahmadinejad’s face as his voice rose.

  For half an hour, Li had sat across from Ahmadinejad,
hands folded patiently in his lap, waiting for the man to exhaust himself. He was used to sitting through boring speeches, though usually they came in his own language. The Iranian poured out words, a river of nonsense. He seemed to be preaching at an audience of thousands, an audience that only he could see. Finally Li broke in.

  “Mr. President,” he’d said, first in Chinese, then in English. “Mr. President.

  “The Chinese people appreciate your grievances with the global hegemon, the United States. We agree that every state has the right to rule itself.”

  “Yes, yes. But the problem is deeper. The Zionists—”

  Li had no intention of sitting through another rant. “And I thank you for your hospitality. But I must return to Beijing tomorrow, and we have much to discuss.”

  Ahmadinejad seemed to have forgotten that Li was an emissary from a country more powerful than his own, not a rival to be bullied. “General, before we can continue, you must understand—” But Li never found out what he had to understand. Before Ahmadinejad could go on, the clean-shaven man beside him whispered into his ear.

  The man was Said Mousavi, the head of Iran’s secret police, and whatever he had said, his words were effective. Ahmadinejad ran his hand through his coarse black beard and whispered back to the security minister. From then on, his conversations with Li had been mostly businesslike, though Ahmadinejad still blustered occasionally about Zionist conspiracies. Yet by the end of their second meeting, Li realized that the Iranian was more subtle than he appeared. As much as anything, his windy speeches were intended to distract, to hide Iran’s real ambitions.

  If outsiders had known of these meetings, they would have assumed China had the upper hand. Yet it was Li who flew to Tehran, not Ahmadinejad to Beijing. The men who ran Iran took such eagerness as a sign of China’s weakness. Li didn’t try to change their minds. He had his own reason for wanting these meetings in Tehran instead of Beijing. This way, only he and his closest aides knew exactly what he was telling Ahmadinejad. Of course, he reported back to his fellow ministers on the Standing Committee after each meeting. But he didn’t report everything.