Something was wrong. They were after him. Not the indefinable impossible they who plagued the suckers who heard voices in their heads. Not aliens or Jesus. A very real they, probably in the form of a joint agency-FBI task force. He couldn’t say how he knew, but he did. He’d never been nervous like this before. And he was damn sure he wasn’t having an attack of conscience over what had happened to the Drafter. He’d traded in his conscience when his baby boy died. As far as the mole was concerned, God had no conscience, and if God didn’t need one, he didn’t either. No, this churning in his stomach wasn’t guilt. It was fear, fear that he might be caught.
Yet when the mole stopped to consider the facts, as he did a hundred times a day, he had no evidence to support his fears. Almost no evidence. Except for the polygraph. A couple weeks before the North Koreans blew up the Phantom, he’d failed a poly. Not even failed, really. He hadn’t muffed the big questions, the ones that he knew were coming. They were no secret, part of a routine as established as the Lord’s Prayer. Haveyou ever been approached,by a foreign intelligence service? Have you ever accepted money from a foreign intelligence service?And the granddaddy of ‘em all, the Rose Bowl of polygraph questions: Have you ever committed an act of espionage against the United States?
The mole’s exam had been scheduled months in advance, standard operating procedure. He’d hardly worried about it. In his basement lair, he practiced his answers until they bored him. When he walked into the musty offices in the basement of the Old Headquarters Building where the polygraph examiners worked their magic, he’d been relaxed and confident. In retrospect, maybe too confident.
The session was supposed to last an hour. For forty-five minutes, he breezed through. When the trouble hit, he was already looking forward to being done. Maybe he’d cut out of work early, head over to the Gold Club, celebrate getting this chore out of the way for the next five years. They had two-for-one drink specials before 7:00 P.M, and sometimes the girls went two-for-one on dances too, just to stay loose.
Then, apropos of nothing, the damned examiner had asked him if he had any hidden bank accounts. For some reason, the question had surprised him. He tensed up, actually felt his heart skip, and knew he was in trouble.
“Of course not,” he said. “I have a brokerage account where I day-trade sometimes. Blow my retirement money. At Fidelity. That kind of thing, you mean?”
The tester, a chubby middle-aged man with a heavy English accent, looked curiously at the computer screen where the mole’s blood pressure, heart and breathing rate, and perspiration levels were displayed in real time.
“I mean accounts you haven’t reported to the Internal Revenue Service or on your financial disclosure forms. Might you have any accounts like that?” For the first time all session, the examiner looked directly at the mole while asking his question.
“Of course not.”
“What about offshore accounts?”
The mole pretended to consider. “Can’t say I do.”
“How about other valuable assets?”
“I don’t get what you’re going on about.”
“Cars, boats, houses? Collectible automobiles, for example. A second home?”
Collectible automobiles? Was that a shot in the dark or did this guy somehow know about the M5? “Nothing like that.”
The tester looked at the computer screen, then at the mole.
“Are you certain? Because I’m showing evidence of deception in your last several answers. I don’t mean to imply you’re doing anything illegal. People have many reasons to keep offshore bank accounts, as an example.”
This prissy English asshole with his singsong voice. As an example. The mole wanted to gouge out his eyes, as an example.
“I don’t know what you think you’re seeing, but I don’t have any hidden assets. I wish.”
“All right. Let us move on, then.”
AND THEY HAD MOVED ON. But three weeks later, not long after the North Koreans sank the Drafter, the mole had gotten a call from Gleeson, his boss, asking him to schedule a second polygraph.
“Nothing serious. They have a few questions. Seem to think you have a bank account in the Caymans or something.” Gleeson had snickered a bit, as if nothing could be more ludicrous. “Do me a favor and call them.”
The same day he’d received the official request in his in-box, sounding considerably less friendly. Failure to comply with this notice may result in loss of security clearance, termination from the Central Intelligence Agency, and other penalties, including criminal prosecution....
By the time the mole finished reading the letter, his hand was trembling. Until this moment he had never truly considered what would happen if the agency caught him. Of course, he’d known before he started spying that he could go to prison. But jail had always seemed like a vague abstraction. He was a white guy from Michigan. He didn’t know anyone in prison. Prison was a building he drove by on the interstate with razor-wire fences and signs warning “Do Not Pick Up Hitchhikers.”
Now he found himself thinking about prison as something more than theoretical. The vision was not comforting. At best, he would spend decades locked up. More likely the rest of his life, at someplace like the Supermax Penitentiary in Colorado, where the government housed Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber.
He’d be held in solitary confinement, caged twenty-three hours a day in a concrete cell with a window too narrow to see the sun. He’d get an hour of exercise in a steel mesh box, watched by guards who would never talk, no matter how much he begged them for the simple kindness of conversation. And he would beg. He was sure of it. Maybe the Unabomber liked his privacy. But the mole knew he couldn’t spend that much time alone, without a computer or a television or even a radio for company. He would go insane, cut himself just for something to do. His mind would gnaw itself up until nothing was left. Even the thought of being locked up that way made his heart flutter like he’d just run a marathon, made him want to go down to his basement and put his .357 in his mouth with a round in every chamber, so that no matter how many times he spun the cylinder the result would be the same—
He breathed deep and pulled himself together. He was freaking out, and over what? Over a form letter. The agency didn’t think he was spying for the Chinese or anybody else. They thought maybe he had a bank account he hadn’t told them about. This letter was the Langley bureaucracy in action, nothing more. He’d call them back, practice harder for the poly, and be done with it. One day, when he was writing his memoirs, he’d be sure to include this incident, letter and all. That way everyone would see that the agency had muffed its big chance to stop him.
Sure enough, when he called the polygraph office, a tired-sounding secretary told him that the examiners were backed up and that they couldn’t schedule him for a month at the earliest. She sounded like she thought she was doing him a favor, like she handled reservations for some fancy restaurant in New York. “So Thursday the seventeenth at noon?”
“That’s the earliest availability. Do you want it or not?”
“Sure.”
“See you then.” Click.
WITH THAT HE’D PUT the incident out of his mind, or at least to the side, a fly buzzing in another room. Even after the Drafter died, the mole figured he was safe. Then the rumors started.
“Did you hear?” Gleeson asked him one morning. “They’re running a full-scale review of how the DPRK”—North Korea—“discovered the Drafter. Looking for leaks.”
“I thought the working theory was that it had nothing to do with us.”
“Maybe,” Gleeson said. “Or maybe we have another Ames. Anyway, I need that report on my desk by two.”
“No problem,” the mole said as Gleeson walked off.
For a week, he heard nothing more. Then he got a call from the same secretary in the polygraph office who had been so blase earlier. “We need to move up your appointment. Are you free next Friday?”
The mole’s heart twisted. “Friday? I don’t know, lemme che
ck—”
“Well, get back to me as soon as possible, please. If not Friday, it can’t be any later than the following week.”
“What’s the rush? I mean, I’m very busy—”
“You’ll have to take that up with the examiner. I’m just a scheduler.” Click.
The mole stared blankly at the receiver in his hand, wondering what he’d done to deserve this treatment. He wanted badly to know if they actively suspected him. But asking too many questions about a leak investigation was a very good way to attract the attention of the people running it.
MEANWHILE, THE TEMPO in the East Asia unit was picking up. Since September 11, Langley and the White House had paid relatively little attention to China. The agency had focused first on Afghanistan, then Iraq, and now Iran. Along the way, China and the United States had reached a quiet understanding. As long as Beijing helped the United States on terrorism, the White House would stay quiet on economic issues, such as China’s trade surplus.
Even China’s rapid military buildup, its new submarines and fighter jets and satellites, had gone un-challenged. Some analysts within the agency thought that the United States should confront China aggressively now, while America still had a clear upper hand. But those discussions were largely theoretical. Langley knew that the White House had no appetite for a fight with Beijing at the moment, not with Iraq collapsing.
But in the last few weeks, the unspoken bargain had broken down, and not because of anything Washington had done. Both publicly and privately, the Chinese seemed to want to force America’s hand. The Chinese had moved submarines into the Taiwan Strait, the narrow sea that separated Taiwan from mainland China, and declared that U.S. carriers there would not be welcome without Chinese approval. Washington had simply ignored this provocation, saying that American carriers would travel in any international waters they wanted.
Beijing had also announced the successful test of a missile capable of destroying satellites and said that it didn’t intend to allow any nation to have “hegemony over space.” The words were clearly intended for the United States. Then, a week before, the French intelligence agency had passed along a rumor that China and Iran had struck some kind of grand bargain. No details. Langley had told the White House and State Department, and now the U.S. ambassador to China was trying to get an answer from the Chinese foreign ministry. But the ministry so far had stayed quiet.
An alliance between China and Iran would present the United States with a huge problem. Even if America wanted to avoid quarreling with China, it would have to respond to a deal between Beijing and its sworn enemies in Tehran. What no one understood was why the Chinese had picked this moment to take on Washington.
The mole could see now how effectively he’d betrayed the agency. Over the last five years, his spying had cost the CIA all its top Chinese operatives. As a result, the agency had no access to what was happening at the top levels of the Chinese government. The mole had left the agency blind and deaf. Still, the mole didn’t think that either side would push this confrontation too far. Both the United States and China had too much to lose.
IT WAS 3:06 A.M. As Janice sighed softly beside him, the mole felt his mind speeding like a truck whose brakes had failed. He remembered Insomnia, an old Stephen King novel. Halfway through, the hero was greeted by demons and devils crawling out of the wall. The mole was expecting to see something similar soon enough. The worst part was that he would actually be relieved to know the monsters were real.
At least now the mole had a good excuse for his inability to sleep. Two mornings before, he’d gotten yet another dose of bad news. He was sitting in his office, wondering if he could find an excuse to push off the poly, when Gleeson called.
“Come by,” Gleeson said. “Big news.”
When he arrived, Gleeson told him that a Chinese agent had defected in Britain. Wen Shubai. The mole had never met him, but he knew the name. He would bet that Wen knew him too, or at least of him. The mole couldn’t imagine what had happened. No senior officer had ever defected from the Second Directorate. The Chinese weren’t like Russians or Americans. They stuck together. They always had before, anyway.
“That’s fantastic,” he said. “When did it happen?” How much time do I have?
“Don’t know,” Joe said. “I think a couple days ago. But they’re keeping it close to the vest.”
“We’re sure it’s real, it’s not bait?”
“He’s given up some very solid leads.”
“On what?”
“Wish I could say,” Gleeson said breezily. The mole wondered if Gleeson actually knew what Wen had said. Could Wen have given them enough to find him? Could the agency be tracking his offshore accounts right now? The mole felt his whole body dissolve, as if Gleeson could see through him. He looked down at his hands to be sure he was still real.
“I need you to pull together a report, everything we know about Mr. Wen,” Gleeson said. “End of day at the latest.”
“Sure. I was thinking the same thing.” The mole wondered if George Tyson and his counterintel boys were trying to set a trap. This assignment might be intended to provoke him into running, betraying himself.
Well, if that was their goal, they’d failed. The mole went back to his office and called up the thin dossier the agency had on Shubai, putting together the report for Gleeson. On his way home that night, he searched out a pay phone and punched in a Virginia cell-phone number. The call went straight to voicemail.
“You’ve reached George,” the message said. “The car is still for sale. If you’d like to buy, please leave your number and the best time to reach you.” All the English lessons that the colonel had taken over the years had paid off, the mole thought. He hardly even sounded Chinese.
“George,” he said, “that yellow Pinto of yours is just what I’ve been looking for. I’d like to pick it up as soon as possible. Call me before six A.M.”
The code was simple. Yellow meant he needed an urgent meeting. Pinto meant Wakefield Park, at 6:00 A.M.
While he waited for George to respond, the mole found a TGI Friday’s where he could have a beer and watch the idiots on ESPN jaw at each other. He didn’t even feel like drinking, but he ordered a beer anyway. When he looked down at his mug, it was empty. He signaled the bartender for another.
“No problem, buddy.”
“What kind of word is ‘sportscaster,’ anyway?” the mole said, eyeing the screen. “I mean, ‘newscaster’ is bad enough, but ’sportscaster’ makes no sense at all.”
“Got me. That was a Bud Light, right?”
An hour crawled by before the mole slapped a twenty-dollar bill on the bar and walked out. A half-mile down, he found another pay phone. Again the call went to voicemail. “You’ve reached George,” the message said. “Thanks for your inquiry. The yellow Pinto will be ready for pickup on Thursday.”
The mole had to restrain himself from tearing the receiver off the pay phone. Thursday?This was Monday. Why were they making him wait two and a half days? He should have demanded a meeting immediately. But now it was too late. Asking for something sooner would make George wonder if he was panicking, and he didn’t want to seem panicked. He’d just have to wait.
SO HE WAITED, as hatefully as a prisoner counting the days to his execution. But the meeting was still more than a day away. Now, as his clock turned to 3:07 A.M., the mole shuffled out of bed and made his way to the spare bedroom, the room that he had once hoped would become a nursery. He settled in before an episode of The Hills, watching the bubbleheads on screen struggle to make it in the high-pressure world of Teen Vogue. He’d seen this episode before, but even if he hadn‘t, nothing in it would have surprised him. These shows were all exactly the same, whispered confidences, manufactured emotion, the tiniest of struggles.
As he watched, the mole wondered what he would do if George warned him that the agency was on him. The sad truth was that he didn’t even like China all that much. He certainly didn’t want to spend the rest of his life
there. And what about Janice? Would George let her come? Would she want to go? He could tell her this was the big foreign adventure she’d always wanted.
Maybe he should just disappear, head for Mexico and points south, with or without Janice. He had enough money hidden away to make a go of it, especially if he wound up someplace like Thailand, where twenty bucks got you a blow job instead of a three-minute dance. But he didn’t speak Thai. And wherever he went, he’d spend the rest of his life waiting for the knock on his door that meant the agency—or maybe the Chinese—had found him. He wasn’t sure which side scared him more.
Anyway, aside from the polygraph he had no reason to worry. He needed to relax. He’d never even met Wen Shubai. The mole reached into his briefs and massaged himself, watching the lithe California goddesses on MTV, knowing that the whiskey and the wine would keep him from what the Thai bar girls called full release, but feeling halfway decent for the first time in a month. Soon enough, he’d know where he stood. And finally he felt his eyes droop closed.
23
“YOU ALL RIGHT?” Wells said across the Escalade to Exley.
“Fine. Just do what you have to do.”
“Pull the van forward so it’s less visible. Then wipe it down. Anything you’ve touched. The wine cooler bottle too. No DNA.”
“I got it. Now go.”
Now the next step. Wells looked at his watch: 3:07 A.M. Twenty-three minutes left. He would need every one. He dumped Fred the guard onto the driveway and stepped into the Escalade. The German shepherd lay dead in the back, the dog’s skull torn in half by two rounds from Wells’s Glock, his blood pooling over the floor mats. Wells hadn’t wanted to kill the dog, but he had had no choice.
The Ghost War Page 21