The Ghost War

by Alex Berenson

  “Highlight the Xian and the target,” he said to Captain Juo, the commander of the center’s Eastern Pacific Defense Unit.

  “Yes, sir.” Juo tapped his keyboard, and suddenly two lights began to blink on the screen, a red circle indicating the Xian, and a green square for the target.

  “How accurate are these positions?”

  “For the Xian, we’re estimating based on its last known position forty-five minutes ago. For the target, we’re accurate to fifty meters. We’re watching it in real time with the Tao 2”—a new recon satellite that the PLA had named after the Houston Rockets center.

  “So we know the enemy’s location better than our own ship.”

  “That’s correct, General.”

  The paradox of submarine warfare. The Xian could communicate only irregularly with its commanders, lest it betray itself to the Americans. But China’s satellites could track enemy ships with ease.

  “And when does the Xian next report?”

  “At 0100, sir.”

  “How confident are you in your identification of the target?”

  “I’ve looked at the photographs personally, General.”

  “And you’re certain.” Li wanted to hear the captain say the words.

  “I’m certain, sir.”

  Li put a hand on Cao’s elbow and guided him out of the captain’s earshot. “What do you think, Cao?”

  Cao’s lips barely moved. He spoke so quietly that Li had to bend in to hear him. “I think we should wait. I also think that what I think doesn’t matter. You’ve decided.”

  “And you’re right.” Li turned to Juo. “Captain, I won’t be here when the Xian reports in next. But here’s the message that I’d like you to send.”

  THE PEN SPUN OVER the sketch pad, leaving behind a tiny blurred city of palaces and cathedrals. Cao had never visited Paris, but he’d seen pictures. Sketching cleared his mind, helped him think. He threw in a couple of gargoyles atop a cathedral that might have been Notre Dame and eyed what he’d done. Not his best work.

  He shoved the pad aside and stared out at the Beijing sky, tapping his pen on the plastic stump of his lower left leg. Midnight had come and gone, but the sky was more white than black, the lights of the city reflecting off clouds and smog, turning night into a perpetual half dawn.

  Cao lived in a four-room apartment in an Army compound near Zhongnanhai. His place was simple and spare, decorated in traditional Chinese style. Scrolls hung from the walls, long rice paper sheets covered with stylized characters in thick black ink. As a senior officer, Cao could have had a much bigger apartment if he’d wanted. But he preferred this space. With no family, he’d be lonely in anything bigger. Besides, he spent most of his time visiting bases and traveling with Li.

  Normally, the apartment was calm and quiet, protected by the compound’s high walls, an oasis in the center of Beijing’s tumult. But today Cao heard the rumbling of helicopters over Tiananmen. The last time the square had been this crowded had been 1989. Back then, Cao wondered if the Party’s leaders would survive. But he’d underestimated their ability to hold power. This time the masses had filled Tiananmen to challenge America. But what would they do if they discovered they were being used in a power struggle?

  “The choice of heaven is shown in the conduct of men.” The proverb dated from the fourth century B.C., from Mencius, a follower of Confucius. But what was heaven’s choice now? Cao clasped his hands, closed his eyes, and asked God to help him understand. In 1991, on a trip to Singapore for a regional defense conference, Cao had overheard singing from a blocky concrete building that turned out to be a church.

  He’d never even seen the inside of a church before, but the joy in the voices he heard drew him in. Cao was hooked immediately. To this day he couldn’t explain why, not even to himself. On his next trip to the church, he secretly converted, dunking himself in a bathtub and accepting that he’d been born again. His Christian name was Luke.

  Cao was hardly alone in his faith. Protestant and Catholic missionaries had been active in China since the nineteenth century, and millions of Christians were scattered across China. They were tolerated, but not encouraged. The government saw Christianity as a source of trouble, a possible rival to its power. As far as the men of Zhongnanhai were concerned, Communism and nationalism were the only acceptable faiths in the People’s Republic. Cao could never have become a senior PLA officer if he’d declared his faith openly. Even Li wouldn’t have stood by him.

  So Cao had hidden his faith. Every couple of months, he found his way to a restaurant in southeast Beijing owned by Wei Po, a heavyset man in his late fifties. Wei had been a Christian even longer than Cao, since the mid-1980s. But most of the time, Cao prayed at home. As a senior officer, he didn’t have to worry that his quarters would be searched. Even so, he locked his cross and Bible in a drawer in his desk. He took them out now, running his fingers around the cross, trying to think his way out of the dilemma he faced.

  Cao had been stunned when Li told him that the Second Directorate had discovered a traitor’s message to the embassy. He hadn’t imagined the Americans could be so corrupt. The meeting he’d asked for was supposed to take place in just a few hours, not far from here. And he knew that Li’s men would be watching. The army’s internal security force was tracking every American who’d come to Beijing in the last week, especially anyone traveling alone who had requested an expedited visa. Only about forty-five people fit that profile in all of Beijing, Cao knew. Of course, the CIA could have turned instead to a foreign service, but Cao thought that the Americans wouldn’t take that chance on a mission this sensitive. No, whoever showed up at the meeting would be an American, and he’d be under surveillance.

  But if Cao didn’t show, he’d miss his only chance for contact. The Americans couldn’t reach him. And with the embassy compromised, he effectively had no way to reach them either. After a decade underground, he no longer had active dead drops or signal sites, which was the reason that he’d been forced to send his coded message directly to the embassy.

  Cao could also try to get inside the American embassy and ask for asylum. But Li had anticipated that possibility. Chinese police had surrounded the embassy grounds, claiming their cordon was necessary to protect the Americans inside “from the passions of the Chinese people.”

  Even if Cao did get inside, he’d have forfeited his chance to stop Li. There had to be a way to break Li’s hold on the Standing Committee, but Cao hadn’t figured it out yet.

  Since the war in Vietnam, Cao had considered Li his closest friend. He knew the relationship had been one-sided. Li was tall, handsome, smart. The picture of an officer. Cao was short, his leg a stump, a plodder rather than a philosopher. As they’d risen through the ranks together, other officers had called Li and Cao the “Big and Little Brothers,” as well as other, less friendly names.

  But Cao had never cared. He’d been proud to call Li his friend. “A man should choose a friend who is better than himself,” the proverb went. Cao had never forgotten how Li saved his life in Vietnam. And Li didn’t steal or take bribes, unlike so many officers.

  Yet the Devil knew every man’s weakness, Cao thought. Li lusted for power the way lesser men chased money. Now that hunger had eaten him up. Perhaps Cao should have tried to stop him sooner. But at first he hadn’t understood what Li planned. Later he’d figured that Li couldn’t possibly succeed, that the others on the Standing Committee would block him.

  But Li had proven them all wrong. He’d manipulated the Iranians, the Americans, even the protesters who filled Beijing’s wide avenues. The confrontation between Beijing and Washington was nearly out of control. The liberals inside Zhongnanhai wanted to back off, but they couldn‘t, not without seeming weak, not after the way the American destroyer had sunk the Chinese trawler. China needed revenge. But whatever Li had told the committee, the Chinese retaliation wouldn’t end the confrontation, Cao thought. The Americans would want their own retribution. At best, tit-for-tat provoc
ations would go on for months. The Americans would blockade Shanghai. China would dump its dollar reserves or fire missiles over Taiwan. Finally both sides would tire of the phony war and turn to the United Nations as cover for a deal.

  And at worst? At worst, the two sides would miscalculate each other’s seriousness. The attacks would get more and more deadly, until nuclear-tipped missiles went soaring over the Pacific. “A sea of glass mingled with fire,” John had written in Revelation 15. Nuclear war. The ultimate sin, Cao thought. Man choosing to bring the end of days, a choice that was God’s alone.

  Even assassinating Li—something Cao knew he could never do anyway—wouldn’t defuse the crisis. Others within the government would take up the fight, seeing, as Li had, that confrontation with the United States was a path to power. Only by finding a way to discredit Li totally could Cao turn back the clock.

  And so, in desperation, Cao had reached out to his old allies at the CIA. He didn’t expect they would have any answers. But at least he wanted them to understand that not everyone in Zhongnanhai wanted confrontation. And he thought they should understand exactly what had happened with the mole and with Wen Shubai, the defector.

  YET HE WONDERED if he would be able to betray Li when the moment came, or if in the end his nerve would fail and he’d stay silent. In the last two weeks, he had suffered the same nightmare a dozen times. He marched next to Li on a muddy Vietnamese road as snipers decimated their company. The screams of the wounded raced inside his head. Step by step he neared the mine that he knew would tear off his leg. He tried to turn away but couldn’t. But when the explosion came, he felt no pain. He looked down and saw his body was undamaged. Instead it was Li who writhed helplessly on the dirt beside him, his leg torn in half. Li opened his mouth to speak. And though Cao always woke before Li said a word, he knew that Li meant to call him Judas, to accuse him of the ultimate betrayal.

  He was actually relieved each night when he touched his withered leg and found that nothing had changed.

  But he couldn’t allow his friendship with Li to stop him from doing what he had to do. He wasn’t Judas, and Li ... Li wasn’t Jesus. He needed to focus, to figure out how to meet the American agent without betraying himself. He flipped open his Bible, then shut it irritably. The answer wouldn’t be found in there.

  Then he looked at the book again.

  Unless it would.

  As the plan filled his mind, Cao slid the Bible back into his desk. The idea was a long shot, and he would have to trust in the endurance of this American, this American he’d never met. But he had no other options.

  Ten minutes later Cao was in his jeep, navigating through the night, heading east. Armored jeeps and paddy wagons blocked the entrance to Tiananmen, but when the soldiers manning the blockade saw the stars on Cao’s uniform, their scowls turned to salutes and they waved him through.

  To the east of Tiananmen, the traffic picked up again, and the city turned bright and shiny. This stretch of road was Beijing’s answer to Fifth Avenue, chockablock with stores that sold thousand-dollar handbags to China’s elite. Cao passed a Ferrari dealership, low-slung yellow cars glowing under the lights. A Ferrari dealership.Less than a mile from Tiananmen. While all over China farmers and factory workers scrambled to eat. Perhaps Li was right after all. Perhaps China needed him in charge.

  No. Even if Li was right, he couldn’t be allowed to take such insane risks. Cao pushed the pedal to the floor. He didn’t have much time.

  WELLS DIALED A NUMBER he’d never called before, a 415 area code. Exley answered on the first ring. “Hello?”

  “Jennifer?”

  “Jim.” His cover name sounded strange in her mouth. She kept her voice steady, but still he could hear the tension. “Was your flight okay?” In the background he heard CNN.

  “Everything’s fine. The hotel’s great. Might as well be Paris.” Wells wanted to keep this conversation as banal as possible. No doubt the Chinese were monitoring every phone call into and out of the St. Regis tonight.

  “What time is it there?”

  “Two A.M. But I’m wide awake. Jet lag. Is anything happening? Anything I should know about?” This would be her only chance to tell him if his cover was blown.

  “No. The kids are fine. Everyone misses you.” An all-clear, or as close as he would get.

  “Tell them I miss them too. How’s my niece?”

  “Still hasn’t called. Your brother’s worried sick.” So the mole was still gone.

  “Well, tell him not to worry. Listen, honey, this call’s costing a fortune, so ... I just wanted to check in, say I love you.”

  “I love you too, honey. Stay safe, huh? You’re on your own this time.” A reference to the way she’d saved him in New York. Her voice cracked, and before he could say anything else, she hung up.

  30

  “SIR.” THE CONCIERGE, A SMALL MAN in a three-button suit, waved frantically as Wells strode toward the St. Regis’s front door. “Good morning, sir. A moment, please. We are asked to give this to our American guests.”

  The concierge handed Wells a paper embossed with the State Department’s logo and headlined “Notice to Americans.”

  “Last nightthe U.S. consulate in Guangzhouwas informed that an American couple visiting China for an adoption had been attacked. The incident was apparently motivated by anger at deteriorating American-Chineserelations.” Bureaucrats and diplomats loved the word incident, Wells thought. It avoided touchy issues, like what had really happened and who was to blame.

  “So far this incident appears isolated. However, U.S. citizens should keep a low profile and avoid anti-American demonstrations”—good call—“andlarge groups of Chinese.” With 1.5 billion people in the country, that might be tough. “The situation is fluid and updates will be issued as conditions warrant.”

  “Maybe you stay in the hotel today, sir,” the concierge said.

  “And miss my chance to see Beijing?”

  “WHERE TO, SIR?”

  “Tiananmen Square.”

  The St. Regis doorman looked unhappy. “No cars in Tiananmen today, sir.”

  “Just have him get as close as he can. I want to see the Forbidden City”—the former Chinese imperial palace, north of Tiananmen. “Forbidden City is open, right?” It better be, Wells thought. He was supposed to meet Cao Se there.

  “Yes.” The doorman waved a taxi forward, but his frown didn’t disappear, not even after he palmed Wells’s tip.

  Wells wasn’t surprised to see that the cabbie had a soldier’s close-cropped hair. Everyone who left the St. Regis today would be watched. He’d have to assume that Cao had planned for the surveillance. Trying too hard to ditch his watchers would only draw more attention. Though if he could lose them without seeming to work at it, he would.

  “So what do you think about this mess?” Wells said to the cabbie. “I think we’ll work it out. In two years it’ll be like it never happened.” Jim Wilson was an optimist. Wells wasn’t so sure.

  “No English.”

  “Oh. Not that many Chinese speak English, I’m noticing. Course, I don’t speak any Chinese, so there it is. The language of the future, everyone says.” The driver just shrugged.

  As they moved west toward Tiananmen, the traf fic slowed to a standstill. Ahead the road was blocked and police were diverting cars off the avenue. Around them a steady flow of Chinese walked west. Wells saw his chance. He handed a hundred-yuan note to the driver and popped out, ignoring the cabbie’s sputtering.

  Wells picked his way through the soot-belching trucks, packed minibuses, and shiny black Mercedes limousines jammed together on the wide avenue. The sweet smell of benzene mixed with the stink of unburned diesel. He joined the Chinese heading west on the sidewalk, following the human current toward Tiananmen, and peeked back at the cab. The driver had a radio to his mouth, no doubt warning other agents to watch for Wells. Which wouldn’t be easy in this crowd. Mostly men, they had the same buoyant mood he’d sensed the day before. They waved Ch
inese flags and didn’t seem to mind having Wells among them. Two men traded a camera back and forth, snapping pictures, holding their hands high in a V-for-victory salute. Though Wells knew from his years in Afghanistan that under the wrong circumstances a crowd like this could become a mob in seconds.

  He felt a tug on his elbow. “American?” A tall man in a fraying blue sweatshirt pointed an angry finger at him.

  “Canada,” Wells said. No need to start a riot. He was taking enough risks today. His questioner pushed by and was swallowed in the crowd. After the next intersection the road was clear. Men surged onto the pavement. Police clustered around cruisers and paddy wagons, watching for trouble but not interfering with the flow.

  Farther on, a herd of television trucks sat close together, Chinese channels that Wells didn’t recognize, along with CNN, Fox, BBC, NHK. The wholeworld is watching.A company-sized detachment of soldiers massed near the trucks, to protect the reporters, or maybe to intimidate them.

  For ordinary Chinese—and their rulers—this moment had to be thrilling and frightening, Wells thought. Every person in this crowd was both a spectator and a participant in the action. They wanted to remind the world, and themselves, of that most easily forgotten fact: that they existed. Wells half expected to see Gadsden flags—the yellow banners flown by colonists during the Revolutionary War, emblazoned with a coiled rattlesnake and the words “Don’t Tread on Me.” The crowd was delivering that message to America. But their rulers in Zhongnanhai would have to hear it too.

  And yet... after the Tiananmen massacre of 1989, ordinary Chinese had given up politics and focused on the economy. Maybe this demonstration, big as it was, would be forgotten in a few weeks. Or maybe—

  “Maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about,” Wells murmured. He’d been in China not even twenty-four hours, didn’t speak the language, and now was forecasting the country’s future. Classic American arrogance. He ought to spend less time making predictions, more time figuring out if anyone was watching him.