Razing Beijing: A Thriller

by Elston III, Sidney

  “This means you want me to negotiate a two-month extension?” asked Joanne.

  “No,” Stuart replied, correcting her, “it’ll take two months to complete option three, the red-team blue-team competitive run-off. We’re planning on another four months to incorporate the results, assuming we produce any. If I were you, I’d start my negotiation requesting an additional seven month extension.”

  Lewis was apparently devastated.

  “Both phases together will add at least eight million dollars to the base program. There’s no reason for doing one without the other so we didn’t break the costs out separately.”

  “Eight million dollars seems a lot to spend to have two teams working against one another,” Lewis observed. Her eyes met Stuart’s.

  Perry seemed to share her sentiment. “I don’t know...”

  “Of course you don’t know, Ralph. This is a science project.”

  “I know that.”

  “Then you also know there’s no guarantee. I figure eight million dollars is better than the alternative of flushing everything we’ve already spent down the toilet.”

  “Steve?” Perry fixed his gaze on Reedy’s slouched form at the far end of the table. “What do you think?”

  “Well,” Reedy shifted upright in his chair. He gave a deferential little wave of his hand toward Stuart. “I can support option three. I only think it’s wrong to completely abandon our current approach.” Shrugging his shoulders, Reedy added: “I understand the constraints.”

  Perry cleared his throat. “Option three it is.”

  “Seven months!” Joanne Lewis erupted, as if now the burden to perform rested solely on her.

  “Begin right away.”

  “You expect me to deliver another seven months?” Lewis asked. “They’ll be more inclined to shut us down!”

  Perry stood up from his chair to signal an end to the meeting. Red faced, he managed to maintain his reserve while wagging a finger at Lewis. “I don’t pay you to complain. Get busy. Man the phone. Let me know what strings can be pulled, who the obstacles are. Call me tomorrow the instant you leave the meeting with Hobbs.” Perry paused to glance at the other three people in the room. “Stop bringing me excuses. Stu, I’m looking to you to pull this off.”

  49

  CIA DIRECTOR LEWIS BURNS summoned McBurney to his seventh floor suite. “What do you want me to tell Herman?” Burns asked.

  McBurney longed for the day when a request from the White House could be interpreted to mean simply what it said. The president’s national security advisor had called the director and ordered up a review of the national intelligence estimate on the Chinese petroleum industry—instead of McBurney’s missile defense briefing, which was nearly complete. As always with Herman, McBurney found it difficult to know whether or not the NSA had altered the agenda because of circumstances truly beyond his control. It was more likely that the administration, aware of the Agency’s precarious handle on China and still enraged over missteps in resolving the satellite espionage story, was simply warming up to drag him back and forth through the proverbial muck. The best thing to do was the only thing that he could, simply to grin and bear it. He’d dug himself out of credibility holes in the past. He could do it again.

  “Well,” McBurney let out a deep breath. “Let’s tell Herman to cram it up his ass.”

  Director Burns leaned back in his chair, eyes never leaving McBurney, cigar between his teeth. He tongued the cigar to the corner of his mouth. “If you complain long enough, and loud enough, the White House might stop asking you for briefings altogether. Is that what you want?”

  McBurney said nothing.

  “I suppose there’s no point in going to the Oval Office hat in hand for a slaughter”—Burns took another draw from his cigar—“which you can count on if we give them anything less than we agree to.”

  “What have we—”

  “I haven’t agreed to anything yet. SecEnergy will be there to handle the OPEC situation. SecDef, and I think SecState will be there. Herman, of course. All you’ve really got to do is pull together the existing estimate. I thought you might want to add some of that update from Rotger’s latest embassy pouch—only the stuff that NRO or any other source can corroborate, okay? What do you think?”

  “I’ll need Ross to help me.”

  “Done.”

  “OPEC...should we also prepare to cover Task Force status?” McBurney asked. “With the pipeline attack, and the oil embargo, we’re beginning to think that the subject of oil and Islamic-sponsored terrorism should be handled together.” Usually Special Agent Kosmalski conducted high-level briefings on behalf of the JCTF. McBurney was reminded of his last, rather heated exchange with his FBI colleague; he wondered if Director Burns was aware that the FBI was conducting an internal investigation.

  “JCTF and oil...sounds like a bag of worms. Fitz is the right guy to finesse something like that, only I’m sure bringing Fitz would only encourage a protracted debate about the Middle East. You’ll just have to handle any of that, but don’t prepare anything Task Force-specific. Herman was pretty clear about wanting to focus on China.” Burns removed his cigar from his mouth. “There’s something you should know. Herman digs in his heels whenever I suggest replacing you on the Task Force with somebody else.”

  When it came to Herman, McBurney’s instinct was to suspect an ulterior motive. “Even after the failed defection?”

  Burns laughed. “I love the look on his face whenever it comes up how they used military fighters to force commercial flights back to the ground.”

  “Has he indicated why?”

  “Actually, he claims to appreciate your Tel Aviv Station experience during a bleak period for our side and...what? Oh. Guess I forgot about all that.”

  McBurney realized his mouth was hanging open. He recalled as if yesterday the former journalist’s notorious vitriol, baldly partisan, directed at McBurney’s CIA after their 1982 Beirut embassy massacre. In his former role as a Washington political affairs correspondent, Tom Herman had led the barrage of unfounded allegations against McBurney and others in an attempt to repudiate the CIA’s assertion that had certain of their warnings been heeded, the massacre of more than 60 embassy personnel might have been avoided. He would forever see Herman as catapulting himself to journalistic prominence on the backs of hard-working and honest patriots. For a young and earnest operations officer, the false dialectic presented as fact to the American public had been a life-altering experience. Herman’s back-handed sarcasm had struck its intended nerve.

  “Perhaps that’s a bit disingenuous of Herman,” Burns observed upon reflection. “But he has acknowledged what other folks in town think, that you do a good job combining street-smarts with high-level analysis—uh, don’t look for a raise anytime soon.” Burns grinned. “So any way, you might consider cutting Herman a little slack. And don’t blame him for the agenda change—blame the OPEC negotiations. Word is they’ve completely collapsed. I hear the Venezuelan oil minister will announce another big reduction from oil tanker shipments to U.S. refineries.”

  MCBURNEY’S SECRETARY stood in the doorway waiting for the division chief to look up from his desk. He was just standing there, without saying a word, for fear of being accused of disturbing his boss.

  “What is it, Philip?” McBurney boomed, temporarily sating his sadistic streak.

  “FBI Agent Edward Hildebrandt’s on the line.”

  McBurney calmly placed his pen down on the desk. The final draft of his presidential brief was due for printing in less than two hours. If he was late with his draft, there would be no running out to the local copy shop.

  “If you like, Sam, I can ask him—”

  Hldebrandt...? “I’ll take it.” He picked up the phone. “Ed.”

  “Sam! Your man Friday told me how busy you were.”

  “I really only have a few minutes.”

  “We’ve had another incident in the Emily Chang affair,” Hildebrandt said right to the point
. “Do you recall the last time we spoke?”

  “Remind me.”

  “You returned from Mojave and suggested I get the company, uh, Thanatech, to list names of employees with access to the flight test and/or who had since resigned the company.”

  “I remember.”

  Hildebrandt muffled the mouthpiece of his phone and sneezed. “Shit! Excuse me. The list yielded a grand total of twenty-three names. Mostly dead ends, and of course this guy Stuart.

  “So I went back and asked Thanatech to expand the list to include dismissals for cause, medical leave, extended vacation and retirement and any reason for departure they could possibly come up with. Sort of peculiar the way it worked out.”

  “How so?”

  “It was Thanatech’s human resources office that pulled the information together. Turns out the plum that fell to the ground was the name of one Paul Devinn—the assistant director of human resources. A short time ago Devinn put in for a leave of absence to go off on a fishing retreat. But his overturned boat was recovered after a storm up in Canada. He’s missing and presumed dead.”

  “Foul play?”

  “A boating accident. I spoke to the Royal Mounties who investigated Devinn’s premises, let’s see...Lake Manitoba, that’s it, actually a cabin on a smaller lake near Lake Manitoba. Big storm went through last week, a lakeside resident found the boat washed up the next morning. Evidence suggests alcohol was a contributing factor. No body recovered yet—I guess the lake’s cold as hell, slows the decomposition process, or maybe an animal got to it. They seem to be convinced the disappearance is legitimate.”

  McBurney massaged the bridge of his nose. “I gather you don’t?”

  “I’m undecided. We went ahead and ran a cursory check on the guy. Sent an investigator out around town here. I’ll admit to being eager for a lead to break this case, but lo and behold, what we found appears to me a little too, uh, neat. Devinn took a two-month leave and left everything perfectly in order: paid two months advance on his rent, two months on his utilities, put a two month hold on his mail and his club membership, turned in his lease car—and that’s what seems odd. A visit to the lease company showed he canceled the lease with five months left on the contract. Why do that if he was coming back in two months? We’re talking about a Maserati—that cost more to cancel than if he’d just paid the two months. We’re ginning up a complete background check. Devinn does smell a bit. Ever heard of the United Socialist Front?”

  The organization’s name rang a bell. “That group of Wisconsin academics?”

  “Very good! That was quite some years ago that the Bureau caught ’em spying for eastern bloc countries. Marxists, right out there with the Flat Earth Society. Our man Devinn was a member while attending law school. We discovered his name among membership records seized when the arrests were made, and in fact, one of these convicted professors penned a letter of recommendation that Devinn be admitted to attend school there. We’re still investigating it, but I guess he eventually renounced the group over some sort of falling out. Otherwise, he has no rap sheet, some money, a couple of investments, which the state will appropriate because the guy left no will and seems not to have any heirs.”

  “How old was he?”

  “He was forty, which with the lack of heirs might explain not having a will. If so far none of that interests you, this should: State Department records indicate Devinn’s made twenty-six trips to Asia in the past eighteen years. China, Manila, Kuala Lumpur, others. Among these one extended three-year trip to Taiwan, during which he seems to have fallen off the globe.”

  “Try to find for which provinces China approved his visas,” said McBurney. The modern FBI had only limited jurisdiction to conduct investigations overseas, much as the CIA had no authority to make arrests, though there were legal attaché and State Department officials to whom Hildebrandt could turn. “I suppose you’d like some help finding out what he did while he was there?”

  “If that’s an offer, I’ll take it.”

  McBurney cleared his throat. “Anything new with the Chang woman?”

  “Two things. First, she’s taken a job where Stuart now works.”

  “Which might explain their telephone calls.”

  “Second, Miss Chang is considered a dissident by the Chinese government.”

  McBurney grabbed a pen to jot down Hildebrandt’s points. “Dissident—why?”

  “Because the government shelled out for her tuition bill, including two engineering doctorates from Stanford, and so it must’ve been a big one. Then she renounced her citizenship and refused to go home. They exiled her and pronounced her a dissident.”

  “Do we know why she renounced?”

  “No, and I’m still hoping that you can look into Chang’s background before emigrating to the United States.”

  McBurney closed his eyes—something else he’d forgotten to ask Ross to take care of. Worse yet, he was now sharing her talents with three other divisions. “I’ll have someone get back to you on that.”

  “We’ve also learned that Stuart has rung-up dozens of trips himself over the years, mostly China and Japan, all legitimate business-related or so it would seem. Get this: Stuart and Devinn were fellow students at Georgia Tech. And, Stuart had a hand in his hiring at Thanatech.”

  McBurney glanced at the clock over the door, did a quick calculation, clapped his hand over the phone and asked his secretary to ring Kate on the other line. He had no choice but to cancel their dinner plans. “Didn’t you have the Richmond office put Stuart under surveillance?”

  “Yes. He walks his dog with his daughter a lot. So far, that’s about it. Of course that might be, you know, ‘Here I am boys, I’m right here walkin’ my dog!’ He works at a technology company called Coherent Light.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “The Bureau’s processed background security checks for CLI personnel. They were also the focus of an intellectual property theft investigation that didn’t turn up anything. Stuart’s association with these cases might well be circumstantial.” Hildebrandt described a few minor implicating factors. “It’s all enough to suggest complicity at some level.”

  McBurney agreed. “But I have a hard time believing anyone would be stupid enough to run an espionage operation from within the targeted company, let alone two such companies in a row.” Having said it, McBurney thought suspicion of Stuart was probably not warranted. From a counterintelligence perspective, there were elements of Stuart’s profile that tended toward diminishing the likelihood that the businessman was agent to a foreign power. For one, it would be uncharacteristic of McBurney’s Beijing adversaries to entrust a significant operation to anyone not ethnic Chinese. Despite Communist Party pronouncements to the contrary, they were every bit as racist as they were paranoid.

  “If he is involved, he’s either a two-bit player or one very shrewd handler,” McBurney observed. “I’ll see if we don’t have a file on Stuart somewhere.” He glanced at his watch. And where in the hell was Carolyn Ross? “Just send me everything you know about these two guys. Include Emily Chang in that. Stuart works at some place called Coherent Light?”

  “It’s a high-tech outfit located just north of Richmond. They’re into a bunch of things, defense electronics, medical gadgets, satellite telecom.”

  McBurney frowned. “Satellite business?”

  “That’s right. The U.S. District Attorney just got us permission to wiretap Stuart’s residence.”

  50

  PRESIDING OVER THE CABINET ROOM from his place at the center of the table, Howard Denis rested the palms of his hands against polished walnut, his fingers drum-rolling the surface. His face looked drawn with strain and fatigue. The meeting of powerful bureaucrats had barely begun. Unable yet to gage the dynamics of positions for and against him, the president scrutinized the faces of Secretary of State Walter Laynas, CIA Director Lester Burns, and Chief of East Asian Affairs Samuel McBurney. Seated beside President Denis, his national security advisor busi
ed himself with an advance copy of McBurney’s brief.

  A gray and weary-eyed Adam Hoffman muttered his apologies upon finally entering the room. A White House steward promptly placed a saucer and cup before his latest charge. All eyes were on the Energy Secretary as he gazed into his coffee, stirring his cream—the sound of clinking china mingled with several repetitions of the President’s drumming fingers.

  Hoffman spoke somberly. “At ten o’clock this morning, Venezuela’s oil minister will publicly announce the cartel’s plan for another phased reduction, five per cent monthly, over each of the next three months.”

  The words achieved their impact as surely had they come directly from the oil czars all the way from Vienna. Upon leaving the assembly of OPEC ministers, Hoffman had warned the President not to expect a favorable outcome. The czars had abruptly ended talks in order to caucus in private, the disturbing conclusion of which Hoffman himself had not been apprised until his limousine breezed through the security gate at Andrews Air Force Base on his way to the White House.

  “Behold, oil as a weapon of war,” said the President. “Nice work, Adam.”

  The once-trusted cabinet advisor looked as if the President himself had just kicked him in the groin. Hoffman’s hands started to tremble.

  From his seat at the table opposite the secretary, McBurney actually felt pity for him. Rumors that the Denis administration had taken Hoffman to the woodshed, over statements conflicting with the President’s, were apparently true.

  McBurney’s charts would reveal that Hoffman had been given an impossible task. As best that the CIA or anyone else could establish—tracking tanker and pipeline distribution of world supplies was an indeterminate art—there was, in fact, an adequate supply of oil. Illegal collusion by the OPEC producers had very effectively limited world aggregate supply to nominal demand within plus or minus a couple of million barrels. But Hoffman had failed to convince the OPEC sheiks and mullahs that America did not harbor imperialist motives, did respect Islam, and did wage in good faith their Middle East foreign policy. For five years the OPEC cartel had rejected these arguments, gradually expanded their embargo, redirecting oil tankers eastward. Not including the future reductions, fifteen per cent or three million barrels of OPEC oil once delivered daily to U.S. refineries were being diverted to the Asian markets. New York Mercantile and International Petroleum exchange oil futures prices had tripled in the past year alone. Newly discovered oil from places like Brazil and the Gulf of Mexico gradually fed into the markets; OPEC either diverted or cut production an offsetting amount, and price remained high. The oil shock had trashed the U.S. economy. While America’s five percent of the world’s population historically consumed 25% of the oil, by doing so they also produced some 33% of all economic output. Now, they were stymied from doing either.