Rogue Empire (Blake Carver Series)

by William Tyree

  “It’s freezing in here.”

  “Request denied. Just make the call. One slip, one trick, and I will make your mother a widow.”

  Deep Anchor

  Speers returned to his temporary office beneath the Maryland countryside. He shut the door and pulled the blinds. Then he answered the call his assistant had held for him.

  “Blake?”

  “I don’t have much time.”

  “Where are you? You promised you would come in. They’re looking for you.”

  “I can’t talk about that. But I have a strong lead in the cyber attack on the New York Stock Exchange.”

  “Why – ”

  “I think we have a leak, Julian, and I can’t trust anyone else.”

  This was weird. Something was wrong.

  “Okay. I’m listening.”

  “You’ll want to write this down.”

  Speers wrote nothing. He was recording the call. He merely listened as Carver relayed the address of an apartment in Hong Kong. Carver then offered a few broad details about a defector from China’s cyber warfare division. From anyone else, it might have sounded semi-plausible. But it was hardly believable from someone as meticulous as Carver. Still, he had to be sure.

  “We’ll look into it right away,” Speers said. “And Blake, I have a quick question for you.”

  “We need a linguist on something fast. I’m looking for the name of that guy you hired a few years ago to decode Muskogee.”

  “Which one?” Carver said. “We had dozens of them on that project.”

  That was true. But only one of them had been any good.

  “I think he was a professor. Old guy. I’m thinking maybe he taught in Oklahoma, but I can’t recall exactly.”

  “That makes two of us. That was a long time ago. I just can’t remember.”

  That was the tell he had been waiting for. Carver couldn’t remember? Like hell. Carver couldn’t forget. Someone had put him up to it.

  Speers promised to follow up on the lead and hung up. Then he called Arunus Roth over in McLean.

  “We need to recon an address in Hong Kong,” Speers said without preamble. He read the street and unit number to Roth twice. “Send a canary. Someone low-level with experience breaking and entering.”

  “Okay then. I’ll see if we have any common cat burglars on the local payroll.”

  “Don’t be a wise ass. Just get it done.”

  “Yes, sir. But if I may ask, what are we looking for?”

  “Digital breadcrumbs linking the flash crash to China.”

  “Wouldn’t a cyber security crew be more fitting?”

  “Yeah, but I have a bad feeling about this. If our canary gets in, and he’s still alive 30 minutes later, then send a crew. But use extreme prejudice with anything you find.”

  “Got it, sir. May I ask where this tip came from?”

  “No. That’s all for now.”

  The Four Seasons Hotel

  Nico Gold had tried and failed to infiltrate the Reformation Party network. He didn’t understand. It shouldn’t be this hard. It was as if they had an entire army physically shutting down every approach he tried.

  Now he had resorted to an old matchmaking phishing scam. Crude as it was, he figured it might be the fastest way to earn the bottle of 1787 Château Lafite Bordeaux that Carver had promised him in exchange for his services.

  The concept was simple. First, he accessed a public list of the most common male name combinations in Japan over the past four decades. Then he wrote a program that appended those name combinations to the Restoration Party email address format [lastname].[firstname]@restorationparty.go.jp., resulting in some 114,000 variations. Finally, he wrote an email, translated it into Japanese, and sent it to the entire list:

  Subject: Lonely? Meet single women in your area now!

  Hi [firstname],

  Women in Kyoto and Tokyo are getting tired of online dating services. That’s why my 26-year-old twin sister and I left our modeling careers to start a new matchmaking service.

  Our goal? To introduce attractive single women to successful men like you.

  We only started 5 months ago, and we already have 103,000 women signed up! Click here to fill out your profile and start chatting with the woman of your dreams right now.

  So far, the email open rate was abysmal, at less than one-tenth of one percent. His spammy messages were getting filtered out by the truckload. What few broke through were probably arriving with an email malware warning.

  Still, wasn’t anyone over there lonely? All he needed was one person behind the firewall to click. He would still have tons of work to do, but that would provide his doorway into the entire organization.

  In the background, he heard Madge rise from bed and exit the bedroom. She came to him and rubbed his shoulders. “You’ve been at this for 37 hours straight,” she said in Etruscan, looking down at the dizzying array of code on his monitor. “Take a break. Come play with me and Olivia.”

  “What I need is for one of these stupid fascists to take an interest in the lovely single ladies who are waiting to meet them right now!”

  “Come to bed,” Madge insisted.

  At last, a notification popped up on the screen.

  ALERT: user shinzo.kondo 97@restorationparty.go.jp clicked a link. File uploading onto target machine.

  Nico turned, took Madge’s head in his hands, and kissed her noisily. “You’re good luck, my dear! I’m in!”

  Deep Anchor

  Speers, who had been pacing the floor since his disturbing conversation with Carver, answered the inbound call from Arunus Roth on the first ring. “The Hong Kong address Carver gave you checked out, more or less. The team went in about two hours ago. They’ve been transmitting a flood of files, and we’re going through them as fast as we can.”

  “Anything promising?”

  “We found exactly what you said we’d find. These people even hosted their own servers onsite, and the digital fingerprints linking them to the stock exchanges is clear as day.”

  “So the evidence is compelling?”

  Roth sighed. “To be honest, no. You said I should be extremely skeptical when evaluating these files, right? It’s too easy. I have a hard time believing that anyone who could actually do this would be so sloppy. Sir, I think we found exactly what somebody wanted us to find.”

  Speers had figured as much. “Sounds about right.”

  “And sir, if I may...I keep thinking about the way the second Iraq War started. I mean, I wasn’t even born when that happened, but we studied it in school.”

  “You’re making me feel old.”

  “That so-called evidence about Saddam having those weapons of mass destruction? Looking at the intelligence that’s coming in from Hong Kong, I would hate for us to make a big decision like that based on this. Know what I mean?”

  Speers did. He would hold this close to the vest. For now.

  Joint Base Andrews

  As Speers’ car pulled up to the second checkpoint, he was relieved to see Air Force One still on the tarmac. The massive Boeing VC-25 — which cost over $200,000 per hour to fly — would be leaving at any moment for the G8 in Tokyo. Speers rolled down his window and observed the security detail checking the underside of the vehicle for bombs.

  He spotted Hector Rios, the president’s Secret Service team leader, on the other side of the gate. “Hector!” Speers shouted. “I have to get on that plane!”

  The former NFL tight end-turned secret service agent crossed through the gate, towering over the young soldiers working the checkpoint. “Sorry for the trouble, Chief. We don’t have you on the passenger manifest. The inspection of your vehicle will take –”

  “Forget my car!” He pointed at a Humvee parked just inside the gate. “Just drive me over there yourself!”

  Speers got out, crossed through the checkpoint on foot, and got into the Humvee. Rios stepped into the driver seat. “No luggage?”

  “Just me.”

 
As he pulled away, Rios tapped his radio and called ahead. “Be advised, Supermodel is coming on board,” he said, using the codename his old friend had chosen for him. “Again, Supermodel is inbound.”

  “Can we revisit that during a quiet moment?”

  “I don’t think so.” Rios switched off his radio as they drove. The two men had been through a lot together, dating back to Speers’ stint as Chief of Staff in the previous administration. “Listen, Chief, can you do me a favor when you get on board that plane?”

  “Depends.”

  “They are expecting heavy street protests at the G8. Traffic will be choked off near the palace. My job is to keep the president moving at all times. But in a city with 35 million residents, with all those protesters, I can’t do that.”

  “If I have my way, the president won’t be going to the G8 at all.”

  Onboard, Speers found President Hudson in what was commonly referred to as the Oval Office of Air Force One, which amounted to a fully enclosed workspace. She removed her glasses and set them down on the wood, eyeing him with bloodshot eyes that told of a long night reworking her G8 agenda again and again.

  “Had I known you were coming,” she said, “I would have packed a case of lollipops.”

  “I’m not staying, Madam President. After you listen to what I have to say, my hope is that you’ll step off this plane, cancel plans for offensive military action against China, and return to Deep Anchor with me.”

  The president leaned forward, folding her arms on the desk before her. “I know you disagree with our strategy, Julian, but I need you to get on board.”

  “Please hear me out. There are new developments you should know about. First, I’m convinced that Blake Carver is being held against his will in Japan.”

  The president leaned back. Her mouth was tight across her face. “How is that possible? After he failed to report in, I told Chad to take him into custody.”

  “He’s still an American citizen, and he’s being held against his will. Worse, they don’t know he’s been exiled. They are using him to feed disinformation that deliberately moves us closer to war with China.”

  “What? That sounds crazy. Who’s feeding him disinformation?”

  Speers took a deep breath. “I believe it’s coming from Prime Minister Ito’s government.”

  The president shook her head. “You realize how insane that sounds.”

  “Yes.”

  “And what if I were to call Ito right now and ask him about these accusations?”

  “You would be putting us in a very precarious security situation.” Speers reached into his pocket and retrieved three sheets of folded paper. “This letter arrived by fax from the embassy in Tokyo this morning.”

  “Fax?” She took the letter from him. “What century is this?”

  “After the email hack last month, we brought a fleet of fax machines back from deep storage. They’re only used for the most sensitive messages. And when you read it, you’ll understand why I had to give you this message in person.”

  The president put her glasses back on and began to read.

  TO: Julian Speers, Director of National Intelligence

  FROM: CIA station chief, Tokyo

  This message is transcribed from a conversation with Ms. Eri Sato, which we have confirmed is an analyst with Japan’s Public Security Intelligence Bureau. She purports to have been with a former operative of ours named ‘Blake Carver’ until yesterday. We confirmed that Carver is former CIA, although his personnel file is currently restricted from access.

  Eva’s face twisted in incredulity as she skimmed the remaining letter, which in three pages, made a variety of incendiary claims against Ito’s government, finishing with a specific threat of presidential assassination at the G8.

  At last her eyes broke away, her pupils seeming to target her intelligence czar like the barrels of twin sniper rifles.

  Speers swallowed hard. “I realize it’s a lot to absorb, Madam President. I also understand that it is largely unsubstantiated. But I do think it’s enough to warrant slowing things down.”

  “Please! Do you know how many death threats we get every year? Thousands! I’m beginning to think that maybe I’ve got the wrong person running American intelligence.”

  “Maybe you do, Madam President. But please. Call the trip off. For your own safety.”

  “We’ve been over this, Julian. We can no longer be motivated by fear or political correctness. We have to act. We have to play offense.”

  The president’s desk phone buzzed. She answered. It was her chief of staff. “Madam President, we’re behind schedule. We need to go wheels up.”

  “I’m ready.” She hung up, and then looked across the desk at the person that had, as recently as last week, served as her most trusted confidant. “You have two choices, Julian. The first is to get off my plane and have your resignation on my desk when I return. The other is this – come with me to Tokyo and help refine our strategy. What’s it going to be?”

  Somewhere in Tokyo

  Carver ripped off a set of 100 sit-ups. Then he elevated his ankle once again. The swelling was finally going down. He was getting stronger.

  Could he fight his way out of this hellhole and get to the 18th floor of the Hotel New Otani in time to stop the assassination? If he was being honest, the ankle was at less than 70%. He did not even have his shoes. And there was absolutely nothing in the cell to weaponize.

  He decided to pray. It was the only freedom he had left.

  Minutes later, the cell door opened. Bright white light blinded him.

  The Eel stood in the hallway. “You have a dinner invitation,” he said.

  “With who?”

  The Eel turned toward the guards. “Get him cleaned up.”

  They helped Carver to his feet and led him to a room that was empty except for a floor drain, a hose and a series of chains and hooks dangling from the ceiling. He imagined the room had once been used to butcher animals. The guards cut his clothes off. Then they hosed him down with a high-pressure nozzle.

  They shaved the three-day stubble off his face before finally cutting his zip ties. He was given a new suit that closely resembled the one he had flown to Japan in. After dressing, he was, at last, given his shoes. Tying them, he recognized the weight and color of the paracord laces. Good. At least there was that.

  Once dressed, he was blindfolded once again. The guards led Carver down a hallway. “Now we climb,” the Eel said, and they ascended a staircase. They went up one flight, then another, and still another.

  As they walked, he heard no other people. No city sound. Just the rustle of their clothes as they walked.

  Before him, a set of heavy doors opened. Now they ushered him across a surface that felt smooth, like marble. The echo of their shoes on the floor told of a room with high ceilings.

  Now he smelled food. Miso soup. Rice. Pickled vegetables.

  At last they stopped. He was pushed into a chair. His blindfold was removed.

  He was at a formal dining table. Candles provided the only illumination. And sitting opposite was a man he had seen only on television.

  “Good evening, Agent Carver.”

  Akira Ito. The Prime Minister of Japan. The leader of the Kuromaku.

  Ito snapped his fingers. A waiter appeared and poured sake into two glasses. Ito picked up his glass up and held it before him. “To the G8! Kanpai!”

  The idea of drinking a toast with Ito was reprehensible. Carver imagined breaking the glass into shards and jamming them into Ito’s eye sockets. For the victims of the Chinese embassy bombing. For the sailors aboard the American destroyer. For Jack Brenner. For Fujimoto. For Eri.

  But you wouldn’t be killing him. You’d be martyring him.

  Carver raised his glass. “To the G8,” he said before drinking. The strong alcohol burned past his gums and down his esophagus.

  “Do you like the candles?” Ito said. “I prefer bright light, personally, but after your time in the dark, I
thought this might be easier.”

  Another waiter appeared and placed an assortment of sashimi before them. Thick cuts of mackerel, shrimp and tuna.

  “Dozo,” Ito said, gesturing at the premium nigiri before them. Carver watched as the prime minister pinched a piece of fatty tuna between the chopsticks, rubbed it lightly in the combination of soy sauce and wasabi, and put it into his mouth.

  Ito swallowed, then spoke. “Are you a spiritual man, Agent Carver?”

  “I’m a pragmatist. I choose to believe.”

  Ito smiled. “Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing.”

  “Pascal’s Wager.”

  “Just so. But I do not need philosophy to convince me that the spirit world exists. I was brought up in the traditional way, practicing Shinto. Some say it’s not a real religion because there is no book of rules.”

  “You strike me as the type who likes to make up his own rules.”

  Ito nodded. “Quite right.”

  “Prime Minister, would you mind telling me where we are?”

  “Ah. Forgive me, Agent Carver. You were incarcerated when the news broke. I’m afraid the emperor has died.” He gestured at the opulent dining room. “And this is my new home. The Imperial Palace. ”

  The American tried to mask his shock. If Ito was telling the truth, he had been held captive in an ancient imperial dungeon for two or three days. “I doubt the public will approve.”

  “As they will soon discover, I am the rightful heir to the throne.”

  Carver raised an eyebrow. He sipped his sake. “You’re even more ambitious than I thought. Are you going to tell me why I’m here?”