Brilliant New Light (Chance Lyon military adventure series Book 3)

by Van Torrey

  John “Blackie” Olyphant and Chance Lyon had begun their collaboration in a top-secret U.S. military operation two years earlier in the Iranian Desert, known only to a select few in the military, intelligence, and White House senior staffs, that had resulted in denying the Iranian government access to nuclear weapons by foiling a daringly conceived plan being managed by the highest secular levels of the Iranian government to obtain warheads from another nuclear power in the region. “Blackie” Olyphant had lost the sight of one eye as he led his Army Ranger platoon in the interdiction of a convoy carrying raw fissile material, which earned him his nickname he had carried since then, as one eye was covered by a black eye patch.

  Lieutenant Chance Lyon’s Navy SEAL Team had breached the Iranian top-secret nuclear research lab in a remote section of the vast Iranian southwest desert and managed to destroy a nuclear warhead at the site, not by detonating it, but by exploding its packaging and scattering radioactive material throughout the site, thus making it a Chernobyl-like contaminated site, uninhabitable by humans for years to come. Both men had been secretly decorated by the President, but had retired for medical reasons shortly thereafter. Now they worked as civilian contractors for the CIA and FBI in Chance Lyon’s SEALyon Security Consultant Group. Operation Hard Candy was right up their alley and the pay was a hell of a lot better.

  *

  Ray Rollins’ encrypted desk phone beeped, and he answered on the second ring. “Ray, this is Admiral Russell, I think we might be on to something relating to the Vancouver situation. Can you round up Director Mitchell and Director Wheatley and come over to NSA this afternoon so I can go over some intercepts with you in detail? There’s a lot of stuff here, and I would prefer to do it in this building.”

  “Thanks Admiral. We’ll be there at 1:00, can you provide lunch?”

  “The best cafeteria food inside the Beltway!” replied Russell.

  The conference room off the NSA Director’s private office rivaled anything at CIA or the FBI. State-of-the art electronic audio visuals, a long mahogany conference table with plush leather chairs, and remote control lighting commanded by the speaker at the podium gave the room a well-polished professional look. What the occupants of the room could not see, but was essential to the secrecy of the proceedings taking place there, was a shielding around the exterior of the room, built-in within the walls, of finely woven copper mesh, commonly known as a Faraday Cage. This shielded the room from any form of external electronic eavesdropping. The most sensitive secrets discussed there could not be compromised from outside the room.

  Admiral Russell convened the meeting by addressing his professional colleagues from the intelligence and law-enforcement community. “Thank you for coming over on short notice,” he explained. “Our computers have been working the Pacific Northwest very heavily. We have made some intercepts that are highly relevant to the interest we have in the suspected rogue nuclear device possibly controlled by agents from the DPRK around Vancouver, British Columbia, in Canada. The Admiral, true to his fastidious attention to detail, was careful to be formally specific about the location in question, even when everyone else would have been perfectly happy to refer to it as simply Vancouver. Situations like this were a constant reminder to every one of his peers that Russell was the ideal person to head this most secretive of government agencies.

  “As you know,” Russell continued, “NSA has an extensive database of voiceprints and other biometrics of nearly everyone on our various watch-lists and we are ninety-nine percent-plus certain that the person who is initiating and receiving a significant amount of cellular and landline traffic between Seattle and Vancouver B.C., is one Ibrahim al-Faisal, a former college teacher from Oregon and frequent hot-blooded firebrand lecturer at several Islamic mosques around Portland, Oregon. Based on his activities we have charted over the past two years, he has been placed on a Resident Alien Terrorist watch-list by the FBI. I asked you come here today so you could hear some of the raw intercepts we are analyzing.” Admiral Russell started the audio recording and a closed-captioned visual interpretation was shown simultaneously on the large video monitor at the end of the room, which also displayed a large photographic image of al-Faisal.

  For the next fifteen minutes the participants listened to a series of intercepted telephone conversations between al-Faisal in Seattle and his associates in and around Vancouver speaking about his obsession with trying to locate the North Korean agents who were hiding the nuclear bomb, and their simultaneous fixation on trying to track down the lone North Korean agent who was the technical link to being able to detonate the device. Al-Faisal continuously and angrily harangued his agents in Vancouver to redouble their efforts to find both of these targets so he could direct a strike that would give him both the nuclear device and the vitally important North Korean agent who could help them get the bomb to an important urban location in the United States and detonate it. By accomplishing such a monumental feat, al-Faisal would become an instant hero within the radical Islamic culture, revered for all time as a favored servant of Allah.

  As the recordings ceased, Admiral Russell turned up the lights in the room and remarked, “It is clear to me that the objective of al-Faisal and his group of merry-men is to wage an act of terror against the United States, if they can get their hands on the nuclear device and kidnap our agent, Gamma. Anyone disagree?” His question was met with silence from his colleagues in the room.

  “We could go on and on about this.” Russell continued, “We are continuously monitoring the situation and if anything more definite comes up, I’ll inform you. NSA has done its job here. I’ll leave the follow-up intel and law enforcement aspects up to you, my respected colleagues. How else can NSA be of assistance in this matter?” he concluded.

  Ray Rollins spoke up first. “Thank you, Admiral. We now have a valid person of interest and enough for a probable cause indictment, but I don’t think we’re looking for that right now. We’ve got bigger fish to fry than just that. What do you say, Director Wheatley?”

  “From an FBI perspective, the two most logical things we can do are place al-Faisal under surveillance and also hide a GPS device on his car. We can also elevate him to that prestigious position of membership in the No-Fly club, so his travels will be severely restricted. That will force him to use his car, or other surface transportation, in case he wants to go to Vancouver. This and NSA’s continuous monitoring of his telephone calls should keep focus on him.”

  Marilyn Mitchell was next to speak. “This information will be helpful to my people working on the ground in Vancouver,” she said. “We’ll put together a dossier on al-Faisal and FedEx it to our drop in Vancouver so my operators will know who they are looking for if he should show up wherever, if ever, a meeting between Gamma and the Koreans takes place. This is better than anything we’ve had up until now.”

  Wheatley continued, “One thing that could get a little sticky for us is the fact we are operating in Canada - a good neighbor and reliable military ally with whom we share a very long border. If nothing happens, or if everything goes completely according to plan and we leave no footprints, then there’s no need for any explanations. However, as all of us in this room know only too well, few plans are without flaws. What we have here, with our sole knowledge of agents from the DPRK possibly concealing a nuclear weapon in one of our border countries - indeed, one that did us a major solid during the Iran hostage crisis of 1980 - and agents of the United States operating covertly within their country to foil this threat without prior consent or even consultation with Ottawa - is fraught with peril on several fronts. The President has spoken on this, so it’s a calculated risk we’re taking, not a reckless miscalculation. But it underlines the need for all of our planning and execution to be absolutely spot-on, with zero margin for error.”

  *

  Peggy left the CIA safe house and wove her way into the busy morning freeway traffic. She passed the exit for Vancouver International Airport, and then made an abrupt exit fro
m the middle lane onto the next exit, doubling back toward the airport, just in case she was being followed. Pulling a rolling overnighter, carrying a sack purse, and wearing jeans and a Vancouver Canucks ball cap, she looked like a young woman heading off for a weekend of fun as she boarded the inter-terminal bus from the long-term parking lot. Inside the Air Canada terminal she headed for baggage claim and waited for the arrival of Miss Joon from Toronto. Both women had studied images of each other prior to her arrival. When Miss Joon picked her bag off the carousel she followed Peggy, who had brushed against her in the scrum of people grasping for their bags, and followed several steps behind as she pretended to make a call on her cell phone. Both women boarded the inter-terminal bus, and Miss Joon took her cue from Peggy, getting off the bus at the same time as Peggy exited. Miss Joon stayed at the bus stop while Peggy went to the car. Peggy waited for ten minutes until the next bus arrived and then pulled up to the bus stop immediately after the bus pulled away while there was still a group of people moving away toward their vehicles. In a brief moment, Miss Joon threw her bag into the back of Peggy’s vehicle, and the two were on their way.

  “Hello Ms. Joon, I’m Peggy, your driver while you are here in Vancouver. I’ll take you to your hotel now.”

  The prearranged signal between the two women was Peggy would follow that with, “How well do you know Vancouver?”

  “Ms. Joon’s obligatory answer was, “My first visit here, I’m connecting with friends who are arriving from Seoul later tonight.”

  Satisfied that Ms. Joon was, in fact the correct person, Peggy continued with, “Your husband, Mr. Lee, will meet you in the bar at six tonight so you can get to know each other. Just carry on the normal conversation that you have previously rehearsed. Tomorrow you take a cab to the mall near the hotel and I’ll meet you inside Victoria’s Secret at ten-twenty sharp. You can follow me to the car, and I will drive you and Mr. Lee to the office of the Korean Consul for the meeting. I will drive you both back to the hotel where you and Mr. Lee will have lunch. After that, you will be on-call if certain things develop as we hope. Let us know by texting to the number you have been given if you suspect anything unusual.” In a few minutes Peggy dropped off Miss Joon at her hotel and drove away, taking a meandering route through several residential and commercial areas back to the safe house.

  *

  Jung Joon-ni, alias “Miss Joon”, and Peggy Williams, a.k.a. Peggy, were both rookie CIA covert agents working their first solo assignments after their rigorous training at the CIA Farm, as it had come to be known, in Virginia and elsewhere. Peggy Williams had been in the top five-percent in her class at the United States Military Academy at West Point, where she had majored in international relations. After serving her mandatory five years as an Army Intelligence Officer, she had applied for a job at the CIA and had been accepted into the covert operations training program by virtue of her education, exceptional service record, and language (French and German) skills. Although she had been assigned to Vancouver as manager of the safe house there, Operation Hard-Candy was her first team operation. When asked by the veteran Max Jenkins whether she was nervous about the upcoming assignment, she replied, “Apprehensive...a little, scared...no, not with you guys! Just hoping I don’t screw up.” Max replied, “Just react the way you’ve been trained at The Farm, not how you used to think before that.”

  Jung Joon-ni was an obvious candidate for the CIA covert operations program. A star athlete (track and volleyball) at USC, she was an accomplished pianist and was fluent in many dialects of the Korean language, as well as Mandarin Chinese. She came from a wealthy family in the California Bay Area where she had many advantages as a child and young lady. Privilege had not rubbed off on her and she insisted on applying to USC and Stanford based on her scholastic and athletic qualifications. She was accepted at both schools, but chose USC because they offered her both academic and athletic scholarships. Jung Joon-ni’s passion for competing motivated her to being the very best at anything she tried. After her acceptance into the CIA covert operations training program, her mentor, another female agent, remarked, “Joon-ni, the only thing that might get in your way here are your physical assets. Women with your beauty are seldom successful here.” Joon-ni quickly replied, good-naturedly, “I hope they won’t hold that against me. That’s always a handicap I’ve had to overcome.”

  *

  General Kim made a telephone call to the Korean Consulate from a pay phone in a hotel lobby in Vancouver and made an appointment for the following day at eleven A.M. The next stop was to a tailor in the Chinese section of Vancouver to have two suits altered to make them a perfect fit for General Kim, to show him off as a finely clothed international banker that was his cover. After selecting three fine dress shirts and ties, along with two pair of Allen Edmonds Park Avenue Cap toe oxfords, one black and one deep mahogany, at an upscale Vancouver men’s store, it was off to a gentleman’s barber shop for finishing, all the while accompanied by and protected under the watchful eye of Peggy. Late in the afternoon they picked up the new suits and made their way back to the safe house so General Kim, alias Mr. Lee, could freshen up for his first encounter with Miss Joon.

  Kim was a seasoned traveler, although he had not been to North America. Peggy had schooled him in American customs until he felt confident in meeting Miss Joon alone and not standing out obtrusively in a hotel bar and restaurant environment. In a cosmopolitan city such as Vancouver, the two ethnic Koreans would appear to be just another Asian couple among the many thousands who populated Canada’s Western gateway.

  General Kim had studied photos of Miss Joon and recognized her immediately when he entered the spacious lobby of the Fairmont Pacific Rim, overlooking Vancouver harbor. He momentarily marveled at her understated beauty and confident poise as she rose to meet him. He offered a single hug as one would expect from a life partner. Responding in role, Kim pulled away gently and kissed her lightly on the cheek, as he assessed her athletic, but trim, figure.

  “I’m so happy to see you, darling,” Kim spoke in Korean, as Miss Joon responded in kind.

  “Shall we have a drink in the bar before having dinner?” she asked gently. “I took the liberty of making us a reservation for dinner hoping you wouldn’t be delayed. We have plenty of time.” Anyone carefully observing would believe they were a couple very accustomed to each other’s company. As the two made their way to the bar, General Kim was taken by Miss Joon’s elegant movements that complimented her finely tailored dark suit and expensive leather pumps accentuating her slim, finely curved legs. The American CIA certainly picked a beauty for this assignment, he thought. I wonder if she has the brains to match.

  Both resisted the natural inclination to make ad-libbed small talk and stuck to the scripted conversation designed to bolster General Kim’s cover of being a representative of a Swiss banking house traveling in Canada with his wife on a combination business and pleasure trip.

  “You remember the Korean gentleman we met at the stopover at the Haneda airport in Japan? I wasn’t overly concerned when we missed connecting with him here in Vancouver when our flight was delayed. But when I tried his phone number and email address from his business card the phone rang without being answered and the email I sent got kicked back to me as undeliverable. Now all I have is a name. But he did tell me that he had business in Vancouver and was planning to be here for several days. He also said he had connections with some Canadian mining companies who might become clients of the bank. I’m very interested in connecting with him.”

  “But with only a name and a city as large as Vancouver, how can you make the connection?” replied Miss Joon, staying on script.

  “It won’t be easy,” continued General Kim, “but that is why I have made an appointment with the Korean Consul tomorrow at eleven. It is important that you accompany me and meet the Consul with me. As I have frequently told you, you are my biggest asset when it comes to the social aspect of my business relationships,” the general said as he look
ed fondly at Miss Joon and toasted her from across the table with his glass of wine. “My business success would not have come as easily without you.”

  “Thank you, darling,” replied Miss Joon with a demure smile. “It is I who have benefited from your business prowess.”

  The conversation continued with Gamma explaining to Miss Joon that he hoped that the Consul, capitalizing on his multiple connections within the Korean expatriate community in Vancouver, would be able to get a message to the man in question to affect a reconnection.

  Gamma’s cover story was that he was convinced the mysterious Korean could be the key to Mr. Lee’s banker-character connecting with wealthy Canadian mining entrepreneurs as fruitful clients for his Swiss bank employer. What Gamma did not tell Miss Joon was that he intended to prime the pump by offering the Consul a substantial gratuity if he could arrange the connection, a connection Gamma and the Americans hoped would be the key to Gamma infiltrating the Korean terrorist group.