Sea of Lies: An Espionage Thriller

by Bradley West

  * * * * *

  “Your Bulgarian has a nice umbrella,” offered the stranger sitting on a bench near Pushkin’s statue. The fellow had been there ten minutes earlier when Watermen had ambled past on the first lap. He was bearded, wearing a heavy, dark charcoal synthetic wool blend overcoat, cheap shoes, and a knitted Tibetan hat with the drawstrings hanging off the pointed earflaps. The ensemble screamed hacker.

  “Watch out for him. He’s really a prick,” Watermen said without thinking, trotting out Nolan’s old saying one more time. Watermen stopped in front of the vagrant’s bench and admired Pushkin.

  “The meet is still on for Friday in Colombo. Galle Road, Racquets Club terrace at 10 a.m. Ask for Vishnu at reception.” Watermen kept gazing at Pushkin, but that was the entire message. He recommenced his stroll and didn’t look back.

  Three laps later, Watermen was sick of Alexander Pushkin in the round and altered his course to take in a few more late winter sights. By the time he returned to his apartment, he couldn’t feel his cheeks or the tips of his fingers. But Godpa had come through, as always.

  * * * * *

  So much for sleep. Mei Ling managed a cumulative four or five hours out of the last thirteen-plus in the air. The movie selection was anemic, modern Mainland fare mixed with golden oldies like Crocodile Dundee and Where Eagles Dare. Her Navy SEAL autobiographical kill-all was formulaic. She didn’t have the urge to read about others’ tribulations. Some days just being a Nolan was all she could bear.

  Standing in the immigration line at Guangzhou Airport, Mei Ling realized she had taken a hell of a lot on trust here, although her father was not one to exaggerate. One thing Bob Nolan did have in spades was book smarts. Dad solved every math or word puzzle put in front of him with lightning speed. He loved ciphers, a passion his children lacked, and so he continued to collaborate with Watermen in trying to unravel the world’s unsolved mysteries of any particular day. He’d pressured Mei Ling until she could work a one-time pad and knew what a numbers station was. In the Nolan household, there wasn’t a clear distinction between code breaking and religion.

  Mei Ling remembered Dad’s advice when she’d turned sixteen: “Try to be more of a duck than a goose. The duck is impassive on the surface while her feet are paddling like hell underneath. A goose stands on the shore and flaps her wings to make herself look bigger. More duck, less goose.” From that date, Mei Ling viewed her father through a different prism that appreciated his situational cunning as well as his intellect. She began to see the pattern of playing dumb, staying calm when confronted and later acting decisively offline. After a psych class at Pomona, she concluded that Dad was classically passive-aggressive.

  Until that fateful day in Vancouver four years ago, Mei Ling had thought codes were only Dad’s hobby. It was then she learned that her lousy softball batting practice pitcher wasn’t an embassy IT geek, he was a CIA cryptanalyst. According to Mom, Dad had won a distinguished award for his exploits in a secret project that stretched over two years. This revelation came while they were driving from Vancouver Airport to the middle of nowhere to prepare their new rundown cabin for a life of anonymity. According to Dad, his secret project wasn’t a secret anymore. People from the Middle East were bent on killing his teammates, and if they could identify them, the Nolan family as well.

  A woman from Dad’s software group died recently, along with her husband. The Agency (a term she noted that Dad used with slight disdain) claimed it was an accident. The laws of probability governed Bob Nolan’s life. He didn’t believe chance decreed that a reckless driver on a rainy night would end that couple’s lives. Not when the other vehicle was a stolen brick truck and the perp fled the scene, leaving no fingerprints behind.

  “Someone is sending us a message, and we’d be foolish not to heed it,” said the Nolan patriarch as he activated a family safety plan he'd mapped out years before.

  Mei Ling finally made it to the front of the queue. In good English, the immigration officer asked her for her passport and forms. Mei Ling pushed them across. She wondered if she should risk trying to grab some free Wi-Fi. Maybe Dad had managed to send her instructions as to what she was to do next? Better wait, she figured. No need to start violating laws before she was officially in the country. She felt a tap on her shoulder and turned to her right to find a stern-faced man in uniform. Then someone grabbed her left arm above the elbow. She stifled the impulse to break the hold and throw the man to the floor.

  “Mei Ling Nolan?” asked the right-hand side man.

  “Yes, that’s me.”

  “Please come with us. We have questions about the reason for this visit to China.” With that cue, the soldier on her left guided her past the immigration counters and into a waiting office.

  Wonderful. Just frigging outstanding, Mei Ling thought as she feigned a shrug and walked as casually as she could, keenly aware of the stares from foreigners and locals alike. She put her free hand in her pocket and winnowed out her cell. Unlocking it with one hand, she hit the “send” icon on the text she’d composed fifteen minutes prior. Not knowing what might go wrong once she’d deplaned, she’d typed, “Help Dad, bad things are happening to me at the airport,” and left the messaging application open in case this situation came to pass.

  What her father could or would do about it was another thing altogether.

  * * * * *

  The bedside clock blinked 18:01. Nolan had just enough time to clear his head before the big run. He froze when he saw Mei Ling’s text. What did he do now? If he pulled a no-show in Sri Lanka, godson Mark was dead. However, current plans didn’t allow for a flight from Sri Lanka to China. Not unless he was defecting, and that wasn’t in the cards.

  The time stamp on the text message was thirty minutes ago. No need to reply. If Mei Ling was in custody, she wouldn’t be able to use her burner unsupervised even if it was in her possession. Once Constantine & Co figured out a Nolan family member—if not two—was being held in China, he’d be taken into custody as a matter of policy.

  The first order of business was to get out of the house. He grabbed his airplane carry-on backpack and opened the home safe. He didn’t want to leave anything behind. Video surveillance be damned; he needed those memory cards, too.

  * * * * *

  Yu Kaili was still reeling from the whirlwind events subsequent to the stormy Monday meeting. True to his bluster, Yi Xiubao wasted no time convincing President Gao to relieve Liu Zhenchang of his duties. Zhenchang, ostensibly retired, was now somewhere in the countryside under house arrest while his successor settled into his former boss’s office.

  Kaili was among the first to lose her job. From deputy head of Counter Intelligence to head of station, Singapore was a long drop on a short rope. The HOS Singapore role was not only a smaller job, but also arguably a more difficult one. Her predecessor lasted less than a year before being recalled yesterday. Rumor was that his career was over. It was all Kaili could do to get the lame duck to agree to six hours of handover meetings, such was his haste to leave this cursed island.

  Of all Asia, Singapore was the trickiest one for the MSS. Singapore was the US’s staunchest eastern hemisphere military ally outside Australia and Japan, provided a secure anchorage, and a repair and resupply facility for the US Navy’s Western Pacific and Indian Ocean fleets. America could not have undertaken the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq without Singapore’s considerable logistical assistance. As such, Singapore was a prime espionage target.

  On the other hand, Singapore and China were friends at the political and economic levels; neither country was particularly enamored of sloppy democracies, and both appreciated the other’s contributions to their respective nation-building efforts. Stepping into the Singapore station’s lead role was the equivalent of being assigned to the bomb disposal squad and dropped in the middle of an unmapped minefield. It wasn’t a question of if, just when.

  With all that swirling around in her head, she was perplexed by the Head of Station, Eyes-Only mess
age from Guangzhou branch in front of her. Why was the Guangzhou MSS communicating with Singapore on matters judged to be above Top Secret? And why should she urgently approach Robert Nolan, fifty-four, a CIA cryptanalyst, to discuss the possible release of his wife and daughter from MSS custody? His file showed him to be a pre-retiree on an ever steeper downtrend in a career scheduled to end on March 31. Only when she reread the cover memo did she see that the work name used for the signoff was Meng. That was one of Liu’s pseudonyms: the master still wielded influence, and if he wanted her on Nolan, that was all she needed to know.

  She picked up her office phone, so new to it that she didn’t know if she had to dial 9 for an outside line. She put the receiver down and instead used her new cell. She waited until someone finally picked up. “Hello? Is this Bob Nolan? Hi, Bob. It’s Mimi Chan. You may not remember me, but I’m an old friend of Shao Yin and Mei Ling from Guangzhou. Oh, you do? Well, that’s flattering. Would you be free for a cup of tea sometime this evening? Yes, that’s fine. I’ll see you in the lobby lounge of the Shangri La Hotel at 10:30 p.m. Yes, I’m sure I’ll recognize you. Just get a table for two somewhere quiet. See you soon. Looking forward to it.”

  She had four hours to discover Bob Nolan’s vulnerabilities and find out where the Shangri La Hotel was.

  For more on CIA black sites and extraordinary rendition, money laundering, The Secret Team and a boatload of SOL inspirations, oddities and trivia, download the fact-and-photo-packed Insider’s Guide to Sea of Lies.

  CLICK HERE FOR YOUR FREE INSIDER’S GUIDE TO SEA OF LIES

  JUMP TO THE CAST OF CHARACTERS

  JUMP TO ABBREVIATIONS AND JARGON

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  ON THE RUN

  WEDNESDAY NIGHT, MARCH 12, SINGAPORE

  Nolan booted up his compromised home PC while he rummaged through the family safe, bundling together extra passports and spare credit cards. Their absence would work as a mild diversion. While he couldn’t safely use any of them, he could sell them through an internet pirate site with any fraudulent use creating false trails. He powered up the spare burner from the safe. Good: almost a full battery.

  He figured his new work laptop to be the last unbugged device he owned. It could—and would—be disabled remotely at any time. On aching thighs, he squatted and sat on the floor under the built-in desk in his home office. If he was on candid camera, the watchers would take this as a signal to pounce. He logged into the Tor email account he and godson Mark used. Nothing from Watermen, but there was an email from Sergei with the subject line “Feet wet”—the signal that Nolan’s message had reached Watermen. Nolan completed the encryption and authentication sequences that transferred another ten Bitcoin of US taxpayers’ funds into Sergei’s outstretched palm before deleting the correspondence. As relieved as he was that Sergei had seen Godson, the message brought to the fore the Joanie/Mei Ling versus Watermen dilemma.

  His cell buzzed and he answered, but remained mute. On the line a husky Asian female voice greeted him with, “Hello? Is this Bob? Hi, Bob. It’s Mimi Chan.”

  * * * * *

  Millie sat in her cubicle and forwarded the email to Nolan. Frank Coulter was flying from San Francisco through Sydney and on to Darwin, before ending up somewhere called Kununurra in the outback of Western Australia. Her internet connection died as soon as she clicked “send.” Seconds later, two security types were standing behind her chair.

  “Millicent Mukherjee?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Gerald Flynn, head of security. This is Agent Walker. Please leave everything in place and make certain your desk and cupboards are unlocked. Hand me your access token and cell phone. Come with me. Director Constantine needs to see you in his office right away.”

  This wasn’t good. Agent Walker was already in her chair, scrolling through the inbox.

  As she walked away, a chorus of whispers rippled through the bullpen.

  * * * * *

  You played the hand you were dealt, and he now held the China card. Cameras be damned; he fetched the three fishing lures secreting the microSD cards. Two went into his pants pocket. Nolan was grateful that he’d had the foresight to put on plastic hook covers. He fished the minuscule memory sliver out of the third lure and encased it in two tiny re-sealable plastic bags commonly used by gem traders.

  Logging on to the Agency laptop one last time, he wrote a short email to his family. Maybe only Bert would ever read it. What else could he write other than he had found out the truth about MH370 and the CIA was pursuing him as a criminal as a result? He closed with I will help when I can, but I’m afraid you can’t rely on me for much right now. Love you guys. Frustration welled within him at the impotence of that pathetic signoff. He vowed to do better.

  Nolan scanned the Agency inbox. Still no interrogation transcript from Hecker. That was too much to ask for from a man who might have a career after today. Millie’s email popped onto the screen and received a ten-second scan. Australia? What in the hell was Coulter doing in a flyspeck like Kununurra? He would have understood if he had headed to Perth where the MH370 search team was headquartered. Kununurra was well inland and nowhere near the offices of CIA sister agency ASIS or even FBI-like ASIO. Kununurra sat at the edge of the Martian landscape that was the Kimberley, so it wasn’t an interagency golf outing that had brought Coulter across the Pacific. What was he up to?

  Nolan unplugged the one-terabyte portable drive taped to the back of the laser printer nestled in a bookshelf cubicle. He had a customized USB cable and cloaked software. Short of pulling the printer out of its cubbyhole, there was no way of knowing he was running a spare backup disk drive and a laser printer off a single USB port. He dropped the drive into his travel backpack. The home office PC was next to be decommissioned. Opening the metal CPU cabinet with care, he removed the hard drive module. He did the same thing with the Agency notebook, tiny screws slowing him down as he scrambled to take the Dell apart. Under the bathroom sink, he found the quart container of muriatic acid kept for such an eventuality. He opened the bathroom windows wide, dampened his handkerchief and slapped it across his nose and mouth. Into the sink went both hard drives, side by side. He poured acid over the casings until they were fully submerged, fumes burning his eyes. Nolan backed out of the bathroom, closed the door behind him and gasped for air.

  He pulled the SIM card and battery from his cell phone and threw a Hawaiian shirt, clean tee shirt, underwear and socks into the backpack. As an afterthought, he added a business class toiletry bag. It was show time.

  * * * * *

  Flynn frogmarched Millie into Constantine’s office, where Melissa and two preppie lawyers Millie didn’t know stood at the COS’s desk. Constantine glowered at her. “On whose authority did you use Nolan’s credentials to access Top Secret/SCI databases?”

  “No one’s, sir. Other than his.”

  Melissa said, “So Nolan gave you orders to conduct these searches and shared his passwords? What about the biometrics?”

  “The biometrics weren’t yet activated on his new laptop. He ordered me to do the searches. I wouldn’t have even thought to look into thirty-year-old files. Bob’s been chasing ghosts.”

  “I thought you were Nolan’s biggest fan,” Melissa said.

  “I was until I found out earlier today that he’s a traitor.”

  * * * * *

  He padded downstairs into the kitchen. The maid was out back hosing down the tiles. He looked in drawers until he found the plastic wrap, which he folded several times around the tiny plastic bags holding the microSD card. He placed the wrapped card, no bigger than a pants button, on the sticky side of a square of duct tape. Next he pasted his portable pension plan on the inside of a biking water bottle near the top, where the mouth widened slightly. He smoothed down the edges to ensure it was watertight.

  “Juanilla, can you come in here?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m going for a ride, but you are not to tell anyone that I took the bike.
Do you understand?”

  Sir looked about as threatening as a dead sheep. This was probably to do with the voluptuous Indian gal he had taken to bed two nights ago. “Yes, sir.” She handed him his cycling gloves and helmet from the countertop where they’d been airing.

  “I need you to do one more thing for me. Don’t ask why; just do it. Unlock the front door. Go up to my office, and count slowly to sixty. Then I want you to scream as loudly as you can, five times in a row. And stay in the bedroom. Some men will come upstairs and ask you questions. Tell them I left, but don’t say a word about the bicycle. Tell them you don’t know where I went.”

  “Sir?”

  “Go upstairs, Juanilla, and scream. Scream if you ever want to see Ma’am or me alive again. Scream as if our lives depended on it.”

  Maybe this wasn’t about Sir’s new girlfriend after all. “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Remember to count to sixty first.” He shouldered his backpack and put on the helmet and gloves. He walked out the kitchen door and slipped on the soapy tiles, nearly falling. He took his bike down from its hanger in the eaves and slotted the water bottle into the bracket. With effort he was able to lay the bike along the top of the wall that separated his house from that damned storm drain he’d crawled up and down twice before. He scrambled and clawed his way over, then wheeled the bike down the drain a few houses until he found the same wall he’d used on Monday for his escape on foot. He didn’t make a racket, and better yet, no one was looking out the window at the funny white man with a mountain bike.

  Nearby, someone began screaming bloody murder.

  * * * * *

  “Nolan has a copy of the NSA files Watermen stole?” Even Constantine was surprised.

  “He told me today at lunch that he was keeping them safe for Mark Watermen. I was going to tell you. I wanted to finish researching Frank Coulter’s whereabouts first, so Nolan wouldn’t punish me in case we didn’t meet or you didn’t believe me.”