by Ian Williams
“Well, that’s just great,” said Morgan.
“I’ll spare you the details for now, but it turns out that Mr Fang has serious Triad connections. The Colonel’s connections are just plain serious. And they represent two Party factions that are virtually at war with each other.”
“You’re right,” said Morgan.
“About what?”
“To spare me the details.”
Morgan said there was something else that Drayton needed to know. And he told him about the message from his wife, sent as a private message to his Twitter account, though without identifying the account to the American. Still wanting to protect his alter ego.
“I thought at first that she must have seen the massage video, that somebody had sent it to her. But now I’m not so sure. I know it sounds a bit silly, but I think the authorities, the public security people, they might be holding our son and using him to get information from my wife. Information about our work for you, Chuck.”
And Drayton said that didn’t sound silly at all, his mind racing.
Then Drayton said the priority had to be to get Morgan somewhere safe, maybe to the consulate in Hong Kong; Morgan replied that right now he was in the safest place he could be.
“How’s that?”
“This place is open twenty-four hours a day. It is extremely discreet. No registration. Generally, they prefer you not to stay for periods of more than twelve hours at any one time, but they are highly flexible and have plenty of rooms for hire, comfortable rooms by the hour. They’re happy just as long as you are availing yourself of the services and tip generously.”
“Which you are?”
“Naturally.”
“So the ideal way to disappear.”
“For the moment.”
Drayton said he needed urgently to get back to Shanghai and that he’d be in touch. Then he eyed Morgan in a way that made the Englishman a little uncomfortable, sizing him up, then saying, “Can I borrow your trousers, shirt and jacket?”
Morgan said sure, he could keep them, and gave Drayton his locker key. He said that the Casa do Prazer would order in some more for him.
Morgan said he could be reached on the number from which he’d sent the message about the sauna. It was an old Nokia with a local pre-paid card, anonymous, which he showed to the American.
“Very good,” said Drayton. “You’re learning.”
“Otherwise call the sauna and ask for Gerald,” said Morgan.
“Gerald?”
“Yes. That’s how they know me here. Who would you like to be?”
Drayton said he’d stick with Chuck.
“One more thing,” Drayton said. “When you sent that message, how did you know I was in Macau?”
“I didn’t. But I figured that if you weren’t you would be soon.”
“Are you sure you’ll be okay here?” Drayton asked.
And Morgan said yes, he’d cope.
– 38 –
Up the Garden Path
Drayton had to assume he’d been compromised, that Chinese security now knew about him and his interest in Colonel General Chen Shibo and his recently deceased Ferrari-loving son, and that they were aware of the information he’d been given by Morgan.
He didn’t discount the possibility that the message Morgan had received from his wife was just something personal, that somebody had shown her the video, that she’d done the due diligence on her husband and didn’t much like what turned up.
But if that was the case, she probably wouldn’t have cared less who saw the message. Instead she’d used the most secure messaging she had available. He had to plan for the worst. He couldn’t afford to take any chances.
What was harder to judge was whether the wider operation had been compromised too, whether they’d discovered The Facility. He’d need to talk to Dave, have a round-table with the other agencies. He’d have to fill them in and they’d have to make the call on whether to wind it up.
Cyril was waiting for him when he landed back in Shanghai and they headed immediately towards the North Bund. Drayton’s phone rang just as soon as they hit the expressway to the city.
It was Luis Acevedo, the Macau investigator, sounding upbeat.
“I’ve got some news for you, which I think you’ll be pleased with.”
“Tell me,” Drayton said.
“The body fished from the water, it wasn’t your friend,” Acevedo said, telling Drayton he’d got sight of the original report.
Drayton didn’t mention that he’d just seen Morgan, thinking it was unnecessary detail and not really trusting the phone line. He just said thanks, that’s really good news and did he have anything on who the drowned guy was?
“Three Finger Fang,” Acevedo said. “Badly chopped, but definitely Fang.”
Drayton asked who might have done that, and Acevedo said well, where do I start? The guy had a shed-load of enemies. But he said it was most likely Fang’s associates, none-too-happy about having their names and Caribbean plans plastered all over the internet.
“Maybe somebody wanted it to look like a Triad attack,” Drayton said. “It was you who said they usually maim, not kill.”
“Usually, not always,” Acevedo said and hung up.
“Sounds like a fun time in Macau,” said Cyril, which Drayton ignored since, the way he saw it, that was none of Cyril’s business and he couldn’t recall ever telling the driver that he’d been to Macau.
Instead he borrowed Cyril’s phone, which he then used to call the Casa do Prazer and asked to speak to Gerald. A woman told him that right now Mr Gerald was receiving therapy. Drayton said he didn’t want to disturb that, but could she pass on a message. From a friend.
“Tell him Mr Fang won’t be swimming in the Caribbean. That he took a dip in the Pearl River Delta instead.”
“Is that it?” said the woman, expecting more.
“That’s it,” said Drayton. “He’ll understand.”
Cyril dropped him at the usual spot near the river where, unseen by Drayton, a newly installed surveillance camera, high on the roof of a riverside warehouse, followed him as he crossed the road and into the narrow streets leading to The Facility. Another picked him up as he approached the old twelve-storey building that was home to Shanghai TT Logistics, and where he took the creaking lift to the top floor.
When Drayton arrived at The Facility, he was surprised to find it was all high-fives and back-slapping. Even Tom had cracked a beer. Team Panda was moving out, closing down, and the NSA duo would soon be on a plane home. Job well done.
They told Drayton that events had moved fast since the worm began to talk, and Tom and Dick had quickly come up with four additional names of military officers working out of the white low-rise, which they were now calling Shanghai Cyber Command. The US government had moved with uncharacteristic speed too. The President’s visit was fast approaching, and a US Grand Jury had just indicted the four plus Colonel General Chen Shibo for computer hacking and economic espionage directed at a string of US companies.
“For too long, the Chinese Government has blatantly sought to use cyber espionage to obtain economic advantage for its state-owned industries,” said the FBI Director when the indictment was announced.
For good measure, an overseas Chinese website with close links to US intelligence reported that Chen was the father of the dead Ferrari kid. The detail about Chen’s political links and the business dealings of his son left Drayton in no doubt that the site had been given access to Morgan’s document.
It was quickly picked up by the mainstream media, starting with a lengthy front-page article in the New York Times under the headlines, “Saga of Cyber Espionage” and “Sleaze Goes to the Top”.
Drayton admired their tactics. It was clever politics. A shot across the bows before the Presi
dent’s visit. The charges would never stand up in court. The attacks had been routed through computers across the world. Digital forensics was tough, and he knew the NSA would be reluctant to provide what proof it did have, not wanting to reveal its methods and capabilities.
And in any case, China would deny it and would hardly hand the men over.
The indictment was a way of sending a message saying, we know what you’re up to, rein it in. And the Chen sleaze stuff would just rub salt into the wounds.
Dave said there was something else. Based on information from the worm, they’d been able to block on national security grounds the takeover by a specially created Chinese shell company of a strategically important company in Montgomery, Alabama. Dave said the company made garden gnomes and light fittings.
“How are garden gnomes strategically important?” Drayton asked.
Dave said the gnomes weren’t important. That China was after the advanced engineering processes they used. 3D printing and all that, which had been licensed by the Alabama company to several defence contractors. He said the company’s computers had been hacked, and they in turn had passed on the infection to the defence boys.
“Wow,” said Drayton. “Do we know how the Alabama company got infected in the first place?”
Dave said he wasn’t sure, that the company wasn’t cooperating.
“The owner, a guy called Bud, he’s in denial. Says it wasn’t him that was hacked. Thinks we are all paranoid, and it’s some giant conspiracy by the US Government.”
“Sounds familiar,” said Drayton.
He then looked at the new information on the other four hackers. It seemed pretty thin. Sure, the worm had delivered their names, but there wasn’t much else to go on. Dave said they’d not been able to find anything more about them online. Commissioning Morgan and his wife to do some further digging would have been the way forward, but that was no longer an option.
Drayton could understand the urgency, DC wanting the indictment out before the President’s visit, to focus minds, but he’d have preferred to have more before going public. Instead there was nothing on their military careers or anything else for that matter. It was as if they didn’t exist.
And he had a gnawing feeling that something wasn’t quite right. That the worm might have been led up a very muddy garden path. But that wasn’t something that could be easily brought up with Tom and Dick, for whom the worm was infallible, almost family.
And that wasn’t all. Perhaps it was because he’d been away for a few days, which had heightened his paranoia, but the outside office looked a little different too. The picture of the Bund was hanging at an angle and the fish tank had been moved, just slightly.
There was a toy in the tank too, which Drayton hadn’t noticed before, a shark with big jagged teeth, its open mouth above the fetid water that contained no fish to chase. Drayton looked at the shark, then picked it out of the tank, shining a light from his iPhone into its mouth. Which is when he saw the lens of a tiny camera.
The watchers were being watched.
Drayton placed the shark back in the tank, this time pushing it face down and deep into the filthy water from where it wouldn’t be seeing much at all. There was no evidence that whoever had planted the camera had got into the back room, which was now being cleaned up by a pair of technicians from the consulate, returning the office to normal.
Drayton told the others he’d make his own way back to the consulate, deciding to keep the discovery to himself for the moment. It wasn’t exactly what anybody would want to hear right now. Not in the Bubble Room. But he’d have to tell them. Team Panda had been compromised.
Tom and Dick met Cyril in the old taxi at the usual rendezvous point near the river and they drove back down past the Shanghai Glorious Shipping Company building where a protest seemed to be flaring up again. A big one this time. Tom lowered his window for a better look as the car slowed, traffic forced into a single lane on the far side of the road by the swelling crowd. Police were trying to force the crowd back.
“Wonder what that’s all about,” said Tom, more to himself and not really too interested in an answer, just focused now on getting home.
Surveillance cameras followed the taxi’s progress past the protest and down the Bund.
Once back at his hotel Tom told Dick he was whacked and would take room service. He lay back on his bed and reached to his side table for his iPhone charger, which wasn’t there. He thought that maybe he’d left it at The Facility. He looked for his spare and couldn’t find that either, so he rang Guest Services, and five minutes later a uniformed butler delivered a new charger. A local make, but it would do.
But when the charger was plugged in, it delivered a lot more than power, installing on Tom’s phone a piece of malware designed to monitor and take control of his emails.
Initially at least, the bug found itself in hostile territory: an NSA-issued phone with some of the best defences available.
While Tom slept that night and Washington DC worked, it being daytime there, Tom received an email from a White House assistant passing on the President’s personal thanks for all his efforts on what she called “vital matters”. The assistant said she was travelling with an advance team for the visit and could Tom recommend any good places to eat near the consulate. “I love Chinese food,” she said. “Especially crispy prawns.”
She sent it to his personal email, where his defences were much poorer, and where it was immediately grabbed by the bug.
By the time Tom woke, the bug had already organised a reply on his behalf, complete with attachment, a good-eating guide to Shanghai containing a smorgasbord of malware. By morning Shanghai-time, the attachment had been opened and shared by several of the assistant’s team.
For good measure the reply also recommended a takeaway near the consulate, for some of the best food in the area, and where Chinese cyber experts were already at work on the menu, infecting the crispy prawns.
*
When Drayton got back to the consulate he went straight to the Bubble Room, where a conference call was just starting. He wanted to raise his concerns about the cyber operation, that it had been compromised. He’d been rehearsing what to say on the way over, knowing it wasn’t what they’d want to hear.
“Hey Chuck,” said a voice from the NSA screen as he entered the room. “You guys must be pleased with yourselves. You certainly deserve to be.”
“Thanks,” said Drayton. “But about the other four names provided by the worm, I’d have preferred if we had a bit more on them.”
“For our purposes it’s enough,” said a voice from the CIA screen.
“We’ve sent them a clear political message,” said the White House screen. “The indictments are a great curtain-raiser for the President’s visit. And the President can follow that up. Put them on the spot about cyber spying.”
“You guys did a great job,” said the State Department screen.
Drayton said he had an uncomfortable feeling, and started to talk about the fish tank, but he was cut short by the CIA screen, from which a voice said, “Has The Facility been cleaned up and closed down?”
“All done,” said Drayton.
“Then relax. You delivered what we needed.”
“Let’s move on,” said the State Department. “The protest is really worrying. What’s it about?”
The consulate’s political guy said it was paralysing the North Bund, and was one of the largest the city had seen in years.
“So what’s their beef?” said the CIA.
Drayton said perhaps he could help, since it was close to The Facility and he’d witnessed it building up.
“It’s a shipping company, the one that owned the cruise ship that sank on the Yangtze,” he said. “It killed more than four hundred people, most of them children.”
A couple of v
oices said yeah, we remember that.
“Families of those who drowned have been going there every day for weeks demanding compensation and answers about what happened, but not getting either. They tried to occupy the place. Been getting pretty tense.”
Drayton said he could check it out, keep across it, and the State Department screen said sure thing and keep us honest on that, Chuck.
Which made him feel good, because Chuck Drayton was the man again. The shark with the camera between its teeth could wait. And his concerns about the names provided by the worm could wait too. The CIA was right, The Facility had now been closed down and cleaned up.
He got Cyril to take him back along that familiar route, but they couldn’t get near the besieged office of the shipping company; he had to get out on the main part of the Bund, where crowds were already backing up.
The families of those who’d drowned suspected negligence, with pretty good reason, since the ship had technical issues, and had sailed on into a storm while just about everybody else had taken shelter. But the company blamed the bad weather. It was rumoured to have links to local government officials, who’d promised an investigation and answers, but had delivered neither.
And now the families who at first had been welcomed and treated with sympathy were being ejected as troublemakers. Though it was proving hard to label distraught mothers and fathers that way, and their plight generated huge online support.
When parents were forcibly kicked out of the building, some beaten by police as they left, even state-owned news organisations called it a disgrace. And the images, captured by dozens of smartphones, went viral, shared by millions.
A social media site, We are all fathers and mothers of the drowned, was for a while the most popular on the internet, attracting millions of followers and comments. Mug shots of those who’d drowned were posted there, together with messages of sympathy and of anger. It quickly went from being a platform about the sinking to a broader call for social justice. Which is when it was shut down.
Drayton had followed highlights via the @Beijing_smog Twitter account he followed, though that account had suddenly gone quiet.