by Cole Reid
“Keig picked Lee for Caprice then ran Lee as his own agent?” said Kevin, “Or did he want to be a manager for Caprice and went scouting for his own recruit while supervising Khora.”
“I don’t know,” said Georgia.
“Why not?” asked Bob, “It was your project.”
“Khora was Mason’s project,” said Georgia.
“You do understand that it’s important to know what Mason did,” said Gael, “It could help us understand what he’s doing now. If he ran Khora as his own show he might be doing it again.”
“He ran Khora because I knew I couldn’t,” said Georgia.
“How’s that?” asked Gael.
“I’ve already said my idea behind Caprice was to have complete control, an unbreakable net,” said Georgia, “I would have handled the selection process with that in mind. And I would have fouled it up.”
“May I ask why?” said Gael.
“I would have looked for agents that I thought were easy to control,” said Georgia, “That wasn’t the point.”
“So you brought Keig in to look for wild cards,” said Bob.
“Yes,” said Georgia, “Like in Paul’s poem, Mason was the fisherman. He caught the fish. I made the net.”
“Why did you let him join Caprice as a project manager?” asked Ren.
“Professional courtesy,” said Georgia.
“You sure?” said Philip. Georgia ignored the question.
“He wanted to run Lee,” said Georgia, “I don’t know at what point he made that decision. But Khora took almost three years. After that job, I wasn’t going to turn him down.”
“He could have wanted to join Caprice all along,” said Edward.
“I don’t know,” said Georgia, “We’re here for fact-finding. There won’t be any speculation on my part about things I don’t know firm. But I do know Reagan Lee was the last pick for Khora. He was the twelveth of twelve to be implanted with a chip.”
“Well, what Mason did for Caprice is old news,” said Gael, “What he did on my project is end up in Venezuelan custody. We need to know if he’s still on our side.”
“Based on experience, he’s done something,” said Kevin, “I don’t think the Venezuelans just found him.”
“I don’t either,” said Edward, “How did he get kicked off Caprice?”
“We all got kicked off,” said Georgia, “Reagan Lee disappeared. He dropped off our grid.”
“How did that happen?” asked Edward.
“We don’t know,” said Georgia, “He found some way to deactivate his chip. We haven’t found him since. But that’s when the Agency pulled the plug. They weren’t going to pay $7 million per chip when those chips could be deactivated.”
“What happened to the other agents?” asked Gael, “The ones who were still on grid.”
“We gave them the red card,” said Georgia. The mood in the Room turned heavy.
“All of them?” asked Gael.
“All terminated,” said Georgia, “All but Lee.” The Room paused.
“Well, Mason Keig ruined your project,” said Gael, “We need to determine if he’s about to ruin mine and why he’s now in Venezuelan custody. In the end, we have to vote on whether to cut a deal for him or leave him where he is. For now, I say we take a break and clear our heads. But no one leaves the building. Keig’s smart. We need to see if we can figure out what he’s done. We’ll stop here and come back ready to look at this from a different dimension.”
Chapter Sixteen Dimension
The experience was something unexpected. The sunny California weather that gave songs their subject matter was missing. Mr. Li didn’t like reconnaissance in the rain. The Reis Center Building was a 42-story edifice located in downtown Los Angeles. The unusually heavy rain made Mr. Li’s photos look soggy. But he got his photos. The Reis Center Building had two corporate law firms, a national marketing firm and a credit bureau office that took up three floors. There was also a large auditing firm sharing the sky mezzanine with the people of Venezuela, not the people themselves but their wealth. Costas & Yeager was a private equity firm that managed public money. Despite claims of the United States being a hell-spawned society, Venezuelan President—Hugo Chavez—had his nation’s sovereign wealth fund located near one of America’s guiltiest pleasures, Hollywood. 308 billion dollars worth of sold oil was managed by Costas & Yeager on behalf of Venezuela, the firm’s only client. The firm had been setup solely as a front to invest Venezuela’s oil profits. To maintain the security of the fund they didn’t manage anything else. Like most private equity firms they transacted with little fanfare. For employees, working with Costas was the mother of all employment statuses. The firm was known for hiring the best of the best and showering them with compensation packages. There was also a deep background check. But turnover at Costas was like the leaves of an evergreen. There was no turnover at Costas. Employees had ultimate job security. There were strict confidentiality agreements but the pay was better than the job security. The entire fund was as xenophobic as anyone hiding billions would be. In fact, Mr. Li knew of the location only because the Agency had helped setup the fund.
• • •
The political sensitivity of the operation kept it from being widespread knowledge. The operation was off the record, leaving the fund undisclosed. The Venezuelan government acknowledged having a sovereign wealth fund but never said where—the truth. Caracas had a Ministry of Planning & Finance that operated the state treasury. The Venezuelan government had always said the fund was managed through the Ministry’s office. They were right to a point. Only select members of the Ministry office knew where the actual money was located. In reality, not a single cent of the Venezuelan people’s wealth was in Venezuela and President Chavez wanted it that way. The Venezuelan government wanted to have their finger on the trigger of the economy with zero chance of the bullet ricocheting. The government could devalue the Venezuelan bolìvar at anytime but all sovereign wealth was abroad denominated in dollars. In the event of devaluation, the people of Venezuela would scramble to convert their money to reserve currency. The government would in due course put controls on the transactions. Vendors would raise prices to compensate for the decrease in bolìvar value. The average Venezuelan would have to cope with jumping prices. The less than average Venezuelan wouldn’t be able to cope at all. But Costas & Yeager would transact business as usual, all in the name of the Venezuelan people.
• • •
Mr. Li found out about the fund from one of the agents who helped set it up, a woman called Mistinguett. When Mr. Li had taken enough photos of The Reis Center Building, he drove back to Van Nuys. He had rented warehouse space and was using it as shelter. He was operating on a truncated timetable. The project had a lot of moving parts and his objective was on the move. The Venezuelans had phoned the Agency to say they had a confessed American agent in custody. They also relayed information about a project that the agent was working on. They even referred to the project by name—Filartiga. The Venezuelans didn’t know how much of the information they could use from the agent so they were very general. At the same time, Venezuelan intelligence didn’t want to say too much and compromise their mole by revealing information the captured agent didn’t have. They gave enough to the Agency to be taken seriously. The satellite photos of codename Chessmaster were proof enough. And the Venezuelans had let the Agency take the pictures. The Venezuelans wanted the Agency to redirect satellite traffic. With a high-level agent in custody, the Venezuelans knew the Agency would cluster satellites over Venezuela. The Venezuelans put on a show for the Agency to photograph. Military trucks surrounded the compound where Chessmaster was kept. Heavily armed military guards were posted on every wall, covering every space. Venezuelan intelligence wanted the satellite photos to show a haunting fact. The only way the Americans could get to their agent was by going through Chavez’s strong arm. Whether it was at the prison gate or at the negotiating table, it made no difference to Chavez.
&nbs
p; • • •
Mr. Li was the difference. The Venezuelans were silent but would eventually want to talk. The Agency was looking into what their response would be. Neither side knew about Mr. Li, except for Georgia. Both sides were having discussions at the table with their own people before they would make a move. It was a chess match, an ironic one. Mr. Li returned from his reconnaissance trip of Downtown Los Angeles. He followed protocols as if it were a planned project. It was. And it wasn’t. The project wasn’t official. It wasn’t sanctioned. It wasn’t for the Agency. It was for the agent—Chessmaster. It was less of a project and more of a rescue mission. The idea wasn’t to get something but to get something back. And it was all in Mr. Li’s head. Even though his task was unofficial, he followed the rules. He didn’t go out. He bought food and water by the gallon. He paid in cash. He stayed focused as much as he stayed indoors. He had called a warehouse home before but it was different the second time around. He was far from Hong Kong and Catchick Street. In Van Nuys, the warehouse was next to a busy street, louder than Catchick. In addition to the noise was the space. As a child, Mr. Li lived in a warehouse for several months. His stay in the Van Nuys warehouse would be short-lived. He accepted it easily. The warehouse on Catchick Street had echoed the care and consolidation of Uncle Woo. The warehouse had been small but it wasn’t the size. It was the effort. The warehouse had been organized like a catalogue. The most desired items were the easiest to reach followed with the less desired stacked on top. It was marvelous in its efficiency. The warehouse in Van Nuys was empty. There were no shelves, no boxes, no organization—nothing to organize. The sounds of cars going by bounced around the empty space. The walls made it worse. They deflected the motor sounds like tennis balls. The warehouse was empty because it was for sale. But the US economy had been under water since 2008. In 2011, the economy was still damp in Southern California making it hard to find a buyer. Mr. Li was the second of two renters after the warehouse went up for sale.
Mr. Li stayed off grid. He was used to it. He purchased a used car, a 2003 blue Ford Escort and parked it inside the warehouse. For Mr. Li, staying off grid wasn’t a transition. It was a truism. He didn’t use the grid. Besides the Escort, Mr. Li put large plastic coolers with ice and equipment in the warehouse. There were six coolers in all. Most were filled with food. One was filled with glow sticks, batteries, candles, matches and a few flashlights. All were used as furniture. Mr. Li sat on one of the coolers while using another as a desk for his laptop. His bed was an assembled cot, freestanding in the middle of the floor. He uploaded his pictures of The Reis Center Building to his computer. The computer was the one thing he had plugged into an external outlet. Glow sticks were left on the floor as high-tech breadcrumbs. They were placed roughly six feet apart so the glowing shadow of one could continue with another. The glow condemned the warehouse. It didn’t get light from outside. It was somewhere in between natural and artificial—chemical. Like Mr. Li, the glow sticks were in an interim state. They glowed while they could but their glow would eventually die out. Mr. Li regretted it as well. He bought over two hundred glow sticks. He sat in his glowing world, separated from the outside.
• • •
The plane was a Boeing 777-200. United Airlines flight UA 499 left Hong Kong stopping in Tokyo’s Narita Airport before continuing on to Los Angeles LAX, logging over sixteen hours of travel time. They all traveled light, checking their luggage not to send up red flags. Huang Sitian and Yi Le were one behind the other. Wang Xi was next to deplane by about two minutes. Liu Ping and Li Tao sat two rows apart in the very back of the plane. A quick scan of the flight manifest would have been useless. Five Triads were aboard but the Transportation Security Administration didn’t have shovels to dig deep enough. They turned to the National Security Agency to dig the deep holes. The NSA was good at digging deep but wouldn’t be able to unearth the truth about the five men on board. The CIA had the shovels but weren’t digging in the right place. They had their hands full with Chessmaster. The CIA also would have been interested to know about the arrival of Mr. Li, but they didn’t. The identity of Alain Metayer was unknown to the Agency’s Herodotus Computer System. Caprice had special license. They’re projects were recorded but not system-wide. Only those with special access could open Caprice records. They were kept on their own server. No one had opened them for some time. Mr. Li was completely off grid and he knew it. And Mr. Li’s chip was no longer available to the satellite. Mr. Li was invisible traveling under a French passport as Alain Metayer. There was no bell to let the Agency know one of theirs had entered the United States. Mr. Li and the five men fell through the cracks.
Mr. Li had never lived by falling through cracks. His movements were decisive. The understanding always came before the motions. He had trained against reflex action; his mind was always on. His five cohorts who had called themselves The Sheltered Ones had let that name fade. It was a symbol and a moniker but they had lived long enough to know such things didn’t count for much in the end. It hadn’t spared them a single thing. They preferred their birth names. Those names had been recorded. They all accepted that they would die anonymously. And anonymous soldiers were exceptionally good at one thing, following instructions. They all went to the baggage carousel and stood in the crowd, apart. There was a camera watching the area but not even the trained eye could match them as one group. Each grabbed their bag as it came out on the carousel and proceeded to a preordained pick up spot. They didn’t even know who was picking them up. The Ford Escort came for Liu Ping first. The horn honked and Mr. Li took off his sunglasses. It was more curiosity that brought Liu Ping closer to the car, curiosity until he recognized Mr. Li behind the wheel.
“I thought you were dead,” said Liu Ping opening the door.
“I died,” said Mr. Li, “I came back.”
“How?” asked Liu Ping.
“I made a deal,” said Mr. Li, “With a devil.”
“Where have you been?” asked Liu Ping.
“Everywhere,” said Mr. Li, “Where the devil sent me.”
“You’re on the run,” said Liu Ping.
“Always,” said Mr. Li.
“Are we running now?” asked Liu Ping.
“No,” said Mr. Li, “Not now.”
“Where we goin’?” asked Liu Ping.
“Where I’ve made arrangements,” said Mr. Li.
Mr. Li took Liu Ping to buy another used car—a steel blue 2002 Dodge Neon. The deal had already been brokered. Mr. Li just had to pay his final installment and have Liu Ping drive the car. Mr. Li gave Liu Ping a driver’s license. The photo of the man on the license looked enough like Liu Ping. Weight loss could explain the dissimilarities. Mr. Li tossed Liu Ping a cell phone. The phone had a preprogrammed address on its GPS. Liu Ping’s instructions were to go get the others waiting at the airport then drive to the location programmed on the phone. Mr. Li took Liu Ping’s bag with him, leaving space for the other four men.
The wait was shorter than expected. Mr. Li heard rubber tires rolling over pavement outside the walls of his warehouse. He opened the side door to see the steel blue Neon driven by Liu Ping. Wang Xi was first to get out on the passenger side followed by Yi Le sitting behind him in the back seat. Liu Ping promptly turned the engine off. Mr. Li left the side door open and retreated back into the warehouse. Yi Le looked as if he had seen a dragon appear and vanish. He met the occasion with the same reaction to any supernatural creature—disbelief. The large white bay door flew up and the dragon emerged again, signaling to Liu Ping to drive the Neon through the bay door into the warehouse. Liu Ping turned the key to strike the engine. The engine responded with a high-pitched hum. He drove the car into the warehouse while Wang Xi and Yi Le trailed on foot. They walked like dogs on leashes, having no control over their direction. Both carved a path straight toward Mr. Li. Their reactions were similar to Liu Ping’s. They both extended their hands to shake Mr. Li’s. Mr. Li waved them inside and lowered the bay door. Liu Ping parked the Neon nex
t to the Escort. Liu Ping, Huang Sitian and Li Tao exited the car.
“Gui’s back,” said Yi Le. Li Tao walked toward Mr. Li and shook his hand. Huang Sitian did the same.
“Welcome back,” said Huang Sitian. Li Tao stepped forward and shook Mr. Li’s hand before stepping aside. Mr. Li walked toward the side door still hanging open. He shut the door before walking back toward his five guests. The coolers had been arranged in a semi-circle with Mr. Li’s laptop in the middle resting on a cooler of its own. Next to the laptop was a black box LED projector. Mr. Li told Liu Ping and the four others to have a seat on the coolers. And he began.