Ciaran Burris is senior staff with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), which is located in Building LX2 at the Liberty Crossing Intelligence Campus near McLean, Virginia. The Campus sits at the intersection of major freeways in Tyson’s Corners, making it easily accessible to the rest of the Washington, D.C. area, where all of its employees live.
Ciaran stands on the side of the cavernous and subterranean Operations Center with Jeb Stoddard and Frank Cullen, and other senior people, watching one of the many big screens filled with instantly received video detailing ongoing events spinning out around the globe. Of the dozens of people in the room, most, like Ciaran, are giving a lot of their attention to the top middle screen.
There in a hurriedly shot video washed out of almost all color are a bunch of young winter-wear clad citizens of St. Petersburg, Russia. They stand on the subway tracks of one of the City’s main lines. This defies any authority’s possible desire to bring death and destruction down on their heads by letting the trains run. Instead, the youthful citizens have stopped the subway cars from flying along the tracks two hundred feet below the Neva River on their way to Vasilievsky Island.
The protesters are crowded together, their hands raised to cover their mouths. They stand in the same silence that they accuse their government of invoking on those of dissenting views throughout their country. They have created a picturesque tableaux, perfect for YouTube and the few people standing on the platform who are recording the event with all manner of personal devices.
“How long?” asks Jeb, who has just stepped in.
“Oh, what would you say, Frank?”
“What? Maybe a half hour. They keep switching hands. Their arms are getting tired.” Frank is distracted, laconic.
“How many people are dialed in?” Ciaran asks.
“Over 5 million worldwide,” comes the response.
“Who’s the old guy?”
“Victor Popov, the billionaire. He’s everywhere these days.”
“There’s more than their arms that are going to be tired. Their butts are going to be tired of sitting in jail,” Jeb jabs.
“Hmm. Probably. Where are the cops?” Ciaran wonders.
Frank is ready for that one.
“Must be something wrong with the subway,” he says, trying to be funny.
Burris shakes his head.
“Get this man a gig.”
The group of officials around them seems to chuckle en masse.
Finally, Ciaran pulls his focus away from the screen and turns to Jeb.
“You got something for me?”
Jeb seems to remember the reason he came to the Ops Center in the first place. He looks down at a sheaf of papers he is holding.
“Oh yeah. You’ve got a dead dissident in Beijing and the titular Mr. Gray has been forced underground.”
“What? An embassy contact? He was just supposed to meet.”
“Looks like he did a lot more than just meet. Looks like somebody stabbed the contact before Gray could get to him.”
“Damn it! Is that from the embassy?”
“Yes.”
“Can I have it?”
“Sure.”
He reads the note from the American Embassy in Beijing. It’s from the Chief of Station and makes it clear that the Chinese have officially informed the Embassy that the Chinese government is seeking to detain a Mr. Christopher Gray for questioning in the death of a Mr. Li Hua Wang, lately of Beijing.
Ciaran knows this will make it impossible for Gray to follow up on Wang’s death. Why would anyone kill an unknown activist/journalist? It doesn’t make any sense.
“Who the hell is this Wang?”
Jeb, eyes darting among the flashing screens, is startled out of his reverie.
“Oh! There was something else.”
He starts rooting through his papers again.
“And that would be?”
“Ah, here we go.” He hands Ciaran another note. This is from an agency sub-group that tries to develop online assets. It indicates that the agency has been carefully monitoring a network of tens of thousands in China. Mr. Wang apparently is one of several hundred core members. Unlike most of them, however, he has actively cultivated many informal relationships with persons in a wide variety of government positions, providing a window onto the internal affairs of the country. Should his accumulated insights somehow be disseminated the result could prove damaging to his country’s best interests.
“Do the exfil on Chris Gray. I’ll notify Cetron.”
The police have finally arrived at the St. Petersburg subway station. They line the platform three deep and immediately begin arresting everybody.
Burris heads back to his office. Once there he calls Lonnie James at Cetron Corporation. Cetron is a long time principal contractor to the agency, a virtually unknown group with resources across the spectrum of the expressionist movement. It provides updated technological solutions slash innovations in detection and information gathering, including human intelligence resources, humint, with special ops backgrounds. Its main offices are in New York, London and Hong Kong and it will supply services to anyone in any country friendly to the United States. Going into business with Cetron Corporation is like, well, going into business with the CIA itself. Interestingly, there are some Cetron clients that don’t even know this. One can only assume it’s because they really don’t want to.
“Que pasa, amigo?”
“Good morning to you too,” Lonnie responds. “Let me guess. Beijing.”
“You are so right. I’m ordering immediate exfiltration on Gray. Is that going to be a problem?”
“We appreciate that. On behalf of Cetron we want to thank you for your assistance. The Wang thing really got out of hand. We want to apologize.”
“What happened?”
“We are still piecing a few things together. Apparently some crazy dude knifes our guy in the Imperial Gardens. Gray was two hundred feet away and about to meet Wang when this happens. And some kid, you’ll like this, an American, is sitting there and gets to Wang before anyone else.”
“You got an ID?”
“Sure.”
He takes a second to find the name. A picture of Zak comes up instantly on Burris’s screen. Next to it is a picture of Kim.
“Zachary Miller. He’s a grad student at Tsinghua. From Stanford. Lives with a Kimberly Scott, also a grad student at Tsinghua. Also attending Stanford.”
“Sweet.”
“Yeah. Central casting.”
“Sure, sure. And the Police?”
“They’re looking for the perp. No ID.”
“The Security Service?”
“They’re all over it. They want Gray’s head on a platter.”
“I’m sure they do. Do you think Wang slipped anything to this Miller kid?”
“Maybe. We don’t know. Nobody knows. Everybody wants to talk to him. To find out.”
“Why? Where he is?”
“Don’t know really, but the couple are probably still in Beijing.”
Ciaran pauses, musing.
“See what you can find out,” Ciaran Burris says.
“Sure thing. We can get Gray back for you if you want,” Lonnie James offers.
“Do that please. And Lonnie?”
“What?”
“Thanks Buddy.”
“No problem. It’s a pleasure.”
Burris kicks back from his desk. If the kid has something from this militant then America will probably find it useful. Not to go public with it, of course. That would be self-defeating. There are too many interests that are shared with the Chinese. But it could be the kind of thing that might be good leverage with the leadership, something good to know that could be held over their heads at the right time and in the right situation. More importantly from Burris’ perspective, it may be something that could put the directorate and even Cetron in his debt. Down the line, that could be very useful.<
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Chapter 14
On Fire Page 13