“Savage, can you hear me?” I asked.
“We’re moving him now,” he said.
“I went through the house; I found three dead Chinese agents. Now I’m checking the back.”
“Roger.”
I approached the pool. On each side of the pool is a building. The building on the left is a pool house and a converted chapel. The one on the right is a guest house that has apartments used by the house caretakers and Father Tellez. I circled around the building to the right. When I reached the far side facing the beach I found Father Tellez kneeling over Sorenson. I stood in silence until Father Tellez finished praying.
“Do you know where Cheryl is?” I asked.
“No,” he replied.
“What happened?”
“I was in my apartment when I heard the gunfire coming from the house. It was a long fight, lots of shooting. I stayed down on the floor of my room until the firing stopped, then I came outside and found Sorenson. He was badly wounded, shot many times. I couldn’t get help. I tried to stop the bleeding, but I couldn’t do it alone. I gave him the last rites and he died. I’ve stayed with him since. My phone isn’t working.”
“Your phone works now. McDonald is hurt, Savage and Migos are on the way to the hospital clinic with him. I can’t find Cheryl.”
“I’ll help you look. We can’t do anything more for this man.”
“Was there any shooting inside this building?” I asked.
“No. What about the chapel, did you hear any firing from there?”
“All of the fighting sounded like it came from the main house. I think Sorenson was shot in the main house and then came here and died. If you look back toward the house, you can see the blood trail.”
I noticed what Father Tellez was talking about. Sorenson had pursued someone toward the beach. I walked through the line of palm trees onto the beach. I studied the sand looking for signs of a boat landing. As I got closer to the water, I saw the telltale marks of where a rubber boat had been dragged up on the shore.
“It looks like they came in two Zodiacs.”
I called Mike on my cell. I used the encrypted app.
“A Chinese hit team attacked the beach house. Cheryl is missing, Sorenson is dead, and McDonald is badly wounded and on his way to the clinic in town. He’s going to need to be airlifted to Nassau,” I said.
“What about Cheryl?”
“The team left in two Zodiacs. We need to find where they went.”
“They haven’t had enough time to reach the big island. They’re either still out on the water or they landed somewhere close on Eleuthera.”
“I need direct communication with whoever is in charge of the Agency personnel on the island.”
“I’ll try to make that happen.”
“It was a mistake not to have it to start with.”
“Agreed, it was a security protocol. We’ll put everything we have into finding her.”
I called David Forrest.
“Dave, I need your help.”
“What is it?”
“Cheryl’s been kidnapped. They took her about half an hour ago from the beach house. They came and left in rubber boats. We need to track all of the boats in the local waters in case they linked up with a mother ship. I think they landed the rubber boats somewhere else on the island and changed transportation or are planning on laying low until they can escape. It’s too easy to track the boat traffic.”
“What should I search for?”
“They would need a house with privacy. Can you search the vacation rentals and see what you can find? The rental couldn’t have been booked before we arrived in Eleuthera unless they killed the occupants; most people book vacation homes months in advance. We need a place where you can put two Zodiacs into the water and take them out without detection from a nosy neighbor.”
“I’m sure Langley will support with anything I request. I’ll get back to you once I find something.”
Chapter 14
Eleuthera, Bahamas
Huang jumped out of the Zodiac with the other men and helped pull the heavy rubber boat across the sandy beach and into the storage area under the house. As hurricane protection, the beach house was built on eight-foot stilts which allowed for a perfect space to hide two fifteen-foot rubber boats from aerial observation. Huang led the way into the house through the back deck while two of his men carried the prisoner. The remaining six men finished stowing the two boats and took up security positions around the house.
Huang was soon walking in circles around the island in the center of the kitchen, the pacing helped him contain his anxiety. He frequently checked the settings on his radio, but he was unwilling to use it for fear of giving away his position. As per the plan, the team had gone into silent mode once they began their exfiltration from the objective.
Huang wondered about the fate of the team that had gone after Pat Walsh. He lost contact with the other team very early into the operation. As soon as the tracker he had placed on Pat Walsh’s truck indicated movement to the Trident Headquarters, he launched with the boat team. During the infiltration to Walsh’s beach house, he was able to monitor the actions of the other team on the radio. The last update he received had them taking position outside of the Trident Headquarters building. After that, the assault on the beach house had consumed all of his attention. It wasn’t until the exfiltration began and he was forced into radio silence that he realized he hadn’t received an update from the other team since the assault began. Now he had no idea if their mission was successful.
Huang accompanied the boat team because that was the main effort. Capturing Pat Walsh was secondary. The priorities changed after facial recognition software identified the photo of a woman inside the house as a former Chinese Intelligence officer. Having triumphed over the Navy in the tsunami investigation, Huang’s boss, the Minister of State Security, now saw an opportunity to earn even more favor with the President at the expense of his rival at the People’s Liberation Army. The boat team was originally positioned offshore in a cargo vessel as a contingency force. When knowledge of the female Chinese defector became known, the contingency force was activated and ordered to land in Eleuthera and plan a mission to capture the woman on the fly.
The unconscious woman lying on the living room floor had defected from a highly classified People’s Liberation Army Intelligence Agency known as Unit 83461. Unit 83461, referred to in the West simply as Chinese Intelligence, is part of the People’s Liberation Army and is the equivalent of the US CIA. It competes with the Ministry of State Security in only a few narrow areas. The MSS is much bigger and has a much broader mission than Unit 83461. MSS has over one hundred thousand employees. MSS agents are embedded in every Chinese technology company and in most foreign hi-tech firms with R&D departments that are doing work worthy enough of being robbed.
Unlike Unit 83461, which was formed by President Mao in the 1940s, MSS wasn’t created until 1983. MSS rose to prominence in the 1990s when China decided to open its borders and compete with the world economically. A key part of that economic growth strategically included the theft of technology from the West and from Japan. Industrial espionage remains the sole province of MSS, but in some of the other more traditional intelligence functions, the two agencies share similar responsibilities. The overlapping functions between MSS and Chinese Intelligence are a constant source of friction and the principal reason for the rivalry between the Minister of State Security and the Commander of the People’s Liberation Army. The tsunami investigation is a perfect example of how the Chinese President sometimes pits the two agencies against each other. The work of Huang had been a major boon to MSS, and the Minister saw an opportunity to disclose a previously unreported Chinese Intelligence agent defection as an even bigger opportunity to embarrass his PLA rival.
The discovery of the woman was almost by accident. As soon as Pat Walsh was identified as the owner of the Sam Houston and it was learned he had a home in Eleuthera, MSS turned on all of its v
ast resources and went to work dissecting his life. The Bahamian cellphone system is a ZTE network manufactured by the Chinese telecom company Huawei. Huawei is a very valuable intelligence gathering asset of MSS because it allows the Chinese government to eavesdrop on every phone call and data transmission that goes over the cellphone network. Because all Bahamian customs and passport control data flow through the Huawei cellphone system, it was not difficult for MSS to hack into the immigration database and identify Pat Walsh’s travel companions. The name of the person who traveled to the Bahamas most often with Pat Walsh, including on this latest trip, was a woman with a US Passport under the name of Cheryl Li. When the background of Cheryl Li was discovered to be thin, MSS ran a facial recognition using the passport photo in the file. Facial recognition identified the woman as a former Chinese Intelligence agent named Shu Xue Wong. The discovery quickly found its way to the Minister.
Shu Xue Wong had reportedly been killed in a hotel fire in Oman two years earlier. The fire left few survivors and Shu Xue Wong’s body was reported as one of dozens of unidentifiable remains. When the Minister learned that the destruction of the Naval bases in the South China Sea was executed by a People’s Liberation Army intelligence agent working with the CIA, he immediately elevated Shu Xue Wong to the primary target. News of the PLA’s incompetence would finish the MSS rivalry with the PLA. Having lived in the shadow of the PLA for most of his career, the day he presented Shu Xue Wong to President Ping along with a full confession of her treachery would be the best day of the Minister’s long and distinguished career. Huang was certain to be rewarded immensely by the grateful Minister.
After a full hour of waiting for contact, Huang finally resigned himself to the fact that the team he sent to capture Pat Walsh had been killed. He walked over to the kitchen counter and checked the location of Walsh’s truck on the tablet tracking system and saw that the truck had moved from the Trident headquarters to a nearby medical clinic. Maybe Walsh was hurt or, better yet, killed in the attack, he thought.
Huang considered his options. He could reinstate the surveillance plan and confirm that Pat Walsh was still alive, and if Walsh was alive, he could mount another attack. He had already lost four men in the capture of Cheryl Li, plus another seven men in the failed attempt to capture Pat Walsh. Law enforcement would be converging on the island, and making another attempt on Walsh while safeguarding his prize would stretch his resources. After several more minutes of pacing and weighing the risks, Huang decided to abandon Walsh and concentrate on getting the traitor off the island and on her way back to China. Later, he would put the boats back into the water and link up with the mother ship that would be in position twelve miles offshore in international waters at midnight.
Chapter 15
Eleuthera, Bahamas
Peter Hawes was a short, wiry, blond-haired man who sported retro John Lennon glasses. Pat guessed the CIA Station Chief was in his late thirties. He was accompanied by another agent, a slightly overweight black man, whose hair was going to grey and who spoke hardly at all. The two CIA agents brought with them five heavily-armed soldiers who Pat assumed were SAD operators. CIA Special Activities Division recruited from USSOCOM and they performed most of the paramilitary jobs required by the Agency. The five men all had the telltale physiques and demeanors of top-level special operators, which is why he assumed they were SAD.
Peter Hawes, Pat, Savage, and Migos sat at the kitchen table while the SAD operators stood away from the table, leaning against the cabinets. The bodies of Chinese operators had been removed by a CIA cleanup team and the damaged house was eerily silent.
“What are you doing to find Cheryl?” Pat asked.
“We’re watching the airports and ferry landings.”
“How did they land a second team without you knowing?”
“I don’t know. We picked up one team that landed by private boat charter from Nassau. We have no idea how the second team got in.”
“Did you have anyone watching the house during the op?”
“No, we were too thin; we had all of our assets surrounding the Trident Headquarters. We figured your guys could take care of themselves.”
“They attacked the house with at least ten people; they wouldn’t have used two boats for less. They killed Sorenson and wounded McDonald. The Chinese had four killed; we don’t know how many—if any–were wounded, but I think we’re looking for up to seven Chinese and one prisoner.”
“The rubber boats and the equipment mean they didn’t come in posing as tourists. Rubber boats don’t have much range and can’t handle tough seas. They must have been dropped offshore by a larger vessel. Most likely that’s also going to be their way out.”
“We’ve had ISR covering the waters around the target area ever since the attack. There has been no linkup between rubber boats and a mother ship.”
“Which means Cheryl is still on the island.”
“We think so. The boats must have landed nearby, and the Chinese must be hiding somewhere on the island. We would’ve found the boats if they were still on the water twenty minutes after the attack.”
“We need to search every house on the Atlantic side of this island to the north and south of this house for at least ten miles in each direction.”
“How many houses is that?”
“Thirty, maybe forty houses.”
“Let’s split up and walk the beach. We’ll put everyone on the same comms for once. We can keep a small QRF here with a vehicle.”
I stayed with Peter and two of his operators while Migos and Savage and the rest of the agency personnel walked the beach. It was late in the afternoon and we only had a few hours of remaining light. I checked in with Mike and gave him an update. I told him I wasn’t all that impressed with Peter Hawes. He didn’t seem to know him, but I could tell he was frustrated with the communications he had with his counterpart, who was the man that Hawes reported to.
The teams kept us up to date on their progress as they walked the beach line and searched for signs of the Chinese rubber boats. It was getting dark and the teams had only covered a third of the territory the boats could have used to beach. I was growing more and more despondent by the minute as the hope of finding Cheryl seeped from my soul.
David Forrest called as the sun was setting.
“I have a house I think you should check.”
“Is it a last-minute rental?”
“No, it was booked many months ago.”
“Why did you flag it?” I asked.
“It’s located four miles due South of your house. It’s in a cove with a very private beach. The booking was made by a New Jersey college professor named Neil Sullivan. I tried to call the cell number on the booking, and it went to voicemail. I tracked down his daughter and found out a few things. The Sullivans and their close friends, another older couple named the Krantzbergs, rented the house six days ago for two weeks. Nobody has been able to contact either couple for the past three days. Sullivan’s daughter was worried and was getting ready to notify the authorities when I reached her.”
“What’s the address on the booking?”
“It’s the Kataluma House on Palmetto Point.”
“Do you have ISR over it?”
“Not yet. I will in another twenty minutes.”
“Keep me updated.”
Peter had been sitting across the kitchen table eavesdropping on the conversation with Dave.
“What do you have?”
“Kataluma House on Palmetto Point. It’s in a big cove, four miles due south from here. Your guys are closest. Have them set up surveillance.”
“Just to be clear, this is my operation. I’m going to lead with my own personnel; your guys are going to be in reserve,” Hawes said.
“That’s fine. Let’s get a team with eyes on the house and then move everyone else into position in case we have to go in.”
I rode with Hawes and his team in his GMC Yukon. We pulled off Queens Highway about one hundred yards from a p
rivate road that led to the house. It was dark by the time we hid the truck inside the wood-line. I called David Forrest. He had a Predator UAV feed, but all it showed was the house and two cars. The Chinese, if there were any Chinese, were all under cover.
One of Hawes’s operators met us at the truck. I was glad they were with us. Although I never saw any of the SAD operators during the skirmish at the Trident Headquarters, I saw how efficiently they dispatched the Chinese agents, and I was comfortable with their skills.
The operator was in the same beachwear he had been sporting to walk the beach on the earlier reconnaissance. It was dark and the bugs were in full bloom. The SAD operator and his partner had crawled to the edge of the woods to scout the house armed only with pistols.
“The house is on stilts. Underneath at the corners they’ve positioned operators with rifles. There’s also one machine gun. From the wood-line to the house is a hundred yards of flat open lawn. They have night vision. There’s no way to get to the house unobserved.”
“What about from the beach?”
“Same thing. It’s flat open ground from the water. They’ll see you coming in.”
“What do you suggest we do?”
“We watch and wait. We have ISR above; we’ll cover the road going out and the route to the beach if they try to escape on the water.”
“We wait until they try to move her and make our move then?”
“Yes, it’s too dangerous to assault the house; they’ll kill her before we ever get close.”
Hawes was making a lot of sense. I sat in the SUV watching and listening to the internal radio traffic as Hawes positioned the teams onto vantage points where they could cover the exits from the house. By the time Migos and Savage arrived, the SAD operators had all switched into full tactical gear with body armor, night vision, and helmets. The three of us were the reserve force; we stayed five hundred yards from the house in the vehicle parked just inside the wood-line off of Queens Highway. We waited for several hours before anything happened. At eleven, David Forrest called me and alerted us that four men were carrying a rubber boat to the water. I passed the message to Hawes and the rest of the team over the radio. One of the SAD teams confirmed they had eyes on the movement. Hawes had placed a two-man sniper position overlooking the beach. I had seen what his snipers could do earlier in the day and was positive that boat would never leave the beach.
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