by Marc Cameron
He wasn’t that good at football.
There was never any violence as far as Monica knew, but there was an undercurrent, easy enough to feel when she was old enough to know what to look for. It bugged the hell out of her.
Monica left home at eighteen with a full-ride academic scholarship to the University of Texas at Austin and a righteous chip on her shoulder. She let her hair grow out into her natural Afro and became active in the Black Student Alliance as well as a Black Action Movement that modeled itself after the U of Michigan protests. But she was never so active as to fall behind on her studies. Her freshman Spanish professor bumped her to upper-level classes and hired her as his TA. She suspected he might have a thing for roundish black girls, but he turned out to be happily married, and was simply astounded at her ability with languages. One of her roommates was from Taiwan and spoke very little English. Monica made a deal that she’d help her with English if she’d teach her Mandarin. She majored in history but minored in languages and went on to pursue a master’s with an added teaching certificate in history and social studies. She wanted to do something worthwhile. Something that could make a difference. Teaching seemed to fit that bill.
Then, near the end of her first year of grad school, a smiling brunette with piercing amber eyes sat down with her in the J2 food court across from Jesta’ Pizza. She was a few years older, early thirties, maybe. At first Monica had thought she was a professor just looking for a place to sit. But there were plenty of empty tables.
“My name’s Faye,” she’d said.
Monica eyed her without looking up from her book. “Hey, Faye,” she’d said.
The woman wasn’t one to beat around the bush. “Maybe you’ve seen me around?”
“Nope.”
“Here’s the deal. I’m a recruiter for the CIA.”
“No shit?” Monica looked up and smirked. Who was this lady? “Are you even allowed to tell me that out loud? I thought you guys were all secret squirrel and stuff.”
Faye laughed and ate a french fry off Monica’s paper plate. “It’s cool. I’m wearing a disguise.” She obviously wasn’t. “Seriously, though, the Central Intelligence Agency is interested in people like you.”
“People like me?” Monica said. “The CIA wants to hire me because I’m black?”
“Getting hired is a long way off,” the woman who called herself Faye had said. “The CIA wants you to apply.”
“Because I’m black?” Monica gave a smug nod, as sure of herself as any twenty-four-year-old empowered woman of color could be. “Got to raise those minority numbers and all, show your bosses you’re doing your part for affirmative action.”
Faye let her talk. Flashed those pretty amber eyes, then said, “You about done?”
Monica shrugged. “Sure.”
“Good,” Faye said, ignoring the affirmative action swipe. “As I was saying, the CIA would like you to apply because you are exceptionally smart.” She went on to explain that the application process for a CIA security clearance was extremely rigorous. There would be “deep-dive” psychological evaluations, polygraphs, and a thorough background check where people she knew all the way back to junior high would be contacted about her loyalty and suitability. “It takes a good while to complete,” Faye said. “You’ll have time to finish grad school . . . It’s better for us if you do finish.”
Monica had just sat there, stunned, with the look on her face her daddy called poleaxed.
“The CIA?” she whispered, suddenly hyperaware of everyone else in the open food court. “You’re interested in me? No kidding?”
Faye leaned forward, whispering across the table now, getting down to business. “No kidding.”
Everything Monica knew about the CIA—which wasn’t much—she’d gotten from spy books and James Bond movies. She had already come to grips with being a teacher, maybe a college professor, helping to shape young minds about the realities of the world. The notion of working for the government, much less working in intelligence, had never been so much as a tiny blip on her personal radar. She’d taken loads of placement tests over the years, and no guidance counselor had ever said, “Hey, Monica, have you ever thought about being a spy?”
Now, with Faye sitting there talking about how hard it would be, she found herself aching to get the job. No matter how rigorous the process, how deep the background, she had to have this job. She hardly even knew what it entailed, but suddenly, there was no other job for her in the world.
“I speak fluent Spanish,” she’d all but blurted. “And can get by in Mandarin pretty well, too.”
Faye, who still leaned over the table, ate another french fry and said, “We know.”
And now it was over. Monica Hendricks was on her way out the door she’d come in, picking up where she’d left off, to become a teacher—as soon as she hid all the evidence from hanging her photos and plaques.
12
Reduced to eating nails?” Mary Pat Foley said, smiling as she poked her head in the door to Hendricks’s office. The DNI wore a snazzy gray pantsuit in light wool, warm enough for the crisp spring weather and light enough to spend hours in the stuffy, artificial environment of her office at Liberty Crossing.
Hendricks dropped the nails into her hand and placed them on the corner of her desk. She knew Foley well. They’d worked together early in Monica’s career, each earning the other’s trust from living through dangerous times—dodging thugs, losing surveillance, and generally risking their lives in hostile environments. Poor Steve would never sleep again if he knew the half of what she’d done over the course of her career.
“Madam Director,” Hendricks said. “This is a nice surprise. I’d shake your hand, but I just spit out those frame hangers . . .”
“Knock it off with the ‘Madam Director’ stuff, Mony,” Foley said. “You and I have drunk too many grappas over the years for you to call me anything but Mary Pat. Anyway, I hear you’re popping smoke, as they say, to what, teach high school?”
Hendricks moved a stack of frames off the chair so the DNI would have a place to sit. “That’s correct. I know it’s a necessary part of the job, but I’m just too tired of . . . well, the lying. You know?”
Foley chuckled. “Yeah, and high school kids don’t lie.”
“At least I won’t have to. Seriously, ma’am . . . Mary Pat, it is nice of you to drop in and say good-bye.”
Foley toyed with the frayed corner of the leather desk blotter with the tip of her manicured thumbnail. It was a marvel how far this woman had come from the days she’d broken her fingernails to the quick digging under rocks to retrieve an asset’s message from some iced-over dead drop.
Foley glanced up, her hand lingering on the desk. “I didn’t, actually,” she said. “Come to say good-bye, that is. I came to ask you to stay.”
Hendricks scoffed, thinking it was surely a joke. “Due respect, Mad . . . Mary Pat, but the director of national intelligence doesn’t come down to Langley and ask a lowly CIA minion to hang around. My daddy told me the story of pulling the hand out of the bucket of water when I was a little girl. I’m self-aware enough to know my worth.”
Foley smiled and shook her head. “I’m not sure you do, Monica. And I’m here to tell you, that’s exactly what this DNI is doing. I need you to hang around.”
Hendricks gave a little nothing-she-could-do-about-it shrug. “Sorry, ma’am. No can do. I have a teaching job lined up for the fall and I promised Steve we could do some traveling this summer.”
Foley nodded, mulling this over, but obviously not taking no can do for an answer. “Remember that time you and I sat up for five days straight watching that safe house?”
“Outside Addis Ababa,” Hendricks said and chuckled. “The Soviets were up to their armpits in that place. I can still smell the curtains in that shitty apartment.”
“I know,” Foley said. “Mango-scented curta
ins . . . What was that all about? About three days in, you told me a story about how you wanted to stage a protest against people in your hometown when you were in high school.”
“Right,” Hendricks said. “Even the local ministers were against the state putting in a group home because of the so-called black troublemakers it would bring into the county.”
“And your dad told you to stand up for what you believe in, but to be smart about it. He said—”
“He said that some causes were worth losing your life over, and some were like jumping off a cliff and screaming at the wind on the way down.” Hendricks sighed, giving a solemn nod. “It was good advice. Served me well in picking my battles. That’s why I’m quitting here to teach for a few years while I’m still young enough.”
“I really do need you to stay,” Foley said.
“Why?”
“Here’s the funny part,” Foley said. “I can’t tell you that just yet. But I can promise you this. You won’t be screaming against the wind. There’s a good chance that what I’m going to ask you to do will keep friends of ours alive.”
13
The rig bombing and chopper crash made everyone jumpy and reticent to speak openly in a foreign hotel room—not to mention all the talk of moles and counterintelligence operations. The CIA had few safe houses in Ho Chi Minh City, and even those were suspect. At this point, everything was suspect. The Hendley Associates Gulfstream made the perfect airborne secure compartmented information facility, or SCIF, in which Chavez and the rest of The Campus could discuss operational plans with Adam Yao. The Hendley pilots filed a flight plan to Hanoi and back, giving the group time to talk without having to worry about clearing customs anywhere until they hammered out the details of their mission—and direction of travel. Caruso came along, too. No way he was going on any op. He’d return to the States the following day, for an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon. Until then, he had a good mind for tactics. Chavez was glad to have him along, even if he was a little loopy on hydrocodone.
Chavez and Clark sat in aft-facing leather seats. Caruso sat in the very back on the sofa—Jack Junior’s usual spot. Adara sat beside him. Midas and Jack faced forward across from Chavez and Clark. Lisanne sat in one of the two vacant seats behind them.
“Now that we can speak in the black,” Chavez said, “are you folks hearing any chatter on the rig bombing?”
Adam Yao’s voice was crystal clear over the encrypted satellite link—which Mary Pat Foley assured everyone was secure, even from Langley and Fort Meade.
“I’m thinking it was a wrong place, wrong time type of thing. The Chinese make no bones about the fact that they lay claim to all waters inside their sacred little nine dashes.” Yao’s words dripped with derision. “Blowing up a state-owned oil rig isn’t exactly a great leap forward from ramming Vietnamese or Philippine Navy vessels and drowning a bunch of sailors. These guys have no trouble throwing their substantial weight around to show the world who’s boss in the South China Sea. Our Freedom of Navigation Patrols are pissing Beijing off something fierce. I know that much.”
Dom groaned from his vantage point on the sofa in back, gazing out of one open eye. “Effective way to gather intel if you don’t value human life,” he said. “Blow the hell out of a rig to put some folks in the water, then sit back and see how long it takes for the United States Navy to respond.”
“Or to see if they respond,” Clark said. “It allows the Chinese to see what our rules of engagement are toward civilians.”
“We’re all intel folks,” Adam Yao said, sounding very much like he was gritting his teeth. “And as such, we are responsible for submitting unbiased intelligence to Higher, so the analysts who often have the larger picture can do their jobs.”
“True . . .” Clark looked around the Gulfstream’s cabin to see if anyone else knew what Yao was getting at.
The CIA officer plowed ahead. “Honestly, guys, I’ve got to tell you, it’s getting awfully damned hard to be objective here. In order to do my job, I try to look at things through a Chinese lens. But that lens is getting pretty damned murky. I’m starting to think there aren’t any lines—” Yao took a deep breath. “Sorry to go off like that. You’ll see what I mean soon enough.”
“Yeah, speaking of that,” Chavez said, pencil stub poised over a small black notebook. “Still no line on this Medina Tohti woman?”
“Not yet,” Yao said. “I have some hooks in the water. There’s a guy I’m meeting with either tonight or tomorrow who may be able to point us in the right direction.”
Clark spoke next. “The last couple of attacks attributed to the Wuming have been in and around Urumqi. She’s hanging her hat with them now, so it stands to reason she’s somewhere around that area.”
“That’s a good guess,” Yao said. “But Urumqi is a city of three and a half million people. They have cameras like New York City has pigeons. I can guarantee you that right now, the place is crawling with People’s Liberation Army Navy intelligence.”
“Hang on.” Caruso opened one eye again at the back of the plane. “It’s PLA-Navy intelligence and not Ministry of State Security?”
“Oddly, yes,” Yao said. “From what I’m hearing, Navy spooks reporting directly to Admiral Zheng are handling this one by themselves. The admiral wants the search kept low-key, but he also wants this woman bad, so they’re leaving no stone unturned.”
“And no idea why they want her?” Adara asked.
“Something to do with the missing professor,” Yao said. “That’s it so far.”
“But too hot for us to go in without a better lock on Medina Tohti’s location,” Chavez said, nodding while he doodled in his notebook.
“It is for now,” Yao said. “With any luck, my guy will give us a concrete place to focus on.”
“Any chance Tohti will go to her daughter’s?” Ryan asked.
“There’s a chance,” Yao said. “The girl’s evidently some kind of gymnastics prodigy. The government had taken her to Beijing for training when Medina’s husband was rounded up and killed. Sounds like Medina just lost it and ran off.”
Adara gave a low whistle. “Makes sense when you think about it, wanting to join a group that’s killing the people who have taken away her husband and her daughter. The poor woman’s gotten the shitty end of the stick from her own government.”
“We do know the daughter is in Kashgar,” Yao said. “Staying with her aunt.”
“The authorities are sure to be up on that address as well,” Ryan said.
“Oh, yeah,” Yao said. “Urumqi is bad, but surveillance in Kashgar is probably worse. Citizens in western China are surveilled more heavily than virtually any other city in the world. Cameras everywhere, facial-recognition software running full-tilt, checkpoints with magnetometers and X-ray screening all over the place. The place is crawling with Bingtuan.”
“Bingtuan?” Chavez asked.
“The Corps. Short for Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps,” Yao said. “Sounds a hell of a lot more benign than it is. The XPCC is a paramilitary government organization charged with protecting the frontier from invasion, but their primary focus is on tamping down any rebellion from the Uyghur population. They have their hands in everything—the farm quotas, education, healthcare, law enforcement—making sure everyone is being Chinese enough.”
“I’ve read about them,” Clark said. “On one shoulder the rifle, on the other the hoe.”
“Or one boot on the neck of anyone who doesn’t bend to Han Chinese will,” Yao added. “They have a lock on Kashgar, that’s for sure. Still, a mother’s love and all. There’s a good chance Medina Tohti will surface there at some point.”
“You feel like we can get in?” Chavez asked.
“As tourists,” Yao said. “Some professional eyes in case Medina Tohti does show up—or at least poke around and see what you can find out. I have a couple
of assets there, but they lack training.”
“Maybe Lisanne and I,” Clark said. “While the rest of you get ready to head for parts yet unknown.”
Robertson perked up.
Ding nodded in agreement. “If you think she’s ready, Boss.”
“I do,” Clark said. “It’ll be the perfect cover—an old man and his—”
“Nurse,” Midas joked.
Clark gave one of his low and slow chuckles, the kind Chavez thought sounded particularly deadly. “I was going to say an old man and his lady friend.”
Midas raised both hands as if in surrender. “You know I’m only kidding, Mr. C.”
Clark’s eyes narrowed. “Is that right . . .”
Yao’s voice came across the speaker. “I suppose you and Ms. Robertson could be the ones to go. But I’m thinking Kashgar will be the easier place to provide workable cover legends. Yeah, the XPCC goons are everywhere, but Beijing likes to show off how culturally sensitive China can be. Forget that they’ve rounded up over a million Uyghurs for ‘reeducation.’ They’ve got this whole Potemkin village vibe going in Kashgar, demonstrating to the world how China pulls its ethnic minorities out of the squalor they’ve been living in for centuries and provides them with modern housing and better living. They still welcome tourists there. I’ll blend in wherever this mission takes us, but if the rest of you have to go into Urumqi hunting Tohti and the Wuming, two couples would draw less attention than a bunch of dudes.”