by Marc Cameron
He did, probably out of curiosity—or fear that she knew something.
“You’re not going to pin those kids’ deaths on me,” he said. “I’m not a hundred percent sure the two events are even related. Shoop could have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time and Murphy, don’t even get me started on her. Murphy was so far off the reservation, it’s—”
“Yeah,” Hendricks said, struggling to keep her voice calm, dispassionate. “Tell me about how she’d gone off the reservation.”
Rask began to air all his woes. Murphy thought she was smarter than everyone. She worked her own little operations without clearing it first. She didn’t keep her files current.
Hendricks had yet to look at her camera, and it was killing him. She tapped her pen on the paper, pondering. “Did Murphy ever speak to you in an insubordinate manner?”
“Her actions were insubordinate,” he snapped.
“And you had her followed?” Cafaro had volunteered that, illustrating the leadership tone in the office. “By Shoop.”
“I did,” Rask said. “And I’m not apologizing for it. Look, I didn’t have shit to do with those murders and you know it. I’ve already told everything that needs telling to my boss. I’m not going to sit here and—”
“Let me ask you this, Fred,” Hendricks said. “If you were going to spy for the Chinese, how would you go about it?”
Rask fell back in his chair like he’d been slapped. “What are you talking about?”
“Answer the question.”
“I heard you were accusing half the China desk of being spies,” he said.
Hendricks kept writing. “I’d like to know who told you that.”
He shot to his feet again.
Now she looked at him.
“I said sit down!”
Off-screen, Li spoke into a desk phone. Almost immediately, the door to Rask’s left swung open and a very large security officer stepped inside. Vlora Cafaro entered behind him. They said nothing, but it was apparent that they were there to keep Rask compliant.
Li gave another order over the phone, which was connected to the earpieces Cafaro and the security man wore. They both nodded and then exited the room, leaving Rask at once blustering and dumbfounded.
“I am not spying for China,” he said. “And if anyone says I am, they’re spewing bullshit.”
“But if you were,” Hendricks said, goading him, watching his reaction. “Hypothetically, how would you do it?”
“I said I’m not.”
“Okay,” Hendricks said. “Tell me who is.”
“Monica,” Rask said through clenched teeth. “So help me . . . I have friends. Your career is—”
“I’m on my way out the door, Freddie,” Hendricks said. “Retiring. No career left for you to screw with. Now answer my questions. And you may consider this a pre-interview for your polygraph.”
“So this is all about your mole hunt, not Murphy and Shoop?”
Hendricks bit her lip, fighting the urge to take the discussion in an unfruitful direction. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something this piece of trash did had gotten the girl killed.
Peter Li stepped in, giving her time to get her bearings.
“These are just questions we’re asking everyone with access.”
Rask leaned forward, squinting at the screen. “Who are you?”
Hendricks spoke again. “He’s the good cop.”
“Get to the point, Monica.”
“You sent the complaint regarding Leigh Murphy up the chain, trying to find out who she was working with, get that person’s ass in the wringer.”
Rask wagged his head. “There’s these things called protocols. Murphy and her friend broke them, I made a note of it.”
“Did you talk to her?”
“Of course.”
“Dole out some punishment?”
“Befitting the offense,” Rask said. “Look, I don’t see how it’s any of your business how I run my office.”
Hendricks made a show of pitching her pen on the table, like she was fed up. She didn’t have to act. “Who else did you talk to about it?”
For the first time, Rask squirmed in his seat. He knew full well that talking about operations outside a clearly defined circle of those who needed to know clearly violated his beloved protocols.
“No one . . .”
Hendricks scoffed. “Come on, Fred. You were pissed at this girl because she didn’t kiss your ring and seek your permission. Even you had to have some inkling that your expectations were chickenshit. Surely you confided in some buddy, a chickenshit soulmate who is equally as chickenshit, so you could, you know, feel better about yourself. It’s a lonely thing being the only turd in the punchbowl.”
Rask crossed his arms. “We’re done here.”
“Oh, Fred,” Hendricks said. “We are far from done.”
Peter Li spoke into his handset. Vlora Cafaro and the security officer returned to take up positions behind Rask.
Hendricks leaned forward, moving the mouse up to the invite button. A moment later, Mary Pat Foley’s face popped up on the split screen. She wore a silk blouse with the top button undone. Her makeup was perfect and a string of pearls hung just below her collarbones, as if she’d been called away from an evening out with her husband, or an important dinner with the President.
“Madam Director,” Rask said, trying to stand.
The security officer put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him. Ten minutes ago, the chief of station would have called him “my security officer.”
“We’ve not met, Mr. Rask,” Foley said. “But I see you are a slow learner. It would be better if you keep your seat. I need to know who you spoke with concerning your troubles with Ms. Murphy.”
“Ma’am, I . . .”
“I can get POTUS on the line if you need me to,” Foley said. “But I’ve gotta tell ya, that would sink what little vestige of a career you have left.”
Fredrick Rask broke, as they say, like a cheap clay pot, giving up his confidant, a case officer on the Central Asia desk named Tim Meyer.
It made sense. What happened in China or Russia cast a shadow over much of Central Asia. The entire Silk Road had been home to traders and spies for centuries, and nothing had really changed.
Hendricks instructed him to board the next flight to Dulles. Vlora Cafaro would accompany him to be certain he didn’t try to contact anyone en route. The security officer took his cell phone and dropped it in a Faraday bag to block any emitted signals. Rask looked as though he might cry. Cafaro beamed. Exhausted or not, she was more than happy to bird-dog the man who would soon be her former boss all the way back to Dulles.
Rask’s portion of the video link went dark, leaving Hendricks and the DNI on the screen.
Foley glanced down at the legal pad where she’d jotted notes while Rask spilled his guts.
“You think this is SURVEYOR?”
Hendricks rubbed her forehead with a thumb and forefinger, trying in vain to tamp back her headache.
Peter Li rolled his chair around so he was shoulder to shoulder with Hendricks. “There’s a good chance we have him, ma’am. Monica is much too humble to admit it, but he’s been at the top of her creep list since we stood up ELISE. We were simply not aware that he had access.”
Foley patted the table on either side of her legal pad. “Okay, then. We need to catch him in the act.”
“I have an idea,” Li said. “There’s a risk, but if it works, we’ll have him.”
Foley reached to end the SVTC connection, but paused. “Call in David Wallace. Work out the wheres and wherefores and then get back with me so I can brief the President. In the meantime, I need to call and warn a friend that his cover could be burned to the ground.”
Foley ended the call.
Hendricks got a
bottle of ibuprofen from the lap drawer of her desk and took four—grunt candy, the Marines called it.
She washed them down with a swig of stale coffee and leaned back in her chair, staring up at the ceiling tiles.
“Could it really be this easy?”
“I’m not sure I’d call what we’ve been doing easy,” Li said.
“I expected it to take months.”
Li nodded. “We still have to catch him in the act of espionage. That could take months. Rask suddenly going incommunicado might spook him.”
“Yeah,” Hendricks said. In truth, she’d regretted going down that line of questioning as soon as she’d uttered the words. “I should have subpoenaed his phone records, checked his e-mails, found out who he spoke to around that time. We’re going to have to come up with some kind of plausible story. Even so, SURVEYOR is already paranoid. He’ll smell a—”
Hendricks’s phone rang. It was Mateo, the analyst assigned to ELISE. His voice quavered with excitement, like a kid who just made the varsity team.
“Where are you right now?”
“ELISE HQ.”
“Stay there,” Mateo said. “I’m ten minutes out and there is something you have to see.” Hendricks expected him to end the call, but he couldn’t contain himself. “It’s bank records, a shitload of bank records for an account opened under the name of a dead aunt. Twenty-seven deposits over the last two years, each for just under the ten-thousand-dollar reporting threshold. Only a quarter million, but it’s more than a GS-9 makes. The money hasn’t been touched, so we’re not going to see any lifestyle change.”
“Wait,” Hendricks said. “A GS-9?” FBI special agents and CIA case officers hit journeyman around GS-13.
“Yeah,” Mateo said, crestfallen. “That’s what she is, a GS-9. I thought you’d be more excited. We found her. Gretchen Pack has to be SURVEYOR.”
* * *
—
Gretchen Pack? Isn’t she an analyst and briefer for the director’s office?”
Mateo, at the ELISE bullpen now, gave a you-bet-your-ass nod.
“Didn’t she just have a baby?”
“She did,” Mateo said. “And get this. I did a cross-check of the deposits with the time she was off on maternity leave. Nada. They stopped. Then, two weeks ago, after she came back to work, the payments started up again, like clockwork.”
Peter Li, who was working on the other lead, looked up from his desk. “What else? Just being devil’s advocate here. What do we have besides bank deposits?”
“Glad you asked,” Mateo said. “As you know, the PRC likes to use people with ties to the Motherland.”
“My grandparents were from China,” Li said. “I’ve been pitched a couple of times.”
“Right,” Mateo said. “Gretchen Pack’s husband is from China. His father came over from Fuzhou with a snakehead when he was a child. His name was Pak then. He changed his name to Pack because he thought it looked more American.”
Hendricks pulled up Pack’s personnel file on her computer. “I can’t believe we didn’t catch that.”
“The Agency?” Mateo said. “Oh, she disclosed it during the hiring process. It’s all on the SF-86 she filled out. We, meaning those of us working ELISE, didn’t snap to it. She was on Coleen Ragsdale’s creep list, though.”
Peter Li leaned back in his chair. “You know,” he said. “This is tragic if it pans out, but it also provides us with a sudden opportunity to make Tim Meyer feel like the pressure is off. If we identify Gretchen Pack as the mole, maybe he’ll relax.”
Mateo’s head snapped up. “Wait. What do you mean Tim Meyer?”
Hendricks ran down their theory.
“Holy shit,” Mateo said. “That means SURVEYOR isn’t a spy . . .”
Hendricks groaned, doing the math on when she could take more ibuprofen. “I know,” she said. “It’s a spy ring.”
53
Timur Samedi took his eyes off the road just long enough to watch the military helicopter thunder and thump overhead—and almost ran his truck into a herd of double-humped camels. He cursed, swerving wildly to miss the lumbering beasts, certainly dislodging his load in the back of the truck. The camels did not move—all large eyes and jutting teeth, they also stared skyward at the helicopter that followed the path of the highway, almost low enough to touch.
Helicopters were not uncommon up and down the Karakoram Highway where China touched not only Kyrgyzstan but Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Pakistan in the space of a few hundred kilometers. There were many borders to patrol. Samedi knew nothing about helicopters. He’d never flown in any kind of aircraft, preferring to keep his feet on the ground. This one was dark green and large enough to carry perhaps a dozen troops.
Samedi heaved a sigh of relief when it flew down the highway toward Khunjerab Pass and Pakistan.
He relaxed his grip on the steering wheel, flexing his hands to rid the joints of stress. The next checkpoint would not be until Tashkurgan, ninety kilometers ahead. He could relax until then.
The cold waters of Karakul Lake were on his right. Usually deep green or sparkling azure, the frigid waters had taken on the slate gray of the evening sky. Already at an elevation of over thirty-five hundred meters, the lake was dominated by three great mountain ranges, and several seven-thousand-meter peaks. Kongur Tagh and Muztagh Ata loomed across the water, their peaks vanishing into the clouds.
Some of the Kyrgyz women who lived in the nearby yurts sold hot tea and kebabs of grilled goat. Samedi often stopped. Not tonight. He had to reach Tashkurgan.
A colorful jingle truck—so called that because of all the bells and decorations Pakistani drivers liked to hang on them—rattled past going north while Samedi was still catching his breath from the near-miss with the camels.
A kilometer ahead, the helicopter banked sharply to the right, arcing over the lake to turn back to the north. It came in low, throwing spray off the water’s surface and scattering a flock of sheep that were grazing up from the shoreline between two white canvas yurts. Samedi slowed, stomach in his throat as the aircraft hovered directly in front of him, blocking the entire highway before settling onto pavement.
Samedi was not certain, but he believed the pods on the sides of the helicopter contained rockets—all pointed directly at his windshield.
Six men in black SWAT uniforms and helmets poured out of the side doors the instant the skids touched the ground. Each carried a rifle, ducking as they ran up the highway directly toward Samedi’s truck. Behind them, the rotor blades came to a halt and another man climbed out. Instead of a uniform, this one wore a business suit. A politician. The one in charge.
Samedi slowed his truck, unsure of what to do. Were they here for him? He groaned. Of course they were here for him. He was the only truck on the road—and they had not come for the camels.
Five of the men aimed their rifles at Samedi’s windshield while the fifth directed him to halt at the side of the road. He raised his hands above the steering wheel.
“Reach out the window!” the SWAT leader barked. “Open your door from the outside! Keep your hands visible at all times or we will open fire!”
Two of the riflemen kept their guns pointed at him, while the three others ran to the rear of the truck, boots thumping on the pavement. Samedi watched them in the mirrors as they took aim at the doors.
The SWAT leader barked again. “Get out now! Slowly!”
Samedi complied, hands raised.
The man in the suit stepped forward. The riflemen fanned out so they still had clear shots.
“I am Major Ren of the Corps,” he said, looking down his nose over dark-rimmed glasses. “And you are?”
Samedi’s throat convulsed when he tried to speak. It seemed to take forever to get the words out.
“You are very nervous about something, Mr. Samedi,” the major said. “What do you have in the t
ruck?”
* * *
—
Clark tapped Hala’s arm when the truck slowed, reminding her to turn off the flashlight. He cupped a hand to the side of his head, straining to hear, but got nothing but the sound of Hala chewing on her collar. The stop seemed to last forever this time. He checked the glowing hands on his watch. Three minutes.
Voices now. Someone shouting.
Then they were moving again, slowly, barely rolling—then another stop.
This one was shorter, less than a minute before they were on their way.
Hala flicked the light on. “What was that?”
Clark took a deep breath, patting her arm again.
“I’m not certain,” he said, as the truck slowed again and made a right-hand turn before coming to a stop. The back doors creaked open. Boots thudded on the metal floor as someone climbed into the back. A sharp tap accompanied shuffling footsteps. A cane. Clark reached for Hala and the light, turning it on, as Little Ox pulled away a roll of carpet and peered down into the hollow compartment.
“Welcome to Kyrgyzstan,” he said in slurpy English.
Hala looked up, wide-eyed, and then collapsed against Clark’s leg, exhausted from the stress.
She spat out her collar. Her eyes welled with tears. “We are no longer in Xinjiang?”
“We are no longer in China,” Clark said. He stood and shook Little Ox’s hand. “No trouble at the border?”
“I told you,” the old man said. “I pay big baksheesh. They love me here. No trouble at all. If the Bingtuan stop Samedi’s truck, they will find nothing but carpets. Come. I take you to a place you can sleep until your friends arrive.”
Clark took out his phone, grateful that service had reached even small border towns like Irkeshtam.
Hala was breathing deeply now, as if trying to steady herself. “We are safe?”
Clark punched in the number and looked down at Hala while he waited for it to connect. “We are safe,” he said.
* * *
—