Kim replied immediately. “No, there is no ambush outside. I will follow your rules. I’m ready to go.” Kim stood still with his arms at his sides as he spoke.
Sara believed Kim. She had attended CIA training sessions where a psychologist would teach a practical concept. In one of the training sessions, the psychologist spoke about how to see if someone was lying. Sara remembered one big sign to watch for was if the person touched his face, hair, or clothes while talking. Another sign was excessive blinking. One other sign was how the person answers the question. If someone is asked a question and the correct answer is “yes” and the person wants to lie, he or she might directly start explaining an answer in the negative. But the liar will rarely say “no”. Saying “no” feels painful and avoiding it reduces the anxiety of lying. Sara felt comfortable that Kim was not lying because he said “no” and did not move while talking. He seemed to be telling the truth.
Captain Kim walked up the stairs, followed by Tom. At the top of the stairs they stopped just before the door. They were looking outside. Everyone in the Command Room squinted at the screen, trying to pick out anything strange past the door. Sara could not see anything unusual. Tom’s voice came back on. Again he was addressing Kim.
“We are going to run into those woods straight ahead. You run out the door first. I will be a few seconds behind you. Go.”
Sara watched as Kim started running to the woods. Ten seconds later Tom started running. The crowd in the Command Room held its breath. But nothing happened. There was no shooting and there were no signs of anybody else around. Within seconds Tom made it to the woods where Kim was waiting. Great, Sara thought, now they just have to make it to shore.
I need to think how to get them out.
CHAPTER 50
NATPAC rolled over for the last time on his couch. He knew he was not going to fall asleep. His mind just would not shut off for the night. He was thinking through everything. How long would it take SLOTHMAN to actually start pulling information from the CIA’s computers? How long until the NIS analyst would be extracted to North Korea? How long until those KPA units would catch that American and figure out what he was doing? Did the Americans find out about his project with the North Koreans? Did anyone know he was involved? The last question was what worried him most. He started to put together his decision trees and he realized that the reason everything else was scary was that they potentially led to him being discovered.
He sat up and grabbed a cigarette. His hand still shook as he lit it. He knew what to do. He got up and started changing. He decided he would do what he usually did when he could not sleep. He would go into the office.
As he was dressing he started thinking again through each of the pieces. He was able to reassure himself. SLOTHMAN would soon get into their servers, he thought. That NIS analyst was probably almost in North Korea. There was a massive team stationed in front of the base that one man could never get past. Besides, he thought, even if the CIA found that facility. There was no clear link to him. Even if that facility were destroyed, they could restart production somewhere else. It did not matter.
He exhaled deeply as he felt some tension release. He did not even realize he could hold that much air. By now he was fully dressed. He looked at himself in the mirror. He imagined the bright future ahead. He imagined his future roles in the government. Maybe this project could be his stepping stone, he thought. He could one day be one of the leaders.
If only they could see what I’ve already accomplished.
He imagined himself sitting in the Central Committee, steering the country to his vision of Act 3. He now felt all the tension in his gut leave.
He grabbed his cigarettes from his couch. He glanced at the bottle of Kaoliang he had sitting in the corner of the room. He thought he could start celebrating his bright future today. He opened the bottle and poured some in a glass. He walked to his window. The city was still dark and asleep. In a few hours it would start moving again, he thought. He took the shot and squeezed it down his throat. NATPAC headed out of his apartment door. He felt a spring in his step. As he headed down his hall, he said to himself, “I bet everything has been fixed already.”
CHAPTER 51
“I did it,” Mark said suddenly from his seat in the back of the room. Sara and Anderson turned back. Mark leaned back in his seat and had a smile on his face. Next to him, J.D. was leaning to his side to be able to see what was on Mark’s laptop.
“What?” Sara asked.
“Do you remember what a rootkit is?” Mark asked.
“That’s something you install so you can completely access someone’s computer, right?” Sara responded.
“Exactly,” Mark said. “I just installed a rootkit on NATPAC’s computer. I’m downloading his files now.”
“How deep?” J.D. asked.
“Ring 0.” Mark shot back.
“Wait, is that the one where you have complete access?” Sara asked. She strained to remember the introductory lesson she received earlier in malware.
“Yes. It means I have administrative right on his computer. I can look at anything. We can look at anything.”
“How can you read it? Isn’t it in Mandarin Chinese?”
“I studied Mandarin when I was younger. I can read it.”
“Did you find something interesting?” Anderson asked.
“Well, first, do you want to know who our friend NATPAC really is?” Mark asked with a smile.
“Is it someone we would know?” Anderson asked.
“The family name is not uncommon. But it might ring a bell. NATPAC’s real name is Lo Min.”
Sara and Anderson stared at each other for a moment. Then it hit Sara.
“Wait. One of the Chinese generals has a similar name. I just saw him being covered on the news. What’s his name again?” Sara searched online and soon had her answer. “Yes. There’s a Chinese general named Lo Jie. Are they related?”
“They are brothers,” Mark said. “I have all the files here showing it.”
Anderson jumped in, “But China has the one child policy. Nobody can have a brother there. How can these guys be brothers?”
Sara knew the answer to this. “In China I think the elite can get around the one child policy. Also if the parents divorce, I think they can find a way to have a second child. So these two can be step brothers.”
“That’s exactly what they are,” Mark said. “They both have the same father but different mothers.”
“So the step brother of the general is this hacker,” Anderson said slowly.
“Wow. I just pulled up a file he uses to track his finances. Do you want to know how much our friend NATPAC, or Lo Min, has sitting in his bank account?”
“A million dollars?” Sara asked.
“Fifty million dollars,” Mark said. “And here’s something else. He apparently has consulting arrangements with a Chinese shipping company and several natural resource companies.”
“Like mining companies?” Sara asked.
“Yes, those Chinese companies that strike deals around the world with developing countries to build mines. They are the ones that create camps in those countries and send their own Chinese workers, rather than hire the locals. I think some of them are suspected of bribing developing country government officials.”