The asset watched from the driver seat in awe. A crackle of radio static blared over his earpiece. “He’s coming toward you,” Trest yelled. “Open the doors!” The asset leaped out, throwing the rear double doors open.
Command and control watched from Ghost One’s helmet cam as he darted to the open doors of the cargo van — jumping in on the fly. Mystifying the asset who felt the van rock while it appeared vacant inside. “HE’S IN! GO!” Trest blared over his earpiece.
The asset slammed the doors, jumped in the cab and took off toward the Fuzhou Bay.
CHAPTER TEN
MSS
In 1983, the National People’s Congress of China created the Ministry of State Security — MSS — in response to a growing threat of sabotage and subversion. The mission of the MSS was to ensure “the security of the state through effective measures against enemy agents, spies, and counterrevolutionary activities designed to sabotage or overthrow China’s socialist system.”
The Second Bureau of the MSS-Foreign Affairs assigned one of its rising stars to investigate the fire of the Fuzhou Railway Bureau Building — Intelligence Officer Yuen Weng.
Weng’s military career began when he enlisted in the People’s Libration Army at the age of seventeen. He made a rapid ascension through the ranks into the elite Special Forces known as “dadu.” Weng served as a recon specialist in the Hunting Leopard Unit of the Chengdu Military Region (the Chinese military used animal names instead of numbers to identify units). The MSS recruited Weng, who was the equivalent of an Army Delta Force operator, offering him a position as an Intelligence Officer — one of the most coveted promotions in the military. Weng recently finished two years of intensive training through MSS Foreign Affairs and had been on active duty for several months.
Weng passed through security posts at the Forensics Laboratory of the Fuzhou Central Police Department. Wondering why command chose him for this particular case over more qualified senior officers. Command already briefed Weng on the railway building fire. Telling him at best it was a terror attack on China’s cyber infrastructure, and at worst an attack on the sovereign state of China by a foreign country. Either way, it rose to the top level of investigation with all hands on deck at the forensics department. Dozens of scientists in lab coats intermingled with MSS agents, while local uniformed officers stuck to the sidelines. Weng felt the tension in the air in the form of daggers shot from eyes of officers and Fuzhou detectives pushed aside by the Chinese government — in favor of the small army of the MSS — called in to investigate the attack.
“Officer Weng,” a voice startled, speaking in Mandarin, “We’ve been expecting you.” Weng turned to a man in a lab coat with a kind expression, approaching him with a hand extended. “Shao Xiang, MSS Fourth Bureau, Explosives Division. Follow me. Have you been to the site yet?”
“No. I came here straight from the airport.”
“Follow me.” They turned up a narrow hall as men in lab coats brushed by, nodding to Xiang as they passed.
“As you can see,” Xiang explained, “it’s not as spacious as the lab at MSS.”
They entered a laboratory with rows of metal tables. Half a dozen scientists bustled around the lab. Squinting through high-tech microscopes and running a battery of tests on particles collected from the site. Tucked back in the corner of the room was an ominous, steel instrument resembling a torpedo on its end with knobs and levers poking out the sides. “With the exception of this electron microscope from the Ming Dynasty,” Xiang joked, “you’ll find the facilities are quite advanced.” He led Weng to a white table-top microscope. “Here, I want to show you something.” A scientist stepped aside for Weng to look. Weng peered in to a see a blotchy Rorschach blob. He rotated the focus ring and an image took shape — angular crystalline cells in a rainbow of colors. “Now take a look at this,” Xiang said, replacing the slide in the microscope. Weng peered in. “Looks about the same, doesn’t it?” Xiang asked.
“Looks identical to me.”
“Here’s another.”
Weng peered in at the splotch of dull green matter with a similar crystalline structure as the others. “What am I looking at?”
“You know the fire was no accident?”
Weng nodded.
“The first slide is from the roof. The second slide is a sample of thermite. Are you familiar—”
“—Yes. A common ingredient in incendiary devices.”
“Exactly. The second and third slides are samples from different incendiary devices. Different bombs, if you will. When a country’s military designs incendiary devices, they don’t trade recipes with other countries. So, each country’s device will have its own signature of chemical compounds, which vary in subtle ways from devices of other countries. You following?”
“Yes, sir,” Weng replied. “Incendiaries are unique to each country.”
“Precisely. And we know from having gathered incendiary samples from conflicts around the world, which devices belong to which country. The slide from the roof is a match to that of a Taiwanese incendiary device — the second slide.”
Weng nodded, listening intently.
“From an HJZ incendiary grenade made by the People’s Army of Taiwan, to be exact.”
“Have you informed the President?” Weng asked. “And how accurate are these tests?”
“More accurate than matching fingerprints. Fingerprints have billions of combinations. Fewer than twenty countries produce their own incendiaries. We know with near certainty that these are Taiwanese made. And judging by the fact that you’re here, it’s safe to say the President knows.”
“Will you take me to where you found these samples?”
“Certainly.” Xiang replied.
The once white Railway Bureau building now looked like a burnt match stick on the skyline. The upper three floors completely black. Streaks of a smoke stains scrawled upward from windows a few stories below, formed by flames leaping up from the windows.
A line of men in jumpsuits and hardhats flowed from the bottom exits, removing computers and files. Weng and Xiang met a group of them. Zhi, a tall, lanky inspector, gave them hardhats.
“The building is structurally unsound,” Zhi said. “The men are moving out everything vital. I will escort you up the stairs.”
They entered the lobby, which appeared fine aside from the thick stench of smoke ingrained into the walls. The trio of men began the trek up the dark stairs, guided by the light on Zhi’s helmet. “Watch your step,” he cautioned.
They trod up several stories. Arriving at a tunnel-like hole carved out of the charred ceiling. They gingerly climbed a precarious ladder leaning on the partial roof. A remnant of the original roof that had burned and sunk two stories. “Follow me,” Zhi said. “Stay near the edge of the building. The roof is still weak.”
Once on the roof, the trio hugged the steel and concrete ledge, inching toward a gaping hole in the blackened roof, six feet in diameter. The melted edges sloped inward, like a black hole that had devoured everything in its path. Weng peered into the hole, which continued down into darkness.
“Whatever it was,” Zhi said, “burned extremely hot, all the way to the sixth floor. Firefighters put hoses on it, but the intense heat vaporized the water without effect, until it finally just burned itself out.”
“It was a military grade incendiary device,” Xiang told Zhi.
“Where did you collect the fragments?” Weng asked. Xiang pointed, waving his arm in a semi-circle arc around the hole.