Henry said, “What’s he working on?”
Chase said, “You don’t need to worry about it.”
“You guys do a lot of this?”
Elliot said, “Come on, let’s have a seat over here.”
They walked over to the kitchen area and took a seat at the table. Elliot took out a small black device that looked like an iPod. He pressed a red button on it and said, “David Manning and Henry Glickstein debrief.”
Chase said, “Alright, fellas, here’s the deal. I went out on a limb to get you here. You have Elliot and my friend in the UAE intelligence service to thank as well. David, I know that the news reports can’t be accurate. But I don’t have proof. I should let you know that we’re bending the rules a lot by bringing you out here, and we’ve yet to hear back from Langley or Washington through official channels on what your status is. Communications problems. I tried calling Brundle after getting word that you’d left Australia, but the phone lines have been shit for the past day or so. So… we need to know: what the hell happened to you guys?”
David said, “It all started about three weeks ago now. I was coming home from work at In-Q-Tel when I got rolled up outside my house in Virginia. I was thrown in the back of a car trunk and taken to the airport. They put me in a private jet with three people on board. One was a director at In-Q-Tel. I knew him. But it turns out he was really working for the Chinese, although I didn’t know that at the time. His name was Tom Connolly.”
“Say that name again?”
“Tom Connolly.”
Elliot whispered to Chase, “That’s the body that the Iranians found on their beach near Bandar Abbas. Tom Connolly. He was ex-CIA. Hasn’t been in the Agency in years. But the Iranians and the press wouldn’t believe that at this point, even if we showed them proof.”
Chase said, “Keep going.”
David said, “They briefed me on that initial plane ride across the country and explained that China was going to attack the US.”
Elliot and Chase looked at each other. Elliot said, “Who is ‘they’? Who briefed you?”
“Tom Connolly, on the plane. He said that he was CIA, but that the Red Cell we were to be a part of was being organized by a group of people from the military and other government agencies. We were supposed to come up with how the Chinese would do it. How they would attack the US…”
Chase and Elliot were incredulous.
Elliot said, “Excuse this question, David. But how did they get Americans to do this for China? Why would anyone believe them?”
“All of us were Americans who had been told by our respective bosses that we were participating in an important national security project for a few weeks. Except for me — I’m still not sure why they had to kidnap me. As far as I know, I’m the only one that didn’t know what I was getting into from the start. Everyone else in the Red Cell was asked to go by their boss before they left. They took us across the country on a small jet, and then we met up with others. Then we got on more jets and they didn’t tell us where we were headed. They had about twenty people in all. Experts in various fields. I was the expert on Project ARES. It was something that I was working on at In-Q-Tel. A new type of cyberweapon that has the ability to take out satellite and data networks.”
Elliot leaned forward and said in a deep voice, “It can do what now?”
David sighed. “It can shut down satellite and data networks. I know what you are thinking. And yes, I believe that they have used it. That’s probably what all of this GPS and communications difficulty is about.”
Elliot placed his hands on his face. Chase looked at him, worried. Elliot moaned, “Continue.”
David said, “The second flight was about nine hours. Henry and I now know that the island was somewhere in the South China Sea. We aren’t sure where exactly, but we did enough studying of maps on our boat ride last week that we’ve got a few ideas. We believe that the island they took us to is located in between the Spratly Islands and the Philippines.”
Chase said, “We’ll need to narrow down the location, but we can do that later. So what happened on the island?”
“It was a small tropical island. A single volcanic-looking mountain, covered in jungle. It was probably about three miles across. It’s a Chinese military base. I’m sure of that now. A woman named Lena Chou… well, that’s what she called herself anyway… was running the show. She had some Silicon Valley consultant her helping out. An Indian guy named Natesh. Young — probably still in his twenties.”
Chase said, “Hold on. Say that name again.”
“Natesh.”
Chase looked disturbed.
David said, “What, do you know him?”
Chase was looking at the ground, his eyes darting back and forth as he thought through something. He leaned over to Elliot and said, “That’s the name of the guy on Abu Musa that showed Ahmad Gorji the list. They weren’t talking about a list of people that would supply information to Abu Musa. Natesh showed Gorji the list of names on the Red Cell several months ago.”
Elliot didn’t react. He turned to David and said, “Please, continue.”
“We spent a week or so doing brainstorming sessions, coming up with ways to defeat the US military and national infrastructure — utilities, communications, everything. A lot of us had top-secret clearances. People talked about specific frequency ranges and tactics. I mean… Chase, it was bad… I feel like shit about it all. I feel like such an idiot. But I’m telling you, the setup was very elaborate. We really, truly didn’t know. I swear to God. And there was, I don’t know… kind of a weird groupthink thing going on at first. Everyone fed off each other. We thought we were going to help our country.” David hung his head. “That feeling didn’t last.”
Henry said, “David was the one who broke the spell for the rest of us. He saw something in the first couple days. One of the guys got sent off the island in the middle of the night. They carried him away and threw him in a helicopter. He was unconscious. This guy — Bill — went to see this Lena chick about getting off the island to go take care of his wife, who had cancer. And that was what we thought happened. But David saw him that night being carried away, unconscious. None of us knew that part. So David got suspicious and a few days later, he swam around the island. He saw the guy that was supposed to have been flown home to his wife on the other side of the island. But he was a prisoner of the Chinese soldiers.”
Elliot said, “You saw Chinese soldiers? How’d you know they were Chinese?”
David said, “We know. It only makes sense. Who else would want the information that they took from us? We suspected as much once. But we’re definitely sure now. Hell, we saw the red star painted on their troop transport helicopters on the last day, when the jig was up. We took a motorized raft and escaped. A storm helped us evade capture. Then we got picked up by an Australian fishing boat and taken to Darwin. I have no idea how they found us, but this whole international terrorism thing has to be a Chinese setup. We called home and tried to warn people, but it didn’t work.”
Elliot said, “What happened?”
“I called a guy at my work. We told him everything — the quick version — and asked him to set up a call in an hour so we could spread the word to all of the different agencies about what was going on. After that, we tried calling other people — Lindsay, you — but we never got through. Then we called back the guy at my work and he claimed to have reps from a bunch of military and government agencies. We were trying to warn everyone before an attack came.”
Chase said, “It’s alright, man. We know you were just trying to do the right thing. Do you remember any of the names?”
“I don’t think it matters. I have no idea who was really on the phone. Hell, it may not have even been Lundy.”