It would explain much. How else was the Guoanbu able to roll up the entire network so efficiently? How else could they have covered the meeting place and escape routes so well?
Design meant planning, Briggs knew, and planning meant foreknowledge.
“What happened to Genoa?” Oaken asked after Tanner finished explaining his theory.
“He disappeared like the others. Problem is, that’s an easy ruse. Plus, by that time, my picture was plastered all over the city; I was on the run.”
“Is it possible you missed something in your countersurveillance?”
“It’s possible, I knew it was going to be a weak spot. Beijing was — still is — crawling with PSB and PAP officers. All it would have taken was one slipup on an agent’s part and the whole thing would have unraveled.”
Oaken nodded. “I think your theory is solid. Didn’t the CIA already check it out, though?”
“Not until a year after it happened. It might be worth another look.”
“True … What’s all this about, Briggs? Curiosity or something more?”
“If I’m right about Genoa, and he’s still alive, and he’s still active—”
“That’s a lot of ‘ifs.’”
“If all those things are true, maybe we can use him.”
Oaken smiled. “Assuming Mason is going to send you back in.”
“Right.” Send me or not, I’m going back. “What do you say? Want to give it try?”
Oaken chuckled. “Find one man amid a billion Chinese, who may or may not have been a double agent, who we only know by a code name? Damn right I want to give it try.”
8
Latham and Randall were met in the computer lab by one of the department’s experts, a young African American named James Washington. “You guys got here in a hurry,” he said.
“We’re hoping you’ve got something good for us,” Latham said.
“Yeah, I think so.”
James gestured to a pair of stools before a Formica counter on which sat Baker’s computer, a top-of-the-line Hewlett Packard tower attached to a twenty-one-inch Sony monitor.
“This case, it’s the Baker thing?” James asked. “The murdered guy from Commerce?”
“Right.”
“Well, either he’s a real computer geek, or he had some help. This system’s got some gnarly security programs attached.”
Latham chuckled. “By ‘gnarly,’ I assume you mean ‘superior’?”
“Right. Anyway, his system’s got all kinds of blocks on it — routines designed to keep the information from being backed up or routed to an exterior drive. Hell, if you even try to print the stuff without a password, the hard drive erases itself.”
“This isn’t stuff you can buy on the open market?” asked Randal.
“Like at Best Buy? No way. I’ll know more once I tear it apart, but none of it looks familiar to me. I think I found a way through it, but there’re no guarantees. If I’m wrong, the hard drive goes poof. Since it’s your case, I wanted you to make the call.”
“Gimme odds,” Latham said.
“Fifty-fifty.”
“Do it.”
The process was simple, James told them. The one contingency the security program could not guard against was regular system maintenance. Using a “slightly recoded” CD version of the computer’s native antivirus software — in this case, Norton — James initiated a scan of the hard drive. Recognizing this as a routine event, the security program didn’t interfere. However, instead of scanning files, proclaiming them clean, then passing them back to the drive, James’s version of Norton copied each scanned file and transferred it to the CD before returning it to the hard drive. Since the security program cared only whether files were sent to an output device, it did not intervene.
There was an electronic bong. James removed the CD and rebooted the system. “Now we see if we raised any alarms,” he said.
The desktop reappeared on the screen. James used the mouse to check the drive’s directory. He smiled. “We’re okay. Not even a hiccup.”
“Good job, James,” said Latham. “Let’s take a look at the CD.”
Most of the data was useless — games, letters, recipes — but when they got to Baker’s money-management program, they struck pay dirt. “Holy cow,” said Randall. “Charlie, the balance in this checking account is almost three hundred grand. The account’s routing number looks odd, though.”
“Offshore probably,” Latham said. “Let’s see who he was paying.”
Randall clicked the mouse a few times to filter the account by payee. There were dozens of transactions, but one stood out. “WalPol Expeditions,” Randall murmured. “Here’s a check for eighty thousand … another for a hundred twenty.”
“How far back does it go?” asked Latham.
“Almost two years.”
Bingo, Charlie thought. Whoever or whatever WalPol was, the late Larry Baker had paid them almost 250,000 dollars in the last eighteen months.
Roger Brown had been expecting the order from Langley to arrange a face-to-face with Chang-Moh Bian. In the week it took them to make the decision, he’d made a decision of his own.
Brown believed in leading from the front, and he wasn’t about to ask one of his people to do something he wasn’t willing to do himself. Not to say he wasn’t apprehensive. Playing controller to an agent who is in turn playing intermediary for an already famous defector was a daunting task at best.
Bian’s “ballpoint message” had designated a marker drop that Brown could use to establish contact, which he did the following Sunday by strolling around the Forbidden City’s 250 acres while performing a string of identifiers: his coat held a certain way, a newspaper folded and left on a bench, tying his shoe near a fountain. He passed several uniformed and plainclothes PSB and PAP officers, but none paid him any attention.
After two hours of this pageantry, Brown returned to the bench beside the Golden Water Stream and sat down. Two minutes later he saw Bian enter the courtyard.
The man’s a wreck, Brown thought. Bian’s hands were visibly shaking. Trying to cover the movement with a camera, he stopped and looked behind him every few seconds. This is bad. Best case, Bian was simply scared; worst case, he was bait. The sooner Brown could distance himself from Bian the better. He was about to give the wave-off signal when Bian turned, walked directly to the bench, and sat down. “You came.”
Ah, shit. “You don’t look well.”
“I feel awful. My stomach—”
“Nerves.”
“I suppose.”
“You’ve got to relax. If you’re being watched, they’ve already got us. If you’re not being watched, then your jumpiness is going to get you caught. Me, too, for that matter.” Brown forced some humor into his voice: “I’ll tell ya, if I get thrown in prison, I’ll have hell to pay with my wife.”
“I’m sorry. I just … I’m …”
“I know. Just breathe. Enjoy the sun.”
After a few seconds, Bian’s posture eased. “Your people are interested in helping the general?”
“We are.”
“What about his conditions? He was adamant about the man he mentioned.”
“We’re working on it. First off, though, I have to ask you some questions.”
Brown spent fifteen minutes questioning Bian about himself: school, family, work, hobbies, and finally, his motivation for helping Soong. All the answers would later be dissected by the Intelligence Directorate, then compared to what they already knew about the man. If any inconsistencies appeared, the DO would have the option to either abort the operation, or order it forward with the knowledge that Bian may be damaged goods.