Jordan looked around the room, then at the Director.
"Why is a senior officer from China's military intelligence ordering sanctions and meeting with Chinese criminals? You want to help me out with that?"
Harker tapped FDR's pen on her desk while she considered what Zeke had said. Carter watched her. He knew the look. The analyst in her was computing possibilities. Debating how much to say, whether to bring him in. She made up her mind.
"We've received some new intelligence but we haven't had time to analyze it. What I'm about to tell you is speculation. You need to bear that in mind."
Jordan nodded.
"It's possible there is a group plotting to take power in China. The meetings Wu had with the Triads could have something to do with that."
"A plot to overthrow the Chinese government?"
"Yes. Colonel Wu is part of the group we're concerned about. It's led by General Yang. Head of their MI."
Jordan frowned. "The Triads don't like Communists. They'd like to see a change in government over there."
"Could be where the money comes in," Ronnie said. "The money he stole from Selena's uncle. Pay them to do something."
Harker tapped on the desk. "How could the Triads help Yang? Maybe in China, but here in the States? Why would he need them for anything?"
Selena brushed hair back from her forehead. "How do you take over a country as big as China? If we knew that, we might get an idea of what Yang wants from them."
Jordan said, "How do you take over China?"
Carter said, "You take out the heads of the government, all at once. You make sure the military is on your side, especially the army."
Ronnie picked at a surfboarder on his shirt. "You need surprise," he said.
"That's a given." Carter tugged on his ear. "Let's assume a coup was in progress. Go back to our original question; what could the Triads do here to support Yang over there?"
Jordan loosened his tie a little more. "What does Yang need to pull it off besides surprise?"
"Well, he needs time," Carter said. "Once he sets things in motion, the clock starts ticking and he wins or he goes down. He needs time to consolidate control and get his hands on all the strings."
The Director tapped her pen. "What would upset his time schedules?"
"Communications breakdowns. A problem with the military units. Interference from nations outside China could do it. World reaction is a big factor. What would we do, for example?"
Zeke unbuttoned his collar, a major breach of FBI dress code. Carter imagined J. Edgar turning over in his grave.
Harker's pen was going full speed on the desk. She realized what she was doing and set it aside.
"China is a known factor, with a stable government. A right wing coup would be dangerous. We wouldn't want that to happen."
"You think there's the political will to intervene, Director?" Jordan settled into his chair.
"If the President thought national security was at stake. But the risk of war would be huge."
"How could you keep us from getting involved?" said Jordan.
"If we wanted to? You couldn't. Unless…" Carter stopped.
"Unless what?"
"Unless we were occupied with something else. Something that had our attention while Yang took over."
"It would have to be a damn big attention getter," Ronnie said. "It would have to be something national, something that drew a lot of resources."
"What about a terrorist attack?"
Everyone looked at Selena.
"Well," she said, "don't look at me like that. Isn't that what you do here? Go after terrorists?"
"Yes." Harker watched her.
"An attack would keep everyone busy. Yang could use the Triads to make trouble while he grabs power."
Ronnie raised an eyebrow. "That's really devious. Remind me not to play poker with you. But we'd find out it was him. We'd have to do something."
"What? Send in troops? Nuke China?"
The room was silent as each of them thought about that.
"How many in the Triads?" Harker picked up her pen again.
Jordan said, "Several thousand in the Bay Area, if you count the youth gangs. They're usually sent as enforcers. Thousands more spread out over the country, particularly Houston, L.A. and New York. We're not certain."
Stephanie said, "We need more data."
"How do we get that?" asked Jordan.
The Director tapped her pen. "For openers, there's the book. Why does Yang want it? Selena, I need you to get it translated. I assume computer time will help?"
"It will. I've identified points in common between what I can read and what I can't. I want to run a matrix comparison. It should give us an idea."
"Good. Stephanie, program it in for her. While Selena is working on the translation you can run probability scenarios. I want to see what the computers say about what we've been discussing."
"Yes, Director."
Harker said, "All we've got is speculation and Deng's story. We have pieces of intelligence but we don't have any proof. We may be wrong."
"You don't think that," Jordan said.
"It doesn't matter what I think. I can't go to the President and tell him someone's trying to take over China without hard facts."
Jordan looked at his watch. "Director, I can let my boss know what we've been talking about, but no one's going to do much based on speculation."
"I'll brief you as we develop this."
"I guess that will have to do."
When Jordan was gone Selena said, "I'd like to go back to my rooms at the Mayflower. No offense, but that apartment of yours is depressing. It's confining, hard to think in. I need room to pace around."
"That's not a good idea. There's no security at the hotel."
Carter said, "She could stay at my place. I've got a spare bedroom. It would be a lot more comfortable than downstairs. There's an empty unit next door to mine. Ronnie can set up in there and keep an eye on things."
Harker gave him a curious look. "You think it's safer than here?"
"No, but it's safe enough. There's a security desk, cameras. They have to think Selena and I are dead in that mine."
"Selena, are you comfortable with that?"
"I guess so." She gave Nick a thoughtful look. "There's no reason those people would know we're still alive."
"All right. Just make sure you take every precaution."
Harker stood. "Let's get going."
Chapter Twenty-Two
Selena, Nick and Stephanie went down to the computer room. Wide doors of thick glass separated the room from the hallway. Stephanie punched in numbers on a keypad and stood close to a facial recognition scanner mounted on the wall. A line of green light tracked back and forth across her face. The glass doors slid open with a quiet hiss.
The room was frigid with arctic air conditioning. Half a dozen towering Cray super computers finished in an irritating red lined both sides of a polished aisle stretching the length of the room.
Stephanie walked past them and stopped at a large, semi-circular console in front of another Cray. This one was gray-black. Mounted on a tall cooling unit, it loomed over them like something out of a sci-fi movie, a huge, dark block transported from an alien dimension. Hundreds of blinking LEDs signaled it was active.
"This is Freddie." Stephanie took a seat at the console. "He's a Cray XMT, tweaked and maxed out. Freddie uses a multithreaded platform with global shared memory and parallel processing. There are over eight thousand CPU's in these cabinets. We can run a million simultaneous threads right here."
"How much memory?" Selena asked.
"Sixty-four terabytes. It's perfect for your book. We're linked to NSA and the rest of the National Security Network. Freddie will access every database, match patterns and look for anomalies. There's a database for every known language, ancient and modern. We can develop probability scenarios relevant to the content of the book and any other factors we choose to put in. When I'm not programming Selena's information, I'll be running those."