Текст книги "Eye for an Eye"

Автор книги: Ben Coes

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

21

UNITED STATES TREASURY DEPARTMENT

WASHINGTON, D.C.

From outside the closed office door of U.S. Treasury Secretary Woodrow Uhlrich, a passerby could, on occasion, hear a mysterious thumping sound.

Those who were close to Wood Uhlrich knew that it only happened toward the end of the day, a stressful day, a day in which Uhlrich, sometime past eight or nine in the evening, would venture to the sideboard in his office and fill a highball glass a quarter full with Pappy Van Winkle’s. The dull thuds that echoed in the entrance foyer, through Uhlrich’s closed door, were the sounds of darts striking the cork of the dartboard that hung on the back of the door.

To say that Uhlrich’s staff loved him would have been an understatement. In fact, each and every one of them would have gone to war for Uhlrich. Joanna Traaten, his beautiful executive assistant; Bobby Grace, his overweight but capable chief of staff, and all of the others who’d come along on Uhlrich’s wild ride, from mayor of Lexington, to governor of Kentucky, to United States senator, and, upon the election of his best friend Rob Allaire to the presidency, to his appointment as treasury secretary, they had all been there, through thick and thin.

It was Grace who kept the bourbon in ample supply. It was Traaten who made sure his schedule was wiped clean by 6:00 P.M. And both knew that when the darts started hitting, to leave Uhlrich alone.

None of them had ever seen him angry. Even his wife, Daisy, couldn’t remember a time when Uhlrich had raised his voice. He was laid-back to the point of being taciturn. He simply couldn’t be fazed, didn’t like to talk, and yet somehow lured people in with a quiet sort of charisma.

Hitting the dartboard was Uhlrich at his most emotional. Everyone knew that when he started throwing darts, he had something on his mind. After a half hour or so, it was Grace’s job to politely knock on the door and see what was going on.

“Wood?” Grace asked as he pushed the door in, a few minutes after eight. “Hold your fire, Mr. Secretary.”

Grace stepped inside, then closed the large door behind him.

“Hi, Bobby.”

Uhlrich’s tie was off. He was standing halfway between his desk and the door, where the dartboard hung. In his left hand was a glass of bourbon. In his right, a green-and-red-tailed dart. Grace glanced at the dartboard. One of the darts was in the center.

“Nice shot.”

“I did that one yesterday. Left it there. It reminds me that every once in a while I do something right.”

Grace walked to one of the two large black leather sofas, next to where Uhlrich stood, and sat down.

“What’s on your mind?” asked Grace.

Uhlrich was quiet. He tossed the dart toward the board, where it stuck into the cork a few inches from the center.

“You want a drink?” Uhlrich asked.

“Certainly.” Grace started to get up.

“You sit,” said Uhlrich. “I’ll get it.”

Uhlrich went to the sideboard and pulled out a glass, then poured it a quarter full with bourbon. He walked to the sofas and sat down across from Grace.

“Baum?” asked Grace, referring to Richard Baum, the chairman of the Federal Reserve.

“Yes.”

“How much do we need to borrow?”

“Five hundred billion.”

“Mamma mia,” said Grace. “That would be the largest bond sale ever, if memory serves.”

Uhlrich took a sip from his glass, then brushed his hand back through his mop of curly blond hair.

“The strategy of trying to force Congress to cut spending has backfired,” said Uhlrich. “Frankly, Richard is right about one thing. As long as Congress refuses to cut spending, we need to borrow more money. He doesn’t spend the money. Congress is playing chicken with the Fed and with the president. They know Dellenbaugh won’t raise taxes. So what they’re going to do is keep spending and force us to borrow more money from China.”

“China will buy whatever bonds we put into the market.”

“That’s what I’m worried about,” said Uhlrich. “We owe the People’s Bank of China nearly two trillion dollars. Trillion with a T. That’s a lot of money. Soon we’ll be at two five, then three. It’s not sustainable. What happens when we have to choose between whether your grandma gets her heart medication or China gets their interest payment? What happens when we have to choose between some Marine unit getting a better kind of flak jacket or paying off Beijing? And what happens when we do choose your grandma? What do the Chinese do? Scares me to even think about it.”

“We restructure. What can they do? Invade?”

“You’re missing my point,” said Uhlrich. “The Chinese already invaded. They’re here; instead of weapons, they fired money. If they stop buying our bonds, the U.S. economy will collapse.”

“So we start paying it back.”

Uhlrich smiled.

“I’m going back to Kentucky,” he said. “When Rob Allaire asked me to be treasury secretary, I thought it would be an honor, and it has been. But I’m not big enough for this job. We need someone sitting in this room who can figure this all out.”

“You’re a great treasury secretary.”

“No, I’m not. It’s gotten beyond me, Bobby.”

Grace stood up. He leaned forward and picked up Uhlrich’s glass.

“Let’s have another one,” said Grace, “and talk about that fishing trip we’re going on next summer. You’re not leaving, Wood. I have too much dirt on you.”

Uhlrich leaned back, laughing heartily.

“I’m going to be remembered as the treasury secretary who sold America to the Chinese.”

“No you’re not,” said Grace, standing at the sideboard and pouring two more bourbons. “You’re going to be remembered as the guy who fucked up the door playing darts.”

22

MINISTRY OF STATE SECURITY

INTELLIGENCE BUREAU

SHANGHAI

In Shanghai, it was dinnertime. But none of the approximately one thousand employees within the ministry’s vast intelligence-gathering unit appeared to be hungry.

The desks were lined up in long rows; fifty rows in all, twenty desks per row, most of the desks occupied. The floor was an almost unfathomable collage of visual media. There were television screens one after another for as far as the eye could see, patient onlookers sitting and watching every media from every outlet imaginable in the entire world; earphones plugged in, listening and watching every news channel, television show, and movie released throughout the world, in every country, in every language, looking for information that had anything of intelligence value to China. This meant all geopolitical or economic issues affecting China as well as its allies and adversaries. They were to transcribe all mentions of China onto electronic tablets, which were then forwarded to human ciphers to examine further.

To the left, the job was to listen: radio shows, podcasts, music; again, any and every audio media introduced into the known world, if possible, in every country, in every language. To the right, the job was to pore over domestic and foreign print media, from every country, in every language: newspapers, magazines, blogs, books.

For a room filled with so many people and so much media, it was amazingly quiet.

Under Fao Bhang, the ministry had spent more than five billion dollars upgrading the technological might of the ministry’s electronic eavesdropping. This money went into trying to replicate America’s National Security Agency. This sophisticated eavesdropping apparatus—computers, satellites, satellite dishes, and software—produced massive amounts of information, which then needed to be analyzed by human beings. This was the room where that work was done.

Near the front of the room, a middle-aged man in a light yellow sweater and glasses stared at his computer screen.

11:50:01 PM

ARG 6/Córdoba

Gunfire reported

Location: Airport Córdoba

The analyst’s job was to monitor activity in Argentina, including dispatches originating at Argentine Federal Police—the country’s top law-enforcement agency—relevant to China. Normally, a generic crime report wouldn’t have drawn his attention. But some piece of software or algorithm within the bowels of the ministry had flagged it. He waited for another update. It came half an hour later.

12:18:36 AM

ARG 6/Córdoba

Multiple deaths reported

Location unknown

He went quickly into a bypass of AFP’s servers, going behind the AFP firewall through a backdoor Chinese hackers had built.

Locale: Estancia el Colibri

Mara Road 5’77”

AFP at scene

Multiple deaths confirmed

The analyst opened a separate program and typed “Estancia el Colibri.” When he hit “enter,” a satellite photograph appeared on the screen. The frame zeroed down in, focusing on the location of the ranch.

12:51:09 AM

Three confirmed homicides

**USSS at scene

He typed “USSS” into the ministry code manual.

United States Secret Service

The analyst sat upright. Suddenly, his computer screen went red and locked.

ACCESS DENIED

999999999999999

The number 9 replicated across his computer screen in flashing red until the screen was nothing but line after line of the numbers. He attempted to type, but it was useless.

He stood up from his cubicle and walked to the front of the room, went through a door, then walked down the hallway to the small, glass-walled office in the corner.

“Something has happened,” he said to a gray-haired man smoking a cigarette.

“Argentina? What could possibly happen in Argentina?”

“A triple murder, sir.”

“So what,” he said waving his cigarette dismissively.

“The U.S. Secret Service is at the scene.”

The man sat up.

“When?”

“Only minutes ago.”

“Well, what the hell are you doing here? Find out more!”

“The system shut me down.”

“What do you mean it shut you down?”

“It said ‘access denied,’ then flashed a number.”

He stood up.

“What was the number?”

“Nine.”

He stubbed out his cigarette and reached for his phone on the desk.

“Get me Minister Bhang,” he said into the receiver.

*   *   *

Bhang’s phone buzzed while he was out at dinner with his daughter and her young child.

“What is it?”

“Argentina, sir.”

Bhang listened to the information from the intelligence bureau in Shanghai as his grandson bounced on his lap. Perhaps Bhang should have attempted to reach Hu-Shao or Chang at this point. But his mind was already three steps down the line. If the mission had been a success, he would have already been told this by the agents on scene or by Ming-húa. But that’s not what happened. Something was wrong. He hung up, then dialed a different number.

“Si,” came the voice, a Spanish accent, of Pascal, whom Bhang had woken up.

“What’s the tail number of the plane?” asked Bhang.

“What? Who is this?”

“It’s Fao Bhang. What’s the tail number?”

“I’m sorry, Minister Bhang. Hold on.”

With his left hand, Bhang reached to the table and picked up a dried noodle, then pushed it gently into his grandson’s toothless mouth. He smiled at his grandson as he waited, the phone against his ear.

“Do you have a pen, Minister Bhang?”

“I don’t need one,” said Bhang. “Just tell me the number.”

23

PRIVATE RESIDENCE

THE WHITE HOUSE

WASHINGTON, D.C.

J. P. Dellenbaugh was awakened by the phone next to his bed. He reached for the light switch, pulled the chain, then looked around the room. His wife, Amy, opened her eyes but didn’t move.

Contrary to popular lore, there is no red phone in the bedroom of the president of the United States. There are three phones, each black, with a small console of buttons. It is White House Control—the White House switchboard—that connects the president to the world. It is through a tightly controlled protocol that any inbound phone call gets through to the president, at any hour, and it’s a short list of people whose calls get through. In the middle of the night, that list is even smaller, confined to the president’s chief of staff, the director of the CIA, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, and the national security advisor. Someone else might be able to get through, a foreign leader, for instance, but first they would have to go through one of the chosen few.

Dellenbaugh grabbed for the phone before the second ring.

“Yes,” he said, sitting up against a pillow, which he pressed against the big ornate cherrywood headboard.

“White House Control, sir, please hold for CIA Director Calibrisi.”

The phone made a staccato beeping noise for a few moments. Dellenbaugh glanced at Amy, who had propped herself up on her left elbow and was watching him. Hector Calibrisi came on the line.

“Mr. President, sorry to awaken you,” said Calibrisi.

“It’s okay,” said Dellenbaugh. “What’s going on?”

“I received a call a few minutes ago from our chief of station in Argentina. I’m afraid it’s very bad news, sir. Jessica is dead; she was killed a few hours ago.”

Dellenbaugh reflexively, unconsciously jerked forward, heaving involuntarily, like a cough without noise. With his free hand, his right hand, he reached out and gripped his wife’s hand, squeezing it. He was silent for several moments, blinking, trying to process the news, unable to speak. He looked at his wife with a pained expression of disbelief and sorrow.

Amy Dellenbaugh said nothing, instead took her other hand and wrapped it around his, trying to be supportive.

“Killed?” Dellenbaugh finally whispered.

“She was shot. It’s still early. We have a forensics team getting on a plane in a few minutes to get down there. She was gunned down by what appears to have been a sniper. It was a planned attack. One of the ranch owners was gunned down; so was Morty, sir. Dewey survived.”

“My God,” said Dellenbaugh. “I’m sorry, Hector. I know how close you were.”

Calibrisi was silent. Dellenbaugh heard what sounded like a low sniffle.

“Who would want to kill our national security advisor?”

Dellenbaugh let Calibrisi regain himself. After more than a dozen seconds, Calibrisi cleared his throat.

“I don’t know. It very well may have been Dewey they were after. In fact, it probably was Dewey.”

“Iran?”

“Possibly.”

Calibrisi paused, then continued in halted speech.

“I should have known, Mr. President. I should have known and insisted on a much broader security detail.”

“It’s not your fault,” said Dellenbaugh.

“Yes, it is, sir.”

“Where’s Dewey?” asked Dellenbaugh.

“Córdoba. He chased someone—presumably the attackers—to the airport. They escaped on a private plane. He shot at the plane. Local police didn’t know what was going on, so they locked him up. We’re dealing with it.”

“How did we learn about it?”

“The head of AFP woke me an hour ago. He and our chief of station are on their way from Buenos Aires.”

Dellenbaugh glanced at Amy. She’d figured out what had happened, and tears were running down her cheeks, which she did not attempt to hide.

After a long pause, Dellenbaugh cleared his throat. He sat up, then stood up. He held the phone in his right hand. Dellenbaugh still retained much of the brawn that had made him a much-feared pugilist during his time in the NHL. He unconsciously clenched his left fist, as if he were about to slug somebody in the nose. His biceps lumped out like a baseball.

“We need to find out who the hell did this,” said Dellenbaugh. He stared out the window at a Washington that was dark, except for a few lights here and there, including the ones that demarcated the pinnacle of the Washington Monument. “Whether it was an accident because they were after Dewey or, God forbid, the assassination of America’s national security advisor, someone has to pay. If it was the latter, Hector, this is war.”

Calibrisi was silent.

“Do you agree?”

“Yes, I do, Mr. President. Intentionally or unintentionally, this is an act of war. We need to find out who did it. I need to speak to Dewey.”

“We need to handle how this is announced,” said Dellenbaugh.

“I haven’t even thought about that, sir.”

“You don’t need to. Let me handle that. In the meantime, get Dewey back here. I want to know what happened. Let’s reconvene first thing in the morning, in the Situation Room. Make sure Harry Black and Tim Lindsay are briefed and ready to talk about military options.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dellenbaugh hung up the phone. He looked at his wife.

“I’m sorry,” she said, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Dellenbaugh said nothing. He fought to hold back tears. He picked up the phone.

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“Get me Jessica’s parents. They’re in Princeton.”

24

VIA NUEVE

SANTIAGO, CHILE

In a dilapidated concrete building near Santiago’s soccer stadium, Chang stood atop a stainless-steel platform, barefoot, naked, sweating profusely, and breathing heavily, as heavily as if he’d just run five miles.

The building looked like an abandoned warehouse. But its external decrepitude masked its true purpose. From the outside, the doors were boarded up and no light was visible. From the inside, two stories below ground, a windowless expanse looked like a laboratory at a pharmaceutical manufacturer.

The facility was owned and operated by a company called Utrecht Promotions, which was, in point of fact, a shell corporation set up by China’s Ministry of State Security. It was one of thirty such secret interrogation labs dotting the globe.

The reason Chang was standing, despite the fact that he was exhausted, was because he couldn’t sit down. It was physically impossible. Forty-six stainless-steel probes the thickness of pencils jutted out from walls on both sides of him. These steel probes—long needlelike protuberances—were the approximate sharpness of golf tees, not sharp enough to break skin at first contact, but painful nevertheless, and capable, with some pressure, of puncturing skin and even leather. The probes were connected to a computer that monitored all manner of Chang’s physiological state, all in the name of determining if Chang was telling the truth.

Different countries, even different agencies within the same country, had different methods of getting people to talk. Simple lie detectors, while excellent devices for sniffing out lies from the untrained, were beatable with coaching and practice. Torture—electricity, waterboarding, fingernail removal, and dozens of other methods—was effective but often led to false confessions. Then there were pharmaceuticals, drugs, in many shapes and formats, employed in a variety of methods. But like the proverbial cure for baldness, no drug had yet been invented that could compel someone to tell the truth. Truth serum was a fiction, a product of Hollywood and thriller writers. What had been shown to be effective in a pharmaceutical context was the interplay of opiates, such as heroin, intended to make the victim feel good, and any manner of neurotoxins, which caused pain. The lure of the opiates intermixed with the harsh pain of the neurotoxins had been shown, especially by the CIA and Mossad, to be enormously effective at drawing out confessions.

Bhang took a different approach.

Upon his elevation to minister, Bhang had appointed somebody he could trust and who was technically capable—his brother Bo Minh—to design and build a better mousetrap. What Minh invented was now being experienced firsthand by Chang. The device was called the “dragon.”

The dragon was simple enough: forty-six stainless-steel probes that pressed front and back against the subject, from head to toe. The probes were intelligent, that is, they performed a variety of functions depending upon the individual probe. First of all, at their most basic level, the probes monitored in real time all life functions of the subject—heart rate, brain activity, lung and heart pressure, levels of various chemicals in the bloodstream, oxygen levels, breathing rate.

These readings were then run through a sophisticated algorithm that had been written after studying more than one thousand individuals in a controlled setting, telling both lies and the truth, over a period of two years. Through this two-year data repository of minute-by-minute reactions, Minh and his team of statisticians, physicians, scientists, computer engineers, and design engineers knew exactly what lying looked like across a complex spectrum of physiological attributes. What they learned is that liars have a wide variety of strategies and physiological reactions, depending on time of day, levels of hunger, levels of exhaustion, and a number of other factors. There was no single way to know if someone was lying. However, there was a finite physiological library of reactions during the lying process—eighteen in all—across all people. Minh and his team discovered that in physiological terms, there are eighteen different kinds of liars, no more, no less.

Once they understood how to identify a liar with one of the eighteen different patterns, they then charted the transition from a state of lying to the state of telling the truth, in precise physiological terms. They mapped each of the eighteen types and, in this way, mapped the precise physiological transition to the truth. They learned that some liars will move to the truth with pain. Others will not, but those liars could be motivated in other ways, such as with drugs, sleep deprivation, hunger.

Thus armed with more than twenty-two terabytes of data, Minh and his team designed an algorithm that was capable of analyzing an individual’s various physiological attributes, determine if he is lying or telling the truth, and, if lying, could place them in one of the categories, then administer the most effective way to compel the subject to tell the truth.

The dragon automated the entire process.

Each probe had a different role. Five of the stainless-steel needles, for example, monitored heart activity. Two injected synthetic opiates, heroin derivatives, while four injected different types of neurotoxins designed to cause pain. Ten probes could send electric jolts, and six produced small flames barely visible to the eye but hot enough to char the skin.

Perhaps most important, all probes moved inward, pressing against the subject, sandwiching him in tiny increments, every time a lie was told. This was what Minh referred to as the “dragon teeth.” A subject could feel the immediate effect of his own lies. Eventually, if enough lies were told, the individual being interrogated could be punctured straight on through, in forty-six different places. So far, that had yet to occur, as the algorithm had proven incredibly effective at getting the truth before that occurred.

On this day, in Santiago, Chile, it didn’t matter to anyone except the algorithm what specific type of liar Chang was. But he was lying.

Chang was alone in the lab. A camera was attached to the ceiling, hanging ominously down like a spider from the rafters, aimed at him, filming him, then delivering the live feed to Beijing. Speakers in the wall delivered the questions.

Chang was drenched in perspiration and his skin was ashen, a product of more than sixteen micro injections of heroin and three injections of a synthetic neurotoxin made from a derivative of household bleach. In addition, he had three large pink marks—one on his neck, another on his testicles, and still another on his left ankle—where the dragon had sent a series of white-hot flames.

Most conspicuous, however, was the wallpaper of reddish dimples, like the outside of a golf ball, that was arrayed across his front and back, as the device moved ineluctably inward, slowly crushing Chang as he attempted in vain to spin his magic tales.

His capture at Valparaiso Airport had been routine. They were waiting for him when the jet landed. Chang would never know how Bhang had found him out so quickly. During the trip to Santiago, the ministry agents hadn’t said a word. As he was driven to the ministry laboratory, bound and gagged in the back of a van, he’d asked himself if there was something he could have done differently. Perhaps he should’ve remained in Argentina and gone into hiding. But even that would’ve been futile. They would’ve found him, sooner than later.

“Why did you run?” came the voice from the wall.

Was it Fao Bhang’s voice? He’d never actually heard Bhang speak. He sounded polite, like a schoolteacher.

“Answer, please.”

“I don’t know,” said Chang.

A small needle injected something into his neck. Burning pain erupted at the point of injection and flamed out. Chang screamed.

“What happened to Hu-Shao?”

Chang said nothing.

“Where is Hu-Shao?”

“I don’t know.”

The probes moved in, just slightly, while at his ankle a small torch flared. Chang screamed.

“Why didn’t you make contact?”

“I did. I made contact—”

A flame shot out from a different probe, at the lower part of Chang’s back. He screamed.

“You were escaping. You’re lying.”

“I was going to call from Valparaiso.”

The probes moved in, pressing a little harder against his skin.

“Stop lying. Where is Hu-Shao?”

“I told you, I don’t know.”

He felt and heard one of the probes puncture skin above his stomach. Blood oozed out from the puncture wound.

“Where is Hu-Shao?” asked the voice, calmly.

Chang looked up at the camera, resigned.

“He’s dead. Raul killed him.”

“How?”

“He shot him in the head.”

“Where?”

“In the field. He knew Hu-Shao was going to kill him.”

Chang’s eyes drifted to the camera.

“It was your fault,” he added. “All of you. If you’d just left it alone, it would all have been done, as we were trained to do. Instead you told Hu-Shao to kill the mercenary. Why? Why did you do this? Just kill me.”

The probes tightened, sandwiching him, while a shot of something cold entered through a probe at his neck. Suddenly, a burning pain riveted him as the neurotoxin entered his bloodstream.

“Where is Hu-Shao’s body?”

“At the ranch. On the ground. His head is destroyed. We were going to carry him out.”

“Did I hear you correctly?” asked the interrogator, anger and shock in his voice. “Hu-Shao’s body is—”

“On the ground,” said Chang. “The American was shooting at us.”

“Andreas?”

“Yes.”

Chang felt warmth, as a tiny dose of heroin was administered, a reward for telling the truth. He shut his eyes and tried to forget where he was. Somehow, he knew it was to be the last moment of pleasure in his life.

“He shot Raul in the stomach. We had to leave the body on the ground and run.”

“Is Andreas still alive?”

Chang remembered the sight of Andreas, firing his weapon at the Gulfstream as they took off. But he could be dead now. That was what he told himself.

“I don’t know.”

“Was Andreas alive when you last saw him?”

“Yes.”

“Did you fire at him?”

“Yes.”

“Was he hit?”

“I don’t know.”

The probes moved in slightly, pinching.

“Was he hit?”

“No.”

“Was he with someone?”

“Yes. A woman.”

“Did Raul shoot the woman?”

“Yes.”

*   *   *

In a small windowless room deep in the bowels of the ministry, which looked like the control room on a nuclear submarine, Bhang stood with his arms crossed, a cigarette dangling in his right hand. With him was Quan, who directed the ministry’s intelligence-gathering unit, and Bo Minh, his half brother, the inventor of the lie detector, who was managing the controls of the device.

All three men stared at the small plasma screen on the wall, which displayed a live feed of Chang.

At Chang’s last words, Bhang leaned forward and hit the mute button.

“Did he just say what I think he said?” asked Bhang, shock and anger in his voice.

On the screen, Chang’s bloodshot, nearly lifeless eyes stared into the camera.

Quan shrugged his shoulders.

Bhang lifted his finger from the mute button.

“Please repeat what you just said.”

“Fuck you,” moaned Chang, delirious.

Bhang nodded to Minh, who grabbed a dial beneath the screen and turned. Blood burst at different points on Chang’s body as the probes, with Minh’s assistance, pressed in tighter, crushing him.

“Please, Mr. Chang, repeat what you said,” ordered Bhang.

“Raul shot her. He killed her. He hit her in the back.”

Bhang looked at Minh.

“End the feed, if you would, Bo,” he said. “Cut him down. Get rid of him.”

Bhang walked to the door. At the door, he turned.

“Please find Ming-húa,” he said to Quan. “Tell him to be in my office in exactly thirty seconds. Then take care of Raul’s body, the pilots, the plane, everything. Erase all evidence.”