Sea of Lies: An Espionage Thriller (16 page)

Millie came out of the shower and gave him a kiss. “We might have to put you on Viagra.” Noting his recovered condition, she added, “Or maybe just No-Doz.” 

He sidestepped that topic as he sat up to look for his boxer shorts and said, “Can you let me use your computer? I have to check my emails.” She’d already had the laptop set up on the desk, so he went online and into his emergencies-only backup Safe-mail account.

“When you’re done, wake me if you’re in the mood for round two.”

He turned out the light on the nightstand and began scrolling down emails in the dark. First up was Mei Ling, writing that she’d taken two weeks’ leave from her job at a San Francisco–area real estate investment bank, Good Earth Advisors. She was on the way to Seattle to pick up brother Bert, and from there they’d take a puddlejumper to Vancouver and then drive to the family cabin outside Kamloops, BC. Joanie was fine as well, reporting in from Guangzhou. She was taking a train later on Sunday that, with several switches and inevitable delays, should get to within taxi distance of the duck farm later that night. He reminded his family to stay off their cells, get new phone chips and furnish the numbers only among themselves. Ignore their regular email accounts for the time being, too, and use WhatsApp for texts.

It was after 3:30 and Millie was sleeping heavily. She was anything but the demure Californian librarian he had taken her for on first meeting. This was one hell of a one-night stand, but that’s all it could ever be. He regrouped and logged onto the dark web for his Agency email: nothing new beyond what Millie mentioned. Over on his private encrypted email that he used with Watermen in addition to sundry unsavory hackers, he saw an email subject line containing
Housecat
. That was their pre-agreed code word for extreme danger. He opened Watermen’s email and read with increasing dismay:

Godpa, I’m sorry for what I did earlier. Dad arrived in Moscow midday. I was upset when he told me about your long affair with Mom. He’s never been the same after the divorce, and blames you for Mom’s leaving him. I know that this is not completely true, but I was shocked to learn what happened when you were a guest in our home.

My FSB handler is ex-KGB and named Chumakov. He’s arrogant and cunning. I don’t know what his real job is other than spending an hour every week saying I’ll never leave Russia if he doesn’t get the NSA files, but his title is Director of Surveillance. After Dad told me about Mom and you, I snapped and told Chumakov that you probably had the only copy still in the wild.

I said you were CIA, but like me, didn’t care for the system these days. He has your address in Singapore. I think he’ll send his people from Moscow rather than use the local SVR staff. I spoke with him today around 13:00 Moscow time, Sunday 9 March.

I’m sorry I did this. Please don’t hate me. Good luck and let me know when you receive this email.

Godson Mark

Un-fucking-believable. In addition to Rob Teller, he now had the FSB after him? Singapore time was four hours ahead of Moscow. He Googled the Moscow-Singapore direct flight time and it came in at just under ten and a half hours. Mobilizing a snatch team and briefing them would take a couple more hours, plus travel time to the airport. Call it another four hours cumulative. He added nineteen hours to 1 p.m. Moscow time and ended up with 6 a.m. Monday local time. He had maybe two hours to figure out how he would handle a situation that could end up compromising US national security, cause the death of his godson, prompt his own murder, or all three.

“Get a grip, Bob.
Get a grip
,” he spoke aloud in a low voice. Millie stirred. He went back to Google and searched for flights. Singapore Airlines had the only direct flight on Sundays, and it left at 3:20 p.m. Moscow time and arrived at 5:40 a.m. local time. There was no way Chumakov could have had his hoods on the SQ flight in less than three hours. The drive to the airport alone was an hour. Well, maybe . . . but highly improbable.

He needed to clear his head. He logged out and limped toward the bathroom. There was something wrong with Watermen’s email, but he couldn’t put a finger on it.

A discreet yet forceful knock on the room door startled him.

*  *  *  *  *

It was now 5 a.m. and she was slumped in a Public Security Bureau interrogation room somewhere outside Guangzhou. Joanie Lam had never been so frightened in her life.

She’d known Bob’s profession for certain ever since that six-month tour of Iraq in 2006 and 2007. On pain of divorce, he’d eventually told her. She’d heard enough dubious stories about last-minute business assignments over the years, and with Mei Ling in high school and Bert in junior high, they needed more continuity on the home front. Additionally, Bob had twice returned to Arlington, Virginia with ill-defined urinary tract infections that kept them conjugally apart for weeks. Joanie accused him of infidelity, which he’d vigorously denied. The Iraq posting was the final straw. He acquiesced and told her he was working on top-secret cryptography in DC, but had expertise in surveillance techniques as well. When the best Agency wiretapping specialist in Iraq fell to a sniper’s bullet, Nolan was the one they had turned to in desperation. She didn’t believe him until he’d brought her to his office, where she’d been sworn to secrecy by a middle-level dodo from legal, and met his boss. He was an old-school cold warrior who praised Bob in the strongest terms. Joanie was left feeling unpatriotic for ever doubting Bob’s vital role in safeguarding national security. With her blessing, he deployed the next night.

Bob returned home not needing antibiotics, a testament to either his single-minded mission or her misplaced suspicions. He was invigorated like she’d not seen him since the wedding, Mei Ling already on the way. Bob’s career took off from Iraq, after which he virtually disappeared for six months in 2008 at the Laurel, Maryland NSA headquarters. He next received a promotion to Asia in 2010, where Bert spent his senior year at the Singapore American School. Mei Ling majored in Classics at Pomona College outside LA. Those were good times, at least until Bob made the three of them fly on zero notice to Vancouver where Mei Ling met them at the airport. Bob instructed his family on how to transact only in cash and use fake identification to thwart tracing. As the Larson family, they drove a rental 4WD many hours to a cabin deep in the woods. There Bob explained that not only was he in the CIA, but his team’s activities had provoked the US’s enemies in the Middle East to try to find out who they were and kill them.

The CIA had neither the resources nor the intelligence to protect the families of its people, he’d explained. So the Nolans were taking their own steps against the day—however unlikely—when he would alert them via prearranged code words that they must disappear. The alternative encrypted Safe-mail accounts, lack of mention anywhere of the existence of their British Columbia survivalist cabin (that was what Bob called it—it was still a shack to Joanie), and the absolute need for silence on this subject were drilled into their heads. Bob secretly arranged for authentic cover passports and driver’s licenses for the family, using up a lifetime of accrued favors with friends in the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Under cover, they would always be the Larsons.

On Sunday, Bob had given the prearranged signal that he was fine but the family was in danger. So she’d taken her prepacked bag to the airport soon after sending the maid away. The plane ticket was outrageous–even with two days’ advance booking, she could have halved the price–but as per Lord Bob’s decree, she had paid cash and hadn’t quibbled.

Immigration wasn’t a problem for a Mandarin- and Cantonese-speaking Singaporean on a short holiday of fifteen days or less. She’d taken two trains a total of three hours before disembarking in Xinhui, the end of the line just outside Jiangmen. The final thirty miles were by cab until she reached Kaiping, her mother’s natal village and the home of her uncles and aunties, only one of whom was still alive.

Joanie arrived unannounced after nine o’clock, relieved to find that Auntie Por Har still remembered her niece and was of sound mind despite an eight-year absence. Por Har’s eldest son’s family had long since dined and were preparing for bed, but the duck rice from the refrigerator reheated nicely. No one questioned Joanie’s story of having mailed two letters ahead announcing her intention of visiting for two weeks in March. China Post was notoriously unreliable. So why hadn’t she called? Pulling out an out-of-date phone number, Joanie said she had but it had been disconnected. Silly Shao Yin, Auntie had chided.

Joanie was settling down for the night in the spare room, musty but otherwise spotless, when there was a knock on the front door and a man’s voice inquiring about Lam Shao Yin. Joanie heard Auntie’s voice quaver so she double-timed it to the foyer. His uniform wasn’t police or army, but it looked official, as did his ID card. Speaking in Mandarin in a tone midway between
maid
and
village idiot
, she asked this young man to state his business, because she was tired after a long day. His reply was sharp. “You are required to accompany me at once to answer questions at the Ministry of Public Security.”

Joanie figured it was a shakedown. China’s peasants historically needed a second, honest police force to protect them from the predations of the first. Under the Communists, circumstances were supposed to have improved. She offered the man a thousand
renminbi
—about Singapore $200 and probably a week’s wages—to just go away. The policeman shouted at her that bribery was a serious offense. Chastened, Joanie said nothing more during the drive to Xinhui.

It was almost midnight when she found herself alone in a windowless room furnished with a table and two chairs. She slept intermittently until dawn, her head supported on crossed arms. She’d get a pinched nerve in her neck, or one arm or the other would go to sleep, and then wake up and swap sides for a spell.

When the door finally opened, an older official with oiled black hair combed over a bald spot walked in with a thick file under his arm. “Lam Shao Yin, you are hereby detained on suspicion of having committed espionage against the People’s Republic of China, and for attempting to bribe an officer of the Public Security Bureau. Have you any questions?”

“Yes. I’d like to speak with the Singapore Consul in Guangzhou, and I’d like a lawyer.” Joanie used her most formal Mandarin on this flunky, mocking his faux-Beijing tones.
Poseur
.

Comb-over replied in the Cantonese spoken by duck farmers in rural Guangdong province, “You will wait,” then turned and walked out. A guard shut the door.

Joanie was scared; they had her confused with Bob. How would she explain this without involving him? Oh, how she wished she could call him; Bob always knew what to do. However, they’d taken her purse and phone away when they left her in this room. All she had was a cold cup of tea, a ceiling fan and a bright overhead light. Her behind ached from the hard chair. She decided to get some rest, and shut her eyes as she leaned back, stretching a stiff neck.

*  *  *  *  *

 “Who is that?” Millie hissed. Nolan bundled up the same clothes he’d shed two hours ago under happier circumstances and hobbled back to the bed. It was dark save for the glow from the laptop. He bent over and pressed his fingertips to her mouth. She bolted upright, clutching the sheet to her neck. He gave her the slashed throat sign and threw on his pants as the knock repeated.

“Room service,” came a timid voice. Nolan walked up and silently swung the security bar into place. He put his eye to the peephole. Sure enough, someone in a hospitality uniform was standing in what otherwise appeared to be an empty hallway.

Nolan opened the door a crack. “Yes, what do you want? It’s after 5 a.m.”

“Mr. Mukherjee? I have a gift from the night manager. Could you open the door?”

It was too bizarre to be a setup, and there was no one else in the hall. Nolan closed the door, swung the security bar back and opened it just wide enough to fit his chest and arms through. A young South Asian man stood holding an ice bucket with a hand towel draped over the top. “This half bottle of champagne is a gift from the York Hotel. But could you please turn on your television set? Several of guests called downstairs, saying that your room was quite noisy.” He grinned broadly at Nolan, coconspirators at heart.

“Oh, ah, yes, I see,” Nolan said, taking the proffered bucket and propping open the room door with his unmangled big toe. “We’ll certainly take your advice. Thanks.” The door swung shut as he stepped back inside.

“My goodness, Bob, you made me moan so much they gave us a bottle of champagne as a bribe to turn on the TV?” Millie had shed her draped sheet and stood just behind the door. In an instant her nakedness swung from vulnerability to sensuality. She grabbed his hand in her two palms and implored him. “Come back to bed. I want a cuddle and to see if we can raise the dead.”

He was simultaneously flustered, preoccupied and slightly aroused. Focus.
Focus.
“In an hour the Singapore Airlines flight from Moscow lands and there may be people on board who will be looking to either kidnap or kill me. While you were asleep, I read an email from Mark Watermen telling me that he’d given my name, vocation and address to the FSB. The FSB will want the files I found in that bottle of beer. If I give them to the FSB, I’m no better than Ames, Hanssen, Walker and those other traitors. If I don’t, Watermen will be locked up, or worse, executed.”

“What will you do?” Millie was all business now.

“I’m not certain. I’ll start by arranging for the files to be returned to me, and then figure out the next steps. You should go back to bed for two more hours.”

“That’s not going to happen after what you just said. The first task force meeting is at 8:30 a.m. So you’re not coming?”

“I’m not on the task force, don’t know who is responsible and don’t have time. Once I retrieve those thumb drives there are a slew of things I need to do, starting with arranging personal security. It will be a bad day even if Teller’s men and the FSB or its sister agency, the SVR boys from the Foreign Intelligence Service, don’t show up. Find out what you can, and let’s meet tonight for dinner if things have settled down.”