Sea of Lies: An Espionage Thriller (37 page)

The wind out of the east put a sting in his cheeks as he crossed the road and walked into Strastanaya Square. Most days he walked about three miles, the majority in loops around interconnected parks. Strastanaya Square was the focal point with a subway stop nearby. But today, of all days, where should he walk? The answer stood in front of him, the centerpiece of the square: the gigantic bronze statue of poet Alexander Pushkin.

*  *  *  *  *

Dick Constantine’s ire was palpable. Melissa Shook, Ho Ee Ling and in-house counsel Maury Shoenstein had assembled at his order. “Let me make certain I have this straight. Yesterday morning, Nolan agreed with Melissa that he’s off the task force. He and that Indian researcher, Millie whatshername.”

“Millicent Mukherjee. Correct. We nearly came to blows in the conference room after the morning meeting. There was nothing I asked for from that man.” Melissa’s voice trembled with emotion.

Turning to Ee Ling, Constantine asked, “And yesterday morning shortly after the meeting with Melissa, Nolan came to you and said he needed maps of police stations in small towns in Guangdong Province outside Xinhui, wherever the hell that is?”

“Yes. He said Melissa wanted them because she was chasing a VIP MSS official on MH370 who was from around there. Nolan told me Melissa was holding back the details because she wanted to claim the credit when we made an ID.”

“And you believed him?” Melissa asked.

“Of course I did. That sounded like you.”

Constantine ignored Ee Ling’s accusation. “And you emailed him the maps later yesterday afternoon?”

“Yes I did.”

He turned to Melissa and said, “And Nolan didn’t forward these to you? You’re certain of this?”

“Of course I’m certain. What, you think I’d delete something he sent me without reading it simply because it came from him?” Hearing herself, she hastily added, “He didn’t send me an email. Ask IT to check it out.”

“I will,” said Constantine. “Maury?”

“We don’t have grounds to detain Nolan until we can review yesterday’s email traffic. Pulling and reviewing those records will take one to two hours. We first need clearance to read his emails and review the phone transcripts once Legal and Compliance go through them. That means maybe two hours more before we’ll know what Nolan has.”

“For Pete’s sake, I’m chief of station! My security clearance is higher than everyone's in the building, including the ambassador’s. I want those emails on my desk and I want Nolan picked up!”

“We can’t do that without exposing the Agency and you to lawsuits. Play it by the book, even if it takes a couple of hours more. You already have men on Nolan: he can’t do anything without our knowing.”

*  *  *  *  *

The Beechcraft King Air made a smooth landing. The Paya Lebar military airport on the eastern end of Singapore wasn’t far away from Changi Airport, home to the busiest runways in the world. Ryder slept most of the way, knocked out by strong antibiotics and fatigue. Johnson was awake the entire flight, still wired from Tuesday’s Battle of Club Avatar and the interrogation sessions. The grunge music through his headphones kept him amped.

SPC Johnson pulled off his headset and grabbed Ryder’s wrist. “I’m off. I’ve got a few hours to kill before I’m due over at Seletar Airport around midnight. I’ll be away no more than ten days, then back to Khost. By the time you return from Hawaii, I’ll be ready for epic intercourse and intoxication. I’ll rent a big Benz and you supply the women. Pussy and gasoline are a great combination.”

Ryder grinned. “You need to meet Bob Nolan. He’s based here and has been driving the MH370 investigation along with Hecker. Nolan’s promised me a big night in Orchard Towers. Join us for the Fifth Floor Special.”

“That’s affirmative. We’ll make it a threesome with Buddy Boy Bob.” Johnson slapped Ryder on the arm and crossed the blacktop under leaden skies, duffel slung over his shoulder.

“Lay back, Mr. Ryder. We have to get this gurney down so we can transport you to Sembawang.” Ryder stared at the ceiling. Lord, how he hated being flat on his back. At least this time his eardrums were intact and both his legs weren’t full of shrapnel.

*  *  *  *  *

“Your Bulgarian has a nice umbrella,” offered the stranger sitting on a bench near Pushkin’s statue. The fellow had been there ten minutes earlier when Watermen had ambled past on the first lap. He was bearded, wearing a heavy, dark charcoal synthetic wool blend overcoat, cheap shoes, and a knitted Tibetan hat with the drawstrings hanging off the pointed earflaps. The ensemble screamed
hacker
.

“Watch out for him. He’s really a prick,” Watermen said without thinking, trotting out Nolan’s old saying one more time. Watermen stopped in front of the vagrant’s bench and admired Pushkin.

“The meet is still on for Friday in Colombo. Galle Road, Racquets Club terrace at 10 a.m. Ask for Vishnu at reception.” Watermen kept gazing at Pushkin, but that was the entire message. He recommenced his stroll and didn’t look back.

Three laps later, Watermen was sick of Alexander Pushkin in the round and altered his course to take in a few more late winter sights. By the time he returned to his apartment, he couldn’t feel his cheeks or the tips of his fingers. But Godpa had come through, as always.

*  *  *  *  *

So much for sleep. Mei Ling managed a cumulative four or five hours out of the last thirteen-plus in the air. The movie selection was anemic, modern Mainland fare mixed with golden oldies like
Crocodile Dundee
and
Where Eagles Dare
. Her Navy SEAL autobiographical kill-all was formulaic. She didn’t have the urge to read about others’ tribulations. Some days just being a Nolan was all she could bear.

Standing in the immigration line at Guangzhou Airport, Mei Ling realized she had taken a hell of a lot on trust here, although her father was not one to exaggerate. One thing Bob Nolan did have in spades was book smarts. Dad solved every math or word puzzle put in front of him with lightning speed. He loved ciphers, a passion his children lacked, and so he continued to collaborate with Watermen in trying to unravel the world’s unsolved mysteries of any particular day. He’d pressured Mei Ling until she could work a one-time pad and knew what a numbers station was. In the Nolan household, there wasn’t a clear distinction between code breaking and religion.

Mei Ling remembered Dad’s advice when she’d turned sixteen: “Try to be more of a duck than a goose. The duck is impassive on the surface while her feet are paddling like hell underneath. A goose stands on the shore and flaps her wings to make herself look bigger.
More duck, less goose
.” From that date, Mei Ling viewed her father through a different prism that appreciated his situational cunning as well as his intellect. She began to see the pattern of playing dumb, staying calm when confronted and later acting decisively offline. After a psych class at Pomona, she concluded that Dad was classically passive-aggressive.

Until that fateful day in Vancouver four years ago, Mei Ling had thought codes were only Dad’s hobby. It was then she learned that her lousy softball batting practice pitcher wasn’t an embassy IT geek, he was a CIA cryptanalyst. According to Mom, Dad had won a distinguished award for his exploits in a secret project that stretched over two years. This revelation came while they were driving from Vancouver Airport to the middle of nowhere to prepare their new rundown cabin for a life of anonymity. According to Dad, his secret project wasn’t a secret anymore. People from the Middle East were bent on killing his teammates, and if they could identify them, the Nolan family as well.

A woman from Dad’s software group died recently, along with her husband. The Agency (a term she noted that Dad used with slight disdain) claimed it was an accident. The laws of probability governed Bob Nolan’s life. He didn’t believe chance decreed that a reckless driver on a rainy night would end that couple’s lives. Not when the other vehicle was a stolen brick truck and the perp fled the scene, leaving no fingerprints behind.

“Someone is sending us a message, and we’d be foolish not to heed it,” said the Nolan patriarch as he activated a family safety plan he'd mapped out years before.

Mei Ling finally made it to the front of the queue. In good English, the immigration officer asked her for her passport and forms. Mei Ling pushed them across. She wondered if she should risk trying to grab some free Wi-Fi. Maybe Dad had managed to send her instructions as to what she was to do next? Better wait, she figured. No need to start violating laws before she was officially in the country. She felt a tap on her shoulder and turned to her right to find a stern-faced man in uniform. Then someone grabbed her left arm above the elbow. She stifled the impulse to break the hold and throw the man to the floor.

“Mei Ling Nolan?” asked the right-hand side man.

“Yes, that’s me.”

“Please come with us. We have questions about the reason for this visit to China.” With that cue, the soldier on her left guided her past the immigration counters and into a waiting office.

Wonderful. Just frigging outstanding, Mei Ling thought as she feigned a shrug and walked as casually as she could, keenly aware of the stares from foreigners and locals alike. She put her free hand in her pocket and winnowed out her cell. Unlocking it with one hand, she hit the “send” icon on the text she’d composed fifteen minutes prior. Not knowing what might go wrong once she’d deplaned, she’d typed, “Help Dad, bad things are happening to me at the airport,” and left the messaging application open in case this situation came to pass.

What her father could or would do about it was another thing altogether.

*  *  *  *  *

The bedside clock blinked 18:01. Nolan had just enough time to clear his head before the big run. He froze when he saw Mei Ling’s text. What did he do now? If he pulled a no-show in Sri Lanka, godson Mark was dead. However, current plans didn’t allow for a flight from Sri Lanka to China. Not unless he was defecting, and that wasn’t in the cards.

The time stamp on the text message was thirty minutes ago. No need to reply. If Mei Ling was in custody, she wouldn’t be able to use her burner unsupervised even if it was in her possession. Once Constantine & Co figured out a Nolan family member—if not two—was being held in China, he’d be taken into custody as a matter of policy.

The first order of business was to get out of the house. He grabbed his airplane carry-on backpack and opened the home safe. He didn’t want to leave anything behind. Video surveillance be damned; he needed those memory cards, too.

*  *  *  *  *

Yu Kaili was still reeling from the whirlwind events subsequent to the stormy Monday meeting. True to his bluster, Yi Xiubao wasted no time convincing President Gao to relieve Liu Zhenchang of his duties. Zhenchang, ostensibly retired, was now somewhere in the countryside under house arrest while his successor settled into his former boss’s office.

Kaili was among the first to lose her job. From deputy head of Counter Intelligence to head of station, Singapore was a long drop on a short rope. The HOS Singapore role was not only a smaller job, but also arguably a more difficult one. Her predecessor lasted less than a year before being recalled yesterday. Rumor was that his career was over. It was all Kaili could do to get the lame duck to agree to six hours of handover meetings, such was his haste to leave this cursed island.

Of all Asia, Singapore was the trickiest one for the MSS. Singapore was the US’s staunchest eastern hemisphere military ally outside Australia and Japan, provided a secure anchorage, and a repair and resupply facility for the US Navy’s Western Pacific and Indian Ocean fleets. America could not have undertaken the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq without Singapore’s considerable logistical assistance. As such, Singapore was a prime espionage target.

On the other hand, Singapore and China were friends at the political and economic levels; neither country was particularly enamored of sloppy democracies, and both appreciated the other’s contributions to their respective nation-building efforts. Stepping into the Singapore station’s lead role was the equivalent of being assigned to the bomb disposal squad and dropped in the middle of an unmapped minefield. It wasn’t a question of if, just when.

With all that swirling around in her head, she was perplexed by the
Head of Station, Eyes-Only
message from Guangzhou branch in front of her. Why was the Guangzhou MSS communicating with Singapore on matters judged to be above
Top Secret
? And why should she urgently approach Robert Nolan, fifty-four, a CIA cryptanalyst, to discuss the possible release of his wife and daughter from MSS custody? His file showed him to be a pre-retiree on an ever steeper downtrend in a career scheduled to end on March 31. Only when she reread the cover memo did she see that the work name used for the signoff was
Meng.
That was one of Liu’s pseudonyms: the master still wielded influence, and if he wanted her on Nolan, that was all she needed to know.

She picked up her office phone, so new to it that she didn’t know if she had to dial 9 for an outside line. She put the receiver down and instead used her new cell. She waited until someone finally picked up. “Hello? Is this Bob Nolan? Hi, Bob. It’s Mimi Chan. You may not remember me, but I’m an old friend of Shao Yin and Mei Ling from Guangzhou. Oh, you do? Well, that’s flattering. Would you be free for a cup of tea sometime this evening? Yes, that’s fine. I’ll see you in the lobby lounge of the Shangri La Hotel at 10:30 p.m. Yes, I’m sure I’ll recognize you. Just get a table for two somewhere quiet. See you soon. Looking forward to it.”

She had four hours to discover Bob Nolan’s vulnerabilities and find out where the Shangri La Hotel was.

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