Shadow Catcher (13 page)

CHAPTER 26

N
ick folded his arms and lifted one hand to rub the roughly shaven stubble on his chin. “So you're postulating that a US citizen has just escaped from a defunct prison camp in southern China?”

“Not just me,” said Walker, setting his coffee down on the desk. “The Joint Chiefs too. But the chairman isn't ready to bring in the State Department. With the current administration's weak Asia policy and Task Force 77 out of the strait, our political footing in China is delicate. A formal inquiry could be disastrous. Instead, the chairman has asked the Triple Seven Chase to look into it. Discreetly.”

“The trouble is,” interjected McBride, “that none of the services has lost anyone recently in China.”

“What about those P-3 guys back in '01?” asked Quinn.

“They all came home,” said Nick. “Will, have you talked to Langley?”

“That's part of the mystery.” McBride gestured to the digital media player, still open on Walker's smart glass wall. “That file came to me from a generic address in their audio analysis section. I called over there to compare notes, but no one could tell me who sent it. When I asked if they were missing any operatives in China, I got stonewalled. Later, I received a formal e-mail from the China division chief that said they could neither confirm nor deny.”

“That means they don't know,” said Nick.

“I thought that meant that they were lying,” said Quinn.

“No, if they actually give you an answer, that means they're lying,” said Drake.

“Enough,” interrupted Walker. “Please don't say things like that when you go over there. Our two operations have such a tenuous relationship.”

Nick shook his head. “Don't worry, sir. We don't even know if the spooks are involved. We have no intention of going over to Langley.”

“On the contrary. You're going over there right now. This thing has CIA written all over it. I've already made arrangements with Joe Tarpin.” Walker patted McBride on the back. “I've muscled the sergeant away from his unit. While you're gone, he can oversee our intelligence team and dig from here.”

“I guess that's settled then,” said Nick, turning to Drake. “We'd better get moving.”

“Ahem.” Walker coughed and nodded toward Quinn. “Baron,” he said, his scowl sharpening, “don't forget about the new kid.”

* * *

Nick gathered Drake, Quinn, and McBride in his office. “We'll take the Mustang,” he said, handing his keys to Drake. “I'll meet you up there in a few minutes.”

As Drake stepped out the door, Quinn got up from the couch and started to follow.

Nick blocked his path. “Who said anything about you coming along?”

“Colonel Walker did,” argued Quinn. “He just told you not to forget me.”

“No, he told me not to forget
about
you. And believe me, I haven't.” He searched Quinn's face, still trying to figure out what made him tick, wondering what sort of crossed wiring drove him to blow off something as critical as a cutaway command. The last thing he needed was another operative who couldn't follow orders. His eyes settled on Quinn's, matching the kid's angry glare. “Until I say otherwise, you're on desk probation. Go find Molly and ask her to show you how to run a Defense Intelligence Agency search for ‘Red Dragon.' The pile will build fast. When it does, your job is to start reading and filtering out the slag. It isn't peeling potatoes, but it's close.”

The young operative glowered back in protest for a few more seconds. Then, without so much as a “Yes, sir,” he stood and walked out of the room.

McBride gave a low whistle. “Wow. That was awkward. How dysfunctional is that kid, right?”

Nick sighed. “Until Walker sees reason, I'm stuck with him.” He motioned for McBride to sit down at his computer. “I need your help with something, something that isn't really part of this Red Dragon thing.”

“But the colonel wanted me to watch over your analysts.”

Nick shook his head. “They can handle themselves. I need you to work on something else.” He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a red thumb drive. “I need you to process the video on this drive. The password is Warthog one seven.”

“What's in the video?”

“A fish who nibbled at some bait we left at the Kuwait City morgue. Someone knew about our last op, and I need to know who they are and how they got their information.” Nick held up the drive. “This guy is our only lead.” He started to hand it to McBride but then pulled it back. “Oh, and I'd like you to keep this under Walker's radar.”

The young sergeant took the drive out of Nick's hand and shoved it into the computer tower. “Running an op behind the colonel's back, huh? Now who's the dysfunctional one?”

* * *

Crossing the infamous seal just inside the CIA's front door always struck a wary chord in Nick's gut. The enigmatic star and eagle crest seemed to radiate its own energy, like an etching in the stone floor of an ancient temple. It was hallowed ground, or perhaps something quite the opposite.

“My two favorite teammates,” said Joe Tarpin, waving from the security desk. “What a pleasure.”

Nick shook Tarpin's hand. “I take it that Colonel Walker apprised you of our situation?”

“He did. In fact, I did a little digging this morning, and I've already made some progress.”

Nick and Drake followed Tarpin through security, flashing their Defense Intelligence Agency badges. The Triple Seven Chase had no parent agency, but badges were needed to open doors wherever you went in Washington, DC, and DIA badges could open the most. Walker had the necessary contacts.

Just past the X-ray machine, Tarpin turned and started climbing a flight of stairs.

“I'm surprised we're going up,” said Drake. “I expected to find the records for top-secret CIA projects in the basement.”

“We're not as arcane as that,” replied Tarpin, glancing over his shoulder as he climbed the steps. “As part of our efforts to pretend respectability, we maintain our archives in the same place as any venerable old institution.” He rounded a corner at the top of the stairs and stopped in front of a pair of frosted glass doors. A polished nickel plate set into the wall read
LIBRARY
.

“I guess there's no better place to do research,” said Nick.

Tarpin led them through the main collection room, past infinite rows of bookshelves, to a simple wooden door in the rear wall. Despite its humble appearance, the CIA man had to place his finger against a pad and then enter a lengthy numeric code in order to gain entrance.

“After the colonel's phone call, I spoke to our department heads, trying to find out if we really had lost one of our agents in China.” Tarpin closed the door and sat down at a computer terminal. “They all denied knowledge of such an event.”

“That doesn't really mean anything,” said Drake.

Tarpin smiled. “You're absolutely right, but this time I believe them.” The prompt on the computer screen showed that Tarpin had already been working there. After he entered his password, the standard Windows screen appeared, displaying a line of active programs across the toolbar.

“Faced with the usual interdepartmental stonewall treatment, I had to get creative. Walker gave me two terms: Jade Zero One and Red Dragon.” He opened one of the active windows and typed “Red Dragon” into the search box. An hourglass began rotating on the screen. “The most obvious place to start was a search for any operation named Red Dragon.” The computer beeped, and Tarpin rotated the flat screen so that Drake and Nick could see it better. The red text below the search prompt read, “No archived operations match your request.”

“So Red Dragon never existed,” said Nick.

“Not according to our archives.”

“Again, that doesn't mean anything,” said Drake.

“Hey, I'm on your side. But this is the gold mine, the conspiracy theorist's mother lode.” Tarpin gestured at the computer screen. “The records from every black operation in Agency history are on this network. If Red Dragon isn't listed here, then either it never existed or someone with clout equal to the deputy director must have buried it.”

Drake started to argue, but Tarpin held up a finger to stop him. “There is some good news, though.” He minimized the first window and opened another. This one displayed a scanned image of an old document, printed on a dot-matrix printer. “The other term Dick gave me was Jade Zero One. That
has
to be a callsign, probably aerial. It dawned on me that the Agency never recycles a flight callsign once it's been compromised, which means they have to keep track of all of them, especially the burned ones. Look.”

Nick leaned in closer to inspect the old document. The header read
AERIAL CALLSIGNS, ASIAN THEATER OF OPERATIONS: 1985–1990
.

Tarpin placed his finger on the screen halfway down the page. The callsign he indicated was, in fact, Jade, but Nick had trouble seeing it because a red stamp covered up the line. The block text read, “COMPROMISED, JAN 1988.”

Tarpin nodded as Nick straightened up. “Obviously, something bad happened to an aircraft using the Jade callsign.”

“Great,” said Drake, “but that still doesn't tell us much.

Tarpin shrugged. “At least it's a start. I've been at this all morning. I can't tell you how many pages of callsigns I had to root through to find this one. I didn't have a reference date to start with.”

“No,” said Nick, “but we have one now.” He tapped the image of the red stamp. “January 1988.”

“But I showed you, we don't have any record of Operation Red Dragon. The date won't change our result,” argued Tarpin.

“Yeah, but our job isn't really to find the operation, is it? We're looking for a person, one who was probably lost during a flight and presumed dead.” Nick started heading for the door. “We're done here. Log off and follow me.”

Nick walked briskly out of the library and turned down the staircase, headed for the lobby where they'd entered.

“Slow down,” puffed Tarpin, well behind Nick and Drake as they jogged down the steps. “I'm not as fit as I was when I was your age, running ops all over the globe.”

At the base of the stairs, Nick turned into a wide alcove and stopped. The CIA kept the world's darkest secrets locked away deep within the bowels of its compound, and yet the answer he needed might be waiting right here, a few feet from the visitors' desk.

One hundred two black stars adorned an austere wall of pearl white marble. Below the stars, a small shelf jutted out, holding a steel case covered by an inch of bulletproof glass. A thin book lay inside, open to its only two pages.

“Of course,” said Tarpin, breathing heavily as he came up beside Nick, “the Book of Honor.”

Nick nodded. “The list of agents who died in heroic action or under hostile attack.”

Drake strode up to the wall and bent over the case. “The name we want would be from either 1987 or 1988. And 1987 has only one name, Richard Krobock.”

Tarpin shook his head. “Krobock isn't our man. Everyone here knows that story. He died in El Salvador in a guerilla attack. What about '88?”

Drake sighed. “Another dead end. There's one star, but no name.”

“That's our guy,” said Nick. “It makes sense. There wouldn't be a name, not if the circumstances surrounding the death are still classified.”

“Great. So why did you bring us here?”

“For confirmation,” Nick replied. He turned to Tarpin. “Now we need to see the
real
book.”

Tarpin raised both hands in protest. “I don't know what you're talking about.” But Nick held his ground. He just stared at the CIA man, waiting, until finally Tarpin's shoulders dropped. “Fine,” he said with exasperation. He turned back to the stairwell, but this time he started down. “Follow me.”

Nick and Drake followed Tarpin down several flights of stairs. “Now we're talking,” said Drake, rubbing his hands together as they reached the bare concrete of the basement level.

“Keep your voice down,” cautioned Tarpin. He led them down a dark hallway and stopped in front of a heavy vault door. “You guys don't have clearance,” he complained. “I could lose my job for this. I could lose my pension.”

Nick pursed his lips. “An American patriot might be hiding somewhere in southern China, waiting for rescue. We are already more than thirty-six hours behind. Every moment we waste is another chance for the Chinese to capture him again. You know Walker can get us the clearance. Take care of the paperwork later.”

“If the Triple Seven Chase mounts a rescue, I want in,” said Tarpin.

“Just open the door.”

Tarpin finally nodded and entered his code. Weak fluorescent lights flickered on as he swung the door open, bathing the small room in pale green light. “This is the real memorial,” he said as he led them inside.

One hundred two stars made of dark green stone were set into the marble wall at the back of the room. A short, jade pillar stood beneath them, supporting a closed book, as thick as a family Bible, encased in a glass box.

“Can you open that box?” asked Nick.

“Not without a preservation specialist,” Tarpin replied. “But we don't have to open it.” He stepped over to the right-hand wall and typed a code into a keyboard that stood out at waist level. The light green wall lit up like a computer screen. Several rows of folders appeared, each one labeled with a month and a year.

“This is the digitized version of the actual Book of Honor,” explained Tarpin, stepping aside. “These files contain images of the pages. They also contain other documents relating to the deceased.”

Tarpin moved aside, allowing Nick to access the keyboard. Nick opened the folder labeled
JANUARY 1988
. Inside, there was only one file. He read the name out loud, “David Novak.”