The Ascendant: A Thriller (11 page)

No, Denny Constantine thought, still running his no-longer-magic cell phone in between his thumb and forefinger. He would not go down the sinkhole with them. He would blaze his own path. No one, and no market, would push him around.

Fuck that. I am still a free man, with free will, and I make my own decisions. And this is my decision . . .

He straightened his tie, tucked in his white shirt, and in one swift motion flung himself over the railing of the condo balcony. The last thought he had as he spun down toward the blistering hot pavement was that maybe he was wrong. Maybe the owners of those seven hundred units weren’t desperate.

Maybe they did it on purpose.

G
arrett sat in a large, airy room in one of the low, wooden Marine barracks on the south end of Camp Pendleton Marine Base, just off Vandergrift Boulevard. The room was beat up, the paint peeling, the slatted ceiling rickety. There were half a dozen computers and monitors set up on school desks around the room, and a large projection screen hung on one wall. The other three walls were lined with charts and world maps, and they rattled when Marine helicopters took off and landed at the airstrip half a mile away, or when Humvees rumbled past on the rutted dirt tracks that crisscrossed the dry hills that surrounded the base.

Garrett was slightly disappointed. The computers were relatively new, but there wasn’t any James Bond–or
Mission Impossible
–style fancy technology—no holograms or live feeds from covert NSA satellites. Instead there were a lot of file folders and dog-eared books stacked in corners. He had just started inspecting a map of South China when Alexis entered the room with three people in tow: two men and a woman, all young, late twenties at most. One of the men wore green Army fatigues; the other two were civilians—at least they appeared to be, judging by their clothes.

“Fancy digs,” Garrett said, gesturing to the cracks in the walls.

“They won’t attract attention,” Alexis said. “Secrecy is the goal.”

“Why Camp Pendleton? Isn’t that Marines? I thought I was Army now?”

“It is Marines, but all the services occasionally use the base. It’s a secure location. We won’t have to spend extra resources protecting you. And, quite
honestly, we don’t have all the money in the world for this right now. It’s low-rent, but it works.”

“Low-rent is an understatement.”

Alexis ignored Garrett’s jibe and motioned to the people she’d brought with her. “We’ve assembled a team to help you. Together, we’ll run you through the basics of what you need to know. About the world situation, about the military, about intelligence any of our services gather in the short and long term.”

“
All
the intelligence your services gather?”

“Whatever intelligence is deemed vital for you to know.”

Garrett laughed—the backpedaling had already begun. That was okay, though; he’d made his decision. He would see it through. At least for a while.

Alexis pointed to the young man in fatigues. He was about Garrett’s height—six feet tall—and lean, with black buzz-cut hair and tortoiseshell glasses that were clearly not Army issue. “This is Lieutenant Jimmy Lefebvre.”

Lefebvre stepped up and shook Garrett’s hand. “Very pleased to meet you.” He had a slight southern accent, and his gaze was cool and steady. Garrett thought he sensed a reserve in him, as if the lieutenant wasn’t entirely happy to be there. He also thought he smelled money.

“Lieutenant Lefebvre is an assistant professor at the U.S. Army War College in Pennsylvania,” Alexis said. “His specialty is developing-nation politics. Intercountry relationships, media dissemination of propaganda. He has a Ph.D. in political philosophy, and his knowledge of the world scene is vast. Consider him your political Wikipedia.”

Lefebvre dipped his head and smiled uneasily, almost as if annoyed by Alexis’s introduction. “Captain Truffant exaggerates,” Lefebvre said. “But I hope to be useful to the team, regardless.”

Alexis pointed to the young woman next. “This is Celeste Chen.” Celeste was thin, with short black hair and bright-red lips. She wore a tight Decemberists T-shirt and ripped jeans, and she looked fantastic. At least Garrett thought so. He caught a brief glimpse of a snake tattoo coiled around her bicep, just below the sleeve of her shirt. Garrett loved a nicely placed tat—they were the epitome of sexy for him.

Celeste nodded coolly to Garrett. “Hey.”

“Lemme guess,” Garrett said. “You’re the indie rock expert? Festivals, concert dates, band member bios?”

“Wow. You are good.” She scowled at Garrett and sat down.

“Ms. Chen is a language analyst,” Alexis said. “She is fluent in Chinese, all three major dialects, Mandarin, Cantonese, and Wu, as well as Japanese and Tagalog. She also does contract work in cryptology, for the military and the State Department. She’s on loan from UCLA, and we’re lucky to have her. She’s also an experienced code breaker.”

“Awesome,” Garrett said. “I don’t do any of that stuff.” He liked Celeste immediately: she had attitude to burn, and Garrett held a special place in his heart for women with attitude.

Alexis turned to the last member of the trio. He was the oddest-looking of the three: young, no more than twenty-five, African-American, and huge—six foot three at least, with an extra fifty pounds around his midsection. He wore chinos and a blue button-down shirt that was a size too small, and which made him seem all the larger.

“This is Bingo Clemens,” Alexis said. “He’s our advisor on all things military and military hardware.”

Garrett blinked in surprise. Of all the people in the room, Bingo appeared the least likely to have been in the military—or to have had anything to do with the military. If he could do five push-ups without collapsing, Garrett would have been astonished. Garrett was surprised they let him on the base.

“Nice to meet you, Bingo,” Garrett said, sticking out his hand.

“Yep,” Bingo mumbled, quickly shaking Garrett’s hand. Bingo’s fingers engulfed Garrett’s. His hand was the size of a baseball glove.

“He can be shy,” Alexis said, almost maternally. “But he has an encyclopedic knowledge of the armed services. Ours, the Russians’, the Chinese. Anyone’s. And he’s up-to-date on capabilities, deployments, and materiel.”

“But he’s not part of the military, so he has no prejudices, and won’t engage in the dreaded groupthink,” Garrett said.

“Exactly,” Alexis replied.

“I’m not shy,” Bingo grunted, staring at the ground.

“Okay. I apologize for saying that, Bingo,” Alexis said. “He does research for the Rand Corporation out of their Santa Monica offices. They specialize in national defense matters. Bingo actually has the highest security clearance of any of us.”

Garrett gave Bingo another look. If he was who the military was entrusting high-level secrets to, then this country was doomed.

“I’m really not shy,” Bingo muttered, clearly having trouble moving on.

“Hey, I believe you,” Garrett said, smiling. He thought Bingo was amusing—if a little out there. “So,” Garrett said, dropping into a rolling desk chair. “Nice to meet you all. When do we start?”

“Right now,” Alexis said, booting up a laptop and opening an Excel spreadsheet. “Because we figure we have about a week.”

“A week until what?” Garrett asked.

“Until a full-blown war.”

X
u Jin, director of the Ministry of State Security, walked quickly, purposefully, through the crowds that clogged the streets of Dashengzhuang Village, the sprawling suburban section of South Beijing. New immigrants to the Chinese capital—farmers and peasants just off the bus, mothers with babies wrapped in soiled clothes—elbowed the director as if he were just another citizen looking for a bargain in the stores and open-air stalls of this crowded, bustling community. They could not have known he was a member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party, the most powerful ruling body in the entire People’s Republic. But why should they know him, Xu Jin thought, as he sidestepped a hulking man carrying a sofa-sized load of cardboard on his back. Practically nobody in China knew the faces of their leaders. The premier, yes, and the president and vice president, of course. But below those esteemed men? Faceless technocrats. And that was just the way they liked it.

And it wasn’t like Xu Jin was alone. There were two bodyguards—soldiers from the Beijing garrison, in plainclothes—following a few steps behind him. And behind them, four more soldiers, likewise dressed in slacks and black coats, but with pistols in their belts, on the lookout for subversives, anarchists, and Muslim extremists from the northwest. Or maybe followers of that insurrectionist bandit woman roaming the villages of central China. But he wouldn’t be thinking of her—there were any number of enemies of the state wandering the streets of Beijing’s immigrant villages; they blended in with the hordes looking for work, staying out of sight of the government’s vast security apparatus while
recruiting miscreants and criminals for their acts of subversion and destruction. They were nihilists, misguided zealots who sowed chaos, thinking that it would get them what they wanted. At least that was the way Xu Jin saw it. But they were mistaken. All acts of resistance to the state security forces would be met with unhesitating force.

They would be crushed.

Xu Jin ducked down an alley, his bodyguards following at a discreet distance, then shoved open the glass door of an Internet café. Inside, he was met with the low hum of a hundred computers, and the incessant click-clack of a hundred sets of fingers tapping on a hundred keyboards. There was little or no conversation, except for the bored cackle of the pair of teenaged girls behind the counter. Nobody looked up when Xu Jin entered the long, narrow, smoke-filled café, nobody noticed as he strode past the crammed-in desks lined with monitors and desktop computers. Kids, Xu Jin thought dismissively, playing their idiotic video games, posting their opinions on sports teams or girls—or whatever those people did online. He despised them all.

Xu Jin, fifty-six years old, trim and fastidious, from a sophisticated, urban family, had almost no experience using computers. He didn’t have to. He had people on the committee—secretaries and assistants and endless functionaries—who did that for him. But it bothered him, the way people threw all their time and attention to the Internet. Didn’t they realize that real life was out there, on the streets, waiting for them, not in here, in dingy, smelly Internet cafés? They let their hair grow long; they didn’t shave or bathe, simply played and played all day long.
To what end?
It didn’t matter. He knew what he wanted, and who would make it happen for him.

Xu Jin navigated the computer stations as they bunched even closer together toward the back of the café. There, in the last booth, before a chain-locked exit door, sat the man he was looking for. Or, rather, the boy. He pulled up a chair beside the gangly, pimpled programmer hunched over his keyboard. God, he was horrible to look at, pale and strung-out, vacant eyes staring at some idiotic video game. Were those dragons on his computer monitor? Is that what he does? Play dragon games?

“Gong Zhen,” the ministry director hissed quietly. “It is me, Xu Jin. Look at me. Gong Zhen!” He let his voice rise over the hum of hard drives and whirring fans.

Gong Zhen, twenty-three years old, brushed his greasy black bangs from his forehead and turned slowly to look at the bureaucrat. He blinked twice, as if to reorient his thoughts, then frowned slightly. “What time is it?”

“ ‘Director Xu, could you please tell me the time?’ That is how you address me, Gong Zhen. That is how you address your elders. Your superiors.”

Gong Zhen said nothing. Instead, he scratched lazily at his nose.

Xu Jin’s whole body tightened with the impudence of this man-child: he should have him dragged from this horrible place and shot. That is what he should do, Xu Jin thought, and he should do it now. He started to stand up, and then caught himself, and sat back down. He could not have this boy shot. That was a ridiculous notion. Such things were no longer done in modern China. And for what? Not addressing a minister of state with proper respect? He calmed himself and looked the boy in the eye.

“We talked before. You remember?”

“Uh-huh.”

“About some work you would do for me.”

“I remember.”

“How you would put a team together? Of computer people? Like yourself? Friends from the university? Loyal and trustworthy people? With some who had worked in the United States, maybe as interns for Microsoft or Apple, but had come home?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I gave you money for this. Enough to hire two dozen people. Maybe more.”

“Yeah.”

“So you would write something, and then set that thing in motion? This thing I asked for. Like a train. A great runaway train?”

“Uh-huh. Sure.”

Xu Jin collected himself. All that grunting would put him over the edge again. He rubbed the tops of his fingers, a soothing motion that never failed to bring him a moment’s inner peace. “Have you done what I asked you for? You and your team?”

This time, Gong Zhen didn’t answer, but instead turned to his keyboard and tapped out a series of rapid-fire commands. He pivoted the computer monitor so the director of state security could see the readout. Thousands of lines of computer code scrolled down the screen, black and red and blue fonts dancing
over the white background. Xu Jin stared at it for a moment, but it was meaningless to him, a foreign language he neither understood nor had any interest in understanding.

“Are you saying this is the work?”

Gong Zhen nodded, then sipped at a can of energy drink.

“And you are ready to send it out into the world?”

Gong Zhen shrugged noncommittally. Xu Jin sighed; he was an infuriating, idiot child.

“And no one will be able to trace it back to here? To China?”

“Finland. And Ukraine,” the boy said. “Multiple anonymous proxy servers.”