Threat Vector Read online

  She thought, not for the first time, about sitting Jack down and telling him what was going on. She knew it would destroy his trust in her, and he would be justified in never speaking to her again, but maybe if she explained the situation, the entire situation, he would understand enough that he would not hate her for the rest of his life. She’d done very little, after all, in her mission to spy on him for the FBI. In fact, other than a couple of phone calls about his trips abroad, Lipton was correct when he said she was basically useless as an agent.

  Her phone rang, and she answered it without looking. “Hello?”

  “Hey, hon.” It was Lipton. “Okay. You get what you want. Come on over and you can meet with my boss, Special Agent in Charge Packard.”

  “Come over? Come over where?”

  “To J. Edgar. Where else?” The J. Edgar Hoover Building, on Pennsylvania Avenue, was the headquarters of the FBI.

  Melanie balked. She did not want to be seen walking into the Hoover Building. “Can we meet someplace else?”

  “Sugar, do you think SAIC Packard’s got nothing better to do than to drive out to McLean this afternoon?”

  “I’ll take the afternoon off and come to D.C. Right now. You tell me where. Anyplace but the Hoover Building.”

  Lipton blew out a long sigh and said, “Let me call you back.”

  An hour later Melanie entered the same underground garage where she had met with Lipton previously. Unlike that early Saturday morning, it was now packed with cars.

  She found two men standing next to a black Chevy Suburban with government plates.

  Packard was younger than Lipton by a few years, though his hair was fully gray. He passed Melanie his credentials, which she looked at briefly to confirm his name and title, and then he handed her all the paperwork Lipton had shown her that morning.

  Packard said, “What we are asking of you, Miss Kraft, is very simple. Place a software location tracker on Mr. Ryan’s phone without his knowledge, and then stand down. We are not telling you we won’t require your services again, but we will not require you to provide us updates on his whereabouts.”

  Melanie said, “I have not gotten a straight answer from Special Agent Lipton, maybe you can provide me with one. Just what evidence do you have that he has committed any crimes?”

  Packard took a moment. “It’s an ongoing investigation, of which Mr. Ryan is a subject of interest. That’s really all I can tell you.”

  Melanie was not satisfied. “I can’t just indefinitely spy on my boyfriend. Especially if I have no reason to believe he’s done anything wrong.”

  Packard turned to Lipton now. “Darren, can you give us a minute?”

  Lipton looked like he was going to argue. Packard raised a single bushy eyebrow, and Lipton shuffled off through the parking garage, headed up the ramp to street level.

  Packard leaned back against his Suburban. “First things first. I know Special Agent Lipton is a little rough around the edges.”

  “That’s putting it mildly.”

  “He’s damn good at what he does, so I give him some leeway, but I know this must be difficult for you for many reasons.”

  Melanie nodded.

  “I’m sorry about this entire situation. Hell, to tell you the truth, Jack Ryan, Senior, is my hero. The last thing in the world I want to do is expose his son in some sort of illegality. That said, I swore an oath, and I go where the law points me.

  “I know Lipton has, essentially, threatened to expose your father’s involvement with that Palestinian thing in Egypt if you don’t play ball with us. Sometimes our job gets a little dirty like that.”

  Melanie looked down to her hands.

  “I’ll be honest with you. I approved him making that threat. But we only did that because we know there is no way we can conduct this investigation without your help. I mean, of course we can put a twelve-man surveillance team on him, get federal wiretaps, and a search warrant for his home and office. But you and I know that is going to make a lot of news in this town, and we want to avoid that. If nothing comes out of this, we don’t want to do anything to harm his reputation, or the reputation of his father. So we want to do this with all the sensitivity the situation warrants.

  “You get that, right?”

  After a moment Melanie said, “Yes, sir.”

  “Great. If you can plant the tracking software that the judge has allowed us to use, then we can be aware of his movements without doing the dog-and-pony show that’s going to make the front page of The Washington Post.”

  “And my situation?” she asked.

  “Nobody needs to know about that. You have my personal assurance that those sleeping dogs will continue to lie where they are.” He smiled. “Help us, and we’ll help you. It’s a win-win, Miss Kraft.”

  “All right,” said Melanie. “He’s out of town right now, but when he gets back I’ll download the thing onto his phone.”

  “That’s all we need.” Packard handed her his business card. “If Darren gives you too much trouble, feel free to give me a call. I can’t make him go away; the last thing anyone wants to do is bring someone else into this situation. But I will have a talk with him about his colorful behavior.”

  “I appreciate that, Agent Packard.”

  The two shook hands.

  —

  Adam Yao, Ding Chavez, and Jack Ryan, Jr., met at the Peninsula in the early afternoon. Yao had traded vehicles with a neighbor, allowing the neighbor to drive his Mercedes in exchange for using the man’s maroon Mitsubishi Grandis, a seven-seat minivan common in Asia. He had no idea if his own car had been spotted by the Triads, but he did not want to take any chances, and he liked the idea of having a little extra room in his vehicle for lugging around the men from Hendley Associates.

  They drove up Nathan Road a few blocks, and Yao parked in an hourly lot. “I thought we could get our operation set up for this evening, maybe work out any kinks in our surveillance process.”

  Chavez said to Yao, “You are in charge here. Just let us know what you want us to do.”

  Adam hesitated. Ryan knew the CIA man must surely feel intimidated by running Domingo Chavez in a surveillance operation. Ding had fifteen years more experience in these sorts of things than did Yao. But of course Adam Yao could not reveal his discomfort to the businessmen working with him.

  “Okay,” he said. “First thing first. Everybody put on your Bluetooth headsets and dial in to this number.”

  Ding asked, “What number is this?”

  “This will set all three of us up on a conference call. We will be in constant communication this way.”

  They all logged in to the conference call and checked that they were in touch with one another.

  Then Adam reached into his glove compartment and pulled out two small devices, each not much larger than a matchbox. He handed one to each of the two Hendley Associates men.

  “What are these?” Jack asked.

  “It’s called a slap-on. It’s a magnetic GPS beacon. I use them to track vehicles, mostly, but I can track you with them just as easily. Just stick it in a pocket, and I can monitor you on the map on my iPad. I will stay way behind you guys in the car while you do the foot follow, and I’ll navigate for you.”

  “Cool,” admitted Jack.

  Ding and Jack exited the Mitsubishi and headed off to the south. Yao stayed in communication with them as they headed up opposite sides of a busy pedestrian street. Chavez picked a passerby at random to begin following, and he stayed well behind her as she window-shopped along Nathan Road.

  Ryan managed to fight his way through the thick pedestrian traffic, and he got ahead of her on the other side of the tree-lined street. He was waiting inside a clothing store, watching her through the window as she passed.

  “Ryan has the eye,” he said.
/>   “Copy that,” replied Chavez. “She seems to want to continue heading south. I’m going to get on the far side of the street and head to the next decision point.”

  Now Yao came over their headsets. “Ding, that’s going to be the Austin Road intersection. There is a 7-Eleven there. You can go inside and retain visual on the subject as she makes that corner.”

  “Copy that.”

  Yao controlled both men from the map on his tablet computer. He moved his car ahead of the surveillance more than once to be in position to pick the woman up if she climbed into a vehicle.

  They continued their coverage for an hour. The unsuspecting woman shopped, stopped for coffee, talked on her phone, and finally returned to her hotel room on the fifth floor of the Holiday Inn, all completely oblivious to the three-man team that kept her under constant surveillance.

  Adam was impressed with the abilities of the American businessmen. Of course, it was no surprise to him that Domingo Chavez possessed such skills, but Ryan’s abilities were, frankly, suspicious, considering the fact that he was an analyst in a financial management and currency trading concern.

  POTUS’s kid knew how to operate in a foot follow without being compromised.

  They all rallied back at the car, which was now parked in an underground lot near the Jordan Road MTR station.

  Yao went over his observations and talked about how things would be that night. “The Triads are running countersurveillance measures, so we’ll have to back off a little from what we got away with today.”

  Chavez and Jack agreed, but Yao could tell Ryan did not seem satisfied.

  “Jack, something bothering you?”

  “My only problem was that I was recognized a couple of times. Add that to the guy in the Peninsula last night, and that’s three times in about eighteen hours. I almost never get recognized at home.”

  Adam chuckled. “HK is incredibly crowded, and it’s one of the hubs of world finance. On top of that, there is a lot of connection with the West here. Everybody knows who your dad is. A few know who you are.”

  “Not much I can do about it.”

  Adam said, “That’s not exactly true. You want people to stop noticing you, the solution is easy enough.”

  “I’m in your hands.”

  Yao reached into his backpack and pulled out a paper air mask that attached to the face with rubber bands that went behind the ears.

  Jack had seen hundreds of people walking the streets of Kowloon wearing these paper masks. Both Avian Flu and SARS had hit Hong Kong hard, which was no surprise, considering the dense population. Many people, especially those with compromised immune systems, took no chances and wore masks to help filter the air.

  Adam placed the blue paper mask over Ryan’s face. Then the Chinese-American dug in the pack again, and retrieved a black baseball cap. This he positioned on Ryan’s head. He took a step back and looked at his handiwork.

  “You are a little tall for a local, but look around, a lot of Chinese men are over six feet these days, and there is still a huge British population here. All in all, you will blend in just fine in that getup.”

  Jack wasn’t crazy about wearing a mask over his face, especially in the stifling heat and humidity of Hong Kong. But he understood that getting recognized at the wrong time on this foot follow could prove disastrous.

  “One less thing to worry about, I guess,” he said to Yao.

  “That’s right. This will help with the Westerners, but to most people around here, even with the mask, you’re still a gweilo.”

  “A gweilo?”

  “Sorry. A foreign devil.”

  “That’s harsh.”

  Adam nodded. “Yeah. It would serve you to remember that the Chinese are a prideful people. They think, in general, that they are superior to foreign races. They aren’t an inclusive society, overall.”

  “I’m not planning on buying a condo here. Just tailing Zha.”

  Adam chuckled. “Let’s get back to the Mong Kok Computer Centre. Zha will be leaving work in about an hour.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  At eight-thirty p.m. Zha Shu Hai left the side exit of the Mong Kok Computer Centre with a security detail of four. Chavez had the eye; he was up the street in the 7-Eleven, heating up some frozen dumplings in the microwave. He started to turn away to announce to Ryan and Yao that the bird had left the nest, but he saw Zha stop suddenly and turn on his heels, as if someone had called out to him. He moved with his entourage back to the entrance of the building, and there he all but snapped to attention like a lance corporal. Chavez caught a glimpse of a man just inside the light from the streetlamps. Zha was talking to him with obvious deference. Ding knew this could be important, so he risked blowing his cover for action in the convenience store, pulled his big Nikon camera with a three-hundred-millimeter lens from his backpack, and took a picture of the men fifty yards up the street. Quickly he looked away from them, walked to the back of the 7-Eleven, and checked the digital image in the viewing pane of the camera. It was fair, at best. He could sort of make out Zha, and he could make out the one Triad sentry who was facing the 7-Eleven, but he could not see many features of the man in the dark.

  Quickly he used the e-mail function on the camera, sent the image to Gavin Biery back in the suite in the Peninsula, and then took himself off the eye.

  “Ryan, move in, I need to back off for a bit.”

  “Roger that.”

  He headed up the street and called Gavin.

  “What’s up, Domingo?”

  “I just sent you an image.”

  “Looking at it right now.”

  “I need a favor.”

  “You need photography lessons.”

  “Yeah. Right. Anything you can do to make that clearer?”

  “No big deal. I’ll send it to all of your phones in a few minutes.”

  “Great. From the way our boy FastByte leapt to attention when this guy called him, we may be looking at the MFIC.”

  “MFIC? I don’t know that acronym. Is that from the Chinese military or something?”

  Chavez said, “Just work on the pic and send it back to us.”

  “You got it.”

  —

  Five minutes later the three Americans were back in the Mitsubishi Grandis, following the white SUV carrying Zha “FastByte22” Shu Hai and his six 14K minders as it left the gritty streets of Mong Kok and headed south through late-rush-hour Kowloon into Tsim Sha Tsui.

  The SUV stopped at a corner in a chic retail area. Five of Zha’s security men climbed out, and then Zha himself appeared. He wore black jeans with silver studs running up the side, a bright pink tank top, and a black studded leather jacket. His detail, on the other hand, all wore the same blue jeans and drab T-shirts under denim jackets.

  Zha and his entourage entered a clothing store as a group.

  A steady rain had begun to fall; this did nothing for the oppressive heat but only added uncomfortable moisture to the mix. Adam pulled his car over to the side of the road two blocks past the store, then produced four collapsible umbrellas and passed one black and one red umbrella to each man. Ding and Jack slipped the red one in the small of their backs under their shirts and went with the black. This would virtually double their chances of remaining covert, as they could switch out umbrellas to reduce the risk that someone who spotted them earlier would notice them a second time.

  As the two Hendley Associates men climbed out of the Mitsubishi, Adam called to them, “Remember, for some reason Zha’s security has been alerted that he’s under surveillance. You’ll have to watch yourselves. Don’t push it, stay back, if we lose them tonight we’ll pick them up tomorrow night.”

  Jack and Ding split up immediately and took turns passing the shop every few minutes. The darkness, the heavy crowds on the sidewalks, and
the large glass windows of the clothing store made keeping an eye on the young hacker easy work, even when one of the 14K men stood outside the shop to smoke and scan the pedestrians passing by.

  Zha and the others left without making a purchase a few minutes later, but they did not climb back into the SUV. Instead the five guards popped umbrellas, one covered Zha with his, and they headed south, stepping into and out of several stores along the way.

  Zha spent half the time window-shopping or looking at clothes and electronics inside the various shops, and the other half of the time either talking on his phone or using a tiny handheld computer as the man on his arm led him through the busy streets.

  He bought some cables and a new laptop battery in a small store on Kowloon Park Drive, and then he and his goons ducked into an Internet café on Salisbury Road, near the entrance to the Star Ferry port.

  Ryan had the eye at the time. He transmitted to Yao. “Should I go in?”

  “Negative,” said Yao. “I’ve been in that place. It’s a small, narrow space. He might be meeting someone, but we can’t risk compromise by sending you in.”

  Ryan understood. “I’ll hang back at the Star Ferry entrance with visual on the front.”

  Yao said, “Ding, that place has a back door. If he takes it he’ll end up on Canton Road. Hustle over there in case they are trying to shake a tail.”

  “Copy that.” Ding had been two blocks behind Ryan, but he picked up the pace and made a right on Canton. He put himself on the far side of the street and stood in the rain, his umbrella shielding his face from the streetlamps above.

  Just as Yao suspected, Zha and his entourage appeared on Canton road a few minutes later. “Chavez has the eye. Headed south on Canton.”

  Adam had noticed that the Triads had been doing SDRs, surveillance detection runs, more and more in the last few days. The American CIA operative still had no idea how he had been burned, but whatever he’d done to expose himself, he was damn glad to have the help from Chavez and Junior.