All Necessary Force

help it if you get in trouble.”

“Don’t give me that shit. I have a copy of his passport and his last itinerary. He’s in Jakarta right now. That’s close enough for your people. We need to get that camera.”

Han was attending the international trade fair in Cairo as a representative of the Great Wall Industry Corporation, hiding his association with the People’s Liberation Army.

“You wish me to track someone down in Jakarta while I’m in Egypt? I think you’re growing a little paranoid. Is there something else I should be aware of? Something to do with our business?”

“I’m not paranoid. Just careful. The camera was in the U.S. Embassy in Cambodia. It should have stayed there until I could get to it, but somehow this man managed to get them to hand it over, against regulations. I did some digging on him, and he owns a company that has no history. No travel, credit purchases, or anything else. It stinks.”

Han smiled. “So you think this company is fake? A costume for something else?”

Exasperated at the dance, Ellis said, “Yes, just like your damn company. I’m not asking you to fly to Indonesia. Get some friends in the MSS to do it.”

Han looked at the booths to his left and right, making sure nobody next door had heard the outburst. Ellis realized he’d overstepped. While they both knew how ludicrous the pretending was, Ellis had never outright called any of his Chinese contacts liars or mentioned their association with the Chinese Ministry of State Security, the organ that conducted foreign espionage.

“Watch yourself, Mr. Ellis. You fear what’s on the camera when the real danger is in front of you. If I had contacts with State Security, I might be inclined to call them for other reasons.”

Ellis backpedaled. “I just meant you have a lot of pull with the Chinese government and could probably help. Nothing more. It would be conducive to our business.”

“Let’s discuss that first. When and where will we transfer the equipment?”

“Here in Cairo. I’ll give you specific instructions later. A plane will land at the airport in Alexandria, and I’ll transport the equipment here. From there, I’m out of it. It’s up to you to get it out of the country.”

“When? We are only here for one week.”

Ellis passed him a local cell phone he’d purchased. “I’ll call you twenty-four hours before the transfer. It’ll be within a week.”

He glanced at his watch. “Look, I have to get back to my delegation before they wonder what happened to me. I don’t want to meet again. Are we good?”

Han said, “Yes, up to a point. If I haven’t heard from you in five days, I’m going to find you. You won’t have to worry about the camera.”

Ellis felt sweat trickle down his sides. “Hey, no need for threats. I’ve always been good. Ask your other folks. We go back a long ways. The proof may be on that camera.”

“I’ll make some calls. Forget about the camera. Focus on the transfer. Give me the information on the man.”

Ellis gave him all he knew and left, winding his way back through the maze of booths. As he walked, he replayed the conversation in his mind. He realized the power scale had shifted. Somewhere along the line, he had fallen from a valued asset to a tool to be used. He had always called the shots, with the Chinese accepting whatever he offered. Now he was being outright threatened to produce. Even with the risk of the camera, an uncomfortable truth settled in: His greatest danger was no longer his own country discovering his activities. He’d never seen that coming.

14

Keshawn walked through the woods around the substation, sketching what he could see of the interior. This one was a distribution point, one of the substations around the state that took the power from high-voltage lines coming from the generation plants and stepped down the voltage to something the residents and businesses could use. He was looking for the piece of equipment that made the step-down possible — an extremely high voltage transformer. He didn’t know why, but he’d been tasked to gather information on every substation that housed an EHVT. So, when his daily rounds took him by one, he stopped and sketched. Not many of them did, but enough to keep him busy.

He’d been specifically told to look at the line of sight, to find a vantage point where he could clearly see the transformer from outside the chain-link fence. A position where the view wasn’t blocked by the myriad of other components inside the substation. The contact had said, “See where you could attack it from the outside with a rifle.”

He knew that a rifle would do little damage to the transformer, since each one weighed over twenty tons and stood fifteen feet tall, but he liked the sound of the tasking.

Attack.

15

After pushing Jennifer to enter the travel agency, I had worried like a grandmother until she was out. Not about her safety, but about whether she’d get the information. It was a simple task, but the repercussions would ripple through the Taskforce grapevine if she failed. Precisely because it was a simple task. I should have known the worrying was a waste of time. After all, I’d trained her.

Jennifer had had no trouble inside the travel agency. She found out that the JI guy maintained an office there but was out of town for another week. Maybe more. She’d spent most of her time setting up a trip to Solo on the eastern part of the island, where archeologists had found one of the earliest known hominid skeletons. Whatever the hell a hominid is.

After passing the information, we spent a day and a half at a UNESCO world heritage site, Jennifer running around like a child while the rest of us wondered if the hotel had a bar. Fortunately, before Jennifer could find other sites to go explore, we got another message. Which meant another mission. Johnny was really wearing out his welcome, but it did get us out of the jungle and back to Jakarta.

Knuckles got the coffee this time. “He wants to meet to talk about it. I didn’t get any instructions.”

“Where?”

“A place called the Bar Fly Club. It’s on Jalan Jaksa. Apparently, it’s where all the expats hang out, so we’ll blend in fine.”

Contacting Johnny or his team face-to-face was a risk because it would tie our two covers together when they had no business meeting, like a Wall Street banker having lunch with a pimp. It would have to be carefully managed.

“What’s the plan?”

“Pretty simple. He’ll be playing darts. We’ll get a beer, then go play darts with him. Introduce ourselves as fellow Americans, bullshit a little bit, then get down to business.”

It was plausible. Expatriates naturally congregated, so our actions wouldn’t draw too much attention. As long as neither of us was being targeted, it should work. Knuckles read my mind.

“He’s sure his guys are clean. They’ve done nothing to spike. He’ll have the team wash us. Once we get to the bar, we just get a table and wait. If we see another teammate join Johnny at darts, it means we’re clean and the meeting’s a go. If nobody shows by seven thirty, we walk out, meeting canceled.”

We spent the rest of the day scouting the area. At precisely seven, we entered the bar. It was a seedy little place, consisting of outdoor seating and a small inside area with a pool table and a dartboard. It was already crowded with backpackers staying in the hostels on Jalan Jaksa and expats from all over the world lined up at the bar. Johnny was at the dartboard, throwing with another man I didn’t recognize.

We got a few beers and took the only inside table that was open, trying to talk over the groan of the overworked and useless air conditioner.