Next she said, “Actually, I need to keep this low-key. How about we meet someplace quiet. Can you come over to the house? I can be there in a half-hour.”
Mary Pat and Ed Foley lived in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of D.C. Jack had been over many times; in the past nine months most of his visits had been with Melanie.
“I’ll head that way. Ed can keep me company until you get there.” Jack knew Ed was retired.
“Actually, Ed is out of town. I’ll be there as quick as I can.”
Jack and Mary Pat sat at a patio table on the deck out in back of her Adams Morgan colonial. The backyard was a garden of thick trees and other foliage, mostly brown with the autumn cold. She’d offered him coffee and he’d declined, simply because he could see the urgency on her face as soon as she pulled up in her car. She’d asked her security officer to remain in the house, which surprised Jack even more.
As soon as they sat down she pulled her chair close to him and spoke softly. “I called John Clark this morning. I was surprised to learn he wasn’t working at Hendley anymore.”
“His own choosing,” said Jack. “We hated to lose him, that’s for sure.”
Mary Pat said, “I get it. The man has served his country, sacrificed a lot, for a long, long time. A few years of normal life can start to look mighty appealing, and he has most definitely earned them, especially after what he went through last year.”
Ryan said, “You called Clark, found out he was out of the business, so you called me. Am I to assume there is something you wanted to share with us?”
She nodded. “Everything I am about to say is classified.”
“Understood.”
“Jack, it is time the U.S. intelligence community faces up to the reality that we have a serious compromise with respect to assets in China.”
“You have a leak.”
“You don’t seem surprised.”
Jack hesitated. Finally he said, “We’ve had our suspicions.”
Foley regarded his comment, and then continued: “We’ve had a number of opportunities to liaise with people in China — local dissidents, protest groups, disaffected government and military employees, and others well positioned in the CPC. Every last one of these opportunities has been discovered by Chinese intelligence. Men and women over there have been arrested, chased into hiding, or killed.”
“So your eyes and ears on the ground in China are lacking.”
“I wish they were just lacking. No, our HUMINT assets are virtually nonexistent in China right now.”
“Any idea where the leak is coming from?”
Mary Pat said, “It’s at CIA, we know that. We
Jack said, “I’d be looking hard at their cybercapabilities in light of everything else that’s going on.”
“Yes, we are. But if it is coming from our traffic, then they have been masterful at hiding it. They have been using the information very judiciously, confining it only to certain aspects of counterintelligence with respect to China. Obviously there is a lot of information traveling across our wires that could be beneficial for China, but we don’t see that level of exploitation.”
“How can we help you?” he asked.
“A new opportunity has popped up.”
Ryan raised an eyebrow. “Popped up from your leaky CIA?”
She smiled. “No. At this point I can’t trust any organization in the U.S. intelligence community, nor can I trust any service under the DoD, in light of what they are going through over there at the Pentagon.” She paused. “The only people I trust with this information are outsiders. Outsiders with an incentive to keep quiet about it.”
Jack said, “The Campus.”
“Exactly.”
“Go on.”
Mary Pat scooted her chair even closer. Jack leaned in to within inches of her face. “Several years ago, when Ed was in charge at CIA, back during your father’s last run-in with the Chinese, I ran a CIA officer over in Beijing who proved instrumental in resolving that conflict. But there were other options presented to us at that time. Options that we decided against pursuing because they were… what’s the word? I suppose the word is
“But now it’s all you’ve got.”
“Right. There is organized crime inside China. I’m not talking about Triads, which are active outside of mainland China, but organizations that exist in secret within the Communist state. Being arrested as a member of one of these gangs in China will earn you a perfunctory trial, and then a bullet in the back of the neck, so only the most desperate or most evil join these groups.”
Jack could not imagine being in an organized criminal gang in a police state, which essentially meant the government was a gang of organized criminals itself — in China’s case, a gang with an army of millions of soldiers and trillions in military equipment.
Mary Pat continued. “One of the most heinous organizations over there is called Red Hand. They make their money in kidnapping, extortion, robbery, human trafficking. These are some real sons of bitches, Jack.”
“Sounds like it.”
“When it became clear to me that our HUMINT in China was compromised, I talked to Ed about Red Hand, a group we considered using during the last war as additional intelligence assets in China. Ed remembered that Red Hand had a representative in New York City, living in Chinatown. This man wasn’t in the CIA database or in any way tied to U.S. intelligence; he’s just someone we learned about back then but never approached.”
Jack knew Ed Foley, former director of the CIA, was out of town. He said, “You sent Ed to see him.”
“No, Jack. Ed sent himself. He drove to New York yesterday and spent last evening with Mr. Liu, the Red Hand emissary. Liu made contact with his people on the mainland, and they have agreed to help us. They can put us in touch with a dissident organization in the city who claims to have contacts in the local police and government. This group is committing armed acts of rebellion in Beijing, and the only reason they haven’t been rolled up like so many others is the CIA hasn’t reached out to them.
“Ninety-nine percent of the dissident groups over in China these days exist only on the Internet. But this group, if Red Hand is to be believed, is the real McCoy.”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “‘If Red Hand is to be believed’? No offense, Mary Pat, but that sounds like the flaw in your thinking.”
She nodded. “We are offering them a great deal of money, if and only if they deliver what they promise. An active insurgent group with some connections. We aren’t looking for George Washington’s Continental Army, but something legitimate. We don’t know what we are dealing with until someone goes and checks them out.
“We need someone on the ground there, in the city, to meet with these people, far from any American or Chicom eyes, and get a feel for who they are. If they are anything more than a group of well-intentioned but inept fools, we will support them to get intelligence about what’s going on over there in the city. We don’t expect large- scale insurrections, but we need to be ready to provide clandestine support if the opportunity presents itself.”
She added, unnecessarily, “This is totally off the books.”
Before Jack could speak she defended herself from what she expected him to say. “This is undeclared war, Jack. The Chinese are killing Americans. I am very comfortable supporting locals fighting back against that evil regime over there.” She pointed to Jack’s chest for emphasis. “But it is not my intention to create more cannon fodder. We have done enough of that with our intelligence leaks.”
“I understand.”
She handed Ryan a piece of paper she pulled from her purse. “This is the Red Hand contact in New York. His name is not in any computer, he has not met with anyone from the government. You commit the name and the number to memory, and then destroy this.”
“Of course.”
“Good. And understand this. You, Jack, are
