Threat Vector

“Why hasn’t that already happened?” Jack asked.

“No idea. I don’t get it.”

Ryan gave up trying to figure that one out. He asked, “Has there been any more talk about sending operatives over to Beijing to meet with Red Hand?”

Chavez said, “Granger is working on getting us into the country. As soon as we have a way in, me and Driscoll are wheels up.”

Jack felt incredibly isolated. He wasn’t working, he wasn’t talking to Melanie, and now he did not even want to communicate with his mom and dad, because he felt, at any moment, the Chinese would reveal information about him that could bring down his father’s presidency.

Gavin Biery had been silent this whole time, but suddenly he stood up from the picnic table and said, “I see it.”

“You see what?” asked Ding.

“I can see the big picture now. And it’s not pretty.”

“What are you talking about?”

Gavin said, “Tong’s organization is a group that works in the interests of its host nation, uses the assets of its host nation to some degree, but it is a sub rosa outfit that is self-directing. I’d also bet they are self-funding, since they can generate so much cash from cybercrime. Moreover, Center’s organization has the incredible technological means that he uses to get intelligence to fulfill his mission.”

Jack saw it now, too. “Holy shit. They are us! They are almost the same as The Campus. A deniable proxy operation. The Chinese could not let the cyberattacks lead back to them. They set Center up with his own operation, like my dad did with The Campus, to free them up to be more aggressive.”

Chavez added, “And they have been watching us since Istanbul.”

“No, Ding,” Jack said, his voice suddenly grave. “Not since Istanbul. Before Istanbul. Way before.”

“What does that mean?”

Jack put his head in his hands. “Melanie Kraft is a Center asset.”

Chavez looked at Biery and saw that he already knew. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“She bugged my phone. That’s how Center knew Dom and I were in Miami investigating the command server.”

Chavez could not believe it. “She bugged your phone? Are you sure?”

Jack just nodded and looked off into the mist.

“That’s why we are sitting out here in the cold?”

Jack shrugged. “I’ve got to figure she’s planted bugs all over my house. I don’t know, I haven’t swept for them yet.”

“Have you talked to her? Confronted her?”

“No.”

Ding said, “She’s CIA, Ryan. She’s passed a hell of a lot more background checks than you have. I don’t believe she’s working for the fucking Chicoms.”

Ryan slammed his hand on the table. “Did you hear what I just said? She bugged my phone. And not just some off-the-shelf spy shit. Gavin found Zha’s RAT, or a version of it, on the device, along with a GPS tracker.”

“But how do you know she wasn’t duped somehow? Tricked into planting it.”

“Ding, she’s been acting suspiciously for a long time. Ever since I got back from Pakistan in January. There have been signs; I was just too whipped to see them.” He paused. “I was a damn idiot.”

“’Mano, there are reasons to be suspicious of you. A girl as smart as her has a bullshit meter cranked up to eleven. As for the bug on your phone…” Chavez shook his head. “She’s being played. Somebody socially engineered that. I find it hard to believe she is a spy for China.”

Biery said, “I agree.”

Jack said, “I don’t know why she did it. I only know that she did it. And I know I am the one who compromised our entire operation letting her do it.”

Ding said, “Everybody at The Campus has got loved ones on the outside who don’t know what we do. We’re at risk every time we let someone new into our life. The question is, what are you going to do about it?”

Jack turned his hands up on the table. “I’m open to suggestions.”

“Good. You’re on suspension, which you can use to your advantage. You’ve got some time. Use it to find out who the hell is pulling her strings.”

“Okay.”

“I want you to make a covert entry on her place, and do it carefully. She’s not a spook, she’s an analyst, but don’t take any chances. Be on the lookout for any countermeasures or telltales. See what you can find, but don’t bug her place. If she is working for the other side, she might be running security sweeps and detect it.”

Jack nodded. “Okay. I’ll slip in tomorrow morning when she goes to work.”

“Good,” said Chavez. “You might want to follow her for the next couple of evenings. See if she’s doing anything out of the ordinary. Meeting anyone.”

Gavin added, “Eating Chinese food.”

It was a joke, but Ding and Jack just responded to it with cold stares.

“Sorry,” he said. “Not the time.”

Chavez continued: “Obviously give your laptop to Gavin to have it checked out. We’ll have a team from Science and Technology on the fifth floor come by your place and sweep for bugs. Ditto your car.”

Gavin said, “I checked his car earlier today — it’s clean.”

Chavez nodded. “Good.”

Ding’s phone chirped on his belt, and he grabbed it. “Yeah? Hey, Sam. Okay. I’m in the neighborhood, actually. I’ll be right there.”

Chavez got up from the table quickly, draining his beer while he stood. “I’m going in to the office. Granger thinks he has a way to get me and Driscoll into China.”

“Good luck,” Ryan said.

Ding looked at the younger man, then put his hand on his shoulder. “Good luck to you, kid. Keep an open mind with Miss Kraft. Don’t let your emotions convict her before you figure out what’s going on. That said, even if she is not wittingly working for Center, she is another piece of the puzzle. You have to exploit that, ’mano. If you do this right, we can find out from her more about Center than we already know.”

“I’ll get it done.”

Chavez nodded to Biery, then turned and disappeared in the mist.

* * *

Dr. K. K. Tong stood at desk thirty-four, looking over the shoulder of the controller as she typed into Cryptogram. He knew most managers were intimidated by his presence at their desk while they worked, but this woman was extremely competent, and she did not seem to mind.

He was satisfied with her performance so far.

He had been making his rounds through the Ghost Ship when she called him on his VOIP headset and asked him to come over. Tong supposed he walked some ten kilometers a day between all the nodes in the building, and on top of this he probably had somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty daily videoconferences.

When the woman at desk thirty-four finished what she was working on she turned around to face him, began to stand, but he stopped her. “Remain seated,” he said. “You wanted to see me?”

“Yes, Center.”

“What is happening at Hendley Associates?”

“We lost tracking and remote access to Jack Ryan’s phone on Saturday. This afternoon our deep persistent access into the company network ceased. It appears as if they detected the intrusion and took the entire network offline.”

“The entire network?”

“Yes. There is no traffic coming from Hendley Associates. Their e-mail server is not accepting messages. It looks as if they simply pulled the plug on everything.”

“Interesting.”