Just then, Wu raised a finger into the air as if he just had a thought. “You know, Mr. Wicks, I like you. I see you are a man who has made a serious mistake by listening to his prurient desires and not the wisdom of his brain, yes?”
Todd nodded vigorously. Was some sort of a lifeline coming?
“I can talk to my superiors to see if there is another way out of this for you.”
“Look… whatever you need me to do… I’ll do it.”
Wu nodded thoughtfully. “I think, for the benefit of your wife and your two small children, that would be best. I will make a phone call.”
Wu stepped out of the room, but he did not make a phone call because, in truth, he did not need to talk to anyone. He was not Shanghai police, he was not a family man, and he was not here investigating the hotel. No, these were all lies, and lying was an integral part of Wu’s job. He was MSS, the Ministry of State Security, and Todd Wicks had just been caught in his honey trap.
Normally Wu attempted to lure targets of opportunity into his traps, but Todd Wicks of Richmond, Virginia, was different. Wu received an order from his superiors with a list of names of technology employees. The Shanghai Hi-Tech Expo was one of the largest in the world, and it was no great surprise that three of the men on his superior’s wish list were in attendance. Wu had struck out with the first man, but he’d hit a home run with the second. As Wu stood in the hallway, he knew that in the suite on the other side of the wall he leaned on was an American man who would jump at the chance to spy for China.
He did not know what his leaders needed this Todd Wicks for, it was not his job to know, and it was not his way to care. Wu lived like a spider lives; his entire life, his complete being, was tuned to feel the twitches in his web that told him a new victim was approaching. He had wrapped Todd Wicks up in his web as he had done so many others, but already he was thinking about a Japanese salaryman in the same hotel, a target of opportunity Wu already had on the edge of his web, and a man Wu expected to wrap up before dawn.
Wu so loved the Shanghai Hi-Tech Expo.
Todd was still naked, though through the use of persistent hand gestures he’d persuaded one of the cops to bring him a towel that he could actually wear without pinching it together with one of his hands.
Wu entered the room and Todd looked to him hopefully, but Wu just shook his head sorrowfully and then said something to one of the younger officers.
Handcuffs appeared, and Todd was lifted off the bed.
“I have spoken to my superiors, and they would like me to bring you in.”
“Oh, Christ. Look, I can’t—”
“The local jail is awful, Todd. I am personally and professionally humiliated to take an educated foreigner there. It is not up to the standards of your country, I can assure you.”
“I’m begging you, Mr. Wu. Don’t take me to jail. My family can’t know about this. I’ll lose everything. I fucked up. I
Wu seemed to hesitate for a moment. After a tired shrug that conveyed noncommitment, he spoke softly to the five others in the room, and they quickly filed out, leaving Wu and Todd alone.
“Todd, I see by your travel papers that you are to leave China in three days’ time.”
“That’s right.”
“I may be able to prevent you spending time in jail, but it will require some help on your part.”
“I swear to you! Anything at all and I will do it.”
Wu still seemed to be vacillating, as if he could not decide. Finally he stepped closer, then said softly, “Go back to your room. Tomorrow, return to your normal routine here at the trade fair. Speak to no one about this.”
“Of course! Of course. Oh my God, I can’t thank you enough!”
“You will be contacted, but perhaps not until you return to your country.”
Todd stopped his proclamations of thanks. “Oh. Okay. That’s… whatever you say.”
“Let me give you a warning as a friend, Todd. The people that will ask a favor of you will expect you to repay them. They will retain all the evidence against you about what happened here.”
“I understand,” he said, and it was true, he
But set up or not, they had him. He would do anything to keep that video from getting to his family.
He would do whatever Chinese intelligence asked him to do.
ELEVEN
Jack Ryan, Jr., got the senior staff meeting scheduled for eleven a.m., and now he was back at his desk, looking over some more analysis that he would present today. His coworkers were focusing on material they had intercepted from CIA discussing the death of the five Libyans in Turkey two months ago. It was no surprise that CIA was more than a little curious about who the killers were, and Jack found it at once creepy and exciting to read the Langley spooks’ theories about the well-orchestrated hit.
The smart ones knew good and well the new Libyan government’s spies had not orchestrated this as a revenge operation against the Turkish cell, but beyond that there was little consensus.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence had worked the equation for a few days, and even Jack’s girlfriend, Melanie Kraft, had been tasked with going over the evidence about the assassinations. Five different killings in the same night, all in different manners and all against a cell with a decent level of communication between its members. Melanie was impressed, and in the report she had written for her boss, Mary Pat Foley, director of national intelligence, she had raved about the skill of the perpetrators.
Jack would love to tell her some night over a bottle of wine that he was one of the hit men.
Melanie had concluded that whoever the actors were in the assassinations, there was nothing to indicate they were any threat to the United States. The targets were enemies of the United States, after a fashion, and the perpetrators were talented killers who took some serious chances but managed to pull it off with skill and guile, so the ODNI did not linger over the event for long.
Even though the U.S. government’s understanding of the events of the night in question was limited, its knowledge of the Libyan cell itself was interesting to Jack. NSA had managed to pull text messages off the five men’s mobile devices. Jack read the translated transcripts from NSA — short, cryptic dialogue that made it clear that these men did not know any more about the identity or overall mission of this Center character than did Ryan himself.
Either the Libyans were utter fools or their new employer was incredibly competent at his own security.
Jack did not think the Libyans were fools. Lazy in their PERSEC, perhaps, but that was a result of the fact that they felt the only group after them was the new Libyan intelligence agency, and the JSO men did not think much of their successors’ capabilities.
Jack almost smiled at this as he scanned files on his monitor, looking for anything else from CIA with which to update the senior staff in his meeting.
Just then Jack felt a presence behind him. He looked over his shoulder to see his cousin, Dom Caruso, sitting down on the edge of Jack’s wraparound desk. Standing behind Dom were Sam Driscoll and Domingo Chavez.
“Hey guys,” he said. “I’ll be ready to head up in about five minutes.”
They all had serious looks on their faces.
“What’s wrong?” Jack asked.
Chavez answered, “Clark quit.”
“Quit what?”
