“We figure differently, and, apparently, so do you.”
“I do.”
Just then Gavin Biery called Chavez, and Ding turned on his speakerphone so Yao could hear. “Bingo. We have a match on one of the young men, the guy in the black shirt. His name is Chen Ma Long. It says he lives in Shaoxing, on the mainland. He was a known member of an organization called the Tong Dynasty.”
“The Tong Dynasty?” Yao said with surprise.
“What’s that?” asked Chavez.
“That’s an unofficial name the NSA gave to an organization that was around from about 2005 to 2010. It was run by Dr. K. K. Tong, sort of the father of China’s offensive cyberwar systems. He used tens of thousands of civilian hackers, developed them into a kind of army. This kid must have been part of that group.”
“Where is Tong now?”
“He was thrown in prison in China for corruption but escaped. No one has heard from him in a couple of years. Word is the Chicoms want him dead.”
“Interesting. Thanks, Gavin,” said Chavez. He ended the call with Biery and then turned his attention back to Yao.
“We aren’t going to learn anything more than what we already know about whatever the hell is going on over here, because it’s not going to take any time at all for the Triads to pick up on the fact that Zha has grown a really long tail. Once they see these guys following Zha, Zha is going to disappear.”
“I know.”
“You need to check with Langley one more time. If they want him, they better take him right fucking now, because he will either run to the mainland, in which case you’ll never find him, or else the Marshals Service is going to arrest him, in which case he’ll enter the justice system. If he does that he’ll get a lawyer, a pat on the ass, and three hots and a cot. The Agency won’t learn a damn thing about who he’s working with.”
Adam nodded. Chavez could tell the prospect of losing Zha Shu Hai was eating the young NOC up.
“I already talked to Langley. They said they didn’t think Zha was involved, but they would kick it over to the Pentagon, since it was their system that got hacked,” said Adam.
“And what did the Pentagon say?”
“I have no idea. I try and communicate with Langley as little as possible.”
“Why is that?”
“Pretty much everybody knows that there is a leak at Beijing Station. The Pentagon is aware CIA is compromised in its affairs in China, too, so I doubt they would let us know if they were interested in Zha.”
“A leak?”
“I have been living with that reality for a while. Too many Agency initiatives involving China have foundered in ways that we can only figure were due to inside information about our activities. I try to keep most of my activity very low-profile. I don’t like letting Langley know what I’m up to, in case the Chicoms do something to stop me. Even though HK isn’t the mainland, per se, there are Chinese spies all over.”
Chavez said, “Maybe that leak is the reason Fourteen-K doubled their guard on Zha and started doing SDRs every couple of hours.”
Yao said, “That only makes sense if the Fourteen-K are working with the Chicoms, and that just does not track with everything I’ve seen or heard about the Triads.”
Ding’s phone beeped. It was Ryan, and Ding put the call on speaker.
“What’s up, Jack?”
“The two younger Americans, the guys I saw on the ferry, just paid their tab and hit the road.”
“Good. Maybe they are calling it a night. And the two suits?”
“Still in the same place, still glancing over at Zha and company every thirty seconds like clockwork. Pretty obvious.”
“Okay,” said Ding. “I’m heading back in. Wait for me to take the eye, and then you can go back out front.”
“Roger that,” said Jack.
Chavez entered the club through the back door. It led to a long narrow staircase that descended to a hallway. Chavez passed doors to bathrooms and a kitchen area, and then he stepped back into the club, walked past Zha and his entourage in the corner, and returned to the bar. Ryan left through the front entrance and went back to the noodle shop on Jaffe and ordered a Tsingtao beer.
A minute after Ryan returned to his post he announced, “Here come the Fourteen-K. I’ve got close to a dozen goons who just got out of a pair of silver SUVs; they are all wearing jackets and it’s eighty degrees, so I’m going to guess they are packing. They are heading through Club Stylish’s door.”
Yao said, “Shit. Ding, you think we should back out of the area?”
Chavez replied, “It is your call, but I am not compromised at all here at the bar, other than the fact I’ve been mumbling to myself every few minutes. How ’bout I just sit tight to make sure the consulate guys don’t get into any trouble with all the new muscle around.”
“Roger that, but be careful.”
After a few moments the Triad presence increased all around Club Stylish. A dozen obvious gunmen fanned out and took up positions in the corners and around the bar.
Ding spoke softly behind his beer. “Yep… the new goons are eyeballing the two guys in the suits. This might get ugly, Adam; let me stick around for a minute in case someone needs to call in the cavalry.”
Adam Yao did not respond.
“Ding for Adam, do you read?”
Nothing.
“Yao, you receiving?”
After a long moment, Adam Yao responded in a whisper. “Guys… Things are about to get
FORTY
Adam Yao had lowered the backrest of his driver’s seat in the Mitsubishi minivan all the way back, and he lay flat, his body out of the sight line of the windows. He did not move a muscle, but his mind raced.
Just thirty seconds earlier, a large twelve-passenger van had rolled up with its lights off, forty feet away in the alley, not far from Yao’s position in the parking lot. Adam ducked down before the driver noticed him in the minivan, but Adam did get a look at the man behind the wheel. He looked American, he wore a baseball cap and had a radio headset, and behind him in the vehicle Yao saw several other dark figures.
“Adam, what’s going on?” It was Ding’s voice in his earpiece, but Adam did not answer. Instead he reached for his backpack in the front passenger seat. He pulled out a rectangular hand mirror, and carefully raised it above the driver’s-side window. Through it he could see the twelve-passenger van. It had stopped near the exit to the strip club, and the side door had opened up. Seven men slipped out silently; they all held black rifles close to their bodies, and they wore small backpacks, sidearms, and body armor.
As he lay silent and still, Ding’s voice came over his earpiece yet again. “What is it, Adam?”
Yao replied, “There’s a fucking A-Team back here. Not Marshals, not CIA. These guys are probably Jay-Sock.” JSOC, Joint Special Operations Command, and pronounced “Jay-Sock” by those aware of the organization, was the Department of Defense’s direct-action special-mission units, SEAL Team Six or Delta Force. Yao knew that the Pentagon would not send anyone else to do this job but JSOC. “I think they are about to come in through the back door, and it sure doesn’t look like they’re heading in to watch boobs jiggle.”
“Shit,” Ding said. “How many?”
“I count seven operators,” Adam said.
Jack said, “There are probably four or five times that number of armed Triads in there. You need to stop them before they get slaughtered.”
