over to DoD.”
Suddenly three Zodiac boats materialized in the black water at the shoreline.
Chief Petty Officer Michael Meyer got his men together, both the living and the dead, and quickly shook Yao’s hand. “Wish we worked with you from the beginning.”
Adam said, “You would have had more problems that way. We are leaking like a sieve. Glad we were able to help. Sure as hell wish we could have done more.”
Meyer nodded, thanked Ryan and Chavez, and then joined his men as they loaded into the RIBs.
The Zodiacs turned away from the beach and disappeared in the night.
As soon as the SEALs were gone, Gavin Biery called out to Adam Yao, “Any idea where a guy can get some pancakes around here?”
Yao, Ryan, and Chavez just chuckled exhaustedly as they climbed back into the Mitsubishi.
FORTY-TWO
Dr. K. K. Tong, code-named Center, sat at his desk and watched the recorded feeds from dozens of security cameras, both municipal and privately held. It was a video montage created by his Ghost Ship security staff showing the events of the previous evening.
From inside Club Stylish he watched the white men appear from the hallway, he watched a crazed, disjointed crowd react to the gun battle, and he watched young Zha being dragged over the top of the table, tied up, and pulled back into the dark.
From a 7-Eleven security camera pointed toward the street he watched the crash of the black van, the men climbing out and pulling Zha and a dead commando from the wreckage, and then rushing into a dark alley.
He watched the feed from a traffic camera at the intersection off King’s Road that showed the maroon minivan as it swerved to avoid the two-door with the armed man, and then he saw the car veer off and crash, and the minivan holding Zha and his kidnappers race off into the night.
Tong exhibited no emotion over any of this.
Standing over his shoulder and watching the violent montage was the leader of the Ghost Ship’s own security staff. He was not a Triad, but he was responsible for coordinating with the Triads. He said, “Twenty-nine members of Fourteen-K were killed or wounded. As you can see from the feeds here, members of the opposition force suffered casualties as well, but none of them turned up in any local hospitals.”
Tong did not comment on this. He only said, “CIA.”
“Yes, sir, their local man, Adam Yao, the one we have been aware of for the past week, is clearly captured here on the video.”
“We are reading CIA communications. We know Yao is present in HK and operating surveillance on our operation. Why did you not prevent this?”
“If the CIA used CIA paramilitary forces or coordinated this kidnapping directly, we would have been aware of it and we would have been prepared. But the Pentagon used American military forces, apparently members of their Joint Special Operations Command. We do not have deep persistent access into JSOC communications.”
“Why did CIA use JSOC? Do they suspect a leak in their cable traffic?”
“Negative. From what we’ve determined monitoring CIA cable traffic after this hit, this element of commandos happened to be training in South Korea and was able to move over here very quickly yesterday when an in extremis opportunity arose to kidnap Zha. No one at JSOC told the CIA they were coming.”
“And yet the local CIA operative was present.”
“I… I have not determined how that occurred.”
Tong said, “I am very dissatisfied that this happened.”
The security manager said, “I understand, sir. Visualization of the kidnapping after the fact does not help us much. Preventing it would have been ideal.”
“Have you reported this to our colleagues in Beijing?” Tong asked.
“Yes, sir. They ask you to contact them as soon as you can.”
Tong nodded. “Our time in Hong Kong is over.”
He watched the violent movie on his main monitor a second time. Quickly he reached out and pressed a button, stopping as the driver of the minivan fired a handgun out the driver’s-side window. As the window shattered, a brief but relatively clear image of the driver emerged as the vehicle passed close to the camera.
Tong pulled a frame capture, and in seconds he had sharpened it up greatly with software on his machine.
“This man was in Club Stylish at the beginning of the sequence, before the attack. He was not part of the attacking force.”
“Yes, I think you are correct.”
Together Tong and the security manager went through raw feed of Club Stylish, both before and after the kidnapping. They saw the unknown man sitting at the bar before the attack; he was all alone. But after the kidnapping, he was met by two other men. Together the three left through the front entrance. One was tall, with a common paper mask on his face.
And the other man was Adam Yao.
Tong found a good image of the short, slightly dark man as he entered the club for the first time, passing directly in front of a security camera at the entrance. He cleaned the image up even more, and zoomed in on the man’s face.
“I know who this man is,” said K. K. Tong.
He pressed buttons on his computer and brought up a videoconference. A woman with a headset on was sitting at her desk, somewhere on the operations floor of the Ghost Ship.
She was surprised to find herself on camera. She sat up straighter and bowed in her seat. “Desk forty- one.”
“Come in my office.”
“Yes, Center.”
A few moments later the controller entered Tong’s dark office, stood next to the security manager, and gave a quick bow before standing at attention with her eyes straight ahead.
“Look at this image capture.”
She peered past Center at the screen for several seconds, and then returned to standing erectly once again. She said, “That appears to be subject Domingo Chavez of the Maryland, America, company Hendley Associates. Wife, Patsy Chavez. One son, John Patrick Chavez. Domingo Chavez served in the U.S. Army and then in the CIA’s Special Activities Division. After leaving—”
“I know who it is,” Tong interrupted. “Hendley Associates is a target of interest, is it not?”
“Yes, Center.”
“They assassinated Kartal and his band of Libyan misfits in Istanbul a few months ago, did they not?”
“Yes, Center.”
“You seem to know all about Chavez and Hendley Associates.”
“Yes, Center.”
“Did you also know Mr. Chavez and at least one colleague of his were here in Hong Kong last night, helping the CIA and the U.S. military capture Zha Shu Hai, chief of our coders department, and killing a large number of our Fourteen-K hosts in the process?”
The young woman’s eyes moved to Center, and her white skin seemed to turn gray as blood left her face. Softly she said, “No, Center.”
“Do we have deep persistent access into the Hendley Associates network yet?”
“No, Center.”
“I ordered this months ago.”
The woman said, “With help from MSS assets in Shanghai and in Washington we have placed a RAT on a drive that was delivered to Hendley Associates last week. The Trojan has not reported in as of yet.”
