Hack, page 12
There was a heavy chop to the waves, and Nik had to steady himself as he stepped from the dock onto the undulating boat, thinking the whole time, His English is flawless.
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For the next seventy-five minutes, Liu related his story to Nik while Walker busied himself brewing tea for Liu, setting out plates of cheese and sweets, tidying up the small galley kitchen, and playing classical music to drown out their voices. Liu sat on a padded bench, arms resting on a small tabletop, a glowing cigarette clamped between his fingers, gray smoke encircling his head. Nik sat opposite Liu, the bobbing boat unsettling his stomach, a closed porthole above his head like a halo that he wished were open to let the fresh air in and the smoke out, but it was wintertime and the cabin was already chilly.
While Liu’s English was perfect, he spoke quickly, and his sentences tumbled out of him in daisy-chain fashion and rear-ended one another. Nik unsuccessfully raced to keep up with the narrative and asked to tape-record the conversation, but Liu refused “out of an abundance of caution.” He offered to slow down but would soon forget his pledge and start talking in rapid sentences again after only a few minutes. Nik reverted to a chicken-scratch shorthand and hoped he’d be able to read his notes when the interview concluded.
As Walker bustled about, it was clear Liu and Walker were comfortable in each other’s company, and occasionally finished one another’s sentences like a married couple might. At first, Nik was suspicious and wondered if Liu and Walker had rehearsed their answers for his benefit, but then realized the men, both ex-spies, shared a common background, and maybe he shouldn’t be surprised that they thought and acted alike.
Liu’s story began a few years earlier when he was assigned to China’s United Nations delegation in New York as an interpreter. In addition to English, Liu said he spoke Japanese, French, and Russian.
Liu said he had been tapped for the undercover post because his bosses in the Ministry of State Security wanted to expose him to the United States. A UN posting was quite normal for rising Chinese spies, according to Liu, and he estimated that at least 40 percent of his country’s diplomatic corps were intelligence agents working for the government, and that didn’t even include the students and businesswomen and -men working under nonofficial cover.
Liu told Nik that he had been posted to the UN for about a year when, on a Saturday morning in late autumn, a stylish, dark-haired woman had approached him as he ate breakfast at the small Midtown diner he frequented on the weekends. The woman said she was visiting from out of town and had asked for directions to the Boathouse in Central Park, where she was supposed to meet a friend at eleven that morning and worried she would be late.
Liu said he tried to steer the woman in the right direction, but couldn’t help but think it was odd that, of all the people in the busy café, she had chosen him, a middle-aged Asian man, to ask for directions. But still, it was New York, and customers around him were carrying on conversations in several different languages.
Liu said he finished his breakfast, paid his bill, left, and was enjoying the cool weather and stroll back to his apartment when he turned a corner and ran headlong into the woman. She was walking in the opposite direction of the park, and Liu immediately knew their meeting wasn’t a coincidence.
His suspicions were confirmed a second later when she leaned in and whispered, “My friend at the Boathouse told me to tell Mr. Liu that we can provide him a product one thousand times better than Dragon Eyes. It’s the crown jewels of US intelligence.” Then she was gone.
Liu explained to Nik that Dragon Eyes was a camera with a resolution five times more detailed than the human eye, capable of monitoring thousands of people in real time and identifying individual faces. The People’s Liberation Army was working to marry Dragon Eyes with tracking and encryption-penetrating spyware, but, to date, the efforts had been a complete failure. The PLA and State Ministry, Liu said, were now working together to steal US military technology in an effort to catch up.
The Chinese were behind other nations in developing advanced spy software and discreetly put the word out that they were willing to acquire the technology by any means necessary.
“All of this started after Edward Snowden leaked the CIA cables revealing how extensively the US was spying on its allies by breaking encrypted intercepts and diplomatic communications. It was obvious that the United States possessed superior electronic monitoring technologies, and China couldn’t afford to fall any further behind in the arms race. Snowden’s actions set off a panic in Beijing, and we’ve been playing defense ever since,” Liu said. He paused to take a sip of tea and let Nik catch up with his scribbling.
“So, did you go to the Central Park meeting?” Nik asked.
“No. Of course not. That’s not how tradecraft works, and I’m pretty certain they didn’t expect me to,” Liu said dismissively. Walker nodded his head in agreement. “I reported the approach to my superiors, and we were confident that there would be another attempt.”
“And was there?” Nik said.
“Yes, this time by a man as I was hailing a cab on Lexington Avenue. More information was quickly exchanged and a meeting arranged.”
“Okay,” Nik said without looking up from his notes, “so I assume you met and ended up acquiring the spyware. Who was the seller?”
“Actually, Nik, we met several times, but we did not carry out the transaction, even though the technology was exactly what we were looking for,” Liu said. “As for the sellers, they were either a couple of rogue ex-military or intelligence community operatives. Code names only, but former or active US agents for certain, and perhaps Mossad is mixed up in this, too, somehow. Hard to know.”
“Why didn’t you acquire the technology. Too expensive?”
“No. Because we thought it was a trap. The Americans knew we were desperate to get our hands on the technology, and we became suspicious that your government was setting us up and that we would receive compromised software that would allow the US to spy on us while we were spying on our enemies,” Liu said.
“It’s a wonder your head doesn’t explode with all this spy-versus-spy stuff,” Nik said.
Liu only shrugged in response.
“So, if you didn’t acquire the spyware, what’s the purpose in telling me all this? I’m not following,” Nik said.
“I said we didn’t acquire it then, but we did get our hands on it eventually. We used the North Koreans as a cutout to obtain the technology for us. That way, we have plausible deniability, but, of course, everyone knew China was behind the multimillion-dollar transaction because the North Koreans don’t have a pot to piss in,” Liu said.
Nik said, “And what was this technology the North Koreans acquired for China?”
“POOF,” Liu said. “It was POOF, Dr. Walker’s surveillance program.”
Nik shot a quick look at Walker, who was leaning against a doorjamb studying his fingernails.
“And now for the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question,” Nik said, looking up from his notepad and at Liu, “why did you defect, and why are you revealing these secrets?”
Liu extracted another cigarette from a pack and used the coals from a smoldering butt to light the end. His eyes watered from the smoke, and he squinted before continuing. “I don’t know what this means, sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.”
“It’s an expression,” Walker chimed in. “Just another way of saying it’s a very important question.”
“That’s right,” Nik said.
“Oh, I see,” Liu said. “Don’t misunderstand me, Nik, I believe we should use every means of technology available to defend the Chinese people against our enemies, but that’s not how our leaders see it. They want to apply the technology to suppress, control, and spy on our own citizenry, and then they want to export Dr. Walker’s product to other regimes to do the same. Their goal is, in essence, to build a digital Great Wall that spans the globe. They were already halfway there with advances in facial-recognition technology. POOF is the last piece to the puzzle.”
Nik just nodded and continued his note-taking, all the while thinking, Liu’s as bat-shit crazy as Cal.
“International plot,” Walker offered.
“Riiight,” Nik answered.
“My country is more powerful now than ever, but far less free. Yet, there’s still time. That’s why I defected. That’s why I sought out Dr. Walker. Together—” Liu began to say, but before he could finish his thought, there was a sharp crack and the porthole behind Nik’s head exploded, glass shards raining down on him.
Instinctively, Nik crouched and covered. He stole a quick look in Walker’s direction, but Walker had vanished. He could hear foreign voices yelling on the deck above him, pounding footsteps, a gunshot, then another, and finally the cough of an outboard motor.
Nik lifted his head to survey the cabin. Liu was facedown on the table in a dark pool of blood, the cigarette still gripped tightly in his fingers, embers searing his skin. The sight of blood made Nik light-headed, and he could feel himself slowly blacking out.
Chapter 29
January 1, Maryland’s Eastern Shore
The Sand Bar’s weathered-looking customers and bartender turned out to be quite chatty after Hawk bought several rounds of drinks for the house. The barkeep, Wink Simons, told Hawk the older guy who had left with his friend had been hanging around the tavern for several days.
“He’d nurse a drink, two at the most, for a couple hours like he was waiting on someone, and then leave. Day before yesterday, he was in here late afternoon when this Asian gentleman shows up, and they left together,” Simons said, and confirmed the customer drove a Prius.
When Hawk asked about boat slips, the customers provided him with three locations and drew him a map to each. He thanked them, left Wink a twenty-dollar tip, and was reaching for the door when one of the customers asked, “Whatcha piloting?”
“How’s that?” Hawk said, halfway out the door.
“Your boat. What is it?”
Hawk didn’t know the first thing about boats. He had spent the last several years in the deserts of the Middle East and the mountains of Afghanistan. He noticed a framed picture of a vintage boat hanging on the wall next to the door. “Chris-Craft,” he said, reading the nameplate.
“I thought you said it was a sailboat,” the old man replied.
Hawk stammered. “It will be when I’m finished converting it.”
The old man gave Hawk a quizzical look. “Good luck with that,” he said as everyone at the bar guffawed and turned back to their free drinks.
Hawk heard loud voices and what sounded like a gunshot when he pulled into the parking lot of the last marina the customers had directed him to. He quietly opened his car door and crept toward the boat slips, and that’s when he saw the Prius parked behind a small utility shed. He heard the whine of a boat’s motor and then a second pop. Definitely gunfire. He didn’t know what was happening, but he didn’t plan to stick around and find out, either. Gunplay tended to draw the attention of neighbors and then cops, especially in a town as small as St. Mary’s.
Hawk piled back into his car, confident he had found Cal Walker’s hideout, but wondering who was doing the shooting and why.
Chapter 30
January 2, Washington, DC
The sun was coming up as Nik exited the Beltway and crossed back over the Maryland state line into the District of Columbia. He was beyond exhausted. His stomach ached from the thick-as-molasses coffee he had purchased from a roadside store, and the inside of his mouth tasted like dirt.
He longed for sleep, but there was work to do before then, and he made a mental list of the things he needed to accomplish: reschedule a meeting with his Newshound colleagues; arrange a call with his ex-wife later in the day; check in with Sam to see if she was able to trace the call he received early New Year’s Day from the woman claiming to know who had killed the state trooper and clerk and bombed Trident. When he had attempted to redial the caller later that morning, he had gotten a message saying the number had been disconnected.
As he drove back to Washington, Nik replayed the night’s events in his mind, and even now, it seemed like a dream.
The sight of Liu’s head swimming in a bloody soup made Nik woozy, and he had nearly passed out, but in an instant, there was Walker, towering over him, barking orders, sweeping the table free of plates, cups, ashtrays, and broken glass with his forearm, a pistol at his waistband.
Nik launched himself from the booth and sprinted to the head to retrieve towels, gauze, scissors, bandages, ointment, and anything else he could carry. Walker bandaged the wound and said Liu was lucky. The shooter had not taken into account the pitch of the boat on the water and had fired just as a wave rolled and crested, instead of in the trough where the water is flat and the boat steady. Had he waited another moment, the bullet likely would have caught Liu right between the eyes. As it was, the shot came in high and the bullet creased the top of Liu’s skull, opening an ugly, but nonfatal, five-inch gash that gushed blood. After he tended to Liu, Walker had dug the slug out of the cabin’s panel behind where Liu was seated.
Walker told Nik that after the shot was fired he had disappeared to the back of the boat and retrieved a pistol from his sleeping quarters. He said he surfaced on deck just as two men ran to the end of the dock where a Boston Whaler was idling. Walker said he got off one round as the pair hurdled over the side of the boat and a second shot as it pulled away. He heard one of the men scream in Chinese and thought he might have been hit.
“I’m embarrassed,” Walker confessed, “that they were able to get close enough to get a shot off. It won’t happen again, and, for sure, I won’t play the music so loud next time.”
After Liu was stabilized and conscious, Walker drove Nik back to his vehicle. Both Walker and Liu agreed that the people who had tried to kill him weren’t likely to return that night, but just in case, Walker set a trip wire on the dock and furnished Liu with an AK-47 that he pulled from a sea trunk.
Walker ditched the Prius for an old Ford pickup truck he had stashed nearby at an all-night storage lot. The truck had an NRA decal in the rear window and a bumper sticker that read: “If you’re going to ride my ass, at least pull my hair.” He discarded the Washington Redskins beanie and put on a long blond wig and black thick-framed glasses. He made a quick pass by the Sand Bar to confirm the blue sedan was gone before depositing Nik back at his vehicle.
“I don’t expect you’ll have any problems, but just in case, you should take the back roads home. Might take a little longer, but you’ll know immediately if you have a tail,” Walker advised. Nik no longer thought Walker paranoid and followed his advice. He also agreed that they would use only encrypted apps for future communications.
Nik was relieved to see there was a parking space right out front of his apartment when he turned onto Thirty-First Street. That was a rarity in Georgetown, in his experience. Usually he had to circle the block countless times hunting for a spot and, as often as not, park illegally. He had a glove box full of parking tickets to show for it.
Nik quickly fired off notes to his Newshound colleagues; his ex-wife, Maggie; and Sam. That finished, he kicked off his shoes, tugged his shirt over his head, unbuckled his belt, and dropped his pants to the floor before falling facedown into bed. He lay there in his boxers, suspended in a semiconscious mist, and struggled to arrange all the facts in his head and make sense of what had happened the night before. It was a tangle, and as he closed his eyes, his last thought was: What did Liu mean there was still time? Time for what?
Chapter 31
January 2, Washington, DC
Nik had just stepped out of the shower when he heard his cell phone chirp with an incoming text. He wrapped a towel around his waist and gingerly stepped over to the bedside table where the phone was charging. He had twisted his ankle on the boat when he had run to retrieve bandages for Walker, and the swelling in his foot had not gone down. Standing in a small pool of dripping water, he scanned a series of messages from Maggie, Mo, and Sam.
Maggie didn’t have time for a call during the day and instead proposed they meet after work, at six thirty, at the Hay-Adams hotel across the street from the White House. I have dinner plans, so it’s gotta be quick, she wrote. Nik replied he’d meet her there promptly.
Sam informed him she had been able to get the information he wanted but refused to put it in an email or text and said he should call her when he had a free minute. He texted back, Thanks and will do. He then added, Miss you.
Mo said he had spoken to Frank and Mia and suggested they all meet for lunch at Clyde’s in Georgetown at noon. Nik responded, See you then. It was already eleven forty-five. He’d have to hustle.
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Nik limped into Clyde’s ten minutes late, his hair slicked back, still damp from the shower, eyes red-rimmed and puffy from lack of sleep, his perpetual three-day stubble unkempt and nearly a week old, dressed in black jeans, a North Face down jacket, and work boots. Clyde’s atmosphere could best be described as beer hall meets French bistro, with walls covered in eclectic prints and posters, and a menu offering hearty upscale pub food. It strived for a neighborhood bar ambiance, but the stampeding tourist traffic in Georgetown made that a challenge.
“You look more like a hobbled horse than the Galloping Gourmet,” Mo said.
Nik ignored the jab and asked, “Have you ordered yet?”
“Just drinks,” Mia said. “We were waiting for you before we got around to lunch.”
The waiter arrived with their drinks and took their lunch order. Nik asked for a double espresso, hoping it would clear out the fog that had settled in his head.
