Off the Grid, page 13
* * *
Koa looked up when a small, wiry stranger walked into his office unannounced and closed the door. Cranky at the chief’s treatment of Smithy and annoyed at the unexpected interruption, Koa snarled, “Who are you and what do you want?”
“James Alderson, CIA.” The black-haired man, dressed in uber-preppy business casual clothes, opened a leather wallet and placed it on the center of Koa’s desk. Alderson looked more like a big-city accountant than a CIA spook. The government identity card featured Alderson’s thin face and gray eyes. The credentials appeared to be genuine.
Although he knew the Honolulu PD’s counterterrorism unit sometimes worked with the CIA, Koa was unaware of any CIA presence on the Big Island. Alderson must have flown in for this meeting. What, Koa wondered, did the CIA want? He’d worked with agency people in his Special Forces assignments. His experiences hadn’t been good. He didn’t trust CIA types.
“Okay, Mr. Alderson, what brings the Central Intelligence Agency to the Big Island?”
“Please call me James. I’m here because of the fingerprints you sent to the FBI. We need to know what you found in the Campbell house.”
Typical of the arrogant CIA boys, Koa thought. “That’s not the way it’s going to work, Mr. Alderson. You don’t get any information until I understand what’s going on.”
“They told me you were a straight arrow and tough,” Alderson allowed.
“Right on both counts.” Koa kept his face impassive. “Who briefed you?”
“Admiral Cunningham and some of your friends in the Honolulu FBI.”
The mention of Admiral Cunningham got Koa’s full attention. He’d worked with the Coast Guard admiral on civil defense issues, disaster recovery, and criminal cases. He had enormous respect for the officer.
“You can check out my creds with the admiral. He’s waiting by the phone, if you want to call now.”
Koa called the admiral, whose assistant put the flag officer on the line in record time. The admiral vouched for Alderson. Koa turned to the agent. The man plainly had clout to have the admiral standing by for a confirmation call.
“So, what do you want, Mr. Alderson?”
“Before I get to the guts of it,” Alderson began, “I need to warn you I’ve been authorized to make certain disclosures to secure your cooperation. What I am about to say is classified top secret with several additional levels of security. Indeed, it’s among the nation’s most closely guarded secrets. If you disclose this information to anyone, and that includes your chief, you will be prosecuted under the National Defense Secrets Act. Do you understand?”
Koa, keenly aware that CIA involvement elevated the significance of his murder case, avoided giving any tell. His taciturn expression hid his surprise the CIA didn’t trust Chief Lannua. Was it because the chief talked too freely to the mayor, or might there be some more sinister reason? Koa knew Chief Lannua had once worked in Washington in the Defense Department, but he’d never heard of his involvement with any of the national security agencies. “Yeah. I understand.”
“The prints you inputted into the FBI IAFIS created a firestorm at Langley,” Alderson said.
“Arthur Campbell’s prints?”
“No, the woman you know as Gwendolyn Campbell.”
Koa had already guessed that Gwendolyn Campbell was an alias, but he hadn’t expected the CIA to have an interest in her. “Is that so? What’s the CIA’s interest in a local artist?”
“Your local artist was born in the southern Chinese province of Guangxi as Lan Zwang. She worked as a CIA field agent.” Koa remained impassive and continued to listen. He now knew why Michael Olina had refused to answer his questions about Gwendolyn’s work in Kosovo. Federal criminal statutes imposed stiff penalties for disclosing the identity of a CIA field agent. Lewis “Scooter” Libby had gone to jail for obstruction for trying to cover up the unauthorized disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson’s covert CIA identity.
“Lan Zwang disappeared from a field assignment in May 1999 with highly classified documents, documents of the highest possible sensitivity to the United States. The CIA and the FBI launched a manhunt but failed to find the slightest trace of her. No one in Washington knew her whereabouts until you asked for a routine check on her fingerprints.”
Koa waited to ensure that Alderson had finished, giving himself time to digest this news. A poor farm girl from rural China, sold by her father to a rich man, had somehow become a CIA agent and then stolen highly classified documents. She’d disappeared in May 1999 and six months later turned up in Hawai‘i with Elian Cervara, alias Arthur Campbell, a former Delta Force operative, who’d purchased the two parcels from South Mauna Loa Farms through offshore trusts. She’d received $50,000 a month through a front company in Hong Kong. Gwendolyn Campbell, aka Lan Zwang, must have stumbled onto some blisteringly hot documents to justify that level of blackmail.
“And you want to know whether we found any classified documents when we searched her house.”
“Exactly.”
Koa had no doubt the CIA already knew the answer. “The crime-scene boys searched the house from top to bottom, and I have personally been through the papers. We haven’t found your secret documents.”
“Any leads?” Alderson asked. Koa presumed the CIA hadn’t learned of the separate 240-acre parcel behind the Campbell dwelling. Koa considered telling the agent but decided to keep his own counsel until he had better knowledge of this unfamiliar turf.
“None.”
“But you’ll let me know if you find anything?” The agent slid a card across Koa’s desk. “You cannot imagine how vital this information is and how much damage will be done if it falls into the wrong hands.”
“I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what I’m looking for?”
“Physically, it’s a sheaf of papers, a medium-sized file, but I’m not authorized to disclose the contents.”
“What language?” Koa pressed.
Alderson looked decidedly uncomfortable. “Some of the documents are in Chinese.”
“What about Arthur Campbell? There’s definitely something fishy about him, too,” Koa said.
“I … I can’t talk about Arthur.”
Aldersen’s response meant that Arthur, too, had secrets, secrets distinct from Gwendolyn’s and perhaps even more dangerous. “There’s more going on here than you’re letting on.” Koa stated it as a fact.
“That shouldn’t surprise you, should it?”
“I’m trying to solve a murder, two murders, to be more precise. I’d appreciate any help you can offer.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Koa wasn’t sure why Alderson hadn’t simply denied knowledge of Arthur Campbell and repeated his earlier question with a kicker. “While you’re keeping my investigatory needs in mind, tell me how Lan Zwang came to have documents in Chinese when she disappeared from her agency assignment in Kosovo.”
Even experienced professionals are sometimes unable to suppress their reactions to unexpected challenges, and Alderson’s eyebrows flicked up, registering surprise for a fraction of a second. “Who said anything about Kosovo?”
“Your Lan Zwang worked for the CIA in Kosovo before she walked out with your Chinese documents.” Although only an educated guess, Koa pretended to be positive. As a Fifth Special Forces Group officer, Koa had worked with the CIA in Afghanistan and Somalia. He knew firsthand the agency piled deception upon deception, and frequently got its hands covered in slime. He wondered whether the CIA sought to protect a highly placed foreign intelligence source or itself. The agency, he knew, wasn’t squeamish about using its secret bank accounts to protect its vilest secrets. He took another shot. “Who’s she been blackmailing, the agency or some Chinese official?”
Again, Alderson couldn’t control the micro-movements of his facial muscles. “What are you talking about?”
“A motive for murder.”
“This is serious. You need to tell me what evidence supports your assertions about Kosovo and blackmail.”
“If it’s so serious, Mr. Alderson, tell me about Arthur Campbell, and I’ll tell you how I got my information.”
The CIA man glared at Koa for a long moment. “No can do.”
“Well.” Koa summoned up his best smile. “Come back, Mr. Alderson, when you’re prepared to trade.”
Long after Alderson left his office, Koa sat staring at his birthday present, Escher’s Concave and Convex. He tried to imagine the pathways leading from Guangxi, China, to a CIA assignment in Kosovo, to a hiding place in the rain forest on the eastern slopes of Mauna Loa, to a Honda Civic crushed under the front end of a Hawai‘i County dump truck. Whose secrets had Gwendolyn Campbell learned along the way? And who the hell was Arthur?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
KOA DIDN’T KNOW much about Kosovo. He called a friend on the faculty of the University of Hawai‘i and ultimately connected with James Kalo, a professor of European history. Koa met Kalo in his office on the UH–Hilo campus. He found the academic dressed Hawai‘i style in an aloha shirt, shorts, and sandals. Long experience had taught Koa not to pretend to know things for fear of looking stupid, so he let his ignorance show with his first question. “I don’t mean to sound dumb, but exactly where is Kosovo?”
“Not a dumb question,” Kalo responded with a smile. Moving to a wall-sized map of Europe, he pointed to a small diamond-shaped country somewhat north of Greece. “Kosovo shares borders with Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro, and Serbia. Part of the Roman and Ottoman Empires, Serbia, and Yugoslavia before declaring its independence. That didn’t last long, and in 1999, it came under United Nations protection.”
“I’m interested,” Koa explained, “in events in early 1999.”
“Okay, but a little context first,” the bespectacled Kalo offered in clipped English. “President Tito kept the lid on Yugoslavia’s cauldron of ethnic tensions, but the country went to hell after his death in 1980. Enter Slobodan Milošević, who became president on a platform of repressing the Albanian nationalists in Kosovo. You’ve heard of Milošević?”
“Vaguely. Wasn’t he an international war criminal?”
“Kosovo has had no shortage of criminals on both sides.” Kalo paused, gathering his thoughts.
“Milošević forces engaged in brutal repression. NATO sent peacekeepers in to curb ethnic violence, and Serbian Yugoslavia mobilized for war.” Kalo adjusted his thick eyeglasses before continuing. “NATO then started a bombing campaign, code-named Operation Allied Force, against Yugoslavia. It ran from March to mid-June, 1999 and involved hundreds of NATO aircraft and Tomahawk cruise missiles.”
“Okay.” Koa nodded. “I remember something about the air war.” Mindful of Arthur Campbell’s Delta Force membership and Gwendolyn’s CIA employment, Koa asked, “Tell me what U.S. clandestine forces did during Operation Allied Force?”
“Just what you’d think. The CIA was up to its eyeballs in arming the Kosovo Liberation Army, gathering intel, coming up with targeting data for the bombing campaign, and running kill ops against leading Serbian fighters and politicians.”
Drawing on his own Special Forces experience, Koa went straight to the essence. “And I suppose the Delta guys worked with the CIA?”
“Sure,” Kalo said, “with the Serbs, the Russians, the Chinese, WikiLeaks, and God knows who else watching, the Delta Force role in ‘snatch and kill’ ops quickly became common knowledge. Hell, you can buy photographs of U.S. Delta Force soldiers in Kosovo Liberation Army camps.”
So, Koa thought, both Gwendolyn and Arthur could easily have been stationed in Kosovo. Now he needed to figure out what roles they played. Knowing from Ryan Chang that Gwendolyn spoke Chinese and from Alderson that she disappeared with Chinese documents, Koa asked, “You mentioned the Chinese. How were they involved?”
“Heavens.” The professor spread his arms. “We could spend hours talking about the Chinese role.”
“Then let’s go with the dime-store version.”
“Okay. The Chinese and the Russians sided with Yugoslavia and tracked the NATO bombardment to learn everything they could about NATO war plans, equipment, tactics, and capabilities.
“There’s also the stealth incident. The U.S. lost an F-117 Nighthawk stealth aircraft over Yugoslavia in March 1999, and the Yugoslavs found the wreckage. At that time, the Chinese military didn’t have stealth technology, and the Chinese made a deal with Milošević to supply communications facilities in exchange for access to the downed aircraft.
“The most complicated part of the story involves the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. On May 7–8, 1999, U.S. B-2 stealth bombers dropped five JDAM GPS-guided precision bombs on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. The incident caused an international uproar. The Americans claimed it was an accident, but the Chinese never bought that line, and lots of subsequent press reports cast doubt on the official American version.”
Koa listened intently as the professor continued, “Of the thousands of air operations over Yugoslavia, the CIA directed only one, the embassy bombing. The CIA blamed the error on an erroneous map, but the National Mapping Agency insisted its maps were accurate. Besides, the embassy was on the no-target list. CIA controllers couldn’t have missed it.
“Foreign press reports called the bombing deliberate. Theories abound about why the U.S. might strike the Chinese embassy. One version has the CIA striking because the Chinese were rebroadcasting military intelligence for a Yugoslav commander. Another says the Chinese were tracking U.S. Tomahawk missile strikes.” Finally, the professor added, “There’s also a theory that elements of the U.S. military intelligence community were trying to make President Clinton look bad. And God only knows what other reasons the CIA might have cooked up for a deliberate attack on the embassy.”
Koa was skeptical; would the U.S. deliberately bomb a foreign embassy? It seemed far-fetched, yet he’d seen the CIA do crazy things, so he focused on the possible connections. A Chinese-born CIA agent would be invaluable in an operation involving a Chinese embassy. It was also just the thing for a Delta Force operative. Arthur Campbell could have easily met, and worked with, Gwendolyn in Kosovo. Something must have gone wrong; maybe the bombing itself. Whatever happened, they’d fled to a remote farm in Hawai‘i. That something would have to be mighty important for a CIA operative to come visiting. With every step Koa took in this case, he seemed to be sinking deeper and deeper into an international morass.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
KOA’S DAY BEGAN with a call from a police officer assigned to check on the Campbell property. Someone had broken into the old house and ransacked it. They’d reportedly done a thorough job, dumping every drawer and searching even the tiniest spaces. The extent of the damage suggested that the searchers had not found what they sought, but Koa sent the crime-scene team back to determine what, if anything, was missing.
Everything about the Campbell murders gnawed at Koa, but nothing haunted him more than the mystery of identity. Elian Cervara had become Arthur Campbell. But Elian Cervara had been unwilling, or more likely unable, to discuss his family with Raul Oshoa. Elian Cervara had purported to come from a Catalan family living in Cuba but spoke Caribbean Spanish. And he’d spoken Russian or some Slavic language to Gwendolyn during their car ride with Howie. Koa wanted to know this mysterious man. What he’d done. What secrets he’d harbored and what he’d fled when he’d come to live as a recluse in Volcano Village.
Piki had entered the couple’s fingerprints into the FBI’s IAFIS system. The CIA spook Alderson had come storming into Koa’s office about Gwendolyn’s fingerprints, but Koa had heard nothing about Arthur’s prints. He called Piki, who reported no known record on either of them.
Given Gwendolyn’s CIA background, Koa wasn’t surprised that her prints weren’t in an accessible database, but that didn’t explain the absence of a report on Arthur. The military fingerprinted everybody, including Special Forces soldiers. As a Delta Force guy, the military had undoubtedly classified his fingerprints, but Arthur had been living in Volcano, and therefore out of Delta Force, for well over a decade. Koa couldn’t understand why his fingerprints would still be protected.
He felt sure the chameleon behind the Elian and Arthur aliases had harbored secrets, mysteries anchored in his life before his land purchases from Raul Oshoa. Those secrets had to come from his military service—they were most likely Delta Force secrets. The wily lizard had reduced his secrets to some tangible, but cleverly hidden, form. Caught and tortured, this human reptile had kept his secrets to himself. Now someone, most likely his killers, searched for Arthur’s hiding place.
He tried to put himself in Arthur’s shoes as he thought of the possible hiding places: Liechtenstein, the Cayman Islands, Hawai‘i. In Koa’s experience, people kept their treasures close. If nearby, but not in the house, maybe the secret lay hidden in the forest. And, if Arthur had arranged the purchase of two adjacent parcels in separate trusts in different offshore countries, the twin purchases must have been intended to conceal Arthur’s relationship with the rear acreage.
So if the chameleon were clever, he would have hidden his secrets on the 240-acre parcel, land not legally linked to him or to his home. The house property served as a gateway to the rear property, and the camera system guarded the back acreage, allowing the chameleon to watch for trespassers. Koa guessed that Arthur had buried his stolen treasures somewhere deep in the forest. But 240 acres covered more than ten million square feet. He could spend years searching. Yet somewhere in his head Koa knew there was a clue, a hint that remained tantalizingly out of focus.
His thoughts turned back to the spy who had eyes on him at the Campbell orchid farm. Had the unknown observer been there by coincidence or had the watcher somehow timed his appearance to coincide with Koa’s arrival? Had someone known where he would be?
