Off the Grid, page 24
Blaines began to read from the third sheet: “Ernesto Sapada, the man you know as Arthur Campbell, was a U.S. Army Delta Force captain assigned to clandestine operations in Kosovo. Lan Zwang, whom you know as Gwendolyn Campbell, was a CIA field agent also assigned to Kosovo. They met, and, we believe, began a personal affair.”
Blaines had obviously memorized the script, but he nevertheless referred to the paper. “The U.S.-led NATO command selected Captain Sapada for an operation to penetrate the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. The CIA had previously recruited a Chinese diplomat, De Xiaoping, who was then the first deputy ambassador in the Belgrade embassy. He told us where to find certain documents pertaining to China’s sale of nuclear technology to Iran and facilitated Sapada’s entry by providing false Chinese documentation.”
Blaines looked up. “You two with me?”
Koa and Zeke nodded.
“We knew going in that Sapada would have to use explosives to get into the room where the Chinese kept the targeted information, so the agency arranged for the Air Force to bomb the Chinese embassy to cover up the incursion.”
Again, Blaines looked up. “I’m sure you remember the hullabaloo over the bombing of the Chinese Belgrade embassy on May 7–8, 1999.”
Again, Koa and Zeke nodded.
“Sapada pulled off the incursion, and the Air Force bombing raid successfully covered his tracks. We know he got out because he sent the mission-complete signal. But after that, both Sapada and Zwang disappeared, vanished. The CIA and the FBI have been looking for them without success ever since the early morning of May 8, 1999.”
Blaines stopped. Zeke and Koa waited patiently. They had arrived at the make-or-break point of the meeting, the point that would determine whether Blaines and the CIA intended to cooperate fully.
“Then we heard from Lan Zwang through an intermediary, or more probably, a series of intermediaries. By late 1999, De Xiaoping had returned to Beijing, where he was a rising star in the Chinese government. Lan Zwang threatened to expose him unless we paid her. We weren’t happy about it, but, as you can imagine, the information from De Xiaoping was worth almost any price to the United States government. That’s it, gentlemen. That’s the whole story.”
“The code name for the embassy incursion?” Koa asked.
“Operation Golden Sting.”
Koa made a mental check mark. The name matched the code name on Sapada’s orders.
“How did you pay Lan Zwang?” Zeke asked.
“Cash. $600,000 a year through a blind drop in Hong Kong.”
“Did the agency set up offshore trusts or land transactions for Lan Zwang or Sapada?” Koa asked, watching Blaines’s eyes.
“No, nothing like that, just cash.”
“What did Sapada take from the Chinese embassy?”
“We know what he went after, but he disappeared before we debriefed him so we don’t know what he actually took. Why?”
“Sapada was after just the Chinese nuclear documents … nothing else?”
“Correct. Documents dealing with Chinese-Iranian transactions for centrifuges and other industrial equipment related to Iran’s nuclear program.” He stopped, realizing he was volunteering too much. “What’s this have to do with your murder investigation?”
Koa turned to the payments to Sapada. “Has the agency been paying him off, too?”
“No. Why would you ask?”
Blaines appeared annoyed by the cross-examination but curious at the same time.
“Because someone set up offshore land trusts for Arthur Campbell and has been delivering cash to him.”
Koa caught a hint of surprise in Blaines’s eyes.
“It wasn’t us.”
Koa turned to Alderson. “When you first came to see me, you didn’t want Chief Lannua to know what you disclosed. Why?”
Alderson looked to Blaines for permission to respond, and the deputy director shrugged. “Before he came out here to head your police department, Lannua worked in the Defense Department. While he wasn’t officially assigned to Operation Allied Force, he was involved in oversight of certain operations during the Kosovo war. He was one of many officers investigated after Sapada and Zwang went missing. That investigation is still open.”
Koa and Zeke exchanged looks. Their suspicions about the chief were dead-on. He could easily have a connection to the Campbells.
“He was suspected in Zwang’s disappearance?” Koa asked.
“Yes,” Alderson responded, “he, along with several others, but no allegations or charges were ever made.”
Koa had a sinking feeling, but this wasn’t the time to discuss the chief’s possible perfidy. “Okay, Mr. Blaines, you get us two more pieces of information, and Zeke’ll return your file.”
“And what do you want now?” Blaines asked. He plainly just wanted to take his precious file back to Washington.
“There are two agents from the Defense Intelligence Agency running around interfering with my murder investigation. I want the lowdown on them.”
Blaines appeared perplexed. “Who are they, these DIA agents?”
“Bill Christopher and George Nelson.”
“I’ll check them out for you. What else?”
“I’ve got an Indonesian hood in custody, Bambang Gunawan. He used to work for our embassy in Jakarta and entered the United States on a temporary work visa a month ago. I can get you a picture and prints if you need them. He’s a contract killer, who tortured Arthur and killed Gwendolyn. I want to know what the CIA has, if anything, on him.”
“Okay.”
“You’ll get the information I requested?”
“Yes. You’ll have your answers as soon as I get back to Langley.”
“And then you’ll get your file.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
KOA WORKED WITH Zeke for two days. They played out one scenario after another trying to anticipate how the target might react to various approaches. They tried to plan for every countermove and every glitch. They’d have only one shot, and they had to make it count. They considered a dozen alternative rendezvous sites. They debated the culpability of the secondary players, disagreeing on their probable identity.
Zeke believed that Raul Oshoa had to be the intermediary between the kepala and Sapada. He alone had the connections and the power to orchestrate all the steps. Zeke outlined the land transactions, the entry of the Indonesians into the United States, their housing, transportation, financing, and their use of eavesdropping equipment.
Koa disagreed, arguing that Zeke had boxed himself in with the unstated assumption that a single intermediary had helped Sapada initially and orchestrated his murder. “It could be that Oshoa helped at first and another facilitator helped the mastermind execute the murders. As you said the other day, Zeke, something happened to upset a blackmail train that had been running smoothly for almost two decades.”
“So, other than Oshoa, who might have been accomplices?” Zeke asked.
“I see four other possibilities,” Koa responded. “Jorge Chavez, Rachael Ortega, the DIA spooks, and you know who.”
“The chief?” Zeke asked.
Koa nodded.
Disgust clouded Zeke’s face. “That would be awful.”
“Yeah, but it would explain a lot of his actions.”
“Jesus, let’s hope not.” Zeke changed the subject. “What’s your take on the two DIA turkeys?”
“High on my list, real high. When Blaines told me those numbskulls aren’t regular DIA types, but field operatives on an off-the-books gig, I figured somebody in the DIA got wind of Sapada’s location and wanted to deep-six some really nasty and politically explosive military history. Just imagine how this story would go down on the front page of the Washington Post. The Pentagon would be up to its eyeballs in congressional investigations until the end of time.”
“If you’re right, about this thing going down in phases, then Rachael Ortega is a real possibility. As Oshoa’s aide, she runs his operation, she knows Nihoa, and could easily have forged Jorge Chavez’s name to the visa applications.”
“She more than knows Nihoa. She’s infatuated. You should have watched her at that fund-raiser. Still, what’s her motive? What does she get out of helping the Indonesians kill Sapada?”
“Maybe she’s in it for money,” Zeke suggested.
“She must have done all right as an aide on Capitol Hill.” Koa wondered yet again why Ortega, once a Washington somebody, had taken a job on a remote Hawaiian ranch.
“I’m sure,” Zeke responded, “she lived well, but I doubt she put away enough to retire.”
“Maybe. There’s definitely something odd about her.”
“That leaves Jorge Chavez, the ranch foreman and operations manager.”
“I try not to let my personal feelings cloud my judgment, but it’d make my day to nail Chavez. He tried to cut me off when I first interviewed Oshoa, he lied about sending his guy Faizon to spy on us, and I’d love to prove he forged his own signature on the visa applications. Plus, he tried to interfere with the investigation by complaining to the mayor.”
After all the analysis, they settled on a plan. They chose the abandoned bank building on Hilo’s main street as a rendezvous site. They wrote the script for their stage play in meticulous detail, with Zeke providing advice on what would cross the line into police misconduct or entrapment. Koa practiced his lines twenty times until they came naturally. Then Zeke played the role of their target, trying every trick he could imagine to throw Koa off.
He and Zeke hammered out two short introductory scripts for the opening scenes, the lures that would set the whole takedown in motion. Again, Koa practiced his lines until he had them memorized.
For these initial stages, they had a huge advantage—the ability to feed the intermediaries misinformation through the listening devices the culprits had planted in Koa’s home and office. Koa was glad he’d talked Nālani into living with the damned bug, despite all the inconvenience, and smiled as he remembered the way she’d turned up the music to cover their lovemaking. That had been pure joy.
On the second day, they drafted the affidavits needed to support court-ordered wiretaps. They went back to see Judge Herbert K. Hitachi, asking to meet with the judge alone in his chambers. Although he’d already heard parts of the evidence in connection with various warrants he’d signed, he listened with attention as they outlined the evidence to provide a solid basis for the court to order wiretaps.
They described the sale by South Mauna Loa Farms of the two parcels to the Hansel and Gretel offshore trusts at the request of Raul Oshoa’s unidentified Bay of Pigs collaborator. They showed photographs of the torture room at the ruined Royal Gardens house and the body found partially buried under a toe of lava. Koa added that the crime-scene team had found Bambang’s lone thumbprint, tainted with the victim’s blood, on the doorframe of the torture room. Zeke told the judge how immigration records purportedly prepared by South Mauna Loa Farms had enabled the two Indonesians, including the one who had left a bloody fingerprint, to enter the United States. Koa reminded the judge about Mrs. Furgeson’s description of the truck driver and his companion, and repeated the contents of her tape recording, including the reference to the kepala.
They described the contents of Arthur’s bank safe deposit box. Koa told the judge about the two DIA agents and the steps they’d taken to thwart his investigation. “The DIA agents took Shizuo’s medical records,” he said before describing how they’d entered the crime scene at the Campbell house. When he told the judge about the listening devices in his home and office, the judge reacted with indignation.
Finally, they laid the pictures on the judge’s desk. Although the judge recognized the man, they nevertheless identified the lieutenant colonel caught in the Chinese sex trap. The judge studied the pictures, turning them over to examine the Chinese writing on the back. “Did they turn him?” Judge Hitachi asked.
“Yes, Your Honor,” Koa answered. “They did. We found these with the pictures.” He passed over the sheaf of top-secret NATO documents from the box Sapada had secreted under the heiau.
The judge scanned the papers. Koa could tell from the judge’s grim expression that he was disturbed by the scope of the colonel’s treachery.
The judge signed the wiretap orders for the South Mauna Loa Farm lines, including several home and cell numbers, the DIA agents’ cell phones, and the target’s lines. Neither Koa nor Zeke had ever supervised such an extensive telephone surveillance operation, so they enlisted the aid of the Hawai‘i state police. Lieutenant Mokulani from the Honolulu division of the state police helped them make arrangements with Hawaiian Telcom, Verizon, and Mobile One, and provided the equipment necessary to set up a listening post in the basement of Hawaiian Telcom’s central office in Hilo. Sergeant Basa assigned officers to man the listening post around the clock and record the calls.
They discussed timing. They needed to give the intermediaries a head start, but not too much of a lead. They settled on twelve hours. They would feed false information into the listening devices in the late afternoon and evening and call the target early the following morning.
That afternoon, Koa and Sergeant Basa staged the first act in Koa’s office.
BASA: Anything new in the Campbell investigation?
KOA: Yeah, we found Arthur’s hidey-hole, but someone beat us to it.
BASA: Where?
KOA: Buried in an old heiau up the hill on the property behind the Campbell house.
BASA: And there was nothing there?
KOA: No, unfortunately not. When we got to the heiau, all we found was an empty space. Like I said, somebody beat us to it.
BASA: Any idea who?
KOA: I’ll bet those two DIA spooks, Christopher and Nelson, got there first.
BASA: Why do you suspect them?
KOA: There was some kind of explosion up there, but no bodies. They’re smart enough to pull off something like that.
BASA: Are you going to bring them in again?
KOA: I can’t. The chief would lock me up.
BASA: So what are you going to do?
KOA: I’m not sure.
That night, Koa and Nālani went for another walk to get away from the listening device. “Are you sure you’re okay with what we’re about to do?” he asked.
“Yes. We’ve talked about this, Koa. I know there’s risk, but I can live with it.”
He squeezed her hand. “While I think it’ll improve our odds of catching this creep, it isn’t absolutely necessary after what Basa and I did in the office.”
“I’m not worried about me, Koa. You forget. Back in California, before we met, I was a park ranger at Yosemite for four years. I went through the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, so I’m not just an interpretive guide. I can arrest you if you misbehave in the national park.” She grinned at him. “So let’s go do it.”
Back at the cottage, they sat in their living room and performed a second and far more intimate recitation with essentially the same content. When Koa described the scene of the explosion at the heiau, Nālani ad-libbed, “Oh, Koa, I’m so glad you were nowhere near that explosion,” and when he complained about the chief, she added, “Don’t cross him, or he really will fire you.” All in all, Koa thought it was a pretty persuasive performance. He hoped that the intermediaries were listening to their pillow talk.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
LATER THAT EVENING, when Koa dropped by the wiretap listening post, he found two patrolmen smiling. “You are not going to believe it.”
Koa returned their smiles. “Enlighten me.”
“Agent Christopher, that DIA guy, called your target and reported that an unidentified third party found the Sapada papers.”
“What else?” Koa asked, thrilled the intermediaries had taken the bait.
“The boss dude blasted them for not getting the papers first. He really chewed on them. Then he wanted assurances you didn’t have Sapada’s papers. Agent Christopher told him that you didn’t have the papers. He said he overheard you admitting somebody else got there first.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes, the big man bragged he’d used his Washington contacts to scare the shit out of both the governor and the mayor, and almost gotten you fired.”
Koa grinned. He had a lock on an obstruction of justice case. “Any activity at the Oshoa farm?”
“No, not yet.”
“Buzz my cell if you get anything more, anything at all.”
* * *
The following morning, Koa called Nihoa from Zeke’s office on a prepaid cell phone. As expected, an assistant answered and informed him the man had various engagements and would be unlikely to return his call. If he wished, she said, he could talk to a campaign assistant.
Koa responded coolly, “Tell your principal I’m calling about Operation Golden Sting, and he has thirty minutes to return my call. And, young lady, I promise you your boss will be very angry if you do not get this message to him ASAP.” Koa left the prepaid cell number and hung up.
As Koa had hoped, Nihoa called back within fifteen minutes. “With whom am I speaking?” He spoke his strong, cultured voice that he’d used at the start of the 1999 call with Sapada.
Koa ignored the question. “I have some photographs of you as a lieutenant colonel in Kosovo, rather interesting photographs with a young lady … a most attractive young lady. I also have some classified documents that passed through your hands.”
Nihoa’s voice became tense. “Who are you?”
“I want to return the photographs to you, along with the documents. I’d imagine you’d like to have them.”
“You can send them to my office marked personal and confidential.” Koa thought he heard the man’s voice ease a bit.
“That’s not the way this is going to work. You must come to me.” Koa heard the man take a deep breath.
“I can’t do that right now.”
“Oh, I think you can. I don’t think you want me to send these pictures to you on the Internet.”
